The myth of Obama's part-time workforce

Here's a graph from Derek Thompson that shows how U.S. part-time employment rises and falls, historically, in perfect sync with recessions and recoveries:

That's right.  No negative Obamacare effect at all.  Zilch.  In fact, Thompson notes that, "in the last year, new full-time jobs outnumbered part-time jobs by 1.8 million to 8,000. For every new part-time job, we're creating 225 full-time positions."  

Here's how Thompson sums how badly many journalists are skewing economic reality:

It is a free country, and journalists have every constitutional right to claim that we're moving toward a Part-Time America. They will, however, be in the uncomfortable position of making a falsifiable statement that has been relentlessly falsified by every available statistic. The entire increase in part-time employment happened before Obamacare became a law.

Wherefore the dastardly lib'rul media when we need them?

The Spectacular Myth of Obama's Part-Time America—in 5 Graphs

By Derek Thomson

February 7, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/the-spectacular-myth-of-obamas-part-time-america-in-5-graphs/283674/

'Liberal' media lies: Obamacare will cost 2 million jobs

So did the CBO really mean to forecast that 2 million people would lose their jobs because of Obamacare? No. But that's how the mainstream media -- including the "liberal" axis at the New York Times and Washington Post reported it.

As Weinstein clarifies, here's what the CBO actually said:

CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor—given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive.

Is that just wonkish liberal-progressive spin?  Is that just "figures lie, and liars figure?"  No again:

When workers no longer have to rely on full-time employers to get affordable health care, they suddenly have the freedom to not work full-time. That could mean people stuck in crappy hourly jobs 40 hours a week at, say, the local big-box store. Or creatives jammed in underpaying urban admin assistant jobs. Indeed, the CBO adds:

Because the largest declines in labor supply will probably occur among lower-wage workers… the impact on the overall economy will be proportionally smaller than the reduction in hours worked.

Weinstein sums it up [emphasis mine]:

The problem here is truly philosophical. It is ideological. It is rooted in the two Americas' distressingly divergent answers to a simple question: What is a job for?

For pundits and pointy-headed analysts, it's to keep The Economy and Growth flowing. That is its good. That is its end. Workers are the means. For most workers (the vast majority of whom aren't leaving their families and schlepping through megastorms to cubicles or factories for the love), the job is the means to a different, individualized end: the ability to buy one's own way, to keep loved ones fed and happy and healthy, to stave off poverty.

So what the CBO said today, in essence, was that if this Obamacare thing works out, people won't need to work full-time jobs just to keep health care benefits. They may actually be able to spend more time with those families. They may be able to freelance, to split hours between two parents rather than having one stay-at-home parent and one full-time earner. They may be able to take a chance on that novel or Etsy shop, instead of staying at the office until death.

That's not what conservatives hear, though, because that's not what conservatives care about. Their concern for people is subverted by their concern for commercial output, or economic abstractions that appear to impact commercial output.

People are real. They are not economic abstractions. And health care (and Medicare and food stamps, for that matter) is not single-sided accounting, with all costs and liabilities and no assets or benefits.  Health insurance that is not tied to employment facilitates Americans' labor mobility, unleashes their creativity and risk-taking, simply because they don't have to make one of the most important decisions in life -- where to work -- based solely on where they can get decent health insurance.  

Nope, Obamacare Won't Kill Two Million Full-Time Jobs

By Adam Weinstein

February 5, 2014 | Gawker

URL: http://gawker.com/nope-obamacare-wont-kill-2-million-full-time-jobs-1515973539

UPDATE (02.082014): Check out Matt Taibbi's somewhat nuanced take on the media flap over the CBO report: "Latest Health Care Flap Shows Media at its Most Boring."

Lib'rul media remembers Hasan, forgets F.E.A.R.

Well you know me, always out to expose the dastardly lib'rul media.  

Seriously though, I can't understand why my liberal co-conspirators in the media pay so little attention to this crazy story about a shadowy, murderous, drug-dealing, anti-government militia group operating inside the U.S. Military?  

I mean, we still see stories about the Fort Hood shooter, including the saga of his beard... and I'm sure it has nothing to do with his being Muslim, no sirree.  

Conservative bloviators like Michelle Malkin and Mark Steyn have done their best to keep three-year-old Nidal Hasan story alive and stir up fear that he is just the tip of the Islamist iceberg in the military.  Yet the right-wing as well as MSM media (whatever that is) both ignore F.E.A.R.  

Could it be that my fellow liberals ensconced in their corporate media fronts for left-wing brainwashing operations are napping on the job, or.... (gasp!) could it be that there is no liberal media at all?  

