GOPHers Unite!

After eight years of supporting a presidency that nearly destroyed the American economy, conservatives have now decided that it is time to complain.

Now, not in 2000 when the Supreme Court decided to throw out an election and give the White House to the guy in second place in both the electoral and popular vote. Nor in 2000 when the Democrats were looking to extend the peace and prosperity the country had achieved.

Instead conservatives choose someone who managed to quickly bankrupt the economy through tax cuts and an ill conceived war in Iraq.

So four years later surely the conservatives must have risen up in anger and sought a return to peace and prosperity. No, they turned out in droves to continue the path of deficits and war.

And in 2008, as the economy was falling off the cliff, did they abandon the GOP? For the most part no. Sen. John McCain received 46% of the vote, only 2% less than Gov. Bush received in 2000.

But now, upset that their candidates no longer have the opportunity to lead the country to ruin, they have decided it is time to protest. They say they are afraid of what will happen to the country. Instead they are probably more afraid that just as the Democrats fixed the economy in the 1990s after Bush I, they will fix the economy again after Bush II.

Maybe they need to rename the Republican party from the Grand Old Party to the Grand Old Party of Hypocrites, or GOPHers.

Conservatives as Communists

With a financial crisis facing our economic system and the bailout and basic nationalization of the financial industry, one has has wonder if conservatives feel like communists did in 1989, realizing that history has shown that their basic beliefs led to an economic meltdown.

When the Republicans took over the White House in 2001, and regained the full control of the Senate in 2003, they took over a country with a budget surplus and great economic potential. In eight short years the failures of tax cuts and the need to keep the economy going through artificial and harmful methods (not properly regulating the banking system) conservatives have managed to bring the U.S. economy, and others around the world dangerously close to collapse.

Just as communists protested they weren't at fault during the fall of the Soviet Union, conservatives today say the key to economic recovery is the same methods (tax cuts) that led to the destruction of the economy. What the conservatives don't realize is that many in the public now realize that government regulation is all that separates business from acting recklessly and without regard to the public and the long term interest of the country.

The amazing thing is that the conservatives truly believe that their failed policies were not the cause of today's economic problems. They have looked for other scapegoats, such as homeowners taking on too much debt. After all was it really the financial system role to work with their customers to make sure that they acted responsibly with their assets? Or was their role to make as much money in the short term without regard to whether those actions could lead to the collapse of the system?

Imagine if an autoworker asked their employer for a salary of $1 million saying they would be more productive with the higher salary. Is it the boss's responsibility to truly evaluate the deal or just give the employee the money and worry later if it bankrupts the company?

Most people, and most conservatives, would say the boss would be crazy to pay the $1 million salary, yet on home loans some how it is the homeowner's (employee) fault and not the banker's (boss) fault.

If you can't trust the financial system to act responsible, how can one trust conservatives that their policies, based on the free market, will work?

End of an Error and Era

The ceremonies around the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States contained a number of comparisons to President Abraham Lincoln, no doubt due to the fact that both came to Washington from Illinois and their historic role in changes in race relations.

However the comparisons probably don't include how both presidents brought to an end some of the worst decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. For Lincoln it was the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857 where the Court threw out established law and said that slave owners could take slaves to free states and not grant them freedom.

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a staunch supporter of slavery and intent on protecting southerners from northern aggression, wrote that blacks "might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit."

Eight years later with the conclusion of the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13th and 14th amendments, citizenship now was a possibility, although Southern states would continue to fight to limit rights.

Obama's inauguration effectively ends the courts second worst decision, Bush vs. Gore, where the Court ruled that Florida Supreme Court's method for recounting ballots in the 2000 Presidential election (where going into Florida Al Gore was ahead in both the popular vote and Electoral College) was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, although apparently the variable counting methods for counting ballots was OK.

Just as the Dred Scott Court was unwilling to accept that blacks could be citizens, the Bush Court was unwilling to accept "voter's intent" as a standard for counting votes. The Court itself realized its ruling was flawed and said it should not be used as the basis for future cases.

There should be little surprise that the cases are comparable; President Bill Clinton wrote that "Bush v. Gore will go down in history as one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever made, along with the Dred Scott case."

It took a civil war to start the process to overturn the Dred Scott case and, it just took two elections to overturn Bush vs. Gore. Today it is hard to imagine the beliefs that supported the Dred Scott decision. Eventually it will hard to believe the beliefs that supported Bush vs. Gore.

