News flash: media mostly not trusted

Something to chew on while reading and viewing and listening about the coming campaign:

Just 17% of voters nationwide believe that most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of election campaigns. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that four times as many—68%–believe most reporters try to help the candidate that they want to win.

To some that’s no surprise.  Neither is this:

Voters have little doubt as to who is benefitting from the media coverage this year—Barack Obama. Fifty-four percent (54%) say Obama has gotten the best coverage so far. Twenty-two percent (22%) say McCain has received the most favorable coverage while 14% say that Hillary got the best treatment.

At the other extreme, 43% say Clinton received the worst treatment from the media. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say the media was roughest on McCain and only 15% thought the media coverage was most unfair to Obama.

And naturally, the left is least critical, the right most critical:

Ideologically, political liberals give the least pessimistic assessment of reporters, but even 50% of those on the political left see bias. Thirty-three percent (33%) of liberals believe most reporters try to be objective. Moderates, by a 65% to 17% margin, see reporters as advocates, not scribes. Among political conservatives, only 7% see reporters as objective while 83% believe they are biased.

Of course, these media are less influential these days, as people go to Internet, radio talk, and other sources, which have proliferated — to a chorus of tut-tuts from mainstreamers.

It’s how Newsweek’s Evan Thomas put it in July, 2004, when he said the media “want Kerry to win.”  Caveat lector.

What to do with old ping-pong-ball-eyes?

Tom Roeser tears into “the lay pragmatists” running the church in Chicago as in l’affaire Pfleger, sparing for the sake of Catholic tradition the hapless parsing cardinal who is looking for something or someone else to rid him of or somehow deal with this turbulent/meddlesome priest.  But he digs deep into his faith in Christianity, 2,000 years old and counting:

Once more the archdiocese has kicked the can down the road. Once again its lay leadership has shown it doesn’t have the starch to run a corner grocery much less the Chicago outreach of a Church founded by Christ. But then that it has survived for 2,000-plus years with such earthen vessels indicates it shall endure to the end of time.

Amen, Brother. 

On the other hand, harassment with a thousand ecclesiastical cuts has its merits, as I suggested weeks ago.  If I were the cardinal, after deciding lay pragmatists don’t know everything, I would make and publicize some conditions of St. Sabina employment, beginning with a prohibition of pulpiteering by non-Catholics.

Hell, he’d never do that, would he?  Which brings us back to Roeser and his philippics, which are as painful to read as they are accurate.

Ping-pong eyes?  Roeser:

[K]eeping Fr. Pfleger at St. Sabina’s far too long was sign of a weakness, a caving in to a rambunctious mob, many members of which are not Catholic at all but have flocked there for a good show on Sunday morning to catch the local rabble-rouser flail around putting on his ping-pong balls for eyes routine as he shouts.

Later, from Reader D:

 
Headline: ‘Pattern of behavior’ costs Benson his job:

Embattled running back Cedric Benson was waived by the Bears Monday, just two days after he was arrested for the second time in five weeks. “Cedric displayed a pattern of behavior we will not tolerate,” said general manager Jerry Angelo. “Everyone in this organization is held accountable for their actions. Those who fail to understand the importance of ‘team’ will not play for the Chicago Bears.”
Sounds simple enough, Cardinal George.

 

I love this movie

What an excellent front-pager for ISI Books’ new “guide to 100 politically incorrect movies”:

Like all effective satires, this film is subtle enough to be misinterpreted by the terminally obtuse. Although it was blasted as an attack on American life by a reviewer for the neoconservative Claremont Review of Books, director Payne is attacking only the more tawdry aspects of our culture from what can only be described as an independent perspective. (In one scene, shrewd observers have even discerned a copy of the paleoconservative magazine Chronicles among Schmidt’s reading matter.)… [more]

The film?  “About Schmidt,” a marvelous movie which in this viewer’s humble opinion shows off Jack Nicholson’s virtuoso versatility.  The man is in a class by himself on today’s silver screen.

The site is eminently searchable and promotes ISI’s new title, God, Man, and Hollywood: Politically Incorrect Cinema from The Birth of a Nation to The Passion of the Christ, by Mark Royden Winchell — a Clemson U. English prof who unfortunately died a few weeks ago, a quick search discovers.  R.I.P.

Big O. friends online

Here’s a typical Big O. supporter, as I judge from flipping through names at the very sophisticated Obama site.  This one goes by “Swimmer.”  He [there’s a photo, but I’m not sure] has 3,535 “friends,” is a member of the OPRFHS (Oak Park & River Forest High School) Alumni Group, has raised $537 from 10 givers, and has a #8 ranking — among thousands, I’d guess, who are registered on the site:

Location: Rock Island, IL

Why I support Barack Obama: Barack Obama is the ONLY candidate who can unite the country and bring us the international respect that we have lost in the Bush years. Barack will bring hope to our children and the future of America. I have been involved with this campaign since Barack announced he was running! I am SO going to be at the inaugural.

Birth Date: May 16th

Issues: equality / civil rights; civil liberties / privacy; peace & social justice; foreign policy / security; economic fairness / security; environment / conservation; smart energy policy; public infrastructure / transportation; good government / ethics; electoral reform; affordable health care; education
Registered to Vote: Yes

Attack problems, not people!

Note the “can unite the country” and “international respect” references, which are almost universal among supporters who have signed on to the site.  And the list of issues, which is rather long.

And react as you wish to the enthusiasm and slogans.

More crazy uncles in the attic

Did the Big O. at first approve this message, as run on the Obama ‘08 website from 9:13 Saturday to at least 1:45 Sunday afternoon but was later removed?

All Jewish lobbies and organizations are interconnected and there are hundreds upon hundreds of them. The leaders of the numerous Jewish Lobby Groups go to the same synagogues, country clubs, and share the same Jewish investment bankers. And this inter-connectedness extends to the Jews who run the Federal Reserve Bank, US Homeland Security, and the US State Department.

In other words, “Jews stick together.” Americans must know how extremely powerful the Jewish Lobby is and how it operates to undermine America’s interests both at home and abroad. At home – by corrupting America’s political system, and abroad – by dictating American Foreign Policy against America’s best interests.

It’s from “How the Jewish Lobby Works,” on the site’s Socialists for Obama blog, which

is for those interested in learning how can we change this country from the current capitalist unfair system, into a real socialist, democratic system for all. This capitalist system of Bush and his cronies only benefit the upper classes. USA needs a 21st Century Socialist, Democratic and Participative system for the workers and people of this country, without fascism, without wars, but with peace, equality, socialism and love.

This peace, equality, [S-word], and love is certainly change we can believe in.

Hell no, we won’t drill!

Not enough oil.  We can fix that.  Environmentalists say no.  We don’t.

Last month, the U.S. Senate’s Appropriations Committee voted 15-14 to kill a bill that would have ended a one-year moratorium on enacting rules for oil shale development on federal lands (which is where the best oil shale is located). Most maddening of all – at least to someone like myself not steeped in the wacky ways of Washington – the swing vote on the appropriations committee, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., voted with the majority even though she actually opposes the moratorium.

“Sen. Salazar asked me to vote no. I did so at his request,” Landrieu told The Rocky Mountain News. . . . Salazar says he’s simply trying to slow things down in order to ensure environmental considerations don’t get trampled in the rush to turn western Colorado into a new Prudhoe Bay. But, ironically, his bid to extend the moratorium comes at a time when his fellow Senate Democrats have been blasting Big Oil for not reinvesting enough of their profits into developing new sources of energy.

Ironically?  How about the going word for everything bad, “tragically”  No?  Just this one time?  “Catastrophically”?