Regretting that “few grownups are concerned about the $526 billion cost so far for the Iraq war without end” because “President Bush and his rich buddies have made sure most of the monetary burden will be borne by our children and grandchildren,” USA Today founder Al Neuharth, in his weekly column on Friday, recommended “a stiff income tax surcharge” to pay for the war. But Neuharth made clear his real motive is to turn those for the war against it:

The surest way to jar us into realizing the unconscionable cost of the Iraq debacle is to impose a stiff income tax surcharge to pay for it. If we did that, most hawks would become doves overnight.

Neuharth hailed Abraham Lincoln for imposing an income tax to pay for the Civil War and stressed how the current rates in the U.S. “are below those of other major countries. France, Germany, Great Britain and Japan all assess higher rates. The Netherlands' top rate is 52% and Sweden's is 60%.”

The question that is this post's title occurred to me as I read through this report earlier today by Seth Sutel of the Associated Press. I believe the question is important, and that its potential implications are underappreciated.

Sutel first summarized the week's financial events in the media business. It wasn't pretty:

Even for an industry awash in bad news, the newspaper business went through one of its most severe retrenchments in recent memory last week.

Half a dozen newspapers said they would slash payrolls, one said it would outsource all its printing, and Tribune Co., one of the biggest publishers in the country, said it might sell its iconic headquarters tower in Chicago and the building that houses the Los Angeles Times.

The increasingly rapid and broad decline in the newspaper business in recent months has surprised even the most pessimistic financial analysts .....

Can a publisher, editor, and owner of magazines be any more biased than proudly admitting on national television that he's contributed to Barack Obama's campaign?

While you ponder, consider that on Sunday, the publisher and editor of Rolling Stone -- who just so happens to also own Men's Journal and Us Weekly -- told CNN's Howard Kurtz that he's given money to the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee.

In fact, Jann Wenner did so without batting an eye in an interview aired on "Reliable Sources":

Today is the official publication date of The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment by Paul and Anne Ehrlich. The release of this book was timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the publication of Paul Ehrlich's once exceedingly popular "The Population Bomb" in 1968. If you expect to see much about either of these books in the mainstream media, you are in for a big disappointment. The MSM is avoiding the whole subject of Paul Ehrlich and his apocalyptic "The Population Bomb" like the plague nowadays. The reason is probably because it might draw embarrassing attention to the fact that apocalyptic visions, despite their popularity at one time such as the current global warming alarmism, are usually proven to be flat out wrong.

For the second week in a row, CNN's Howard Kurtz, while hosting Sunday's "Reliable Sources," seemed absolutely befuddled by the media's lack of interest in reporting presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama's campaign flip-flops.

Last week, it was the junior senator's change of heart concerning public campaign finances. This Sunday, it was Obama's curious reversal on handguns.

After two weeks, Kurtz finally got his answer: the press think flip-flopping makes Obama a great politician. I kid you not:

I found this hilarious, check it out.

**UPDATE** BELOW FOLD

It looks like Google has officially joined the Barack Obama campaign and decided that its contribution would be to shut down any blog on the Google owned Blogspot.com blogging system that has an anti-Obama message. Yes, it sure seems that Google has begun to go through its many thousands of blogs to lock out the owners of anti-Obama blogs so that the noObama message is effectively squelched. Thus far, Google has terminated the access by blog owners to 7 such sites and the list may be growing. Boy, it must be nice for Barack Obama to have an ally powerful enough to silence his opponents like that!

It isn't just conservative sites that Google's Blogger platform is eliminating. For instance, www.comealongway.blogspot.com has been frozen and this one is a Hillary supporting site. The operator of Come a Long Way has a mirror site off the Blogspot platform and has today posted this notice:

Newsweek's senior editor Sharon Begley has taken it upon herself to publicly declare the recent floods in the Midwest are being caused by global warming.

Those familiar with her work shouldn't be even slightly surprised by this, as Begley was the person responsible for the August 13, 2007, Newsweek cover story "Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine" which evoked widespread criticism including from one of her fellow editors.

