It's the biggest news story you probably haven't heard about, unless you noticed our report of a week or two ago. The London Times headlines: "Russia engages in 'gangland' diplomacy as it sends warship to the Caribbean:"

Russia flexed its muscles in America’s backyard yesterday as it sent one of its largest warships to join military exercises in the Caribbean. The nuclear-powered flagship Peter the Great set off for Venezuela with the submarine destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and two support vessels in the first Russian naval mission in Latin America since the end of the Cold War.

“The St Andrew flag, the flag of the Russian Navy, is confidently returning to the world oceans,” Igor Dygalo, a spokesman for the Russian Navy, said. He declined to comment on Russian newspaper reports that nuclear submarines were also part of the expedition.

The voyage to join the Venezuelan Navy for manoeuvres came only days after Russian strategic nuclear bombers made their first visit to the country. Hugo Chávez, the President, said then that the arrival of the strike force was a warning to the US. ...

Igor Sechin, the Deputy Prime Minister, made clear that Russia would challenge the US for influence in Latin America after visits to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba last week. He said: “It would be wrong to talk about one nation having exclusive rights to this zone.” ...

Pavel Felgengauer, a leading Russian defence expert, told The Times: “It’s to show the flag and the finger to the United States. They are offering a sort of gangland deal – if you get into our territory, then we will get into yours. You leave Georgia and Ukraine to us and we won’t go into the Caribbean, OK?”

Russia sends a nuclear warship and other vessels to the Caribbean for exercises with an avowed enemy of the U.S., along with strategic nuclear bombers: you would think this would be news. But with few exceptions, our newspapers haven't mentioned it, and no American news outlet, to my knowledge, has given it any prominence, unlike the London Times. This is due, presumably, to a belief on the part of American reporters and editors that knowledge of Russian "gangland diplomacy" in our back yard might give voters qualms about voting for an indecisive novice like Barack Obama for President.

It's not clear what is happening in Washington tonight. The Democrats announced that a deal had been reached on a bailout program, but House Republicans promptly said that they weren't part of it. The Associated Press says that any tentative agreement has fallen apart, and Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson have returned to the Hill to continue negotiations. Meanwhile, the Democrats say that John McCain has joined forces with House Republicans who have proposed a "mortgage insurance plan" as an alternative to the bailout. Stay tuned.

We noted here that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad voiced support for Barack Obama's Presidential campaign yesterday. It's easy to understand why; John McCain is strong, and Barack Obama isn't. Today Ahmadinejad met with one of Obama's most well-known supporters, Code Pink founder Jodi Evans. Evans, a vicious anti-American, is a "bundler" who has pledged to raise $50,000 for Obama.

Evans described the meeting as "a major step forward." Ahmadinejad no doubt agreed.

In a well-publicized retreat, the Democrats in Congress gave in to pressure from Republicans and the public and agreed to let the statutory ban on drilling for oil in the Outer Continental Shelf and developing shale oil in the Rocky Mountains lapse. Today, however, Senator Jim DeMint warned that Harry Reid is surreptitiously trying to resurrect the ban on shale oil:

We've just been alerted that despite House Democrats relenting on extending bans on offshore drilling and oil shale in the continuing resolution (CR) appropriations bill, Democrat Senate Leader Harry Reid has decided to sneak an extension of the oil shale ban through as Congress fights over the financial bailout. ...

Here is the text of Reid's proposed new ban on oil shale, that he is trying to add as an amendment to the CR or move seperately as a "stimulus" package, or we should say an anti-stimulus package if this is included.

Sec 1602 continues ban on oil shale. The language follows:

SEC. 1602. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, including section 152 of division A of H.R. 2638 (110th Congress), the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009, the terms and conditions contained in section 433 of division F of Public Law 110–161 shall remain in effect for the 19 fiscal year ending September 30, 2009.

The U.S. has more shale oil, by far, than Saudi Arabia has petroleum. If the Democrats succeed in blocking development of this resource, the long-term damage to our economy may dwarf anything now being debated in connection with the mortgage bailout.

In April of this year the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken owed $70,000 in back taxes and penalties in 17 states, going back to 2003. The disclosure was attributable to the digging of Michael Brodkorb of Minnesota Democrats Exposed, left unnamed in the original Star Tribune story.

