Lee Boggs's blog

Has the election already taken place? No? Then somebody should tell Vogue. They’ve already declared Joe Biden as vice president.

A headline on the cover and for the corresponding feature story reads, “All the Vice President’s Women," referring to what the style magazine calls “four generations of Biden beauties.”

I agree the Biden women are beauties; I disagree Joe Biden is vice president (picture courtesy Vogue).

On the same day that the Associated Press noted that "few people watch TV or read newspapers Friday evening and Saturday," the New York Times ran an article questioning Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's questionable relationship with admitted, unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.

If the AP is correct and Friday is one of the least read days of the week, then it's interesting that the NYT chose to publish one of the most controversial campaign issues when the fewest readers would see it.

Nevertheless, the article, "Obama and '60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths," examines the political, social, and professional ties that Obama has with Ayers. Reporter Scott Shane concludes that they're not close, despite contradictory information within the story.

Shane wrote in the second paragraph that Obama announced his entrance into public life at Ayers's home.

MSNBC has pulled a vicious political commercial attacking Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain over his bouts with cancer and medical records. The network aired the 32-second commercial for two days, September 25-26, the day before and the day of the first presidential debate, according to an Associated Press article.

MSNBC stopped the ad on Friday, without specifying why, but not before it was seen by millions of viewers.

"The ad had not been thoroughly vetted prior to air, and has since been removed from our commercial rotation," NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust said in an e-mail, but did not elaborate, according to the AP.

In what Bob Schieffer of CBS News's "Face the Nation" promoted as the first interview of Sen. Barack Obama following the first presidential debate, “broadcast journalism's most experienced Washington reporter,” according to CBSNews.com, made no effort to critique Obama’s debate answers and performance, but instead led the Democratic candidate into an hour-long bashing of the Republican ticket.

Schieffer’s slant was obvious right out of the gate, emphasizing Obama’s supposed late night work on the bailout.

SCHIEFFER: Senator, it's still very complicated. We should stress this, it still hasn't even been put down on paper, all of it. But I know you were talking with the negotiators through the night last night. What can you tell us about it, and can you support it?

Neither Shieffer nor Obama mentioned the factors leading up to the sub-prime mortgage breakdown over the last 30 years. Instead Obama indicated blame is to be placed on the Bush Administration for all of it. The veteran journalist didn’t question it.

In a refreshingly new look at the “Bridge to Nowhere” on CNN.com, reporters Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston of the CNN Special Investigations Unit reported that Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Biden both “voted to keep the project alive twice.”

When deciding between funding for the Bridge to Nowhere and repairing a bridge in Louisana post-Katrina, the two liberal senators chose the Alaskan bridge.

Both Biden and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama voted to kill a Senate amendment that would have diverted federal funding for the bridge to repair a Louisiana span badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Senate records show.