Jake Tapper's Olfactory Nerve

Original photo and article here, at the ABC News Site:

"Last August, I ran into Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol...

As any close friend or family member can attest, I have an unusually keen sense of smell and immediately I smelled cigarette smoke on Obama. Frankly, he reeked of cigarettes.

Obama ran off before I could ask him if he'd just snuck a smoke, so I called his campaign.

They denied it. He'd quit months before, in February, they insisted. He chewed nicorette.

But I knew what I'd smelled and I asked his campaign to double-check and to ask him if he'd had a cigarette.

They reported back that he had told them he hadn't had a cigarette since he quit.

And maybe that was true. Maybe I imagined the cigarette smoke. My olfactory nerve somehow misfired.

Except….last night on MSNBC's Hardball, Obama admitted that his attempt to wean himself from the vile tobacco weed had not been entirely successful.

“I fell off the wagon a couple times during the course of it, and then was able to get back on," he said. "But it is a struggle like everything else.”

Now I wonder about last August.

It's not a big deal in the scheme of things -- the war on Iraq, a major economic crisis -- indeed, it's miniscule. Hardly worth mentioning.

Except that I don't like feeling that I wasn't being dealt with honestly. And as much as citizens who are suspect of the media might scoff at such a notion, many of us consider ourselves to be your representatives to help make sure our leaders are telling us the truth, and leading the country down a path we're confident is the right one. (Corny, I know.)

This isn't the only time I've felt that way about the Obama campaign, of course -- its response to the Austan Goolsbee controversy was a profile in dissembling. (Not that Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain or their campaigns are entirely innocent in this area either. Or even that Obama is necessarily the worst offender.)

Still."

Jake Tapper, ABC News Senior National Correspondent, I ask you (and the rest of the "press" corp), could you have used your "unusually keen sense of smell" to have determined that the build up to the Iraq war reeked precisely of shit? And that question is just a beginning. Anybody else who believes that this article exemplifies what is wrong with both our press and our country at large, please feel free to use this as a venue for further questions for Jake Tapper and his ilk.

Since you take your role as my "representative" so seriously, I think it's my right as an American to call "any close friend or family member" of yours, Jake Tapper, and double check your claim of extranormal olfactory skill. I hope for your sake that the claim is false because it's blatantly clear to me that your head is completely up your ass. If they support your claim, I'll call them back and ask them to double check. If they support it again, I'll haughtily concede that perhaps my uncanny ability to notice lazy, apathetic, intellectually devoid "reporting" is "misfiring" on me. But still, I'll feel a little cheated, you see, because I like to believe that the function of a free press is to provide me with information I need to make critical decisions pertinent to my best interests in a "democratic society."

Frankly, right now, I wish that the Senator had blown a huge toke of that "vile tobacco weed" straight into your face, the same way you're blowing smoke up my ass.

Jake Tapper, I hear that In Touch Magazine is hiring. You could use your above article as a representative sample of your work.

MSM and Mass Delusion: A Case Study

(Photo Credit: S2K Jaeger)

When HRC dramatically reduced her ever-dwindling budget last month by hiring "consultants" rather than funding substantial face time with the populous of remaining states, her new campaign strategy became extremely clear: to create the most effective spin in media history since the build-up to the Iraq War.

I would say that MSM blindly climbed aboard (if MSM had ever been off board to begin with). The proof that this type of "campaigning" works rests with Karl Rove's history of wins for candidates who demonstrate a blatant agenda to attack public interests in favor of private ones. Those who truly support public interests have a clear record of doing so and don't typically believe themselves to need this type of spin.

It seems to go something like this:
* Begin by suggesting there is a serious MSM bias against your candidate at a point when there is a media bias in your candidate's favor. MSM will both repeat the charge and attempt to disprove it by creating an even greater bias in favor of your candidate. This worked for Bush, and, once he was in office, laid a clear path for his agenda.
* Repeat and repeat and repeat in the simplist possible terms (no lofty terminology or sound arguments are necessary since history proves that repitition is more effective than logic) that your candidate favors the working class/"common (wo)man"/underdog. Also suggesting repeatedly that the candidate makes sense to this demographic is helpful since the majority of this demographic is now too busy working and meeting basic needs to have much time for other than sound bytes.
* Express extreme frustration about unfair attacks coming from your opponent at the moment you begin attacking him or her unfairly. MSM loves a fight.
* Scare people as often as possible. MSM is big on a scare.
* Visually distort reality as often as possible. Confetti balls while you're losing after which you will meet your husband (or father or uncle or whatever mutherfucker in your family lived in the White House last) in Washington are a good example. MSM loves confetti. It's very lively. This strategy is fun for the candidate, too. How often does a frat boy from Maine get to play a Texan ranch hand? And how often does an Ivy League former Republican and corporate lawyer get to play Flo, the Waitress?

As a highly paid advisor, I'd have suggested that Hillary adopt the theme song from "Nine to Five"...but the million or so bucks that this type of advice yields is not worth overlooking the reality that a candidate whose campaign is dependent on MSM delusion is not going to overcome that dependency once in office.