Today the Star Tribune purports to assess the factuality of various ads attacking Franken for not paying taxes. Franken has not in fact paid taxes required by applicable tax laws. The Star Tribune nevertheless finds the ads under review "misleading for what they don't say and the implication they leave."

The ads are accurate. The Star Tribune nevertheless finds them misleading. The article explains that Franken earned income across the country as an entertainer and has blamed his accountant for Franken's failure to pay the taxes owed in each state.

Among other things, according to the Star Tribune, the ads don't note that Franken's tax problems are his accountant's fault! According to none other than Franken himself! And that Franken has actually paid taxes on the relevant income, only in the wrong states! According to a spreadsheet provided by none other than Franken!

The Star Tribune notes that Franken has not produced copies of his tax returns. The Star Tribune does not note that Franken has not addressed any tax issues that predate 2003. The Star Tribune does not note that Franken's accountant isn't talking -- apparently on Franken's order -- or that one might reasonably draw negative inferences under the circumstances.

A new round of ads on Franken's tax problems that includes his attribution of responsibility to his accountant and his accountant's clamming up on the subject might be more effective than the ads that are the subject of today's Star Tribune article. Some day the Star Tribune might even want to follow up on the questions itself.

Al Franken is a comedian who hasn't been funny in a long time. The humor for which he has been responsible over the past few decades has been unintended. Today's Star Tribune story is another example of the phenomenon.

UPDATE: A former IRS agent writes:

Blaming the accountant is rarely if ever successful with tax authorities. Blaming an accountant WITHOUT any malpractice claim against the accountant is particularly telling....An accountant is always happy to earn more fees preparing more tax returns. Traveling entertainers can hardly be ill informed about their filing requirements. Of course there is also a concept known as “willfil ignorance.” During 41 years at IRS I faced many such situations.

Blaming an accountant may not work with the IRS, but it works like a charm with the Star Tribune.

In "Founding brothers," Stanley Kurtz continues his investigation of Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers in connection with Obama's selection to serve as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in 1995. The question of how a young and inexperienced lawyer like Obama was chosen to head a foundation created by Bill Ayers in 1995 remains open. Steve Diamond provides background that is useful to a full understanding of the roadblocks faced by Kurtz in getting access to the CAC records.

I deduce from Kurtz's column that former CAC principals Ken Rolling, Warren Chapman, Anne Hallett, Barack Obama and Bill Ayers know the answer and have no desire to illuminate it fully. Kurtz is careful not to draw unwarranted inferences from the record he has assembled. Peter Kirsanow glosses the record as follows:

It appears that Ayers took a keen interest in Obama at a time when Obama was nothing more than, as Stanley puts it, "a young and inexperienced lawyer." Why? There are tens of thousands of young and inexperienced lawyers in Chicago. What did Ayers see in (or hear from) Obama that caused the former to take such an interest in him?

Stanley shows that there's a reasonable probability that Ayers plucked Obama from obscurity to chair the Chicago Annenberg Challenge ("CAC"). Then, after working together on the CAC and directing millions to radical organizations, Ayers hosted Obama's political coming out party. That certainly looks more like a mentor-protégé relationship than a tenuous relationship between two guys who happen to live in the same neighborhood.

The story of a why an unrepentant terrorist has such a close relationship with a presidential candidate should have reporters swarming over the Obama campaign demanding answers.

One doesn't have to read too much between the lines to infer the existence of what Kirsanow describes as "an attempt to cover-up the extent of Sen. Obama's ties to William Ayers[.]" The problem is that those who know the answer to the question Kurtz explores apparently have no motive to disclose it.

You can read the editorial here. Key excerpts:

McCain's adult life has been devoted to this nation's service, including five excruciatingly painful years in a North Vietnamese prison cell in which he provided his countrymen a stirring example of honor lived. He came home, completed his Navy career with distinction, and was elected to Congress - where, as he delicately puts it, he has "never been elected Miss Congeniality." He has since been an unwavering voice for strong national defense – from support of President Ronald Reagan's bold leadership in winning the Cold War against the Soviet Union to his courageous, early advocacy of the successful U.S. military surge in Iraq.

Domestically, McCain is unique in never seeking an earmark to benefit a family member, political ally back home, or financial contributor. As president, he will veto all earmarks and other pork barrel spending. He believes Americans know better than government how best to spend their hard-earned money, and he promises – in words that make many of his colleagues in Congress swallow very hard – to make famous those in government who waste or steal tax dollars. . . .

While no candidate is perfect, presidents like Harry Truman remind us that defending and enriching America's place in a dangerous world often requires the sometimes rough-hewn character of men and women who always put country first, no matter the cost to them personally. It is precisely for times like these that America needs John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Over at Bench Memos, our friend Ed Whelan has started a series in which he considers some of the individuals who have been mentioned as prospective nominees to the Surpeme Court, should Barack Obama be elected. Ed begins with Harold Koh, dean of Yale law school.

Koh is a self-described "judicial transnationalist." Here is how Koh explains this philosophy:

[The transnationalist] tends to follow an approach suggested by Justice Blackmun in the late 1980s: that U.S. courts must look beyond national interest to the “mutual interests of all nations in a smoothly functioning international legal regime” and must “consider if there is a course that furthers, rather than impedes, the development of an ordered international system.”

Generally speaking, the transnationalists tend to emphasize the interdependence between the United States and the rest of the world, while the nationalists tend instead to focus more on preserving American autonomy. The transnationalists believe in and promote the blending of international and domestic law; while nationalists continue to maintain a rigid separation of domestic from foreign law. The transnationalists view domestic courts as having a critical role to play in domesticating international law into U.S. law, while nationalists argue instead that only the political branches can internalize international law. The transnationalists believe that U.S. courts can and should use their interpretive powers to promote the development of a global legal system, while the nationalists tend to claim that U.S. courts should limit their attention to the development of a national system.

Ed notes that, true to his transnationalist philosophy, Koh filed an amicus brief in Lawrence v. Texas arguing that international and foreign court decisions compelled the Supreme Court to strike down Texas’s ban on homosexual sodomy. And he submitted an amicus brief (to the Connecticut supreme court) arguing that comparative precedents from foreign countries require recognition of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

Given Koh's paper trail, one tends to doubt that Obama would put him forward, particularly since there is no shortage of like-minded left-wing lawyers and judges who could be confirmed at a lower political cost. Yet if a vacancy arises when Obama is flush with electoral success, or is still riding high later on, it's possible to imagine him picking his first choice. And it's easy to imagine that his first choice would be someone very much like Koh.

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Well, I think. I don't know how many open-minded people watched President Bush tonight, but most of those who did must have thought he made good sense. When the current crisis hit, my instinct was to support the bailout deal, out of necessity. Over the past few days, though, there has been little sign of the threatened credit freeze-up, and I've wondered whether the taxpayers are being stampeded into a lousy deal.

Most Americans clearly share those doubts, based on poll data, and tonight's speech may not have done much to dispel them. But if a buyout is crafted in Congress over the next few days and supported by both parties, a plurality of voters likely will go along with it.

What annoyed me most about Bush's speech, as usual, was its bipartisan high-mindedness. He reviewed the history of the mortgage crisis without mentioning his own efforts to rein in Fannie and Freddy, the Democrats' frustration of those efforts, the Democrats' use of Fannie and Freddy as honey-pots, or other relevant historical details. It was a sanitized history, such as might have been related by anti-reform Democrats like Chris Dodd or Barack Obama.

No doubt Bush thought that such discretion was necessary to achieve a bipartisan solution to the problem at hand, but we can be sure that he will get no appreciation from the Democrats, who will misrepresent the historical record for their own political gain at every opportunity.

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Hamas once endorsed Barack Obama in this year's race, but withdrew their endorsement when Obama disappointed them. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, has no such reservations. Barack Obama is his man, as the Boston Globe reports:

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad weighed in on the US presidential election today, noting that only one of the candidates supports restoring diplomatic contact with Iran.

In response to a question from an American student about whether he supports Democratic nominee Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, Ahmadinejad did not explicitly name Obama but said: “The American government 28 years ago decided on its own to cut its ties with Iran . . .We do prefer to have relations, whereas one of the candidates in this election would prefer that.”

Most voters don't seem to care much about foreign affairs these days. Still, being Mahoud Ahmadinejad's favorite presumably won't be viewed as a plus by most Americans.

