Like much of the mainstream media, CNN anchor Jack Cafferty has set aside any pretense of objectivity in this year's presidential election.  On today's Situation Room he used a "Cafferty File" segment, in which a question is posed to viewers for their response, to attack GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.  He prefaced the question:

But McCain chose Sarah Palin, who immediately became a national joke to everybody, except the conservative base of the Republican Party. Even some Republicans are convinced the Palin selection showed a total lack of judgment on McCain's part.

Oh, what about Florida Governor Charlie Crist? Would winning Florida help John McCain? You get the idea here.

Here's the question: Was it a mistake for John McCain to pick Sarah Palin as his running mate?

Last Thursday, his question for viewers was if they think John McCain has run an honorable campaign.  Some of his background "information":

In fact, in the last few weeks, John McCain has become downright nasty.

Regular CNN commentator Jack Cafferty may be "on the mend" after a three-week break for a "unanticipated encounter with a surgeon’s scalpel," as he put it, but he certainly hasn’t recovered from his Palin Derangement Syndrome. He launched a new attack on the Alaska governor on Wednesday’s Situation Room. This time, Cafferty returned to the issue of Trooper/Taser-gate and brought up two additional issues that came up this week -- how the RNC spent $150,000 on Palin for new clothing, make-up, and hair care for Palin, and how she used taxpayer’s money to pay for her children to travel with her to official functions. He then came to the following conclusion about the Republican vice-presidential candidate: "How do you present yourself as any kind of candidate of reform when the practices you employ put you in the very same category as every other two-bit, sleazy, opportunistic politician that has come before you?"

Cafferty then asked as his hourly question, "Should Sarah Palin reimburse Alaska taxpayers for her children’s travel and entertainment expenses?" Of course, when Cafferty read some of the viewer responses to this question, he lined up nothing but anti-Palin comments.

CNN commentator Jack Cafferty, true to his form over the past several weeks, launched another attack on Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Tuesday’s The Situation Room. During his regular "Cafferty File" segment during the 4 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program,he played a clip from the latest interview the Alaska governor did with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, in which she partially answered her critics’ questioning of her readiness to be vice president by repeating the list of offices that she has held over the years. After she concluded with her past position of Alaska oil and gas commissioner/regulator, the CNN veteran condescended, "A regulator of oil and gas. How can -- how can anybody, including John McCain, take this woman seriously?... When this is over they all write books. Hers will be titled, ‘How I Committed Political Suicide on the CBS Evening News.’"

When he returned at the end of the hour to read some of the viewer responses to the question, Cafferty read nothing but negative responses to the question, with one exception, and he continued his condescension after reading it. A woman named Trudy wrote, "Within three minutes, you remind me why I don't watch the opinionated news on CNN.... Your condescending attitude towards Sarah Palin is another example of the lock-step Left trying to portray a Republican as less intelligent." Caffery then replied, "Trudy, when it comes to Sarah Palin, that's not much of a reach."

CNN commentator Jack Cafferty has full-blown Palin Derangement Syndrome. In his latest slam of Republican vice-presidential candidate on Friday’s The Situation Room, Cafferty labeled Palin’s interview with CBS’s Katie Couric "one of the most pathetic pieces of tape I have ever seen from someone aspiring to one of the highest offices in this country," after he played a clip of the Alaska governor making an awkward reply to a question. He then asked, "Is Governor Sarah Palin qualified to be president?" When host Wolf Blitzer replied to this comment by stating that "she's cramming a lot of information," Cafferty blasted back, "There's no excuse for that! She's supposed to know a little bit of this....You know, don't make excuses for her! That's pathetic." Of course, the CNN commentator only read negative replies to his question near the end of the 4 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program.

On Friday's Situation Room, CNN's Jack Cafferty asked, "Is Sarah Palin's 15 minutes of fame over?" As you can see, Jack seems very anxious for Palin to become a has been of little consequence in this election:

Funny how a stock market crash, the failure of a few big investment banks will distract Americans from the flavor of the day. There doesn't seem to be the burning interest in who makes Sarah Palin's glasses that there was a few days ago. Former White House advisor and Republican strategist Karl Rove told the Associated Press this week that the Palin phenomenon will fade between now and the election, and that may be already happening [transcript continues below the fold].

