I've Got Your Signs of the Apocalypse Right Here!

I'm having a very weird day today. Partially, I think it's because the weather has been acting very strangely, being very warm and wet, but also alternating between very still and very stormy. I guess this is all part of the left-over hurricanes as they ramble up the Mississippi, but still, I can never quite get used to it. Also, as I read more and more about the simultaneously always imminent and yet never-ending destruction in the Gulf Coast, "Hurricane Season" continues to move up my list of "Reasons Why Not to Live in the South." In fact, I think it just passed "Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park."

But the rumblings of Zeus Almighty is not the only reason why today feels particularly queer. (Klimt!) Another reason is that the world of the news media seems to be holding its own Saturnalia, with up being down, black being white, and yes, left being right. (I don't know why the Olympian metaphors keep popping into my head. Again, it's been a weird day - just try to groove with it.) For example, I have been complaining (I was going to use a different word, but, based on Monday's, I probably oughtn't.) (Heehee... moppen't.)(OK - no more parentheticals.), yes, complaining, a lot lately about the spineless New York Times coverage of the Presidential Campaign. Paul Krugman must have been wearing his idea stealing hat last night, because today he wrote almost exactly what I have been feeling. While discussing the McCain campaign's - no, not the campaign's, but John McCain's - recent lies, Krugman says:

Why do the McCain people think they can get away with this stuff? Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being “balanced” at all costs. You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that “some Democrats say” that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.

Exactly. The way I see it, there's a big difference between objective news reporting and stating that two opposing viewpoints are both equally correct. And that one of the recent problems with the Times coverage has been that they're so worried about getting slapped with the "liberal media" label that they have been going out of their way to make sure that the Republicans - and the horrible things that they do and say - get at least equal press time as the Democrats. Here is another good article on the issue of media coverage.

So who else besides Paul Krugman noticed that one of the two party's ticket has seemed to be getting away with quite a lot of fib telling lately? Who is finally going to take McCain to task on his lies?

Why, the crack journalistic team over at The View, of course:

(The important stuff starts at 3:22)



And there must have been something in the water over there at ABC this week, because Charlie Gibson actually asked some relevant (albeit, I admit, a little sneaky) questions of VP nominee Sarah Palin in their exclusive interview!



So what, then, am I to make of this? How do I reconcile myself to the fact that the esteemed New York Times political coverage team seems to have been awoken from their dogmatic slumber by the group of misfits over at ABC? How could it be that Barbara Walters, she-of-the-eternally-fuzzy-lens, Whoopi Goldberg, whom you may know from such films as "Theodor Rex" and "Eddie", and Charlie Gibson, co-moderator of the official "Worst Debate Ever," have risen up to save critical journalism?

Them, and, of course, the National Enquirer.


But that's not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.