Check this out....

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

I don't think I ever claimed to be impartial.  In fact, I'm sure I've said, though maybe not on this thread, several times that everybody has a bias, and all media has a bias.  I don't know those two reporters.  However, I don't think two liberal reporters make up for an blatantly conservative staff, anymore than two conservative reporters would make up for a blatantly liberal staff.  (And I came back tonight expecting to see something about MSNBC, I will admit I overlooked that station along with the other handful of NBC news cable stations because I don't watch them.  My mistake, I apologize). 

CNN is pretty liberal, I would say it is less liberal than Fox is conservative (I think that if you watched them both after the debates tonight, it would be a good example.  CNN phrased most of its questions to frame Obama in a positive light, although not going on to say Obama was a clear-cut winner.  Fox, however, not only declared McCain the winner, but said that everybody thought Obama would run circles around him in this debate.  In fact, the opposite was true, as McCain has a more foreign policy experience.  Most the experts that I saw on both stations that were not clearly parked in one camp or another, or the ones that wisely pointed out their bias and attempted to judge the debates with it held as much at bay as possible, said that the debate was essentially a draw.  Both Candidates made good points and both made mistakes, both having a very different speaking and debating style.)

I didn't ever mean to accuse you of getting your news from fallible sources--I don't know where you get your news (well, now I do).  My point was, I think, what your point was (originally), and that is that there is a huge slant to our media (both to the right and to the left).  I also don't think you usually need to look up the facts from multiple sources to figure out where biases lie, it seems pretty obvious most of the time. 

I love Bill O'Reilly.  I think he's one of the most entertaining things on television.  He will start out a topic with a statement such as ""Coming next, drug addicted pregnant women no longer have anything to fear from the authorities thanks to the Supreme Court. Both sides on this in a moment"  (actual quote from 03/23/01). This statement clearly states what side he is on, then negatively slants the other side before giving any actual facts about the issue.  Sure, sometimes he says things that help a liberal side (rarely), but when he does he almost always tries to use it to help a conservative end and/or is only doing it to make himself seem like a credible news source.  Heck, I even saw him defend Obama once.  But even if you argue that he takes a left side sometimes and ignore his rationale for doing so, when he does, he does so in a way that still favors one side blatantly and giving the other side of the argument the air of a retarded monkey.  That is not a credible news source.  It is an entertaining news source, but it isn't credible--at least not on its own.

I somewhat over exaggerated the case when I said I've never seen anybody on fox agree with a democrat (twas a hyperbole for sure), but it is highly slanted.  That being said, I don't pretend like CNN is much better in the opposite direction (that's why I split my news time about 50/50 between, a poor attempt to even the slant I'm receiving.  It doesn't work, which is why the internet is handy.  And even then, I'm still getting huge slant both ways and I have to figure it out for myself, which I should have just done originally after one broadcast and not wasted my time.  But, oh well, I'm a glutton for punishment).

The fact is, however, that Fox News, just like any other news source, has a bias.  They also have more editorial shows that are HIGHLY biased and air themselves as a credible source of information.  In addition, they tend to show biased clips of speeches (as I saw a bit of after the debate--going so far as to completely cut of a rational response Obama had made to make it look as though he was caught off-guard and unaware by McCain) and show biased ticker information (again, good examples tonight--it kept flashing "both sides believe they have won the debate", then explained the positive factors that McCain's camp used to believe they had won the debate.  They did not follow by giving the positive points that Obama's camp used to judge his merit, despite the fact that other stations, such as CNN, showed both).  I'm not saying CNN, or any other news source, is unbiased.  But Fox is very biased, CNN is also pretty biased, and I don't even watch MSNBC because, like you've said, what I've seen is a complete joke.  But considering it is biased (even if you think it is the most middle ground station, which I clearly disagree with with, you would agree it is biased), and its mother corporation is biased, and its mother corporation is the largest news corporation in the world, I'd say there is plenty of right-wing biased media out there.

I think it is sad that the complaint many people have is, "there isn't enough right-wing biased media out there" and not "there is too much of too biased media out there."  I'm not saying that is necessarily what you are saying, but it is what a lot of people say.

