Ron Paul, one of the most interesting and unique of the men who ran for the Republican nomination, well… He’s not giving up.

He and his considerable group of supporters have already rented space for their assembly near the site of the Republican Convention in St Paul Minn.

Paul doesnt support John McCain; thinks McCain’s ideas are far different than his.

Says he has a lot of ‘numbers’ in terms of voters

Doesnt think he’ll be interested in campaigning with Bob Barr, who is running to gain the nomination on the Libertarian ticket.

Some people think Ron Paul– and Hillary Clinton– are demented for not dropping out of a race that some insist they cannot win, and that are in effect, over already.

However from the point of view of our country being is such serious straights, it’s just my two cents worth, but if I had to choose who to be in my lifeboat trying to not go down with the current ship of state, I don’t think I’d want sister and brother sailors who gave up because it seemed the odds were not good, or because they thought the lifeboat cost too much money to man, or because landfall had not yet been sighted…

I’d want the brothers and sisters who are stalwart, never give up kinds of people… considering not the odds only, but what great moment is at stake. “Never, never, never”… you know, like that other ‘demented’ guy Winston Churchill said.

This interesting article by Marcus Baram who writes for ABC news, on what has become what I’d call ‘a mosh pit’ of candidates …

Asked during an appearance on “The Daily Show” last week which of the two Democratic nominees he preferred to run against in the general election, McCain quipped, “Ron Paul.”

But Paul might get the last laugh during
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In case you missed it, here’s what Hillary had to say about her idiotic gas-tax holiday proposal on ABC’s This Week:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Economists say that’s not going to happen. They say this is going to go straight into the profits of the oil companies. They’re not going to actually lower their prices. And the two top leaders in the House are against it. Nearly every editorial board and economist in the country has come out against it. Even a supporter of yours, Paul Krugman of The New York Times, calls it pointless and disappointing.

Can you name one economist, a credible economist who supports the suspension?

CLINTON: Well, you know, George, I think we’ve been for the last seven years seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically behind policies that haven’t worked well for the middle class and hard-working Americans. From the moment I started this campaign, I’ve said that I am absolutely determined that we’re going to reverse the trends that have been going on in our government and in our political system, because what I have seen is that the rich have gotten richer. A vast majority — I think something like 90 percent — of the wealth gains over the last seven years have gone to the top 10 percent of wage earners in America.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But can you name an economist who thinks this makes sense?

CLINTON: Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to put my lot in with economists, because I know if we get it right, if we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively.

So, everyone who knows anything about it, and isn’t just in it for the votes, opposes it, including Krugman, one of her leading supporters in the punditocracy. And Hillary doesn’t give a damn. She’s fightin’ for “hard-working Americans,” while everyone who criticizes her is part of some out-of-touch elite. And the economists? Damn them, too (unless they agree with her on, oh, say, health care or something, in which case she’s more than happy to have them on her side).

It’s bad enough that she’s running like a Republican. Now it seems she’s given up on reality altogether — or at least that’s the way her pandering comes across. She may not have embraced faith-based “reality” in reality — it’s just politics, you know, and she’s a faux populist — but the fact (in our fact-based reality) that she’s using this issue to distinguish herself from Obama (who refuses to sign on to such dangerous nonsense), as well as to attack him, says a lot about her candidacy, not to mention what she has become as a politician.

And what’s up with referring to the “elite opinion” of the Bush presidency?
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It sounds as if this morning’s special Town Meeting format “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC could give ABC’s — and Stephanopoulos’ — critics ammunition to say he and his network gave Senator Hillary Clinton an hour of largely softball interview airtime.

Several reports suggest Stephanopoulos looked awkward, and that the ABC show was not akin to the grilling Clinton rival Senator Barack Obama got on NBC’s competing “Meet The Press” by Tim Russert. At least 10 minutes of Russert’s show was devoted to asking Obama to comment further on the politically-toxic controversy involving Obama’s former pastor (complete with questions about why he didn’t distance himself further sooner).

A look at this account of the ABC Show on CBS’s From The Road blog suggests that the Clinton appearance likely helped Clinton and undermined Stephanopoulos’ reputation as an independent journalist who is tough on both sides. A journalist doing his/her job persistently asks follow up questions until the interview subject gives a substantive answer:

Hillary Clinton appeared on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” this morning in an interview filled with awkward moments and strange interactions between the two former colleagues (Stephanopoulos worked under President Bill Clinton for 4 years.)

