Do you ever have one of those days where you just want to pack it in because everyone else in the world is so patently, transparently intellectually dishonest and/or un-self-aware as to defy any and all stabs at serious criticism or even derisive mockery? Do those days ever last for the entire month of September? Are you outraged over Obama's lipstick remark or outraged over the outrage over it? Either way you are part of the problem! How does this shit happen? It's very simple. There's nothing happening. Except Palin. The conventions are over and the campaigns now are focused on debate prep and early voting drives. Those are the only things that actually matter, right now, for both campaigns. The rest is just back-and-forth noise-making. Except for Palin who is a media sensation! So everything Palin-related will make headlines. So McCain's team just made up a Palin headline, to keep her in the news. That's all. But you know that is not a very interesting post, is it? So let's pick through this in a sad and doomed search for anything relevant or even slightly interesting! We're trying to work through this rationally. Give us a minute. Did the McCain campaign think they'd be able to convince the media that they're genuinely outraged about a sexist comment made by Barack Obama? That didn't actually seem to matter—no one on earth thinks this outrage is anything other than a political ploy, that does not affect the serious coverage one iota. When the McCain campaign accused Governor David Paterson of "playing the race card" this week, it made headlines but got no real traction. This, though, is leading everything. The story is that Barack Obama used an ancient Washington cliche, while talking about McCain. A cliche every politician, including McCain, uses in an attempt to sound folksy. A cliche surely familiar to most Americans. The McCain rapid-response team seized on the term and applied it to Palin, with help from Jake Tapper. Now through endless repition they are attempting to implant the idea that Barack Obama called Sarah Palin a "pig," and that that is a sexist term. Which does not make sense. Because no one has ever thought of Sarah Palin as remotely "piggish," and "pig," we thought, was a term of derision for men. We can't figure out the strategy here, at all, on either side. Will the base get riled up about this? Sure, why not, but they get riled up over everything, that's why they're the base. Will the vast mushy middle think Obama was being sexist? Even if they do, will they care? In a 'rational' world, this would make McCain look defensive—the supposed usual position of stupid stupid Democrats. It's desperate and weak. Do the Democrats have the "guts" to use the "playing the sexism card" card? Are we going to shoot ourselves if we keep talking like this? We don't know the answer to either question. But we honestly don't think this will last through the day, this outrage, and as far as how it relates or adds to the ongoing 'framing' and 'narrative-building' by both campaigns, we're stumped. There is maybe some residual "Obama is a sexist" stuff from the primaries, but the vast majority of those complaints were lodged against The Dreaded Media. And "the media is biased against Sarah Palin" still seems to be a charge with a better chance of sticking. It has already stuck so well, in fact, that maybe everyone just seized on this to deflect criticism. And what should Obama do? Daniel Radosh has a sensible Rovian response but so far the Democrats just continue saying "this is a distraction, wtf, how do you get away with this," which is also how we feel about it but, you know, when you chant that so much for so long without getting anyone on your side, you might want to rethink your strategy. But frankly even though Obama clearly did not mean it that way he should now just continue on as if damn straight he was making a snide remark about Sarah Palin. Because you might as well paint Sarah Palin as a total bitch, which is, we seem to recall, what she painted herself as when she said she was a transvestite pitbull or whatever the fuck.

Democratic strategist Peter Feld, who recently warned Radar readers that the polls are indeed bad news, checks in occasionally to rain on your parade. Today he explains the visceral appeal of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