Show Me the Money

October was a very bad financial month for business, the public and especially for the government, as evidenced by the reports of that the National Debt had topped $10 trillion when the new fiscal year started on October 1.

Amazingly when President Bill Clinton left office in January 2001 the National Debt stood at $5.7 billion, up $1.6 billion from the roughly $4.2 billion debt he inherited. But that means the debt increased $4.3 billion in the eight years of George Bush and in reality much of the Clinton debt was left over from failed policies of the Reagan Bush years. Don't believe it? Check out the following

National Debt (rounded)
Reagan/Bush/Bush - $7.6 Trillion
Clinton - $1.4 Trillion
1791 to 1981 - $1 Trillion

Yes, the Reagan/Bush presidencies are responsible for 76% of the National Debt. And so what do Republican keep saying we need to do? Cut taxes. So let's see, you can't pay your bills so what do you do? Take a cut in pay!

Unfortunately people will look at the 2000 election and wonder why they went with the side that made a good situation bad. While the U.S. economy had problems early in the decade it is hard to believe that we would be looking at a $10 Trillion debt today.

Blinded by the Right

The famous line about statistics that if you torture statistics long enough they will admit to anything was proved true over the weekend in a column by Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell.

No doubt responding to complaints from conservatives that Sen. Barack Obama got better coverage than Sen. John McCain, Ms. Howell got out her ruler and proclaimed, yes! Barack was treated better.

However, as Editor & Publisher quickly pointed out, the way Ms. Howell used her statistics it was unsurprising that she came to the conclusions that she did. First her statistics showed that most of the stories were of the horse race variety (i.e. who was ahead) and since Obama was ahead most of the year, shockingly that meant he got better coverage.

She also found more articles about Obama than McCain. Perhaps she thought either a.) the Post should have stopped covering Obama and the Democrats once McCain wrapped up his nomination in March, or b.) during March through June period McCain should have gotten coverage even though he wasn't in the news. (Perhaps there could have been stories on his exhaustive vice presidential nomination process!)

And third Ms. Howell mentions that there more op-ed pieces favoring Obama. While she noted the Post had several conservatives columnist and not all were gung-ho about McCain, she didn't says some were strongly against her. (You can almost hear the statistics screaming!)

While this may seem trivial, as Greg Mitchell said in E&P It’s an important question because once any conventional wisdom is set, it is almost impossible to dislodge it. One only has to look at the 2000 election where the conventional wisdom that formed was that Al Gore ran a bad campaign, he blew the election, and so forth. Ask anyone that's what they will say.

What most people, such as Ms. Howell, won't say is that the Post, and other media, had quite a hand in giving George Bush the White House through its "War Against Gore." Only in the quiet of books will people like former Post reporter John Harris explain what really happened in 2000.

As Harris explained, A number of members of the Gang of 500 are convinced that the main reason George W. Bush won the White House and Al Gore lost was that Gore’s regular press pack included the trio of Katherine “Kit” Seelye (of the New York Times), Ceci Connolly (of the Washington Post), and Sandra Sobieraj (of the Associated Press).

So where was the paragraph in Ms. Howell story saying "while coverage may have appeared to be more favorable to Mr. Obama, the coverage didn't cost Mr. McCain the White House like the Post's coverage in 2000 cost Mr. Gore the White House"?

Well, Ms. Howell, where is that comment?

Obama Wins!

At 8:32 p.m. Central time, with Ohio and New Mexico called as Obama states, we can now call Sen. Barack Obama President-Elect.

NBC has Sen. Obama with 200 electoral votes and with California (55), Oregon (7), Washington (11), Hawaii (4), and Iowa (7) all viewed as solid Obama states, baring an upset in one of these states of unprecedented measure, he now has more than 270 electoral votes and Obama should be viewed as the 44th President of the United States.

Is Sarah a Socialist?

If Sen. John McCain is so against "spreading the wealth" then I wonder if during a McCain administration he would get rid of things like the GI Bill, the mortgage interest deduction, and stop giving some states more than their share of federal spending.

Would a McCain administration mean what it says about socialism and no longer allow citizens of states like Alaska to pay only $4.8 billion in taxes while receiving $9.2 billion in federal government spending? Talk about socialism and spreading the wealth! Does the Alaska Governor know about this?

