Reader S.M. caught this one.

Rasmussen has Obama @ 51%, in what they say “suggests that the McCain campaign faces a very steep challenge in the remaining few weeks of Election 2008″

Gallup has Obama 50% vs McCain 42%

Right now Sen. Obama has what averages out to about an 8% lead over McCain nationally.

And yet the mainstream media consensus is that the election is “tight”. It reminds me a lot of when Bush’s popularity numbers were cratering down to the sub-25% cellar they currently reside in and yet the press insisted he was a “popular war time president”. (We radical far-left out of touch liberal bloggers were ahead of the curve once again on an issue of national import.)

Barack Obama currently leads John McCain by a significant margin nationally. Obama is playing offense while McCain is trying to hold on to red states like Indiana. Obama has more money than McCain does. Heck, Sen. Obama leads McCain in favorability by almost 10%.

At some point, the media coverage might want to reflect this dynamic, even against a barbecue pal like John McCain.

“McCain camp attacks Times, doesn’t deny report”

Of course, for the McCain campaign that is a feature, not a bug.

UPDATE: The AP uses “fumbled” as a nice way of saying “lied”.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday defended two debunked television ads attacking Democrat Barack Obama and claimed erroneously that running mate Sarah Palin never sought money for lawmakers’ pet projects as Alaska governor.

Palin sought $197 million in so-called “earmarks” for 2009. In the previous budget year, she asked for earmarks worth $256 million.

McCain made the comments during a feisty grilling on ABC’s “The View,” where the panel of female hosts pressed him on Palin’s religious views, his position on abortion rights and whether he had traded in his maverick ways to placate conservatives.

The Washington Post.

And all the other media outlets who write thumbsuckers like this where the dominant theme is “what to do?” The press has what amounts to a simple enough job: Evaluate claims, research them, and provide the readers and viewers with the results of the investigation. Instead, if the mainstream press were a detective it would say “Well, a lot of people commit crimes” as John McCain walked past with his hands covered in blood.

The mainstream press in this country has decided for a long time now to abdicate their role as a watchdog of democracy. I think that this is just basic laziness, but as others have noted it may be out and out malfeasance or bias. Whatever it is, if outlets like the Post devoted half the resources they do to thumbsucking pieces like this one that throw their arms up in confusion, there wouldn’t be the need for these pieces in the first place.

John McCain is a liar. Sarah Palin is a liar. And the Post should say so. If they find that the Democratic candidates are lying they should say so too. But don’t just sit there with your thumb jammed up your rear wondering where truth went when you helped to do the crime.

MORE: God, these people hate our democracy.

“One of the things Wallace credits with FNC’s success is separation. ‘We’ve been very careful to keep our opinion separate. Our news division takes care of that,’ he says. ‘That’s done us well and I think that’s why you see these numbers. See, when Brit or Shepard Smith are on, that’s our news division talking. That’s the way we’ve always done it.’”

[NEEDLE SCRATCH]

Oh, Really?

Brit Hume Dismisses McCain’s Iran/al Qaeda Confusion As A “Senior Moment”

Hume falsely claimed Obama “contradicted what he wrote in his book” about town hall meetings

Hume, discussing Michelle Obama comment: “[T]here is this feeling” that Dems “are kind of embarrassed by patriotism”

Brit Hume attacks Democrats on terrorism issue: “They do not treat it particularly seriously”

Hume: Democrats “often” seem “invested in our losing” in Iraq

On Fox News Sunday, Hume falsely asserted that Al Qaeda in Iraq “was there before we got there”

Hume cherry-picked Constitution to attack Murtha’s view of congressional role in war debate

Hume said Democrats investigating U.S. attorney firings are like “a dog with a new bone”

Hume also wrote for the very right-wing American Spectator during one of it’s kookiest periods.

The article linked above was about Fox News getting great ratings for the RNC convention. It isn’t surprising. Here in the DC area a lot of people tune in to Sonny Jurgenson and Sam Huff on the radio when they’re doing Redskins games. Why? Because you like to hear the announcers who are in the tank for the home team.

Same thing.

You know that “this is good for John McCain” thing we Democrats have been joking about?

It’s not a joke.

I swear, I would go mad if the blogosphere had never come to life because The Villagers will never call out Mark Halperin for being dumber than a sack of rocks.

UPDATE: Mark Halperin wins an award!

MORE on how John McCain may have been using this fake story for a few years now. Of course, the MSM loves John McCain’s barbecue too much to actually ask him about this.

>> McCain’s “Cross In Dirt” Story Questioned

First this.

McCain hails from an America that exalted service to country, and he is the scion of a military family who endured five years in enemy captivity and who preaches a mantra of personal honor and of the nation over the individual — “Country First,” as his campaign slogan declares.

Because clearly John McCain’s family is so different from the rest of us in their belief in honor and patriotism. I mean, the rest of us unwashed masses couldn’t dare to hold a candle to their belief, right?

Then it gets worse.

Obama’s embodiment of a newer America begins but hardly ends with the fact that he would be the first black president. In a country where people liked to know where you were from, Obama lacks a ready answer — he is part Hawaii, part Kansas, part Chicago. In a recent speech in Berlin, he declared himself a “citizen of the world.”

OMG BARACK OBAMA’S FAMILY MOVED. Clearly this disqualifies him as a True American^TM. Of course, I’ve moved around a lot too (I even lived in a foreign country!) so I might as well be an alien. As to the quote in Berlin, here’s what Sen. Obama actually said:

I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

Wow, that’s really… a lot less controversial.

MORE: Why doesn’t the Washington Post read its own paper?

As John McCain grows increasingly desperate and morphs into the Mean McCain his close associates and wives know, he has attacked Sen. Obama as a celebrity and used Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in his latest ad designed for the media to run over and over again for him. The problem here is it is John McCain who hobnobbed with Britney Spears and Co. at the MTV awards. It is his daughter who pals around with reality TV stars. And it he’s the one who does all this while walking around in $500+ dollar loafers.