New York Times

I'd like to you take a moment to track the progression of how journalists like to muck around with the political process without being accountable to anybody but their editorial boards.

Yesterday I was happy to go to bat for John McCain, thanks to the New York Times incredibly crass hit job. Well, today the Managing Editor of the Seattle Post Intelligencer has this to say about the NY Times' hatchet job:

Admitting that Keller was in a better position to vet the sourcing and facts than I am as, basically, a reader, let's assume that every source is solid and every fact attributed in the story to an anonymous source is true. You're still dealing with a possible appearance of impropriety, eight years ago, that is certainly unproven and probably unprovable.

Where is the solid evidence of this lobbyist improperly influencing (or bedding) McCain? I didn't see it in the half-dozen times I read the story. In paragraphs fifty-eight through sixty-one of the sixty-five-paragraph story, the Times points out two matters in which McCain took actions favorable to the lobbyist's clients -- that were also clearly consistent with his previously stated positions.

That's pretty thin beer.

And the "it must be so because it's in The New York Times" argument will never hold much water after Judith Miller and Ahmed Chalabi got done perforating it.

2008 started "off" to say the least, for The New York Times. First it was the hiring of Bill Krystol as an Op/Ed columnist. Then it was their craptacular endorsement of both Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

Yet, if we're going to cast aspersions, let's not forget the embarrassment and disgrace Judith Miller's aiding and abetting of the Bush Administration brought to the paper's credibility not so long ago.

So it's just amazing that they'll come out with a hit job against John McCain. In an allegedly "investigative" report of John McCain's ethics, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk is a thinly vield gossip piece about whether he was lobbied hard, really really hard, by a woman called Vicki Iseman.

I am of two minds about this. Let me start with the deep and ponderous one first :

Look, anybody who has been married ought to never take anybody else's private life as a barometer of their professional shortcomings. Especially when you have someone like Hillary Clinton in the running.

I originally posted this on the Daily Gotham earlier in the week.

Mark Twain said there are lies, damn lies and statistics and his adage applies to unemployment measurement. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes six unemployment metrics monthly, each referred to in ascending order of inclusiveness of the unemployed as U-1, U-2, etc.

The measure reported by the media as the unemployment rate that severely undercounts the unemployed is referred to as U-3. The U-3 rate is obtained by dividing the narrowest definition of the unemployed by the work force.
The U-3 definition does not include whom the BLS calls discouraged and marginal workers, those who want a job but have given up the search because market conditions and personal experience indicate the process is futile.

U-6 Unemployment counts the marginal and discouraged plus those seeking full time employment but can only find part time work. The Federal Reserve tracks what it defines as the Augmented Unemployment rate, which I’ve read is equivalent to U-6 less part time workers. I couldn’t find any Augmented Unemployment releases on the Fed site and despite major data inclusion differences, some bloggers have used U-6 and the Fed’s stat interchangeably.

Naive supply side economics fans and the heartless and often evil advocates of cutting the wealthy’s taxes as a means to kill the beast of New Deal and Great Society programs love to brag that the historically low recent unemployment numbers (April’s seasonally adjusted U-3 was 4.5 percent) are evidence that their tax policy scam truly does trickle down to those who are not tax cut direct material beneficiaries. Despite those wishing to give handouts to Gates and Buffett’s (who personally don’t even want the cuts) spin, the economy just isn’t that robust. The seasonably adjusted April U-6 numbers, which are a much more accurate economic suffering barometer than what the media regularly announces, increased to 8.2 percent.

No wonder Matt had a huge grin on his face after this happened. I was so oblivious about who she was, I took it as one lesser mortal trying to upstage this goddess and blogdiva.

Oh yeah baby, I'm having a moment here.

The Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting was exactly that --a meeting to discuss the order of business within the DNC and it's caucauses. Fascinating stuff to witness for someone who is as clueless as I am on what people actually do within political parties.

So, during the general session there was a discussion lull involving financial reports. I stepped out to get a soda --an endeavor that at the horrid Washington Hilton took an eternity to complete.

When I come back to my seat, I see a woman sitting on my chair --notwithstanding the fact I had left my laptop, purse, camera, podcasting gear and basically everything that no self-respecting blogdiva would blog without.

My first thought was "bitch, get off my seat". Being the marginally professional diva that I am, I calmly requested the woman's attention and said to her : "Excuse me, you're in my seat."

Now, you have to understand something : This woman happened to be sitting in the credentialed bloggers section. This was where a big chunk of the top bloggers were covering the action. We were even making fun of Ezra loosing his coolness credentials because he was working that day and had to sit in the press section.