The interview was billed as a “town hall” where Indiana voters would get a chance to ask Clinton questions. Minutes into the interview, Clinton decided to ditch her chair, preferring to stand and address the audience. What ensued was an awkward interaction between Clinton and Stephanopoulos when the ABC host was forced to ask a few questions from his chair while Clinton loomed over him. (In fairness to Stephanopoulos, oftentimes in seated interview settings the journalist and/or the guest have their microphone cord taped to the chair, restricting one’s movement.)

Stephanopoulos tried to recover by standing alongside Clinton, but was forced to stand in a strange position as he remained tied to his chair.

On most NEWS shows the interviewer is supposed to set the rules about where guests sit and the format. And the interviewer/journalist is supposed to be the one in control of the setting.

After the first commercial break, the two were seated again, but within seconds Clinton decided she had had enough, forcing Stephanopoulos to stand, again.

But it reportedly got worse: Clinton reminded viewers that George S used to work for her and her husband. Just what Stephanopoulos and ABC need after being under fire from progressives who allege (with no proof) the debate in Philadelphia was set up to get tough with Obama and hurl softballs at Clinton (actually it seems to have turned out that way due to judgments involving news values and news story interest):

The interview took another unpleasant turn when Stephanopoulos tried to pin down Clinton over her position on NAFTA, a trade program introduced by her husband during his presidency. Clinton has come out against the plan saying it was not good for American workers. Stephanopoulos said, “The Clinton administration didn’t do enough to address the downside of globalization and therefore failed the workers in Indiana and the workers of the West?”

Clinton clearly took offense to the tone of the question and while answering, decided to take a jab at the host.

“Well I believe, George, in the 1990s we had a booming economy that created nearly 23 million new jobs, more people were lifted out of poverty in any time in our near history. It was an economy that worked for everyone, not just the rich, the wealthy and the well connected, but there were underlying issues that we didn’t understand fully. Now, you remember this, because George did work in that ‘92 campaign - George and I actually were against NAFTA - I’m talking about him in his previous life, before he was an objective journalist,” Clinton said to a visibly annoyed Stephanopoulos.

Some have speculated that Clinton prefers appearing on Stephanopoulos’ show because she can often turn a question around to include him as a former staffer for her husband.

The rest of the program involved questions on issues and questions from voters.

As noted in a previous post here, ABC would have been far better served if a DIFFERENT journalist had done the actual questioning of Clinton during this segment. It isn’t the same as a judge bowing out if he has a conflict of interest but Stephanopoulos and ABC would have come out a lot better with their reputations intact.

Russert finishes today still being perceived as Tim “GOTCHA!” Russert; Stephanopoulos finishes the day being perceived by some as a former Clinton employee still seemingly intimidated by his former boss.

We don’t usually link to Drudge Report because so many of his original news items have later proven to be inaccurate. But this Drudge item is backed up with info from elsewhere — and it could mean ABC News will be thrust into Democratic primary controversy once again.

Here’s his lead:

Just hours before the Indiana and North Carolina presidential primaries, ABC NEWS has offered to air a ‘town hall’ meeting with Hillary Clinton — to be hosted by former Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos!

Embracing and racing through a brave new era of journalism, it is not clear if ABCNEWS will inform viewers of Stephanopoulos’s past employment.

Stephanopoulos helped run Mr. Clinton’s first presidential election campaign and acted as his press secretary and advisor on policy and strategy before joining ABC NEWS.

An executive at a rival network mocked, “We look forward to ABC holding the next town hall meeting with President Bush, hosted by Karl Rove!”

ABC will air the hour-long Hillary forum live from Indianapolis on Sunday.

There’s a lot more so go the link and read it all.

Drudge also notes that Clinton’s prime rival Senator Barack Obama will appear on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” where he will be grilled by Tim Russert.

Some websites have called this the dueling Sunday showdown between the two — but these two events and the issues raised by them are NOT the same.

1. Clinton has paid for televised Town Hall type events in the past. ABC is basically giving her a chunk of time to take questions from voters. Did ABC offer Obama the same thing? If not, the event is setting up the network — rightfully or wrongfully — to charges that it is doing the show to bolster Clinton. If these charges are made, they are most likely “wrongfully,” since despite what partisans on all sides think, most news directors don’t rub their hands with glee and try to figure out ways to undermine one candidate and promote another.