[darxbane]

You know, I watched most of the debate on FoxNews and most of them had it with McCain having a slight advantage over Obama in the last part of the debate, but Obama winning the first part.  I saw points from both sides in the crawl (I know this because one of them made me laugh).  In fact, on Fox and Friends Saturday morning, one of the anchors brought out the FactCheck.Org results of the debate and announced that Obama was a little more accurate factually than McCain overall.  In the end, there was no clear winner.  This debate did nothing to sway any voters either way.    The reason Obama didn't win the debate is because he allowed McCain to repeatedly rehash his experience advantage, and agreed with him too often.  The Henry Kissinger reference was a mistake, because not only was it not true but it allowed McCain to remind everyone how much more experience he has with leaders in general.  McCain was more consistent, and appeared slightly more poised, but spent too much time on earmarks instead of issues.  Obama will never win over McCain on the war, security, or leadership experience, but he can win on the economy, which would give him the election despite the other points.  Because McCain didn't win the economy section of the debate, he did not win the debate.  It was funny that an NBC analyst called it a tie that McCain won, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

The way you described the difference between CNN and FoxNews sounds like you felt Obama won outright, and the fact that the Fox panel disagreed with you automatically makes them bias.  By the way, Juan Williams was one of the members of that panel (the liberal guy I was telling you about), and even he gave a slight edge to McCain, but said there was no clear winner.  If you are liberal, then even middle of the road will seem conservative.  Did CNN give McCain any positives?

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

I agree entirely on the fact that McCain and Obama were about even (I missed a portion of the economic section, though, in which I heard Obama did very well), and I would agree with how you described their strengths.  I watched the debate on PBS, no scroll, so I didn't catch what fox or CNN were saying during the debate.  I switched to fox about ten minute after the debate ended, and I immediately saw huge bias towards McCain, which did end up dissipating after another ten minutes or so.

If memory serves, immediately after the debate CNN's anchor (I don't remember who it was) said the debate appeared to be about even, in just the manner that you just described it.  They didn't undercut McCain, but they did word several of their interview questions in ways that seemed underhandedly liberal to me.

Like I said before, I think that CNN and Fox are both more biased than you seem to think, maybe that's me over exaggerating the point because it disgusts me so.  However, I would say CNN is slightly less biased than fox, not necessarily during normal broadcasting, but definitely because of fox's ridiculously biased editorial sections.

I will say that if I had listened to the debate on the radio, I would have probably placed the candidates at dead even near the end.  But Obama handled the television much better.  McCain refused to make eye contact with Obama, and that made him seem shady (a friend of mine said, with a chuckle, it made him seem racist--but sadly, there are those out there who would actually think that).  McCain also spent almost the whole time talking to the mediator instead of to the camera, and I don't think he ever spoke to Obama directly, he always said "What Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand is..."  Because of that, Obama seemed much more charismatic and he seemed to know what he was talking about, even though it is really irrelevant to how much he ACTUALLY knows what he is talking about, because he handled the camera, mediator and McCain more appropriately.  McCain needs his people to give him some lessons on how to handle the cameras or everyday viewers are going to undercut him points he should be getting (in fact, that's just what happened when fox interviewed their test group of "everyday people" after the debate--most the them gave it to Obama, despite the fact that those of us who really listened usually split it closer down the middle).

Despite the fact that appearance has no merit in judging ability to govern, it's really important in these debates.  After all, we all know what happened to Nixon.

[darxbane]

True enough.  People who look better and speak better tend to get a slight edge.  Of course, not looking at your opponent is a tactic.  McCain is trying to show Obama's inexperience, and a lack of poise can cause people to make that assumption.  He was trying to get Obama flustered, and it only worked a couple of times.  Unfortunately, most of the people polled (and in general) most likely only watched highlights of the debate, where the little stumbles are rarely shown for either side.  The fact that McCain got Obama to call him John (which makes it more personal), and once even called him the moderators name by accident, shows that McCain was getting to him.  This debate was a setup for the next two, and believe me when I tell you people will only remember the last one.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if McCain took a completely different tact next time, just to try to shake Obama up again.  McCain's advantage in this is his poise.  He has been playing this game for a long time, and you will not see him lose his composure unless he wants to.  You could argue this as a positive or a negative, but in the end if Obama does break a little, the Republicans will jump all over it as proof that he is poor under pressure.  It's a shady tactic, but at least it can be correlated to his ability to lead in crisis.  The Dems are doing the same thing to Palin right now.  If she cracks in the debate, it could be a major problem. 

