If there were a Pulitzer Prize for Puff Pieces, the Chicago Tribune would be a front-runner for its preposterous editorial the other day on Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who has disappeared and is said to be receiving treatment for unspecified disorders of the mind:
We first met and observed him in action three decades ago. A mob of reporters had descended on Operation PUSH headquarters in pursuit of some news story involving his peripatetic father. Junior was a kid on the cusp of college. Unlike so many children of the prominent …

Spot the Party
“A grand jury [sic] convicted former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, on 17 of 20 counts of corruption. 11 of of the guilty verdicts related to attempts to profit from the “sale” of the U.S. Senate seat Barack Obama vacated when he became president,” Tom Blumer of NewsBusters.org wrote last night:
In six items all carrying today’s [now yesterday's] date found at the AP’s main site in a search on the former governor’s last name at 8:15 p.m. ET, the wire service not only failed to tag …

The departure of the only black senator prompts a revealingly clueless commentary.

From (the utterly juvenile) Ed McClelland via NBC 5
I hope Kirk will be conscious of the historic nature of his Senate seat. Based on an interview published in the Tribune on Sunday, I think he is. Kirk spoke about the need for the Republican Party to avoid cultural issues, and focus on economics.
“We should stay away from some of the more divisive issues in which we don’t have consensus,” he said.
What are those “divisive issues”? The Tribune story doesn’t …

“Tea party people know that I stood against the Wall Street scam from Day One, that I voted against TARP, that I voted against repealing Glass-Steagall Act that kept these guys under some control,” he said, referring to the 1930s law that established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

We’re not sure the Patriot Act is uppermost among Tea Party concerns. Feingold scored a point on TARP but of course neglected to note that he backed both ObamaCare and the so-called stimulus.
What’s most telling about this, though, is that one of the …

Paul Krugman takes note in his New York Times column of what he calls “the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties”:
Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.

“What Democrats believe,” he says “is what textbook economics says”:
But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people …

From James Tarranto in the WSJ
We’ve noticed a troubling trend in American politics. This is a Puffington Host post from October 2008:
A local station runs a disturbing story about a Ohio resident named Mike Lunsford who has hung an effigy of Barack Obama in his front yard. Lunsford freely admits that he is against Obama because of his race.
Here’s a CBS News story from last October:
Randall Terry, the anti-abortion rights activist and Operation Rescue founder, believes it’s time to “start drawing from our proud American tradition of burning people in effigy.”
And he’s …

“Sen. Barack Obama reversed his pledge to seek public financing in the general election yesterday, a move that drew criticism from adversaries and allies alike but could provide him with a significant spending advantage over Republican rival John McCain. Obama will become the first major-party presidential nominee to reject the public funds.”–Washington Post, June 20, 2008
“President Barack Obama is condemning a decision by the Supreme Court to roll back restrictions on campaign donations by corporations and unions. In a written statement, Obama says the campaign finance ruling will lead to a …

Hard to Be Humble
By our count there were 38 I’s (including two I’ms, but excluding two I’s in a quote from Martin Luther King) in President Obama’s speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize today. Some highlights:
I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. . . . I cannot argue with those who find these men and women–some known, some obscure to all but those they help–to be far more deserving of this honor than I. . . . I am the Commander-in-Chief. . . . I come here with an acute sense of …

“I’m a big supporter of non-censorship,” Obama said. “I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet—or unrestricted Internet access—is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged.”
The critical remarks were played down in the Chinese media and scrubbed from some Chinese Web sites.
The event was streamed live on the White House Web site, but the connection was choppy and delayed. The State Department said later more than 7,000 Chinese Internet users watched …

David Zurawik, TV critic for the Baltimore Sun, notes a revealing exchange between CNN’s Campbell Brown and White House consigliera Valerie Jarrett. (Note that neither Brown nor Jarrett is as fat as she appears in the video; CNN, for some reason, insists on presenting its online videos with the wrong aspect ratio.) Here’s the transcript:
Brown: So do you think FOX News is biased?
Jarrett: Well, of course they’re biased. Of course they are.
Brown: OK. Then do you also think that MSNBC is biased?
Jarrett: Well, you know what? This is the thing. …