Take a look at the questions from the past debate (just the questions). Is this really helping send the message the RNC must to deliver to win in November?

What’s maddening about this malpractice by the RNC is that even the current chair knows what the main stream media is and who they are promoting. In a recent interview on MSNBC, Reince Priebus fought back against a question “loaded with DNC talking points” and quickly articulated his talking points by going around the media complex.

That response is perfect for an interview in enemy territory, but on a debate stage when one is expected to answer the questions given to you, simply ignoring the egregious premises of questions and rehashing a stump speech is seen as dodging the question. Although it is motivating to conservatives that yell at liberal programming on their televisions everywhere when former Speaker Newt Gingrich blatantly says he rejects the premise of (or in some cases, the entirety) the questions posed in a debate, the real issue is that Newt does not need to do that.

In a day where anyone can produce a semi-pro live stream with $50 software and a built in camera on their computer, the RNC can certainly produce a professional debate moderated by those who will actually ask questions the people of America need and want to hear. The main stream media may own the debates when it comes time to face President Obama, but the RNC willingly has our candidates debate not each other, but the gatekeepers that are the main stream media. Those gatekeepers ask questions such as, “Why didn’t the Bush tax cuts work?”

There have been over 20 debates or forums for these candidates to deliver the message that liberty, self-governance, and free enterprise leads to a prosperous nation. This view is a stark contrast to the current President and his policies. However, that message is continually choked off by the gatekeeper moderators who keep the focus on things such as English being the official language. This is either laziness or intentional sabatoge by the RNC. They are allowing the media to choose the Republican Presidential candidate, not Republicans.

Tonight’s debate on CNN at 8 p.m. ET will be be moderated by Wolf Blitzer. Does the RNC actually think that tonight’s debate will be more insightful than the past 20? Here’s a thought, Mr. Priebus: Host an internal live-stream debate and invite the media outlets and C-SPAN to set up a camera. Have some new-media moguls and some Tea Party Congressmen moderate. The American people will be far more informed by one event like this than all of the other 20+ debates combined.

Mr. Priebus knows this can be done, why hasn’t he done it already?

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Marv Albert on ESPN describing a triple play? Not exactly. It’s the justly famous first line of John Keats’ pastoral poem Endymion (1818) about a shepherd lad loved by the moon goddess Selene. “Fools rush in.” Elvis, right? The first three words, maybe. But the entire pearl—”Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”—actually hails from Alexander Pope’s brilliant 1711 poetic treatise An Essay on Criticism. And who first warned us “A little learning is a dangerous thing?” Einstein? George Washington? Sorry. Pope, once again. From the very same poem—and to think he was only 23 when he scribbled these sterling epigrams that stubbornly cling to our lips nearly 300 years later.

But what about that ubiquitous ornithological metaphor we all bandy about so freely? You know—the albatross, inextricably wrapped around some poor wretch’s hapless neck? Surely dead bird imagery is too macabre, too contemporary to have crawled out of some centuries-old British poem—right?

Not if the poet is the opium-addicted mystic Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the poem is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798). With his surreal tale, Coleridge unwittingly gave us the perfect proxy for President Obama, entangled in his own personal albatross—the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.

When Obama signed the bill into law on March 23, 2010, with the stroke of a pen he became the doomed sailor in Coleridge’s supernatural, foreboding poem. Little did the President know at the time that his pen was the equivalent of the cross-bow with which Coleridge’s mariner killed the fated albatross. (Word to the wise: be careful what you lobby for. Word to the foolish: ignore the word to the wise.)

Since its first publication, scholars have debated endlessly the symbolism and significance of Coleridge’s strange metaphysical bird poem.  Let’s leave those lofty academic indulgences to those who enjoy lofty academic indulgences. For our humbler terrestrial purposes, we’ll concentrate on the storyline of this saga of a man on a most unusual extended speaking tour.

The poem narrates how an old sailor—the eponymous mariner—newly returned from a long voyage, stops one of three guests just as they are about to enter a wedding reception for their next of kin. The “grey-beard loon” (as the apprehensive apprehended guest addresses the sailor) detains the guest, stopping him with his “skinny hand” and “glittering eye.” He then proceeds to recount a long twisted tale of a sea junket gone terribly wrong—in which the mariner kills an albatross with his cross-bow, sees all 200 of his shipmates mysteriously drop dead (“With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, They dropped down one by one.”), before his ship is ultimately ferried back to land by a phantom crew of spirits. Not your typical Carnival Cruise Line experience by a long shot.

Even though the guest is now late for the wedding ceremony and the ensuing festivities, he is either too transfixed or too terrified of upsetting his interlocutor not to heed the sailor’s expansive tale. What the wedding guest learns is that the mariner is compelled to repeat his somber story, passing “from land to land” to teach it “at an uncertain hour.” The mariner knows “the man who must hear me” as soon as he sees his face. The unfortunate recipient of the mariner’s loquacity this time just happened to be the poor wedding guest. One can only imagine how the bride and groom received his excuse for his tardiness. (“The sailor told you what?”)

In 2010 America, “the grey-beard loon” is President Obama. His doomed shipmates are the myriad Democrats who voted for Obamacare, many of whom are destined to go down with the ship this November “with heavy thump.” The albatross which Obama slew with his cross-bow was the will of the American people, who still by a great preponderance oppose this gargantuan, immorally-imposed orgy of entitlement spending.

Obama now wears the heavy bird of Obamacare around his neck, struggling mightily with cheap diaphanous $250 bribes to extricate himself—as he did in his latest June 8^th town hall in Wheaton Maryland.

It remains to be seen at what town hall and on whom our Mariner President next lays his “skinny hand.” But just like Coleridge’s mad sailor, Obama is now doomed to keep traversing the country in a valiant but vain delirium of words, repeating his ever-luster-losing fairy tale of the benefits of his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—i.e., the large. white, rank and festering lifeless bird draped around his neck.

Coleridge said it much more eloquently:

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

Keep teaching us your tale, Mariner Obama. But be aware—just like Coleridge’s wedding guest—average Americans recognize the crazed eye of a grey-beard loon who’s been out at sea far, far too long. And they think your health care bill is–well–for the birds.

The mainstream media were complicit in their coverage of the ACORN scandal. Their behavior was and continues to be an insult to democracy and journalistic responsibility as the Fourth Estate has ignored facts, engaged in one-sided sourcing, and avoided basic and inherently important journalistic questioning.

First, there was avoidance. Some media outlets simply ignored the story. On Sept. 15, five days after the Maryland tape was released, ABC’s Charlie Gibson said, “I don’t even know about it… so you’ve got me at a loss” and said that the story might be “just one you leave to the cables.” But, Gibson was not alone in his lack of knowledge. The New York Times did not cover the story for nearly a week. On Sept. 26, Clark Hoyt, The Times’ Public Editor, acknowledged the paper’s tardiness, but insinuated that the story was lacking in facts:

But for days, as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from Acorn, The Times stood still.  Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire…But others do, and a newspaper like The Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself.

Then, there were cases of gratuitously sloppy journalism.  Some of the outlets that did cover the story simply skipped over basic interview questions. In several instances, Bertha Lewis made the false claim that the filmmakers were turned away in “dozens of cities.” In a CNN interview with Rick Sanchez, Lewis said, “…the filmmakers went to dozens of offices. They were turned away.” In a more flagrant example of corroborating untruths, Lewis reiterated her “dozens” on MSNBC, stating, “…They were thrown out of dozens of offices. And, in fact, in Philadelphia, we called the police, filed a police report.”

Similarly, Wolf Blitzer, failed to adequately question Lewis. While on his show, Lewis made the following statement: “This sort of notorious crew went around to dozens of our offices. What you don’t see are the offices that threw them out… offices that filed police complaints.”

The lack of depth of these interviews with Lewis has been egregious. Upon hearing of the “dozens,” even the most unseasoned journalist would know to ask, “What were the cities where filmmakers were thrown out?” And, what about the police reports (plural) that were filed by multiple “offices”? Like Sanchez’s treatment of the “dozens,” Blitzer failed to ask for a list of cities that took such action. Lewis was granted a free pass, as no probing questions were asked about the issues in question.

On Sept. 12, just two days after the Maryland tape was made public, Lewis released a statement on ACORN’s Web site, writing, “This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we’ve all recently seen.”

Following subsequent video releases, New York and San Diego were dropped from ACORN’s list of cities where the filmmakers were allegedly “turned away” and the aforementioned statement was removed from ACORN’s Web site, thus erasing evidence of inconsistency.  Big Government copied her statement and posted it in it’s entirety at the time of it’s release (notice the broken link to the ACORN website in the Big Government post). This change can also be viewed in a story published on Sept. 17 by The Washington Post. According to the Post, “An ACORN spokesman said they were turned away in Miami, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where workers called police and filed a report.”  Notice the missing cities.

