While we're pondering the topic of obnoxious media coverage of the campaign, consider this:

[Fox News Channel] has released a statement saying it should not have referred to Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle, as "Obama’s Baby Mama," as it did on Wednesday in an on-screen headline commonly called a "chyron." ... The chyron appeared during a discussion between the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin and the Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly about political attacks against Mrs. Obama. It read in full, "Outraged Liberals: Stop picking on Obama’s baby mama!" ...

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as one "chiefly in African-American usage" that refers to, "The mother of a man’s child, who is not his wife nor (in most cases) his current or exclusive partner."

Earlier this week, the Fox News anchor E.D. Hill had apologized for raising the possibility that the Obamas affectionate fist bump during the senator’s victory rally in St. Paul on June 3 was "a terrorist fist jab." Two weeks prior, the Fox News analyst Liz Trotta said she regretted making a joke about a possible assassination of Mr. Obama.

In his dissent in yesterday's Boumediene v. Bush decision, Chief Justice Roberts wrote:

The critical threshold question in these cases, prior to any inquiry about the writ’s scope, is whether the system the political branches designed protects whatever rights the detainees may possess.

(Emphasis supplied.) This is Roberts the judicial minimalist. And so he is when discussing the Great Writ. But not always. For example, in the Parents Involved school desegregation cases, Roberts trampled the "system the political branches designed." He struck down the systems designed by the charged political branches in Seattle and Louisville to deal with that issue. It seems Chief Justice Roberts is a judicial minimalist when it favors the result he wishes to reach. Of course Roberts is no judicial minimalist, he is a Legal Realist. More . . .

Many of us do not respond well to criticism.

Yesterday, Rachel Sklar criticized Keith Olbermann's denial of sexism in the Media. It seemed to me Sklar made a good case.

When asked about it in his daily kos Special Comment diary, Olbermann responded:

Ellen Goodman writes:

It wasn't just the ugly stuff coming out from under the rocks - "Life's a B - -, Don't Elect One." Nor was it just the sleazy shout-outs of the new boys' blogosphere. What shocked even the slur-hardened feminists was that, as Ellen Malcolm of Emily's List said, "it seemed to be so acceptable. And it was shameful." Where was the DNC's voice of protest? Where were the big feet and CEOs of the media? Why do sexist slurs get a laugh while racist slurs end careers? Getting even is, finally, shaming the media messengers.

(Emphasis supplied.) The Left blogs used to see themselves as watchdogs against the Media. They abdicated that role in this campaign, blinded by their hatred of Hillary Clinton. Instead of denouncing the sexism and misogyny, they were silent. They malignly accepted the sexism and misogyny. They have been stained by their silence. More . .

In a front page NYTimes story, NBC reacts to charges of unfairness and sexism in its political coverage of Hillary Clinton:

Phil Griffin, senior vice president of NBC News and the executive in charge of MSNBC, a particular target of criticism, said that although a few mistakes had been made, that they had been corrected quickly and that the network’s overall coverage was fair. “I get it, that in this 24-hour media world, you’ve got to be on your game and there’s very little room for mistakes,” Mr. Griffin said. “But the Clinton campaign saw an opportunity to use it for their advantage. They were trying to rally a certain demographic, and women were behind it.

Ha! The Obama News Network claims it was fair. Hilarious. Oh and the sexism consistently exhibited by its main newsreaders and commenters? Just a Hillary Clinton ploy. More . . .

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, speaking in Tokyo today, said the Supreme Court's decision yesterday upholding the rights of detainees to challenge the determination they are enemy combatants will not affect the upcoming Military Commissions Act trials.

[Mukasey] said he was disappointed with the decision because it would lead to "hundreds" of detention cases being referred to federal district court.

"I think it bears emphasis that the court's decision does not concern military commission trials, which will continue to proceed," he said. "Instead it addresses the procedures that the Congress and the president put in place to permit enemy combatants to challenge their detention."

There are several levels of detainees at Gitmo. Most have been held for years without charges. A small group have been charged with crimes, including offenses punishable by death. Their trials are by military commission, the rules of which are, in my view, unconstitutional.[More...]

Withheld evidence could have changed the verdict in David Flores' murder trial from guilty to not guilty. The Des Moines Register reports:

Prosecutors and judges have acknowledged that the case against David Flores, now 31 and serving a life prison sentence, was weak at the time he was convicted in 1997. One element that will be central to Flores' hearing is whether police had access to an FBI report that pointed to [Rafael] Robinson as another suspect in [Phyllis] Davis' death.

Flores' defense first learned in 2003 that the report existed — after his appeals were exhausted. But it took them years to discover the contents of the report.

Davis was inadvertently caught in the middle of an exchange of gunfire. Three witnesses say Robinson shot her. Robinson was shot three months later. Flores' lawyers want to examine the police reports concerning Robinson's unsolved killing, but the police and prosecution are resisting, claiming the examination could compromise an ongoing investigation. That excuse would be more persuasive if the investigation had actually produced a strong suspect in the last 12 years. [more ...]

Barack Obama now has a webpage, Fight the Smears, debunking right wing smears concerning him and Michelle. He lists the smears, who is promoting them and details why they are false.

TalkLeft has banned discussion of the smears, particularly the one claiming there is a tape of Michelle using racially charged words, because there has not been a shred of credible reporting to back up its existence. There still isn't. But now that Obama has brought it into the open, our ban is pointless.

So, here's a place to discuss his new website debunking the false assertions about him and Michelle. One caveat: Personal insults against the Obamas or insinuations that the debunked items are true will not be allowed. In other words, you can't perpetuate the falsities. [More...]

Finally, some good news from Texas.

District Attorney Craig Watkins is using a $453,900 grant from the New York-based Justice, Equality, Human Dignity and Tolerance Foundation to pay for post-conviction DNA testing. With the help of law students, Watkins' office is reviewing hundreds of requests by inmates, including requests denied under the previous district attorney. The grant also requires Dallas County commissioners to fund the DA's office for two additional years.

The grant also funds three positions at the Innocence Project of Texas. Money well spent.

This attempt to free wrongly convicted people comes at a time when there is a proliferation of cases overturned by new DNA evidence nationwide. In Texas since 2001, DNA testing has cleared 33 people who spent a combined 427 years in prison.

As we have come to expect, John McCain's response to today's decision upholding habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees was, compared to Barack Obama's response, considerably less sensitive to our nation's constitutional values.

"These are unlawful combatants, they are not American citizens and I think we should pay attention to Justice Roberts' opinion in this decision," McCain said, referring to the chief justice's dissent.

McCain said he hadn't read the decision. Presumably, he hadn't read the Chief Justice's dissent, either. McCain's remarks confirm his blind faith in Chief Justice Roberts. That should tell you something about the kind of judge he'll nominate to the Court if he's elected in November.

[More ...]

Today's Supreme Court decision ensures that we can protect our nation and bring terrorists to justice, while also protecting our core values. The Court's decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain. This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy.

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A 2005 Daily Kos post by Barack Obama chiding people like me for being very hard on Democrats who voted for John Roberts is making the rounds again and it is worth revisiting today in light of the 5-4 vote in today's Gitmo/habeas corpus decision. Obama wrote: