This morning, the Washington Post exposed the Bush administration’s latest ploy that could radically change the way health and safety regulations are issued. This secret regulation is a clear attempt by the Bush administration and the business community to fundamentally weaken the scientific process for enacting new regulations that protect American workers.

Today, Senator Kennedy and I demanded that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao withdraw this rule immediately and turn over all communications with outside special interests and other documents relating to proposed rule. You can read the letter here.

This is one of those issues that John McCain regularly gets a pass for in the media. Yet, it so reeks with greed and hypocrisy that it makes me want to knock my head against the wall a few times every time I hear it.

Last year, Republican presumptive nominee Senator John McCain earned a total of $23,157 from Social Security benefits, or approximately $1,930 per month. The amount is near the maximum benefit allowed under the federal program. (benefits are determined by age at retirement)

Even after calling the program "a disgrace," McCain reportedly accepts and cashes each and every one of his monthly checks; despite having the option to refuse all benefits. (according to B.J. Jarrett from the Social Security Administration)

If anyone doubted the Washington Post editorial page's neo-conservativism and devotion to the Bush-McCain foreign policy, its pathetic attemptto deny that the Maliki government had in fact come out in support of Obama's plan to withdraw troops should put any doubts to rest. And in their stunning attempt to deny reality, they not only call Obama's foreign policy "eccentric" but also concede that they believe America's main concern in devising foreign policy strategy for this region is not about protecting America from terrorism but rather to insure the safety of Iraq's oil fields.

In its desperation to deny Maliki's support for Obama's timeline, the Washington Post editorial ties itself into so many knots that it's almost impossible not to quote it in full to illustrate how patently dishonest the editorial is. So I would urge you to read it in full to realize the degree to which it could have been written by a Republican campaign hack.

For decades, the major three major networks and CNN have all had conservative leaning biases in which they systematically refused to report actual and compelling news that needs to be reported.

For decades, almost every major newspaper in America, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, have refused to print 95% of the actual news that, if reported, would render the Republican Party and the ideology of conservatism obsolete.  Granted, the NY Post is more conservative than the New York Times and the Washington Times is more conservative than the Washington Post but the NY Times and the Washington Post have been right wing rags for decades.

Below are a list of over 88 names of people who spin or have recently spun RW garbage on one of these four networks or one of these two newspapers.  My focus is simply on these 6 media outlets.  Each of them needs to be monitored, held accountable for each and every lie or spin they tell, and most of them should be fired and replaced with real reporters and real journalists.

Scanning the headlines, I see an artile entitled "Analysis: Iraq trip a boost for Obama."  I think to myself, I am in the mood for a nice, positive piece about Obama's trip.  As I go to click the link, I think of all the things that have gone well so far - the great receptionObama got from the troops, the constructive meetings with the leaders of both Afghanistan and Iraq, the awesome imagesof Obama and Petraeus with our guy looking extremely Presidential..... yeah, this article should be good.  But as the link opened and I began to read, I remembered - of course, that damned librul media!

They haven't endorsed officially, but they're pretty damn close. After meeting with Iraqi officials, the spokesman for the Iraqi government reiterated Maliki's comments in support of Obama's withdrawal time table. In this video, Ali al-Dabbagh clearly states (in English):

We are talking about a real time table which Iraqis set.

When asked by a reporter what this meant, al-Dabbagh responded:

Up to 2010.

The bush administration is trying to muddy the waters about Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki's quotes in Der Spiegel that he supports Barak Obama's 16-month timetable for a withdrawal of US troops from his country.  Despite claims of "translation errors," even Fox News made Iraq's position clear:

July 8, 2008 AP Report
Iraq Insists on Withdrawal Timetable for U.S. Troops
Iraq's national security adviser said Tuesday his country will not accept any security deal with the United States unless it contains specific dates for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.
The comments.. were the strongest yet by an Iraqi official about the deal now under negotiation with U.S. officials. They came a day after Iraq's prime minister first said publicly that he expects the pending troop deal with the United States to have some type of timetable for withdrawal.  President Bush has said he opposes a timetable. The White House said Monday it did not believe Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was proposing a rigid timeline for U.S. troop withdrawals.

The Washington Post editorial team, which loves to spend its column space sneering at Barack Obama, came out with a truly pathetic editorial today.

Read it here, if you can stomach it.  

From Media Matters:

ABC News and The Washington Post issued staggered releases of the results of their latest poll, withholding from their first release results favorable to Sen. Barack Obama, including the finding that 50 percent of registered voters would vote for Obama for president versus 42 percent for Sen. John McCain. The next day, the Post ran an article headlined "Poll Finds Voters Split on Candidates' Iraq-Pullout Positions," which did not mention Obama's 8-point lead over McCain. Later that day, ABC News and the Post issued a second release with additional poll results that stated: "Obama continues to hold most of the advantages in the presidential race."

Here's the article the Washington Post chose to run the next day, where they failed to mention that, when asked,

If the 2008 presidential election were being held today and the candidates were (Barack Obama, the Democrat) and (John McCain, the Republican), for whom would you vote?

...50% said Obama and 42% said McCain. The article also failed to mention that if Bob Barr was included in the choices, Obama's lead went up to 10 points.

ABC News went with a lengthly article titled, "McCain Tops Obama in Commander-in-Chief Test; Stays Competitive on Iraq," also without bothering to mention the most important finding in the poll.

Details, details, why bother their readers with the details when it would mess up the planned narrative? They can always release those later.

Everyone on the morning shows was in a huff about the latest Washington Post "poll" that was supposed to show something about how people think McCain is better than Obama, OMG, and this is a really close election.

Except the poll, and the article describing the poll were so terribly written that you almost have to wonder about the motivations of the authors.  Let's start with the lead:

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds the country split down the middle between those backing Sen. Barack Obama's 16-month timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and those agreeing with Sen. John McCain's position that events, not timetables, should dictate when forces come home.

Except these are not the candidate's positions.

So - a couple of days ago there was an article or diary about Deborah Howell's "commentary" on the WaPo story on the Obama home loan non-story.  There was a link to Howell's article so I went to it and read the whole thing.  Having suffered through law school writing courses, I offered some suggestions. ...

Glen L. Carle knows about the threat America faces from Islamic extremism. He should; during his stellar 23-year career as a member of the CIA’s Clandestine Service he’s personally drafted many of the government’s most senior assessments of the threats we’ve faced by al-Qaeda and just about every other Muslim extremist organization in the world over the past two-decades.

Mr. Carle devoted his entire career to understanding and combating the jihadist threat. Perhaps that’s why he's taking such exception to the constant fear mongering promulgated by both the Bush administration and the campaign of the presumptive Republican nominee for president, John McCain. He felt the need to speak out now and he has done so in a very heartfelt and eloquent way.

"My shot made Joseph Dwyer famous. Did it also help lead to his death?"  So begins a new article in The Washington Post by Warren Zinn.

He is referring to a tragedy I wrote about here a couple of weeks ago:  A former Army medic made famous by a photograph that showed him carrying an injured Iraqi boy during the first week of the war had died of an apparent overdose.  Joseph Patrick Dwyer died at a hospital in Pinehurst, N.C., after battling PTSD.  He was 31.

The photograph, taken by Zinn in March 2003, showed Dwyer running to a makeshift military hospital while cradling the boy. The photo appeared in newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts worldwide, making Dwyer a symbol of heroism.  But he tried to deflect praise back to his entire unit.

Newly hired Executive Editor of the Washington Post Marcus Brauchli -- becoming just the third Executive Editor there since 1968 -- made two statements that ought to give any one pause.  

The first statement was this:

What was important..was the [Wall Street] Journal, not me -- that the editorial integrity be preserved, not that my job be preserved. . . . Fighting for my job would have been mostly selfish and undermined the fight to maintain quality journalism.

The statement makes little sense out of context, and perhaps even less sense in context.

Despite McCain's frantic attempts to swim -- sans PFD -- from the sinking ship of Phil Gramm's recent comments ("nation of whiners"; "mental recession") the Republican economics mouthpieces can't contain themselves.  McCain must be kept on a short leash and Gramm must be defended!

Amity Shlaes in today's Washington Post writes "Phil Gramm Is Right"

Deborah Powell, the Washington Post's ombudsman, responded to criticism the Post had received for its article concerning Barack Obama's home mortgage.

The story that originated the criticism ran on page A3 of the July 2nd paper & was titled: "Obama Got Discount on Home Loan."

Where do I even begin with both the story and Howell's analysis of the story?  Neither of the articles are exactly moving targets.

When Bush's tax cuts went through, McCain rightly voted against them 'cause they were mostly a give-away to the rich. Now, McCain wants to make those cuts permanent 'cause letting them expire  would be a tax increase; he's adamanantly against any tax increase.
Well, almost any tax increase.
His health plan involves newly taxing employer-paid health insurance. He would compensate with a small deduction for health insurance you paid for yourself. I dealt with that in a post on the Washington Post blog. It was in response to a quote from McCain on Social Security and can be read after the jump.

Just when you thought the Washington Post might be waking up to the new progressive era we find that they are hiring a former Wall Street Journal editor to succeed Leonard Downie, Jr.  

Everyone's favorate media hack, Howie Kurtz, writes:

Marcus Brauchli has been named executive editor of The Washington Post, returning him to the top ranks of American journalism less than three months after Rupert Murdoch forced him out as the Wall Street Journal's top editor.