In the fairness of equal time, don't forget the Joe Biden quote,

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, 'look, here's what happened.'"

I am not so concerned with Fox's not reporting about Palin's idiocy, but O'Reilly's continued support.

= Palin doesn't know basic info about world geography and US economic policy: she could be tutored.
= Palin refuses to prep for the Couric interview (one could say she refused to be "tutuored"): she didn't want to be bogged down with information.
= and so on.

I have an image in my head of O'Reilly with hands over his ears and singing "God Bless America."

Okay, gotta vent.

Just took my son to the bus stop, after the two of us had a laugh with Bill O'Reilly's take on Palin's lack of knowledge. My son was asking the other kids "Is Africa a country or a continent?" (the kindergartners were getting this one correct, BTW), and one of the mothers looked at me funny, as if to ask "Why is your son asking this?"

I filled her in on this news, of Fox just releasing that Palin was moments away from being Vice World Leader, and not knowing some pretty basic info.

"Whatever," said this mother, to stop me from giving more than one example, "if Palin ran for president she would get my vote! End of conversation."

Aghast, I said "You're not concerned she doesn't . . ." at which point this woman turned her back to me and stared off into space.

Awkward...

As a Democrat, I am definitely concerned about Biden's mouth talking faster than his brain, and look forward to the next four years of him being fodder for the chat shows.

On the other hand, doesn't he have a proven record in politics, by making good decisions with policy and such? Good thing to have with a Vice President, someone who you can go to when you have some critical thinking to do.

I have a request to make.  Here in this particular part of Louisiana, I'm surrounded by conservatives whose first argument against Democrats winning is welfare increasing (and perhaps changes in taxes).  One of the biggest arguments they have is something along the lines of, "I'll be taxed more so that lazy whatevers can collect welfare".  Does anyone have some data, or a website, that breaks down the difference in welfare spending between either party in power?  Is there a dramatic change in welfare spending when Dems take over?

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No thats strictly from being proud and ignorant.

Out of curiosity, with your background, what do you think about the state of journalism these days? 

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Thanks for asking, Gene. I can tell you about the state of newspaper journalism, which is where I worked. It's definitely facing some challenges right now and is a real need of a long, hard look in the mirror.

The industry is largely in a state of denial. Newspaper readership is dropping at an alarming rate. But those in the newspaper industry largely blame readers for this drop, rather than questioning that the product they are getting just isn't working the way it used to.

The elephant in the room is the overall left-wing bias of the newspaper industry. The problem isn't so much that this bias exists, but that people within the industry refuse to acknowledge it. There's a real "Emperor's New Clothes" mentality at work.

The vast majority of editors, reporters and publishers are good, honest people who work hard to be fair. But everyone is human and we all have our biases and preconceived notions (I certainly have mine). We all make mistakes (I know I've made my fair share). However, the newspaper industry wants you to believe that these biases don't creep in. They act as though what you read in the paper is sacred text brought down from the Mount by Moses.

In my opinion, Great Britain has a much better newspaper model. Over there, you've got liberal-leaning newspapers and conservative-leaning newspapers and they make no bones about their points-of-view. I think that's a lot healthier and more honest than what we get here.

"Whatever," said this mother, to stop me from giving more than one example, "if Palin ran for president she would get my vote! End of conversation."

Aghast, I said "You're not concerned she doesn't . . ." at which point this woman turned her back to me and stared off into space.

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I assume the wee ones nearby kept you from going on a tirade. You are a better man than me.