I wouldn't have counted on Maureen Dowd to illustrate the cluelessness of the liberal media who are losing the election for Obama. But she did. The conceit of today's Dowd column — burdened, as so many of hers are, with an ill-fitting pop culture framework (My Fair Lady, this time) — is that Sarah Palin's interview later today with ABC's Charlie Gibson is a moment of high peril for the putatively unprepared VP candidate. Dowd mirthfully suggests a few questions for Gibson to ask Palin, such as: "Why was Sarah for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, and why was she for earmarks before she was against them? And doesn't all this make her just as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry?" It's a question a lot of the fight-the-last-war press seems to be asking. The savaging of Kerry four years ago still rankles Joe Conason, whose Observer column today about Palin is subtitled: "She was for ill-conceived pork projects before she was against them." And, like Dowd, Clarence Page still expects America to wake up and notice that McCain didn't vet Palin sufficiently. Like Dowd — and the Obama campaign — Page believes that when Americans learn that Palin once supported the bridge boondoggle she now boasts of stopping, her selection will "backfire" on McCain. And Politico counts yesterday — a day when six fresh polls showed McCain even or ahead of Obama — as an Obama victory, because his campaign had succeeded in getting the media to fact-check Palin's bridge-blocking claims. "Bridge to nowhere" is an apt name for this Obama strategy. What Obama ("You can't just make stuff up!") and his sputtering media supporters miss is that the "for-it-before-I-was-against-it" quote damaged Kerry, not because America hates a flip-flopper, but because it captured exactly what made him seem so ridiculous. It was a line Kerry had used on himself, something Palin would never do. Palin may be many things — unprepared, phony, right-wing, LensCrafter model, aerial wolf-hunter — but she's not John Kerry. Her appeal, as at least Tom Friedman seems to understand, is visceral, not logical. The swing voters who have to decide between McCain and Obama recognize themselves in her, something the Obama campaign considers unimportant. The indignant, sputtering media think that they can undo that appeal with careful fact-checking of Palin's record. Good luck — if someone doesn't wake up soon, it looks like you'll have the chance to fact-check Palin for the next four years.

As we more or less said, before, MSNBC's switch from all-crazy-pundit all-the-time (their two most unbalanced talking heads anchoring convention coverage? what can possibly go wrong!) to the more traditional "boring old guy who'll accept your bullshit with a smile" approach is a cowardly retreat by MSNBC president Phil Griffin, giving in to the outdated old methods of NBC News head Stave Capus and NBC head Jeff Zucker. It's a return to the "beat CNN at their game" idea, only that "game" is boring and they'll never beat them at it. Today's Observer explores the decision to kick Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews back down to their pundit kids table. It's a victory for the "serious" journalists of Washington, DC, and a terrible defeat for people who enjoy television.

So MSNBC going back to more "traditional" election coverage? Looks like that David Gregory ascendancy everyone predicted back before the Rachel Maddow ascendancy is finally happening! All because Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams are embarrassed by those loud shouty people and Jeff Zucker's in serious trouble with the rest of the Illuminati. Well it's a stupid, stupid idea, for many reasons. Reasons which we'll explain below.

The Oprah story on Drudge was maybe a bit of a stretch! Does it matter? No! The "damage" is done. It's proof that we've finally reached the most maddening 2004-throwback part of the campaign: the bit where they (let us just say "campaign operatives") throw out absolute bullshit to the friendliest of sources and wait for it to bubble up. We didn't think this would work anymore, in this brave new bloggy future—but it does! RedState heard Palin's teleprompter broke and she soldiered on like a pro! A guy who watched the speech in view of her teleprompter says that is not true, at all, wtf. Too late! The story's already being repeated as gospel! Drudge says Oprah refuses to have Sarah Palin on her show! Oprah says there hasn't been any discussion, we only just heard of this woman a week ago, wtf, I'll have her on later. Who cares? Hell, on a macro level various people call Sarah Palin a "maverick" and "reformer" and then she is one. Democrats can't replicate this strategy because there is not a legitimate news organization in the world that would unquestioningly use Kos (or even HuffPo??) as a source. But if they want to try we'll happily post an item on that one time Martin Balsam and Robert Shaw hijacked Joe Biden's Acela and killed the engineer and he outwitted all of them and drove the train to safety. Now we wait for Chris Matthews to take the bait!

