This is another issue he's getting pass on, and he shouldn't be. He claimed weeks after the attacks he'd received intelligence that Iraq was behind it. We now know that to be doubly false, not only was Iraq not behind the attack, there never was any intelligence to believe that, only Bush's wishful thinking. (Or devious plan? Well, that's another diary entry....)

Someone should ask him who gave him that intelligence.

I know. He won't answer and he'll claim "national security" blah blah...

But I still think the question itself is a winner, here's why:

Gather around, watchers of the world, enthusiasts of the ethnic, and fans of the foreign (yes, Cokie Roberts, that includes you.  Especially you, since you appear to be anthropologically fascinated both yesterday and today.)

Check out the indigenous people on this exotic island.  Take note of their unique cultural dress, the trademark "baseball cap" and the light sneakers commonly worn by people inhabiting the island.  The female is also dressed in traditional garb, and is using what the locals refer to as a "point and  shoot" camera.

I blasted Cokie Roberts in yesterday's weekly, "This Week With Barack Obama" because she deserved it.

She put that red-herring, smoking gun word usage out that Obama is vacationing in some "exotic" place, called Hawaii and that he needs to go to Myrtle Beach, which implies "more American".

I have held my tongue on the media using this word exotic, coding for "Obama is not American" enough, but not anymore.

Oh for the love of God. Cokie Roberts, opining on Obama's trip to Hawaii, which...

... does not make any sense whatsoever. I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place. He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time.

Let's review. Obama grew up in Hawaii, as we have been reminded countless times. His grandmother lives there. He's going on vacation and visiting his grandmother. In the process, he's visiting his 48th state of this campaign season, and rumors abound he's going to try to visit all 50, the first candidate to try to do so since Nixon.

According to Cokie Roberts, though, it conjures images of the foreign and exotic. He'll, he's pretty damn presumptuous. Hawaii!! Why doesn't he vacation in some God-fearing, non-foreign place? We have beaches near Washington! And grandmothers!

I've long ago realized that the entire reason for having elections in this country is so news pundits can have their every-four-years, "let's try to make everyone in America commit suicide rather than listening to us talk" competition. But what the hell, sometimes you've just got to cherish a quote. To hell with making it a signature line -- I'm going to needlepoint it and hang it on my wall.

"I know Hawaii is a state."

    -- Cokie Roberts, 2008

Thank you, Cokie. Well freakin' done.

This is from the lead article current on Google News:

*The revelation damages the Democratic Party's image at a critical time.

Edwards joins a growing list of prominent Democrats -- from Gary Hart to Bill Clinton to former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer -- in having engaged in extramarital affairs*.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/...

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 42-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter's baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.

dday has a highly recommended reprint of his Hullabaloo (digby's place) piece on the Rec List right now.

I have collected some of Glenn Greenwald's recent pieces on the subject for my readers on DocuDharma and I thought I'd share them with you here too.

The news media, and ABC in particular, fed us false information to lead the country into the disastrous Bush/Cheney/McCain war in Iraq. ABC must disclose who planted the false story of an Iraqi connection to the anthrax attacks on the United States. If the false information came from the Bush administration, it would be consistent with their policy of controlling the news media and dumbing down the issues.

The right wing has been working on turning the idea of being even slightly intellectual into a negative characteristic because John McCain and the Bush administration are threatened by intelligent voters. I can just imagine the Bush-Cheney gang cackling as they gave us false information when they decided to invade Iraq, "The better to fool you my dears."

Glenn Greenwald's piece on the propaganda effort to try and pin the anthrax letters on Iraq and ABC's complicity in spreading this disinformation pushed me over to the far side of 'enough!' when it comes to this administration and the media.

The "four well-placed and separate sources" that ABC cited in reporting that the lie that the anthrax contained bentonite, making Iraq the prime suspect, are still at large.

So lets keep asking the question -- in all of our comment lines -- "Hey ABC Who Lied To You About the Anthrax?" until they are forced to respond to it, or until someone somewhere in the main stream media or the government with integrity can give an answer.  

I've changed mine.  Just put this in your Comments Signature Hey ABC Who Lied To You About the Anthrax? -- it will link to Greenwald's thread.  Who's with me?

ABC has a new story on this silly 'controversy':

“Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,’’ Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, said in a statement. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’

Mr. Davis was alluding to comments that Mr. Obama made Wednesday in Missouri when he reacted to the increasingly negative tone, and negative ads that have been coming his way from the McCain campaign in recent days.

“So nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,’’ Mr. Obama said Wednesday in Springfield, Mo., in remarks that he echoed throughout the day. “You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky. That’s essentially the argument they’re making.’’

ABC thinks it has gotten to the essence of the 'controversy':

[David] Axelrod told ["Good Morning America" Obama's comment] meant, "He's not from central casting when it comes to candidates for president of the United States. He's new to Washington. Yes, he's African-American."

ABC very helpfully generated the goofy illustration above of a cheerful Obama on the 100 dollar bill. Presumably it's meant to show what a sorehead Obama is for complaining that anybody is picturing him unflatteringly on US currency.

What ABC does not acknowledge is that is exactly what McCain's campaign did one month ago.

In this mocking advertisement released on June 27, McCain's campaign pretended that Obama wanted to put his face all over American icons, including the 100 dollar bill. It's not a flattering picture, as this still shows.

Apart from suggesting that Obama is arrogant, it strikes me as an exercise in illustrating how out of place he would be in the presidency. Obama looks slightly dazed or hesitant, and the very white T-shirt like thing is both jarring and heightens the contrast with his skin color.

And just in case that wasn't sufficiently scary, the McCain campaign turned Obama's visage into this ghoulish image just before cutting away. As the 100 dollar bill image grows large on the screen, bright lights begin to stream out of his eyes, his face turns a deathly yellow and finally explodes in a burst like fire.

You would have thought that a simple fade would have been a heck of a lot easier to produce.

Obama was exactly right, McCain was trying to make him look scary. What's ABC's excuse for trying to make him look like a fool?

The man accused of the 2001 anthrax attacks has died of an apparent suicide. Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, lays out a compelling case that ABC News misled the public into thinking Saddam Hussein's Iraq was behind the attacks.

This is less a proper diary than a plea that you read the Greenwald piece and write to ABC News asking them to reveal the source of their 2001 disinformation.

More over the flip.

When does a blog reporting the news become an opinion piece? Be that as it may, It just demonstrates that no matter how unbiased a journalist thinks he/she me be, that different people can interpret the same words differently. The irony is that the only time when the term "racism" is overtly used is when the media injects in the discourse. This is just an example of poor journalistic skills in an attempt to create a more attention grabbing headline.

John McCain did far worse than inject race into his constant attack on Senator Obama. He questioned the loyalty of his opponent. This is the strategy used during the Joe McCarthy era and is dependent on the big lies that the Republicans have decided that they might fool the American public with.

Talkingpointsmemo.com mocks this extremely briefly.

If people can provide links to send to Tapper that prove more overtly that McCain campaign HAS indeed played the race card (either by not denouncing ads with racist appeals, or overtly racist ads or statements) then post away in the comments section with links or quotes.

Oh by the way, does anyone know his email?

"So you won't have to endure the drudgery and the links."

Inspired from the brilliance each week of Sam Loomis and the daily brilliance of DemfromCT (and BarbinMD), this is a quick honest summary of what went down on the Sunday talk shows.

And don't be surprised to see a show that you probably wouldn't expect down there, Cheers

The LA TIME has a story about a recent study that found the media hating on Obama far more than McCain.  "This Week" was an absolute Obama bash fest this morning, through-out the first part of Obama's trip the media was obsesed with what error will he make, what gaffe, in the second half of the week they were all about is he too confident?  The man can't do anything right according to them all while McCain had anohter week that would have endede anyone elses campaign.

It appears Mr. Wilson John McCain  lost his bearings this morning on ABC regarding time tables, and devolved into a rambling idiot...

First a quick primer of the past via Jed Report

Video of the interview today

With assistance from Hannity-mouthpiece George Stephanopolous, John McCain used ABC's This Week to attempt to inject the largely irrelevant topic of affirmative action into the campaign. After Stephanopolous gleefully allowed McCain to recite his false charges about the Landstuhl clusterfuck without challenge or the faintest hint of journalistic integrity, another softball was served up to allow McCain to bring up just how angry he is about those damned women and blacks taking all the good opportunities. Of course, this is yet another flip-flop of monumental proportions, not that any of the sycophantic bootlickers in the McCain-worshiping press care.

For decades, the major three major networks and CNN have all had conservative leaning biases in which they systematically refused to report actual and compelling news that needs to be reported.

For decades, almost every major newspaper in America, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, have refused to print 95% of the actual news that, if reported, would render the Republican Party and the ideology of conservatism obsolete.  Granted, the NY Post is more conservative than the New York Times and the Washington Times is more conservative than the Washington Post but the NY Times and the Washington Post have been right wing rags for decades.

Below are a list of over 88 names of people who spin or have recently spun RW garbage on one of these four networks or one of these two newspapers.  My focus is simply on these 6 media outlets.  Each of them needs to be monitored, held accountable for each and every lie or spin they tell, and most of them should be fired and replaced with real reporters and real journalists.

There's a new Washington Post/ABC poll out that focuses in Iraq and military. One of the poll results seems to be generating a lot of buzz. Here's how Mark Halperin's The Page reports it: