Not long ago, I was under the impression that Sebelius from Kansas would be the pick in order to prevent a backlash against women who might be upset if a woman were left out of the race.

Even Caroline Kennedy's name was floated by Michael Moore.

But now, it looks like it will an all-male battle.
Hopefully women will not be bothered by this choice.

And I'm not talking about TPM women, who are hard-core Democrats who will support any male short of Joe Lieberman as long as they have a (D) next to their name. I'm talking about women in general.

We'll see.

Last week at the Saddleback forum, John McCain and Barack Obama each told a joke about the definition of "rich."
But Keith Olbermann, in his classic  flawed way of thinking described today by progressive media critic Bob Somerby as "flinging poo," did the following: 1) Ignored Obama's joke and 2) Pretended McCain was serious.

First, Obama's joke, when asked to define "rich":

OBAMA: You know, if you've got book sales of $25 million, then you qualify—

[LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE]

WARREN: No, I'm not asking about me!

Now McCain's joke:

WARREN: OK, on taxes, define "rich." Everybody talks about taxing the rich, but not the poor, the middle class. At what point—give me a number, give me a specific number—where do you move from middle class to rich? Is it $100,000, is it $50,000, is it $200,000? How does anybody know if we don't know what the standards are?

MCCAIN: Some of the richest people I've ever known in my life are the most unhappy. I think that rich should be defined by a home, a good job, an education and the ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one that we inherited. I don't want to take any money from the rich—I want everybody to get rich.

(LAUGHTER)

I don't believe in class warfare or re-distribution of the wealth. But I can tell you, for example, there are small businessmen and women who are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week that some people would classify as—quote—"rich," my friends, and want to raise their taxes and want to raise their payroll taxes.

Let's have—keep taxes low. Let's give every family in America a $7,000 tax credit for every child they have. Let's give them a $5,000 refundable tax credit to go out and get the health insurance of their choice. Let's not have the government take over the health care system in America.

(APPLAUSE)

So, I think if you are just talking about income, how about $5 million?
(LAUGHTER)

But seriously, I don't think you can—I don't think seriously that—the point is that I'm trying to make here, seriously—and I'm sure that comment will be distorted.

And, my friend, it was not taxes that mattered in America in the last several years. It was spending. Spending got completely out of control. We spent money in way that mortgaged our kids' futures.

(APPLAUSE)

My friends, we spent $3 million of your money to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Now I don't know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue—

(LAUGHTER)

But the point is, it was $3 million of your money. It was your money. And, you know, we laugh about it, but we cry—and we should cry because the Congress is supposed to be careful stewards of your tax dollars. So what did they just do in the middle of an energy crisis when in California we are paying $4 a gallon for gas? Went on vacation for five weeks. I guarantee you, two things they never miss—a pay raise and a vacation—and we should stop that and call them back and not raise your taxes. We should not and cannot raise taxes in tough economic times.

So, it doesn't matter really what my definition of "rich" is because I don't want to raise anybody's taxes. I really don't. In fact, I want to give working Americans a better shot at having a better life, and we all know the challenges, my friends, if I could be serious. Americans tonight in California and all over America are sitting at the kitchen table—recently and suddenly lost a job, can't afford to stay in their home, education for their kids, affordable health care. These are tough problems. These are tough problems. You talk to them every day—

WARREN: All the time.

MCCAIN: Every day. My friends, we've got to give them hope and confidence in the future. That's what we need to give them, and I can inspire them. I can lead, and I know that our best days are ahead of us.

(APPLAUSE)

WARREN: All right. Thank you.

But the point is that we want to keep people's taxes low and increase revenues.

Despite Olbermann's ineptitude and propensity to the use of double standards, Josh Marshall earns the top honor. Somerby goes on:

We won’t attempt to capture all the chimp-like work on display today—although if you like seeing poo flung about, we’ll recommend Josh Marshall’s efforts.

Apparently, more about Marshall's and Olbermann's atrocious analysis will be covered tomorrow at the Daily Howler. Don't miss it!

There had been surprisingly little spoken about Tony Rezko since the primaries ended, until now that the McCain camp has published a video slamming Barack Obama's connections with felon Tony Rezko.

This one's gonna leave a mark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjC2AlWy6CI

I kid you not. Today, the New York Times' Hillary-obsessed lunatic Maureen Dowd writes a mini-novel in which she invents a conversation between the Clintons and John McCain.

At one point, Maureen comes up with a conspiracy theory so wild that it had not yet been invented by Josh Marshall or some anonymous, paranoid, evidence-free Daily Kos diarist: Bill Clinton, Dowd claims, told his friend Vladimir Putin to convince Russian PM Medvedev to start a war in the caucasus in order to hurt Obama's chances:

"I have a little secret to tell you about that, John. Bill made it happen. He loves you so much. He called Putin and told him that if he invaded Georgia, he could count on being invited to the Clinton Global Initiative every year for the rest of his life.”

In addition to her little theory, the oddball continued to call Obama names, this time in the form of an imaginary exchange in which Hillary calls Obama,"Twig Legs," and "Skinny" (she never called him that. It's an excuse for Dowd to use the terms):

“Don’t worry, John, I’ve put it behind me,” Hillary replies. “I’m looking toward the future now, a future that looks very bright, once we send Twig Legs back to the back bench.”

Let's not forget that a week ago, Dowd referred to Obama as "Beanpole Kid," and "Barry."

Some might argue that Dowd was just joking, but sorry, no. Stephen Colbert is a comedian. Jon Stewart is a comedian. Dowd is part of the opinion page of one of the largest newspapers in the nation.

The behavior described above prompted media critic Bob Somerby to write a critique last week headlined "YES, SHE CAN! Maureen Dowd keeps calling Obama names–and stays far away from McCain," which I recommend highly.

As you may have noticed, making stuff about Hillary (or Bill) Clinton was easy as pie.

Why? Because if for example, TPM, the Daily Kos, the Huffington Post or any other pro-Obama outlets felt like saying that by "fairy tale" Bill Clinton meant to attack Obama's persona without noting that Bubba actually referred to Obama's Iraq war position, virtually no one would have contradicted the false claim, because almost everyone in the media (left, center and right) hated, still hate, and will always hate the Clintons with passion.

Now it's different. When McCain is accused of racism, for instance, his camp hits back with race-baiting accusations against Barack Obama (see dollar bill-gate); and in this case, the corporate media is more than willing to amplify McCain's response instead.

Consider this: Media Matters was practically alone in clarifying the lie that Hillary Clinton had become a Yankee fan only shortly before she ran for the New York Senate.
Do you recall Josh Marshall defending Clinton with regard to this lie? Of course not, because to him and other rabid  pro-Obama bloggers, the end justified the means; therefore, fact-checking anti-Clinton lies was not in their to-do list.

Take the Daily Kos' assertion, now proven wrong via TPM, that John McCain had plagiarized words by writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The correction will now likely appear in the Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, Free Republic, New York Post, Rush Limbaugh and other conservative channels.
During the Democratic primaries, however, such correction would have been likely relegated to Media Matters and the fact-checking section of Hillary's website  (The Hillary fact-hub).

Another case in point: If the "celeb" and "The One" ads had been produced by Hillary's camp, she would have likely lost many, many points in her race against Obama, because the right and mainstream media would have pretended to agree with the TPM/Daily Kos/Huffington Post's claim that subliminal messages were used in the aforementioned videos in order to play the race card, thus creating an invincible alliance impossible to overcome. In contrast, as reported today by TPM's Greg Sargent, a new LA Times/Bloomberg poll proves that "McCain's "Celeb" Onslaught Is Working".

Moving on: I will never forget how David Brooks pretended to be in love with Obama until the latter built a delegate lead that was impossible to overcome. Only then did Brooks stop pretending and began to praise Hillary instead, because of course, she was toast anyway and it was time to trash the future Democratic nominee.

Neither will I forget similarly fawning behaviour by the likes of the Weekly Standard and  Peggy Noonan, among other phony "Obama supporters" who are back where they belong: rooting for the Republican candidate.

To summarize, in the absence of the great left/right/mainstream media alliance which was made possible by their common anti-Clinton hatred, the left now finds itself unable to effectively smear John McCain, darling of the right and much of the MSM.

Vote:

a) Hillary Clinton

b) Voting machines

c) The media

d) Bitter hicks who cling to their guns and bibles

e) All of the above

f) Other

Today, The Washington Post's ombudsman Deborah Howell compiled data showing that in the last 10 weeks -- that is, when he became the Democratic nominee -- by a 3:1 ratio, Barack Obama has been featured in front page articles more frequently than John McCain. Howell adds:

"Democrat Barack Obama has had about a 3 to 1 advantage over Republican John McCain in Post Page 1 stories since Obama became his party's presumptive nominee June 4. Obama has generated a lot of news by being the first African American nominee, and he is less well known than McCain -- and therefore there's more to report on. But the disparity is so wide that it doesn't look good." My emphasis.

Overall, Obama dominated all stories 142 to 96 in the same period.

It is thus understandable why a recent Pew poll found that many Americans (48%) believe they have heard "too much" about Obama, in contrast to the 26% who hold the same view about John McCain. The story on the poll in the Pew website was appropriately headlined: "Obama fatigue."

Back to the Washington Post article in question, Howell concluded: "Numbers aren't everything in political coverage, but readers deserve comparable coverage of the candidates."