Given that the topic of this post is the Associated Press, I guess I should be pleased to report that one of its two reports tonight about the dive in the stock market last week is correct.

In one article ("Gov't eyes plan to take ownership stakes in banks"), AP's Harry Dunphy and Tom Raum correctly said that "the Dow Jones industrial average just completed its worst week ever, plummeting more than 18 percent." This is sadly true, at least if you "only" go back to 1921 (even I will give AP a pass for not wanting to dig through the muck of 1920, 1907, 1903 and 1901, which the New York Times was using as "hey, it's not that bad" benchmarks as Black Tuesday approached in 1929):

Mehdi Kalhor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's media consultant and Iran's Vice President of media affairs announced on Saturday that Iran is setting two preconditions before it will engage in any talks with the United States. (h/t Wizbang).

The announcement was made in an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency and has been reported independently by both the Fars News Agency and Al Jezeera. Strangely though there does not appear to be any mention in the US media according to a Google search. (all emphasis mine throughout)

Vice President for Media Affairs Mehdi Kalhor said on Saturday that Iran has set two preconditions for holding talks with the United States of America.

In an exclusive interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, he said as long as U.S. forces have not left the Middle East region and continues its support for the Zionist regime, talks between Iran and U.S. is off the agenda.

The Toledo Blade's lead editorial on Sunday, October 12, is a seeming plea to institute in America a chief communist principle: the "right" to a job. As anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the Constitution knows, of course, there is no such "right." Nor should there be. But this hasn't stopped the Toledo Blade from pushing this anti-American notion and pleading for Barack Obama to take it up anyway.

Basing its article on the failed ides of FDR, our most socialist president, The Blade revisits Roosevelt's showy, populist idea of creating a "second Bill of Rights" giving Americans a "right" to a job. The Blade calls FDR a "forward-looking president" and extols the unAmerican specifics of his plan as a solution for today's problems, even making it seem as if U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is calling for the revival of this onerous new "Bill of Rights."

Poor Karl Ritter and Matt Moore of the Associated Press must have a lot of time to kill, a dearth of ideas, and a studied disinterest in accuracy as they await the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Economics in Stockholm, Sweden on Monday. A list of past winners is here. 

Besides lamenting that no woman has ever won the Economics Prize (so?), the AP pair felt the need to relate the financial bailout passed by Congress and signed by the President a week ago, and the current steep stock market decline that followed it (or, as yours truly and Investors Business Daily would argue, occurred because of it), to who might win the award.

Along the way, they, as AP reporters are wont to do, erred, and quite seriously.

Here's how their report, weirdly entitled "Amid the meltdown, economics Nobel no easy pick," began (bold is mine):

There's some good news out of the EU this evening that I wanted to pass along. This might make your Sunday a little brighter, and (fingers crossed) could supply some much needed stability to global markets this week.

First, European leaders agreed to some steps to shore up their banking system and credit markets:

The key measures announced were: a pledge to guarantee until the end of 2009 bank debt issues with maturities up to five years; permission for governments to buy bank stakes; and a commitment to recapitalize what the statement called ``systemically'' critical banks in distress. 

This has been positively greeted by the electronic currency markets -- "The euro rose the most in three weeks against the dollar and the yen after European leaders agreed to guarantee bank borrowing and prevent big lenders from going under" -- as well as S&P 500 futures -- "Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures expiring in December added 36.6 points, or 4.1 percent, to 927.6 as of 8:58 a.m. in Tokyo."

Stay tuned.

President George W. Bush is choking on a pretzel in the White House and falls from a sofa. Saddam Hussein is there with him. Later Bush flies on a magic carpet over Baghdad as he bombs the city. Eventually Saddam returns to the White House to scream insults at him. These were actual sequences that were originally in Oliver Stone's 'W.' movie which is opening this Friday. However, since they were finally cut from the movie, Stone is now patting himself on his back for his forbearance.

Politico's Roger Simon claimed Sunday that John McCain and Sarah Palin are responsible for the anger being expressed towards Barack Obama by their supporters.

Unfortunately, he had nothing to say about who's responsible for the hatred being expressed towards Sarah Palin on television, at rock concerts, and even at sporting events.

I wonder why.

Appearing on Sunday's "Reliable Sources," Simon gave the following response to host Howard Kurtz's question concerning whether or not it's fair of the press to blame McCain and Palin for some recent ugliness at campaign events (file photo):

The fervent cheerleading for Barack Obama by the Los Angeles Times continues to roar. We've documented the staunch pro-Obama position at the Times several times before: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here - for starters. Now check out the images from today's front page (Sun. 10/12/08). While a comfortable Barack Obama happily basks in the sun in a bright backdrop of red, white, and blue, a frail-looking John McCain is pictured in the dark with a faint and blurry flag in the distance. Equal coverage? Not even close.

Then there's the accompanying article, "Obama rides a wave of bad economic news." The Times happily cribs from the hackneyed "lifelong Republican-turned-Democrat" playbook:

While many in the media are accusing the McCain campaign of throwing everything they have at Barack Obama in the closing weeks of this presidential election cycle, other than Mark Hyman's Washington Times commentary today and World Net Daily's online coverage, little is being discussed about Obama's support of Kenya's tyrant Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

This popular internet video at 6:26 in cites Obama's connection and support for Odinga. An edited version of this internet video exists here and an Obama/Odinga on the campaign trail is here.  All 3 video embeds are at Eyeblast.tv.

