Ergotism

Folks love to bust on FoxNews for being “fair and balanced” where “fair and balanced” means, “grossly biased hard to the right,” but is CNN really so much better?

CNN has recently hired Alex Castellanos, who has called Hillary Clinton a “bitch” on air, who made one of the most racist political ads in history (for a Republican, natch) and who is an adviser to John McCain. Why did CNN hire Castellanos, who has a history of using “racially charged” tactics? And why won’t it note he’s advising McCain?

They let him talk on the air as if his opinions were arrived at through honest deep thought and academic analysis of world events without disclosing that he is in fact is paid real money to get John McCain elected President.

I know that FoxNews has Karl Rove, but at least it’s obvious when you hire Karl Rove that you’re a Republican shill. People believe that CNN is the reasonable, respectable alternative to FoxNews.

Chris Matthews wasn’t joking when he said that the press was McCain’s base. They present his advisers to America as unbiased analysts. They buy him donuts. They go to his barbeques. Remember how they made George Bush look like a, “compassionate conservative” while Al Gore was a huffy snob? Well, it looks to me like Maverick is the new Compassionate Conservative. It’s just another way of saying, “I’m not like those other conservatives. I’m something new and different!” while they very compassionately cut benefits for the troops, while still getting to say that Democrats don’t support the troops, and then proceed to very maverickingly fillabuster with the Republican party against equal pay for women.

The press fell for it before. They’ll fall for it again. Obama is going to have to beat the Republican party and the Washington press corps to win. I used to feel sanguine about Obama’s chances to win in November. Now I’m legitimately concerned. I don’t know if I would bet a dollar on him to win in November or not.