TPM Reader JS checks in from Bangkok …
Your link to Andrew Sullivan’s blog and the media coverage of the Glasgow events prompted me to write again.
I am in the last day of business meetings in Bangkok, and have been watching the media response with great interest. My hotel TV offers both CNN and BBC news coverage, and the difference between them is remarkable. When the Glasgow attack became known, CNN offered non-stop coverage which preempted all normal programming. The attackers were defined in no uncertain terms as Al-Quaeda members, despite any conclusive evidence of same. In stark contrast, BBC offered quite detailed coverage of the attack, but continued with normal programming covering weather, sports, international affairs, etc. BBC was quite careful not to ascribe any specific Al-Quaeda membership, and seemed to be more comfortable describing the attackers as “influenced by other Al-Quaeda types”. CNN created the image of a major world crisis, while BBC presented an isolated but obviously troubling event.
I would respectfully posit that such coverage by most of our American Mainstream Media is why the Bush Administration has been able to so easily play with the fears and emotions of Americans.
Department of quotes with multiple meanings.
Coulter talking to O’Reilly: “I’m more of a man than any liberal.”
What if third parties could exist without third party candidates? Dan Cantor, the head of New York’s Working Familes Party, sits down at TPMCafe’s Table for One to make the case for fusion voting.
Jared Bernstein lists 5 reasons economists still compete with weathermen for accuracy kudos.
Is McCain going to make it to the early primaries? It seems he’s got only $2 million on hand and may drop as many as 100 staffers, though they’re suggesting the number will only be a bit over 50.
Considering that bad news is itself a major blow that will make money even harder to raise, is this Phil Gramm ’96 redux? Only where the candidate can’t raise any money?
Early campaign time is full of premature and retrospectively silly post-mortems. But you have to wonder in this case.
I’d call that a really, really generous headline (from NYT/AP): “Behind in Money Race, McCain Reshapes Staff“
AQ Khan, Pakistan’s notorious nuke peddler, gets house arrest furlough.
In the Bush view, the world is a blockbuster movie where heroes strive to defeat shifty-eyed villains. 
This week at TPMCafe’s Book Club, Glenn Greenwald joins us to discuss his new book A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency. In particular, Greenwald wants to focus on Iran, and how the “pure fiction” of the Administration’s “cartoonish depiction of Iran” is exacerbating the threat and may push us to war.
Debating Greenwald’s thesis, and its application to Iran, will be Ezra Klein, Seth Gitell, Danny Postel, and Chris Floyd.
AP: Bush commutes Libby prison sentence.
(i.e., Cheney pulled the lever.)