This video basically sums up everything you missed in St. Paul this week. Liz Glover, DC-based videographer to the internet stars, sneaks into the CNN Grill while Sarah Palin's rant against community organizing distracts everyone. She tries to interview John Oliver but apparently he needs "approval" from "Comedy Central" or something. Then she meets a dog. The dog's name is "Sarah" and it is "panting" over all the "red meat" while literally attacking the media. McCain/Dog '08!!! [Wonkette]

Finally, it's come to this: McCain is pulling out of an interview with professional softballer Larry King, because King's CNN peer Campbell Brown accidentally asked McCain proxy Tucker Bounds some tough questions about Sarah Palin's readiness to be commander in chief. (As we said before! The media forgives everything besides violating your own narrative!) This will teach Larry to keep everyone else at the network in line! Here are some of the many many lies John McCain's increasingly whiny campaign is accusing the liberal media of spreading: First of all, every single word of today's Elisabeth Bumiller story on Sarah Palin. All of it is FICTION, they say! Like that thing about how she was a member of that secessionist party because she attended their conference and her husband was a member of their party until be became an "independent" in the '90s? That is false because Palin has been a registered Republican since 1984. More:

Here's Lou Dobbs, CNN immigrant-hater, complaining about how the entirety of the press—besides him!—is totally, completely in bed with Barack Obama. He's right, of course. Except that the media attention is so self-defeating, twisted, and unhelpful that it's facile to paint it as a neat little example of liberal bias. Also what the hell is he still doing on CNN? Everyone else on the network seems embarrassed to be associated with him. Him and Jack Cafferty should have a show together. A Broadway show! Because then we would never see it.

CNN press release: "CNN Recruits Key Political Experts for Campaign Coverage." Exciting! "Building upon its winning coverage of the U.S. presidential campaign and other political contests, CNN has added five more top political reporters and commentators to its deep bench of political contributors and analysts." Great! So who exactly are these five new additions to the best political team on whatever? One Dem strategist, one Washington Post columnist, and these three:

Since 2000, every time BBC news writes a story on China, their online editors slap up this stock photo of a Chinese police officer looking at a computer. Probably censoring something! Or cracking down on freedom! Or, like, updating his MySpace. Though since the picture dates back to 2000 he's probably just buying a cup of coffee from Kozmo.com. Regardless, there are at least 14 separate instances of the BBC using this same photo to illustrate a story, which is evidence of their anti-Chinese bias, obviously, repeatedly reinforcing the old "Chinese people sit too close to the monitor" stereotype. Also it's not clear whether the Beeb is actually revealing that the photos are not related to the stories they illustrate, which seems like a sketchy practice. Examples after the jump!

This will please Politico. (And our commenters!) Ron Fournier, who got in trouble recently for being too friendly to Karl Rove a couple years ago and also for turning down a job offer a couple years ago is now the official Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press. He was just acting chief before. Now he'll maliciously add pro-McCain bias to AP stories for real. [FishbowlNY]

After all this Mickey Kaus blathering about MSM gatekeepers censoring the news and preventing the reader from learning "what happened yesterday" (or, at this point, last week), it's wonderful to see the citizen-journalists and crowdsourced new guardians of information acting just as ridiculously about this supposed John Edwards scandal. As you'll recall, the National Enquirer caught John Edwards sneaking into a hotel late one night to visit former staffer Rielle Hunter and her child. When they confronted him on his way out, he hid in a bathroom. Fox News confirmed the visit. But none of this meets Wikipedia's high standards of notability! You won't find Rielle or the Beverly Hilton even mentioned on the Edwards entry.

The great big crap-ass democracy of blogs turns out to be just another smelly old boys club. "[W]hen Techcult, a technology Web site, recently listed its top 100 Web celebrities, only 11 of them were women. Last year, Forbes.com ran a similar list, naming 3 women on its list of 25. 'It's disheartening and frustrating,' said Allison Blass, a BlogHer attendee whose personal blog at www.lemonade-life.com is about living with Type 1 diabetes."

