Ok, even though I am an Obama supporter, I admit it.  

The McCain campaign is right.

Their lack of coverage from the media is highly unfair and biased

There is a lot that the low-information public doesn't know about John McCain because the media has not given it enough attention.

So because I value fairness over my candidate, I suggest ten stories that the media need to cover more in order to give John McCain his due.

There is a fundamental question that must be asked regarding this week's traditional media coverage.  

When the corporate media genererated narrative is how the media favors Obama and that message is repeated over and over by that same corporate media that is allegedly in Obama's tank, is the media's "meta" self-flagellation a) honest navel gazing or b) an example of cynical pro-McCain media bias in which the media purposely offers itself up as foil to whip up conservative anti-media resentment?

So the New York Times has a puff piece depicting John McCain as an influencial "bipartisan" Senator.

But towards the end of the piece, there are an interesting couple of paragraphs that describe how John McCain used his so-called bipartisan cred to influence issues:

Other times, however, Mr. McCain used his bipartisan appeal to put pressure on his Democratic friends on behalf of the White House. "He was a tremendous resource," said Nicholas E. Calio, a former White House legislative liaison to the Senate, adding that Mr. McCain helped round up Democratic votes for trade agreements, domestic security measures and the Iraq war.

Mr. McCain lobbied his Democratic friends to vote to authorize the invasion, even berating them, several Democrats said. "He was very forceful," said former Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida. "He told me the issue was over: ‘We ought to get on with the vote, stop this meaningless pontification.’ "

Berated?  Meaningless Pontification?

As Turneresq so eloquently puts it, there is no doubt that John McCain is an asshat for leaking Obama's travel plans...not to mention running a misleading attack ad when Obama is leaving the country and putting himself in harm's way.

But let's not forget the media's role in this security breach.  The Obama campaign asked the media to keep Obama's travel plans quiet, but this morning the Wall Street Journal wrote, "Barack Obama departs for Iraq as early as this weekend" and soon after McCain made his leak, the Reuters news service blasted this as their lead story (h/t to Josh Marshall)

Why is the corporate media able to keep its mouth shut when George W Bush or John McCain make overseas trips, but it can't do so for Obama?

So Time Magazine is publishing contributions by Obama and McCain in their own words about various issues, this week Afghanistan.

Of course, John McCain uses his ink to pretend that he takes Afghanistan seriously.  But the most notable sentences are the last:

I will not bluster, and I will not make idle threats. But when I am Commander in Chief, there will be nowhere the terrorists can run and nowhere they can hide.

Seriously, he juxtaposed these two sentences.  He really did!

Our banks are folding.  People are losing their homes.  Gas prices are soaring.  The Taliban is back in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda operates with impunity in Pakistan.

But what's really important according to the meme-builders at the New York Times?  That Barack Obama is hard to lampoon, either because of his race or because he doesn't play buffoon.

Enter Maureen Dowd, who writes today:

If Obama offers only eat-your-arugula chiding and chilly earnestness, he becomes an otherworldly type, not the regular guy he needs to be.
..
Because if Obama gets elected and there is nothing funny about him, it won’t be the economy that’s depressed. It will be the rest of us.

So let me get this straight, Obama is an elitist, non-regular guy because he focuses on the concerns of real people instead of providing tabloid material to the elite corporate media?

Barack Obama has got an op-ed in Monday's New York Times in which he lays out his plans for Iraq.   He reiterates what he has been saying all along - he wants to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months (while taking the views of his commanders seriously) and deploy more troops to Afghanistan.

At the end of the op-ed, Obama hits those who have been trying to portray him as a flip-flopper on Iraq:

But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.

Nice.

The New York Times is reporting that the Bush administration is thinking of speeding the pace of withdrawal from Iraq.

The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.

Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the war in 2006 and 2007.

One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.

More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in May and June, a trend that has continued this month.

Mark Halperin, stooge of the Time Warner corporation, has declared by fiat that John McCain "won the week"

So let me get this straight, Mark.

In Iraq, Malaki says there needs to be a timetable for withdrawal, undermining the McBush argument.

On the economy, McCain's top economic advisor says that a nation of whiners is in a mental recession.

On social issues, the straight-talking maverick couldn't answer a simple question about insurance companies who cover viagra, not birth control.

On social security, it was published that John McCain thinks the program is a disgrace.

Pew polling came out showing him 8 points behind.

Obama had a Sista Souljah moment with Jesse Jackson attacking him.

But Mark Halperin wants you to forget about all of that because John McCain won the week!

I generally like Chuck Todd, but just now on Countdown he was repeating to Rachel Maddow the narrative that everyone in the media and the right seem to agree on: that this election is a referendum on Barack Obama.