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

Yeah, it's also true that most people will just care about the last debate (which happens to be economy, the subject that most people say Obama did slightly better than McCain).  I don't really see stumbling over words as a weakness at all, nor do I see informality between the opponents--I mean, they're colleagues and have worked together a while.  They know each other.  However, the fact that MOST people will see it how they're told to see it (and if they're told to see it as cracking under pressure, they will) is a good point.

For his own sake, McCain better start taking a tactic of bolstering his own experience rather than tearing down Obama's.  I mean, if Obama is considered inexperienced, then what is Palin?  And you better believe the Democrats are going to point that out.  He needs to spend more time saying what he has done (which he did a little of), and more time appealing to the people rather than trying to affect his opponent.  You can't control what your opponent will do, but you can definitely control how you appear to the people.  It'll be interesting to watch the next one.

I'm really interested to see the Vice-Presidential debates.  It'll make or break Palin, since all eyes are on her.  She was a wild-card draw, and a lot of people on all sides don't really know what to think.  Biden said that he wasn't going to do what McCain was trying to do and just constantly poke at her inexperience, but I imagine it will be tempting for him to point it out a few times.  We'll see how true to his word he comes out, too.

[darxbane]

I agree.  Biden is a fantastic debater, so it will be a struggle.  I think trying to push on Palin's lack of experience is a mistake, which is why Biden won't go there.  12 years of governmental management experience trumps 4 years of legislative experience when you are talking about management positions.  In this way Palin technically has more management experience than Obama.  She also sat on energy commissions which dealt with international companies, so she understands energy and some aspects of the global economy.  I feel many times that Senators and Representatives tend to live in an idealistic bubble.  It is quite different to manage and make policy decisions than it is to be part of a team that works as a unit.  If you really want to get technical, Palin has more executive experience than even McCain.  When your in the top seat, there is nowhere to hide, just ask Bush.  No matter how badly Congress screws up, in the end the President takes the responsibility, because he is in charge.  He or she also sometimes gets credit for things they didn't do, but that comes with the job.  McCain has a right to question Obama's experience; he is going for the top job.  If Obama was vice-presidential nominee, I would be much less concerned with his experience, and or his record.  The record is more important to me than anything.  Voting for Obama is a vote entirely on faith, because there is little in his past that shows he has the ability to get done what he says he will get done.  I still think he ran too soon.

[JCHancey]

I think Biden was a great choice by Obama, much better than Mccain's choosing of Palin. My grandpa is a professor of Political Science and about the time Biden was first elected he told his students that he would be in the White House some day. Palin on the other hand... well she scares me. The fact that she was pushing for Georgia to join the UN so we could help defend them against Russia was insane!!! When Russia invaded I told my friends I'm just waiting for an alien race to destroy China. Anyway I'm excited for the debate, Biden will do fantastic, but I'm not too sure about Palin, guess we'll just have to see

[SarahG]

I agree with you that Palin is scary.  From the little I've seen of her she seems as ambitious and creepy as Hillary Clinton.  She'll stop at nothing to get what she wants.  I was on the fence, but planning to vote for McCain until she was nominated - now I'm leaning a lot more towards Obama/Biden.

[darxbane]

*Sigh*  Did your Grandpa predict he would plagarize a speech in the 1988 presidential primaries?  Or that would tell people the helicopter he was in was brought down by terrorists in Afghanistan, when it was the weather?  How about the fact that he thought FDR was president during the depression, and that TV existed in 1929?  Biden can't get out of his own way.  He is absolutely incapable of being wrong, which says a lot considering the people with which he works.
 It amazes me how you all have no problem with career politicians being ambitious as long as they are men.  Obama has two memoirs written and he has only been a State Senator for four years!  Come on!  Let's at least be consistent here.  If 8 years as mayor and 2 as Governor is not enough experience (along with time chairing an energy committe), then neither is 4 years as a District Senator and 4 years as State Senator.  If you feel Palin is scary because she will stop at nothing to get into office when in fact she was chosen by McCain, then you have to feel the same way about Obama, who has been setting up his run for at least 3 years.  All your posts really tell me is that you are afraid of change.  As much as everyone says they want someone in office who isn't a political insider, who can give a fresh perspective to that insanity on Capitol Hill, you would prefer to choose a man who is just a deep in the crap as the rest of them, and  managed to get that deep in record time.  If that doesn't scare you, then Palin should make you feel like your on top of the world.  I'm not a fan of Hillary, but it is because I disagree with her politics, and there are way too many skeletons in her closet.  It has nothing to do with her ambition or drive, and certainly has nothing to do with her sex.

By the way, she wanted Georgia to become part of the UN so they could be afforded the same protection as other UN nations, not so we can attack Russia.  Are you serious?  Russia wouldn't dare attack another UN entity, but a country with no affiliations?  Well that's more of a gray area.  Why should they not be part of that group?  Should we allow Russia to rebuild the Soviet Union one country at a time?  Now that's insane.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Er, the talk was about Georgia joining NATO. It's already in the UN like almost every country in the world.

I'm interested to see the VP debates on Thursday. But all four candidates seem very ambitious to me, and none of them are incredibly truthful. You know the old saying, something along the lines of no one who desperately wants to be president can possibly be the best person for the job.

It does bug me how the news organizations are poking fun at every comment Palin makes, like when she commented to her daughter that New York was a city with lots of things to see and do (so what?) and that she said she got her news from all sources, declining to name one (me too, I just read what pops up at Google News, which is just an aggregator).

[JCHancey]

My bad on the UN/NATO thing.

Should we allow Russia to rebuild the Soviet Union one country at a time?  Now that's insane.

Haha when I first heard of the invasion I immediately thought Second Warsaw pact, and by golly Ender's Game is a bible! I agree though, we shouldn't let them rebuild that, but at the moment we have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, a 3 front war would be murder for us, my opinion isn't based on her drive or ambition, just the fact that we cannot uphold a 3 front war, especially against Russia under Putin. Putin is even scarier than I thought at first, something does need to be done about Russia, but at the moment we would be spread too far out, that is unless the elected president pulls out of Iraq and begins fortifying former SU countries.

What this election has become makes me want to pull out my Ron Paul sign and put it up where the Obama sign was (I live in Utah, the Obama sign lasted 2 days before it disappeared).

You know the old saying, something along the lines of no one who desperately wants to be president can possibly be the best person for the job.

I like that, and totally agree, but we have no one that doesn't want this position running.

[Elmandr]

 :oRamen!

[darxbane]

Of course we don't.  Look what the candidates have to go through to get this job.  Then once you get it, everything is your fault.  I believe that all four candidates have good intentions.  When I slam Obama and Biden on trivial things, it is only to make a point that there are trivial things on both sides, and these things really don't make them less viable as candidates.  However, when the media makes a big deal out of these things, but only on one side, it does upset me.  The fact that Biden's missteps are swept under the rug while Palin is ridiculed because she didn't want to endorse a newspaper on national TV (what hard hitting journalism by Katie Couric, by the way) is disgusting.  I am just as disgusted when people try to portray Obama as a Muslim, not only because it is not true, but because it shouldn't matter even if he was.  Why is that a negative?  McCain's age is another thing that bothers me.  He is probably healthier than most Americans half his age, and his mother is 96 and still quite healthy, which means he has good genes.  Like I've said before, if you have to look past the issues to find a reason to not vote for someone, then you are doing yourself a disservice. 

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

I don't think that being an executive in a state geographically and culturally separated from the Union, the entirity of which has 2/3rds the population of DETROIT CITY, and not even five times the amount of people as Salt Lake City.  I mean, Salt Lake City's urban population dwarfs the entire population of Alaska by 200,000 people. And Utah is not a highly populated state (it's a moderately populated state at #34), nor is Salt Lake City a highly populated city.

If Palin is considered to have "executive experienced" in a way that is applicable towards the presidency because she led such a state, then the mayor of every major city in the US is about as prepared--and many of them have been in office for longer than Palin.  The fact of the matter is the Senate works with the Executive branch and the judicial branch, and what each does affects the other.  McCain and Biden are both much more appropriately experienced than Palin, and I would say Obama is as well because he has the background for political office.  Palin has a BA in journalism.  Obama has a degree in political science with a specialty in foreign affairs.  Palin governed the 3rd least populated state in the Union and has touted as a show of character her experience playing high-school basketball.  I'm sorry, she does not have the educational background or the Washington background that Obama has.

Also, the fact that Palin has been quoted as saying things which McCain has called inexperienced, stupid, misinformed, etc. before it was Palin saying them shows that, according to her own running mate, she does not understand the concepts behind their own platform.

I expect Biden to say his great-grandfather defeated the British with the help of the Russians in 1845.  I really do.

This is scattered because I'm rushed and must go.  I'd like to flesh out my thoughts better, but I can't for now.

Mod:  I edited one of my sentences to make sense.

[darxbane]

The difference is that Obama has never been in a leadership role.  When you are on top, the final decision is yours.  You have to be able to make a decision and stand by it.  You need to understand delegation and prioritization for every department that reports to you.  A good manager doesn't have to know the intimate details of a person's job, they just need to know what needs to be done and make sure it gets done properly.  My boss couldn't do my job, but he knows what he wants done and makes sure it gets done.  Leaders don't have the luxury of not making a decision because they don't feel comfortable, or don't want to risk looking bad.  They have to say yes or no or everything stops.  I would say that there are several mayors of major cities that have the executive experience to be president, although the major  difference between a mayor and a governor is dealing with Congress.  A mayor only had a city council as a legislative body, while a governor deals with a local version of the Senate and House, and in all states but mine, has to deal with the same separation of powers that the president deals with. In this effect, it is not separated from the union.  It is a state with the same governmental structure as every other state.  If by saying it is separate from the union means it has been able to avoid most of the Political BS that other states are mired in, then that should be a compliment, not a snide.  Besides that, many midwestern states would sorely disagree with you about cultural differences.  You know what, I challenge you to enlighten me on what cultural differences Alaska has with a state like say, Texas?  North Dakota?  Utah?  Georgia?  Kentucky?  Shall I continue?

Obama is unproven as a leader.  That doesn't mean he won't make a good one, but he nonetheless has no record of management experience.  He hasn't even been in the Senate long enough to run a committee, which would at least show his management ability to a small degree.  He is leading a sub-subcommittee on NATO's involvement in Afghanistan, but hasn't done anything with it yet.  If he hadn't abstained on so many votes, I would give him more credit, but 130 times?  That is excessive for anyone.  It is one thing if you are not there to vote, but to be there and make no decision that many times?  He won't have that luxury as president.  What about his judgement?  Someone who claims to want change we can believe in, and is this beacon of hope for so many, spends 20 years listening to the hate speech of a bigot who preached the end of white society?  Even worse, he subjected his kids to that their whole lives.  If you don't think that won't make an impression, your crazy.  He then says that because his grandmother is a little prejudiced, it makes what his pastor does OK.  So he basically sells his own family down the river, then distances himself from that pastor only after it became political dynamite?   He has a 97% record of voting strictly along party lines, yet says he can get people to reach across the aisle?  He wouldn't even do it himself, how is he going to get others to do it? (as a side note, the fact that McCain is considered a rogue when he voted along party lines 90% of the time in the past 4 years shows you how bad the rest of them are)

You are also severely distorting the truth.  Her playing basketball has nothing to do with her leadership skills.  I guess republicans are not allowed to use analogies from past experience to help people understand their points.  You also consistently dismiss or ignore the fact that everything she has been involved in has improved, and she has an 80% approval rating as Governor of her state.   Also, your college education means little to me as experience.  Clinton has a law degree, Reagan had an Economics degree.   I bet there are a lot fewer Poly Sci degrees in Congress than you would think.  Face it, if Palin is underqualified, so is Obama.  So let's get over the experience hurdle, shall we?  If you stopped and really looked for even a second, you would see that Obama is all about getting the job, not doing the job.  And as for Biden, well he never met a fact he couldn't change to fit his opinion.  Let's have a vice-president who's own supporters agree his mouth repeatedly gets him into trouble, and let him talk with world leaders.