It turns out the Democrats will win more seats in the midterm elections (emphasis mine):

Sen. Reid, perhaps the most-vulnerable Democrat who will face re-election in a midterm race that is likely to favor his party once again, began interviewing campaign managers last week. The Senate majority leader also recently stepped up fund-raising.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 03:41 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Yesterday, I mentioned that some douchebag radio host down in San Diego had stolen one of Iowahawk's posts.  Well, maybe we should contact the people who are in charge of the station's advertising and let them know that having a plagiarist like Rick Roberts on the air isn't such a good idea.  Their sponsors might be interested in that kind of information.

Update: You can call them at 858-571-8888 or 1-800-760KFMB.  The former is the number for the station, the latter is their on-air number.

Posted by: Sean M. at 05:12 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Politico has a list of the top 10 media blunders of 2008.  Coming in at number 6 is....

ABC Democratic Debate in Philadelphia: Co-moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos faced plenty of blowback following the Obama-Clinton debate for spending the first half focused on what many complained were trivial issues — his relationships with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, and his stance on flag pins.

Response: Gibson and Stephanopoulos weathered the criticism, but also didn’t get another debate. Little was heard about Wright after that, or about Ayers until the McCain campaign went hard at the link in the final weeks of the race.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 12:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Holy shit! The Head of Air America and Rush Limbaugh agree on something. Namely, their dislike of the Fairness Doctrine.

The conventional wisdom is that Rush's success depended on the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. Some say that if he had to make time for opposing opinions, Rush would have flopped. Personally, I think he is most entertaining when he is dismantling opposing arguments. He's successful because he is a superior entertainer.

Rush created the new AM template, and it spread like wildfire. When programmers and sales managers get a whiff of success, it is cloned in every conceivable way until the audience, once grateful for innovation, tunes out.

So why didn't liberal talk radio flourish as well? [...]

First, boring hosts made the occasional, unsuccessful foray (sorry, Mario Cuomo). Second, some talented lefties like Mike Malloy were cast into the abyss of right-wing talk radio where they were completely out of place. [...]

Finally, most broadcast owners are conservative. Programs like Rush's have made them rich, so the last thing they want is to mess with success, particularly if it entails airing opinions they don't share. [...]

When we founded Air America, we aimed to establish a talk network that lived at the intersection of politics and entertainment. Of course, we were motivated by our political leanings. But as a lifelong broadcaster, I was certain that at least half the American audience was underserved by conservative talk radio. Here was an opportunity to capture listeners turned off by the likes of, say, Sean Hannity. The business opportunity was enticing.

It never occurred to me to argue for reimposing the Fairness Doctrine. Instead, I sought to capitalize on the other side of a market the right already had built.

Posted by: eddiebear at 11:13 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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"Our job is to hold him to account...we're going to have to get tougher."

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 02:06 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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So that is the excuse they are floating today to justify not covering the Obama-Blagojevich connection.

SCARBOROUGH: I know, but why didn't somebody investigate this six months ago when Ryan Lizza wrote it?  It's pretty fascinating, because in 2008 we knew he was the most corrupt governor in America.

MIKE BARNICLE: Let me put my newspaper columnist/newspaper editor hat on for you to answer your question about Wasilla, Alaska as opposed to the Blagojevich administration.

SCARBOROUGH: Not Blagojevich--Barack Obama.

BARNICLE: Whatever.  She was the next, new face. No one had ever heard of her. So you're going to send as many people as you can afford up to Alaska to explain to the reading public who she is. You're sitting there, you know Obama, you know the governor of Illinois --

SCARBOROUGH: You don't know Obama.  You can't even tell me whether he ran the 2002 campaign of the most corrupt governor in America.

BARNICLE: I can tell you this much: he was a state senator then, and he ran that campaign about as much as I did.

SCARBOROUGH: Oh really?  How do you know that?

BARNICLE: Just instinct.

SCARBOROUGH: Instinct?

BARNICLE: Yeah.

SCARBOROUGH [at moment of screencap]: Newspaper editor: shouldn't we have facts instead of instinct? That's what everybody's working on: instinct! You know what? I like him! So I expect that he's a really good guy. I hope if I ever run for politics again, I am given this much benefit of the doubt.

Posted by: eddiebear at 10:06 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Posted by: Sean M. at 02:08 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Almost if by cue, The Deciders have determined via their "Fuzzy Math" that Illinois is not really the most crooked of Obama's 57 States. Which one is?

According to the article, North Dakota has 8.3 public corruption convictions per 100,000 residents.  Illinois only has 3.9.

The trick here was to use the phrase ‘per-capita basis' in the analysis.  Using the logic presented here by Fritze and his colleagues, they have logically justified that North Dakota's 53 overwhelming public corruption convictions between 1998 and 2007 is solid proof that the state has more of a black eye when it comes to its government, than Illinois, which had a mere 502 convictions during the same period.  Why?  Because North Dakota is a more sparsely populated state.

Oh, I see. When I think of North Dakota (which is seldom), I ALWAYS think of corruption, and not whatever the hell it is really goes on there.

Posted by: eddiebear at 09:20 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Andrew Sullivan says he "begged" McCain campaign to give him something to "kill" the Palin baby story off. I would've suggested dignity.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 01:16 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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We've heard various media organizations refer to terrorists as "militants" and "commandos" and such in the past, but, well, this one leaves me all but speechless...

So why are so many prominent Western media reluctant to call the perpetrators terrorists? Why did Jon Snow, one of Britain's most respected TV journalists, use the word "practitioners" when referring to the Mumbai terrorists? Was he perhaps confusing them with doctors?

Posted by: Sean M. at 05:23 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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'Cuda 1, Oprah 0:

Did Sarah Palin snub Oprah Winfrey?

That's what the most popular daytime talk show host and fervent Barack Obama supporter appeared to suggest in a recent interview with the entertainment show Extra.

"I said I would be happy to talk to Sarah Palin when the election was over… I went and tried to talk to Sarah Palin and instead she talked to Greta [Van Susteren]. She talked to Matt [Lauer]. She talked to Larry [King]. But she didn't talk to me.”

I don't think that Oprah would be hard on her or unfair, but I do think that she would have that special 52 to 48 condescention we've all grown so fond of.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 06:11 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I know no one cares what she says, but I will take some pleasure in starting a few of my tweets with a "@kathleenparker" so that she has some more "I'm such a martyr" shtick.

I'll note that the only person she's following is a Dem who hates Gov. Palin as much as she does.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 02:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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“Senator McCain, what do you make of Arizonans who think that for the last ten years you’ve been America’s senator, and not Arizona’s senator?”

- an Arizona reporter at McCain's first post-election press conference.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 06:18 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Well, it seems that CNN has finally come to its senses and decided that we should hold off on the deification of our president-elect:

Remember, Obama hasn't taken office as president, only glimpsed the Oval Office as a visitor and won't take over until January 20.

But already, he's being compared to the most remarkable leaders the United States has ever had.

The article goes on to discuss which of those "most remarkable leaders" Obama is being compared to, including JFK, Lincoln, FDR, and...Bill Clinton. Really? I mean, I'm the kind of guy who believes in the idea of letting the judgment of history define the impact of a presidency, but lumping Clinton in with those guys just seems, well, wrong.

Oh, and you've got to love the way the article ends:

The Americans who are comparing him to those remarkable predecessors are putting a lot of faith in a man they barely know.

Yeah, thanks for all your help there, CNN.

Posted by: Sean M. at 12:06 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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