Back in 1964, Lyndon Johnson and his hatchet man Bill Moyers made the infamous "Daisy" ad charging Barry Goldwater would cause a nuclear war, and it became a massive media story. Reportedly the ad ran only once and yet everyone came to know about it, thanks to the press. In 1976 and again in 1980 the Democrats worked overtime suggesting the election of Ronald Reagan would trigger a military calamity, so much so that in their 1980 debate, Reagan joked that Jimmy Carter was cartooning him as a "mad bomber." The media couldn’t get enough of that narrative, either.

So what happens when a vice presidential candidate makes the gaffe to end all gaffes and declares that his own running mate will trigger an international crisis? In the Year of The One, it’s yet another controversy that is virtually ignored by a national press corps that has become an institutional embarrassment.

After seven weeks of the news media deriding Sarah Palin, Brian Williams and Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday night seemed to delight in emphasizing how, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which led the NBC Nightly News, Palin is hurting McCain as Obama surges ahead. And Williams touted Colin Powell's Sunday endorsement of Barack Obama as “the shot heard 'round the world.” After reciting how the survey of registered voters put Obama up by ten points, 52 to 42 percent, Williams asserted: “Perhaps more dangerous for the GOP ticket, most of those polled do not believe Sarah Palin is qualified to be President, by a margin of 55 percent to 40 percent.”

However, take a look at the PDF of the full poll, which did not pose the same question about Obama, and you learn that despite the media's pounding the public perception of her qualifications has been remarkably consistent across three NBC/WSJ surveys (see question 29d) with more considering her unqualified than qualified not anything new: 40 percent called her “qualified” in the September 19-22 poll, 41 percent replied qualified in the poll conducted October 4-5 and she returned to 40 percent in this new survey. Meanwhile, “not qualified” grew only slightly, from 49 to 50 to the current 55 percent which Williams treated as big news.

(Update: This video has been removed from YouTube. I guess they figured the cultish New Age tone of the video would be harmful to Obama.)

Here is yet another Barack Obama video with cultish overtones. It was filmed in the Asheville, NC area which makes sense since that city has become sort of a hippie center in the Southeast region. Participants in this video are encouraged to envision a President Obama. Here are the New Age slogans flashing on the screen with people looking like they are the midst of a rapture lovingly repeating, "President Barack Obama," as New Age type music is played:

Between now and November 4...

Let's spend one minute a day...

Envisioning Barack Obama...

As our President...

Prepare your heart to fill with hope...

Prepare your mind to embrace the change...

Envision Barack victorious on election night...

...Taking the oath of office...

On Inauguration Day...

Believe that this great moment in American history is already a reality...

Say the words to yourself...

To your family...

To your friends and neighbors...

Say it to the world...

Your vision is a sacred trust...

Surprisingly, the October 21 "View" mentioned Congressman John Murtha’s "my constituents are racist" comments. Though Joy Behar called it a "stupid thing to say," they were much gentler on Murtha than on Michele Bachmann, who stated that Obama has associated with anti-American individuals.

Joy Behar labeled Bachmann a "red baiter" and alluded to the McCarthy era. Whoopi Goldberg asked "it okay for someone to start attacking your beliefs in your country because you don’t agree with their views?" Sherri Shepherd, who has confused historic time lines, recalls growing up in the McCarthy era before other co-hosts reminded her she was not yet born. Even the token Republican, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, would not defend Congresswoman Bachmann.

Is this a case of labeling one anti-American for a simple disagreement? A transcript of a recent "Hardball" interview demonstrates that she clearly alluded to Obama’s associations, William Ayers and Reverend Wright, who are indeed anti-American.

  I assume that Mr. Obama must be American born, if he is running for President, but where was it?  Has anyone seen a duly recorded copy of his birth certificate?  Just where did he spend his formative years; was it immersed in American culture and constitutional tradition?  I have not heard.  Can anyone fill me in?

  I assume that Mr. Obama must be American born, if he is running for President, but where was it?  Has anyone seen a duly recorded copy of his birth certificate?  Just where did he spend his formative years; was it immersed in American culture and constitutional tradition?  I have not heard.  Can anyone fill me in?

"Nightline" co-anchor Cynthia McFadden on Monday used the opportunity of the first dual interview with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to gush over the two Democrats and offer no challenging questions. Speaking to the senators after a campaign rally in Florida, she fawned, "You looked pretty good up there together." The co-anchor also excitedly tossed this softball to Clinton and Obama: "Are you going to win? Are you going to win down here?"

Fully embracing Democratic talking points that the two once-bitter rivals are now friendly, McFadden fawned, "...Two weeks before the presidential election, they genuinely seemed to have bonded over their singular mission to put a Democrat in the White House." (Is that McFadden's mission too?)

Offering amateur psychology, the ABC host wondered, "How does it feel today? Still a little awkward or have we gotten over the awkward period in the relationship?" McFadden presented no questions about Obama running mate Joe Biden's assertion on Sunday that the Illinois senator would be tested by a major international crisis in the first six months of his potential presidency. In addition, there were no questions about terrorist bomber William Ayers or any other serious issue.

Tuesday’s CBS Early Show promoted a narrative of Barack Obama courageously suspending his campaign to visit his sick grandmother in Hawaii, while a losing John McCain runs negative attack ads. Co-host Harry Smith led the show by declaring: "Breaking news. Barack Obama set to leave the campaign trail to be with his ill grandmother. We'll assess the impact on the race, just two weeks from election night." Meanwhile, in a later report, correspondent Jeff Glor explained: "And the latest CBS News/New York Times poll is giving him a 13-point national lead, despite what the Obama campaign considers unfair attacks...The poll showed Obama's favorability rating went up ten points, while John McCain's held steady."

In a 7:30AM news brief co-host Russ Mitchell proclaimed: "...just two weeks before the election and Barack Obama is putting family before politics for two days beginning on Thursday. Obama will fly to Hawaii to visit his ailing 85-year-old grandmother." In a segment later in the 7:30AM half hour, co-host Maggie Rodriguez asked Democratic strategist Dee Dee Myers: "Barack Obama taking two days off the campaign trail, with our latest poll showing that he's 13 points ahead of John McCain. Will that make a difference?" Myers replied: "His grandmother is ailing, he wants to make sure he gets home to Hawaii to spend time with her. And, you know, consequences be damned-" Rodriguez added: "Exactly."

In the same segment, Rodriguez turned to Republican strategist Kevin Madden and asked: "...the same CBS News/New York Times post poll, shows that John McCain's strategies are not necessarily working. I'd like to show you that his favorability, since the debate, has gone down and people cite these as the reasons: His attacks on Obama and his choice of Sarah Palin, the top two reasons. Let me ask you, Kevin, is it working to be out there on the trail saying he's a socialist, to put out these robocalls?"

Steven Greenhouse, the Times's pro-union, anti-Wal-Mart labor reporter, seemed pretty enthused about the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s attack mailings against John McCain in "A.F.L.-C.I.O. Targets Seniors," the neutrally headlined story he filed to the "Caucus" blog Tuesday morning. In contrast, another Times reporter, Damien Cave, was offended at the sight of two anti-Obama mailers in his Florida mailbox that dared to attack Obama on taxes and crime.

Only two of the 19 paragraphs of Greenhouse's story are devoted to (very mildly) fact-checking the false claims from the union-backed mailing. Here's an excerpt:

The latest mailer is headlined, "John McCain: A Disaster for Retirees." It criticizes his proposal for partially privatizing Social Security, saying, "This risky move will jeopardize the chances of a secure retirement for millions of Americans."

The mailer also seeks to undermine the Republican candidate by saying, "McCain will cut Medicare." It says he "wants to fund his pro-insurance company health care plan by taking more than $1 trillion from Medicare."

CNN contributor Roland Martin used an unoriginal line to attack Rush Limbaugh on Monday’s Election Center program. Host Campbell Brown wanted Martin, a Barack Obama supporter, to comment on something the talk radio host had said about Colin Powell’s endorsement of the Democratic presidential candidate: "Rush Limbaugh said today, this is about race. That's all it's about." Martin’s response: "I think I will quote Al Franken when talking about Rush Limbaugh -- is a stupid, fat idiot."

Martin made the comment during a panel discussion with Brown, CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger, and Kevin Madden, the former spokesman for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, in which the four of them discussed the Powell endorsement of Obama. After his cliched attack, the CNN contributor accused Limbaugh, as well as Pat Buchanan and George Will, of disregarding Powell’s record and simplifying his endorsement to a matter of skin color: "Colin Powell gave one of the most thoughtful, meticulous endorsements of any candidate, and laid it all out very methodically, and it is an insult for people like Rush Limbaugh and Buchanan and Will and others to somehow say, oh, it's only because he's black."

