It's not exactly a secret that John McCain is not admired by conservatives for a variety of reasons.

The conventional wisdom is that the Arizona Senator and GOP presidential nominee needs to mend some, uh, fences (warning: profanity at link) with many in his party.

Fair enough, but a word to the wise, and this is relevant regardless of personal ideology: If either McCain himself, or anyone who wishes to give him a fair shake, thinks Old Media is going to help them out, they're sadly mistaken. The candidate is going to have to go around the media types he may still believe are his friends. Voters in general should not be satisfied saying, "Well, I haven't seen or heard anything from him," because Old Media will work to minimize his visibility.

Case in point:

ABC's "World News Tonight" had a hard time on Friday without normal anchor Charles Gibson, as in its segment about the employment numbers released by the Labor Department, guest host George Stephanopoulos said the figures were from January 2008.

This was stated as a graphic came on the screen reading "JOBS LOST, January 2008, 63,000." Of course, Labor's report was for the month of February.

Sadly, that wasn't the only mistake "World News" made concerning this crucial piece of economic data, for just as the Associated Press had done earlier in the day, ABC's Business Correspondent Betsy Stark claimed (video available here, h/t NBer Gary Hall):

You seriously have to question why the mainstream media feels compelled to hire activists to pose as reporters in their precious newspapers.

I contemplated taking the higher road in this article and setting emotion aside. But I feel compelled to call it like it is. Why should I or anyone else sit idly by while feckless reporters such as Abdon M. Pallash of the Chicago Sun Times use the power of an irresponsible press to push their one sided agenda as if it was news?

Here's how I see it. Vice President Cheney visited the Great Lakes Naval base last night to give a graduation speech to 4000 sailors who have decided that they wanted to be part of the greatest military in the world despite the fanatical antics of anti-war Berkeley types and their supporters in the press. Given that American soldiers have repeatedly been branded by the mainstream media in the false context of cold blooded killers, who are depressed and too stupid to get a real job you would imagine that these recruits decided the press was full of it and that a military career was the path they wanted to take anyway.

The New York Times reported Democratic NY state assemblyman Brian McLaughlin pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges on Friday. As usual, no party identification in the headline, picture, caption or article, but there's a twist in this March 8 piece. The NYT also didn't report that he was in office at the time the crimes were committed.

In the lede, the Times described McLaughlin as the “former head of the nation’s biggest municipal labor council,” without noting his political office.

Continuing the whitewash, the NYT buried and downplayed the story's juicy details. While in office, McLaughlin stole a total of $2.2 million from little leaguers, labor unions, his political club and the state of New York. He used the funds to buy cars for his wife and mistress and, bizarrely, forced union members to kill rats in his basement, dog sit and hang Christmas lights without pay. The only mention of the Dem's political career was an unclear second paragraph (all bold mine):

Hillary Clinton talks with a patron at Herrera's restaurant in Dallas, TX on the day of the Texas presidential primary election, March 4, 2008. Photo Reuters/Mike Stone

You know, it's one thing when liberal bloggers and folks with absolutely no understanding of civics claim that George W. Bush stole the 2000 presidential election from Nobel Laureate Al Gore.

And, of course, one expects this type of drivel from leftist publications like The Nation, and clueless shills such as Keith Olbermann.

But, one really isn't prepared to see such nonsense at the nation's leading sports website, ESPN.com (emphasis added, h/t NBer AggieSpirit):

There's no denying the economy is slowing, and may have either entered a recession, or is on the brink of one. Maybe.

However, the media's hysterical response to Friday's February jobs report lacked any historical reference to how the labor market behaved in previous recessions.

Instead, press outlet after press outlet decided that the loss of 63,000 jobs in February was a clear signal the recession they've been calling for since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in September 2005 had finally begun.

In fact, as they fretted over this decline in non-farm payrolls, media chose not to ask and answer an important question:

Newsweek magazine recently celebrated the latest trend in elite Northeastern colleges: sex magazines, complete with highbrow titles -- like "Boink." In applauding the shifting sexual mores of American youth, reporter Jennie Yabroff noted that these enterprising students "no longer see a distinction between their bedroom behavior and their publishing activities," and consider their sex-magazine careers in college to be building blocks for the business world.

"I continually tell my mom this is a great résumé builder," says Alecia Oleyourryk of her career publishing "Boink" magazine at Boston University. Newsweek now needs a sociologist to affirm the wisdom of these "young sexperts." Cue Pepper Schwartz, a sociologist at the University of Washington. "Maybe their generation will take this a lot less seriously than we do," she says.

NewsBusters has frequently reported the deplorable connection between MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and the Clinton front-organizations Media Matters and Think Progress.

On Friday, conservative radio host Glenn Beck marvelously illustrated just how this liberal alliance works, and showed how a few sentences transcribed by Olbermann's minions and taken out of context can easily be used to completely misrepresent their meaning and what the speaker was actually saying.

After being named one of "Countdown's" Worst Persons in the World for comments he made on his CNN Headline News program Tuesday, Beck deliciously explained how Olbermann, Media Matters, and Think Progress worked together to intentionally distort his words (audio available here, liberal website alert!):

Forget about Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year for many Americans is March Madness, baby! And, it's right around the corner.

Is today's matchup between #1 UNC and #5 Duke a possible preview of the NCAA Championship game weeks from now? Are people enjoying the intrigue surrounding these two great teams?

