The Finger-Pointing Game

"Let me be perfectly clear and blunt: consider me in the anybody but McCain camp. Read on.

"Lots of my friends have jumped on the McCain bandwagon. These friends usually begin their conversations with 'Yes [you're right on X], but . . .,' which is inevitably followed by him being right on spending, North Korea, Iraq, abortion, or some other single issue of importance.

"Notwithstanding all of that, John McCain is wrong on the fundamentals. However pretty the veneer is, a rotten foundation will cause his structure to crumble. And we have seen that happen repeatedly. All John McCain needs is a CNN camera crew and he stands ready to shove conservatives under the bus if he's guaranteed prime time and Anderson Cooper crying tears of joy while Chris Matthews stands by blowing kisses."

McCain, playing to the media? Is that what he's doing by pushing more troops for Iraq? I don't think so.

Bush is at 36 percent, and his handling of Iraq approved by only 28 percent, according to this CNN poll.

In the Judith Regan smackdown, HuffPoster Jeff Norman takes a contrarian stance:

"In a previous post, I argued that censorship is an aspect of the story that deserves more attention than it has received. To their great discredit, media professionals who earn substantial salaries selling sleazy infotainment, and who generally claim to favor open debate, called successfully for the censorship of If I Did It, the book in which Simpson reportedly muses about how [he] might have twice committed murder, although we don't know if the book really contains such ruminations, because we have been prevented from reading it by a subculture of self-appointed decency czars."

Sorry, but censorship means when the government bars you from publishing something. Rupe and Judith were perfectly free, under the laws of capitalism, to publish their sleazy book and air their pathetic TV special. Murdoch chose not to because his customers revolted and he realized that his PR black eye would be accompanied by a financial bath.

Betsy's Page blows the whistle on Joy Behar (and I'm surprised this hasn't kicked up more of a fuss):

"I just don't get The View. These are supposed to be women sitting around talking just like you might do with your friends if you were a celebrity and not bound by any facts or history. I don't think I'd want these women in my living room in person so why should I want their TV faces there?

"But, apparently, millions of viewers enjoy the show so there they are. And Joy Behar, who used to do somewhat funny standup comedy can sit there and say that Donald Rumsfeld is Hitlerlike and seem to be unaware how terribly insulting that is to all the victims of Hitler and World War Two. Whatever you think of Donald Rumsfeld or anyone in this administration, they're not Hitlerlike. The comparison shouldn't even pop into your mind. If it does, then perhaps you need to spend your holidays reading a bit about what went on during the Holocaust."

Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times sees a lack of color in network news: