Putting out the Fire

The News Media has a compulsive need to make the Democratic and Republican candidates seem alike. It is all about eliminating policy choice from politics.

Los Angeles Times: Obama, McCain agree on many once-divisive issues

Sure they do.

McCain and Obama: two peas in a pod. . . . NOT!

Here are a couple of take-downs:
The Carpetbagger Report: The drive to downplay differences between Obama, McCain — redux

The Reality-Based Community: Los Angeles Times: Sub-zero stupid

Digby at Hullabaloo is more optimistic: " . . . the LA Times is signaling that it believes that non-proliferation, global warming, stem cell research and comprehensive immigration reform are safe middle of the road positions. Even on the war, they seem to be admitting that 100 years in Iraq and the whole 'victory' concept is an extreme right wing position."

One of the most disturbing lines in this general, coordinated effort to neuter this election will be the effort of the Bush Administration to create the impression that the U.S. is about to declare victory and get out of Iraq, and in Atrios's words, "suggest Obama is a big spoilsport for wanting to 'surrender.' " Atrios points to this piece in the International Herald Tribune, as an example of the genre.

More aggressive is Martha Raddatz: Obama's Iraq Plan: Mission Impossible?. Raddatz quotes various officers in Iraq, asserting progress on the ground, rejecting a timetable for withdrawal and, finally, asserting that withdrawal might be logistically "impossible". It is all crap, and the usual "he said, she said" convention of allowing contrary voices is, of course, thrown aside, for this, from General Jeffrey Hammond:

I'll speak for the coalition forces, men and women of character and moral courage; we have a mission, and it's not until the mission is done that I can look my leader in the eye and say, 'Sir, Ma'am, mission accomplished,' and I think it is dangerous to leave anything a little early."