Gotta love that "librul media"...
Daily Kos:

What can one say about the Associated Press these days? Rather than realize the error of their ways in becoming a conservative mouthpiece out of their D.C. office rather than an objective news source, they've apparently doubled down their bets on McCain's dying presidential campaign.

Just moments after Obama's detailed, inspirational video tonight, the AP's McCain-loving Washington Bureau came out with their latest piece:

Obama's prime-time ad skips over budget realities

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.

Obama's assertion that "I've offered spending cuts above and beyond" the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by "eliminating programs that don't work" masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are — beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

What follows is a detailed hit-piece on multiple fronts that reads as if it were taken straight from the RNC. The whole thing would be hilarious in is disingenuity, were it not such a sad piece of hackery, and were the stakes not so incredibly high.

AP is also the outfit that heavily weighted the evangelical vote to give McCain a much closer chance in their presidential polls.

The Jed Report put together this little video mashup of WFTV's Barbara West, giving us a nice side-by-side contrast of her respective interviews with Joe Biden and John McCain.

You can see the full Biden interview here and the full McCain video here. The latter is especially instructive in that we see just how far out there West is; mostly she's obsequious to the point of outright cheerleading with McCain, and her idea of a "tough" question for him is to ask him why he's not being wingnutty enough!

OTOH, you've just gotta love when she quotes Marx and then asks Biden why "spreading the wealth" isn't Marxist. Someone's been drinking the Bircher Kool Aid, which is in fact a direct ticket to Planet Bizarro.

Well, over at Firedoglake, they have a petition up asking for the station to apologize for sponsoring such bizarre behavior and such biased treatment. Go sign it.

UPDATE below.

Joe Biden sat down for an interview with Florida television anchor Barbara West Thursday and got hit by a barrage of Sean Hannity's talking points, prompting him to ask at one point, "Are you joking? Is this a joke? Is that a real question?"

Interviewer: "You may recognize this famous quote: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." That's from Karl Marx. How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"

Biden: "Are you joking? Is this a joke?"

Interviewer: "No"

Biden: "Is that a real question?"

Interviewer: "That's a real question"

[...]

Interviewer: "Are you forewarning Americans that nothing will be done, and America's days as a world leading power are over?"

Biden: "Umm, no, I'm not at all. I don't know who's writing your questions."

[...]

Interviewer: "What do you say to the people who are concerned that Barack Obama will want to turn America into a socialist country much like Sweden?"

Someone's been listening to a little too much Rush Limbaugh. Sheesh. Compare this interview to the softballs she threw John McCain less than two weeks ago. Kudos to the Obama campaign for responding by canceling a Jill Biden interview with the same network.

Anonymous Liberal adds:

The woman was like a cartoonish caricature of a wingnut, and her questions were straight out of a Steven Colbert interview. I kept waiting for her to ask Biden when Obama stopped being a member of al Qaeda.

UPDATE. Surprise, surprise. Her husband is a GOP media consultant. Ya think she got the questions via her husband, or did Rick Davis skip the middleman?

Oh noes, McCrankypants! Your "base" is tuning you out, just like the rest of America. That's gotta hurt.

Last night, the McCain campaign issued an announcement, dutifully reported upon by Jonathan Martin of the Politico and elsewhere, that McCain would have "big news" in the morning.

The blogosphere was a-twitter. Would it be that Sarah Palin is stepping down? Or that McCain was finally making public his medical records? Or maybe that he would be REALLY maverick-y and declare with his mortgage bailout plan his official independence from the Republican Party? Oh, the possibilities were endless!

But sadly, the reality was far more humdrum. Jonathan Martin, this morning:

That "news" in the morning
Sure enough, it's Bill Ayers.
The McCain campaign is launching a web ad accusing Obama of trying to hide his ties to the 60s-era radical.

I'm loving the use of quotes around news. Another lame-ass attempt, debunked everywhere already, to tie Obama to Ayers. The McCain camp spent God knows how much money to produce a one and a half minute ad that no one cares about (including rightwingers like Michael Smerconish), that makes them look desperate and flailing and the best part, Martin and Mark Halperin over at Time didn't even bother to link up in their coverage.

My friends, that's not the work of a winning campaign. Steve Benen shows how the McCain camp really doesn't want to go there:

The web ad comes about 24 hours after top McCain campaign aides seemingly took the Ayers "issue" (I use the word loosely) off the table.

But as long as we're on the subject, McCain's associations continue to be increasingly interesting as well. We've known for a while that McCain has befriended a convicted felon who advised his supporters on how best to shoot federal officials, used the money of a convicted criminal to help buy a house, befriended a radical anti-Catholic televangelist, befriended a radical anti-American televangelist, was a long-time associate of Charles Keating, and hired for his campaign the publisher of a Confederate nostalgia magazine who has described Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist." This week, we also learned about McCain serving on the board of the extremist U.S. Council for World Freedom, where he worked alongside Iran-Contra figures, and a eugenics researcher studying "white superiority."

Finally, after all the weeks and weeks that the liberal blogs have tried to wake up the traditional media to report on McCain's courting of the Catholic hating Pastor, John Hagee, they finally got on board and did a little basic reporting. And guess what? McCain is now rejecting him. And Wolf says that McCain had a sudden change of heart. See what I mean? Via CNN's The Situation Room: Vid coming...

It's not enough to appease John McCain at this point, who now is completely rejecting his endorsement. Here is a statement that we just got a short time ago from John McCain.

"Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Revered Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."

Pretty big news from John McCain who had counted on Pastor Hagee to enhance his conservative credentials.

You'll note that Brian Todd dutifully pushes McCain's POV, that Hagee was not his pastor. Then why did he go out of his way to court him? I Like the way CNN takes credit for breaking the Hagee story...

Will the media question Lieberman's support of Hagee too?

LIEBERMAN: Well, look, I think that the DNC is obviously doing this because they set Pastor Hagee as some kind of response to Reverend Wright Enhanced Coverage for Senator Obama. But I don’t think that’s fair in the basic way that everybody’s already said which is that never went to Pastor Hagee’s church. He accepted his endorsement. He represents a lot of people in this country, particularly Christians who care about the state of Israel. He founded a group called Christians United for Israel.

Will Chris Wallace finally talk about Hagee too?

And what about the Catholic League's own Bill Donohue, who sold out all Catholics on this one?

And what will the religious right say about John McCain now? Since he just refuted one of their own. I can see them attack him for not standing up for Hagee...Watch what happens next.....Full CNN transcript below the fold

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