Journalists Name 44th President

The McCain camp tells me the paper refused to release a videotape of the remarks that it had obtained. Little Green Footballs calls that "media malfeasance of an almost astounding degree. They have a video that could change the stakes in this election and they're hiding it."

"We're not a video service," Doyle McManus, the Times Washington bureau chief, tells me. "We're not suppressing anything. We were the first to report on these facts." He declines to say whether the paper considered posting the video.

Drudge goes big with this headline: "2001 Obama: Tragedy That 'Redistribution Of Wealth' Not Pursued By Supreme Court." McCain picks up the charge about the seven-year-old Obama radio interview. But Andrew Sullivan reports: "Here's what it's based on: the 'tragedy,' in Obama's telling, is that the civil rights movement was too court-focused. He was making a case against using courts to implement broad social goals -- which is, last time I checked, the conservative position." He's got the full quote.

I got a message from Ralph Nader yesterday, complaining about the virtual media blackout of his candidacy. "It's pretty extraordinary, even in a two-party duopoly, to have this kind of witting or unwitting political bigotry," he said.

Nader deserved the coverage he got in 2000, when he was a factor. Perhaps he deserved a bit more earlier in this campaign, in which he's not much of a factor. But in the final stretch, it makes perfect sense that the media would focus on the two men who could be the next president.

Still, in honor of Ralph, here's a new piece in the Nation:

"Ralph Nader is a man of political substance trapped in an era of easy lies. He pierces the fog of propaganda with hard facts and reason, but the smoke rolls over him and he disappears from public view. A lesser man might go crazy or get the message and give it up. Nader instead runs for president again, as he is doing this year, campaigning in fifty states and addressing crowds wherever he finds them, smaller crowds this time but still eager to feed on his idealism. Ralph is not delusional. He knows the story. He is stubborn about the facts and honest with himself."

Christopher Buckley goes after Rush Limbaugh, and finishes with this flourish:

"Let me add a personal, affectionately-intended note: Rush, I knew William F. Buckley, Jr. William F. Buckley, Jr. was a father of mine. Rush, you're no William F. Buckley, Jr."

Finally, I didn't name Naftali Bendavid, the latest departing Washington bureau chief of the Chicago Tribune, in yesterday's column, but an editor inserted Benvadid's name and depicted he as a she. My apologies, sir.