Presidential election found objects

MSM coin of the realm -- Today is Monday, the day of dissection of the Sunday news talk shows on television. I always appreciate the understanding that Media Matters gives us regarding the mainstream media's election coverage. Taken from my great aggregator, Netvibes , this (1/13/08) article offers good understanding of what happened on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday. Media Matters documents how host Tim Russert used truncated quotes to waylay Senator Clinton, who was his guest for the full hour. To quote:

Russert falsely claimed to show "exactly what President Clinton said," aired truncated quotes from both Clintons

Summary: After falsely asserting that he was showing viewers "exactly what President Clinton said," referring to January 7 comments Bill Clinton made about Sen. Barack Obama, Tim Russert played a truncated quote from Clinton. In addition, Russert read a quote from The New York Times that truncated Hillary Clinton's statement about civil rights, omitting her reference to President Kennedy.

Living and blogging from the Southwest gives me a bit of distance from the national presidential election scene. Travel to virtual Canada and you find that same objectivity. My editor there at The Reaction , Michael J.W. Stickings, posts about polls; his prize conclusion is this: ". . . remember: These are national polls. They don't mean much. And the numbers will continue to change as more and more states hold their votes, as momentum is picked up and lost, and as the media have their say."

This valuable advice with some very good ideas on what to write about the elections comes from Blogburst.:

• Analysis of poll predictions offering a unique angle. For example, most got it really wrong for NH. Why? What happened?


• Anyone attending the conventions?. . . While major news outlets will have their own network of reporters providing straight-up coverage, there's interest in Bloggers providing the color commentary of the conventions including first-person narratives from delegates, etc.


• There's a keen interest on candidate positions as they relate to specific industries/markets


• Individual accounts of, "why I support"[______]

I can't resist closing with this little gem. I found "TeddySanFran's" post at Firedoglake to be a real treasure. It is on George Will's column predicting Republican defeat in November. The blogger says that "George Will Makes Me Smile." The thought of Republican defeat also makes me smile. The thought of a famous Conservative columnist saying it makes me break into a positively wide grin. To quote:

It takes a very tasty headline to get me to click on George Will's column. This morning's, The GOP's Grim Numbers, tempted me. And boy, am I glad! The headline changed once you actually arrived at the column, A GOP Numbers Crunch, so I knew the Washington Post Online headline writers had beckoned me for a good reason. Turns out they did. This Will column is cause for rejoicing.

The Bow-Tied One is in the dumps, and he wants the entire GOP in the dumps with him. So he lays out the bad news, paragraph after paragraph . . .

Space to chortle over the discomfort of political opponents is why we Bloggers cherish the forum provided by the combination of our Constitution's guarantee of free speech, and Blogger's free blogging space. I remain grateful for both. It is going to be a good week.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics media 2008 election

My "creative post" today at Southwest Blogger is about the "South by Southwest" festival coming up in March in Austin.