The Odinga association may be even more devastating than the Bill Ayers link, because Obama cannot make the "I was only eight years old when this bad stuff happened" excuse.   Also,  questions are being raised if Obama may have violated the Logan Act.  Additionally, Odinga's thugs were involved in the slaughter of thousands of Kenyans.

Hyman's article in the Times says the following (my emphasis throughout):

The New York Times took the unusual step of quickly editing and replacing a hysterical post by hockey blogger Lynn Zinser that covered Sarah Palin's appearance at the Philadelphia Flyers home opener where she was invited to drop a ceremonial puck. In her original post Zinser exaggerated the boos by the crowd, attacked Flyers owner Ed Snider for inviting Palin to the event and appears to have fabricated the discomfort felt by NHL players Scott Gomez and Mike Richards.

That account has since been changed. Somewhere along the line Zinser gutted the original article and replaced  it with a new one that came a bit closer to reality. However the repost didn't occur before the original article shot across the internet where it was eventually picked up by Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher and flogged as a "political scoop". (update below: Rangers Scott Gomez voting for McCain-Palin)

CBS News relies on the Associated Press for information on Sarah Palin's use of taxpayer funds for "religious purposes." But before taking into consideration what the AP "reports," one must first take into account what the AP "knows" about American history. You'll find this "knowledge" in the third paragraph of their report:

An Associated Press review of the Republican vice presidential candidate's record as Wasilla mayor and Alaska governor reveals her use of elected office to promote religious causes, sometimes at taxpayer expense and in ways that blur the line between church and state. The U.S. Constitution provides for the separation of church and state.

No. It. Doesn't. Nowhere in the Constitution does it mention such a term.

As a result of the stock market collapse in the last four weeks, the economy has become the most important issue on the minds of voters.

Yet, as Barack Obama has clearly benefitted in the polls during this period, the media have refused to examine the records of the two presidential candidates as it pertains to policy proposals they have recommended or supported that might have averted this crisis.

Is this because John McCain has clearly been more out in front of this issue than Obama, and if the press actually did their job and told the American people this it might negatively impact the junior senator from Illinois's campaign?

Consider what McCain said during Tuesday's debate after being asked a question by Tom Brokaw concerning the condition of the economy (photo courtesy ABCNews.com):

CNN's Rick Sanchez is absolutely incredulous over the fact that there might be some black people out there who don't support Barack Obama. In an incredible double standard, Sanchez on his League of First Time Voters show has trouble believing that a black person could not be supporting Obama yet you will never hear him express shock that a white person could decide to vote for Obama. Sanchez asks one of the men if there is "any source of pride" that would cause them to vote for Obama. Of course you would never hear Sanchez ask the same thing of a white voter whether his pride would make him want to vote for John McCain.  Sanchez also brings up the point as to whether the men he interviews are considered "sellouts." Watch the video and you can see that Sanchez seems to treat these men as if they were some sort of bizarre oddballs for not wanting to vote for Obama.

On August 27, 1996, in the midst of that year's Democratic National Convention in the Windy City, the Chicago Tribune had interesting news (posted in full at my web host for fair use and discussion purposes) about what was then a new Internet initiative.

That Tribune story serves to confirm why the distancing from and supposed ignorance of the past activities of William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn by presidential candidate Barack Obama and other members of the Democratic Party ring very hollow.

James Coates's Tribune piece begins with an all-too-typical whitewash of the pair's violent past. But what's revealing is what Ayers and Dohrn were involved with, and who else was involved with them (bolds are mine):

Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers took to the streets 28 years ago to protest what they considered the injustices in the world, especially the war in Vietnam.

The former leaders of the Weather Underground still are fighting injustice, but--adapting to the changing landscape of American politics--their current arena is the World Wide Web.

Well, this is a new one. In an October 11 story, the Washington Post is saying that one of the biggest reasons that the Old Media in the west isn't covering Iraq much these days is because they are facing tough financial times at home. I guess it couldn't be because we are now winning the war and they've lost their favorite doom-and-gloom story line, could it?

The Post even quotes Alissa J. Rubin, The New York Times Iraq bureau chief, that there is "no clear narrative" over there anymore. Once again, this can easily be interpreted to mean that no clear losing narrative has left the media's attention wandering. Even worse Rubin almost seems to admit that they can't handle a "complex" story suddenly.

Tough to believe, but it's already week six. What are today's big games, and what are the teams at this point clearly establishing themselves as the frontrunners?

Joe Concha's Pigskins and Politics below the fold:

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Is the next shoe to drop the disbanding of the European Union and the euro?

The European Union is learning a painful lesson: that its cosy consensus world of officialdom, diplomacy and contempt for voters, is not up to the mark when dealing with a full blown crisis. The last two weeks have shown that the EU is better off at puffing up fears about climate change, bird flu and other terrifying environmental perils than it is at dealing with a concrete problem that could lead to a full blown recession.

The G-7 meeting this weekend produced nothing. An EU meeting last week in Belgium also resulted in nothing concrete to solve the financial crisis. Maybe even worse, Germany didn't even show!

With European nations much more concerned about their own people and economies, can this Union survive? If the answer is no, how would the disbanding of this Union, as well as the recreation of individual currencies such as marks, lira, and francs -- assuming this were to occur -- impact a global economy already in turmoil?