Families of Slain Couple in FEAR Militia Case File Claim Against U.S. Army

By Don Terry

August 29, 2013 | Southern Poverty Law Center

URL: http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2013/08/29/families-of-slain-couple-in-fear-militia-case-file-claim-against-u-s-army-2/

The Case Parade

SPLC Intelligence Report | Fall 2013

URL: http://www.splcenter.org/get%20informed/intelligence%20report/browse%20all%20issues/2013/fall/Fear%20Rising/The%20Case%20Parade

Pitts: Black crime not a racial statement

Right on time, my man Leonard Pitts nailed it:

No, what is meant is that even when violence is done against you [as a black person], you may automatically be considered the “suspect” and your killer set free. What is meant is that judges are harder on you, doctors less aggressive in treating you, banks more apt to deny you, landlords less likely to show you apartments, hiring officers more likely to round-file your application. What is meant is good luck hailing a cab in midtown Manhattan. What is meant is that other people will airily dismiss the reality of those things, or, as has many times happened to me, admit the reality but advise that you should accept your lot in silence.

Then in the next breath, those same people will ask you to empathize with how racially victimized they are. The sheer, blind gall of it beggars imagination.

We poor, oppressed white people!  Oh Lord, deliver us from this reverse racism!  

Hey, here's an idea: let's all overdose on tanning pills like C. Thomas Howell in Soul Man and then we'll be living on easy street... right? Right?  [Crickets chirping].

This white guy figured out how to beat reverse racism back in 1986.

Killing of Christopher Lane not a racial statement

By Leodard Pitts

August 27, 2013 | Miami Herald

I have nothing to say about the murder of Christopher Lane.

Except this:

The killing of this Australian man, allegedly by a group of boys who were bored and could think of nothing better to do, suggests chilling amorality and a sociopathic estrangement from the sacredness of life. The fact that these teenagers were able to get their hands on a gun with which to shoot the 22-year-old student in the back on Aug. 16 as he was jogging in the small Oklahoma town of Duncan, leaves me embarrassed for my country — and thankful I am not the one who has to explain to his country how such a thing can happen.

None of this will satisfy the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people who have written me emails demanding (it is always interesting when people think they can demand a column) that I write about this drive-by shooting as an act of  racial bigotry, an inverse of the Trayvon Martin killing, if you will. There is a numbing repetitiveness to these screeds: Where is Jesse Jackson, they demand. Where is Al Sharpton? Where are you? Or as one subject line puts it: “Why no outrage!”

Actually, I have plenty outrage. Just not the flavor of outrage they would like me to have.

It is, for some people, a foregone conclusion that any time violent crime crosses racial lines, some kind of racial statement is intended. But violent criminals are not sociopolitical theoreticians, and violent crime is not usually a social manifesto. With relatively rare exceptions — we call them hate crimes — the fact is, if a thug shoots you, it is not because you are white, black, gay or Muslim, but because you are there.

So is Lane’s shooting one of those exceptions? A case can be made that it is. One of the young black suspects, after all, tweeted his anti-white bigotry back in April. The hashtag: HATE THEM.

But a case can also be made that it isn’t. Of the remaining two suspects, one is reportedly white and the other, the alleged shooter, apparently has a white mother. The prosecutor told the Duncan Banner newspaper there’s no evidence Lane was targeted because of his race, and in any event, bringing hate-crime charges is a moot point. In Oklahoma, hate crimes are misdemeanors; the boys are already facing felonies.

Again, none of this will satisfy those dozens, if not hundreds, of email writers, not to mention the authors of similar screeds on right-wing websites. What they’re doing is simple. They are using tragedy to play a cynical game of tit-for-tat: “I’ll see your Trayvon Martin and raise you a Christopher Lane.” In other words, they want to use this tragedy to validate their view that white people are victims of black racism.

And if all that was meant when African Americans decry racism is that sometimes white people do violence against you, then the email writers and right-wing pundits might have a point. But it isn’t and they don’t.

No, what is meant is that even when violence is done against you, you may automatically be considered the “suspect” and your killer set free. What is meant is that judges are harder on you, doctors less aggressive in treating you, banks more apt to deny you, landlords less likely to show you apartments, hiring officers more likely to round-file your application. What is meant is good luck hailing a cab in midtown Manhattan. What is meant is that other people will airily dismiss the reality of those things, or, as has many times happened to me, admit the reality but advise that you should accept your lot in silence.

Then in the next breath, those same people will ask you to empathize with how racially victimized they are. The sheer, blind gall of it beggars imagination.

