Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Who names their kid "Mitt"?

Ok so Feingold isn't running for Prez anymore. sniff sniff. :(

But Mitt Romney still is, so you better watch out.

Mitt has been our governor in Massachusetts for a good few years now.

To run in 2008, he is trying hard to show his conservative credentials - he's going to be running solidly to the right of McCain, which means, frankly, whacko. Back a year or two ago, he still said he was running for re-election in 2006, but he gave up after it became too hard to be a 'moderate' while campaigning in Massachusetts while at the same time going hard-right while campaigning for 2008 in South Carolina and such. (abortion was one particularly tricky issue, where he got caught saying different things).

Anyhow, in Bay Windows, editor Susan Ryan-Vollmar looks at Romney's record on gay issues, and finds that while he tries very hard to be anti-gay right now, that hasn't always been his history, and he's hardly being an effective advocate for the anti-gay cause. Interesting...

Thursday, November 16, 2006

The CT second

Remember Rob Simmons?? The US Representative in CT's 2nd district, aka Wes's district? We, like, marched down to his district office on main street sometime after 9/11 and stuff?

Well his race was mega close, but on Tuesday the AP finally called the race -- Simmons lost to the Dem by 91 votes.

Good riddance.

The Liberal Media!

From Media Matters:

On the November 14 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck interviewed Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN), who became the first Muslim ever elected to Congress on November 7, and asked Ellison if he could "have five minutes here where we're just politically incorrect and I play the cards up on the table." After Ellison agreed, Beck said: "I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' " Beck added: "I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way."

Monday, November 13, 2006

grammar

English Teacher On First Date In Ages Lets Dangling Modifier Slide

don't buy Kleenex

or Scott or Cottonnelle. Their manufacturer, Kimberly-Clark, cuts down ancient forests and doesn't use much recycled product at all. Says Greenpeace.

Friday, November 10, 2006

more bad election coverage

Must-read: FAIR looks at the post-election coverage.

The media went way out of their way to continue their ever-insistent storyline that Democrats must be centrists to succeed. They innacurately portrayed the victorious Democrats in every way possible to help this cause.

This all would have been worse, perhaps, if Harold Ford had won. He was their ultimate poster child (see, i.e. Time's piece on him). So far, they have failed to come up with someone else to highlight.

For more on what the media have done with this in the last few days, see Tom Schaller, and also his second piece, where he notes:
Though it is sometimes worth reporting counter-trend and unusual stories, such as those of winning pro-life Democrats like Casey or Shuler, anecdotal exceptions and man-bites-dog storylines misrepresent the larger picture. Any suggestion that Democrats are winning by acting like conservatives or “Republican lite” candidates is simply false. Indeed, the big irony of this election is that the more conservative elements of the Republican congressional caucuses will survive, while GOP moderates pay for their party’s rightward shift.

And see Ezra Klein.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

robocalls!

I spent a bit of time today looking at the media coverage of the robocalls that pretend to be from the Democratic candidate but are actually from the RNCC and are designed to annoy voters (who think the Democratic candidate keeps calling them). Now just as I was getting ready to post about the timeline of when this story broke and how the mainstream media ignored it, the folks at FAIR have put together the chronology nicely.

Basically, there were some reports of this a week ago, and even the AP did a story on it (November 1st). Then TPM had very extensive coverage of this on Sunday -- some based on his own sources, and some just based on linking to existing local news articles.

As the FAIR piece shows, the mainstream media first ignored it, then completely downplayed it.