As predicted, the mainstream media has jilted John McCain and embraced Obama as the hot new thing:

The three network anchors will travel to Europe and the Middle East next week for Barack Obama's trip, adding their high-wattage spotlight to what is already shaping up as a major media extravaganza.

Lured by an offer of interviews with the Democratic presidential candidate, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric will make the overseas trek, meaning that the NBC, ABC and CBS evening newscasts will originate from stops along the route and undoubtedly give it big play.

John McCain has taken three foreign trips in the past four months, all unaccompanied by a single network anchor.

Obama has "proven adept at generating excitement," says David Folkenflik, media correspondent for National Public Radio. He said the anchors hope "a little bit of that excitement will rub off on their newscasts if they can convey an American phenomenon abroad, if that's what it turns out to be. Senator McCain is not as magnetic a figure in that way."

Well he's certainly adept at generating something, but I do have to agree that the words "McCain" and "magnetic" probably do not belong in the same sentence.

But have you seen the nightly news ratings? They need all the excitement they can get. But all three of them following the Obamessiah. Come on, that's a little unseemly and transparent, even for the mainstream media. One at a time guys, one at a time...

Oh and all of you GOPers who were urging us to vote for McCain in the primaries because he had such a great relationship with the media... now what?

This week's cover of The New Yorker magazine portrays Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, standing in the Oval Office after winning the presidential election. Of course, that vision alone is enough to get some people worked up. But the illustrator, Barry Blitt, has pulled out all the stops in his portrayal of the would-be first couple. Barack wears a turban and tribal Muslim attire. His wife, who has combed out her afro, wears a semi-automatic rifle on her back and gives her husband a "terrorist fist-jab" beneath a painting of Osama bin Laden that hangs above a fireplace aflame with the American flag.

In short, the cartoonist is capturing the essence of the right-wing's Obama nightmare/wet-dream. To my mind, it's a brilliant piece of satire, precisely because it exposes how laughably transparent many Americans are in their Obamaphobia. But not everyone agrees, of course, including the Obama campaign. Via ABC's Jake Tapper:

Said Obama spox Bill Burton: "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.

Knowing the liberal politics of the magazine, I believe the magazine's staff when they say the illustration is meant ironically, as a parody of the caricature some conservatives (and some supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.) are painting of the Obamas..."

And (via Politico) the McCain campaign is also offended:

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: "We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it's tasteless and offensive."

Does Burton have a point? Sure. This image will no doubt become an e-mail-forwarded classic. To his enemies, the cover will represent not a joke, but the ultimate "I told you so!" Essentially, then, the argument against the cover is that it's too subtle for stupid people to understand. Thus, The New Yorker should lower its intellectual standards so that the basest among us (including those that the cartoon is lampooning) don't get the wrong idea.

To my mind, however, the cover art helps Obama more than it hurts him because A) it is funny, and B) it confronts the outlandish perceptions that many have Americans have of Obama head on. The image won't convert anybody into thinking Obama is a terrorist, it simply exposes the prejudices that already exist. Besides, it's good practice for when the real life Obamas take over residence in the White House. After all, an American president is perhaps the single most popular subject for cartoonists in the world.

Politico's Michael Calderone observed the periodical overkill, and pointed me at this great, satirical cover and story from The Onion:

WASHINGTON-According to a poll released Monday by Teen Zogby!, both Barack Obama's approval and dreaminess ratings among slumber party–attending tweens have risen to 82 percent following last week's publication of the Tiger Beat cover pictorial "Hangin' With Barack!"

Teen Zogby! I love it. Their margin of error is +/- W.E. (What-Evurrr!)

The whole thing made me wonder if there was really an imbalance here, so I looked to see if there were a comparable number of John McCain covers.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to perform a definitive statistical analysis, but I did find quite a few Mac covers. Here are a few of my favorites:

On the heels of former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's testimony before a House committee investigating the Valerie Plame affair, the New York Times published an article yesterday that named a formerly covert CIA interrogator. There is some question about whether Mrs. Plame was covered by the federal statute that makes it a crime to identify secret employees of the government, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, at the time her name was published. The New York Times said in an editor's note appended to the article that the subject had never worked covertly as justification for publishing his name.

The Central Intelligence Agency asked The New York Times not to publish the name of [redacted], an interrogator who questioned Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other high-level Al Qaeda prisoners, saying that to identify [him] would invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency.

After discussion with agency officials and a lawyer for [the interrogator], the newspaper declined the request, noting that [he] had never worked under cover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news stories and books. The editors judged that the name was necessary for the credibility and completeness of the article.

Still, the interrogator, his lawyer, and CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden had asked the Times not to use the man's name.

NBC has announced that veteran news anchor Tom Brokaw will host "Meet the Press" through the November elections. The network is still in talks to decide who will try to fill the unfillable shoes of Tim Russert on a permanent basis. From the AP, via AOL:

"To have someone of Tom's stature step up and dedicate himself to ensuring its ongoing success is not only a testament to his loyalty to Tim, but his enduring commitment to NBC News and our viewers," Capus said.

...
David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell and Chris Matthews had been talked about as potential candidates for the full-time job as moderator. If Brokaw weren't interested in continuing, his tenure would allow NBC more time to study a potential selection and have that person debut during a less intense news period.

Since stepping down as NBC Nightly News anchor in 2004, Brokaw has kept busy writing books, producing documentaries, and coming off the bench to pinch hit for NBC News from time to time. He is as big a name as NBC could have hoped to get on such short notice, and can be trusted with the show's legacy. This is a good move by NBC.

(hat tip to Crooks and Liars)

Conservative radio talk show host Lars Larson had the unfortunate chance to go one-on-one with a cranky Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter on MSNBC's The Verdict with Dan Abrams the other night. The topic of conversation was the difference between Michelle Obama's "For the first time in my life I'm proud of my country" and John McCain's "I didn't love America until I was deprived of her company."

Alter gets really cranky about 1:47 in...

I believe that no one should write as a journalist what he would not say as a gentleman; that bribery by one's own pocket book is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another's instructions or another's dividends. – excerpt, Walter William's Journalist's Creed

Update: I just got off the phone with Sylvia Smith, National Press Club President. Our exchange at the end of the story.

This is going to be a tough story to write, because it is about something that isn't a news story, that I can't tell you about. Others in the political blogosphere have taken the bait, and publicized it in the name of quashing it. I will take great pains not to do that. I will give only the level of detail that has already been revealed by the national media.

A press conference is to be held today at the National Press Club, and the subject of that press conference is a proven liar, with no claim to personal credibility, who will make ruinous allegations against a presidential candidate. The fate of the profession of journalism may hang on whether anyone shows up, and what, if anything, they report.

If you value truth, and more than that, the protection of our citizens against attack by falsehoods, please forward this story to the editors of your local newspapers and TV stations. This plea is directed at them.

I spoke with the National Press Club's General Manager, Bill McCarren this morning, and while he claims no responsibility for the Club, he correctly asserts the duty of every journalist to report only that which is ethical to do so.

And it fits like a glove...

Says Davis (via WaPo):

Fox has always treated me with respect and given me a chance to express my point of view. Does Fox have a conservative slant on some of their programs? Yes. They're giving me a chance to provide a counterpoint, and that's all I can ask.

Clinton über-supporter Lanny Davis will join Karl Rove, Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Newt Gingrich and that god-awful After Hours thing. I suppose he'll be pushed as further proof of Fair and Balanced - a liberal! Or maybe not...

Video from TPM

The sexiest campaign coverage was reserved for Hillary Clinton's primary run, according to many political observers. This reporter, himself, has been referred to as "sexiest" innumerable times by readers on these forums, and while I did like the way my hair looked in that one picture from the Philadelplhia event, I think they're just flattering...wait, I'm getting something in my earpiece...how's that?...Sexist? From The New York Times:

Angered by what they consider sexist news coverage of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, many women and erstwhile Clinton supporters are proposing boycotts of the cable networks, putting up videos on a "Media Hall of Shame," starting a national conversation about sexism and pushing Mrs. Clinton's rival, Senator Barack Obama, to address the matter.

Most of the media types who commented for the piece acknowledged problems in spots, but defended the overall tenor of their coverage.

The piece goes on to say that Howard Dean, among others, are calling for a "national discussion" of sexism.

I'm all for that, because I have a hard time with this one. I don't think the coverage was that sexist, relatively speaking, but then again, a fair amount of sexism seems to be the norm in this country. Sometimes, it is hard to know whether something is sexist or not. But usually, you know it when you see it.

I remember sitting through a Super Bowl in the recent past, in which each half-million dollar commercial was more sexist than the last, culminating with a flaming horse fart singeing a beauty queen. That was sexist.

Then again, there's the verbal interplay and flirtation that goes on even on these pages.

In between those two poles is where we can have our talk.