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Scott Ott seems to have gotten his hands on an advance copy of President Bush's speech. It's powerful stuff; here are some excerpts:

To sustain this shining city on a hill, we need to rescue the ignorant, irresponsible folks — from Wall Street to Capitol Hill to Main Street — who got us to where we are today. We must guarantee that no American suffers the soft bigotry of being forced to live with the consequences of his bad decisions.

We need to guarantee that the structures, systems, people and products that got us to this point won’t be tossed on the ash heap of history. If these giant companies fail, then America will be left with nothing but thousands of small to mid-sized financial firms that made prudent investment decisions during the past 15 years.

Americans value the liberty they have to buy homes they can’t afford, to invest in securities backed by nothing but hope, and to draw six- and seven-figure salaries based on the courage to risk taxpayer dollars on deals that even the dealmakers don’t understand.

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2003, that is, when the New York Times ran this article on proposed reforms to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac:

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates. ...

The proposal is the opening act in one of the biggest and most significant lobbying battles of the Congressional session. ...

''The current regulator does not have the tools, or the mandate, to adequately regulate these enterprises,'' Mr. Oxley said at the hearing. ''We have seen in recent months that mismanagement and questionable accounting practices went largely unnoticed by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight,'' the independent agency that now regulates the companies. ...

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Maybe it's too much to expect anyone to remember the distant past--2003--but still, it seems remarkable that Barney Frank can make the rounds of the television talk shows, pontificating on the current crisis, without being reminded of his own role.

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Now that the dust has settled following the close-to-unprecedented wave of abuse that the Democrats unleashed against Sarah Palin, how is John McCain's selection standing up? Very well, it seems. Today's Rasmussen Reports has the latest data:

While 54% regard Palin favorably, 36% say their view is Very Favorable. But 42% see the Republican vice presidential candidate unfavorably, including 31% who rate their opinion of her as Very Unfavorable.

[Joe] Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, is viewed favorably by 49%, with 22% saying their view of him is Very Favorable. Forty-one percent (41%) have an unfavorable opinion of the Delaware senator, including 21% who say their opinion is Very Unfavorable.

So, notwithstanding the negative press, email slanders, etc., Palin still outpolls Biden 54/42 to 49/41. This suggests that the Democrats' onslaught has been more effective at whipping up enthusiasm among their own voters than in convincing anyone in the middle.

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John McCain has announced that he will suspend his campaign and return to Washington, D.C. to try to promote a legislative answer to the financial crisis. He has called on Barack Obama to do the same, and is also asking that Friday's debate be postponed.

I don't know whether McCain's input will make a difference in terms of passing legislation. I'm not even certain that I'd want it to.

As a political matter, though, this seems like a good move. If Obama agrees, he's following McCain, not leading. Moreover, Obama seems to have "momentum" on his side right now, so a "time-out" might help McCain marginally.

If Obama doesn't agree, he may be seen as unwilling to put "country first." And if a deal is negotiated (something I think most Americans would like to see, as a general matter), then McCain will receive credit and Obama won't. Finally, if Obama is campaigning while McCain isn't, the focus may shift back to him. In this race, staged conventions aside, increased focus seems to correlate with slippage in the polls. That was the case with Obama following his trip abroad and the case with McCain following the Republican convention.

McCain may also believes he needs the time in Washington, in the context of congressional debate, to get his bearings on this issue. McCain tends to operate on instinct and his instincts, in turn, are sometimes driven by personal interaction. He may feel that his instincts won't kick in on this crucial but unfamiliar matter until he's closer to the action.

UPDATE: Obama is saying that, as far as he's concerned, it's full speed ahead with the debate. McCain's best move is probably to show up and debate. McCain can observe that he preferred to spend the time working to solve the financial crisis, but that Obama felt otherwise, and he (McCain) is not one to back out of a clash. McCain can also point out that the Obama who now thinks a given debate on a given night trumps dealing with a major crisis is the same Obama who wouldn't accept his challenge to a series of town hall debates during the summer.

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An ABC News/Washington Post poll has Barack Obama leading John McCain by a a 52-43 margin. Noting that this is Obama's "first clear lead" during the campaign, the Post declares that the "shape of the race" is "altered."

But the Post may be overstating things. First, the tracking polls don't show a substantial alteration. Rasmussen's has Obama up by 2 points; Gallup's has him up by 3. This is familiar territory. In addition, an Ipsos-McClatchy poll has Obama leading by a narrow 44-43 margin, while ARG has Obama up by 2 points. In my opinion, the Ipsos-McClatchy poll is more accurate than that of ABC News/Washington Post when it comes to measuring the number of true "undecideds." As to the Obama-McCain split, who knows?

The second possible problem with the ABC News/Washington Post poll relates to the tricky issue of party identification. The McCain camp has noted that Democratic party identification in the Post poll was 16 points higher than Republican identification. The Post's polling director has responded that actual party ID numbers among likely voters in the sample had the Democrats at plus six points. It was only when people who offered no original party ID were asked whether they leaned one direction or the other that the number jumped to plus 16 for the Dems.

Party identification has been pretty volatile since 2004 -- it strongly tiltled the Democrats' way for several years and then seemed this year to tilt back towards the Republicans a bit. As a result, I don't think anyone knows what the proper sample mix for a national poll should be. That said, it seems indisputable that a poll with a sample in which Democrats have a 16 point edge is unreliable. Nor would I place great trust in a poll where the Democratic ID edge is six points with "leaners" tipping overwhelmingly Democratic.

A state poll in a state where voter registration is known raises somewhat different issues. Consider, for example, the ARG poll of Pennsylvania that I discussed yesterday. Its sample included 14 percentage points more Democrats than Republicans, a gap that matched state party registration figures. But exit polls in the 2006 election suggested that the Democratic edge was only five percent. Which number is more realistic for purposes of polling this election?

The disparity in party affiliation between 2006 exit polls and current registration numbers presumably reflects, in significant part, a wave of Democratic registration related to the Pennsylvania primary in April. Many of those who registered at that time may actually be independents; some may even be Republicans who wanted to promote "chaos."

But this doesn't mean that a poll that whose sample matches current registration figures is skewed. Indeed, it seems to me that as long as the sample of Democrats polled includes in proper proportions those who registered as Democrats without being true Dems, the poll should not be skewed. For the "false Dems" will respond as such when the pollster asks them whether they favor Obama or McCain, just as they will on election day. (The more problematic issue is what they will tell the pollster about their registratration and/or identification).

There's no way to tell whether the ARG poll includes "false Dems" among its Democratic respondents in the proper numbers. However, we do know that, despite the 14 point Democratic edge in the sample, Obama was only four points ahead in the poll. And this result was in line with other recent Pennsylvania polls.

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My friend Mac Owens is a former Marine infantry platoon leader in Vietnam and current professor at the Naval War College, where he is writing a history of American civil-military relations. He addresses Bob Woodward's new book on the Bush administration in "Our generals almost cost us Iraq" in today's Wall Street Journal. Mac concludes:

Although the conventional narrative about the Iraq war is wrong, its persistence has contributed to the most serious crisis in civil-military relations since the Civil War. According to Mr. Woodward's account, the uniformed military not only opposed the surge, insisting that their advice be followed; it then subsequently worked to undermine the president once he decided on another strategy.

In one respect, the actions taken by military opponents of the surge, e.g. "foot-dragging," "slow-rolling" and selective leaking are, unfortunately, all-too-characteristic of U.S. civil-military relations during the last decade and a half. But the picture Mr. Woodward draws is far more troubling. Even after the policy had been laid down, the bulk of the senior U.S. military leadership -- the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, the rest of the Joint Chiefs, and Gen. Abizaid's successor, Adm. William Fallon, actively worked against the implementation of the president's policy.

If Mr. Woodward's account is true, it means that not since Gen. McClellan attempted to sabotage Lincoln's war policy in 1862 has the leadership of the U.S. military so blatantly attempted to undermine a president in the pursuit of his constitutional authority. It should be obvious that such active opposition to a president's policy poses a threat to the health of the civil-military balance in a republic.

Mac is the first commenter on Woodward's book (of whom I am aware, anyway) to find the scandal hiding in plain sight, unnoticed by Woodward himself. Mac's column demands attention in its entirety, but his conclusion warrants special attention, as does the question of the veracity of Woodward's account on which the last paragraph hangs.