Last week, Christopher Lane was killed for no good reason, apparently by three morally defective boys.

Sorry, but he’s the victim here. White America is not.

Racial media parity?

In an "ah-ha!" tone, my Republican agents have been feeding me recent news stories about the Australian white guy murdered, and the Oklahoma white guy murdered, both by "racists." Even though there is no indication these were racially motivated crimes.

Then we have FOX rushing to the scene, asking if the media coverage of the Oklahoma murder of Christopher Lane compares to the media coverage of the murder of Trayvon Martin.

None of this makes rational sense to me, I'm sorry.  I'm not being partisan here; this is just dumb.

It seems that we've moved on from insisting on some kind of "objective" left-right balance in news coverage of events, to insisting that we establish a black-white balance of media coverage of crime.

Why is this utterly pointless and stupid?

First, because you and I don't control the media.  But of course FOX and talk radio know that.  They play up the black-on-white crime, then accuse the "liberal" media of downplaying it.  Do I have to explain how self-serving and slanted that is?

Second, because so many thousands of murders escape the national media. We had more than 11,000 firearm homicides and more than 16,000 total homicides in the U.S. in 2012.  How many of them can you recall hearing about on the evening news or talk radio?  Exactly.

Third, these stories on FOX, the Blaze, etc. always mention Trayvon Martin, as in, "The media was so obsessed with Trayvon Martin... but they ignore THIS?!"  

First, refer to point #1.  Second, I challenge you to show me the black George Zimmerman. That's right, show me the case of the black man who murdered an unarmed white man and claimed it was in self-defense, despite police dispatchers telling the black man to leave that white man alone. Then the black man is set free, despite no contest that he shot and killed that white man, a white man who never bothered him or sought him out.

Yes, please, send me the link to that story, my Republican friends.  I can't wait to read all about it.

But until then, please do me a favor and shut up about race.

And fourth, most black crime is black-on-black.  That's a tragedy. Just like all crime is a tragedy. But what the hell does this have to do with the media or political correctness?

White people, stop pretending whites are an aggrieved minority and not an entitled majority who hold the keys to everything valuable in American life. Whining is un-American.

None of you whining whities would trade places with a black or Hispanic American for a minute, and that's all you need to know about race relations in the U.S.  

UPDATE (08.23.2013): OMG, this is so outrageously dumb: "A dead Australian is just the price you pay to be politically correct."  Yep, FOX's Greg Gutfeld said it.  

Oh no, I'd better stop being so liberal and PC, or else piles of dead Australians are going to start washing up on U.S. shores!....

Elite 'liberal' media slants toward war in Syria

Lately, I've been posting op-eds and editorials from the "liberal" Washington Post about Syria because it shows how strong is the consensus of Left-Right elite opinion in America that the U.S. Government must be actively involved and "leading" in every conflict zone in the world, but especially in the Middle East.  

The good news is, 70 percent of Americans oppose the U.S. sending weapons to Syria's "good" rebels.  Only 20 percent favor it.  

Whereas elite U.S. opinion makers believe that President Obama should "lead" on Syria, which is elite-speak for "ignore public opinion." 

Some opinion elites might argue that 80 percent of Americans doesn't really understand what's at stake in Syria.  But the onus is on them -- and President Obama, if he wants to get the U.S. military involved -- to explain to us what's at stake.  Myself I have been following developments there and I cannot say what vital U.S. interests are at stake in Syria.  Sure, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia are supporting Assad, but if Assad prevails, then they will have only paid dearly in materiel and diplomatic face to preserve the status quo ante.  As noted CNN/Time's Fareed Zakaria, one of the few "big thinkers" on foreign policy in the mainstream media:

Contrary to much of the media commentary, the fact that Iran and Hezbollah are sending militias, arms, and money into Syria is not a sign of strength. It is a sign that they are worried that the Syrian regime might fall and are desperately seeking to shore it up. Keeping them engaged and pouring resources into Syria weakens them substantially.

Unlike Iran and Hezbollah, Russia might yet enjoy the additional moral satisfaction of having publicly stood up to America and gotten its way, but so what? Let Russia choose its battles; we'll choose ours.  

Even if we believe some of our interests are at stake in Syria, we now understand too well the potential for sectarian war, U.S. escalation, and eventual terrorist blowback in our faces.  So far, the costs of intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan have far outweighed any benefits.  And two years after Gadhafi's death and NATO intervention, Libya is a tribal-sectarian basketcase.  Why should Syria be any different?    

