There's hope for you yet, Anderson Cooper

Perhaps CNN is starting to turn the corner.

Schism

There seems to be now a rift developing in the Republican ranks between the moderate and conservative wings of the party.

The following is comment I found on a friend's blog post concerning the future of the Republican party:

Hey what about Charlie Crist. He would get my vote. Long live the moderates!!
BTW. I firmly believe that if McCain had chosen Joe Lieberman rather then Palin he wins. Palin was clearly the choice of the RNC rather then McCain in my opinion. He lost because he chose to cave into the party and go right rather then stay center. I can name several Big Liberal who would have voted for a McCain Lieberman ticket rather then Obama.

While I respect this opinion because Republicans do need moderates in their ranks, I generally disagree with the conclusion that the party needs to essentially move to the left in order to be successful. The other school of thought, reflected by the above cartoon, is the camp that I find myself in moving forward.

The solution to this rift will be the ability of the party to rally behind a compelling leader who appeals to both moderates and conservatives. Someone competent who is yes, a conservative, but is not seen as someone who is necessarily on the far right.

I think we can all agree that a Democrat-light like John McCain, was clearly not the answer. After all, if you run a Democrat against a Democrat, the Democrat wins every time.

Say it ain't so Joe

Keith Olbermann Brown

I believe that Keith Olbermann has been reincarnated.

As Campbell Brown.

The tip off isn't necessarily the ridiculously obvious pro-Obama bent as much as it is the sanctimonious delivery and snide yet sing- song tone of voice as she recites what some lefty wrote on the tele-prompter.

Who does Ms. Brown think she's fooling, I wonder, when everybody knows that she's so in the tank for Obama, she's soaking wet.

I love the fact that Sarah Palin is pissing off the MSM.

If Campbell Olbermann Brown is angry, then the McCain campaign is doing something good.

Doctrinal confusion

"Charlie Gibson's gaffe..." Damn right.

unreal

In an effort to influence the election by influencing voters, ABC News apparently edited out whole chunks of the Sarah Palin Charlie Gibson interview.

Here we go again with blatant left leaning media bias. I'm sure ABC News would argue that they edited for time constraints or some other lame argument, but the effect of editing out certain key passages of what Palin was saying had the obviously intended effect of making her appear less coherent on matters of foreign policy.

Why do liberals have to constantly cheat in a pathetic attempt to win the argument?

Here's some advice to ABC News: If you don't want to be accused of cheating and being guilty of left leaning media bias, just run the interview of a Republican candidate in it's entirety. Don't edit out whole passages of the strongest arguments of the candidate! Because we're gonna find out what you did, you stupid bastards.

Would it even be possible to have someone at ABC News editing the interview who isn't in the tank for Obama?

If Charlie Gibson had any knowledge of this insipid editing then he's no better than Dan Rather (who I'm sure most lefties privately regard as a hero for fraudulently trying to take down President Bush on the eve of the 2004 election).

Here's the full context of the foreign policy discussion with the bold and underlined sections being those that were conveniently left out in order to shape people's impression of Sarah Palin's grasp of the issues being discussed.

A lesson in objectivity from Mike Gravel

Listen to this clip of a liberal radio show where the leftist presidential candidate Mike Gravel attempts to set the two partisan hosts straight on "trooper-gate" and a variety of other misguided arguments that are commonly parroted by every liberal media outfit under the sun in an effort to attack and impugn Sarah Palin's character rather than attack her policies.

For those who would seek to try to discredit Palin rather than debate the substance of the issues at hand, listen carefully to Mike Gravel, he's a lefty with some common sense.

Liberals and the media

Sometimes I wonder if liberals even understand what it is that every one else objects to about the biased and slanted general news coverage provided by the predominantly left leaning mainstream media.

Keith Olbermann and Chris Mathews were today relieved of their duties as MSNBC news general election anchors.

It seems that the more the left leaning media digs it heels in, the more ground it loses. Yet amazingly, declining readership of liberal publications and bottom of the barrel ratings for liberal television and radio enterprises have served only to somehow embolden far left influenced media rather than discourage it.

When your enemy is in the process of destroying itself it is unwise to point it out, but in this case I can't resist.

How it is that these supposedly intelligent lefty media types could have such a tin ear when it comes to what is expected of them in the realm of journalism? It must have to do with their own high opinion of themselves that causes them to fail to realize that their own audiences, those that cling to guns and religion, are not as stupid as they think. This is what Sarah Palin means when she speaks of the 'elite media', who in her case, have taken media bias to new levels of tawdriness and hypocrisy.

I mean, does the left at least grasp what people objected to when Dan Rather capsized his own career in a blatant effort to influence a political campaign by promoting a fraudulent Bush National Guard story on the eve of the 2004 presidential election?

That fact that many of those on the left are inclined to defend Dan Rather in "Rathergate" essentially dictates that they are doomed to repeat similar, if not the same, mistakes. Because this narrative of left leaning media bias has been around for so long at this point, it has fully taken hold in the public consciousness at large as a normal feature of the political landscape.

So when people see Keith Olbermann berating 9-11 victims or Chris Mathews "getting a thrill up his leg" for Obama they have clear confirmation of the insidious permeation and general brazenness of left leaning political bias bleeding into what is presented supposedly as hard news.

They never learn, so they're gone. Do Olbermann and Mathews even understand why they were taken off their assignment of delivering general coverage during the rest of the campaign? They seem so stubborn and one-sided that I'm sure that they have some sort of rationale that blames Haliburton or George Bush rather than the real culprit: their own failure to comprehend the difference between commentary and general news coverage.

grand slam & smack down

In case you missed Sarah Palin's killer speech last night, like Barack did, here it is in it's entirety. It's gonna be pretty tough for McCain to top this speech, but clearly, picking Sarah as the VP nominee was a stroke of genius.

Fred Thompson, thy hitter of home-runs

Many of the pundits were raving about Joe Lieberman's speech last night but I was partial to Fred Thompson's, I thought his speech was excellent.

He delivered a masterful blend of story telling and red meat dispensing. Fred Thompson knows how to get my conservative leaning juices flowing. He used his acting skills to regale the hall with perhaps the most interesting and compelling account of John McCain's POW experience and then he delved into some of the reasons as to why Obama is decidedly unprepared and unqualified to be president. Here are some of the best lines of the night delivered by Fred Thompson.

On McCain's Hanoi Hilton experience:

We hear a lot of talk about hope.

John McCain knows about hope. That's all he had to survive on. For propaganda purposes, his captors offered to let him go home.

John McCain refused.

He refused to leave ahead of men who'd been there longer.

He refused to abandon his conscience and his honor, even for his freedom.

He refused, even though his captors warned him, "It will be very bad for you."

They were right.

It was.

On tele-prompters:

Because John McCain stood up our country is better off.

The respect he is given around the world is not because of a teleprompter speech designed to appeal to American critics abroad, but because of decades of clearly demonstrated character and statesmanship.

On Democrats:

To deal with these challenges the Democrats present a history making nominee for president.

History making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for President. Apparently they believe that he would match up well with the history making, Democrat controlled Congress. History making because it's the least accomplished and most unpopular Congress in our nation's history.

Together, they would take on these urgent challenges with protectionism, higher taxes and an even bigger bureaucracy.

And a Supreme Court that could be lost to liberalism for a generation.

This is not reform.

And it's certainly not change.

On taxes:

A President who feels no need to apologize for the United States of America.

We need a President who understands that you don't make citizens prosperous by making Washington richer, and you don't lift an economic downturn by imposing one of the largest tax increases in American history.

Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases.

They tell you they are not going to tax your family.

No, they're just going to tax "businesses"! So unless you buy something from a "business", like groceries or clothes or gasoline ... or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small "business", don't worry ... it's not going to affect you.

They say they are not going to take any water out of your side of the bucket, just the "other" side of the bucket! That's their idea of tax reform.

In conclusion, a salute to McCain:

Tonight we are being called upon to stand up for a strong military ... a mature foreign policy ... a free and growing economy and for the values that bind us together and keep our nation free.

Tonight, we are being called upon to step up and stand up with John just as he has stood up for our country.

Our country is calling.

John McCain cannot raise his arms above his shoulders.

He cannot salute the flag of the country for which he sacrificed so much. Tonight, as we begin this convention week, yes, we stand with him.

And we salute him.

We salute his character and his courage.

His spirit of independence, and his drive for reform.

His vision to bring security and peace in our time, and continued prosperity for America and all her citizens.

For our own good and our children's, let us celebrate that vision, that belief, that faith so we can keep America the greatest country the world has ever seen.

Fred Thompson, thy hitter of home-runs.

Sarah Palin

It appears as though McCain will pick Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, as his Vice presidential running mate.

Putting aside the transparent identity politics play of this decision for the moment, I give McCain credit for picking someone with at least some executive experience.

If Sarah Palin is the Vice Presidential nominee, at least one of the four politicians on the two major party tickets will at least have had some experience running something. The other three: Obama, Biden, and McCain have never run so much as a corner store let alone something like the US Government, the largest enterprise in the world.

But then again I could just be being petty by imagining that the CEO of the free world essentially, should have at least some experience running something other than a self-serving political campaign.

Enter Sarah Palin, a fresh face with executive experience who represents an obvious attempt by the McCain campaign to win over disaffected Hillary voters. I wish her and McCain luck in their quest to defeat the Obama juggernaut and his getaway driver, the mainstream media.

McCain/Palin '08.

UPDATE: As of 10:40 a.m. eastern it has been confirmed that Sarah Palin is indeed McCain's VP pick.