"The research also pointed out that while Obama get's more coverage than McCain overall, the amount of air time devoted to the Republican nominee has been higher than most every presidential candidate since 1988."

Meaning it is unfair even if the negative comments for Obama is true (which I highly doubt is the case I watch ABC news and CNN does seem like they are nicer to him) that means McCain has less air time than Obama getting his name out there more is by its nature unfair.

Well Brenden you apparently don't watch enough late night T.V.  Frankly I am sick of hearing the "old man" jokes directed at McCain by ALL the late night monologue deliveries.  If I were to place a bet on who will win this election according to those of the late night levity spinners I'd put my money on Obama.  Oh, and please don't misinterpret this as a vote cast for B.O.  Got Tivo?  Use it for Leno and then go a little further into the great unknown and Tivo Ferguson.  Both can be brutal with McCain.

I'd like to see the media kept out of election coverage in general... like if there were a respected rule where no media outlet is allowed to say anything at all, other than to maybe provide a channel for official releases from the candidates.  Like a white-paper from each party/candidate clearly explaining their positions on all subjects of interest... people watch, read, and understand the stated intentions of each candidate.  The rest of the coverage can go in the trash, it's not worth much and seems to just muddy things up...

Politics is now a popularity contest, it's kind of sick.  If people could learn to focus on ideas, we'd actually maybe start to see some real leaders out there instead of empty hype.

Hey Sue, Leno and his late night cohorts aren't the news media.

Obama gets rougher treatment?  According to who?  I watched Meet the Press and it was a lovefest with Tom Brokaw.  I have yet to see anyone ask him a difficult or probing question in the manner I see McCain handled.  
I have yet to see anything bad said about him, except by "association" with questionable characters or situations, and these are infrequent and quickly swept under the rug.

Regardless of the nature of how he's treated, Barnum once pointed out that you can say anything you want about me, as long as you spell my name correctly.  As a result, Obama's coverage, at almost 4 times the level of McCain's, represents a unique and troubling PROMOTION for his candidacy by the press corps.  The more he's on, the better it is for him no matter what they say....

It's clear he's the anointed one by the press, and they aren't even trying to hide this fact.

the media picked both candidates. obama is not representative of main stream democrats, only the far left. mccain is certainly not a true republican. the media saw to it that hillary, huckabee, edwards, romney etc....couldn't win. now we sheep are left to choose between a marxist and a dope. as soon as one is elected president the media will turn on him.they just wanted to see if they could get their picks nominated. in the end we lose, the media wins. but, this is the last time they will be able to do it. we have learned the lesson, don't trust the press.

To Sue:  I was talking about news reporting, not comedy. Journalists are rightly held to a standard of fairness, but if Leno thinks McCain is a better punch than Obama, that's a first amendment issue.

Tito: I don't agree that one candidate getting more coverage than another is necessarily unfair.  When a black man with an African name makes history by winning a major party nomination and then goes on to seriously challenge the  incumbent party, he's  going to get a certain amount of attention if only because hundreds of years of status quo is being broken.  And because Obama is much newer to the scene than John McCain, there is naturally more curiosity about him among Democrats and Republicans. The extra coverage, I believe reflects that.

Sue, you seem to have Late night talk shows mixed up with NEWS outlets. They are very different. The first for is for ENTERTAINMENT, the latter for alleged unbiased  INFORMATION.

Jim ..  I like how you think the media picked Obama.  In actuality, the media picked Hillary.  Right up to the Iowa caucus, the only thing shown on the news was "Hillary and the other guys".  Once Obama won, then the media began to take notice.

Politics has been a popularity contest since the first televised debate between Nixon and Kennedy. Nixon thought he won that debate hands-down, and, due to his 5 o'clock shadow and profuse sweating, Kennedy's support skyrocketed afterward.

The media does not control politics; it's one of many arms of control wielded by the people who own the few media conglomerates. These people also hire lobbyists through which they bribe legislators to maintain the stranglehold and the charade that you, individually or collectively, have any real power over the future of your government and world.

B.O should choose J.M as his running mate.  Is that even possible?  I like tacos.

EDDIE,  iowa was the 1st caucus, after that the media was with him 100%. thats not to say hillary ran a good campaign, she didn't, but at the end she was kicking obamas butt. she wound up with more popular votes nationwide then obama, but, due to the rules of the party[which she knew] it was a matter of too little, too late, especially with the media telling us everyday that she couldn't catch up. obama got all the good press [matthews saying he gets a tingle in his leg etc,,,] while hillary got their backhand after losing [badly]in iowa. obama strategy was great, i got to hand it to him. he won all the caucus states. hillary thought she was going to be coronated queen. by the end she was the stronger candidate. take obama away from a tele-prompter and he can barely talk. but this silver tongued marxist who tingles chris matthews leg is going to be our next president. mccain can only win if obama screws up. but hey, the media wins either way, thats what counts.

Right, those crazy Marxist dopes who want to end an unprovoked war and bring back habeas corpus and the fourth amendment.  Just like in all those Marxist countries.  

Keep that "crazy far left" crap up, folks.  It's working GREAT so far.

Whew!  Thanks Jeff, John, and Brenden for setting me straight.  My mistake.  I so often confuse one for the other - that is News and late night levity.  

And correct me if I am wrong again (I'm sure you will) but aren't the news outlets the exact outlets for the comedic writers of late night?

It doesn't matter who you vote for. Whatever the international leaders of industry want is what will be done regardless of which candidate gets to carry it out. All those who think Barack will keep us from waging war on Iran or that either candidate will pull us out of Iraq, are delusional. The course has already been set, might as well be in stone.
Those international leaders of industry have no reason to be loyal or patriotic to any country, race, or religion. Money is the only motivator for these guys.

That is the absolute truth, sorry to say.

hey fay, i don't wish for an arguement but obama is a marxist. name one thing that he does not agree with karl marx on. remember marxism is about economics not about how a country is governed. lots of western democracies, especially in europe, have a form of marxism. it has nothing to do with our 4th amendment or habeas corpus. that is a different matter all together, and we shall see what obama or mccain will do to that after one of them is president. i got no dog in this hunt, one candidate is as bad as the other to me, and our country may very well want to turn to a form of marxism, like it did when FDR was president, as for me, i'm a permantly disabled veteran, i should like marxism, it will mean more money in my pocket. remember karl marx favorite line 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'.so, if you are working your tax increase will go to me. i thank you in advance. and i never said 'crazy'. i said far left, which is marxism. you added crazy.i have one last thought, why not just send me $50.00 a week out of your paycheck, just so you feel better. thats about what i will get if obama gets elected, so lets cut out the middle man.i really don't care who gets elected, they are both bad choices. so you get no fight from me, on election night i will be watching 'law and order re-runs. i'm old now, i will not see a once great country turn into a 3rd world country, but you will.

I took a marketing class, and learned the age old adage that "no press is bad press". All that hoopla with Matel and the lead, people will forget about in a few years, but the  name Matel will forever be in their heads. Obama.

Why is it I feel more and more that our presidential canidates are nothing more than actors on a stage?  It seems we "want" to be convinced by flash and glamor, and not be bothered with substance and details.  So do we want the flash or do we want the meat?  I don't know anymore.

jim:

Karl Marx central point was that the means of production should be controlled by the people, yet Barak Obama has never said he'd nationalize any industry. That would be one major difference there. I guess for you "Marxist" means "disagrees with jim-ist". You mentioned that you're old; try to look at the world in some terms other than Marxism vs. Capitalism. And welcome to this century.

"get's"?

Well Sue, when did latenight comedy shows become the News Media?  Since when have they every been unbiased, they are entertainment.  You're stupidity, it knows no bounds, I can see why you sided with McSame.

"And correct me if I am wrong again (I'm sure you will) but aren't the news outlets the exact outlets for the comedic writers of late night? "

True, but they show a lot of entertainment and comedy shows.  Are you going to say that the plot for all entertainment shows should be unbiased.  So, the West Wing shouldn't have a president, because a fictional president of any party would be bias?  Seriously, you are pretty low on the IQ.

A, you are incorrect sir, about his [marx]central theme. his central theme was as i said, 'from each according to his ability' [which means the more you make the more the 'people'[or government] will take from your paycheck, and 'to each according to their needs' which means that the people [government] will give to the less fortunate. he thought that the USA would be the 1st country to do this, he was wrong, but we are getting there. his thoughts on 'the people' are well documented, and it is that most of us should benefit from those nasty capitalists that make most of the money, and on this matter perhaps he is correct. he had little regard for people in general, other then that they work and share equally in profits, despite not taking the risks that capitalists take. in other words, the assembly line worker is entitled to make the same amount of money as the president of the company. it is unwise to debate me on this matter, i have 2 degrees from the wharton school in economics, and can quote just about anything karl marx said or wrote about. he hated the common man, but detested the very wealthy even more. if it was up to marx we would all be farmers, putting our collective crops together and sharing equally in the profits, despite the fact that your crop may have been better then mine. he was the opposite of darwin's 'the strong survive' theory. read his book, not what you heard, or not what you think he said.the one thing i did learn at the wharton school is that most of the time, the economists are wrong, as was marx. in his mind a bus-driver should make what a doctor makes. he saw no distinction between the two. i do. by the way, in case you didn't know, the wharton school is the best business school in the country, it is part of the university of penn. and it is where all the harvard mba's go to really learn. i was there in the 60's, and it was there that a professor put forth his idea that general motors would be out of business by the year 2000, an astonishing prediction because GM was the largest most profitable company in the world at that time. now, his time frame was off, but only by a few years. the reason he gave was that GM was paying too much for their assembly line workers and giving away too many benefits.he said it was only a matter of time before this 'marxist' practice would do them in. he didn't even see that the japanese would build a better car, if he saw that, he would have predicted their fall much quicker. but the government has already bailed out chrysler, fannie mae, freddie mac, and numerous other industries. [amtrak] . so my friend, i know what a marxist is.  as far as nationalizing any company, such as exon, the government can't afford to do it, it would break the bank. or they could do what castro did in cuba, just take it and not pay for it. i'm close to the grave my friend, but i will tell you that there is some good in marxism, don't confuse it with communism,stalinism,or any other form of repressive government, it is economics. enjoyed talking with you.

One should realize, though, that the point of news and journalism is to report events that are interesting or important for the public to know.
Or, as the Chicago Times said in 1861, "print the news and raise hell."
As long as people continue to fall asleep at McCain rallies, no news station should feel morally obligated to give him coverage.
News does not have to be "fair." News is not catering to 4th graders (most of the time). It's McCain's job to get his name out there if he thinks it isn't getting enough mention.

<blockquote>It's true because it runs completely counter to what we've been told. </blockquote>

No, the truth or falsehood of an item has no bearing on observers' knowledge.

Now, its truth may <b>fit with your model</b> and allow you to present the object as an exemplar of the model, but the model and object do not themselves interact.

Hey!

I don't really care what you have to say when you open with "After finding out that butter is actually better for you than margarine".  Yes, some margarine is(or at least used to be) full of trans fats from hydrogenated oils and other unhealthy synthetic compounds, but the good stuff(in taste and in health) is not hydrogenated, contains no trans fats, no cholesterol and his primarily poly- an mono-unsaturated fats.  Margarine, unlike butter, also contains many healthy plant-based antioxidants, sterols(which further reduce blood cholesterol), and vitamins.  You really do lose credibility when your first statement is rather false.

jim:

You are completely wrong. The line you quote was never the central point of Marxism. The central point; the absolute bottom line for Marxism has always been who controls production, the Proletariat or the Borgoisie. Marx said that control should be in the hands of the proletariat...the people. If you don't know that you are unqualified to make political pronouncements on the subject. Period. Again, Marxism to you seems to be "disagrees with jim-ism". It is not.

MSN, CNN, NPR, etc all treated the Hagee and Wirght flaps as equals. I seem to think that if the roles were reversed and McCain had attended Hagee's church for 20+ years, baptized his kids, blessed his house, inspired his books, the media would still not have let it go and they would be calling McCain unfit to lead. The fact that no such thing occured with Obama makes me think that the press is intentionally helping Obama.  Belive me, McCain would still be asked about his involvment until he explained why who took counsel from a bigot. No one has even dreamed of asking Obama the same, what a joke.