Some pundits are still trying their best to convince us.  For example, WaPo's Jim Hoagland actually warned us, quoting an unnamed French diplomat, "that a loss of U.S. credibility in Syria will encourage Iran to intensify its quest for nuclear weapons."  Really?  If we don't get involved in Syria then Iran will develop nuclear weapons?  Gimme a break!

This argument is the last refuge of neoconservative scoundrels.  Think what he's saying: the U.S. must lead in every instance or forfeit its right to lead in necessary instances.  This is the road to empire, overreach and collapse.

Hoagland's main cheapshot argument is that Obama is worried about his presidential legacy: Obama wants to be known for getting us out of two wars, not starting a third one in Syria.  But even if it's true, what's so wrong with that?  

It's too bad Hoagland and the Washington Post's editorial board don't read the Washington Post's news section:

The difference this time is that the mobilization [of foreign fighters] has been stunningly rapid — what took six years to build in Iraq at the height of the U.S. occupation may have accumulated inside Syria in less than half that.

For Syria's neighbors, the conflict in Syria has become a Sunni-Shia regional war by proxy.  And the U.S. is injecting itself into this sectarian divide, taking the Sunnis' side... that incidentally includes al-Qaeda.

Next, let's take the "liberal" New York Times' Thomas Friedman, America's biggest "big thinker" on foreign policy, (God help us).  In his latest op-ed, Friedman gives two options for U.S. actions in Syria.  Conspicuously, not arming the rebels is not one of those options.  This is how elite opinion-makers do their black magic: they give a sense of inevitability to U.S. military action. 

Friedman actually describes the "idealist approach" to Syria (option #2) as putting U.S. boots on the ground and doing another Iraq debacle, er, occupation.  This is what "idealists" want in Tom Friedman's mind!  Who are these people?!

Next, for the record let's note that the "liberal" Chicago Tribune also supports America's arming Syria's "good" rebels.  But the Tribune holds onto the very slim hope that those arms will force a stalemate and Syria's President Assad to the negotiating table.  (I should note that the Tribune's owner, McClatchy Newspapers, has been doing excellent reporting on Syria.)

Likewise the "liberal" Boston Globe also agrees with President Obama's decision to arm Syria's rebels, although it urges mommy-like "caution" and "care" in doing so: "Now you be careful playing with those guns, rebels!  Don't shoot at anybody who doesn't shoot at your first.  And remember, we're not giving these weapons to you because we hate Shiites; and don't give them to terrorists!"  Pathetic.     

Some of you may say I'm getting too worked up about a few U.S. weapons to Syria.  Maybe so.  Maybe this is a classic Obama maneuver: appearing to do something while actually doing nothing.  According to the New York Times, "Mr. Obama expressed no confidence it would change the outcome, but privately expressed hope it might buy time to bring about a negotiated settlement."

However, once he involves the U.S. and puts his and our nation's credibility on the line, President Obama will be under immense international pressure and pressure from Congress to turn the tide against Assad's forces.  Then he (we) could be "dragged into an escalating level of support: from light arms to anti-tank weapons to a no-fly zone and so on" ... and so forth, up to putting U.S. boots on the ground -- the "idealist" outcome for the Friedmanites, but the nightmare scenario for Americans.

For admirable lessons on U.S. military restraint vis-a-vis Syria (and Iran), you have to look past the major U.S. newspapers and read stuff like...Daniel Larison at The American Conservative.  

I know, I know, these are strange times....

Lib'rul media hawks squawk for war with Syria

Not one but two op-eds today in the "liberal" Washington Post urge the U.S. to get involved militarily in Syria.  Wow. 

Columnist Richard Cohen's calling liberals against military intervention in Syria "cold-hearted" is like Charles Krauthammer calling conservatives a bunch of "bleeding hearts."  That landed below the belt.  

Well, now we see once again how the good ole' lib'rul media ain't so liberal when it comes to sending U.S. troops and weapons into Arab-Muslim countries.  Then they're all blood & guts, John McCain style.

Let me repeat: Syria is not our country, it is a sovereign state.  It hasn't attacked us.  There are no UN resolutions allowing us to take military action there, legally.  The U.S. Congress has not declared war on Syria.  And it's a country filled with nasty people on all sides.  Oh, and if we arm the other side, the first thing that will happen is the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamists will kill the other "liberal" rebels.  Or they'll do so immediately after they (we) topple Assad.

Moreover, Russia really cares about Syria.  They have a naval base there.  It's their last position of power in the Mideast.  They are willing to fight hard to keep Assad in power.  Are we?  Are we ready for a proxy war with Russia?  What's in it for us?  Nothing.  This is not to mention Turkey, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and other regional countries' interests there.  The spillover potential is immense.  

Significantly, Israel is taking a cautious approach to Syria in their own back yard.  Although Assad is aligned with Iran and Iran-backed Hizballah, many Israelis favor Assad as "the devil we know," and according to Time, "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered government officials to keep mum about Syria."  Of course Israel may just be waiting for the U.S. to make up its mind....  

Don't let the media wear you down on Assad and Syria like they did with Saddam and Iraq!  All this talk by liberal hawks about the U.S. "squandering its leadership" is just that -- talk.  This is all France and Britain's fault, high off the toppling of Qaddafi in Libya, they thought they could make the same thing happen in Libya.  Now it's their problem.  Obama is absolutely right not to make it ours.  

And finally, remember the "Pottery Barn rule:" the same chickenhawks typing at their Macs in Washington, DC today that we have no choice but to get involved in a war in Syria will be the same ones typing tomorrow that we have no choice but to take responsibility for Syria's nation-building, peacekeeping and anti-terrorist operations after Assad has been "taken out."  I guaran-fucking-tee it.  We've been there, done that, folks.  Forget it! 

If we really want to help, we can continue to aid Syrian refugees and send food, medicine and flak jackets to Syrians stuck inside. 

UPDATE (06.08.2013):  Here's another great analysis by McClatchy describing the wonderful folks whom the McCains, Grahams, Krauthhamers, et al want to give U.S. weapons and airpower in Syria: "Analysts: Foreign militant Islamists streaming into Syria to face Hezbollah."

UPDATE (06.17.2013):  Just to make it perfectly clear that they're not satisfied with half measures, the neoconservative Editorial Board at the "liberal" Washington Post called President Obama's decision to send "limited" arms supplies to Syria's rebels too little, too late: "U.S. intervention in Syria must be robust."  They want Obama to give the rebels anti-tank rockets and anti-aircraft systems because "the war in Syria threatens U.S. vital interests -- from the fight against al-Qaeda to the security of Israel."

Cold-hearted liberals have abandoned Syria

By Richard Cohen

June 4, 2013 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/17Udsf6

The U.S. has tragically misplayed Syria

By Michael Gerson

June 4, 2013 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/17Uh155

How fast we forget 'lessons learned' in Iraq!

Now here we have the "liberal" Washington Post's foreign affairs commentator Richard Cohen repeating his past mistakes in Afghanistan and Iraq -- mistakes he admitted to and regretted on the 10th anniversary of 9/11!

Once again he is urging the U.S. to get involved in a Middle Eastern war.  (The original title of his op-ed was, "Deadly delay on Syria.")

What skin does the U.S. have in this game?  Why should we take sides in a civil war, when the eventual victors, whoever they may be, are going to be pretty unsavory and undemocratic by our standards?  Haven't we learned anything?

Conservative MSM haters, take note, this is the real media bias when it comes to U.S. foreign policy: only "fools" talk about peace and non-interference, while the "realists" and grownups in Washington talk about how fast we can get our hands bloody.

UPDATE (03.21.2013):  Here's a look at the unsavory characters whom we'd be arming in Syria, if John McCain, et al, got their way.

Does Obama have a plan for Syria?

By Richard Cohen

March 19, 2013 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/WzSJWS

Violent entertainment does not cause gun murders

Like I always say, reliance on statistics and empiricism is what separates liberals from conservatives:

The reality is that there is no evidence linking violent games to mass shootings. We tend to return to this particular element, and it's interesting to see how quickly people like to latch on to this noncorrelation as if it were truly meaningful. The notion that mass homicides are linked to violent media was debunked as far back as 2002 by the U.S. Secret Service, which found that school shooters didn't consume high levels of violent media. But as a society we tend to focus on video games because it's easy to do so. 

Yeah, and what about older adults who go on shooting sprees?

Curiously, no one seems interested in investigating the effects of media popular among the elderly. Our attention to video games in the cases of some shootings but not others is what psychologists call confirmation bias, and it creates the illusion of a correlation where there is none. It's worth asking ourselves why we keep returning to video games despite the lack of evidence to support its link to violence. 

People around the world play the same violent video games and watch the same violent Hollywood movies and TV shows, but they don't commit as many gun murders either in absolute terms, or per capita. Conservatives complain about the so-called lib'rul media, but seriously, what kind of media bias is it when there is no factual or statistical basis to prove the connection between gun murders and violent entertainment, yet it keeps on getting reported as fact? 

What I find especially galling is that die-hard gun rights supporters seem quite ready to restrict the 1st Amendment by limiting what people can watch or play in order to protect the 2nd Amendment from any restrictions. They like to pay lip service to freedom of expression -- "There is no 1st Amendment without the 2nd" -- but it seems they are quite willing to do without the 1st to keep the 2nd, if that's what it comes down to. 

Americans are nuts about firearms, period. No intellectual or moral contortion is too twisted for them to justify their unlimited access to deadly firearms that have no other purpose than to kill many people in seconds.  

Video games didn't cause Newtown rampage

By Christopher J. Ferguson

February 20, 2013 | CNN

URL: http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/20/opinion/ferguson-adam-lanza/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

'Gun rights' winning media battle

Post this one in the "Whither the Liberal Media?" file. Yet conservatives will continue to whine pathetically that their beliefs are under constant assault by a biased mainstream media.

In fact we are all under assault -- by easily accessible, legal firearms.  RIP, gun victims at Sandy Hook Elementary.

In Public ‘Conversation’ on Guns, a Rhetorical Shift

By Nate Silver

December 14, 2012 | New York Times

URL: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/in-public-conversation-on-guns-a-rhetorical-shift/

Is MSM narrative on Romney - and Obama - all wrong?

Aw, poor Mitt.  Maybe we all have been too hard on the loser -- er, guy, huh?  

I'm willing to admit that there are media narratives that get accepted and become their own truth, especially during U.S. presidential campaigns.  Matt Taibbi has written about this extensively.  

If there is a "Mitt is a loser" narrative in the media lately, then it must be a reaction to the unfulfilled promise of the "Obama is dead meat after the GOP primaries" narrative.  The media have reminded us for months that no President has ever been re-elected with unemployment above 7 percent, blah, blah, blah.  The media have predicted that no matter how smooth Obama was, he couldn't overcome this bad economy; anybody with a smile and a pulse would cream him.

But when the polls -- cast in stark relief by the aftermath of the GOP's flat convention, and Romney's flip-flops and occasional odd comments -- didn't fulfill the media's prediction, the media turned on Romney (instead of turning on its own narrative).  If the former narrative was still true, then the only explanation for Obama's high poll numbers could be be that Romney was an exceptionally pathetic loser.  Only this inept fool Romney could miss a one-inch putt to the Presidency, goes the revised media narrative.

I admit that's not exactly true, and unfair.  I've been a guilty of repeating this narrative myself.  Perhaps the truth is more optimistic: voters are smarter than the media think.  Maybe the previous media narrative was all wrong.  Perhaps Obama was always the favorite.  Maybe voters already realized that Obama inherited a shit sandwich the size of Salt Lake City from Dubya, and had to deal with problems that no other President faced -- such as $15.5 trillion in lost U.S. wealth, 8.8 million lost jobs (more than the previous four recessions combined) and a quarter of all homes underwater on their mortgages, not to mention two expensive wars to clean up.  Maybe they realized, correctly, that no POTUS could fix all that in three years.  If I realized all that a long time ago, then maybe millions of my fellow Americans did, too?  Indeed, a recent poll shows that Americans have about equal confidence in Obama and Romney to handle the economy.  So the election won't be referendum on the economy.  Romney can't be as good as Obama; he must be much better.

“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public," goes the infamous cynical quip.  Well, I truly doubt Mitt Romney will ever go broke, but it sure looks like he's going to lose this race.  And it's not because he's such a pathetic loser.  He's not.  It's because the American public is that discerning.  The Romney campaign has condescended and underestimated them.

Yes, Mitt Romney Is Getting a Raw Deal From the Press

By John Cook

October 1, 2012 | Gawker

URL: http://gawker.com/5947910/yes-mitt-romney-is-getting-a-raw-deal-from-the-press

Even FOX busts Ryan's big speech (sort of)

It's pretty bad when a Republican lies so much that even FOXNews has to bust him.

But let's not give FOX credit for coming to Jesus all on its own. Other news outlets were quick to point out Ryan's obvious mischaracterizations.  See here, here, here, here and here.

Plus FOX let an op-ed contributor do the fact-checking, which makes it seem like one person's partisan view instead of the simple truth.

Paul Ryan's Speech in 3 words

By Sally Kohn

August 30, 2012 | FOXNews

URL:  http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/30/paul-ryans-speech-in-three-words/#ixzz251rvLkSe

Whither the lib'rul media: Obama = job-killer?

Gee, this doesn't fit so well with the lib'rul media hypothesis. 

Scholars Ding News Media For Uncritically Repeating 'Job Killer' Charge

By Frank James

June 14, 2012 | NPR

URL: http://n.pr/OJ9Akl

Yves Smith: PBS whitewashed crisis, bailouts

If this is how the "liberal media" (PBS) takes on America's corrupt bankster-regulator nexus, then the conservative media can relax.  The fix is already in.  History has been re-written by the victors.

Frontline's Astonishing Whitewash of the Crisis

By Yves Smith

April 27, 2012 | Naked Capitalism

URL:  http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/frontlines-astonishing-whitewash-of-the-crisis.html

Attack-Iran propaganda from coastal liberal media

Greenwald alerts us to another Israeli plant in the U.S. media, an IDF soldier, writing in The Atlantic a supposedly objective case for Israel's unprovoked bombing of Iran.

This same journalist urged us to attack Saddam in 2002.

You folks who believe the myth of the lib'rul media are the most susceptible to this propaganda. You read something like this and think, "Well, if that liberal magazine The Atlantic believes that bombing Iran is OK, then heck, that's really saying something!"

You folks forget that supposed bastions of the lib'rul media, the New York Times and Washington Post, were out in front of everyone in agitating for the invasion of Iraq.

How propagandists function: Exhibit A
By Glenn Greenwald
August 12, 2010 | Salon.com

URL: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/12/goldberg

PC police strike Dr. Laura

Good riddance to that mean old hag Dr. Laura. You can now catch her on ham radio, where she promises to use the N-word at least 11 times a day.

Notice that it took no act of the government or the NAACP to get her off the air, just a few big sponsors bailing out.

So when you say you don't trust the mainstream media, you're really saying you don't trust the corporate media and their corporate sponsors to give you the unvarnished truth.

Being all about business and the bottom line, they don't like to make waves or be too controversial. Hence the mainstream media is inherently conservative.

Dr. Laura to End Show Amid N-Word Flap

August 18, 2010 | Associated Press

URL: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/08/17/dr-laura-announces-end-radio/

Taibbi: Newzbabe reveals why we know nothing about Afghan snafu

Here's another entry in the Lib'rul Media file... in the same cabinet with the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot files.

Lara Logan, You Suck

By Matt Taibbi

June 28, 2010 | Rolling Stone

Lara Logan, come on down! You're the next guest on Hysterical Backstabbing Jealous Hackfest 2010!

I thought I'd seen everything when I read David Brooks saying out loud in a New York Times column that reporters should sit on damaging comments to save their sources from their own idiocy. But now we get CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan slamming our own Michael Hastings on CNN's "Reliable Sources" program, agreeing that the Rolling Stone reporter violated an "unspoken agreement" that journalists are not supposed to "embarrass [the troops] by reporting insults and banter."

Anyone who wants to know why network television news hasn't mattered since the seventies just needs to check out this appearance by Logan. Here's CBS's chief foreign correspondent saying out loud on TV that when the man running a war that's killing thousands of young men and women every year steps on his own dick in front of a journalist, that journalist is supposed to eat the story so as not to embarrass the flag. And the part that really gets me is Logan bitching about how Hastings was dishonest to use human warmth and charm to build up enough of a rapport with his sources that they felt comfortable running their mouths off in front of him. According to Logan, that's sneaky — and journalists aren't supposed to be sneaky:

"What I find is the most telling thing about what Michael Hastings said in your interview is that he talked about his manner as pretending to build an illusion of trust and, you know, he's laid out there what his game is… That is exactly the kind of damaging type of attitude that makes it difficult for reporters who are genuine about what they do, who don't — I don't go around in my personal life pretending to be one thing and then being something else. I mean, I find it egregious that anyone would do that in their professional life."

When I first heard her say that, I thought to myself, "That has to be a joke. It's sarcasm, right?" But then I went back and replayed the clip – no sarcasm! She meant it! If I'm hearing Logan correctly, what Hastings is supposed to have done in that situation is interrupt these drunken assholes and say, "Excuse me, fellas, I know we're all having fun and all, but you're saying things that may not be in your best interest! As a reporter, it is my duty to inform you that you may end up looking like insubordinate douche bags in front of two million Rolling Stone readers if you don't shut your mouths this very instant!" I mean, where did Logan go to journalism school – the Burson-Marsteller agency?

But Logan goes even further that that. See, according to Logan, not only are reporters not supposed to disclose their agendas to sources at all times, but in the case of covering the military, one isn't even supposed to have an agenda that might upset the brass! Why? Because there is an "element of trust" that you're supposed to have when you hang around the likes of a McChrystal. You cover a war commander, he's got to be able to trust that you're not going to embarrass him. Otherwise, how can he possibly feel confident that the right message will get out?