Regardless, Begley is at it again with an article in the upcoming issue of Newsweek disgracefully entitled, "Global Warming Is a Cause of This Year’s Extreme Weather" (emphasis added throughout):

Gerri Willis co-hosts CNN's daily "Issue Number One," a program devoted to the economy.  For her, it appears almost every day is a struggle.

Last Thursday, she spoke of "high gas prices, one of the many cost(s) Americans struggles with in this economy."  She took a break from the struggle on Wednesday, when a CNN anchor filled in for her and co-host Ali Velshi.  

The previous day, however, her question to CNNMoney.com's Poppy Harlow was: "So what do you have to say to folks out there who are struggling to pay those (energy) bills?"  Willis also employed another of her favorite words, tough.  "There are," she noted, "all kinds of programs across the country to make sure that doesn't happen, but times are so tough."  Later on the show, she observed: "These tough economic times can be especially hard on retirees."

As a deeply divided Supreme Court issued 5-4 rulings the past few weeks bouncing from liberal to conservative interpretations of the law, something was woefully missing from the coverage: journalists apologizing to the nation for regularly insinuating that the Court's December 2000 decision concerning Bush v. Gore was politically based.

After all, for seven and a half years, a regular media meme has been that a "conservative Supreme Court" gave George W. Bush the presidency by stopping the recounting of votes in Florida.

Yet, as the Washington Post reported Sunday, today's Court, though "sharply divided ideologically on some of the most fundamental constitutional questions" as well as being "roughly balanced," is probably more conservative than it was in 2000 as a result of recent appointments (emphasis added throughout):

http://www.worldnetd...

At The Corner over at National Review Online (HT Instapundit via Weapons of Mass Discussion), Pete Hegseth calls it a "zigzag."

Given how fundamental Barack Obama's former position was to his credibility as a candidate during the Democratic primaries, I'd say it's yet another a full-fledged, full-throated flip-flop, accompanied by a fundamentally flawed reading of the Bush Administration's current policy -- both of which we can be confident Old Media will try to ignore.

Hegseth explains (link to transcript added by me; other links are in original; bolds are mine):

Recent reports and rumors have indicated that Senator Obama plans to aggressively move to the middle on Iraq in the coming months. This is a good political move for Obama, if only because he’s finally starting to recognize reality. However, it's no surprise that he will continue to try and have it both ways: moderating his withdrawal language without giving any credit to surge/Petraeus advocates.

For general debate and discussion. Possible talking point: Could the auto industry burst the oil bubble?

• MERCEDES are aiming to end the need for filling your fuel tank with petrol or diesel within just SEVEN YEARS.
• For several months now rumors have been rampant about an electric vehicle that General Motors would unveil at the Detroit Auto Show. That vehicle is now real, in the form of the Chevrolet Volt. [Available in 2010]
• Toyota Motor isn't going to allow General Motors to steal a march on it in electric vehicles. The Japanese automaker announced plans at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Sunday to offer plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2010.

Electric cars are FINALLY going to be a reality. Shouldn't such a change in American and foreign driving habits alter fuel demand and pop this oil bubble? Will U.S. auto companies, currently facing huge financial problems, take the lead on this technology to win back market share? Might this conversion also be the tonic a soft economy needs to turn the corner just as the baby boomers are starting to retire?

Matt Sheffield has made the point here several times that the Left is much quicker to be profane on the Web than the Right. Pardon me for pointing this out on a Sunday, but this made me laugh when a friend sent it along. Firedoglake was complaining about the congressional testimony of Cheney aide David Addington, who was a "dick" for being combative with Rep. William Delahunt. When Addington said he wouldn't discuss waterboarding because al-Qaeda could be watching, Delahunt snapped back, "I'm glad they finally have a chance to see you." RedState demanded conservatives protest, and FDL replied:

Which makes this from the Red State "directors" pretty pathetic:

It is no secret that public discourse in this country has become very shrill. Blogs on the left regularly feature vulgar diatribes against the right.

Only because you have it coming, you gang of sociopath a--holes. (For extra fun, Red State believes that "liberalism kills babies." This of course elevates the discourse.)