Campaign Coverage FAIL! FoxNews has been striking out all over the place in recent weeks, along with much of the so-called Conservative media. It’s enough for them to actually go and interview this Joe the Plumber hack again but to quote his admittedly racy and barely informed point-of-view in a headline?!? It looks funny. It looks straight outta the Onion. But it’s effective as another hollow strawman for anyone reaching reaching reaching for reasons to vote for McCain.

Now I don’t disagree with Jack Shafer’s assessment today in Slate, that journalists will have us all retching upon hyperbole and re-statement to the effect that “Obama’s candidacy is momentous, without parallel, and earth-shattering, so they can’t file garden-variety pieces about the ‘winds of change’ blowing through Washington.”

At least I won’t be as ill as I was in 2004, when I couldn’t sleep for days after Bush was crowned a second time, or in 2000, when I was overseas and left to make excuses for my country’s inability to select a winner in a national election in the world’s bastion of democracy. And then, weeks later, to hand the keys to the kingdom to The Imbecile.

But I digress. The GOP doesn’t appear to have an October surprise that will stick. Not in today’s 24-hour social media climate. McCain is literally cracking himself up on the campaign trail thanking his pundits for not eating up the Hall-Obama-ween candy. Muahahaha, he might add.

Here’s a sample of what’s been brought to the table by the ever-desperate anti-Obama minority — and yes, it is a highly-unbalanced minority — in recent days:

DrudgeReportLOLWTFBBQ: The site trumpeted a headline featuring audio that was edited to change Obama’s words in a 2001 interview on Chicago Public Radio’s midday program Odyssey (which, by the way, featured the all-time best NPR theme song, as written by OKGo for host Gretchen Helfrich). WBEZ promptly delved through the archives and posted the unadulterated audio on it’s web site, along with an article clearing up the smear.

There’s the continued attempt of McCain backers (and now, apparently, the campaign itself) to get the LA Times to release video of Obama at a party for Rashid Khalidi, a former University of Chicago professor but also — or so they claim in right blogistan — a former PLO operative.

Regardless of Obama’s alleged association with Khalidi, it is McCain who is on the record has having given more than just a hug to the Palestinian sympathizer, in a relationship that dates back to 1993, according to Seth Colter Walls in the Huffington Post:

A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi’s Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, “West Bank: CPRS” on page 14 of this PDF.)

I could go on and on and if I have the time, I will. For now, prepare to eat crow, and until then you might just want to hide your hands behind your back.

More people rack their brains with a steady stream of misinformation from the too-ugly for radio pundits and “anchors” at Fox than skim the headlines of the Sunday L.A. Times.

Bias and partisanship is more or less irrelevant when such a large percentage of the populous is exposed to downright misinformed pundits who speak from a “no-spin zone.”

The latest example comes from Bill O’Reilly, who not only proclaimed this week on his “Radio Factor” that “the war in Iraq is all about Chirac,” he later insisted on “O’Reilly Factor” that if al-Qaeda attacked the U.S., nobody would care if they hit San Francisco:

“[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off-limits to you, except San Francisco.

Media Matters for America has a deluge of further examples (with video), not limited to O’Reilly or the Fox News Channel.

It is not worth noting the incredulously ill-informed yammering and wankering that occurs on a daily basis across the cable and local news spectrum without pointing out the long-term harm this has on American culture.

The image of the United States in the eyes of the world is repeatedly harmed by the promotion and amplification of such absurd ideas as Scooter Libby’s indictment for perjury, among other things, proved that “no underlying crime” was committed. This was repeated in several news broadcasts.

Simply put, our nation’s comfort with consumer-driven news programs and networks is a serious threat to democracy.

This CAN be remedied. Most visitors or immigrants to the U.S. are completely surprised by the lack of pertinent local or international information in any American news broadcast. Most shocking of all, is that there are actually commercials!

A poll conducted by the Public Relations Society of America and released Thursday found that 61% of the general public generally trusted news on PBS and NPR, while 56% trusted papers like the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or New York Times, and 53% trusted the commercial broadcast and cable news operations.

Considering this, how is it that the federal government is threatening to cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and divert those funds for Gulf Coast restoration and recovery efforts?

As it stands, without applying further cuts, Public Broadcating (radio & TV) gets a whopping $1.30 per capita in federal funding. Compare this to upwards of $100 in the UK and Germany, even $27 in Canada and Australia.

Clearly, something must be done.