So, I was watching Hardball tonight and once again, like every other night this week, Chris devoted a whole segment to the burning question, the searing debate, the roiling boil of this election season, "Will Hillary supporters turn their backs on Barack?"  The question lingered in the electromagnetic glow. It sprang from Chris' gleaming lips with oracular gravitas; this "my friends," his chesire smile said, is THE BIG QUESTION.

We are in the process of selecting the next President of the United States, the "Leader of the Free World", a man who will guide this country through some very difficult times, not a drinking buddy.  So stop asking who we'd rather have a beer with.  That's an insultingly stupid question.  It cheapens the discourse.

But that's not the stupid polling question that's been bothering me this election cycle.  No.  The stupid question that I wish the pollsters would stop asking is any version of the following:

Is America ready for a (fill in the blank) president?

Yes, you read that right ...

To help keep pace with all of the election coverage on the 24/7 news channels, Jed has been archiving closed captioning data. However, the sheer volume of text makes it hard to analyze.

In this diary, I'll show several automatically generated images (word clouds) that I created that highlight the prevalence of certain words in election coverage on these three channels; the analysis is over the last week's worth of closed captioning feeds. Let's look at the top 20 words on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News (from left to right):

The anti-gay attack machine worked before; will it work again? I'm a contributing writer for queer media cites AfterEllen.com/AfterElton.com, and today they're running my article that asks just that question of a wide variety of media and political figures including Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Congressman Barney Frank, Joe Scarborough, AmericaBlog.com's John Aravosis, and a number of others -- including Karl Rove himself.

Well we knew it was going to happen. What? The inevitable backlash from the corporate media, on Obama's successful "Presidential" overseas trip.

Despite the denials of numerous respectable pollsters (democratic & republican alike), this morning on Morning Joe, Both Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough, stated that Barack Obama is "suffering from the Bradley effect." I couldn't believe what I was watching. I was aghast.

Why? They said it was because of 4 recent battle-ground state Quinnipiac Polls (that originated up to 13 days ago), current Gallup polling (where they claim Obama is not surpassing 45%), the lack of a bounce from his international trip and the alleged fact that he "underperforms in exit polls; it's the Bradley Effect" they surmised. I will deal with all four points after the break.

These charges are totally inane, and reckless (and border on Broadcast Racial Profiling), for such highly paid media/political pundits.

Aren't we tired of words like "exotic", "different", "not like us" and "can he sit down in a diner, somewhere in Ohio and talk/relate to a customer", with out relevance/facts?  But this latest ethnic gaffe,  is totally irresponsible; even for these two.

Chris Matthews on Hardball has promised to interpret some recent polls in the worst way possible (for us Obama supporters). What he has done is cherry picked the worst possible polls (from our perspective), ready to pound them!

So, here at the clinic, we're giving free vaccinations for the Hardball show coming on tomorrow!  

Please tip your health care professional as I am working hard for you (and packing away for my move)!

Found interesting fun discussion of Veepstakes MSNBC !

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

As Barack Obama's global travels - and good fortune - dominate the headlines in the U.S., the McCain campaign has launched two new ads in a petulant campaign against the media itself.  The spots, which prominently feature MSNBC's Chris Matthews (among others), blast a fawning media's seeming love affair with Barack Obama. Whether or not contempt works as a campaign strategy for McCain, it could be a case of biting the hand that feeds him.  After all, as Chris Matthews himself said, "The press loves McCain. We're his base."

Apparently upset that the media has reluctantly acknowledged that Obama's foreign policy trip has been a resounding success beyond anyone's expectations, McCain has now started throwing a petulant hissy fit that his lies about Obama's position on Iraq and al-Maliki's statements are not getting perpetuated uncritically by every journalist in the business. Hoping to replicate a successful play made by Senator Clinton, he has now initiated a campaign to bully any non-compliant members of the press into his service. Apparently, anything less than complete, pathological hostility to Barack Obama is unacceptable. Of course, McCain is acting less like the oppressed outcast than the paranoid, jealous lover. It's not that the media has been particularly negative towards him. Rather, he simply cannot handle the faintest indication that they might be anything less than completely devoted to his campaign.