True, the Pentagon does have perhaps the single largest public relations apparatus on earth – spending $4.7 billion on P.R. in 2009 alone and employing 27,000 people, a staff nearly as large as the 30,000-person State Department – but is that really enough to ensure positive coverage in a society armed with a constitutionally-guaranteed free press?

And true, most of the major TV outlets are completely in the bag for the Pentagon, with two of them (NBC/GE and Logan's own CBS, until recently owned by Westinghouse, one of the world's largest nuclear weapons manufacturers) having operated for years as leaders in both the broadcast media and weapons-making businesses.

But is that enough to guarantee a level playing field? Can a general really feel safe that Americans will get the right message when the only tools he has at his disposal are a $5 billion P.R. budget and the near-total acquiescence of all the major media companies, some of whom happen to be the Pentagon's biggest contractors?

Does the fact that the country is basically barred from seeing dead bodies on TV, or the fact that an embedded reporter in a war zone literally cannot take a shit without a military attaché at his side (I'm not joking: while embedded at Camp Liberty in Iraq, I had to be escorted from my bunk to the latrine) really provide the working general with the security and peace of mind he needs to do his job effectively?

Apparently not, according to Lara Logan. Apparently in addition to all of this, reporters must also help out these poor public relations underdogs in the Pentagon by adhering to an "unspoken agreement" not to embarrass the brass, should they tilt back a few and jam their feet into their own mouths in front of a reporter holding a microphone in front of their faces.

Then there's the part that made me really furious: Logan hinting that Hastings lied about the damaging material being on the record:

"Michael Hastings, if you believe him, says that there were no ground rules laid out. And, I mean, that just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me… I mean, I know these people. They never let their guard down like that. To me, something doesn't add up here. I just — I don't believe it."

I think the real meaning of that above quote is made clear in conjunction with this one: "There are very good beat reporters who have been covering these wars for years, year after year. Michael Hastings appeared in Baghdad fairly late on the scene, and he was there for a significant period of time. He has his credentials, but he's not the only one. There are a lot of very good reporters out there. And to be fair to the military, if they believe that a piece is balanced, they will let you back."

Let me just say one thing quickly: I don't know Michael Hastings. I've never met him and he's not a friend of mine. If he cut me off in a line in an airport, I'd probably claw his eyes out like I would with anyone else. And if you think I'm being loyal to him because he works for Rolling Stone, well – let's just say my co-workers at the Stone would laugh pretty hard at that idea.

But when I read this diatribe from Logan, I felt like I'd known Hastings my whole life. Because brother, I have been there, when some would-be "reputable" journalist who's just been severely ass-whipped by a relative no-name freelancer on an enormous story fights back by going on television and, without any evidence at all, accusing the guy who beat him of cheating. That's happened to me so often, I've come to expect it. If there's a lower form of life on the planet earth than a "reputable" journalist protecting his territory, I haven't seen it.

As to this whole "unspoken agreement" business: the reason Lara Logan thinks this is because she's like pretty much every other "reputable" journalist in this country, in that she suffers from a profound confusion about who she's supposed to be working for. I know this from my years covering presidential campaigns, where the same dynamic applies. Hey, assholes: you do not work for the people you're covering! Jesus, is this concept that fucking hard? On the campaign trail, I watch reporters nod solemnly as they hear about the hundreds of millions of dollars candidates X and Y and Z collect from the likes of Citigroup and Raytheon and Archer Daniels Midland, and it blows my mind that they never seem to connect the dots and grasp where all that money is going. The answer, you idiots, is that it's buying advertising! People like George Bush, John McCain, Barack Obama, and General McChrystal for that matter, they can afford to buy their own P.R. — and they do, in ways both honest and dishonest, visible and invisible.

They don't need your help, and you're giving it to them anyway, because you just want to be part of the club so so badly. Disgustingly, that's really what it comes down to. Most of these reporters just want to be inside the ropeline so badly, they want to be able to say they had that beer with Hillary Clinton in a bowling alley in Scranton or whatever, that it colors their whole worldview. God forbid some important person think you're not playing for the right team!

Meanwhile, the people who don't have the resources to find out the truth and get it out in front of the public's eyes, your readers/viewers, you're supposed to be working for them — and they're not getting your help. What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan? Is it worth all the bloodshed and the hatred? Who are the people running this thing, what is their agenda, and is that agenda the same thing we voted for? By the severely unlikely virtue of a drunken accident we get a tiny glimpse of an answer to some of these vital questions, but instead of cheering this as a great break for our profession, a waytago moment, one so-called reputable journalist after another lines up to protest the leak and attack the reporter for doing his job. God, do you all suck!