Mike Bates's blog

Sunday is a day of worship. So today’s Chicago Tribune devoted more than 50 paragraphs to venerating Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

In the front page “Obama's national appeal rallies an army of backers,” correspondent Jeff Zeleny details how popular the junior senator is among the rich and famous. Warren Buffett is a fan and has contributed to Obama’s political action committee, as have Hollywood’s Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen and Steven Spielberg.

On CNN's Live at Daybreak this morning, anchor Carol Costello described a TV ad in New Jersey's governor race: "The ad highlights comments from Democratic Senator Jon Corzine's ex-wife. She says, 'When I saw the campaign ad where Andrea Forrester said, 'Doug never let his family down, and he won't let New Jersey down,' all I could think was, Jon let his family down, and he'll probably let down New Jersey, too.'"

This led to the following exchange with CNN meterologist Jaqui Jeras.

JERAS: Nice.
COSTELLO: So, isn't that nasty?
JERAS: Like she's going to say something good?
COSTELLO: Pardon?
JERAS: Would you expect an ex-spouse to say something nice?
COSTELLO: No. But I wouldn't expect my political opponent to use the words of my ex-wife either in a campaign.
JERAS: Yes.
COSTELLO: I mean, that's just downright nasty.

Apparently not qualifying as a downright nasty campaign tactic was an ad run by the Corzine campaign that features a young man paralyzed in a wresting match three years ago. The young man says: "Doug Forrester doesn't support embryonic stem cell research, therefore, I don't think he supports people like me and doctors who say a cure is coming."

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. hasn't generated the rabid opposition many in the media would like to see. So now he's being made fun of for not being sufficiently cool.

In today's Washington Post, Dana Milbank takes the judge to task for assorted failings. Alito, we're told, wears a rumpled and ill-fitting suit as he makes the rounds of senatorial offices. We learn that "At Princeton, he skipped the selective eating clubs to join Stevenson Hall, known as a haven for dweebs." While coaching Little League, the judge wore a baseball uniform. He has a picture of former Phillies star Mike Schmidt hung in his appellate chambers. He's gone to a baseball fantasy camp.

On CNN's In the Money today, Jack Cafferty suggested that President Bush is devoting too much time to the natural disasters in the southeastern United States: "President Bush is calling on Americans to drive less, in between the trips on Air Force One to the Gulf Coast, which seems to be happening about every six hours in the last week or ten days."

Yet only weeks ago, Cafferty was berating the President for not doing enough. On August 31, he sarcastically asked Wolf Blitzer, host of CNN's The Situation Room, "Where's President Bush? Is he still on vacation?" When Blitzer told him that Mr. Bush was cutting his vacation short because of the devastation, Cafferty said that "would be a good idea."

This morning on NPR, host Ed Gordon interviewed Jesse Jackson concerning comments made recently by former secretary of education Bill Bennett about aborting black babies. Helpfully, Gordon asked Jackson if what Bennett said represented "a pattern that we are seeing in terms of growth with the ability to say this kind of thing (emphasis in original) in public?"

Knowing a softball when he sees one, Jackson dutifully denounced a "certain ideology in our country that is unfortunately sick and racist and dangerous and violent."

Newshound Ed felt no need to follow up by asking more about this "sick and racist and dangerous and violent ideology," but ended the interview with a friendly, "Rev, thanks for joining us."

In reporting on a Chinese company marketing condoms under the brand names Clinton and Lewinsky, USA Today notes that Clinton "was accused of having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern."

Accused?

Clinton himself ultimately admitted he "did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong." Moreover, a Federal judge fined Clinton more than $90,000 for providing ""false, misleading and evasive answers" about his relationship with Lewinsky.

No, Clinton was not just "accused" of intimacy with a White House intern. Simple justice requires an accurate account of what he did.

On Tuesday evening's Hardball, Chris Matthews joined the pack in identifying Pat Robertson as a Republican leader: "Otherwise, it will look like a major leader in the Republican Party on the conservative side of things...who won the Iowa caucuses back in ‘88, by the way...for president, is out to get this guy (Hugo Chavez)."

There's a problem with this analysis: Pat Robertson didn't win the 1988 Iowa caucuses.

Winning one primary (Washington State) almost 20 years ago makes Mr. Robertson neither a major leader nor spokesman for the Republican Party.

In a piece on the passing of Ebony publisher John H. Johnson, syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts writes that Mr. Johnson, "codified African-American dreams between glossy four-color covers. And because he showed us ourselves as doers, achievers and people of worth."

Well, not always. For years, Ebony published a list of the 100 most influential black Americans. For years, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas didn't make that list. Certainly one of the nine highest judicial officers in the Nation should have qualified. Justice Thurgood Marshall did.

Justice Thomas wasn't included because he's considered a conservative. In 2000, Ebony asked: "Why does it appear that he consistently votes for issues supported by racists and archconservatives, and opposed by white liberals and almost all blacks?"