Theres a lot floating around the web today concerning the media love affair with Sen. Barack Obama. While some think its a myth (e.g. the progressive site Think Progres). Well, Investors Business Daily took a look at the numbers, specifically donations to candidates by members of the media.

An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans .

Two-hundred thirty-five journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans — a margin greater than 10-to-1. An even greater disparity, 20-to-1, exists between the number of journalists who donated to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Searches for other newsroom categories (reporters, correspondents, news editors, anchors, newspaper editors and publishers) produces 311 donors to Democrats to 30 donors to Republicans, a ratio of just over 10-to-1. In terms of money, $279,266 went to Dems, $20,709 to Republicans, a 14-to-1 ratio.
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What is truly remarkable about the list is that, discounting contributions to Paul and Rudy Giuliani, who was a favorite son for many folks in the media, the totals look like this: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans (four individuals who donated to McCain).

Let me repeat: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans — a ratio of 100-to-1. No bias there.

This should refute the “well, Obama’s just more newsworthy” line that many espouse to refute alleged bias.

Rasmussen polling shows that more people are beginning to recognize this bias. According to their polling, 49% of people believe the media is trying to help Senator Obama (up 5 points from last month), with 14% saying that the media will try to help Senator McCain (note that this polling occurred before the New York Times refused to print McCain’s op-ed). I’m not sure that these polling numbers reflect the 100:1 spending ration observed, but they do represent that the public is partially aware of the biased coverage.

Lastly, to highlight the disparity in media coverage, consider the following from the Wall Street Journal:

CNN interrupts a discussion of whether the media are in the tank for Obama for a news bulletin that Obama’s plane has landed safely–a dog-bites-man story if ever there was one.

You’ve got to be kidding me. This is over the top, and I hope Wolf Blitzer recognizes the irony here. During a discussion on the situation room about whether the media is biased towards Sen. Obama, they interrupted the story to provide coverage of “O Force One” landing. Blitzer followed the interruption with:

All right, Sen. Obama has just arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel. And upon his arrival from Amman, Jordan, he made a brief statement, reaffirming his strong support for Israel.

Cross-Posted at The Gentle Cricket

When John F. Kerry writes an op-ed, fisking it is extremely easy. This time is no different. It doesn’t take long before spotting Senn. Kerry’s first false premise:

When Bush accused “some”, including Obama, Bush aides explained, of “the false comfort of appeasement,” McCain echoed this slander. “What does he want to talk about with [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad?” McCain asked, fumbling to link Obama to the Iranian president’s hateful words. Soon, a GOP talking point was born.

Lost in the rhetoric was the question America deserves to have answered: Why should we engage with Iran?

In short, not talking to Iran has failed. Miserably.

First off, people have talked with Iran. That’s what’s “failed. Miserably.” Secondly, we knkow that terrorists think that Americans are paper tigers. At least, they used to think that during the Clinton administration. They didn’t think twice during Jimmy Carter’s administration, either. Apparently, Sen. Kerry still hasn’t learned the principles behind the Reagan Principle.

The Reagan Principle is what I call President Reagan’s habit of not negotiating with evil empires until that evil empire was scared out of its wits. Sen. Kerry obviously didn’t remember that Reagan didn’t have a summit with the Soviets until his second term. Reagan’s not having a summit with the Soviets in his first term didn’t seem to turn out too badly. (continue reading post »)

Over at Politico, Roger Stein is speculating on McCain’s chances at winning California in November. His take is intriguing:

1. If McCain wins California in November, he almost certainly will become the next president of the United States.

The Democratic nominee would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get to 270 electoral votes and victory without California. Sure, the Democrat could theoretically make up for the loss of California (55 electoral votes) by winning both Texas (34) and Florida (27), but how likely is that? Not very.

As the late Lee Atwater, a major architect of George H.W. Bush’s victory in 1988, said, “I can win without California; they can’t, so I want it.”

2. Winning California is going to be very tough for McCain.

On the surface, McCain looks like a reasonably good match for California. He is a relatively moderate Republican, he is strong on the environment, he talks about low taxes and ending waste, he retains a somewhat maverick image, and he could be popular with independents. He is, broadly speaking, in the same mold as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who will campaign vigorously for him.

But there is a one big difference between Schwarzenegger and McCain, and it has enormous political implications: Schwarzenegger supports abortion rights and McCain does not.

3. Candidates who oppose abortion rights do not win California.

They don’t win at the state level, and they don’t win at the national level. The last presidential candidate who opposed abortion rights and won California was George H.W. Bush, and that was 20 years ago.

And since the Democratic nominee is sure to support abortion rights, McCain cannot win California, right? Not necessarily. He may have one slim chance to win California if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.

4. Obama favors giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. McCain opposes it, and this could give McCain the state.

Giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants is unpopular in California. Schwarzenegger successfully exploited opposition to such driver’s licenses in both of his elections, and McCain would have a shot at winning California by exploiting it also.

Yes, it would be ironic for McCain, a moderate on immigration, to take a hard line on this issue, but politics often make people do ironic things.

Dan Schnur, who was McCain’s communications director in 2000 and is now a political strategist based in California, says the driver’s license issue could trump the abortion issue when it comes to McCain. ….

This could swing in two directions. On the one hand, abortion-rights people may recognize that it is somewhat unlikely that Roe be overtuned and decide to vote McCain for other re

There has been another school shooting tragedy with five innocent victims dead.

Pundits are asking how such a thing could happen … after all, Northern Illinois University was as gun free zone. So, many are renewing the call for increased gun control, despite its dismal record of failure.

Typical of such flawed and dishonest thinking was a column by Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten in the Feb. 16 issue. After rehashing a recent series of shootings ranging from Kirkwood, Mo., to Chicago, to Louisiana Technical College, Rutten has fingered the villain — the National Rifle Association. He blames what he calls “Second Amendment fundamentalists,” pressuring politicians. If not for them, he reasons, effective gun control laws could be enacted.

Guns, he maintains, “…make the malicious, the malcontent, and the mad powerful.”

What he doesn’t say is that is that it makes the crazies powerful because they know their intended victims are disarmed and helpless.

That is the legacy of “gun free zones.”

Rutten does note is that 12 states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington — are considering legislation allowing students, faculty and staff with concealed-weapons permits to carry weapons on campus. He calls this, “social idiocy.”

What he doesn’t note is that other school shooting incidents were halted when armed faculty members or students confronted the shooters. Pearl High School in Mississippi and Virginia’s Appalachian School of Law are two such examples.

Academic study also supports the premise that concealed-carry deters such shootings. University of Chicago Professor John Lott’s book “More Guns, Less Crime” clearly shows the correlation. As for the mass shooters, Lott notes, “Such people may be deranged, but they still appear to care whether they themselves will be shot as they attempt to kill others.”

He based this conclusion in part on finding that states that adopted nondiscretionary concealed-carry laws between the years 1977-92 virtually eliminated public mass shootings.

The evidence, both academic and empirical, is clear — more gun control laws and creating “gun-free zones” guarantee mass shootings will continue; concealed carry permits will stop them.

But recognizing this involves a degree of intellectual honesty that Rutten and his ilk lack. To use Rutten’s own phrase, they persist in the “social idiocy” of denying simple truth.

In a town where jurors will give the benefit of the doubt to people like OJ, Phil Spector, Robert Blake, Cardinal Mahoney and Warren Christopher, I was surprised to read that an LA jury cleared the LAPD of being mean to Mitch Grobeson.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Grobeson, who calls himself Sergeant Mitch, was so preoccupied with his homosexuality that he negated his responsibility as a police officer to promote his personal activist gay agenda. Several gay LAPD officers told me how sick they were about his latest lawsuit against the LAPD, and how he had hurt the reputation and mainstreaming of gay officers.

During his failed career, Grobeson’s gay peers have performed their duties with steadfastness and quiet heroism. Some have been promoted to command positions. They got there not because they were gay, but because they were good cops. Conversely, Grobeson thought he deserved his badge and promotions because he was gay. In the end, even the jury disbelieved him by a wide margin.

Grobeson says he’ll appeal, but overturning a jury verdict is almost impossible. And unless he starts filing age-discrimination lawsuits against future employers, it’s not likely that he’ll darken LA’s doorstep any longer. No longer the gay blade, we can only hope that Mitch will devolve into the bitchy old queen he always was.

Thus far in the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, “religion” has played a far bigger role than in any recent elections. This does not necessarily translate to actual issues of importance to one religious constituency or another, but rather that the religion of individual candidates themselves is a major topic. And as this pattern continues, a glaring hypocrisy is emerging. In short, all religions are to be beyond criticism or question, with the sole exception of Biblical Christianity.

At the slightest suggestion that a candidate’s religion might call his or her judgment or fitness for office into question, the instant and universal response from across the political spectrum is a chorus of accusations of “religious bigotry” and intolerance. No less an icon of punditry than Robert Novak made essentially that case in his October 4, 2007 column. Unless, of course, the religion in question is Southern Baptist and the principal involved is Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, at which point the preacher becomes fair game.

To be sure, Mike Huckabee has his political liabilities. His record on taxes is abysmal, and past philosophies on border control and illegal immigration are completely out of sync with mainstream America. Yet this is not the basis on which some of his loudest critics assail him, but rather on matters of faith. And the situation is particularly discouraging since such castigation now comes at him from the right.

In his December 11 article, nationally syndicated columnist Rich Lowry, editor of the monumental conservative publication National Review, asserts that primarily as a result of Huckabee’s religious beliefs, Republican support for the Arkansas Governor, would amount to party “suicide.” Lowry then proceeds to deride Huckabee on several issues, including his belief in the Biblical account of creation.

It needs to be recalled here that at the recent CNN/Youtube debate, when Republican candidates were asked to explain their views on the significance of the Bible, all who were allowed to answer asserted, in one form or another, that they regarded it as the Word of God. (continue reading post »)

It’s easy to understand why feminists across the country are elated with the prospect of electing the first woman president. Over the years, women here and throughout the world have achieved enormous success in such diverse fields as politics, business, entertainment, education, and the military. Most would agree, however, that they have not yet achieved parity with their male counterparts. Men still outnumber women in leadership roles, and generally receive higher pay for the same work. So the women’s rights movement, and women in general, see the election of a female president as the next and greatest milestone on the road to equality.

But is the public at large ready to elect a woman to lead the country?

Over the past few years, polling data on the subject have been inconsistent, but research does suggest that a large number of voters are at least willing to consider it. It is no longer such a stretch of the imagination.

After all, women now serve as elected heads of state in many countries throughout the world, including Chile, Finland, Ireland, and Liberia. Margaret Thatcher served three consecutive and successful terms as British prime minister, and Angela Merkel now serves as the first woman chancellor of Germany.

So now, during this current presidential campaign, the focus is on Hillary Clinton, and while she has clearly established herself as the Democratic frontrunner, two other things are equally clear: she is no Margaret Thatcher, and her road to the Oval Office will not be an easy one.

Her critics oppose her for various reasons. Many see her as calculating and manipulative, turning a blind eye to her husband’s serial abuse of women over the years in the interest of her own political ambitions. Some see her as completely untrustworthy, an absolute master of doublespeak. They question her ethics, reflecting on her involvement in the many scandals that erupted during her husband’s administration, and going back even further, her phenomenally profitable and highly suspicious trading in cattle futures. In fact, to many, she epitomizes everything that is wrong with politics today.

Character issues aside, they also have serious doubts about her resume, which amounts to little more than eight years as a first lady and seven years as a senator, a position she attained largely through her marriage to Bill. (continue reading post »)

AP reports: “Consumers are financing both sides in the war on terror because of the actions of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday.”

He makes a good point.

The former Arkansas governor made the comments following what he suggested was a muted response by the Bush administration to a Saudi court’s sentence of six months in jail and 200 lashes for a woman who was gang raped.

“The United States has been far too involved in sort of looking the other way, not only at the atrocities of human rights and violation of women,” Huckabee said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

“Every time we put our credit card in the gas pump, we’re paying so that the Saudis get rich — filthy, obscenely rich, and that money then ends up going to funding madrassas,” schools “that train the terrorists,” said Huckabee. “America has allowed itself to become enslaved to Saudi oil. It’s absurd. It’s embarrassing.”

Huckabee said “I would make the United States energy independent within 10 years and tell the Saudis they can keep their oil just like they can keep their sand, that we won’t need either one of them.”

Who’s with him? Will any green activists jump on board the Huckabee train?

If only he were a Democrat.

Well, we’ve been listening to you for months now—Ms. Clinton, John Edwards, Obama, Reid and Pelosi, Murtha, Kennedy and all the rest—about how bad President Bush is, the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan and how wonderful each of you are. And how great it will be for us when you win it all.

Let’s see. You’re going to socialize medicine with Ms. Clinton’s schemes, give every “poor” kid who’s daddy makes 80 grand a year free insurance, end the “wars” in central Asia and Middle East, quit fighting and bring the troops home, but support the troops anyway and give them all new battle gear. You intend to appoint a new Attorney General who will close ol’ Gitmo, give all the bad boys there new ditty bags to get them back home without punishment for attacking and killing American G.I’s.

Am I right so far?

You’re going to “fix” everything the current administration (and VP Cheney and AG Gonzales) did wrong, bring “spy” Valerie Plame in from the cold, raise taxes and fund a bundle of new “programs”. You’re going to stop the slide of new home sales, make the dollar good again and send all government contracts for equipment and weapons to the good ol’ boys in China to build for us (and outlaw recalls).

Immigration and illegal aliens will no longer be a problem because you’ll open the borders and give the folks already here citizenship and free social, legal and food services. Bring everybody up here for free goodies if they want to be Yankees.

Besa ma Mucho!

Castro and Hugo will be big brothers to us all, the ding in N. Korea will get a free ride, and the dong in Iran will get his, er, nukes. And you’ll see to it Mr. Putin will never again get his feelings hurt by mean Americans who want to protect Europeans and themselves from the bad boys in Iran by building new missile defenses there. (continue reading post »)

I just googled David Petraeus’ name. As I scanned the links, I noticed two editorials that essentially called Gen. Petraeus a mouthpiece for the Bush administration’s policies. Call me cynical but I’m having trouble believing that the MoveOn.org types aren’t orchestrating a campaign to discredit Gen. Petraeus. Here’s what Thomas LaPointe said in his Des Moines Register editorial:

As a former Marine, it is difficult for me to argue with a four-star general and a distinguished ambassador. However, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker failed to use their recent appearances before Congress to offer a total reassessment on Iraq. They offered an amended version of “stay the course.”

There seems to be little success getting the Iraqis to secure themselves or govern with a sense of national reconciliation. Now, even with the president’s proposed 30,000-troop draw-down, troop levels will remain at the January 2006 levels. We are where we were 18 months ago; we have not moved decisively.

Obviously, Mr. LaPointe hasn’t been paying attention to events on the ground in Iraq. In fact, I’d bet that he doesn’t realize that they’re shifting their mission from eliminating AQI terrorists in Anbar and Diyala provinces to killing al-Sadr’s militias in the south. Saying that Gen. Petraeus “offered an amended version of ’stay the course’” is insulting. It’s also factually indefensible. (continue reading post »)