The other day the Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed about political blogs, looking at who reads them, how effective they are, and what their potential is to generate political change. There were no earth-shattering revelations in this piece, but one thing did catch my eye:

To determine just how polarized blog readers are, we constructed a measure of political ideology by drawing on blog readers' attitudes toward stem cell research, abortion, the Iraq war, the minimum wage and capital gains tax cuts. Using this measure, we then arrayed respondents from left to right. Here's what we found.

Readers of liberal blogs were clustered at the far left...

What does "the far left" mean?  Here's the attitudes of Americans as a whole on these issues:

Iraq War:

Do you favor or oppose the U.S. war in Iraq?

Favor    Oppose    Unsure    

  30            68            2

If you had to choose, would you rather see the next president keep the same number of troops in Iraq that are currently stationed there, or would you rather see the next president remove most U.S. troops in Iraq within a few months of taking office?

Keep Same    Remove Most    Unsure

    33                  64                   3

Stem Cell research:

There is a type of medical research that involves using special cells, called embryonic stem cells, that might be used in the future to treat or cure many diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, and spinal cord injury. It involves using human embryos discarded from fertility clinics that no longer need them. Some people say that using human embryos for research is wrong. Do you favor or oppose using discarded embryos to conduct stem cell research to try to find cures for the diseases I mentioned?

Favor    Oppose    Unsure

  73           19            8

Abortion:

Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in all cases?

Legal:  All   Most   Illegal:  Most   All   Unsure

          19    38                   24      13       6

Minimum wage:

Do you favor or oppose an increase in the minimum wage?

Favor    Oppose    Unsure

  80          18            2

We reflect the majority opinion of this country on pretty much every issue, yet the media continues to pretend that we're the far left, the lunatic fringe. They're still unwilling to admit the obvious...we are the mainstream.

(Cross-posted on Open Left)

I was planning to update my earlier "Obama VP Rundown" analysis diary, where I assessed and ranked 20 top vice presidential candidates against a variety of metrics, but my brain wandered off on another train of thought:

A lot of folks on the blogs are declaring this or that person a 'likely,' 'mainstream,' 'conventional,' or 'shortlist' vice presidential pick, and/or discrediting other candidates on the basis that they aren't 'realistic,' or even 'plausible.'  

I'm not one to rely on conventional wisdom - so I decided to perform a crude analysis of who "the mainstream" considers a plausible vice presidential pick for Obama, by executing a set of Google News searches and tabulating the results.  

Join me for total "buzz volumes" for 30 candidates - plus analysis - on the flipside!

A favorite tactic of Republicans in any election year is to try and paint the Democratic opponent as being out of the mainstream, and 2008 will be no exception.  We won’t hear the word "values" nearly as frequently as we once might have, if we hear it at all.  We won’t hear the word "competence" used very much either.  But "out of the mainstream" is one label the GOP cannot seem to let go of.

Barack Obama crossed over to the dark side yesterday. Thats not to say that he did anything wrong, but he did voluntarily enter FOX News' evil pravda lair.

The "Obama Clock" will finally end and maybe now he will receive less bashing by the unfair and imbalanced folks at FOX. So the question I pose to everyone is: Was it worth it? If you were Obama would you have gone on FOX News Sunday for an interview with Chris Wallace?

Do you think doing so would legitimize a network that ought not be legitimized? Or do you think that it's just the pragmatic thing to do if he has any hopes of being elected? To be honest - I'm not really sure what I would have done.

A sample of 20 major U.S. newspapers show when thrown a bone, they choose to nap, remain in a coma, or are conditioned to give the government, which feeds their media empires, a pass.

If journalists did their jobs better, we would get to the heart of the story and not get confused by all the smokescreens and information-as-truth peddled 24/7 to a gullible and exhausted public.

WagTheNews examines 14 storylines and shows how the mainstream media never left its comfort zone to challenge what it was fed.  

Well, well, well.  First, Hillary LIES.  Then, her husband LIES.  Then, they DESTROYED THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY in their zeal to regain the White House.  

Now, things have gone too far.  It has been discovered that one of our own Democratic frontrunners called Donald Rumsfeld a "mainstream" American, and applauded most of George W. Bush's other appointments.

Follow me over the fold for the details.

Cross posted at OpenLeft.

Apologies in advance to the folks at Living Liberally, who really should have dibs on this. But as a vegetarian, this caught my eye. Check out this Chevy commercial...

When corporate America puts this enviro-veggie ad on TV, is that yet another sign that we're living in a progressive America? Hmmm....

Jay Carney is Time's Washington Bureau Chief. It's instructive to see what his definition of "mainstream" is:

CARNEY (1/31/07): What Biden was saying, and this is Biden’s fault for not being clear in what he was saying in this interview, is that there hasn’t been a candidate, a viable African-American candidate with all those qualities in one.

MATTHEWS: And mainstream.

CARNEY: Who is mainstream.

MATTHEWS: Mainstream is the key to me.

CARNEY: Who didn’t come from the civil rights movement, you know, who came up through elected office, who wasn’t, you know, simply a boutique or fringe candidate...

Martin Luther King? He wouldn't have been "mainstream" because he came up via the civil rights movement. Nor Jesse Jackson, even though he won 11 states and 6.9 million votes in 1988. Being part of the civil rights movement is immediate disqualification for being "mainstream" in Carney's world. Carol Moseley Braun doesn't qualify as "mainstream" because, while being Senator of the nation's fifth largest state, she was a "boutique" or "fringe" candidate.

The big irony about all of this is that by this definition, Biden himself isn't a "mainstream" candidate.