To show the empty "logic" that Jack Cafferty of CNN employs in his political commentary all one need do is check out his September 16 Political Ticker blog post on why the race for the White House is so tight in the polls. Reason: the country is filled with racists. Yes, folks, if you are voting against Obama (and no matter who or what you are actually supporting and why) it must be because you are a racist. It isn't because you stand against what Obama stands for, it has to be because you are a racist.

This delusional, preconceived notion is becoming the excuse du jour with Democrat supporters that have lately seen a dawning hint that McCain may just win this election. And, that is really all it is, too. An excuse. An excuse that ignores all the warts and obvious problems with Barack Obama, his record, and the fantasy stage show that is his campaign.

CNN commentator Jack Cafferty blasted Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Tuesday’s The Situation Room over her refusal to cooperate with the Alaska state legislature’s investigation into the firing of Walt Monegan, the former Alaska public safety commissioner: "Palin is refusing to cooperate with the investigation -- shades of President Bush, right? Embarrassing investigation? Just refuse to cooperate and claim it’s all someone else’s fault." He later characterized this move by the Alaska governor, stating that it "goes a long way toward explaining why Sarah Palin is reluctant to do interviews or hold news conferences."

Cafferty then gave some details over this refusal: "Palin says the probe has been hijacked by the Obama campaign for political gain. But Monegan was fired and this investigation began long before Palin was ever named to the Republican ticket, clear back in July. The Obama campaign denies the accusation. McCain’s people say that Palin will not cooperate with the investigation because it is ‘tainted.’ They insist Monegan was fired because of insubordination."

Post-Palin Speech Update: How's that poll going now, Bill?

Imagine it's a few days before the Dem convention. In a big—BIG—surprise, Barack Obama names Rhode Island congressman Patrick Kennedy his vice-presidential running mate. You're a partisan Republican.  Do you?:

• a. demand that Obama drop Kennedy from the ticket; or
• b. sit back and enjoy the, uh, ride. 

I'm guessing the great majority of red-blooded Republicans would answer 'b.'  Why wouldn't you want a weak link on the opposing ticket?  So what kind of scare has Sarah Palin has put into the MSM that various of its members, like Jack Cafferty, are floating the notion that McCain should consider dropping Palin?  Do they sense she could be a real game-changer?

View video here.

In an effort to run down Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, a snarling Jack Cafferty managed to insult the entire state of Alaska on CNN's Situation Room: "Sarah Palin is in her first term as governor of Alaska,  that's a  state that has 13 people and some caribou." This was one small part of an acid-laced harangue by Cafferty on the subject of Sarah Palin,  (emphasis mine): 

Shortly after the Democrats gaveled to order their 2008 nominating convention at 5 p.m. EDT, CNN's Jack Cafferty did the party of Jimmy Carter a favor by pushing its economic message on his blog and the network's "The Situation Room" program with his question of the hour. Cafferty listed negative-sounding statistic after negative statistic, failing to offset them with even one praiseworthy accomplishment of the Bush administration, before asking CNN viewers if they are "better off" now than eight years ago.

From his Cafferty File blog (audio clip available here):

Ronald Reagan had some success with this question a few years ago and things weren’t nearly as crummy then as they are now: Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago? But this time it’s been 8 years.

This evening on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, the host expressed amusement at something he'd heard earlier today on his own network.  Ironically, the source of his merriment was a question posed by anchor Jack Cafferty on CNN's The Situation Room:

Delivering the ultimate liberal insult, in an online commentary posted Tuesday morning on CNNPolitics.com, CNN's Jack Cafferty charged that John McCain is as incompetent and incapable as President George W. Bush. “It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current President,” Cafferty felt compelled to share. “Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been,” Cafferty fretted before concluding: “I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.”

What set off Cafferty? McCain's “shallow, simplistic and trite” answers during Saturday's Saddleback forum in which “he showed the same intellectual curiosity that George Bush has -- virtually none.” The contributor of “The Cafferty File” segments on The Situation Room complained in his posting: “Throughout the evening, McCain chose to recite portions of his stump speech as answers to the questions he was being asked. Why? He has lived 71 years. Surely he has some thoughts on what it all means that go beyond canned answers culled from the same speech he delivers every day.”

Deciding to showcase the allegations in Ron Suskind's new book which “says President Bush committed an impeachable offense” by ordering “the CIA to forge a letter to bolster his case for the war in Iraq,” CNN's Jack Cafferty posed as one of his “Cafferty File” questions on Tuesday: “What does it mean, do you suppose, if the White House did, in fact, order the CIA to forge a letter in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq?” (Anchor Wolf Blitzer marveled: “We're just hearing now, Jack, that there may be an effort in the Congress to now go ahead and have some hearings on this explosive, explosive charge.”)

All the responses Cafferty highlighted later in the hour presumed the accuracy of Suskind's claims and condemned President Bush, including “Kirk,” who asserted:

If true, then Bush, Cheney, et cetera deserved to be clapped in irons, held for trial and executed for treason.

Cafferty also read aloud the complaint from Tom in Boston that “it means we should be ashamed as Americans. Bill Clinton was impeached for not being honest about his sexual indiscretion,” but Bush gets away “scot-free.” Joanne in Maine declared: “George Bush is not only the worst President in the history of this country he's also the biggest criminal.” A Canadien, “Ron from Winnipeg,” lectured those in the lower 48:

To put it simply, the Bush administration made you all out for fools then proved themselves right. How you ever reelected this bum, is beyond me. Good luck.

CNN commentator Jack Cafferty, on Thursday’s The Situation Room, found racist overtones to the recent McCain campaign ad comparing the hype surrounding vapid celebrities like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to the hype surrounding Barack Obama: "I think it's very much playing the race card to put a highly educated, articulate, middle-aged black family man into a television commercial with two blonde bimbo airheads with a combined I.Q. of a box of cereal. And if you have any doubts about what I'm talking about, it's the same kind of thing that was done to Harold Ford down in Tennessee in 2006 and it stinks. It's more subtle, but it stinks just the same."

Cafferty was referring to the spot the RNC ran against Harold Ford in the 2006 Tennessee Senate race which made light of how Ford appeared at Super Bowl party thrown by Playboy magazine in 2005. In the ad, an attractive young blonde joked about how she met Ford at the Playboy bash, and asked him to call her. Liberals reacted harshly to the supposed racist insinuation made by the ad. The NAACP condemned it as a "a powerful innuendo that plays to pre-existing prejudices about African-American men and white women."

Apparently, it must have not been enough for Jack Cafferty on Monday to merely call Barack Obama’s overseas trip "almost flawless" on Monday’s The Situation Room. On Tuesday’s program, Cafferty opined that it was a "mystery" that Obama didn’t have more of a lead in the polls. "It seems like that Obama should be miles ahead of McCain when you consider the political climate. Americans can no longer stand President Bush or the Republican Party or the war in Iraq, and, of course, there's the deteriorating economy." He continued: "...Obama has run a pretty flawless campaign, highlighted by that hugely successful trip overseas last week. John McCain, on the other hand, spent last week making one mistake after another."

Pretty flawless, Jack? How do you so quickly forget issues like the Illinois senator’s church that he attended for two decades and his pastor, Reverend Wright? How about his "bitter" comments about people in Pennsylvania?

CNN commentator Jack Cafferty, back from a short vacation, gushed shamelessly about Barack Obama’s week-long trip to the Middle East and Europe on Monday’s The Situation Room: "Barack Obama’s overseas trip -- it was almost flawless." He then heralded the Democrat’s enthusiastic reception internationally and how the past week was a blow to his Republican opponent: "We saw foreign citizens waving American flags instead of burning them, or having the host country’s military holding back angry protesters, and, while Obama was away shoring up his foreign policy credentials, it seems the week turned out to be devastating one for John McCain."