2. Stephanopoulos was bitterly criticized by many progressives and by some mainstream media staffers for co-moderating a Clinton-Obama Pennsylvania debate where the first half seemed to be focused largely on putting Obama on the spot about political and process questions and talk radio subjects. Stephanopoulos was accused of using a question proposed by conservative talker Sean Hannity. Progressives also pointed to his past employment with Clinton and suggested he was working with her to undermine Obama. Again, rightfully or wrongfully, this will further undermine perceptions of him, particularly if he doesn’t throw unquestionable hardball questions at Clinton as tough, persistent and assertive as the ones he threw at Obama.

3. ABC News as a network could come off OK if Stephanopoulos conducts an event that isn’t the equivalent of giving Clinton a free Town Hall meeting that she would have otherwise paid for. This will be a difficult task: a) Obama partisans will want to see Stephanopoulos giving Clinton the same treatment he gave Obama or they’ll say it was biased (and they will use a very tough standard — in some cases wanting blatant bias against Clinton), b) unless Obama was offered the same format to be televised before the closely-fought primaries, some progressives will say the omission proved ABC was favoring one candidate.

4. Meet The Press is not the same as a Town Hall. That show is a traditional TV talking heads Sunday morning interview program. The guest is in a studio — not interacting with members of the public. Russert has the reputation of taking politicians apart on his show and while many (including Clinton) have survived and thrived, and few except Vice President Dick Cheney have viewed Russert and his show as a p.r. or easy-spin vehicle.

The Bottom Line: After the debate, Stephanopoulos was highly controversial, suspect in Obama quarters and basically-damaged goods. ABC would have been better served if it had arranged for another ABC reporter to conduct its Town Hall.

By its choice of a controversial host who many believe is not above the Democratic primary fray, ABC’s Town Hall will be closely watched — but perhaps in ways ABC and Stephanopoulos did not originally have in mind.

Maybe yes, maybe no, but lately Birmingham, AL, has come under the microscope because ABC News 20/20 chose to do a sensationalist hidden-camera ratings-grabber of a story ostensibly to find out.

Since that time it has been ricocheting around the blogosphere and again today this popped into my RSS reader:

On Friday, ABC’s 20/20 tackled a palpable double-standard facing same-sex couples who are affectionate in public. […] Read the rest of this entry »

The repercussions of a recent New York Times article about how the Pentagon manipulated the American media have begun to be felt in the foreign press.

Serge Truffaut writes for Montreal’s Le Devoir,

“The old adage that “the first casualty of war is truth” is one to which the Pentagon has stuck to with unheard of will, strength, and consistency. Thanks to the Benedictine work a journalist from The New York Times - and there is no better word to describe it- we now know that the U.S. executive has applied itself to building a propaganda machine so powerful, that it highlights the disdain that Bush and company feed on with respect Read the rest of this entry »

Good for ABC News. Here’s Jake Tapper calling out the Clinton campaign for twisting the truth:

In [yesterday]’s edition of “The Note,” ABC News’ Rick Klein wrote that “By one (rightly disputed) metric — the popular vote, including Florida and Michigan — Clinton has pulled ahead of Obama. But without the rogue states, Obama is still up by 500,000 — and if you can find another objective measurement by which she’s in the lead, let us know.”

Including the popular votes from Florida and Michigan — which were not sanctioned Democratic National Committee primaries, where the candidates did not compete, where Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois was not even on the ballot in Michigan — is a sketchy notion, and Rick was conveying that with the proper air of skepticism.

Somehow, the Clinton campaign took his report and twisted it into this: “ABC News reported this morning that ‘Clinton has pulled ahead of Obama’ in the popular vote.”

That is a false reflection of what ABC News reported.

Yet, it’s the Clinton campaign spin-of-the-moment — and, of course, Hillary supporters like Taylor Marsh (whom I still like despite our differences) have picked up on it.

Look, Clinton and her campaign have been twisting the truth and moving the goalposts throughout the campaign. It’s what I like to call “Clintonian ethics” — basically, when you’re losing, change the rules so that you’re not losing anymore.

Hillary is losing the popular vote and delegate count (with and without the superdelegates). Since Super Tuesday, Obama has trounced her in terms of superdelegate pick-ups. Hillary won Ohio and Pennsylvania, of course, but Obama has won many more states than she has. So what’s the spin? Hillary has won more “big” states. Or, the states Hillary has won collectively have more electoral college votes. Or, caucuses aren’t as important as primaries. Or, well, whatever. In this case, it’s that she’s won more of the popular vote… if you include Florida and Michigan.
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