Compared to TIME Magazine, Bill O'Reilly is Walter Cronkite

UPDATE BELOW

If you haven't been following Glenn Greenwald's blanket coverage of the Joe Klein/TIME Magazine debacle, TIME has finally jumped the shark.

Short version:

TIME Magazine is a mouthpiece for the war-mongering, Constitution-burning, Smirky-worshipping wingnut GOP, more blatant than the Washington Times, more shameless than Ann Coulter.

Long version:

Joe Klein posted on TIME's Swampbland blog obvious lies to support his thesis that Congressional Democrats are clueless about terrorism, then refused to retract them when the lies were exposed.

TIME's editor Richard Stengel not only refused to retract Klein's lies, he refused to allow the libeled members of Congress themselves to respond online or in print.

Instead, Stengel authorized three separate "corrections" that not only did not retract Klein's lies, they actually reinforced Klein's false accusations about the Democrats by avoiding the real issues and allowing the original lies to stand.

I've been reading TIME for more than 40 years, and subscribing for a quarter-century. But last week I cancelled my subscription, and I urge everyone who is still subscribing (admit it - mostly out of habit) to do so, too.

Newsweek is no improvement, having hired Karl Rove and given him prime pundit real estate to peddle his - we need a new word for what Rove spews, because "lies" just doesn't even come close.

I've switched to The Nation, a newsweekly with a much longer and far more honorable pedigree than TIME's. As the TV ad says, The Nation has "that liberal media bias you can't get anywhere else."

UPDATE, 7 p.m.: Via Blue Girl, you can get half-price gift subscriptions to The Nation here.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

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Americans Get It, They Are Still Not Amused By Libby Commutation

Earlier I shared some fresh poll numbers showing that 54% of Americans want the Congress to impeach Dick Cheney.

That American Research Group poll contains some other startling numbers. We will try to share them in bite sized chunks over the next couple of days.

We all know the White House's commutation of Scooter Libby was immediately unpopular. As RJ Eskow elaborates, since then the White House and their lackeys among the mainstream pundits class have been desperately trying to turn American opinion on the topic. So far the efforts of the White House and the mainstream media have not met with much success.

Question:
Do you approve or disapprove of President George W. Bush commuting the 30-month prison sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby while leaving intact Mr. Libby's conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case?

Among All Adults 31% approve of the commutation, 64% disapprove and only 5% are undecided. The numbers among likely voters are 26%, 69%, and 5%. Among Democrats (38% of the sample) 13% approve, 76% disapprove and 11% are undecided. Among Republicans (29%)the numbers are 50%,47% and 3% and among Independents (33%) the numbers are 19%, 80% and 1%.

The poll is based on 1,100 completed telephone interviews among a random sample of adults nationwide July 3-5, 2007. The theoretical margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points, 95% of the time. Of the total sample, 933 interviews were completed among registered voters.

Now you might argue that the disapproval numbers include a bunch of folks who really think the President should pardon Libby.

Not so fast. The same poll shows that 84% of those polled oppose a full pardon of Scooter "the skater" Libby. That number includes 70% of Republicans, 82% of Democrats and a very surprising 97% of independents.

It is beginning to look like, despite the best efforts of Joe Klein, David Brooks, Richard Cohen and the rest of the professional pundit class, George Bush has had his Rubicon moment.

By the way the Eskow post is about the best discussion of the pundit class's really bizarre response to the commutation I have read so far.

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