Responding to readers' complaints that the Washington Post was biased towards Barack Obama during the campaign that just ended, Deborah Howell said:

The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barcack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts 

Judging by the comments I've heard today and the recommendations given to certain posts, it's evident to me that TPM readers do not like Nancy Pelosi, and you know what happens when TPM'ers don't like someone: They won't just point out their flaws, but will also make shit up about them.

A reader aptly named Crazy4Obama today falsely states that Nancy Pelosi just said "there is no room for Obama's health care reform."

The golden rule for hate-diaries is: Do not provide links, as these links may reveal the true words of the punching bag. Had we been linked to an article quoting Pelosi's exact words, we would have learned that Pelosi said that because of its cost, health care reform should be a long term, not a short term goal:

"We have to choose our priorities very carefully according to what is achievable," she said. "Some of the issues may have short-term solutions, but many of them require long term attention," Pelosi said. "We need to do them right. If you are talking about access to health care, we have to think in a comprehensive way."

 

Our times demand a centrist style of government, and Barack Obama knows it.

Economists expect the federal deficit to grow to about $700 billion next year, with a worst-case scenario of $1 trillion, thanks to the Bush administration policies. Consequently, Obama's main plans should be put off indefinitely until our nation can undo the damage, especially in view of the fact that his programs would significantly increase the debt by hundreds of billions of dollars by the next few years, according to bipartisan estimates.

Once the nation is no longer broke then we can start veering left and spend, spend, spend. Maybe this will be accomplished late into the first term. Perhaps we'd have to elect Obama for a second term to achieve this goal. Either way, common sense must prevail.

America already confronted a similar dilemma in the early 90's when Bush Sr., much like his son, got us into deep debt. Enter Bill Clinton, who chose to follow a resonable, centrist approach, reducing spending and cancelling his plans to give a big tax cut to the middle class.

And it worked. Indeed, Obama seems poised to saturate his cabinet with Clinton gurus. They must have done something right.

You might ask, "What about the troops in Iraq? Should Obama still press for quick withdrawal? And I say yes, but beware of supposing that we can pay for everything by simply pulling out of there. To put things in context, consider the fact that the pullout would save us around $90 billion a year, while our budget deficit currently stands at nearely half a billion dollars.

I hear talk of an "aggressive" agenda being imminent, whereas Nancy Pelosi advocates centrism. For the reasons stated above, Pelosi is right; and I exhort the leftmost members of TPM and other online communities to take it easy and refrain from putting unnecessary pressure on Obama, as he cannot pull money out of his ass.



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Many in the right expected a better-than-predicted showing by John McCain yesterday because of the "Bradley effect," a chimerical phenomenon that can be briefly described as follows: In a contest between a black and a white candidate, the white candidate will outperform poll estimates because many white poll respondents, out of fear of being seen as racist, falsely claim to plan to vote for the African American.

The theory, which was never proved since it was based on very insufficient evidence, was dealt a fatal blow yesterday when McCain failed to significantly exceed final poll expectations.

On the other end of the spectrum, some in the left went as far as predicting "massive fraud," in the form of voter roll scams. One such alarmist is the distinguished RFK Jr. Let it be known that I respect and admire RFK Jr., but as the top progressive blogger Glen Greenwald noted today,

in all 10 swing states, Obama outperformed what the final polls predicted, meaning that there ended up being a better result in counted votes for Obama than the polls anticipated.

This fact, in addition to the absence of voter fraud in '06 or in yesterday's congressional elections, indicate that fraud-related paranoia as of late has been unfounded.

Update: To be fair, I will also mention the ACORN "scandal".  ACORN's faulty registrations seem not to have translated into voter fraud, judging by McCain's concession and lack of accusations coming from the Republican party.

The TPM member who goes by the name of "Kevin Cassidy" made it clear yesterday that he does not trust doctor letters when it comes to the presidential and vice-presidential candidates' health. He wants the entire set of medical records.

"She certainly seems perfectly healthy to me. But its not really the same as publicly releasing her medical records," said Cassidy yesterday in reference to the two-page summary released yesterday in the form of a letter by Sarah Palin's doctor vouching for her good health (my emphasis).

Similarly, the member "Oscar the Grout," belittled the letter: "What medical records? Oh. You mean the letter from her doctor."

Which makes it only logical to infer that these members do not trust the letter released by Obama's doctor back in May, which by the way, was half as long as Palin's:

LA Times, 5-30-2008: The overview was contained in a one-page letter with no supporting documentation. "With no surgery or hospital stays, this is a complete summary of his doctor visits and medical records for the past two decades," said campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki

Not enough, Barack. Cassidy and Oscar want it all. No ifs, no buts. A letter doesn't cut it; unless of course, these two are hypocrites who subscribe to a point of view only when it favors his candidate and/or affects a candidate from the opposing party.

Another example of reader hypocrisy was recently documented here, and narrates in detail how Matt Drudge was treated like a beacon of journalism during the primaries when he hated TPM nemesis Hillary Clinton, until he turned against Obama, whereupon the gossip-monger suddently became the typical sloppy, discredited pseudo-journalist that he always was.

Bravissimo, Cassidy and Oscar. You have abandoned partisanship to courageously demand that both your favorite and non-favorite candidates fully release their medical records (I assume).



Hypocrites.

Highly recommended posts warn of massive fraud, but...

• Who in their right mind would attempt to steal an election from a guy who leads in every poll, and the lead is 8% in average? The leading candidate's loss would stand out like a sore thumb. This is not 2000, when things were predicted to be extremely tight. That competitiveness facilitated fraud perpetrated by the Republican party.
• If the powers-that-be control the evil voting machines, why didn't they steal the 2006 congressional elections? Or why didn't they at least seek to minimize the Democrats' huge victory back then? Did they decide to take a break from being evil? Or did the machines unexpectedly work fine?
  
• Why has John Kerry never said the elections were stolen from him in '04?
• Why hasn't Obama ever spoken about the stolen 2004 elections?
  

• Why haven't Democratic leaders impugned the current electoral system along with its voting machines and registration procedures?

Relax.

There will be no surprises tomorrow.

The following discouraging conditions were found:

1-) Trig is hers.
2-) She's in excellent health condition.
3-) A growth she had in her breast in 1992 was benign.

Discouraging for TPM, Daily Kos, America Blog, and other non-classy blogs, that is.

link

In other words I predict Obama will win by 6.5% to 9.5%, with my best bet being 8%. This prediction is based closely on what I consider to be the strongest election prediction tool: the RCP poll average, which right now it stands at 7.5% but I moved it up a bit to 8% to account for possible underestimation of the African American vote.

In this post I will only mention by name those battleground states whose outcomes I feel certain about.

Obama will not lose any states won by Kerry, obviously. He will flip several red states, including IA, VA and CO and others.

IN, GA and AZ will go for McCain, contrary to the opinion of some.

I just don't see him beating the Republican in his red home state, regardless of the victory margin.

Admittedly, Indiana is on its way to turn blue, but not yet. It goes to McCain.