When will the mainstream media call McCain a liar?

Over at TPM Reed Hundt writes about the many lies that John McCain has been telling the American public, and wonders about something I’ve been thinking about recently:

In 2000 Al Gore was pilloried by the mainstream media (“MSM”) for his alleged untruths or exaggerations — Love Canal, Love Story, Internet, Who he visited in Texas. In every instance, at the very most he had chosen the wrong word or failed to clarify the misunderstandings of others.

Now in 2008 the McCain-Palin ticket revels in inaccuracy, wallows in whoppers, lies like a pair of rugs, buys ad time to tell still more lies. So tell me why the MSM doesn’t talk about their dishonesty endlessly, turning them from celebrity stars into pathological figures?

The contrast is absolutely clear. What’s the explanation?

The American public under siege

The Democrats’ genius of the past 40 years

I‘m not as pessimistic as Bob Herbert, of the New York Times, but I do share some of his concerns about the harm that the Democrats are inflicting on each other with, of course, the always reliable help the Harpies in our traditional media.

Mr. Herbert reminds of the “gift” that Democrats have displayed at blowing their chances at winning the presidency:

Jimmy Carter managed to win the White House in 1976 by looking pious and riding a wave of anti-Watergate revulsion. After four hapless years, he dutifully handed the keys back to the G.O.P.

Bill Clinton tried hard to lose, with sex scandals and whatnot, during the 1992 campaign. But Ross Perot wouldn’t let him. Mr. Clinton won with a piddling 43 percent of the vote. For eight years, Mr. Clinton tried to throw the presidency away (with sex scandals and whatnot), but he was never able to succeed.

That’s been it for the party for the past 40 years. The Democrats have become so psychologically battered by these many decades in the leadership wilderness that they consider the Clinton years, during which the president was impeached and they lost control of both houses of Congress, to have been a period of triumph.

The only detail that’s missing from Mr. Herbert’s retelling of the Democrats “gift” is the willing role that so-called journalists have played in handing the presidency to republicans over those 40 years.

Another CNN bamboozlement

This is exactly the sort of crap that the CNNs, ABCs and other traditional media outlets do that simply drives me nuts: the so called journalists in these propaganda factories go out of their way to portray republicans as average Americans in comparison to Democratic politicians.

Media Matters documents the latest bamboozlement from CNN:

Of Louis Farrakhan and John McCain

Media double standard? Inquiring minds want to know:

Barack Obama was questioned at Tuesday night’s debate by Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton about repudiating Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement — which Obama said was unsolicited — in the strongest terms possible. He was repeatedly badgered by Russert, and was forced to disown Farrakhan over and over again.

The very next day, John McCain appeared onstage in Texas with Pastor John Hagee, an influential activist in the Christian Zionist movement. Hagee’s comments about world affairs can make Farrakhan seem pedestrian at times: He eagerly awaits the Armageddon, considers the Catholic Church to be the Anti-Christ, and has said that Jews brought their own persecution upon themselves.

But when it came to McCain’s rather controversial backer, the press hardly batted an eye. Seems like a pretty clear double standard, right?

[...]

Very much like Farrakhan, Hagee has regularly made remarks about current events and other religions that many would find alarming. But unlike Farrakhan, he has never truly faced the scrutiny of the mainstream press, and major politicians like Joe Lieberman and John McCain have freely associated with him.

In 2006, Hagee laid out his views on eschatology in a book called Jerusalem Countdown, in which he claimed that sources had told him a year earlier about world events to come — and amazingly enough, all those predictions had come true over the past year. Next on the agenda, according to his March 2006 interview in Human Events: Israel would go to war with Iran before May 2006. And from there, Hagee eagerly anticipated an all-out world war against Iran and Russia, followed by the Second Coming.

[...]

So here’s the question: Will the same media outlets who have hammered Barack Obama about Louis Farrakhan’s uninvited endorsement now ask John McCain to denounce and reject the support of John Hagee, which was actually sought and publicly accepted?

We’ll see of the DC media and the Russerts of that town even dare to ask St. McCain if he’ll denounce the statements of his supporter, John Hagee. I’m not counting on it.