Why would he? He's by all rights a "boutique" candidate. The largest number of votes he's ever won is 165,465 in his 1996 Delaware Senate race (Moseley Braun got 2.6 million votes in her Illinois Senate victory in 1992). In all polls, he's in the low single digits. Unlike Jesse Jackson, Biden has never won a primary.

So what makes Biden a "mainstream" candidate?

The fact that he's white, apparently. Because if he was black, Carney and Biden and Matthews would clearly all agree that he wouldn't be "mainstream".

I'm one of those who thinks the Biden quote was misinterpreted. I know that isn't a terribly popular opinion around here now. But I did do one thing that no one else seems to have bothered to do, which is to attempt to transcribe the audio verbatim:

Biden: real story.
Interlocutor: uh-huh
Biden: I mean you got the first ... sorta ... mainstream, African-American
Interlocutor: yeah
Biden: who is articulate and bright and ... and, and clean and a ... nice looking guy
Interlocutor: mmm
Biden: I mean, it's -- that's a storybook, man.
Interlocutor: yeah

Yeah, you Georgie.  And you too, Karl.  And all you wingnuts, talking meatsticks and Yellow elephants too.  Guess what, brainiacs?  As much as you could explain it away or shout everyone else down in the past, it's over.  All of your talking points.  All of your "beliefs".  All in the minority.  And a shrinking minority at that.

Yeah, that's right, losers.  I'll say it for you real slow too, just because you yourselves don't see how thick you are just yet.  Your. views. and. opinions. are. out. of. the. mainstream.  And let me be the first to say, in the immortal words of Nelson Muntz: HA!  Ha.

You can put on that brave face all you want, and you can be as overconfident as you want.  And you can scream or point fingers all you want.  You know why?  Cuz people don't believe you anymore......Suckers.

We liberals are clear about our values, which define us.  As liberals, we believe:
*    All Americans should have the same freedoms and opportunities.
*    We are each responsible for protecting the freedoms and opportunities of all Americans.
*    We and our government should be competent and compassionate,
     using our freedoms and opportunities wisely and
     helping those with fewer freedoms and opportunities than the rest of us.
*    Our United States should be a cooperative member of our world's community of nations.

I am a proud liberal because I know what I stand for.  I stand for enhancing freedoms and opportunities for all.  I stand in a three-century-tradition of struggling politically to realize enlightened values expressed by John Locke in his Treatise on Government,  published in 1690: Our victorious struggles have increased freedoms and opportunities for our colonists, our slaves, our workers, our consumers, our women, our poor, our environment, our ethnic minorities, our gays and our lesbians and next for our immigrants.

Conservatives opposed us in each of our struggles.  They always seek to deny freedoms and opportunities to some of our people.  But we always win, although sometimes slowly and with occasional setbacks.  Our liberal values include our long held American Dream.  Our values are mainstream American values, held by most Americans.  I am a happy warrior because I fight for a great and winning cause.

While OrangeClouds115  proudly claimed her fringe standing yesterday, this morning I raise my virtual fist here in defiance of the label that the right wing noise machine would put on me.

I  stand shoulder to shoulder in support of the policies and values  that OrangeClouds and most of you would support, but watch out, O'Reilly & Rush & Company, I am far, far from someone you can dismiss as the dangly bits of fringe on the left.

In fact, by so many categories, if you were to look up "mainstream America" I wouldn't be surprised to see a picture of me and my family waving back at you.

Tonight is the Academy Awards. And, no doubt there will be scores upon million who'll turn to the broadcast and both be dazzled and outraged at the self-congralutory party, hosted by the great, Jon Stewart. I, for one, won't be one of those viewers, because, I find the glitz and glamour to be a little, grimy. Jon Stewart or no Jon Stewart, the Oscars is just a "blah" to me.

The Washington Post has new poll which says 75% of Americans want Bush to disclose his aides ties with Abramoff, including 2 out of 3 republicans, as compared to 8 out of 10 democrats. Of course, Bush is refusing to do this. He probably will have to be forced to by a court at some point. Bush is refusing to turn over information about Katrina. The American people will have to rely on the courts to find out what really happened.Having a president who's party also controls both houses of congress, shows how important and how dependent the American people are on the courts.  This why keeping Alito off the Supreme Court is so important. This is where a vote for Alito, becomes a vote for an imperial president. Something easy to filibuster.

I know people are somewhat sensitive when the issue of patriotism and anti-Americanism comes up, but it is an issue that needs to be discussed nonetheless. We can pretend it does not exist. We can also acknowledge its existance, but work to dismiss unfair charges against people.

I created this diary to discuss anti-Americanism and to see what insights people here can provide. I will address some practical examples of what I think are displays of anti-Americanism.

I sure many of you noticed all the hype in recent years about the blogosphere leveling the playing field between mainstream media and individuals.  I sure have.  But I never quite believed the hype because in my short life I have noticed many industries transform from chaotic brilliance to refined corporatocracy in a matter of years.  The process even seems to have sped up now that monied interest groups have learned how to respond to the new dominant communication mediums.  Que Será, Será.

Take for example the self-censorship imposed by both the mainstream media and the (liberal) blogosphere about the recent Hugo Chavez commitment of reduced priced heating oil to Massachusetts' low-income residents.  Nothing mentioned on the front pages of DailyKos, Huffington Post or Talking Points Memo, all three sources I usually hold in high regard to touch on controversy.  If you can believe it, CNN was the place I found this story, and the only major "paper" I read daily that linked off the front page.  The New York Times and the Washington Post both buried the story and used a shorten version of the AP original.