Actual Journalism by Progressives

If someone tells you cable news is all fluff and biased tell them this story.

Rachel Maddow interviewed Rand Paul about his primary victory in Kentucky and ended up pressing him about his stand on civil rights.  This turned into a big deal andThe New Yoirk Times published a story under the headline Tea Party Pick Cause Uproar on Civil Rights about it and said that Rand was asked if he thought businesses should have the right to refuse to serve black people.  The paper said Rand Paul said 'yes'.  This could be a huge point for Paul's Democratic opponent in the Kentucky general election and you might think the Rachel Maddow Show would be all over reporting what the Times had said.  But no, last Friday Chris Hayes was the guest host and went to great lengths to correct the paper's article going so far as to play the part of the interview where it was obvious Rand Paul did not say yes to that question even though Rachel kept asking.

Here's my point, The Rachel Maddow Show went out of its way to correct something that played to the liberal audience but was wrong.  They corrected something that could have been a great talking point but they chose accuracy over spin and  corrected a misreading of the interview.  I call that Real Journalism.

Challenge your friends to find an example from the conservative side of the news. 

Here is the link but there's no guarantee it will last, if it doesn't work search msnbc.com for Rachel Maddow and Rand Paul or New York Times

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#37285934

Obama and the presidency - so far

With the nomination of Elena Kagan as a Supreme Court justice I had a revelation. I was hoping for a progressive nominee that would somehow balance out the c-c-c-conservative justices appointed under W.  I thought Obama's first nomination was too conservative but I think she will be a great justice, just not as liberal as I might like..

What hit me today was that President Obama is running his administration the way he thinks the Constitution envisions it.  He is not running it to win the next election or to help his friends or to be popular, he is being The President.  In short, he is an honorable guy trying to ignore the political wrangling and actually improve things for everyone.

You may not agree but try looking from that perspective at what Barack doe.