This video of John McCain acting like a petulant teenage girl toward a Wall Street Journal reporter is hilarious (best part: Lindsay Graham's "mee-OW" look at the end). And also telling! (TGIF, guys, we'll get through this.) John McCain's always been a favorite of the press, because of his insane availability. (Read Ana Marie Cox in Radar to learn more!) (Alex, call me!) He's affable and genuinely likes reporters. But we've reached a funny moment in their relationship. Because the media is in the tank for Obama. They love him! They cover him all day and all night and ignore McCain. But! The Obama campaign is totally, ridiculously press unfriendly. They're tight with information and generally try to control the message as much as Bush's people did. That's right, in his dealings with the press, Obama resembles President Bush! Some of the Obama faithful see this as a good thing. The media is the enemy. They distort and lie! No one trusts or likes anyone anymore, at all. So McCain is buddy-buddy with all his reporters but is now waging inept war on the media for ignoring him. Obama's beloved by the television people but is pissing off Adam Nagourney. So basically you can bitch about how the media keep painting McCain as a independent lovable American MAVERICK and they all play down his gaffes because they like him, or you can complain that the media are not even bothering to hide their gross man-crush on Barack Obama while ignoring his opponent and both are absolutely correct. So have at it, guys! R.I.P. observable reality!

House Republicans "fired off" a strongly-worded letter to the editor of the New York Times today, because that mean and biased newspaper asked John McCain to write a second draft of his stupid editorial. It's hilarious for like ten reasons. Look, regardless of the quality of the work the Times op-ed page prints, you do, as a political candidate, have to aspire to a certain level of pretend-seriousness before you can be printed there. Having a junior staffer throw together old talking points and attack-ad rhetoric is just not acceptable. And so now we have House Republicans crowing about a mythical right of "equal access" to the op-ed page of a privately owned newspaper. Ha ha do they want to bring back the fairness doctrine? Anyway let's all climb the New York Times building and burn it to the ground. Or let's make like the GOP wants to do and buy a full-page ad in the revenue-starved paper. That'll teach 'em! [Politico]

Suck it, NPR! If anyone listened to you they'd surely have voted you most biased. Against not being boring! BAM. [Via Fark]

Barack Obama's advance staff confused everyone when they told journalists not to wear green during their trip to the Middle East. Obama's staff claimed green is the color of Hamas, which is actually isn't really. Though it is the color of Islam in general. So Obama is distancing himself from all the Muslims in the world, which should help dispel those rumors about him being a fist-bumping terrorist by seeming like he's trying way, way too hard, almost like a man with something to hide. Or maybe some staffer just did a shit job of research and thought that was a helpful and clever suggestion. Journos are also prohibited from wearing nail polish and tank tops and from actually asking the candidate any questions, as Andrea Mitchell bitches about in this attached Hardball clip. Chris Matthews is so thrilled that Barack Obama can shoot a basket (he is also shocked that there are so many black people in the military!), but Mitchell seems to think pretend interviews organized by the military are maybe a bad thing? She's not wearing green, though. Don't you hate how biased everyone is?

This is great. The McCain campaign is crying bias and went running to Drudge because the New York Times wouldn't print their stupid editorial. See, the Times printed an editoral by Barack Obama called "My Plan for Iraq." So McCain "wrote" an editorial about how Obama's plan for Iraq was to lose just like we lost Vietnam and John McCain's plan was to win the war. So the Times said, hey, why don't you try another draft of this where you articulate what "winning" means? The McCain campaign took this as a rejection and now they're all whining like the embittered nation of recession-imagining whiners they hate.

So is the media blitz accompanying Barack Obama to Iraq actually evidence of that nasty pro-Obama bias we keep hearing about? Sure, whatever. WHO CARES. The media's been self-flagellating about everything for the past, like, six months, so all the pro-Obama bias is corrected by the Obama hype-debunking and "oh we are being unfair" handwringing that every cable news panel has to engage in. Half the coverage of the Obama trip has been of the "will this dispel the myth that he's a naive fool about foreign policy?" nature. Which is goofy because, hey, John McCain's foreign policy chops are not exactly respected by anyone. But he's old! Of course then Nouri al-Maliki (we actually can't believe ol' Nouri is still alive, good on him) accidentally endorsed Barack Obama's Iraq plan (the 'get the hell out of Iraq' plan). This is "a PR boost" for Obama. We're including this MSNBC clip covering the trip primarily because they break in halfway through to show "new video" of Obama in a room with some Iraqi officials like it is somehow enlightening.

The White House sent a FURIOUS letter to NBC news. They claim they're mad at how NBC edited Richard Engel's interview with the president last week. It's all bullshit, obv. The details, transcript, letter, and video—after the jump!