A while back, I wrote Journalism’s obituary.

Now one of my favorite authors, Victor Davis Hanson, has penned this excellent piece on its demise. Unlike my meager effort, VDH’s essay is eloquent and comprehensive.

Highly recommended.

• JP

This is needed.

October 2: In the vice presidential debate, when asked if he would support gay marriage, Joe Biden answers, “No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage.”

October 20: Biden is a guest on the Ellen Degeneres Show, and says that if he lived in California, he would vote against Proposition 8, a ballot initiative which would ban gay marriage.

Isn’t it refreshing to finally see a pol who has the courage of conviction?

• JP

But let us not forget about the existence of various McCainocrats.

If your answer is “not much,” you are probably right.

He was against it before Barack Obama was for it. Never let it be said that Joe the Plumber doesn’t have backup for his very sensible position and concerns regarding wealth redistribution.

Origninally mentioned here.

Dear Friends,

After decades of fighting for this country and our troops, I am up against the right-wing attack machine again.

Because of my work to end the Iraq war, they have thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars behind my opponent, who lives in Virginia with his family, not in my district in Pennsylvania. Now, I am suddenly being outspent 3 to 1.

They are up to the same old tricks, “swiftboating” me again as they did two years ago. So I am asking people who have stood with me on Iraq to stand with me again to stop them in their tracks.

This is a real emergency—with just 6 days left.

People like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity are calling me a traitor and worse.

Initially, I brushed it off, because calling for a responsible end to the war was the right thing to do. Now, finally the Bush administration has started negotiating a timeline to bring our troops home, something I supported for almost three years.

This year I’ve spent most of my time campaigning and raising money for other Democrats, including Barack Obama, instead of myself. It worked in 2006 and we threw the Bush Republicans out. But now my own race is tight so I am asking supporters for help. Can you chip in?

When I ask for help, it is because I really need it. It is urgent. I will not back down from this fight, but I need you with me to repel the right-wing smear machine once again.

Thank you, God protect our troops and bless America.

–John P. Murtha

October 29, 2008

I don’t know that you’re up against that big of an emergency, Rep. Murtha; rather, I’d say you’re just being “slowly bled” to electoral death as a result of your inability to do the right thing or keep your mouth shut.

What say you?

Via Glenn Reynolds, who - like a lot of people, shrugged and assumed that somebody else would be the Martha on this exercise:

Two leading infomercial stars agree: Barack Obama’s half-hour self-promotion last night was a flop.

“I don’t see enough smiling. Doom and gloom totally,” said Anthony Sullivan, one of the biggest names in infomercial history.

[snip]

He and AJ Khubani, who has produced infomercials for 25 years, said Obama also fell short of offering solutions to the dire problems he laid out.

“I didn’t see a payoff. Classic infomercial is you show the before and you show the after. I didn’t see the music or the crashing waves of the Pacific,” Sullivan said.

By the way: the uncritical willingness of even the left-sphere to generally accept the tag “infomercial” as a descriptor to this thing is pretty revealing. Not to mention funny.

Richard Epstein thinks not. Jacob Weisberg should take a gander at the Epstein op-ed, but since Weisberg is more intent on making an ideological point than he is on actual making a rigorous observation, one suspects that he will not take the time to pay attention to Epstein’s critique.

But that is more Weisberg’s loss and less Epstein’s.

Erick will be on the air at a new blogtalkradio show, Are You Kidding Me? between 7:10 and 7:20 tonight. Other guests include Eric Odom of Vote Fraud Squad and the Joe the Plumber. Don’t miss out!