The Ugly Stepsisters

In Disney’s Cinderella, Cinderella’s mouse friends make her a ballgown trimmed with her stepsisters’ discarded ribbons and beads. When the stepsisters see her dressed appropriately for the ball, they rip all the decorations off her gown — and then mock her for thinking she could go to the ball in that state, as if it were her doing and not theirs that her dress is ripped to rags.

I often think of that scene when reading “news” reports about Barack Obama. The snooze media have been endlessly repeating and discussing John McCain’s ad that ridicules Obama as a “celebrity” and makes false claims about Obama’s policy proposals, magnifying the ad’s message and distracting the voters from the substantive issues Obama’s been discussing. Inevitably, the echo chamber has made the ad effective enough that Obama has to respond to it.

So now the Associated Press is criticizing Obama for responding to the ad instead of addressing important issues.

It works out so well for the mediawhores and their political patrons. For the voters, not so much.

Cracks In The Anthrax Storyline

Charles has been following the tragedy of errors and malfeasance that has been the FBI’s handling of the anthrax attacks.

Now we have new evidence that far more people than previously acknowledged had access to the anthrax strain used in the attacks — in fact, at least fifteen other labs had cultures of that particular type of anthrax:

FBI officials said the powdered bacteria mailed to news outlets and Senate offices had a distinct genetic heritage that precisely matched anthrax spores Ivins kept in a flask in his laboratory. But the officials also acknowledged that 15 other labs had the same strain, known as RMR-1029.

Did I say “cracks in the anthrax storyline”? Make that “canyons”.

Monday Morning News Roundup

Bolivia’s Ivo Morales handily won a referendum on his presidency. The whining Chicago Boys in Bolivia’s eastern half will still whine, but their position is a lot weaker than it was — in fact, they lost a couple of key state governors in the referendum results. Ivo’s progressive revolution lives on and has new power.

John Edwards, in discussing his affair, mentions John McCain’s own adultery. Of course Edwards knows how much the press loves McCain, so this is rather like a “poison pill” maneuver that, skillfully done, will cause them to leave him alone. (By the way: As both Jane and Digby ask, does this mean we can talk about Vicki Iseman now?)