Don't miss these: 10/20/08

Here are a few columns that I think are worth your time:

• At the top of the list is an absolutely delightful report from Byron York, featuring two people (among many others) in whom the MSM will take no interest whatsoever. The MSM will find some ignorant Jewish voter in Florida who leaned McCain, but now favors 0 because she "heard Sarah Palin was anti-semitic." But it won't care about the minorities and immigrants who — unlike the MSM itself — get it about 0's socialistic and oppressive policies; and who (worse still) get it about the MSM's propagandistic, agenda-driven dereliction of duty.
• One of the dangerous-but-great distinctives our day is the availability of alternative sources for information. When I was a kid, dodging dinosaurs and living on the frozen tundra, you had ABC, NBC, CBS, and the major newspapers. In other words, you had one viewpoint. No longer so. We have — thank God! — talk radio and thousands of independent websites and blogs. Which liberals — which is to say Democrats, which is to say the MSM — cordially hate, and keep trying to snuff out. Brian C. Anderson lays out just one of the ways a God-forbid 0bama administration might partner with a Dem congress to strangle free speech.
• Dan Calabrese makes an awfully good, body-slamming response to the pointy-headed, whinin' cheesy conservatives (— golly, I hate to have to say that) who have jumped ship ostensibly because of Sarah Palin. They're all about literary allusions and mluti-level nuancing; Palin drops her g's, and gets things done. Calabrese makes the case that the latter is what we need, because the former is why we're in the fix we're in. "Conservatism missed a golden opportunity beginning in 1995, but especially in 2001, because the bright lights we sent to Washington knew how to win arguments, but didn’t know how to govern such that their principles would become effective policy." (William Kristol makes a similar point but, I think, less pointedly and less effectively.)
• Meanwhile, 0bama wants to make sure Floridians vote before they learn anything more about him.
• From Illinois, John Kass gives us a heads-up on the Chicago way of 0bama, and particularly on why and how Joe the Plumber brought The Wrath of Con down on himself.
• Finally, on the humor front. Does this sound funny to you? It's a commercial that starts out with 0bama explaining how great socialism is, to Joe the Plumber. Then suddenly, from off-camera, a huge, white football player slams 0bama to the ground! Funny stuff, huh? But wait, there's more! Screaming, the huge man mocks and screams at 0bama, as he writhes on the ground in pain. Hilarious? Just what conservatives always come up with? Of course not. You're all grimacing in disgust. And of course there is no such ad — well, not about 0bama. But evidently brutalizing a woman is the liberal's idea of a rollicking, funny, great good time. Check out Gateway Pundit's observations. Warnings: (A) I don't love that site's ads; and (2) the video in question is, to me, repulsive.

UPDATES: as new articles or columns strike me through the day, I'll add them here. So check back.

• My dear wife says that voters seem set to make such terrible choices this year because people aren't thinking, they're feeling; they aren't analyzing, they're emoting. As usual, she's right. Nathaniel Shockey examines this malady, particularly as it relates to the criticisms of McCain's "negative" ads. He observes, "The reason McCain spends so much time and money to point out Obama’s flaws is because the mainstream media, outside of Fox News, aren’t doing it for him." Also, in words my wife could have written, " Americans don’t value their thoughts nearly as much as their feelings." Sad, but true.
• Thanks to a tip from my dear wife: MSM to America: no good news until you elect 0bama!!! (But you, you ignorant peasant — you probably think lower oil prices is a good thing! Ha! Thank Moloch you have the MSM to 'splain it to you!)
• Sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card — a registered Democrat — savages the MSM for their dishonest refusal to report facts that might damage their candidate.
• Quick! Someone tell Peggy Noonan to put down her whinin' cheese! Guess which candidate has been most MSM-accessible over the last month. 0bama? No. Biden? No. John McCain? No. Give up? That would be Sarah Palin. It's buried, it won't be a big story (don't want to upset the MSM template), but even an MSM reporter had to admit it.