I Guess Delaware Is The Only State Holding An Election In November

Hi everybody. Do you find my headline cutting? It's not that focusing on Christine O'Donnell is bad, but the media is doing that whole swarm/tunnel-vision thing. Again. Perspective, people. As for the show, I kinda feel like I watched it already--last night. Also? Anderson Cooper somewhat annoyed me. I guess consider yourself warned. On to the bullet points!

• We begin with the quest to try to keep Christine O'Donnell honest, which is a bit thwarted by the fact that she won't talk to anyone--well, anyone besides Fox News (shocking!).

• Anderson: "Now, there are plenty of liberal media outlets out there that probably want Christine O'Donnell to fail, but I just want to make it very clear, I'm not one of them. We're not trying to beat up on Christine O'Donnell." Sweetie? Nobody cares. I don't understand why he keeps making these defensive statements. People who think he's biased are not going to be swayed by...him saying he's not biased. (I'm not even going to touch on his huge-ass assumption, because quite frankly I'm just too tired of this.)

• Our anchor: "I'm not making a big deal out of 11-year-old witchcraft comments or the stuff she said about touching yourself years ago." This literally made me do a spit-take. Unbelievable absurdity delivered with such serious earnestness. Only in America.

• Gary Tuchman is clearly not having fun anymore, thank you very much. In fact, I think he would very much like to stop chasing after candidates who refuse to talk to him. About that Sean Hannity interview that O'Donnell did? Says Gary, "Well, it is a delicious irony that she went on the national media to say she didn't want to talk to the national media." Oh, snap. Sing it!

• Our intrepid correspondent then takes the Hannity appearance and lays down a fact-check. Booyah.

• Oh, is it panel time already? Tonight's pontificators include Erick Erickson, John Avlon, and John Ridley. Joy.

• Anderson: "I think bias is something that certainly I'm obsessed with and try to eradicate it, to the extent that it's possible." Um, being 'obsessed' with bias makes you a ping pong ball--paddled back and forth by whoever is screaming loudest at the moment (hint: usually conservatives). Silver Fox, if you keep bending backwards you're going to slip a disc. I've said on this blog on more than one occasion that I don't think this show has a partisan bias, but do I think they sometimes overreact to criticism and swing towards the conservative viewpoint? Absolutely. Absolutely. (I touched on this significantly during the Sherrod debacle.) Call it liberal guilt. I'm not even presuming that they are liberals, but they know damn well that's how they're perceived by conservatives. Sometimes I wish they'd stop navel-gazing, tell all their accusers to go screw themselves, and just do their jobs to the best of their ability.

• Erickson: "But the humor here and the irony is that the media now and even Republicans are so focused on Christine O'Donnell, they're not focusing anymore on Sharron Angle or Ken Buck or Rand Paul or Linda McMahon or any of these other candidates, all of whom are breathing a sigh of relief." I'm not sure there's humor or irony, but Erick's point ties in with the title of this blog post. Agreeing with Erickson? Now I feel scared inside and want to go home.

• Melanie Sloan, the corruption-slaying ninja, returned because the O'Donnell camp is accusing her of libel. Also, CREW is apparently a liberal group (pay no mind to the Republicans they go after!) and funded by the devil himself, George Soros. Not George Soros! Boogity boogity boo! They might take away my commie pinko card for this, but I don't really know anything about Soros, other than the fact that conservatives are seemingly petrified of him.

• Okay, having Melanie respond to the libel charge seems legitimate. I don't, however, understand why our anchor continuously night after night makes her justify her group's nonpartisan credentials. It's getting annoying. We're past devil's advocacy at this point. Anderson, if you don't believe her, do your own investigation (and stop letting yourself be pushed around by conservatives). Just remember you're pretty much in the same boat.
  

• As for why CREW is going after O'Donnell now, um, the same reason all the news orgs are investigating her now. She won the nomination and could become senator. It's not like CREW has unlimited resources to throw at every nobody who isn't going anywhere. Just like the news, they go after the big fish.

• Good fact-check from Tom Foreman on Chris Coons (unfortunately name, no?).

• MORE panel? Good lord.
  

• Anderson on Sarah Palin: "You've got to give her props, whether you like her or not, and you know, the country is clearly divided on her. But she really took a gamble on the people that she backed. It wasn't like she was kind of waiting to see which way the wind blew. She reached out, picked up some people and really elevated them." Um, no, we do not have to "give her props." Exactly how is she taking a gamble? She's not running for anything right now. She doesn't hold an office anymore. If people in punditry-land actually got fired for being wrong, none of them would have jobs.

• Tonight was part two of Sanjay Gupta's medical mystery series. Interesting stuff, and very sad.

• The "shot" tonight was fun with mascots, but I think I'm going to skip that and instead present you OK Go's latest bit of awesomeness. Just watch:

• The show was okay. Too much panel! And Anderson's being weird with the bias stuff. And they need to spread out from just O'Donnell. But other than THAT...heh. It's strange, they finally do seem to be moving towards more fact-checking and less "balance," but now they're in this weird phase where they're always trying to justify their jobs. It's gonna be okay, guys. Do your jobs well; do your jobs objectively--screw everyone else. Yes, that includes me.