Tom,

I hope this finds you doing well.

I read your piece with great curiosity this morning especially because I didn’t recall you ever having the same negative reaction to any of the multiple debates where the moderators were extremely tough on senator Clinton (much much tougher than either Stephanopoulos or Gibson were on either candidate last night). I did a lexis search to make sure I hadn’t missed you crying foul about any of these debates and my memory proved me correct. Msnbc was so tough on senator Clinton (including devoting over well over the first hour of two debates to tough questions to senator Clinton) that they were mocked and criticized by many for the imbalance of their coverage, though notably not you. In fact, you found their most recent debate to be “too tame and tepid.”

To be clear, I don’t think it is a bad thing for the press to be tough on presidential candidates (or their staff for that matter). These people are running for president after all, and if you cant handle a tv anchor how should the American people expect you to handle a hostile world leader? My only complaint is when a different standard exists for each candidate, which is the glaring issue with your piece. It is troubling to me that tough on one candidate is deserving of your outrage, and tough on another candidate is fair game, even “too tame.” I would posit that if one is going to be playing referee with media coverage it is all the more important not to have a double standard.

When you get a chance I would appreciate an explanation of how the various debates differed.

Best,

Jay

1. Obama’s despicable. I literally can’t stand the ‘thing’.

2. I’ve never seen such audacity – to complain and castigate that which he really is, that which all of us know he really is.

3. Brilliant clip. This is the first time I saw the ‘propaganda’ that up close. Migod what a cockroach Obama is. Seriously. Even Rove isn’t this bad. Mostly.

4. I live outside the US and have done so all my life and have enjoyed national health programmes in several countries and I can’t get over how #1) bamboozled; and #2) fucked over the people of the US are. They can’t possibly know the truth because they’ve never been exposed to it. They’re literally funding the lobbying (estimated $1 billion per annum) to keep the horrible health care status quo in place. When Hill calls them ‘predators’ it’s not just because she is wont to use words with more syllables than Obama can confidently handle.

5. The ‘bamboozle’ clip (YuB_W8o_UsU) is brilliant. Gee whiz I didn’t ever before realise how relatively stupid Obama was. Now I know. Who helped him pass his college courses? Seriously. He’s good at being a lying sack of shit as SusanUnPC called it but nothing else what I can see. It’s horrendous.

6. There’s never been any doubt that the ‘change agent’ had a good reason to back away from the Truman/Clinton/Edwards idea of national health. That reason is all the vested interests. Yes he is a traitor but there are of course interest groups who don’t want him promising anything like that. But more: Axelrøve doesn’t want him getting too precise. Getting too precise is a no-no in the post modern Axelrøve political handbook. Campaigns are no longer about policies – they’re about personality cults. Gee whiz really? Who noticed?

7. A lot of the unnecessary – not to say aggravating and destructive – traffic on the Internet, including the blogosphere, Digg, and of course the home away from home for Greek Markos Moulitsas would disappear overnight if only adults in the US would institute proper parental controls on their computers to limit use by minors.

Columbia is the mystery.

This video says “two news entities” are investigating a story about Obama being arrested while in college. He doesn’t what Obama was arrested for, or if it was campus police or the LA PD that arrested him.

This would have happened in the early 80s.

We wonder how bad the arrest could have been if he got into Columbia and Harvard after that. Wouldn’t they have turned him down if he was arrested for something really bad?

Who can look into this?

No, they’ve been exposed as a bunch of mediocre goofs.

People who lack awareness, well, you see them, but they can’t see you.

Usually, they go on to lose wars, so you know what a lot of our enemies see when they look at Bush, or Obama.

And they know how to game them, they have no fear.

What’s to fear, underneath all the gas, they’re fucking idiots.

we are loyal supporters of hillary not some judas like bill richardson

In the first place, today, Danica Patrick is the first woman ever to win an Indy Race. That is a solution.

In the second place, having a plan that includes everyone is a solution.

If one acknowledges that K st. is not going to experience any foreclosures anytime soon, then it comes to reason that EVERYONE needs to work in concert to achieve what is a HUMAN RIGHT.
The wealth of a nation is directly reflected in the health of its people.

Obama IS part of the problem because he has plans that don’t include everyone and is actively using the “politics of destruction” .

What else is a “twisting knife” to think when spoken of in this manner?

Of course, this may be all to late for HRC.

BTW, Obama will never be president.

And Dean has done NOTHING to defend Obama, left him completely unguarded, unable to even resolve this current issue regarding FL and MI, because he’s so inept, and to do so might hurt Obama’s election chances.

All factors say Dean is in this fight because Obama is the wrong candidate. If there weren’t such strong opposition the parameters of victory would be overwhelming, and the primaries would not be drawing him away from McCain’s attacks, and the RNC. All resources must go toward maintaining Obama’s viability as a candidate, and they are, in the process, destroying any chances Obama might have in the GE. When you think about it, Obama’s candidacy is always on life support, always in the ER for one thing or another.

FL and MI matter, Wright matters, Fox matters, REZKO, and AUCHI matter, the IL combine matters, the charges of drug use, or maybe worse, matter, and Dean is fighting Clinton, rather than reevaluating his golden boy, who, really, looks kinda rough, here.

Dean has his head up his ass, or he’s the worst DNC leader, ever.

But he’d rather hang on to his loser, I guess it’s the George Bush-Dick Cheney Iraq Afghanistan playbook, lose it, and lose it big.

During the earlier debates in 2007, Hillary never did anything negative. There would be no logical reason for her or her campaign to do anything to lose their popularity amongst the African-American community.

During Iowa, the Obama campaign began airing radio ads attacking Hillary’s health care plan, even though Hillary’s plan, like Edwards’ plan, would cover many millions more than Obama’s.

Prior to New Hampshire, Hillary’s share of the African-American vote in this country was still very high.

During New Hampshire, Bill Clinton made his “fairy tale” comment. The comment had nothing to do with race. It had everything to do with Obama’s Iraq policy, and media coverage of it.

The MSM and Obama’s campaign distorted Bill Clinton’s “fairy tale” comment, turning it into an issue about race, when it had nothing to do with race.

During New Hampshire, Hillary spoke the following words – “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964… It took a president to get it done.” There is no disrespect towards MLK in those words – Hillary’s fondness for MLK is well-documented, and she gave respect to MLK’s dream. But dreams clearly do not become reality if people don’t try to make them become reality, and it was LBJ who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation.

Because of the distortion of both the “fairy tale” comment and Hillary’s MLK-LBJ comment, Hillary’s poll numbers in the African-American community plunged. Both the MSM and Obama’s campaign played this for everything they could.

In subsequent weeks, the Obama campaign launched Harry & Louise-like flyers that distorted Hillary’s health care plan, were less than honest about NAFTA, and many other issues. The Clintons had nothing to do with any of these things.

The rest is now history.