We are almost at halftime of Round Three of the MRC's Sweet-On-Obama Sixteen Media Bias Tournament.

Only the Infatuated Four remain. If you haven't yet voted, by all means do so now.

And if you have, check back often to see how your selections are faring.

And as biased as they all are, much like the 1980's cinematic classic says, "There can be only one."

No, not that one.

Covering a "sober summit" held in Lake Worth, Florida that "focused on boosting jobs and capping the rising costs of healthcare," Miami Herald's Lesley Clark noted that Sen. Barack Obama was joined on stage by the Democratic governors of the swing states of Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, and Ohio:

''A crisis like this calls for the best ideas, the brightest minds, the most innovative solutions from every corner of this country,'' said Obama, who invited the Democratic governors of four key election states to share a stage with him, along with a small business owner from Miami, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and the CEO of Internet giant Google.

Yet the 2008 Fiscal Policy Report Card by the libertarian Cato Institute found a C-average among those Democratic governors. By contrast McCain supporter Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) earned an "A." Michigan's Gov. Jennifer Granholm -- who portrayed Gov. Sarah Palin (R) in Sen. Joe Biden's debate prep -- and Colorado's Gov. Bill Ritter were assigned "D"s for their advocacy of tax hikes (emphasis mine):

Muslim McCain Supporters Confront Racism at Rally, i think they should of beat this guy so he never trys to pull something like this again!

http://webcastr.com/...

Over the past few days, the Obama campaign has been claiming — both in ads and in statements by Barack Obama himself — that John McCain would “cut” Medicare benefits by “$882 billion,” a charge that the Associated Press called “shaky” and that FactCheck.org bluntly dismissed as “bogus” and “false.”

Yet of the three broadcast networks, only ABC News has thus far joined the condemnation of Obama’s deceptive ad. NBC on Monday would only go so far as to say “McCain’s advisors say that’s not true...” — implying that it’s merely a partisan difference of opinion — while CBS has thus far refrained from questioning Obama’s truthfulness on this issue.

For weeks now, the networks have complained about the McCain campaign’s supposed nasty and unfair campaign attacks against Obama, so when will NBC and CBS join ABC in punishing this nasty and unfair charge from the Democrats?

With all the justifiable hoopla about Barry O's relationship with domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn, I can't help but wonder how the hand of the law didn't reel them in long ago. There's no statute of limitations on murder, and Ayers and Dohrn have all but admitted to their roles in the bombings of the Pentagon, the Capital Building, and the bombing of a police station wherein one police officer was killed. A rather lengthy history on the Weather Underground can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization). The current issues surrounding Ayers, in particular, are more interesting. According to Matthew K. Tabor:

If only elderly voters in California would die off in large enough numbers before November 4, then the final nail could be hammered in the coffin of California Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. That according to liberal activist Kristina Wilfore, the executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, "an advocacy organization that specializes in using ballot initiatives to further liberal causes." Her comments were buried deep inside Michael Lindenberger's October 21 item at Time.com:

Wilfore says she's prepared to take the long view in California. "I am not going to be discouraged if we lose," she says. Victory will come over time in the courts, as demographics works its influence on the nation's voting patterns, she says, noting that young people support gay marriage far more than their parents and grandparents do. "A lot of people are going to have to die" before Election Day is an easy day for gay marriage, she says.

While Wilfore was not wishing for the deaths of thousands of elderly conservative voters per se, one can imagine the ire the media would focus on such a statement of say a conservative activist annoyed with elderly voters blocking Social Security reforms.

As NewsBusters previously reported, the same broadcast networks that two years ago could not get enough of the Mark Foley scandal, are offering little to no coverage of Foley’s successor, Tim Mahoney, now embroiled in a sex scandal of his own. The networks on October 21 completely ignored the news that Congressman Mahoney’s wife is now filing for divorce. Fox News’ "Fox and Friends" only provided a brief news read. After co-host Brian Kilmeade read the brief, Steve Doocy editorialized "I think [the Foley] scandal got more ink, didn’t it?"

In related news, Mark Foley himself recently announced his endorsement for Barack Obama. Though Obama won over another Republican, it’s a safe assumption it will not receive the same news coverage as Colin Powell.

Update: Mark Foley issued a statement denying his support for Obama: