WITHOUT A DOUBT, THE ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS OF "COMPLETE AND FINAL" DENATIONALISATION OF STATE SOCIAL SECURITY IN THE UNITED STATES (as documented here, here, here, here and here) are drooling in sheer, unadulterated envy (and then some) @ the news that Treasury Secretary Paulson has declared the current State system to be in clear and present danger of "financial unsustainability," with the current Social Security Trust Funds set to be bankrupt by 2041 unless "drastic measures" are timely undertaken.

As in "complete and final" denationalisation of the "failed and failing" State system, preferably through a "taxpayer lawsuit" filed by some Joe Sixpack type who can be easily influenced enough to parrot, and on cue, the line of denationalisation advocates acting as a United Front for the purposes of same, seeking to have the current State system declared bankrupt "financially as well as morally" (even to the extent of covering related legal expenses and costs)--all the while unaware that the whole is really nothing less than exploitation for shameless publicity purposes of a "winning of hearts and minds" sort.

Made all the more unaware because of trick and deception ... not to mention unaware that what the "sponsors" of the Petition for Bankruptcy really want is nothing less than "gifting schemes" of the kind using PayPal in furtherance thereof, packaged as "retirement savings plans" as pervert the whole idea of mutual self-help hyperconservatives enjoy holding dearly, targeting in particular the Lower Working Classes....

Two teenage Bulgarian sisters have been rescued by Italian police from a circus in which one of them is said to have been forced to swim with piranhas.

Police say that while the 19-year-old sister had to swim in a transparent tank, the 16-year-old had snakes draped across her body and suffered bites.

Four members of the family have been freed from what has been described as a "circus of horrors" south of Naples.

Three men have been arrested and charged with holding them in slavery.

The women were paid €100 (£78/$156) a week, forbidden to leave the camp and forced to work 15- and 20-hour shifts, according to police.

The Bulgarian family has now been moved to a safe house but their case highlights the plight of people caught up in human trafficking networks in Europe.

The European Union estimates that 500,000 people are affected by trafficking every year in Europe.

In 2006, more than 100 Polish workers were freed from forced labour camps in the Puglia region of Italy where they had been promised seasonal farm-work.

But then again, you could just imagine Branson being home to such a sick and depraved "circus" promoted as "wholesome family entertainment" alongside the likes of Shoji Tabuchi, Mel Tillis, Tony Orlando and other examples of what Cal Thomas described as "nutritious patriotism" in entertainment form, appealing mostly to Kankerdom with easily-manipulated patriotic feelings crossing, as required, into jingoism.

Especially so the young girl dressed up in mermaid costume and forced to swim with the aforementioned piranhas, not to mention "cultural heritage" excusing blackface minstrel routines and other politically-incorrect displays thereof pandering to the crudest of racist feelings in said target audience. 

THE DEADLY JAPANESE PUFFERFISH, KNOWN LOCALLY AS FUGU, has to be processed by special means to remove the inner organs as carry the toxins which have given it a nasty reputation.

Those processing same have to hold a special licence before being allowed to handle or serve fugu.

And fugu cannot, under any circumstances, be served to anyone in the Imperial Household, from Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko on down.

Which makes the following recent "WaiWai" item from the Mainichi Daily News of Tokyo a more than adequate demonstration that the old Latin proverb aubent pays, aubent mores ("different lands have different customs") applies equally regardless of where in this small world, after all, we reside:

Criminal charges hanging over a fishmonger for selling deadly puffer fish to a foreign woman who died after eating it are not worthy of sympathy, but instead are his just desserts, anglers tell Shukan Shincho (2/14).

Feudal era warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued the first ban in Japanese history on eating fugu puffer fish over 400 years ago after dozens of his soldiers preparing to take part in his ill-fated invasion of Korea died after eating it, and it's common knowledge among Japanese that the delicacy should only be eaten after careful preparation to remove its poisonous innards.

So it would seem natural to have some sympathy for the chairman of Morita Suisan, the fishmonger from Hitachinaka, Ibaraki Prefecture, now facing criminal charges for selling puffer fish to a Thai woman who boiled it whole and ate it, suffering a week of agony before she died as a result of the puffer fish's poison flowing through her body. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

"It's illegal to sell fugu to anybody who doesn't have a special license to prepare it. But Morita Suisan has apparently been selling puffer fish to anyone and everyone," a reporter from a national daily tells Shukan Shincho. "And Morita Suisan didn't have any employees licensed to cook fugu, either. They've been selling whole fugu without a second thought for more than 20 years."

In defense of Morita Suisan, it's common knowledge that the fugu is dangerous. Even the 45-year-old Thai woman who died questioned the seller about a lack of a license before she bought it. The fishmonger reassured her, saying that she'd be safe as long as she removed the scales before eating it. Normally, scaling a fugu also involves taking out its toxic organs. What the fishmonger didn't realize was that the woman would take the scales off the fish, but keep its insides intact as she used the fugu to flavor a bowl of Thai-style tom yang kun soup--with deadly results.

Few Hitachinaka locals, however, are prepared to show sympathy toward the seller, Morita Suisan, for what some may say appears to have been a tragic accident.

"No way," a member of the Hitachinaka fish market tells Shukan Shincho. "Everybody who's heard about this incident says (the charges facing) Morita Suisan are exactly what it deserves. Everybody hates the chairman of Morita Suisan. He's horrible to whoever he meets, is a real tightwad and shunned by all and sundry here.

"I remember the local festival here about five or six years ago. There was a group of guys carrying a portable shrine along the road, but they tipped it upside down when they got in front of Morita Suisan as a sign of protest against the company."

The company chairman himself, who the weekly doesn't name, appears unperturbed by what people are saying about him.

"It's a fact that we caused an accident, so I can understand why people are talking about us," he says to the weekly. "It's a free world, though, so I can't stop them from saying what they like."

Hiroshi Itakura, professor of law at Nihon University, however, has something to say that the chairman may not like.

"People who sell fugu to someone who doesn't know how to prepare it or eat it properly should be aware that doing so could have fatal results," the criminal law expert tells Shukan Shincho. "There are more than sufficient grounds to prosecute for manslaughter. And a conviction carries a maximum term of 5 years imprisonment."

THE TITLE MAY BE AFRIKAANS FOR "SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN," but I think such relates to a couple of interesting stories of late from across the world as relate to just how cruel and sadisto children can be subjected, especially when "discipline" is expected to be the object.

First off, there's the strange and sickening case of a onetime corrective school/orphanage in the Channel Islands enclave of Jersey by name of the Haut de la Garenne ("rabbit warren heights" in the Norman French patois known locally as Jerriais), until recently a youth hostel: Over recent weeks, some 160 former residents thereof came forward to the local police with tales of abuse and cruelty back when they were so resident in the 30 years before its closing in 1986, reinforced with police dogs discovering fragments of human skulls in several underground chambers as were suspected of having been sadistically abused to their deaths.

As a reporter for the BBC explained it:

More than 160 people who claim to have been abused at Haut de la Garenne have now spoken to police, and all are believed to be telling the truth about the rapes, beatings and torture which they say occurred here during the 30-year period being investigated by police.

Some say they were drugged with valium before being abused at drunken parties organised by staff, to which people from outside the home were invited.

It was those first-hand accounts which led police to focus on a bricked-up cellar beneath one wing of the building.

When police broke through to it on [February 27th] they found a room measuring 12ft by 12ft and around 8ft deep.

Within it mountains of rubble, and - crucially - features which corroborate the victims' stories.

What they also found was a further wall beyond which they believe is another chamber yet to be investigated.

And now a former member of staff at the home has informed them of a third underground chamber - a store room - which will also be investigated.

The victims of abuse at the home say their allegations were never taken seriously.

"Most of us were vulnerable children who were taken into care through no fault of our own," one told me.

"But as soon as you went into Haut de la Garenne it was assumed that you were no good. It was our word against theirs and nobody believed us."

Until 2006, that is, when police began investigating the claims. Last November they went public with it.

At the same time Jersey's former health minister, Stuart Syvret, launched an outspoken attack on the institutions of government in Jersey of which he had once been a part.

They had, he said, engendered a "culture of disregard" to the protection of vulnerable children and accused the island's senior politicians of covering up the abuse.

(In any case, Haut de la Garenne had a nasty reputation for sadistic abuse and maltreatment of its residents long before the now-infamous name was adopted in 1960: First opened as the Jersey Industrial School in 1867, it became the Jersey Home for Boys in 1900, during which time one former inmate recalled seeing a fellow such having his fingers cut off @ the tips following a flogging with a very sharp cane.)

Suffice it to say, though, that the revelations of Haut de la Garenne's sadistic excesses have cast a rather glaring light into the quasi-secretive political ways of the States of Jersey, as explained by the BBC:

Neither part of the UK, nor entirely independent from it, Jersey is a nine miles wide by five anomaly.

The quirks of history, from which its blend of British and French culture evolved, have also rendered the island, literally, a law unto itself.

Although tourists flock to its golden beaches, the island's status as a tax haven and its dark history of Nazi occupation loom large.

And long before the latest abuse accusations surfaced, Jersey had gained a reputation for idiosyncrasy.

Threat of sanctions

The writer Victor Hugo - author of Les Miserables and a one-time Jersey resident - described the Channel Islands as "pieces of France dropped in the sea and picked up by England". History bears him out.

When the English King John lost the Duchy of Normandy in 1204 to France, Jersey's inhabitants chose to remain loyal to their erstwhile Duke.

The islanders were confirmed as subjects of the English crown, but were never absorbed into England nor, subsequently, Britain. They held onto their own judicial system, and remained more or less self-governing.

As a result, Jersey's official status is a British crown dependency. It relies on the British government for defence and international representation, but pays no taxes to London, sends no MPs to Westminster and retains its own Norman legal code.

Culturally, it has developed into a curious blend of its two neighbours, where English is spoken but Norman names abound. Some islanders still speak Jerriais, an odd blend of Norman French and Norse.

Prying eyes

The ability of this tiny island, with a population of just over 91,000 to make its own rules (it does not belong to the EU) has allowed it to develop its status as a tax haven.

With no VAT, no capital gains or estate tax and income tax capped at 20%, Jersey has attracted both wealthy incomers and investors attracted by the lure of offshore banking. Although its maximum speed limit is 40mph, the island has the highest concentration of Porsches in the world.

But like any other tax haven, Jersey has relied on being able to keep private information away from the glare of prying eyes.

Until 2002, it refused to share information on tax evasion with the world's largest economic monitoring group, the OECD. It only relented under threat of sanctions.

This "culture of concealment", the island's former health minister Stuart Syvret claimed when interviewed by a BBC News website reporter when the Haut de la Garenne allegations became public, was responsible for Jersey's failure to address child abuse in its midst.

Jersey's parliament, the States, may be democratic: It is composed of 12 senators and 29 deputies, all directly elected, and 12 constables appointed by parish councils.

But the lack of a strong party system - all members of the States are currently independents - has led to what Mr Syvert identifies as a lack of scrutiny and a "one-party state".

But this ability to keep their own counsel in the face of outsiders has been a source of pride for many on the island - in particular, during occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Resistance was only ever passive, and an estimated 900 children were the results of liaisons between local women and German soldiers. But there was no pro-Hitler political movement as in other occupied areas, and no islanders were implicated in handing over Jews. Indeed one Jerseyman, Albert Bedane, concealed a Dutch Jew, a French prisoner of War and Russian slave labourers from the SS.

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STAYING ON THE SUBJECT OF "SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN," FROM AUSTRALIA COMES WORD OF REVELATIONS that long-haul truck drivers "Down Under" have solicited sex from Aboriginal girls in a remote part of New South Wales state.

As The Sydney Morning Herald (via AAP, as in Australian Associated Press, the major wire service down there) reported:

Truck drivers have been accused of participating in a child sex trade using indigenous girls in a remote NSW town, a report says.

It's alleged that girls as young as eight in Boggabilla have had sex with the drivers in exchange for cash and in some cases have been drugged and raped, ABC TV reported.

There have been no prosecutions because the girls refuse to testify, people aware of the cases said.

One unidentified girl told the broadcaster that she had two 14-year-old friends who had sex with truck drivers passing through town in exchange for about $50.

One teenage girl had been selling sex for many years, Boggabilla resident Judy Knox said.

"It's believed that she started when she was about eight years old ... she'd recently become a mother, 15-year-old mother," Ms Knox told ABC TV.

Most of the girls sold their bodies so they could buy drugs like speed and ice, the report said.

There are also allegations of drink spiking, with girls waking up in state capital cities not remembering how they got there.

In response to the report, an Australian Trucking Association spokesman said: "Most trucking companies ban passengers from the cabs of their trucks.

"Professional truck drivers know that their truck cabin is a workplace."

NSW state MP Kevin Humphries said he told police about child prostitution and truck drivers a year ago but the girls refuse to report the drivers.

"Until people actually step up and say 'Yes I will be a witness I will verify that', it makes it very difficult for the police to actually follow through on anything," Mr Humphries told ABC TV.

In a statement, NSW Police said: "Police have been working very hard with other government agencies to obtain evidence of child sexual assault.

"We continue to work closely with the community to gain information that can lead to arrest."

Boggabilla is about 750 km (465 miles) north of Sydney.

Now, reader ... imagine what the situation would be like if children of welfare "basket cases" were tricked into turning tricks for truck drivers just to get out of welfare all the quicker (cf. Neal Boortz' infamous suggestion to a Katrina refugee in Atlanta)....

CERTAIN SCIONS OF THE GOP, PARTICULARLY SO IN OKLAHOMA, ARE HAILING STATE LEGISLATOR SALLY KERN as a "hero" for recent remarks in closed session about a supposed Conspiracy involving the Greater Homosexual Agenda--said remarks being made available via YouTube, ultimately via the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund (hat tip in this instance to the Right Wing Watch blog @ People For the American Way).

Here's the video in question and controversy:

• The misadventures otherwise known as the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism in Iraq, and the socioeconomic harm posed to the nation and world.
• The use of flawed, misleading or otherwise inaccurate intelligence, let alone the claims of less-than-credible channels trusted in certain high-level channels of trust and confidence as reliable, to justify said misadventures.
• The consequences of risky "sub-prime" and "Alt-A" mortgage lending upon poor, undereducated and easily-influenced families tricked into taking out such mortgages for the sake of a Classless Ownership Society.
• The worsening gap between rich and poor, and the moral as much as socioeconomic consequences ensuing--especially aggravated by the warped and misguided policies of their droogs otherwise known as His Fraudulency's Great Within.
• The consequences of a mindset holding that low taxes=jobs=social stability upon education, infrastructure, scientific progress and research, etc., etc.
• Further "trickle-down" effects of the ur-RAHOWA upon the Greater Collective Good of the Nation, especially so job losses, worsening inflation, depletion of savings to make ends meet and general consequences.
• The greater social, socioeconomic and moral consequences of laissez-fare socioeconomic thought expected to be seen by suchlike of their ilk as Great White Father of the Lower Classes (especially so "chronic and habitual welfare cases" somehow expected to be in need of "empowerment" only through the free market after "generations of being conditioned to accept false and un-American doctrines" indirectly).

With those in mind, I should like to ask why these should be glossed over as part of the greater electoral agenda, instead paying greater attention to an obvious non-issue like the Greater Homosexual Agenda and the Moral Risk so ensuing upon "our antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity."

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WITHOUT A DOUBT, PROJECTION (AS IN SHIFTING TO OTHERS BLAME FOR WHAT MAY BE THEIR OWN UNDOING) is a common propaganda tactic in the conservative prolefeed machine.

As in blaming "liberal elements" (with "liberal" being subtle anti-Semitic code, perchance) for "reckless and utter disregard for truth" in the media when, in fact, such is commonplace among conservative-leaning media channels. And, come to think of it, see Truth as a subjective, to be perverted and manipulated as required to serve the Greater Conservative Agenda.

Put another way, Joe Sixpack should not be expected to handle the truth "lest such lead to error."

In any case, the following BBC News Online story illustrating how reporters for Chinese state broadcaster CCTV were "advised" to handle certain "sensitive" news items recently may be insightful for what sort of "journalistic standards and ethics" conservatives would like to see imposed for service to their own warped agenda, let alone Truth:

When journalists at China's national broadcaster CCTV log on, one of the first things that pops up on screen is a notice about what not to report.

These notices are often short and seldom say who has authorised them, but they all contain strict instructions about how to report a story.

Journalists were recently warned off a health scandal, told how to report the death of Benazir Bhutto and had to steer clear of a Hollywood film story.

Censorship has been an everyday feature of news reporting in China for as long as the Chinese Communist Party has been in power.

But this wide range of so-called sensitive stories shows that, in China, any story on any subject at any time can still fall foul of the censor's red pen.

No explanation

As 2007 came to a close, it was three very different stories that received particular attention from censors working at China Central Television (CCTV).

On 19 December, journalists received a notice banning them from carrying reports about the death of a pregnant migrant worker.

The news had previously been widely reported in the Chinese media.

The saga began when the woman was rushed to a Beijing hospital with what her husband said was a simple cold.

But doctors said she was suffering from pneumonia and needed an emergency caesarean.

Her husband, believing the hospital wanted to charge him for an expensive and unnecessary operation, refused. Three hours later his wife was dead.

The terse notice banning CCTV journalists from reporting this story did not say why it was sensitive, but health is a hot topic for ordinary Chinese people.

Many suspect doctors prescribe expensive drugs and order unnecessary tests and treatment to boost their salaries.

Two days later, the CCTV censors were worried about another story - reports that China had banned some Hollywood films from Chinese cinemas.

Censors decided this story could not be reported at all.

Again, the notice did not say why, but there has been trade friction between China and the US for some time.

Perhaps the government did not want to add to the tension by talking about another potential trade dispute between the two sides.

'Avoid drawing fire'

The third story that caused problems was the death of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto two days after Christmas.

China and Pakistan are close allies, and the government presumably did not want to cause a friend unnecessary trouble.

Of course, it would have been hard to simply ignore the assassination, so on 28 December CCTV journalists received explicit instructions on how to report the killing.

Reporters were told to stick to the facts and not connect the incident with Pakistan's internal turmoil or mention the possibility of terrorism.

"Avoid drawing fire against ourselves. Avoid being drawn into Pakistan's internal contradictions," the notice read.

And this time journalists were told exactly who had authorised this order - the party's Central Propaganda Department.

These three stories are just the tip of the iceberg, according to David Bandurski, a researcher with the Hong Kong-based China Media Project, which monitors the media in China.

"There are all kinds of bans and missives against all kinds of stories for different reasons," he says.

Certain subjects are always out of bounds in China, such as speculation about China's national leaders.

Other issues, such as health, education and inflation, are closely monitored because they are potentially controversial.

CCTV journalists were recently told to follow the lead of Xinhua, China's national news agency, when writing reports about fuel price rises.

Sometimes even innocent stories can become sensitive, such as a recent debate about digital TV, because it touched on the issue of consumer rights.

'Wriggle room'

Despite the obstacles, Mr Bandurski says many Chinese journalists are keen to push the boundaries of what is allowed.

"The media is becoming savvy about which stories are completely taboo and which stories have some wriggle room, even for a short time," he says.

The media was not always so strictly controlled in China.

Zhan Jiang, a journalism professor at Beijing's China Youth University for Political Science, says there was more freedom to report political issues in the 1980s.

But that relatively relaxed period came to an abrupt end in 1989 with the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protesters.

The professor is not optimistic that things will improve in the short term for Chinese journalists.

"On one hand, (Chinese President) Hu Jintao suggests goals to aim for, such as democracy and the rule of law," says Mr Zhan.

"But, on the other hand, the forces that oppose democracy, the rule of law and particularly freedom of speech are powerful."

=============

STAYING WITH MUCH THE SAME MATTER FOR THE NONCE, KUDOS ARE DUE MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA for exposing to air and sunshine the sort of issues which the forces of conservative Zealotry and True Belief as control the mainstream news media "behind the scenes," as it were, want avoided for the sake of "protecting readers from serious error of judgement"--as in expecting Joe Sixpack to not handle the Truth.

Case in point, from last week's Media Matters roundup, as addressed how the Establishment Media is handling John McCain's campaign vis-a-vis certain sensitive standpoints--in this case, his associations with weird and unwholesome religious as were addressed in this recent Open Letter for starters:

Given intense media scrutiny of controversial comments made by a religious leader with ties to Barack Obama, many--including Media Matters--have wondered when news organizations will devote the same attention to John McCain's ties to Rod Parsley and John Hagee.

In February, shortly before the Ohio primary, John McCain stood with Rod Parsley in Cincinnati, declaring him a "spiritual guide." Parsley returned the compliment with his endorsement of McCain, who he praised as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." Parsley has written that "America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion [of Islam] destroyed." As David Corn has explained, "Parsley, who refers to himself as a 'Christocrat,' is no stranger to controversy. In 2007, the grassroots organization he founded, the Center for Moral Clarity, called for prosecuting people who commit adultery. In January, he compared Planned Parenthood to Nazis." He has suggested that the U.S. government was complicit in facilitating black genocide.

McCain won another key endorsement in February: John Hagee, founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio.

Hagee has said of Hurricane Katrina, "[W]hen you violate God's will long enough, the judgment of God comes to you. Katrina is an act of God for a society that is becoming Sodom and Gomorrah reborn." Hagee later defended his comment by saying, "I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are--were recipients of the judgment of God for that. ... there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. ... I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans."

Hagee has written, "I encourage every person who has biblical beliefs to contact their congressman and their senator on a regular basis and implore them to pass this constitutional amendment recognizing only the marriage between a man and a woman. If we fail to achieve this, the gates of hell will be opened. It will open the door to incest, to polygamy, and every conceivable marriage arrangement demented minds can possibly conceive. If God does not then punish America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah."

Hagee once announced plans to hold a "slave sale" to raise money. According to the San Antonio Express-News, "Hagee, pastor of the 16,000-member Cornerstone Church, last week had announced a 'slave sale' to raise funds for high school seniors in his church bulletin ... The item was introduced with the sentence 'Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone' and ended with 'Make plans to come and go home with a slave.' " And Hagee has written "Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist" and "only a Spirit-filled woman can submit to her husband's lead. It is the natural desire of a woman to lead through feminine manipulation of the man. ...The man has the God-given role to be the loving leader of the home."

According to Hagee, McCain actively sought his endorsement.

But despite McCain's embrace of Hagee and Parsley, their controversial views have not drawn the media scrutiny that has been given to Obama's relationship with his pastor.

Time's Michael Scherer actually claimed the McCain-Hagee connection has gotten extensive media coverage: "With rare exception, the press errs on the side of making a big deal out of anything that can be considered a 'scandal.' McCain's endorsement by Hagee got lots of negative newspaper, blog and network news coverage."

"Lots" of "network news coverage"? The names "Hagee" and "McCain" have been mentioned in the same news report exactly one time on ABC--in a comment by Democratic strategist Donna Brazile. CBS has covered the matter in two brief reports. NBC has mentioned the endorsement one time, in a report that referred only vaguely to the fact that "some of the televangelist's public remarks have offended Catholics."

"Lots" of "negative newspaper" coverage? The New York Times has mentioned Hagee's endorsement of McCain in two articles. Both times, the Hagee mention was buried at the end of an article about another topic; combined, the two passages totaled only 251 words. Neither made any mention of Hagee's comments about Katrina, or gays, or women. The Washington Post has mentioned Hagee's endorsement of McCain in only two brief blurbs, only one of which noted any controversy surrounding the endorsement--and, like the Times, that one mentioned only Hagee's comments about Catholics. Post columnist E. J. Dionne did briefly criticize McCain for not distancing himself from Hagee--but he, too, ignored Hagee's comments about Katrina, gays, and women.

Scherer's claim that "McCain's endorsement by Hagee got lots of negative newspaper, blog and network news coverage" was simply false; the endorsement has been all but ignored by the three networks and the nation's two most important newspapers.

By contrast, a Nexis search for "Obama and Jeremiah Wright" reveals 22 hits ... in The Washington Post alone. And 25 more in The New York Times (22 for "Obama and Jeremiah A. Wright" and three for "Obama and Jeremiah Wright.") And 15 hits in the NBC transcript database--all since March 14. Fifteen more in the CBS database since March 14. Twenty-two more in the ABC database since March 13. That is "lots of negative coverage." And that is a huge imbalance.

While Scherer falsely claimed that McCain's ties to Hagee have gotten "lots" of attention, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough took another approach: claiming that McCain's embrace of Hagee is utterly unremarkable.

On the March 19 edition of MSNBC's Race for the White House, Rachel Maddow pointed out the "double standard" in the media's coverage of the situations. Scarborough responded by claiming, "This is not a serious argument. ... This is a ridiculous argument when you consider that Barack Obama is talking about his spiritual adviser for 20 years. Hagee didn't baptize McCain's kids. Hagee didn't marry McCain. John McCain's first book wasn't based on a sermon by Hagee."

Scarborough's argument might seem to make sense--there is no doubt that Obama has closer ties to Jeremiah Wright than John McCain does to John Hagee. But this argument is backwards. Wright is Obama's pastor; their relationship is presumably far more personal than political. Indeed, it may not be political at all. McCain, on the other hand, sought Hagee's support solely for political purposes. His relationship with Hagee is nothing but political. Hagee's political views, therefore, are much more relevant than Jeremiah Wright's, as they are the entire basis for the McCain-Hagee relationship.

(Purely personal piffle: How do we know Rod Parsley's notions on "moral clarity" didn't exactly come by way of Al Cohol, Mary Jane, Old Lady Snow and/or Sally D?)