Media

There’s always plenty of blame to go around come Election Day. This year is no different. Republicans blame Democrats for this economic mess we’re in. Democrats blame Republicans for putting us there. Obama blames Bush for just about everything. White House senior adviser David Axelrod and press secretary Robert Gibbs blame the “unnamed” donors for the money deficit Democrats face.
 
Democrats are even blaming pollsters for their ill fortunes. Early on Sunday morning, Dem operatives issued an e-mail titled “Public Polling is Crap this Cycle” in response to a survey showing Nevada Democratic Rep. Dina Titus down by nearly double digits to her GOP opponent. Read more...

ThinkProgress, the left-wing, anti-capitalist, George Soros-funded attack machine put little old me in its crosshairs, accusing me of being a paid toady of the Chamber of Commerce:

Paying for Television Pundits: GOP lobbyist John Feehery has appeared on cable television to attack ThinkProgress’ reporting, taken to Twitter call President Obama a “business-hating socialist” for calling attention to this story, and even penned an article in The Hill newspaper to defend the Chamber and lie about our investigation. Feehery never mentioned the foreign corporate direct donations to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6). But more importantly, neither The Hill nor any of [the] television outlets Feehery appears on disclosed the fact that Feehery’s public relations firm, The Feehery Group, counts the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as one of its clients. Shortly after our story broke, Feehery was hired by another public relations/lobbying firm, Quinn Gillespie, which is also a client of the Chamber. Moreover, Fox News’ parent company is an active member of the Chamber, and hate-talker Glenn Beck met with the Chamber’s second in command earlier this year to plot the 2010 election. While Fox hosts and Beck have endlessly defended the Chamber’s secret money, there has been no disclosure of the network’s financial ties to Chamber lobbyists.

President Obama makes for a bad straight man.

He was a complete bore on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, as he pontificated on how great his administration’s accomplishments have been and how he knew all along that this was going to be a tough election for Democrats.

Mr. Obama’s appearance on “The Daily Show” reminds one of John McCain’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live” the weekend before the presidential election two years ago. Except McCain was very funny.

The NPR firing of Juan Williams should cut off any perceived momentum that Democrats were hoping to gain through the NAACP’s attack on the Tea Parties. After all, it is Fox News that embraced Williams by giving him a new, lucrative contract extension after NPR fired him for stating that people in Muslim garb on a plane make him nervous.

For Tea Party Republicans, that could not be better timing. First they get to support a black, liberal journalist, hardly what one would expect from those whom the NAACP attacked as “racists.”

I listen to National Public Radio all the time.

It has great programs. “Car Talk” is hilarious. So is “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.”

I learn a lot from Warren Olney’s program, “To the Point.” I also listen religiously to “Marketplace,” with Kai Ryssdal.

NPR has a bit of a slant on occasion, and many of its programs are a complete waste of time. But if you wade through the stupid stuff, you can get some excellent entertainment.

This week, in a rare moment of candor, Juan Williams set down his journalist hat and spoke the truth about his feelings when on a plane with passengers wearing traditional Muslim garb. Yes, he was on national television. Yes, he was on conservative Bill O’Reilly’s show — a usual hotbed of fiery rhetoric. But his words were neither bombastic nor laced with hatred. Read more...

The spawn of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is doing herself, her father and the GOP no favors. On ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, the 26-year-old Meghan McCain (R-or-D, of absolutely nothing) tore into Delaware's GOP Senate nominee, Christine O'Donnell, sharing with a national television audience that "in my group of friends, it turns people off because she's seen as a nut-job." In truth, many Republicans share that view, which should not come as a surprise to anyone. But why is it that we are listening to a 26-year-old with no political or professional accomplishments of her own? Her book Dirty, Sexy Politics would not be possible were it not for her good luck of being the daughter of John McCain. Read more...

The desperation at the White House these final weeks before Election Day is almost palpable.
 
For some strange reason, Democrats, led by Obama’s political team, believe they have an election winner in charging Republicans with laundering foreign donations into domestic campaigns. Read more...

A comely 36-year-old British aid worker, photographed in the romantic poppy fields of Afghanistan, kidnapped by the Taliban. Killed by one of her captors in a suicide vest as a crack team of U.S. Navy Seals stages a rescue mission in the dead of night. You can almost hear the Hollywood cameras rolling.

Because the circumstances of the death of Linda Norgrove are a work of fiction. It was the first version offered to the media by “NATO sources” over the weekend before a second was presented yesterday by the British prime minister, David Cameron. He told reporters in London that Dr. Norgrove “could have died as a result of a grenade detonated by the task force during the assault.” It could be that the investigation will show that the aid worker was not even held by the Taliban, but by a criminal group negotiating a ransom.

In what turned out to be the single best moment of yesterday's Sunday morning political chat-fests, CBS's Bob Scheiffer, host of "Face the Nation," asked Obama crony David Axelrod, quite simply, "Is that the best you can do?" The New York Times and other media outlets have plainly said the Democrats are wrong.