A , the proletariat is not all the people, it refers to those people who sell their labor. it was those people he had in mind when he wrote his theory. he also distingused between 'types' of capitalists. you infer that there were only two classes of people, the proletariat or the bourgeoisie [ i have corrected your spelling]when not even marx believed that. to give you a short lesson, lenin, when he came to power, thought that communism [economic] needed to be spread to other countries for it to be successful. when stalin came to power, he changed that, repressed everyone,thus giving communism a bad name. trotsky, who was really off the wall, believed in a constant state of violent revolution. now, there is constant debate, even among marxists, as to what a true marxist [or communist]is. however, the one thing they all agree on, as does socialism, is that it is the obligation of the rich to take care of the poor. we in america look at communism as evil, but it got its bad name from stalin, not the form of economics that marx wrote about. we have elements of it in america, social security, medicare, food stamps, etc... i think marx would have approved. but what he really wanted was a society without classes. of course his theories, which sometimes work in the begining,ultimatly fail because of a lack of incentive. marx was not known or barely known in his own lifetime, it was lenin that made him famous. i call obama a marxist because he will [as he has stated]raise taxes, taking more from the rich and re-distributing it, unfortunatly, to people like me, old and disabled [thanks to agent orange and lyndon johnson]. if you have a house and sell it after obama is elected, you will pay 28% TAX on any profit. that is  part of his agenda, you can look it up.its called a capital gains tax.if you have a small business that doesn't have a lotta of cash, [like a farm]don't leave it to your children, they will not be able to afford the tax without selling the farm. now, the super rich will always be super rich. like the singing group 'the beatles' they will find ways to keep their money. in the beatles case they all set up residences outside of england because of the tax rate. so it will be left to the new rich,the middle-class,and most importantly the working class to pay for me. marx saw many different classes of people, not just two,as you infer. he wanted to make it one. now, i have not insulted you, i would like for you to not insult me. after miltary service in the late 60s i worked until 1998, when health issues stopped me. i worked in cost analysis, which is what i have my masters in, you thinking i'm wrong is ok with me, honest people can disagree, without being insulting.

Um, "get's" ? Who edited this?

The problems with socialism/marxism aren't necessarily the theory but the practice. Lack of competition and lack of intitiative can cripple and economy. Capitalism's virtues are that it fosters competition which creates a better product, socialism has no such mechanism to  make people work hard. Even capitalism can't make people work if there is no incentive (like if they get a fat check from the government every month) but the number who are disenfranchised is always less than with socialism.

logan, exactly right!!!! marx would hate you. an example is cuba, when communism was 1st introduced by castro it was popular because it raised the level of living for most people, they all ate, before they didn't. the problem is when they [the people]want 2 meals a day, then 3. thats why communism has never lasted more then 80 years. china will also grow out of it, probably in 20 years or so.we will ,however, always have tyrants. the funny thing is as the rest of the world grows out of it, we americans seem to be heading toward it. what does the government do well? outside of collecting taxes i can't think of many things. do you want them in charge of your healthcare? obama does. god only knows what that will cost. and remember, the only way a government gets money is by taxes.

logan, exactly right!!!! marx would hate you. an example is cuba, when communism was 1st introduced by castro it was popular because it raised the level of living for most people, they all ate, before they didn't. the problem is when they [the people]want 2 meals a day, then 3. thats why communism has never lasted more then 80 years. china will also grow out of it, probably in 20 years or so.we will ,however, always have tyrants. the funny thing is as the rest of the world grows out of it, we americans seem to be heading toward it. what does the government do well? outside of collecting taxes i can't think of many things. do you want them in charge of your healthcare? obama does. god only knows what that will cost. and remember, the only way a government gets money is by taxes.

jim:

You sure do type a lot of words! There's just more and more garbage to sift through. It's standard practice when someone has no idea what they're talking about, and has been called out on it. You've got impressive degrees, you've got reams of history, you even found one word I misspelled. But let's ignore all that and get back to the actual issue: the idea that is central to Marxism is that the means of production are owned by the people. That is one thing that you asked someone to name (and it's pretty much the entire thing) that's different between Marxism and the policies espoused by Barack Obama. Therefore, he is not a Marxist as you've claimed. All the rest is just trash you're throwing to cloud the issue and make it sound like you know what you're talking about. I know I'm not going to change you're mind...you're having too much fun repeating that lie. Well, enjoy yourself...you've got 100 days plus the next 8 years to tell everyone of your beliefs. Maybe you'll find someone who will believe you in that time.

Graduated from Wharton, eh? Maybe you can get some money back; they seem to have missed a few major parts of your education.

jim:

Wait; first you said:
"the assembly line worker is entitled to make the same amount of money as the president of the company."

Then you said:
"it is the obligation of the rich to take care of the poor."

Jim, if everyone gets paid the same, how are there rich and poor? You're not making any sense.

A, the first indication that someone has lost a debate is that they call the other person names and make insulting remarks. i will no longer waste my time with you. sorry you are the way you are, you have much to learn about life, first thing is manners. i learned along time ago that it is useless to argue with a closed mind.

A, as for your second comment, i never said those thing, i was paraphrasing marx.as for you sir, you are a knave, you will have to look that word up.good day.

the media should stay put.