{10.24.2008} Friday Melange. Fair Warning: Politics enclosed.

With 11 days left in this most important, life changing, life altering, harrowing Presidential Election season, I have decided to talk about it in my blog. I realize that this subject is taboo for many and I feel that way for the most part. However, this year we have seen unprecedented levels of attention placed upon this election. Potentially, the country will be electing its first minority President, which is an incredible feat, one that cannot be diminished. There is no doubting the ability and the commitment that Obama has displayed during this campaign. He defeated a candidate, Hillary Clinton, whom many believed was to be the first woman president. Instead, Barack Obama came out of one speech in 2004 and has grasped control of something many would never have believed to happen in this country as recently as 30 years ago.

Anyway, I sent the following email to some of my friends the other day and have decided to turn it into a post:
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This is from a Democrat journalist regarding the current state of affairs in journalism and his take on the credit, housing, economic crises - and the media's response to it. A good read…regardless of your choice for President, or your personal feelings. http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html

This past week has been a great example of the media's bias: Joe Biden said some truly amazing things about the future of our country if Obama is elected and it was not the top story of that day, aside from the DrudgeReport…what was? The fact that Sarah Palin and the RNC spent approximately $150,000 on her clothing as part of the campaign. Ignoring the fact that the Obama campaign has purchased a cable channel, donated over $800,000 to ACORN, spent millions on airing a 30 minute infomercial, and now at least $2 million to stage a huge election night victory party at Grant Park, which, by the way, taxpayers of Chicago will be paying a portion of, due to the necessity of having Homeland Security and police forces there.

CNN's lead "label" everytime I flip to that channel is "Is Sarah Palin hurting McCain?" - where is the question about Biden? Obviously he is hurting their campaign, which is why he has been muzzled and only allowed to speak at rallies, with no questions taken from the press. When Palin was kept away from the media, she was labeled as "hiding" and having "Vlaidmir Putin" style secrecy. Where is that same analysis of Biden? CNN clearly distorted an article on nationalreview.com as "evidence" that even conservatives think she is incompetent, during an interview with Palin. While the article, in full context, was saying that as a strike against the media…CNN won't apologize or retract it:

Griffin said to Gov. Palin: “Governor, you've been mocked in the press, the
press has been pretty hard on you, the Democrats have been pretty hard on you,
but also some conservatives have been pretty hard on you as well. The National
Review had a story saying that, you know, ‘I can't tell if Sarah Palin is
incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt or all of the above.’”

This is a complete distortion, a falsehood. The full quote from the National Review’s
Byron York shows he was in fact dressing down the media, NOT Gov. Palin.
“Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it's
sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid,
unqualified, corrupt, backward, or — or, well, all of the above.”

Again, I know this probably will not change your vote, but this might give you a glimpse as to why I have been so adamantly against Obama with this election. The media's treatment of one candidate or another shouldn't change your politics. However, it is causing many millions of people to create an image in their minds about the current state of affairs and causes them to gravitate to this message of "hope and change" -when it may truly end up being "more of the same". People seem to forget that for the past few years, the Congress in charge is Democratic and they have lower approval ratings than Bush, but is that reported as heavily as Bush's numbers? It seems like it simply is a coronation, aided and abetted by a media organization who chooses to ignore the negative news that would affect Barack and the democrats.

There are so many aspects of this election that I feel has been hidden by the media and not brought to the attention of America. Unlike people who are interested in finding information about the candidates, millions of Americans rely on the media to inform them of these candidates…this year it has been shamefully apparent that the "fix is in".