Polluting the Airwaves

Is this bit of news, reported by Lynn Sweet in the Chicago Sun-Times, important?

"With polls showing African-Americans have yet to give overwhelming support to White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), his wife Michelle said 'black America will wake up and get it' in an interview running on MSNBC on Monday." Does that suggest that African-Americans who don't support her husband are badly misguided? Shouldn't they be able to decide whether to back a white candidate?

McCain charmed legions of reporters on the Straight Talk Express in 1999 and 2000. Now Power Line's Paul Mirengoff learns about life on the bus:

"After a leg or two, we run out of questions, so 'court' becomes a conversation about politics and public policy. By the final leg, the conversation has drifted away from politics and public policy, and into history and sports. McCain sprinkles the conversation with anecdotes -- some about his travels; some about famous people he's known. He also asks a trivia question or two.

"There are plenty of wise-cracks, but none during my time on the bus was anti-conservative. A good example was a joke he directed at me. During his blogger calls, McCain likes to chide bloggers for sitting in their recliners instead of going on the road with him. I mentioned that, while I had taken him up on this offer, the rest of the blog world was hanging out in Las Vegas at a blog expo. McCain responded, 'what that tells me is that your priorities are seriously [messed] up.'

"Reporters, then, have ample reason to like McCain that have nothing to do with ideology or anti-conservative tone. It's only natural to like a politician who is constantly accessible, who answers all of your questions, and who even converses with you not as if you were an enemy or an annoyance, but as if you were a guest at his house. This would be true even if other candidates of his stature did not treat the media as warily as they apparently do."

Should campaign consultants be able to serve two masters? Nation Editor Katrina van den Heuvel says no:

"My colleague Ari Berman has done more than any journalist to shine some light on how pollster-strategist Mark Penn, head honcho at PR giant Burson-Marsteller, and perhaps the most important figure in Hillary Clinton's campaign, poses a real dilemma for the candidate. Penn heads a firm that has represented everyone from union busters to big tobacco, and more recently Blackwater. (According to a Marsteller spokesperson, it was a subsidiary, BKSH & Associates, run by GOP operative Charlie Black, which helped Erik Prince prepare for congressional hearings after his employees killed civilians in Iraq).

"It would seem difficult to find a more controversial client than Blackwater but Penn's firm has just been retained by Spin Master.

"It turns out that Spin Master distributes Aqua Dots, a toy that was recalled last week because it contains a glue ingredient that when ingested is broken down by the body to make GHB, the 'date rape' drug, which can cause unconsciousness and even death. (The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the number of children sickened by Aqua Dots has risen from two to nine in the past week.) Penn has repeatedly stated that he has no direct contact with controversial clients like Blackwater or unionbusters. But what about the good old-fashioned American principles of responsibility and accountability -- principles which his candidate likes to invoke on the campaign trail?"

Liberal radio host Taylor Marsh isn't happy about Hillary's planted questions:

"Whether it's 'at least one question' or 'questions' as ABC reports, this is as stupid as it gets. An amateur mistake that you wouldn't expect from the Clinton team. The campaign will have to take this one on the chin. They deserve to."