Between a Rock and Reality

Flash! The mainstream media is an embarrassment.

If there is one positive thing years of Republican misrule have achieved it has been to make clear our nation's broadcasters and publishers, rather than some oracle of objectivity, are actually a political interest unto themselves; that they and their reporters have agendas.

Although discerning said agenda is not always easy, it would appear, given the distorted (by them) evidence before us, that they have it out for Barack Obama.

Rather than a sober debate of the crucial issues facing our nation, we've gotten another week of Reverend Wright.

For example, Robert Novak aimed another assassin's bullet at the candidate's character this morning.

David Broder took a more even-handed tack, but still sifted through the same tired ashes.

The senator tried in vain to get reporters to do their job by disposing of Reverend Wright, but he will never go away, nor will questions of "how much damage" the wacky pastor did to him.

"How much damage?" is really code for "How bad have we, the media hurt him?"

To wit: The "New York Times," produced the results of a poll that found Democrats are less sure Obama would be the nominee than before, which is really a poll about nothing; or a poll wherein the media attempts to measure its own importance.

But the bottom line is that, out on the campaign trail, Obama continues to draw crowds who, in turn, leave the arena convinced of his excellence, his intelligence, his promise.

There is nothing like seeing a human being explain himself when compared to a sliced and diced celluloid character cooked up to serve up its creator's purposes.

The people who slurp up the thin gruel served by cable news and scan the national dailies are political junkies so involved that this endless and useless swill does not sway.

Among them are the fabled superdelegates themselves. The Associated Press reported that, for all this sturm and drang occurring over the airwaves, Sen. Obama has essentially erased Sen. Clinton's lead amongst that critical bloc, halving it during the two months of debates on "bitter," flagpins, and the reverend from hell.

These are the people, you'll remember, that hold the key to her overturning the hard math of the primary season and whom the media view as a magical tribunal acting in lockstep, logical concert...

"Now she can got to the superdelegates and say I'm not black and can win..."

But the article observes that, "the problems [with Wright] aren't stopping his ability to win support from superdelegates who are likely to cast the deciding votes in the Democratic race."

That's because superdelegates aren't as dopey as the media take the American people to be, and it's a pretty good bet the American people no longer genuflect before our paltry press either.

No wonder people are shifting to blogs over traditional outlets.

Take Politico.

The blog reports that congressional insiders believe most elected officials have made up their minds and are going for Obama, as the trend in the above AP article would suggest.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) told Amie Parnes or Josephine Hearn that the ensuing announcements are just a matter of time and it would seem that a coordinated effort to unveil superdelegate support in a trickle rather than in one big news blast has been underway for some time.

While the media gnashes its teeth about how much damage it's lousy job of covering issues is hurting Obama, the

"Los Angeles Times" reports that an Indiana superdelegate once supporting Clinton came out for Obama today.

Which is to say the Illinois senator is clearly holding his own, as per usual, in a very nasty environment.

Perhaps, most telling is the Republican Party's sustained attack on Obama and relative silence when it comes to Clinton, who, Josh Martin of "Politico" reports, "has been erased from the picture, Soviet-style. Republicans mostly act like she doesn't exist - an unusual turn of events considering her run of big-state victories and the fact that not so long ago Republican campaign plans were predicated on the idea of Clinton as the Democratic nominee."

The piece claims the GOP are planning a $500,000 media attack on Obama in two upcoming House elections.

Better spent paying Rev. Wright to keep yacking, but they know the steam will run out of that machine and a new way of linking Obama to advertising sales will have to be concocted by the Popes of the press.

And it will.