Where were the media to catch this glaring glitch in ACORN’s own reporting? The answer: Nowhere to be found. And, it was on the same day (Sept. 17), that Lewis appeared on MSNBC to discuss the fact that “dozens” of cities turned the filmmakers away.

And who could forget the glaring corrections that were issued by The Associated Press and The Washington Post. Both the AP and the Post published stories that attributed an incorrect, racially-driven motive for O’Keefe’s decision to conduct the ACORN investigation . Fortunately, the outlets were forced to correct their journalistic faux pas. Here is the Post’s correction:

A Sept. 18 Page One article about the community organizing group ACORN incorrectly said that a conservative journalist targeted the organization for hidden-camera videos partly because its voter-registration drives bring Latinos and African Americans to the polls. Although ACORN registers people mostly from those groups, the maker of the videos, James E. O’Keefe, did not specifically mention them.

Despite the fact that Bertha Lewis’ credibility had been completely compromised on September 14th with with the release of the New York ACORN investigation (not to mention the San Diego videos released on Sept. 17), she was granted a forum with The National Press Club on Oct. 6; the conference was broadcast on C-SPAN. In that presser, Lewis used the debunked information from the Associated Press and Washington Post articles that had since been corrected. Yes, the NPC gave her a platform to continue touting untruths that were previously purveyed by the supine media. She said, “O’Keefe, himself, told The Washington Post, ‘They’re registering too many minorities. They usually vote Democratic. Somebody’s got to stop them’…”

Perhaps the most perplexing media coverage – or lack thereof – surrounds a video that ACORN Housing’s Philadelphia office released back in September. On Sept. 16, a YouTube account was created and on Sept. 17, a video featuring Philadelphia Office Director Katherine Conway Russell was released. The video, which is intended to respond to O’Keefe and Giles while defending the Philadelphia office’s handling of the filmmakers went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media.

In the video, Russell describes a July meeting with O’Keefe and Giles and uses a police report filed after the filmmakers left the office as evidence that the Philadelphia office was taken aback by the prostitution story line. Aside from the fact that the series of events that lead up to the police filing described in the video lead to more questions, the police report itself does not mention anything about discussion content; the report merely claims that O’Keefe was responsible for a verbal “disturbance.”

While the media vastly ignored this important video, many outlets did delve into the police report. According to The Washington Post, “ACORN emailed a copy of a Philadelphia police report dated July 24 to The Post to verify its account that police were called and the couple was shown the door.” And concerning the Philadelphia office’s involvement, WPVI Philadelphia wrote, “…by every account, the Philadelphia office is not part of the problem.” And, WBUR-FM wrote, “…in ACORN Housing’s North Philadelphia office, the scene is far from the one seen in the videos, which were made by a conservative activist”

Here, the media takes sides without interviewing or speaking with O’Keefe and Giles. Aside from the issue of ignoring ACORN’s own video, such selective sourcing is disturbing. Nowhere in the police report is ACORN’s rejection of any subject matter mentioned, therefore the report, in itself, does not prove wholeheartedly what ACORN’s officials in that city have said.

And finally: The insinuation that the videos were creatively edited was repeated in a plethora of mainstream news media. In an opinion piece for True/Slant, Allison Kilkenny wrote,

The videos are edited very creatively — if I’m being generous — to show only the ACORN employees who engaged in shady behavior, and not the dozens of other ACORN offices from which O’Keefe and Company were ejected, and in a few cases, ACORN employees called the police on the duo.

Aside from the fact that the videos weren’t edited in any way to deceive the viewers, that dozens of offices did not dispel O’Keefe and Giles, and only one office has come forward with a report, entire audio and transcript versions of the investigations are available on BigGovernment.com, right at the top of the homepage. This falsehood (that full versions are not available) has been repeated by Lewis herself on CNN and in other mainstream outlets (and, surprise, virtually no journalist has corrected her).

The ACORN story has, once again, shown the media’s inability to fulfill its duties. The media should adequately inform the public while asking the questions needed to provide a full and robust picture of what is occurring. ACORN coverage has been biased, incomplete, and sloppily mishandled. Let’s hope the aforementioned examples help to set the record straight.

**UPDATE**
TODAY Show vid recovered here: