While the media is seemingly endlessly fascinated by the Reverend Wright controversy, they now seem less interested in real gaffes by Hillary Clinton.

Clinton Trade Hypocrisy

Hillary Ignores Bill's Role in China Company Takeover

On Science and Faith

William Phillips, the 1997 Nobel Laureate in Physics, has written an essay about the relationship between faith and science.

At least a few writers are noting the popular vote fallacy. But it's still being repeated without sufficient critique in most news reports.

The Popular Vote Myth

The mass media continues to regurgitate the flawed meme that there is even such a thing as a national popular primary vote, and fail to acknowledge the specious nature of a national "popular" vote count in the first place. At least
four caucus states do not report the actual votes at the caucuses used to determine delegates (the "votes" reported are actually local precinct delegate totals, from which the state delegate totals are derived). Therefore all popular vote counts are at least partially statistical estimates. Furthermore the different methods used in each
state mean that turnout rates will vary greatly according to the method
used.

In other words, (1) it is impossible to determine an accurate popular vote count such that each individual vote really counts, and (2) even if it was possible to count the votes accurately, the differences in each state's methods mean that different states would be represented unequally and the meaning of a "national popular vote" is murky at best.

Obama is exactly right in saying that the "popular vote" in this
sort of setting is an abstract exercise. There's really no such thing
as a national popular vote in a party primary, when each state uses
such different methods of voting, counting, and reporting.

Questions for John McCain
(Countdown with Keith Olbermann)

While the "questions" are largely ironic in light of the ABC Pennsylvania debate, it also brings up some facts about McCain, both in terms of his public career and private life, that don't fit the popular all-American notion about his persona that he would undoubtedly like to run on.

Government Acknowledges Potential Dangers of BPA

A federal health panels report indicates a shift in the government position on the dangers of of bisphenol-a (BPA), amid growing concerns about its potential dangers. Read about it here.

This post by Andrew Romano of Newsweek is probably the best analysis I've seen on the subject of Obama's remarks on small town America.

Perhaps somewhat expectedly, Senator Obama's remarks are being
misrepresented not only by his political opponents, but by the media as
well.

Senator Obama did not say that people like guns or are
religious BECAUSE of their economic struggles. What he said is that
when facing hardship, and due to frustration and lack of trust in
government, small town Americans turn to BOTH positive things that are
familiar (religion, guns) as well as negative things that are easy to
scapegoat (xenophobia).

Obama himself clarified this in remarks the day following the news
reports. A fair news report would at least give Obama the benefit of
the doubt in at least accurately reporting this clarification. Instead
I continue to hear mindless parroting of a distorted and simplistic
account of Obama's remarks.

There was nothing inherently pejorative about Senator Obama's remarks.

Senator Obama was perhaps speaking too compactly, as he is wont
to do. (For example, some people missed the point when Obama said in
his speech on Rev. Wright that while he had heard Rev. Wright say some
controversial things, the publicized comments were beyond
controversial. This was Obama's compact but oblique way of saying that
he had not heard the remarks in question.)

But the
assumption that there was something pejorative says more about the
latent elitism of the critics than it does about Senator Obama.

Obama defended by Toobin, Borger, Cafferty

Jeffrey Toobin was particularly emphatic in defending Obama, and criticizing those who would distort his remarks.

I was watching the Lou Dobbs program on CNN today (Dobbs was not hosting) and was shocked by the lack of objectivity and clear anti-Obama bias in the reporting. They were spending an inordinate amount of time on remarks that Senator Obama had made at a CA fundraiser concerning the obstacles his campaign faced in small-town America. When you read the full context of Obama's remarks, they are revealed to be relatively benign. Some of the words were perhaps not the best chosen, but the context indicates that there was no ill intent. I suppose if you read the remarks in an unreasonably sensitive, defensive, or partisan way, and parse every word in order to interpret them in a particularly negative way, it is possible to read them as pejorative against small town America. However, I think it is not being objective as a news program to have a title graphic that refers to this as Obama's "slam" against small-town America. Furthermore, here is a quote of Dobbs' poll question:

"Do you believe that Senator Barack Obama's comments reveal his elitist attitude toward every hardworking American?"

Just the way that question is written indicates a bias against Obama. It's practically a push-poll. Specifically, using the adjectives "his" and "every" suggest that the writer believes the answer should be yes, and suggest that to the reader. A more objective question would have replaced "his" with "an" and eliminated "every" while making "American" plural.

It's amazing how our revenue-seeking news media has managed to sensationalize the reporting on this. In his own remarks, Obama clearly notes that he is only talking about "some" not all. Furthermore, his remarks are not even really pejorative. In fact what he is saying is that people's skepticism and resistance towards his campaign is understandable. Somehow this has gotten warped into a slam against small-town America, and some members of our short attention span, dim-witted media is buying the story, probably because it is the most juicy, regardless of whether it is actually true.

You can read the remarks here.