What makes me so mad is that this is just the narrative-builders' way of covering up all of John McCain's weaknesses.  After all, if the election is a referendum on Obama, then the media doesn't need to cover  John McCain's flip flops, his 95% mimicing of Bush, his inability to keep Iraq and Iran straight, his colorful personal life, his financial corruption, etc as they would for similar issues with Obama.

Basically, the corporate media is fashioning a "referendum on Obama" narrative which allows them to maintain a double standard of exaggerating Obama's problems while hushing up McCain's.  

This is not journalism.  It's pro-GOP corporate media propaganda.

So there is this bill being considered in Congress that would delay a 10.6% pay cut to physicians treating Medicare patients and would pay for it by giving less of a giveaway subsidy to the HMO's privatizing Medicare.

As expected the Democrats and AARP are fighting the medicare cuts.  But there is another  group lobbying against the cuts, according the New York Times:

On the other side of the issue, military families have joined doctors and AARP, the advocacy group for older Americans, in lobbying for the bill.

Relatives of active-duty military personnel, military retirees and their dependents receive care under a federal program known as Tricare, which uses the Medicare fee schedule to pay doctors.

When Medicare reduces payments to doctors, fees under the military program are also reduced, and it becomes more difficult for military families to find doctors.

Congress is “playing chicken with your health care,” the Military Officers Association of America told its members in a bulletin last week.

So the McCain campaign is upset at that Wes Clark said, "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.''

Just one problem.  Ezra Klein points outthat John McCain routinely says the same thing himself:

When folks ask him about his war heroism, he's even got a stock reply: "It doesn't take a great deal of effort to get shot down," he laughs.

Hmmm.  Does this mean that John McCain needs to reject John McCain's denigration of John McCain's service?

So, Ben Smith says that this New York Times piece "hardens a new CW on the surge, working"

At the same time, Frank Rich points out that the media is not covering the violence:

When a bomb killed at least 51 Iraqis at a Baghdad market on Tuesday, ending an extended run of relative calm, only one of the three network newscasts (NBC’s) even bothered to mention it.

The media has an interesting way of helping its buddy John McCain with a "surge is working" narrative: don't report much about anything contrary to that narrative.

This is hilarious.

Right now on Dan Abrams, they are talking about how John McCain has repeatedly said "I really didn't love America until I was deprived of her company."  

A quick google search and I found the transcript in which McCain said it to Hannity.

Wow, this makes the wingnuts look like total morons.

Finally.

Someone is cutting through the BS media coddling of John McCain.

Frank Rich's column this week is a must read:

TEN years ago John McCain had to apologize for regaling a Republican audience with a crude sexual joke about Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and Janet Reno. Last year he had to explain why he didn’t so much as flinch when a supporter asked him on camera, “How do we beat the bitch?” But these days Mr. McCain just loves the women.

Awesome.

The Obama folks are being too nice to McCain...calling him "confused" suggests his views are remediable, that with the proper information, John McCain's state of confusion can be fixed.   I doubt it.   I think McCain is in a far more incorrigible state.

That's not to say McCain is not prone to confusion generally, like when he mixed up Sunni and Shia and which country is training Al Qaeda.  

But confusion is kind of forgivable.  We all get confused sometimes.  Hell, I get confused.  I thought John McCain was against the Bush tax cuts, but then he's for them.  Very confusing to me, I must admit.

But this notion that we can keep keep troops in Iraq without casualties like in Germany and South Korea goes way beyond confusion and an out-of-touch state.   It speaks to being stubborn, dishonest, and delusional.

The Politico has an article up in which John McCain's campaign is complaining about their press coverage!

Openly frustrated by what they see as an ongoing double standard in the press’s treatment of his campaign, John McCain and his aides have been aggressively denouncing unfavorable stories as “smear jobs” and “scurrilous attacks,” while the candidate himself has launched a series of stinging attacks on Barack Obama.

Well, they are right about one thing: there is a double standard of media coverage...but it benefits John McCain.

I was heartened to learn this week that the DNC is planning on adopting Obama's policy of refusing money from federal lobbyists.

But today's New York Times is depressing.  Both the DNC and RNC are planning on raising millions in soft money to pay for their conventions.

Donors who give $1 million or more at the “Presidential Sponsor” level are given convention credentials to all hospitality suites and are assured of invitations to private events hosted by Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado; the state’s governor, Bill Ritter Jr.; members of Colorado’s Congressional delegation; and other leading Democratic politicians.

I'm sorry, but this has no role in Barack Obama's Democratic Party.