That bothers me about the Media. Sometimes, they do not do their job.

If only you had replaced "sometimes" with "usually."

WASHINGTON -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won another overwhelming victory over Senator Barack Obama on Sunday -- this time in Puerto Rico -- as many Democrats, including some of her supporters, suggested it would be best if she dropped her threat to battle on past the end of the primary voting on Tuesday. --NY Times, 6/2/08

I thought it was just more pro-Obama it's-all-Hillary's-fault-so-it's-her-job-to-fix-it BS.

All of which is to say - Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, may reach 2,118 this week, but Clinton may assert that doesn't mean anything.

Fasten your seatbelts.

If he didn't know why the lady yelled it or what it meant, his first job was to find out...ask her...or anybody!  But to mention his ignorance in a column is just dumb, dumb, dumb...

...and very revealing.

That get's an F in my class.  (Along with sentences beginning with "The fact is..." followed by an opinion...and NOT a fact.

Hey, guess what I'm ANGRY and from what I read a lot of us are.

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/poll_arg_montana_south_dakota.php

I kept saying the Repubs are going to use this... Clinton supporters are portrayed as irrational by one side and what do the Repubs do?

Well, look at that...they act like the voters matter.

[Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), the former chairman and now ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is seriously evaluating whether he should call for Congressional hearings.]  

Who do you think will capture the hearts of the voters.. the ones who tell people to 'get over it' or the ones who say this..[Specter, probably one of the most legally astute of GOP Senators, contends the DNC is violating one of the most fundamental of all constitutional rules, that once a vote is cast it must be counted]  

A tiny sample from Colbert's address to our
fearless Press:

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it
works: the president makes decisions. He's the
Decider. The press secretary announces those
decisions, and you people of the press type those
decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em
through a spell check and go home. Get to know your
family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel
you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one
about the intrepid Washington reporter with the
courage to stand up to the administration. You know -
fiction!

I'd lay odds that Tomasky darn well knows exactly what the lady was yelling about. But think how much space it would take to explain it for the first time for most of his readers! He is not being paid to elucidate such things. He has a Narrative to manage.

Rachel Maddow just now on MSNBC, when I clicked over during a commercial, was saying that poor Barack is being held responsible for just about any Tom, Dick, or Harry who crosses the threshold of his former church.

Rachel! How dare you! Pfleger has been a friend and cohort of Obama's for over 20 years.

Do not tell she she doesn't know that.

But she's not being paid to report facts which damage The Narrative.

Levin has wanted to break the hold NH has for a long time. Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong. But the fact that NH didn't play by the rules doesn't absolve MI of the responsibility of playing by the rules. It didn't and thus faced the consequences. NH didn't and got its waiver because its change supposedly didn't materially impact things because it was already in the pre-window.

No excuse for Tomasky not to know all the history, but I think that people advocating for full seating for MI and FL took for granted that this whole incredibly convoluted tale was all completely known and clear to everyone, and they failed to properly make their case on the whole backstory over the past several months.

Most of what's been written about it over the past few months has too rarely addressed the whole big-state small-state and frontloading issue and the party trying to bring diversity to the primary process through their changes to the schedule, with conflicting views on what that means and how it can be best made to happen.

The plausibility factor falls apart because of a failure by most readers to recognize the actual paymaster for media folks in the USA.

Here's a link to Tripod,  I don't hold the site as a "go to" source, however the quotations are accurate & on point to any discussion of the media in general & specific reporters.  They simply do their master's bidding.

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
--William Colby, former CIA Director, quoted by Dave Mcgowan, Derailing Democracy

"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month."
--CIA operative, discussing the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. Katherine the Great, by Deborah Davis

"There is quite an incredible spread of relationships.  You don't need to manipulate Time magazine, for example, because there are [Central Intelligence] Agency people at the management level."
--William B. Bader, former CIA intelligence officer, briefing members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, The CIA and the Media, by Carl Bernstein

"The Agency's relationship with [The New York] Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials.  [It was] general Times policy ... to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible."
--The CIA and the Media, by Carl Bernstein

They would come to me, expecting to be spoon fed complex information broken down into baby bites.  In addition, as a result of this laziness, they are notorious for copying each other and thus perpetuating misinformation, ad infinitum.

To me a good and insidious example of this is the general misconception about the Michigan "compromise".  This relates to the idea that the Clinton campaign is quibbling over a mere four delegates.  Admittedly, if this were so, it would come off as a bit petty.

Sorry for the length of the following, but I would like some input before I disseminate this further.
I sent it to the writers mentioned by you, BTD, with regard to the article in the WSJ about how Bill was a deal breaker for naming Hillary VP. It was my attempt to educate them, but if I misspoke I would appreciate being corrected.  All I've learned about it has been essentially through osmosis here.

"Overall a thorough article.[Had to throw them something to get them to read this.  Sorry for the subterfuge]

That is, with one understandable, but glaring, error, unless I misunderstood the implications. You say, "Sen. Clinton won the Michigan primary with 55% of the vote; 40% went to "uncommitted." She argued that she deserved 73 delegates. Instead, the committee gave her 69, to 59 for
Sen. Obama."

The common misunderstanding among the vast majority of the media seems to be that what is at stake is 4 delegates. While that is actually an 8
delegate swing, that is hardly the issue. To argue over such a seemingly trivial matter seems petty.   Unfortunately a poorly worded statement by Ickes and Flournoy helped to foster this idea.  While I don't have the statement before me it went something like this, "not only did they give Obama 55 uncommitted delegates, they also gave him 4 of Clinton's". This can be misconstrued as acquiescing in the 55, however grudgingly.  The
statement went on with some elegant language about why this was unfair. Bad focus. In my opinion, the emphasis should have been on the holy rules.

The truth is that the actual Clinton position, as I understand it, which should have been stated in plain English, was that she should have gotten 73 delegates and he should have gotten none. This result because he was not on the ballot.  Worse, he affirmatively took his name off the ballot for tactical reasons.

This 118 delegate swing would close the gap substantially and change the magic number upwards, giving Clinton some breathing room.

By their own sacrosanct rules, neither the DNC or the Rules Committee has the power to conjure up delegates not based on votes received.  The rules specifically prohibit the delegates of one candidate to be transfered to another, much less to one not even on the ballot. Further, the almighty rules say that the status and integrity of uncommitted delegates shall be given the same status and protection as that of  committed delegates.

If you don't believe me, consult with a rules expert, just not Donna Brazile who still has the nerve to call herself uncommitted for cover.

Thank you for your consideration."

Hope this is not too long.