The Conservative Filter

Conservatives enjoy calling the media the filter. Meaning that the media is somehow blocking access to the truth. If it wasn't for the brave keyboard warriors, we wouldn't know that there were WMDs in Iraq.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN IRAQ: Austin Bay has a roundup on this story.

Glenn Reynolds, the gift that keeps on giving.

Conservatives really don't want unbiased journalism. They want the media to tell them what they want to hear. Rush Limbaugh could never make it (and I'm laughing as I write this) as a football analyst because he enjoys making racist comments. Conservatives don't mind. In their minds poor Mexican laborers are taking all the high tech jobs in Seattle.

Today's Gallup poll shows Barack Obama leading John McCain 47 percent to 41 percent. A USA Today article on the poll shows Obama leading McCain 47 percent to 44 percent. All this makes the unfiltered truth of the conservative blogs hysterical.

Say Anything blogger Ken McCracken writes the poll "shows McCain now ahead 49%-45% among voters that Gallup believes are most likely to go to the polls in November." Which in true. This is a demographic that isn't even registered to vote. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percent. McCracken uses this one demographic as prove that Obama's trip failed. I fail to see what McCain gained by constant media attention on Obama.

Wizbang runs the headline "His Own Worst Enemy."

Look at Obama's just-ended world tour. The media sure loved him, but Obama actually dropped in the polls, McCain gaining on Obama by not doing or saying much at all. It's as if America wants both of these guys to sit down and shut up, and they are willing to reward the one who actually does it.

Obama didn't drop in the polls. Obama is beating McCain in the major polls. The likely voters is a soft poll. Who knows how many of the people polled will actually vote? I'm fascinated by how conservatives can use the smallest poll fragment and say McCain now leads Obama in the Gallup poll.

Another point, I'm sure Jim Johnson will agree with. the Zogby poll predicted John Kerry would win. The problem with that is Republicans had a good turnout. What hurts McCain is he can't get supporters to fill small venues. Democrats have been registering voters in record numbers and Obama will accept the Democratic nomination at INVESCO Field. Turnout will be the key come election day.

Another point: McCain gambled by daring Obama into going to Iraq. Obama got Prime Minister al-Maliki to support his timetable. Obama isn't even President and he has achieved more diplomatically than Bush. McCain can't decide whether he likes or hates Obama's timetable.

Tastes great:

“I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal,” he added, echoing a phrase President Bush used in recent days. “But they have to be based on conditions on the ground.”

Less filling:

"The difference between the two candidates going into November is that Barack Obama wants a rigid timeline for withdrawal," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said on CNN's "American Morning."

"John McCain wants to start reducing our troops, keeping the gains in security that we've earned in Iraq, but by doing so, avoiding a third war.

Obama scored a foreign policy coup and received photo-ops with eager European leaders. How Wizbang figures that Obama is his worst enemy and not the guy that flip flops on a timetable is beyond me. I'm just the filter. Wizbang and Say Anything are the truth.