Surely the citizens of Massachusetts (who pay $63 billion in taxes yet only receive $55.8 billion in spending) might appreciate Alaska sending their money back to them. Maybe Gov. Palin could work on stopping that unfortunate socialism before her term ends. One of her first tasks could be to return the $260 odd millions Alaska got for that bridge to nowhere that Palin claims she said "No thanks" to.

Gov. Palin has never shown a real interest in news (she couldn't even name the Exxon Valdez Supreme Court case involving Alaska) so perhaps she has no idea that Alaska is a socialist state. According to the Tax Foundation Alaska taxpayers receive more federal funding per dollar of federal taxes paid compared to the average state. Per dollar of Federal tax collected in 2005, Alaska citizens received approximately $1.84 in the way of federal spending.

In addition Alaska citizens share the wealth from royalties from the oil in the state. Should they really be "sharing the wealth"?

So does Gov. Palin know about all of this? Is Sarah a socialist? Maybe the press should ask her. Right, like that will happen. Elizabeth Hasselbeck says the media is sexist for attacking Gov. Palin. In reality the media is sexist for its lack of real questioning of her and her policies.

Despite a few limited interviews she hasn't been seriously questioned, which explains why she continued to claim that she said "No thanks" to the bridge. While this was pointed out, no one was willing to pull a Letterman and truly question her on it.

So will the media "grow a pair" and actually ask Sarah if she is a socialist? Don't hold your breath.

How Dare You Treat Me Like We Treat You!

Based on the whining by the McCain campaign and conservatives they are not happy with the media and Democrats commenting on the types of stories that the GOP used to feast over.

One only has to look at the commotion made over John Edwards' $400 haircut paid for by his campaign and the $150,000 the Republican Party paid to dress up Gov. Sarah Palin.

To Republicans discussing $150,000 is bad because there is so many other things going on, yet they had no plans laughing about the $400 haircut or John Kerry's windsurfing. So focusing on windsurfing is of the utmost importance but talking about $150,000 is bad journalism.

Unfortunately the GOP excels at this type of double standard. If the Democratic Party spent $150,000 on Barrack Obama's clothing would Elizabeth Hasselback be criticizing him?

But the GOP thrives on double standards. Over and over this year the McCain team has made dubious claims that probably win votes because the media won't go after McCain. But to those on the right, the media's role is not to report the news but to promote conservative news, just like Fox News.

Just look at the "Joe the Plumber" story. Originally a YouTube story that went mainstream when McCain pedaled his story during a debate. To conservatives, actually checking out the story was awful. Finding out that there were a lot of holes in his story and, if anything, the story supported Obama.

Yet the mere fact that the media uncovered that Joe would do better under a Obama administration was horrible to the McCain and their crowds who took in the story, hook line and sinker.

The morale of the story? Republicans expect and demand special, and unequal, treatment.

What Took So Long?

Apparently the biggest line of Wednesday's presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama was when McCain's all but said "I know President Bush, I am a friend of President Bush, and Senator, I am no President Bush."

While McCain phrased the line a little differently, his intent was to distance himself, the current GOP nominee, from the current GOP leader, which somehow is supposed to be a good thing. After all, who wants to be compared to the leader of your party?

While throwing the current leader of his party under the bus may have comforted millions who have seen their country suffer under the potentially worst president in American history, one has to wonder why it took McCain so long to figure out Bush was a dud.

If anything the American people should be upset at McCain for his efforts on the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. If McCain were truly a "Maverick" and willing to go against his party he would have supported John Kerry. Instead he worked hard to elect possibly the worst president in American history.

For that reason alone, Obama's comparison of Bush and McCain is worthy. Also if the McCain campaign wants to complain about people Obama "pals" around with, the Obama campaign should point out that it is far more truthful to say that McCain pals around with Bush than Obama pals around with William Ayers.

Perhaps this year voters are actually going beyond cheap applause lines and look at the facts and that is why Obama currently has such a large lead. McCain's over the top accusations are not sticking, and in what probably was actually the best line of the night, Obama noted that it has gotten to the point where even Fox News is now disputing McCain's claims and Obama added "that doesn't happen very often when it comes to accusations about me."

While conservatives may have been energized by McCain's attacks, early post debate polling showed it didn't play well with the American public. CNN and CBS polls both showed the public thought Obama won the debate, giving the Democrats a clean sweep of the debates. It's so bad that after the debate McCain could be heard telling Obama what a good job he did.

Maybe even John McCain has figured out Obama is better than four more years of the same. Why did it take so long?

