An Indictment Of Right Leaning Journalism By Ben Domenech

Ben’s Transom newsletter was particularly good today and he saved the best for last. It’s so important I’m sharing it here.

Here’s the nutshell: The Left-leaning journalism investigates the right. The Right-leaning journalism provides commentary and (and Ben doesn’t say this, but I am) when they do rarely investigate, investigates the right after being given oppo research by someone on their own side.

The right is resource-deprived and lazy with the resources they do have.

Here’s what Ben says [subscribe here]:

RISE OF THE CONSERVATIVE THUMBSUCKER CLASS:

David Freddoso isn’t wholly wrong here, but I think his career is instructive in the real failings of conservative journalists. http://vlt.tc/cu Freddoso is one of a number of solid shoe-leather investigative journalists with a conservative bent – he’s now at the Examiner as an opinion page editor. Phil Klein was the same – now he’s an opinion columnist at the Examiner. So was Tim Carney – same deal. The general trend among conservatives is to ditch the investigative thing and move into what we might call Novak-lite opinion writing; they talk to sources and cover events but rarely break news. They take the second or third bite out of something, not the first. And they generally leave it to Gawker to file the FOIA requests. http://vlt.tc/da

There’s a whole class of people in DC who live this trend, wasting writing talent on minor league punditry which ought to be applied to keeping politicians accountable and rooting out scandals on the other side. Instead of offsetting in some small way the overwhelming advantage the left has among investigative journos, the sights of these writers are nearly always trained on their own party (Carney, for example, criticizes both sides, but much of his aim is at remaking the right into a less big business friendly entity). At the same time, the big publications on the right have gravitated toward three kinds of stories: the thumb-sucking or humorous rehash of what’s in the news; the big think-piece commentary about some social or political meme; or the throw-off profile of a friendly Republican politician. The effect is that these publications have little or no impact on the left or the broader conversation – their influence is limited to the right and stays there.

This trend is a real shame, and it’s one of the reasons that story-breaking on the right about the left has been almost entirely conceded to the amateur or semi-pro class online. The biggest story of the year on the right is Solyndra – a story broken by ABC News. The second biggest story of the year on the right is Fast & Furious, which is now resulting in Congressional investigations and calls for Eric Holder’s resignation – it’s a story broken by CBS News. In a just world, these stories would’ve been broken first on the cover of a major conservative publication. But that hasn’t been true since, well, the days of David Brock.

At the Redstate confab in South Carolina (this was pre-Solyndra) I pointed out onstage that Obama’s administration had been to that point remarkably scandal free. I pointed out that scandal had followed the Chicago team for decades, and that we’d learn about the scandals eventually, but likely only after everyone was out of office. This is an indictment for every journalist on the right who has the capability to investigate but spends their time on opinion writing instead. It’s no longer debatable: Andrew Breitbart has done more for the cause of conservative investigative coverage than any of the right-leaning outlets under Obama (Schweizer works . And that’s something the DC-NY conservative professional thumb-suckers should be ashamed of.

As for Freddoso – who’s no more than an acquaintance, but again I genuinely like his work – yesterday is a bad day for him to be throwing this stone. He spent a good hour on Twitter deriding Rick Perry for calling Sam Brownback “John” at an event based on a Twitter report from a Bloomberg journo, a report which turned out to be completely false – Perry was referring to John Archer, a candidate for Congress who was in attendance at the government reform event. http://vlt.tc/cv It’s not that there’s anything wrong with that –but the point is that the Examiner doesn’t have anyone covering that event to correct him, and neither do any of the right-leaning outlets. It’s a different problem from the lack of investigative-focused stuff, but it illustrates the same truth. Writers on the right mostly don’t do journalism; they do play-by-play.

So much of the investigative work is being done by bloggers and they are under-funded and often over-worked.

One thing Ben doesn’t mention is how the right-leaning DC journos don’t want to be hated. They hang out with other journalists and want to be included. The social pressure in DC is liberal. Always.

Journalists are people (most of them). They want to be liked, included and respected. The way to be a skunk at a garden party is to criticize Democrats or investigate them.

Note also: bloggers and commentary from outside DC tends to be a lot more strident, and, I’d like to add, truthful. That social pressure isn’t there. It’s difficult to write about friends.

Posted in Bias, Political Animals | 4 Comments »

The Suits They Love: Jim Nelson And Jennifer Rubin Will Choose For You

Conservative bloggers outside of the Beltway have been hopping mad at Jennifer Rubin, ostensible conservative journalist (née blogger), for what they perceive as shameless bias against conservatives and conservatism.

Politico wrote a story about her obsessive anti-Rick Perry writing (60 columns!) and apparent coziness with the Romney team.

When Redstate blogger and CNN commentator Erick Erickson noted that he didn’t think Rubin was conservative and likened her political bent to being a member of Likud, the Israeli political party, Rubinfired back:

“You want a Washington Post journalist to comment on an anti-Semitic screed by some blogger?” Rubin asked. “My arms are not long enough to punch down that far.”

This response was giggle-worthy —for a couple of reasons. The smug self-importance while throwing the victim card while, um, punching down, reinforced criticisms rather than countering them.

Erickson went on to apologize for insensitivity, saying he intended the Likud comparison as political shorthand for Rubin’s positions (meaning that she’s good on national security and terror but not much else), not as loyalty to Israel over America.

Jeff Duntz, conservative Jewish blogger at Yid With A Lid would have none of it, “Erick is not the most subtle person around. If he were to make a charge of dual loyalty, the reader would be hit over the head with it.”

He goes further, “..maybe to the readers of the very liberal Washington Post she is a conservative, but to the rest of us conservatives she is nothing more than an arrogant ‘not conservative blogger’ who is not a big fan of either conservatives or bloggers.”

And yet, many of her beltway conservative media friends closed ranks. The defense? They know her. She’s nice.

And while it’s probably true that she’s a nice person, it doesn’t quite address the central criticism: that she’s biased against the conservative cause.

But more on that in a minute.

Last night, a fuming friend presented me a hastily torn out Letter from the Editor from G.Q. Magazine. The editor, Jim Nelson, a former CNN news producer and failed screenwriter vented his overworked spleen against…you guessed it, Rick Perry.

His paragraphs were long and convoluted–the kind of writing you’d expect from someone who has trouble finding the keyboard keys because the anger-induced adrenalin surge would be better suited to outrunning a bear. In this case, Jim Nelson was afraid he couldn’t outrun alpha-male Rick Perry. He’s the bogeyman and he’s coming to get meeee! Here’s a sample:

But I imagine that, come primary time, a lot of GOP voters, hoping to extend a middle finger to Washington, will find that fat little finger in Perry’s hand. Is he crazy? Who isn’t these days? Those throw-the-bums-outers will love Perry’s brand of craziness. He’s like Ron Paul without the diapers.

There’s more where that came from. Michele Bachmann isn’t spared, nor is nearly every mainstream American, forget conservative, idea: Boy Scouting is good, repealing Obamacare is wanted, the Commerce Clause is abused, etc.

Nelson edits a male fashion and lifestyle magazine, and has decided to go down the Graydon Carter road of mistaking his audience for people who care about his leftist opinion about the Republican primary contenders. Here’s the demographics:

TOTAL AUDIENCE: 6,612,000
Median Age: 34.3
Age 18-49: 82%
Median HHI: $72,738
HHI $100,000+: 31%
Gender: Male 73%/Female 27%
Education: Attended/Graduated College+ 70%
Employment Status: Professional 50%
Marital Status: Single 63%/Married 37%

Source: MRI Spring 2011

PROFILE OF AFFLUENT AUDIENCE:
Median Age: 39.9
Median HHI: $157,606
Gender: Male 82%/Female 18%
Education: Attended/Graduated College+ 83%
Employment Status: Professional 70%
Marital Status: Single 38%/Married 62%

Source: MMR 2011

Any guess how this demographic votes? Yeah. It’s no wonder print media of all sorts is losing readership. If the fury I witnessed is any indication, the magazine has lost another subscriber.

Jennifer Rubin writes for the Washington Post. She replaced Dave Weigel, the self-admitted non-conservative who voted for Nader, Kerry, and Obama, in that order. Before going to the WaPo, Jennifer wrote many places but found one of her homes at Pajamas Media, where I also wrote, and sometimes write. Her writing there was fair, and more importantly, balanced.

Conservatives who read her work now wonder why a conservative writer at the WaPo is needed at all—at least a conservative like this one. Far from being a haven of conservative thought, Rubin’s columns are informed by the same fundamental worldview as her liberal compatriots at the newspaper, like Greg Sargent and Ezra Klein—the same worldview which permeates the pages of the Post every day. Call it the “big city mayor” approach to government—or even the Big Brother approach.

To summarize: Government is a benevolent force, lead by intelligent people who will find solutions for the folks who don’t know better.

Unabashedly conservative politicians—particularly those who come from rural, southern, or western backgrounds—provoke panic for people with this worldview.

Whenever pundits like Jim Nelson or Jennifer Rubin start to lose it over the rugged individualistic, common sense, rather straight-forward, red-white-and-blue American ethic espoused by someone like Rick Perry, the movie Talladega Nights comes to my mind. Nearly every stereotype of the middle American bumpkin was thrown into that movie. And yet, the movie was a smash hit. Middle Americans, as it turns out, have a sense of humor about themselves.

What Hollywood meant as scorn, the viewers embraced. The jokes on them, smirk those in the know. If numbers mean anything, and in electoral politics and movie theaters, they do, the exact opposite is true.

Unlike the media consumers, members of the Smartypants Set™ most certainly do not have a sense of humor–unless you consider unironic allusions to being the 1% like New York University professor Jay Rosen made while being taped during his journalism class humor. Well. He thought he was funny.

Sensibility saviors and cultural vanguards take their role as gatekeepers for the ignorant masses deadly seriously. And a guy like Rick Perry and all the state-college-educated, gun-toting, Air Force-flying, Bible-loving, NASCAR watching, baseness sticks in the craw of the Smartypants Set™.

They are, as candidate Obama noted, “bitter clingers.” They just won’t let go of their cherished American traditions.

The common people, “provincial” as Jennifer Rubin described Perry, embarrass them. In the end, it’s all about how they feel. And being lead by a commoner, even a highly successful one, does not suit.

So, Jim Nelson has Barack Obama—suave, urbane and best of all, he knows how to wear a suit. And Jennifer Rubin has Mitt Romney—suave, urbane, and best of all, he knows how to wear a suit.

It doesn’t matter if the suit is empty or the suit isn’t conservative. The point is, these people don’t make the cultural elites uncomfortable. They are their people. They speak a language that resonates with news editors and commentators and even Washington Post bloggers journalists.

Increasingly, and regretfully, it’s a language not spoken anywhere but in the cloisters of Higher Ed and newsrooms and Hollywood and worst of all, Congress. It’s uniform, uninformed and anything but inclusive. There’s little diversity of thought, if any, and the unifying theme is “We know better than you.”

The tenor of the language is getting increasingly shrill and hysterical.

Jim Nelson’s screed was ill-thought out and tinged with paranoia.

Jennifer Rubin’s repeated bashing has become strangely personal. In her case, the willingness to print every spurious rumor as fact as long as it maligns Rick Perry (while ignoring nearly every other Republican candidate) is neither very objective nor very journalistic–well, not in the romantic journalist-as-objective-reporter nonsense she ascribes to.

Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky New York University journalism professors, and in Shirky’s case, a consultant to the New York Times spoke of how the New York Times created Barack Obama. Together they gloated and spoke of Chardonnay and shaping the news to diminish conservatives and elevate liberals.

Here’s the real takeaway: The media is neither objective nor in touch with the culture they seek to shape. They, like Obama, believe America, and especially conservative America, is fundamentally flawed. They don’t see a distinction between your average evangelical churchgoer and a snake-handler. They seek to poison the well for any politician or person espousing conservative ideology even in the face of the abject failure of their own.

This worldview is detached, egotistic and condescending. And as long as people who ascribe to it are allowed to dictate who is an acceptable leader and who isn’t, we’ll always end up with empty suits.

Updated already:

Here’s Jennifer Rubin’s latest.

Posted in America, Bias, Conservatives, Entertain Me, Liberals, Movies, Political Animals | 3 Comments »

Erick Erickson Describes Dave Weigel’s Role At The WaPo–UPDATED: The Anthropologist Responds

There are a few reporters out there who view conservatives with the mystified wonderment (in contrast to bald-faced hostility by most reporters)–such strange, exotic creatures, conservatives–and their reporting reminds me of anthropology reports given in National Geographic.

“The natives have strange rituals: they show up at Tea Party events with hand drawn posters and seem to really believe the government is too big but on the whole seem naive and rather dull-witted. They are friendly enough, for racist, bigoted, homophibic, Nazi criminals.”

That is Dave Weigel: A nice guy when he’s not patting you on your silly little naive head. Erick Erickson describes him here:

In fact, if you go through Dave’s archives you’ll find a slew of stories from the most recent one as I write to others that no one on the right really cares about, but people on the left who see the right collectively as fringe will eat up. And that’s the whole point of why he’s there.

There’s nothing unique about this situation. If the job is to cover the right from “inside the conservative movement,” that’s not actually happening. It’s like they put Weigel in a gorilla costume to infiltrate some gorillas in the mist and he stumbled into the wrong camp and is now reporting on activity completely unrelated to what actually matters. Never mind that the Washington Post’s online coverage of conservatives reflects a view that gorillas are more civilized than conservatives. And never mind that Weigel’s reporting is clouded with the groupthink you get among up-and-coming self-styled thinker/journalists who live together in D.C., are out to have an impact, but have never lived outside the clique. Insular groupthink journalism isn’t just useless because it doesn’t talk about what’s really going on, but because it only exists to coo at the pet ideas of the epistemic closure elites, usually preceded by a Media Matters press release to help direct their path.

Sure, Dave Weigel is a nice guy. But don’t treat his reporting from “inside the conservative movement” as serious when he clearly is not on the inside. He’s there because of what he wrote for publications funded by Tim Gill and George Soros, he’s there to track the fringe, to make the fringe look like the middle, and to dig in on agenda-based topics which kowtow to the narrow views of DC elites. His smarter readers know that’s the case, and are just there to enjoy the ride — the only one who seems to think otherwise is the adolescent naif Ezra Klein, late of the Center for American Progress, who doesn’t have any journalistic incentive to be objective toward the right or even passably fair.

Like Erick, I like Dave Weigel–in the same way I liked the trained Siberian Tigers at the Sigfried and Roy show: they look interesting and exotic, but are extraordinarily dangerous–as poor Roy learned the hard way. A journalist is a wild animal with an appetite for conservative meat and should be interacted with that way–always.

I do not expect Dave to be unbiased or fair. I do not expect him to defend a conservative point-of-view, ever, and therefore, I’m not disappointed or offended when he snaps off some pithy, demeaning, diminishing remark about conservatives or conservatism generally.

When he says something sufficiently irritating, I might respond, but mostly, I suppress the urge as it’s useless. Joking at a conservative’s expense and yucking it up is easy peasy. Everyone does it. So trendy.

So no, I don’t take Dave Weigel seriously. I think he’s a gifted writer and has interesting insight. He has an sophisticated mind and I enjoy talking to him. But he’s as ideologically left as the rest, he’s just willing to lower himself to hang with the natives from time to time. And he’s welcome to do so. Conservative people treat him with more kindness because he is willing to at least publicly view conservatives as a species of human. When it comes down to it though, his reporting sounds like reports from the out-back bush.

It would be fascinating to see what conservative, inside the conservative mind, reporting would look like. Too exotic for the Washington Post, that notion. Better stick with blogs.

UPDATED:

Dave Weigel responds to Erick and me here:

What I try to do is understand why the people I cover are doing what they’re doing — where an idea comes from, where a grudge comes from, where a “meme” (like Greece playing the role of “dark future that socialism will bring us” that France used to play).

Sometimes I sympathize with what’s going on. Sometimes I’m critical. I try to be open about that. But the people who talk to me know I’ll accurately report what they’re doing, and my report can either be used by some liberal to attack “those wacky conservatives” or used by some conservative to get a newsy take on something in the movement.

In his own way, I think Dave is agreeing with my assessment of his role. The thing is, Ezra Klein writes from within the neosocialist movement on the left. He writes as one of them. So even when he disagrees, his affection for the ideology shines through pure and clear.

The WaPo has no such conservative kind-eyes. Dave looks at the conservative movement with interest and to clarify and/or critique but not to defend or explain. And that’s the difference.

Posted in Bias, Blogging | 1 Comment »

Extreme Prejudice: How The Media Is Getting Worse…If That’s Even Possible

The gulf is destroyed. Where are the pictures of sick manatees you ask. Well, we haven’t seen them. Terrorists are ramping up rhetoric and action. The President decided to make public our secret ballistic missile tests. Meanwhile, he’s also unveiling, after 17 months, some kind of foreign policy plan. Questions about that? Nope, we’re talking about Rand Paul’s political fumbling and whether or not he’s a racist–underlying subtext: Republicans are racist. Subtext of subtext: All white people are racist. Still.

And that, my friends, is what passes for political commentary these days.

The media aren’t just lapdogs, they are slobbering morons walking the plank for the Democrat and Obama agenda.

Just when I think it can’t get worse or more superficial or more insane, it does. And I expect that as the Democrats see power leaching away will turn into psychotic demonizers and the press will happily carry the narrative, no matter how inane, because they love the Democrat ideology and love selling it.

The media are idea merchants and they have a story to sell. It’s not the story that anyone wants to buy, but they’re selling it anyway. And the fact is, they are VERY GOOD at their jobs. People don’t even notice the lopsided, biased coverage. They are too busy surviving.

But even with all this help, Democrats are in a precarious place and they know it.

Just to lay out the positions, so that when you see a news story you’ll have heard it before:

White people bad.

Men bad.

Everyone who disagrees with President: racist.

Teaparty: racist.

Arizona: racist.

Kentucky: racist.

Red state at all: racist.

Vote for anyone but a Democrat: racist.

Republicans stupid unless they’re way moderate in which case they’re stupid b/c they don’t just become Democrats.

Oil spill mishandling: not Obama’s fault.

Terrorism: not Obama’s fault.

Economy: not Obama’s fault.

Tennessee tonedeafness: not Obama’s fault.

Business: bad.

Government: good.

Banks: bad.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: good.

Wall Street: bad.

Main Street: bad if they disagree with Obama, good for political purposes.

Russia, Iran, China, Venezuela, Cuba: Good.

Britain, India, France, Poland, ally: Bad.

Muslims: Good.

Christians: Bad.

Jews: Satan’s foot soldiers.

Basically everything good in the world comes from Democrats and especially his royal highness President Barack Obama. Everything bad in the world comes from anyone who disagrees with him.

Got it? Okay, the media can be subtle sometimes, so just wanted to spell it out for you.

More here.

Posted in Bias | 26 Comments »

Meanwhile, We STILL Don’t Know What President Obama Was Up To When He Disappeared For A Couple Hours?

Where was President Obama, since he wasn’t at his daughter’s soccer game, and why isn’t the press asking?

What’s more concerning is that no one can confirm if the Secret Service even accompanied Obama on his adventure. Furthermore, let’s look at the elapsed time. If the president left the White House at 9:20AM as reported, according to Mapquest, it takes about sixteen minutes to get from the White House to 40th and Chesapeake NW, bringing his arrival time to the field at 9:36AM or so. But then he would have had to leave the field at the latest at 10:00AM to return to the White House at the documented time of 10:17AM. So he spent about twenty minutes at the game? When did the game end? That time is vague as well.

With all of the technology that people have — iPhones, Blackberries — not one person took a photo of Obama? And the press didn’t get a shot of him getting into his vehicle? Obama loves the cameras, and this is what he looks like at his daughter’s soccer game.

Even three days later, there are still no pictures of the president from Saturday’s game. The USA just disarmed to Russia, Poland’s president and 95 others were killed hours before, and there were many international leaders in Washington, D.C. for the nuclear summit set to begin on Monday, April 12.

And we shouldn’t raise even more questions on his whereabouts? According to the MSM, the answer is yes.

We still don’t know the answer to questions number one: Where was he?

We do know the answer to question number two: They are President Obama’s lap and attack dogs.

Posted in Barack Obama, Bias | 7 Comments »

Daily Caller Hit Piece On RNC Chairman Michael Steele Gets It Wrong?

Today, Jonathan Strong of the Daily Caller headlines with an article titled “High flyer: RNC Chairman Steele suggested buying private jet with GOP funds”. He asserts the following:

Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

Someone with knowledge of the RNC meeting with Jonathan Strong responded:

“We are investigating the expenditure in question. The story willfully and erroneously suggests that the expenditure in question was one belonging to the Chairman. This was a reimbursement made to a non-committee staffer. The Chairman was never at the location in question, he had no knowledge of the expenditure, nor does he find the use of committee funds at such a location at all acceptable. Good reporting would make that distinction crystal clear. The committee has requested that the monies be returned to the committee and that the story be corrected so that it is accurate.”

In addition, the source vehemently denies many of the elements included in the story, including whether Chairman Steele declined interview requests, details around flights, etc.

The interesting thing about this piece? It’s written by a supposedly right-leaning web magazine [Full disclosure: I have written an editorial for Daily Caller.] Why would the Daily Caller writer want to portray the Chairman as having been to a strip club when it’s not the case? A damaging investigative piece of journalism should be tight and accurate.

It almost seems as if the right-leaning Webzine is trying to gain credibility with liberal news outlets and is willing to do so on the backs of their own ideological brethren. Or maybe they’re in the hip pocket of a conservative who doesn’t like Chairman Steele. Either way, this story may be another example of the right carelessly destroying their own.

No doubt, more details will be forthcoming.

Posted in Bias, Democrats, Political Animals | 6 Comments »

Ontario Bans Coulter: School Trying To Create A “Safe Place”

My brother called me to ridicule Canada in general and the decision to ban Ann Coulter in particular. Here is what really got him going:

Rita Valeriano was one of several protesters inside the hall who, with chants of “Coulter go home!” shouted down the International Free Press Society of Canada organizer who was addressing the crowd.

Valeriano, a 19-year-old sociology and women’s studies student, said later that she was happy Coulter was unable to speak the “hatred” she had planned to.

“On campus, we promise our students a safe and positive space,” she said. “And that’s not what (Coulter) brings.”

They want to create a “safe and positive space” all the while screaming hateful slogans against Coulter.

Also, what childish silly people. Where are they? Kindergarten? It sounds like they’re talking about preschoolers here….which may be the case.

If kids get mommy and daddy’s health care until they’re 26, at 18 their baby ears are probably too delicate to hear a diverse opinion.

Posted in Bias, Islam, Isms, Not America | 5 Comments »

New York Times Deifies Obama

From the New York Times the Obama Jesus. Says Jammie Wearing Fool [photo at link]:

Not content to show Obama with a halo, the New York Times is now creating images of him with a cross in the background.

Good grief. I guess the separation of church and state no longer applies when it comes to The Sainted One.

This is the definition of sacrilege. But I’m not sure the editors at the New York Times know God–that’s why they’re fooled by Obama.

Posted in Barack Obama, Bias, Christianity | 2 Comments »

Joblessness: Bad News Is Unexpected News

When bad things happen during the Obama administration it’s always so “unexpected”. The latest round of unexpectedly unexpected news was in the jobs arena. The AP reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of newly laid-off workers filing initial claims for jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week, evidence that layoffs are continuing and jobs remain scarce.

The rise is the fourth in the past five weeks. Most economists hoped that claims would resume a downward trend that was evident in the fall and early winter.

The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 480,000. Wall Street economists had expected a drop to 460,000, according to Thomson Reuters.

The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, rose for the third straight week to 468,750.

The figure is the highest in the past two months. Initial claims dropped sharply in late December, raising hopes among economists that layoffs were nearing an end and the economy would soon start generating net gains in jobs.

Why one might think that the easing of joblessness in December (people STILL lost jobs) was due to seasonal hirings and that now, those people and many, many more don’t have jobs.

One would think that, if they weren’t a press person who had their heads so far up the administration’s financial guru’s rear that he too was blinded by Obama’s light.

The American people find this “unexpected” news laughable. It’s what they see all around them. And they don’t expect things to get better any time soon.

If this was the Bush administration, the recession would be called The 2nd Great Depression.

The jobless numbers are disheartening. There are reasons they’ll continue to get worse. And it will continue to be unexpected because any bad news surrounding the Obama administration is unexpected.

It’s going to get worse, morons. There are so many reasons in the underlying economy (commercial mortgage loan resets, increasing home defaults, scaling back work force–many companies cut salaries, not employees, etc.) for bad, not good, things to happen.

Layer on to the actual economy the administration’s mixed messages and outright hostility toward business, and you have an EXPECTEDLY unstable economic environment.

The jobless woes should surprise no one.

Posted in America, Barack Obama, Bias, Economy | 2 Comments »

John and Elizabeth Edwards Legally Split Today

Buried today in the news of the State of the Union and the Apple iPad this:

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who admitted last week that he fathered a child with a videographer, separated Wednesday from his wife, Elizabeth, according to a source close to her.

Edwards, 56, denied he was the infant’s father for more than a year, saying his affair with Rielle Hunter was over before she became pregnant.

The former U.S. senator from North Carolina unsuccessfully sought the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Elizabeth Edwards’ sister, Nancy Anania, told People magazine in an article dated Wednesday that Elizabeth told her, “I’ve had it. I can’t do this. I want my life back.”

The sister told the magazine, “She’s got cancer and has young children and totally believes in marriage … but she can only do so much.”

And there’s a sex tape. Of course. And it won’t get released “unless he needs the money.”

AND, John Edwards hates “fat rednecks:”

Young also writes that Edwards, who billed himself as the modest son of a mill worker, hated making appearances at state fairs where “fat rednecks try to shove food down my face. I know I’m the people’s senator, but do I have to hang out with them?”

You wouldn’t have heard this story if it weren’t for the MSM. But they’re no biased. Nosiree…

Posted in Bias, Democrats, Liberals, Political Animals | 1 Comment »