Conservative Musings

Campaign Reporters Should Do More Of This

One report has had the chance to follow both campaigns.  Dean Reynolds has traveled with the Barack Obama campaign and the John McCain campaign.  It's interesting to see which one seems better on the traveler.

The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama's, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time. Somehow the McCain folks manage to keep their charter clean, even where the press is seated.

The other day in Albuquerque, N.M., the reporters were given almost no time to file their reports after McCain spoke. It was an important, aggressive speech, lambasting Obama's past associations. When we asked for more time to write up his remarks and prepare our reports, the campaign readily agreed to it. They understood.

Similar requests are often denied or ignored by the Obama campaign aides, apparently terrified that the candidate may have to wait 20 minutes to allow reporters to chronicle what he's just said. It's made all the more maddening when we are rushed to our buses only to sit and wait for 30 minutes or more because nobody seems to know when Obama is actually on the move.

If more reporters got a chance to compare, maybe less of them would be "in-the-tank" for Obama.  On second thought.....Nah! 

-Colonel Steve

Hugh Hewitt & John Roberts on CNN

I love the several gotcha's that Hugh gave John Roberts in the 2nd half of this interview.

-Colonel Steve

A Plus for Palin?

It's been suggested that tonight's moderator may just be a plus for Governor Sarah Palin.

"The fact that [Ifill] is openly writing a book and that she's openly sympathetic actually may be a slight advantage to Palin, because everybody's going to tune in tonight and unlike some of these interviews where people pretended to be neutral, everybody's going to understand what you have is a reporter who's deeply biased towards Obama, but who's trying to be fair," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"If it benefits anybody, it's going to benefit Sarah Palin because if Gwen Ifill looks at Sarah Palin cross-eyed for a nanosecond, you know what's going to happen tomorrow," said Bernie Goldberg, author of "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News." "It's going to be, 'Well, Gwen Ifill has a book coming out, she's got a vested interest and did you see, did you see the way she looked at Sarah Palin?'

I think many will see it this way....that Sarah Has not one but two opponents on stage.  A few gentlemen, like myself, may just see it as "how dare you pick on the lady like that!'

-Colonel Steve

The O Turns Down Palin, But Not The O

Oprah "The O" Winfrey has made it clear that she will not invite Governor Sarah Palin on her show until after the election.  She has had Barack "The O" Obama on the show twice, although technically prior to his election run. And she has endorsed and donated to The O's campaign.

Interestingly, the comments about her decision, on her own website, are running highly negative against Oprah and for Sarah.  Amazing what kind of opinions blatant bias will cause.

-Colonel Steve

Cheers For One Press Reversal

Sally Quinn of the Washington Post has publicly done a reversal of her opinions.  On Friday, she had interviews on CNN and Fox News.  Between the two interviews, it looks like she has taken the time to research Sarah Palin for herself.

I doubt this is going to occur much in the coming days.  But Sally - Good job!  At least some members of the press still have credibility.

-Colonel Steve

Reaping What One Sows

What Code Pink did at the Republican Convention is typical.  Politicians being heckled is nothing new.

Now it's the mainstream press that's getting badgered.  How does it feel to be noticed this way?

I always thought the press was supposed to be bystanders to the news, not news makers.  What was i thinking?

-Colonel Steve

Press Fires Back About Their Palin Coverage

Some in the press are firing back concerning how they have been covering Governor Sarah Palin.  They are basically telling us that the complaints about them are really tactics to steer everyone away from real issues surrounding the election.

Joe Klein of CNN is quoted as saying: "America has been presented with a total unknown who might be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and Americans have every right to expect as much information as possible about this person so that they can make an informed choice. Certainly our critics are in favor of Americans making an informed choice, aren’t they?"

Joe, I actually agree with you.  So, how about applying this logic to the Barack Obama / Joe Biden campaign as well.  Consider some of the stories about them that HAS NOT BEEN TOLD on CNN or any other liberal news outlet.  Stories about how close Barack Obama and William Ayers of the Weather Underground are.  Or discussions of Todd Palin's DUI 22 years ago versus Joe Biden's daughter's arrest in 2002.  If we're gonna dredge up stuff on the Republican candidates, we'd better be doing the same to the other side, right Joe?

Sorry, Joe Klein, but we're not seeing equal stories out there.  We haven't seen CNN or anyone else in the liberal press do anything to bring bad light to Obama or Biden.  However, the very moment a conservative woman breaks the glass ceiling, every negative story imaginable comes out.

I've got a bias, Joe, and it's about time the liberal media like CNN admits to theirs as well.  This bias must be obvious to everyone but yourselves, based on your recent quote.

-Colonel Steve

Who and Who Is Not for McCain/Palin

Last nights speech by Governor Sarah Palin was carried by 6 television networks.  Last week's speech by Senator Barack Obama was carried by 10 television networks.  So 4 TV networks seemed NOT to be on the RNC's side.

Barack Obama had 38.37 million watchers of his speech.  Sarah had 37.24 million watchers of her speech, in spite of the lack of 4 TV networks.  That tells me people were just as seriously interested in her thoughts as his. 

They are both unique stand outs, being that neither are the typical white male cadidate.  That part of the attraction will wane away.  After all the scrutiny that Sarah has gone thru, many have seen that she is just like us common folk.  Not elite by any means.

Cool.

-Colonel Steve

Liberal Math

It's sad that we don't teach math in the schools as well as we used to.  Sadder still when we let liberals use this math they learned to enact legislation with (which may explain our tax code!).  Now we see first hand, in print, how that math knowledge shows itself in print.

The New York Times ran as story on how, supposedly, companies are evading taxes.  Powerline chewed up their analysis very well, noting that no company pays takes on gross receipts (total revenue), but on profits.  As also noted by others, some companies (oh, say like General Motors and Ford) had NO PROFITS to tax.  Shame on these car companies to use the tax dodge of losing money!

You don't need to be an accounting, math, economic, or engineering major to figure the simple math needed to know that companies don't pay taxes on losses, total revenues, or any other weird number.  It's simple profits.  Period.  Also, all politicians, including liberals, have set tax laws in place to allow certain loopholes for taxing purposes.  Things like investing in new products, developing alternate energies, protecting the environment, or simply investing in downtrodden economic areas.  Companies that use these loopholes shouldn't be lambasted for doing it.  Politicians want them to do it, so don't beat them up when they do.

-Colonel Steve

Gas Price Memories II

Awhile back I spoke of this story from the Courier-Journal on how Gov. Steve Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway were going to be looking into the gas price differences in Jefferson County versus elsewhere. 

I myself live near the edge of Jefferson County.  At the time of this start of their investigation, I was able to drive a few miles down the road and buy gas anywhere from 15 cents to 30 cents cheaper.  As of yesterday, the same stations I was comparing prices at were now 3 cents HIGHER out of the county then they were in the county near home.  Well within the range of just normal price differences.

I've been wondering if a) this so called investigation actually found something, or b) just a temporary change until the furor over it dies down, or c) something else altogether is different.  We may never hear.

-Colonel Steve