► Notice how camera flashes pop throughout his remarks.
*

► The US Embassy turned into a MADHOUSE last night, as GIs gave Barack an OVERWHELMING reception (transcript and pix below).

► Chris Matthews made a moving appeal on last nite's Tonight Show, asking voters to "open their hearts" and vote for Barack.  I’m not kidding.  Transcript and clip below.

► And bringing in the funny, MSNBC compares McSame with The Joker (clip below).  

► The Candy Store is now Open.

Disgraceful shill Andrea Mitchell just gave a two minute speech on Chris Matthew's Hardball in which she stated that "clearly the surge has worked!"

I shit you not.

I'm writing this diary shaking with rage.

 As the worried mom of a National Guard Staff Sgt. that totally supports Obama and his Middle Eastern policies and is looking forward to an Obama "Attorney General" to go after the Cheney/Bush/McSame administration for their massive war profiteering against our "real" military and the locals in Afghanistan and Iraq and their blatant war crimes committed against the locals, (they have been totally dismayed that our complicit congressional critters haven't been doing their paid jobs of oversight over the years), I find it amazing that anyone recommended watching Chris Matthews yesterday.

In recent weeks, the GOP has started the talking point that the surge is working, just because violence is down, without addressing the actual objective of the surge, political accomodation. This has been reiterated by the MSM, and I have been upset at their lack of attention to the real issue.

Finally, Chris Matthews is speaking for me. And as an added bonus, rips Pat Buchanan a new one. See an excerpt from the transcript below.

Once again, the great wheel groans and the edge of darkness moves across the continent. As the somber American night settles, I place my hands on the monitor and sense your anxious voices crackling down the mojo line. Oh yes, I hear you out there in the dark American night...and I still have my suspicions about you.

Since reading a recent L.A. Times article by Neal Gabler about the ridicule and attacks Democrats suffer from supposed liberal journalists, I’ve had the opportunity to listen to Air America's Alex Bennett praise John McCain, then in the next breath run down Barack Obama. I’ve also noticed the glee with which the mainstream press has reacted to what Obama claims is a mischaracterization of his statement about Iraq.

"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady," Colbert continued, in a nod to George W. Bush. "You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday."

in deference to a candidate who has not resorted to talking down to us, can we at least stop using baby talk like, "flip flop" & "flip flopper?"
i know we cannot expect the cool sophisticates of the media to stop, it's a guilty pleasure for them, like fart jokes - anderson cooper for one, can't wait to report the first charges of obama having "cooties." still, we should be able to discipline ourselves to the point of not using the language of preschoolers in a sandbox.

On The Chris Matthews Show transcript for June 22, you will find some of the most concentrated hope of the entire cycle.  I was especially emboldened by the opinions on the Economy issues.  Jim Cramer (yes, THAT Jim Cramer) of the "Mad Money" show said that Wall Street will embrace Barack Obama.

Jim Cramer: I think it's going to work. I think people recognize that the whole Bush plan turned out to be a facade, a charade, because most Americans don't own stock. It's not an ownership society. We don't care how our stocks do because they don't do well. So I think--I think Obama's making a lot of sense.

It's not class warfare anymore. We don't feel like that if we get rich, we're going to pay. We feel like, you know what, the rich have had such a great ride and what has it done for us. It's time for other people to do well.

That's what Wall Street thinks too.  (With Bush) Everybody got screwed except for a couple people who make more than $2.8 million a year.

For the first time I feel a little concerned about Obama's campaign. Maybe there's nothing to be concerned about yet, but the way he's handled his opting out of public finance thing seems needlessly hurtful to him.

Every commentator on every network, except Olbermann, seems to be flatly stating that this is a flip flop - a breaking of a promise. But it is NOT. We all here at this site have seen the qualifying language Obama made when he checked that "yes" box. Obama tried to encourage McCain to rein in the 527 groups, McCain refused, so Obama can say he tried to work out an agreement with McCain but couldn't. Opting out of public financing is 100% consistent with what he promised.