Is It Over?

Has the 2008 presidential election effectively been decided? This morning Real Clear Politics, which tracks polls from all sources, moved Virginia from the "Toss Up" category to "Leaning" toward Sen. Barack Obama, pushing his estimated total of solid and leaning states to 277, seven more than the 270 required to win the Presidency.

Based on their reviews, Obama has solid support in states with 221 electoral votes and now with Virgina, has states leaning toward him with 56 electoral votes. So the question is, will the five Obama leaning states (Washington, New Mexico, Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin) remain leaning or will they move back to toss up, bringing the campaign back to life?

Even if one of the states move back to toss up, the situation is dire for McCain. If you change the toss up states based on the current polls, Obama would finish with 364 electoral votes and McCain would have 174.

With Virginia now leaning toward Obama McCain is faced with the prospect of winning all tossup states and taking back some Obama states, not an easy prospect and probably the reason he going back on the attack.

McCain Blinks

Did Sen. John McCain walk to the edge of the political abyss Tuesday night and turn back? After watching the presidential debate one has to wonder.

Gone Tuesday night were the ridiculous claims that Sen. Obama pals around with a terrorist; gone were the "who is this guy"; and gone was any mention of his running mate, Sarah "Slimes" Palin. Instead McCain ended up spending a lot of his time talking about another Democratic senator (Lieberman).

While McCain declined to get out of the gutter for a night he did make the comment of the night, pointing to Obama saying "that one," raising questions about just how happy McCain is faced with the prospect of the only way of winning was to go ugly.

With that vision McCain blinked and pulled back from attacking. Some commentators said that the format of the debate prevented him from using personal attacks against Obama.

Dishonesty & Dishonor - or Sarah Slimes

If there is any doubt left regarding that John McCain would do anything or say anything to become president, that doubt was removed on Monday as he unleashed his pit bull to bring their dishonesty to a new level.

Perhaps unwilling to do the heavy lying himself, and perhaps much too busy watching the Dow drop 800 points at one point, he sent Sarah "Slimes" Palin out to criticize someone Obama met and worked with a few times.

Never mind that the relationship McCain had with Phil Gramm was much more odious and destructive for the American economy, McCain has looked at the polls and figured out he is going to lose big time unless he can get the people to stop thinking about issues and focus on the trivial.

The ironic thing is that McCain was the victim in 2000 of ugly and untrue campaigning by (p)resident Bush and one might think McCain would not do onto others as he would wish them to do onto him. Instead he probably was told "either you go dirty or you lose."

And so McCain, he of the "I'd rather lose an election than lose a war" has apparently decided to change his message to "I'd rather lose my honor than lose this election."

Exposing the Gimmick?

Chris Matthews once famously and disgustingly said former Vice President Al Gore would lick the bathroom floor to be president.

Tonight, with the Vice Presidential candidate debate, we will find out if Matthews should have been speaking about John McCain.

Viewers will get to see if Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the next chapter of George "all hat and no cattle" W. Bush. To many, McCain's choice of Sarah Palin was little more than a gimmick designed to attract women and conservatives voters and the Washington Post is reporting polling is now showing that the people are turning against the gimmick.

Any doubt of this was on display during the recent interviews with CBS's Katie Couric where Palin embarrassed herself, John McCain, the Republican Party, conservatives, and America through her inability to name any Supreme Court cases she disagreed with other than Roe vs. Wade, the inability to name newspapers or magazines she read, or the rambling and incoherent answer she gave regarding why Alaska's proximity to Russia gave her foreign policy experience.

Amazingly, Palin couldn't even remember Exxon v. Baker, which for most people wouldn't be a surprise except it involved Alaska and the Exxon Valdez and Palin criticized the ruling earlier this year. Perhaps her excuse is that someone in her office just put her name on a release.

What must foreign countries think of her, and us, that we would potentially entrust the most powerful position in the world to someone without experience, knowledge or interest in events? We tried that in 2000 and the results have been disastrous. Do we really want to try it again?

Faced with a potential disaster tonight conservatives have tried lowering the bar for success by Palin to the point where if she doesn't embarrass herself it will be a success. But with even that lower bar conservatives have decided they need to "work the referee" in order to protect Palin by alleging that moderator Gwen Ifill of PBS is biased because she is working on a book titled "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama."

FOX News is asking whether Ifill can be "fair and balanced" in the debate. Truthfully, given the nature of conservatives Ifill should have seen this coming as nothing is ever fair in their world unless they are given an advantage, but for FOX to be questioning whether someone is fair and balanced is like a loan shark criticizing interest rates on credit cards.

In the end the questions don't matter, Palin will give a number of snappy, mean spirited responses which the public will either fall for or decide her story has become tiresome. At best Republicans can hope Sen. Joe Biden makes a mistake to hide her performance or that concern about conservative complaints that Biden attaced Palin makes him pull his punches in the debate.

We shall see.

McCainonomics 101

Sen. John McCain gave a preview of his view of economics when he talked about how his running mate sold the Alaska governor's jet on eBay.

"She took the luxury jet bought by her predecessor and sold it on eBay," McCain said. "And made a profit."

Except Alaska sold it for $2.1 million after buying it for $2.7 million. To most people that would be a loss, buying high and selling low. But for McCain that was a profit! Apparently that may be his secret plan for balancing the budget, treating deficits as surpluses.

There was another problem with the story, the jet WASN'T sold on eBay, state officials said they sold it through a broker.

No Thanks MEANS No Thanks!

One of the biggest applause lines Gov. Sarah Palin makes is the claim that she "told Congress thanks, but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, I said, we'd build it ourselves."

But that line appears to be false and apparently Gov. Palin didn't say "no thanks" to the money Congress gave Alaska, just spending the funds on other projects. Since she didn't really say "no thanks" to the money, the public should demand she live up to her word and give back the money. Afterall, no thanks MEANS no thanks, not just no thanks - but I'll take the money anyway!

Will voters contact Gov. Palin and tell her to give back the money? Or contact their Representative or Senators? Perhaps the House or Senate Transportation Committees could hold hearings on where the money went when she said "no thanks." As member of the Senate Committee I'm sure Sen. John McCain would be supportive of his colleagues looking for this money.

What is the Bridge to Nowhere? In 2005 Congress approved a $223 million earmark for the bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island, home to only a few people. However, the bridge was criticized by many people, including Sen. McCain, as an example of wasteful federal spending on politicians' pet projects.

Yet despite all the complaints, in 2005 (a year before Palin was elected Governor) Congress approved Alaska the money for that bridge and another bridge, only eliminating a requirement that $442 million be spent to build the bridges. The change did not save the government any money. Instead, the $442 million was turned over to Alaska with no strings attached, allowing lawmakers and the governor there to spend it on any transportation projects, including the bridges.

In September 2007, long after Congress approved the money for Alaska, Gov. Palin finally gave up on the bridge, saying "Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island."

Gov. Palin blamed the bridges demise on Americans, saying “much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here."

So you and I are at fault for not allowing her to build the bridge no nowhere, however I doubt It's Your Fault is not much of an applause line.

McCain picks Mooseport Mayor as VP choice

After months of decrying Sen. Barack Obama's supposed "lack of experience," Sen. John McCain decided to confirm the image of the GOP as a party of the hypocrites by basically picking the Mayor of Mooseport as his choice as Vice President.

Gov. Palin who had been in office as Governor of Alaska (the 47th largest state) for less than two years was a surprise choice for many, perhaps even Palin. Asked in July about the speculation that she was being considered for the VP spot Gov. Palin gave a window into McCain's judgement.

"As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?" Gov. Palin said.

Just image if a Democrat gave that answer! It would replayed more often that Howard Dean's scream.

But apparently for the Mayor of Mooseport and the GOP, that answer is just great since you are a Republican.

Democrats stop bringing knife to gun fight

Watching Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech and the Democratic convention and the criticisms of both George Bush and John McCain one came away thinking, finally, the Democrats are no longer bringing knifes to gun fights.

In the past, perhaps concerned about the inevitable loopy criticisms from conservatives, Democrats shied away from criticising Republicans and then watched as they got butchered by conservatives. Tonight it was different.

From saying "Enough" to "It's not that John McCain doesn't care, it's that he doesn't get it," Obama made his points that the last eight years have not been good for the country.

The only disappointment was that the Democrats didn't figure this out four years ago. Perhaps that is why Sen. John Kerry's speech on Wednesday night was rated so high. Rather than a nice speech, Kerry told the truth, and for Republicans, the truth hurts.

"Never in modern history has an administration squandered American power so recklessly. Never has strategy been so replaced by ideology," Kerry said. "Never has extremism so crowded out common sense and fundamental American values.

"Never has short-term partisan politics so depleted the strength of America's bipartisan foreign policy."

People wondered if only he had spoken like this in 2004 how much would he have won by. A lot, but unfortunately he didn't enough and the country suffered over the past four years.

Be Careful of What You Wish For

Over the past few months conservatives and members of the GOP (Grumpy Old Party) all but dared Sen. Barack Obama to go to Iraq and Afghanistan, figuring any success that additional troops in Iraq have provided would make Obama look bad and his idea of pulling out troops seem questionable.

Instead Obama was photographed time and time again with foreign leaders, giving Obama the impression of being presidential. Add to that Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, was quoted as saying that he backed the senator’s plan to bring home all US combat troops within 16 months, and American TV viewers were treated to scenes of troops eager to meet with Obama, and Obama looking like a statesman while reviewing the mess in Afghanistan.

And all of this before Obama even got to Germany where 200,000 people came to hear him speak in Berlin. But Sen. John McCain had his own foreign "trip," eating lunch at a German sausage shop.

Somehow the idea of large crowds scare conservatives. Perhaps it destroys the myth that liberal policies are not popular and instead shows that conservatism is of limited appeal. Afterall the only way George Bush could have adoring crowds was to screen the crowds to limit the average American from attending. Nothing like being scared of your own people.

The key for Obama though will be turning the large crowds into large voter turnout. If people don't think the election will be close they might not vote.

A Nation of Whiners?

Sen. John McCain has said economics isn't his strong suit, so it's not much of a surprise that he selected former Sen. Phil Gramm as his economic advisor. Gramm, also known as Foreclosure Phil, has been described as "a guy who helped screw up the global financial system," seems perfect as McCain's financial advisor.

Gramm's never been one to apologize for his economic failings and on Thursday he solidified his rank as a Republican when he said the United States had "become a nation of whiners." He later complained that he was referring to leaders not the public. Right, when Sen. John Kerry told a joke about Bush, the right wing nuts convinced the public he was talking about the troops so its hard to be sympathetic. Did Gramm and his staff defend Kerry for the nuts mischaracterization? I doubt it.

Perhaps they are whiners because they don't feel they are treated fairly by their employeers or the government. Gramm apparently has a different view of who should be whining. In an article in the Wall Street Journal Gramm said "I recently told Ed Whitacre [former CEO of AT&T, who retired with a $158 million pay package] he was probably the most exploited worker in American history."

Only $158 million? When is enough enough? Is there no line where people look at the good of the whole as opposed to the good of the few?

Economic cluelessness or carelessness is rampant in the Republican party and also in the McCain campaign. On Social Security McCain said “Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that’s a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace, and it’s got to be fixed,” he said.

What the REAL disgrace is is that Social Security taxes are not all going to pay benefits, or being saved, but rather being used by the government to give the illusion that the deficit is lower than it is and allow the Bush Administration to avoid raising taxes to pay for the tax cuts they passes and the war in Iraq.

Now that's a economic disgrace.

Fox News Bullies

George Carlin spoke about the seven words you can't say on television. Apparently according to the New York Times the seven letters that the media avoid typing is Fox News.

According to the New York Times articles, Fox News people are such jerks that the media self censor themselves to avoid having to deal with Fox. As David Carr wrote in the Times article, "as crude as that sounds, it works. By blacklisting reporters it does not like, planting stories with friendlies at every turn, Fox News has been living a life beyond consequence for years. Honesty compels me to admit that I have choked a few times at the keyboard when Fox News has come up in a story and it was not absolutely critical to the matter at hand."

Perhaps the best example was when a New York Times reporter repeatedly tried to get a comment from Fox News on a ratings story but couldn't get his calls returned yet "in a neat trick, while they were ignoring his calls, they e-mailed his boss asking why they had not heard from him."

This harkens back to how "The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, the Times reported.

One can only assume all of this is part of conservatives efforts to skew the news. After all conservatives expect the media to be conservative and are upset when that doesn't work. Liberals expect coverage to be balanced and are upset when it isn't.

That is why Fox News is the media of choice for conservatives and NPR is the media of choice for liberals. By continual complaining about coverage, conservatives are able to bully the media into reporting their version of reality because it is no longer worth going after the facts. And once the media is bullied into submission, the new "reality" becomes accepted.

Perhaps rather than "We Report, You Decide," Fox News slogan should be "We distort, You're Deceived."