Another (Major!) Reason to Support Obama

Atrios mines the WSJ article on super-delegates for the gold:

His campaign also just announced a 50-state voter mobilization. That reflects another pitch to nonelected party officials: That Sen. Obama would work to build the party even in Republican "red" states, and has the money to do it, while Sen. Clinton focuses only on Democratic "blue" states and battlegrounds such as Ohio.

Interviews with party officials suggest this appeal has effectively exploited lingering resentments that the DNC, under President Clinton, abandoned the red states. "Obama has made it absolutely clear he's committed to the 50-state strategy, and the Clintons obviously aren't," says Nebraska party chairman Steve Achepohl, who endorsed Sen. Obama last week. "That's a major factor for all the party people in smaller states."

One of the dumbest ideas to come out of the DLC era was the idea of concentrating only on states we can win and letting the others blow in the wind.

More Russert Bashing

Just to point out I'm not alone, TPM points out Timmeh's abundant deficiencies!

Tyrant King Porn Dragon

I just wanted to type it too! :) But, click the clink at Atrios and see the main reason never to vote for a Repug; you might end up with this guy!

Great Debate or Grating Debate?

The debate last night was awful. Not the candidates, the moderators, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Silly and meaningless questions, no pertinent questions for the first hour (and few thereafter), on and on, it was just unrelentingly awful. If you don't believe me, ask Tom Shales.

Back, I Think

I've been taking a break for the last couple of weeks, partly because nothing particularly earthshattering was happening and partly because I was so freaking sick of the inanity that was being printed, spoken, spouted, shouted, and driveled about it. The news media in this country have become completely useless. There is no news unless someone tells them something, godforbid they should investigate anything more complicated than a menu, and the punditry should be shot en masse. When Tim Russert is a RESPECTED newsman, it's an indication that the system has broken down completely.

One of the biggest problems (someday, I'll post about how the videocamera caused the downfall of the news biz....) is the rise of 24 hour news. Everything is immediate and everything is equally important (provided we have PICTURES!!!!!) A bomb in Iraq that kills fifty and Britney's latest twat sighting are granted equal time, and if not, then Britney's twat wins.

This is equally true in campaign coverage. Coverage of McCain's latest abortion of an economic plan is granted equal time with coverage of the statement made by Obama's sister's dogwalker's aunt's hairdresser's brother's ex-gay lover about something Obama said during recess in 3rd grade about the premier of West Freakoutistan's sexual proclivities. There is no balance between the important and the trivial, the urgent and the available..... There's a very good post up at TPM about this problem. Neither the author nor I have any solutions, but he does make a good suggestion at the end.

Update: In a marginally related post, Matt Yglesias, discussing the media's reaction to everyone else's reaction to last night's abortion of debate moderation, talks about the decline of the media.

On an unrelated note, I've been in about a million conversations navel-gazing conversations about the decline of "old media" like newspapers, magazines, and network television and never once has anyone suggested that declining audience might be in any way related to the quality of the product. Everyone knows that it's the public's duty to read newspapers, whether they find them useful and informative or not.

The comments are good too.