Louisville (13) vs. Georgetown (10) should be exciting just hours from now.

ESPN.com has a great Bracketology listing that's being updated regularly.

Moving to baseball: Where do folks feel Barry Bonds will be playing this year?

Also, is Tiger Woods the most dominant athlete in history?

Finally, Husker Brandon Sheppard needs a huge high jump today in Iowa to make it to next week's Indoor National Championship. Positive thoughts from NBers around the world could get him over the top!

With its <sarcasm> crucial, earth-shattering work regarding steroids in baseball close to finished </sarcasm>, the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations has refocused its attention on that <sarcasm> crucial, earth-shattering issue of executive pay </sarcasm>:

The questioning mainly fell along party lines, with Republicans apologizing for hauling such distinguished corporate officials before the panel, and Democrats questioning everything from the income gap in America to the particular bonuses, stock sales and compensation the executives were awarded.

Do you care about this issue? Should Congress involve itself in what companies pay their executives? Where does this end? With a minimum wage dictated by statute, and a potential maximum wage, wouldn't we be nearing a situation where government dictates what people make at all levels? Isn't this the epitome of class envy and class warfare?

Yours truly had a memorable series of exchanges with MarketWatch Washington Bureau Chief Rex Nutting roughly 18 months ago. At one point, he appeared to reveal an expectation (otherwise, why provide a graph of it?) that home prices might actually fall like the NASDAQ did from 2000-2002 -- which, for the record, was almost 78%, from a peak of 5048 in March 2000 to a trough of 1114 in October 2002). He also described the housing market, which was still advancing nicely, as "in a free-fall."

Given the history, we shouldn't be surprised that Nutting pounced on the Fed's latest household net worth report, producing the following (link requires free registration):

It's turning into quite the morning for, uh, outing double-standards in the media. First was my item mentioning that Bob Herbert of the NYT had accused Hillary Clinton of "opening a trap door" under Obama. Readers are invited to imagine the PC outrage if a conservative had expressed the desire to do the same to the Illinois senator.

Now comes Mike Allen of the Politico. In his Playbook column of this morning, Allen offers this quote from Jann Wenner's over-the-top endorsement of Obama in Rolling Stone:

We have a deeply divided nation . . . A new president must heal these divides . . . Like Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama challenges America to rise up, to do what so many of us long to do: to summon 'the better angels of our nature.'

Allen's suggestion to Wenner in reaction to his breathless prose: "Get a room!"

"The opening of a trapdoor and the sudden snap of a hangman's noose at dawn yesterday brought an extraordinary end to a political era in Iraq." -- Opening line from The Guardian's report of the execution of Saddam, Dec. 31, 2006

"Senator Clinton never gave a second thought to opening the trap door beneath her fellow Democrat." -- Bob Herbert of the NYT, Confronting the Kitchen Sink, March 8, 2008 [emphasis added in both citations].

When Bill O'Reilly, in an impromptu response to a phone caller's question, said that he didn't want to "lynch" Michelle Obama, critics on the left from Media Matters to Keith Olbermann were outraged. Star Jones condemned O'Reilly's statement as "racist, unacceptable and inappropriate on every level."

Question: What do you get when you help terrorists seek dirty bombs, give sanctuary to Hezbollah and Hamas, taunt America, and threaten war on U.S. ally Colombia?

Answer: Hugs and kisses from members of Congress like Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Dennis Kucinich, academics like Cornel West, and Hollywood celebrities like Danny Glover - and a pass from the press.

And what's there not to love about Venezuela's Marxist strongman Hugo Chavez, who crushes dissenters, muzzles the media, and takes from "the rich" to give to "the poor"? With a Kennedy clan member as his spokesman, he even gives discounted home heating oil to the shivering masses of the U.S. oppressed by the capitalist system. ¡Viva la Revolucion!

Latin America's newly preeminent thug is, after all, the kind of anti-American buffoon that American leftists instinctively swoon over. Chavez fancies himself a revolutionary leader, protégé and presumptive successor to Cuba's Fidel Castro, who stepped down last month after nearly a half-century in power.

I am looking for the best sources online of Democratic Party and party officials cheating.

Specifically, I seem to remember several overwhelmingly Democratic precincts (majority African American too) in 2004 and 2000 in which Bush got 0 votes (despite the fact that 6-10% of all African Americans at a minimum vote Republican).

I had a discussion with a good friend, who is a very young misguided Obama supporter, and a college student. I would like a chance to educate her a little bit without having to go buy a book (Hugh Hewitt's book about DNC cheating which I read and lost!).

Any specific examples you guys can refer me to, with sources is much appreciated.

One more note --- I was proud to do my part to EXTEND the DNC bloodbath by voting for Hillary Rotten Clinton on Tuesday here in Texas.

Please feel free to email me at AggieSpirit@gmail.com

RIP Buckley! Buckley>Goldwater>Reagan>W 

.... for what I believe is a painfully obvious reason.

It is reports like the one written up by Shobhana Chandra at Bloomberg yesterday on household net worth that make you wonder if everyday US citizens will ever get the information needed to accurately evaluate what's going on in the economy without doing more digging than they have time for -- or that they should even have to do.

Chandra's writeup seemed to deliberately omit any and all context readers could have used to understand the significance of the information presented. She (based on this source, I'm assuming that Chandra is female -- if I'm wrong, please let me know) also sought out an "expert" to support a specious case that the reported results were masking a greater deterioration.

Here's how her report began: