Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier posted the following article shortly after Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic Convention Tuesday evening.

http://news.yahoo.com/...

    Just about everyone here is well aware that the myth of McCain as honest principled maverick is very different from the reality - and still reigns supreme in the media narrative.

The media still seem to be absolutely determined to keep this image of McCain up. It’s as if they find it impossible to alter their framing of him to fit the facts. The truth I suspect is that they don’t want to change for a variety of reasons whether it be laziness a corporate desire to see McCain succeed or simply the fact that the narrative just seem that much more interesting when one of the protagonists is an independent action hero, as keen as they were in assisting the undermining of Kerry in 2004 the same just does not appear to happening this time round.

If this were to continue to remain unchallenged through November I think you'd find that McCain would receive many votes primarily based on this myth , of a bipartisan moderate honest and principled man.

The Wise Old Republican Party is urging Americans to be suspicious of rhetoric.  

I don't usually agree with the Republicans on much, but I have to agree with them on this point -- words can be used to trick people.  Words can be used to deceive voters into supporting someone or something that they should not support.  

By some cruel twist of fate -- both propaganda and truth are spread by words.  I know, I've looked this fact up.

It is vitally important to keep this fact in mind when evaluating news.  

Hurray for the Republicans for finally saying something that makes sense!  

See the CNN story below the fold:

Back in the good old days, when my family could afford seats between 3rd and home base at Fenway Park for several games during the baseball season, I would yell, "Out of the ballpark, Nomar!" while Garciaparra adjusted his batting gloves.  

Now, with the economy the way it is and inflation, I will have to settle for just 2 tickets in the bleacher seats I won in a leap year contest, for which I fashioned a tasty & adorable frog out of cookies, green frosting, and toppings at my school.

I'm rooting for Michelle to score a homerun for the team tonight.

Just like I'm no expert on how to hit a homer, I'm not a political speech writer, so I can't offer any pointers.

However, I have been paying attention to how the special interests, who control the media, have tried to pitch Michelle.  I've seen the tar residue, the spin, and the schmutz.

Having studied physics, I find loaded baseballs very interesting and have provided a link to this fascinating article, How To Throw the Goopball: The physics of baseball's most popular illegal pitches.

So, John McCain has reminded us all that there was a time in his life when he didn't have seven kitchen tables to choose to eat at - during the 5 1/2 years he spent in a POW camp.

Now, of course, everyone is up in arms about that, saying that he uses his POW status as an excuse for everything - listening to the questions ahead of time at Saddleback, owning more houses than most people have rooms, etc.

Well, let me remind you all that there was a time when John McCain couldn't simply wave everything away by referring to his 5 1/2 in a POW camp - during his 5 1/2 years in a POW camp.

A Gaffe, is supposed to be ". . . what happens when the spin breaks down." Or so Michael Kinsey said in Time Magazine, Feb 08, 2007.http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1587283,00.html
Well, every now and then a gaffe reveals a better truth than any spin, and is not something to shun. . .

As our civil liberties erode, the most obvious targets for related harassment are going to be Democratic politicians. We already see how the Bush administration is abusing it's abilities to perform domestic spying with the revelation that Elliot Spitzer was client #9, in that hardly anyone in the wingnut camp seems to think it's strange that we have yet to find out the identities of clients 1 through 8. Yesterday's "breaking" "news" of an affair that occurred and (as per the wife of the man in question, was also ended) in 2006 is another fine example of a scandal bomb. Just as a reminder 2006 was two, count 'em, TWO years ago.

Meanwhile, ABC - joining those bulwarks of intelligent and responsible journalism, the National Enquirer (eyeroll) to "break" this stale "news" - is STILL sitting on the client list of the DC madam, but we have yet to learn of any Republicans who might be on that list.

More below the fold...

There has been a lot of hyperventilating recently with the new Quinnipiac polls showing McCain gaining strength in several key swing states, including surpassing Obama for the first time in my own state of Colorado.

Breathless MSM outlets have siezed upon this one set of polls to push the false meme that McCain is catching up.

But the MSM reality seems to be an alternate reality. If we take a more holistic look at the situation, another side of the story emerges. Even as the Wall Street Journal tries depserately to zero in on statistically insignificant details of their own new poll to spin reality towards some kind of "good news" for their preferred conservative candidate they can not escape their own poll results.

To begin with, I've gotta send a shout out to Elise for her great post tonight about "The Anatomy of a Smear".  And that's the launching point for my thoughts today.

I'll put it to you straight:

John McCain thinks you're stupid.

More after the jump...

Barack Obama : is he opposed to war (as he was in 2007) or against the war (as he says he is now) or ending the war (as he will be in 2009). For someone is supposed to be able to talk good, he sure seems to be prone to editing.

A simple, straightforward statement by the Obama campaign justifying its decision to forego federal funding for his Presidential campaign could blow his critics out of the water, and actually make John McCain look bad.

The statement after the jump:

Many people have been noting McCain/Anti-Obama talking points and narratives, saying we need to change the narrative.  I have a few ideas for how to change the narratives currently at play in MSM, conservative, republican and independent circles.  I will post them below in separate responses so they can be responded to individually.  But first, a few general comments about narratives in general, and an overall strategy:

I've long held and believed that America, her citizens, are undergoing a dramatic change in their ability to consume and analyze media. It is a natural consequence of the digital age. If we are to be bombarded by media twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, it only makes sense that we would be able to chew up and spit out what we know to be unauthentic, what we know to be lies, and we can no longer be manipulated by the mainstream media, despite their well organized, concerted efforts.

It is amazing the litany of excuses Clinton supporters use for why she lost.  Non of them ever have anything to do with the poor campaign she run.  The amazingly incompetent strategy.  The amazingly incompetent mismanagement.

I want to use this diary to review the The Shorenstein Center and the Project for Excellence in Journalism's new report on press coverage of the primary election.

First... I don't want to be a poor winner.  But, I refuse to pander to Clinton supporters and pretend I'm not jubilant in victory.  Progressives have been shut out of every national election in my life time.  We have for the first time in my life time a progressive as presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party.  This is a time to celebrate.

I know there are those among Clinton's supporters who are good progressives and good feminists who legitimately don't trust that Obama is a progressive and a feminist.  

I think there has to be healing from Clinton's spin.  When politicians try and create a false reality and false consciousness out of whole cloth, recovering from those lies means exposing the facts as can best be determined through the best scientific methods available.  

While the Obama campaign has planned and executed a brilliant political primary campaign on the 50-state strategy front, his campaign is doing very poorly on the front lines of the media battle.

Every day we see a parade of clowns on TV: republicans, Clintonoids, and pundits, but rarely does an Obama supporter ever seem to appear.
This is eerily reminiscent of Kerry's awful media (non)campaign in '04.
There were countless oppurtunities for Kerry to rip the Bush administration a new one, on every issue, but the Kerry folks shirked at every oppurtunity.
Consequently, the rightwing dominated the news and spin, giving people the impression that Kerry was unable to respond because he either had no effective response to begin with, or he was afraid to...

I'm a pretty simple guy, thinking-wise.  Give me nice, neat standards, fair measures of performance.  Don't give me somebody spinning like crazy, because I know that person's compensating for a lack of substance.  

I like a fighter as much as anybody else.  I am a fighter!  Anybody who's gotten into a debate with me know this to be true.  But in my view, there's a difference between being a fighter, and being a good fighter.

Hillary was never expected to lose West Virginia.  She was polled as winning by a two-thirds weeks ago.  She didn't come from behind in that state.  She's trying to get credit for performing as expected.

I wandered over to Redstate to see how they are coping with this evening. You know, the whole losing a R+10 house seat they really should have easily won. (They were in denial for a while, but now are going to not threaten to leave the country, or something. Yeah, they're in denial.) Anyway, I happened upon their Dem primary coverage. It seems that Hillary is now the stronger candidate and

When the sun sets on this election we might have to realize that the media's efforts to set up Obama as the Democrat nominee has been the greatest gift they've ever given to the GOP.

Now, that's quite interesting, considering I remember not too long ago that they were afraid of Obama and wanted to face Clinton. That with her high unapproval ratings and Bill ties she'd be easy. That Republicans of many stripes were voting for her, because she'd be easier to beat. Wasn't that the case in, oh, say, Indiana a week ago?

Who recalls the zeitgeist around the time of the 2006 mid-term elections?  It was all but a foregone conclusion that regardless of who the Democrats ran in '08 or who the Republicans ran in '08, it was going to be a damning indictment on the Bush Administration and Democratic victory was just a given.  Fast forward a few years and what do we have before us now?  A real nail biter of a presidential battle building between McCain and the Dems nominee.  Whaaaaa?????  How did this happen in such a short time?  Did McCain suddenly find his populist message that most of mainstream America embraces and yearns for?  Did some or all of the Democratic candidates jump the shark?  Was there a huge scandal, a major revelation or an act of God?  Not hardly.