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We noted here that the McCain campaign called out the New York Times in a press conference, denying the Times' legitimacy as a news organization and calling it what it is: a partisan arm of the Obama campaign. Today, McCain's team amplified on that theme on its web site, in response to today's attack on McCain by the Times. Strong words, truly spoken:

Today the New York Times launched its latest attack on this campaign in its capacity as an Obama advocacy organization. Let us be clear about what this story alleges: The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid by Freddie Mac until last month, contrary to previous reporting, as well as statements by this campaign and by Mr. Davis himself.

In fact, the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis -- weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual -- since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.

Further, and missing from the Times' reporting, Mr. Davis has never -- never -- been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.

Though these facts are a matter of public record, the New York Times, in what can only be explained as a willful disregard of the truth, failed to research this story or present any semblance of a fairminded treatment of the facts closely at hand. The paper did manage to report one interesting but irrelevant fact: Mr. Davis did participate in a roundtable discussion on the political scene with...Paul Begala.

Again, let us be clear: The New York Times -- in the absence of any supporting evidence -- has insinuated some kind of impropriety on the part of Senator McCain and Rick Davis. But entirely missing from the story is any significant mention of Senator McCain's long advocacy for, and co-sponsorship of legislation to enact, stricter oversight and regulation of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- dating back to 2006. Please see the attached floor statement on this issue by Senator McCain from 2006.

To the central point our campaign has made in the last 48 hours: The New York Times has never published a single investigative piece, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, his consulting and lobbying clients, and Senator Obama. Likewise, the New York Times never published an investigative report, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson and Senator Obama, who appointed Johnson head of his VP search committee, until the writing was on the wall and Johnson was under fire following reports from actual news organizations that he had received preferential loans from predatory mortgage lender Countrywide.

Therefore this "report" from the New York Times must be evaluated in the context of its intent and purpose. It is a partisan attack falsely labeled as objective news. And its most serious allegations are based entirely on the claims of anonymous sources, a familiar yet regretful tactic for the paper.

We all understand that partisan attacks are part of the political process in this country. The debate that stems from these grand and sometimes unruly conversations is what makes this country so exceptional. Indeed, our nation has a long and proud tradition of news organizations that are ideological and partisan in nature, the Huffington Post and the New York Times being two such publications. We celebrate their contribution to the political fabric of America. But while the Huffington Post is utterly transparent, the New York Times obscures its true intentions -- to undermine the candidacy of John McCain and boost the candidacy of Barack Obama -- under the cloak of objective journalism.

The New York Times is trying to fill an ideological niche. It is a business decision, and one made under economic duress, as the New York Times is a failing business. But the paper's reporting on Senator McCain, his campaign, and his staff should be clearly understood by the American people for what it is: a partisan assault aimed at promoting that paper’s preferred candidate, Barack Obama.

It's a harsh but fair assessment, and one that will resonate with a large majority of Americans.

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In his column "The Man Who Never Was," Tony Blankley captures the media's collaboration with Barack Obama:

[W]orse than all the unfair and distorted reporting and image projecting are the shocking gaps in Obama's life that are not reported at all. The major media simply have not reported on Obama's two years at New York's Columbia University, where, among other things, he lived a mere quarter-mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers. Later, they both ended up as neighbors and associates in Chicago. Obama denies more than a passing relationship with Ayers. Should the media be curious? In only two weeks, the media have focused on all the colleges Gov. Palin has attended, her husband's driving habits 20 years ago, and the close criticism of the political opponents Gov. Palin had when she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

But in two years, they haven't bothered to see how close Obama was with the terrorist Ayers.

Nor have the media paid any serious attention to Obama's rise in Chicago politics. How did honest Obama rise in the famously sordid Chicago political machine with the full support of Boss Daley? Despite the great -- and unflattering -- details on Obama's Chicago years presented in David Freddoso's new book on Obama, the mainstream media continue to ignore both the facts and the book. It took a British publication, The Economist, to give Freddoso's book a review with fair comment.

The public image of Obama as an idealistic, post-race, post-partisan, well-spoken and honest young man with the wisdom and courage befitting a great national leader is a confection spun by a willing conspiracy of Obama, his publicist (David Axelrod) and most of the senior editors, producers and reporters of the national media.

(The Economist review of Freddoso's book is available online here.) Blankley describes the phenomenon I tried to sketch in "Deep secrets of campaign 2008," where I add a few more examples to the ones cited by Blankley.

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