Who Won The Final Debate?

The last of the three presidential debates has come and gone and the spin meisters are going full speed trying to convince voters that their candidate won.

Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn who won last night's debate. Most pundits have called it a draw. I would give the edge to Mitt Romney on substance and style. He was certainly more "presidential" than a grinning, condescending, boorish President Obama.

Of Course, there are still two more weeks of furious campaigning ahead and the attack dogs will be off their leashes and barking as vociferously as ever.

So what is one to make of the 2012 presidential race?

I can't recall a more negative campaign in my lifetime. The most disconcerting thing to me is the insertion of characteristically malicious Chicago political tactics into the race for our nation's highest office.

In Chicago, where I spent a majority of my professional journalism career, the norm in political battles is to launch personal attacks and to demonize your opponent at every opportunity.

Tune in to the Starz TV show "Boss" and you will see what I mean.

Kelsey Grammer as Chicago's "Boss"

The political goon squad in the White House is a throwback to the original Mayor Daley--the one who pushed JFK over the top in 1960 and who periodically raised the dead so they could vote.

Mayor Daley knew how to win elections. Buy votes by giving people free "stuff" and make your opponent appear to be some kind of reprobate.

The gang of political operatives who surround Obama are following the same strategy.

To the credit of the majority of Americans, however, it is not working. Most Americans do not live in Chicago or Cook County and most do not like the dirty, in-your-face kind of politics that got a succession of Chicago mayors elected.

You can argue who won last night's debate, who delivered the most zingers, etc. But you cannot argue with Mitt Romney's steady climb in the collective presidential campaign polls.

I think Americans are finally seeing past the veneer of Obama's "messiah complex" and finding that this man, who was less prepared for the job than any other president in our history, is simply in over his head.

Not only does he not understand how the U.S. economy works, he is fundamentally opposed to capitalism--though you will never get him to admit it publicly.

His denials during last night's debate to the contrary, Obama DID go on an apology tour in 2009 after his election. As N. Y. Yankee's manager Casey Stengel used to say: "You can look it up." Fact checkers have already run clips of Obama apologizing in Egypt, France, and Latin America.

Specifically, in Strasbourg, France Obama said: "there have been times where America has shown arrogance and has been dismissive, even derisive."

 During a speech in Egypt Obama talked about: "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect." Then, citing the "fear and anger" after 9/11, Obama said that in some cases, "it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals."

And of course, who can forget the awful display of cow towing when an obsequious Obama bowed before the Saudi king. I thought he was going to kiss the king's ring.  

Obama bowing to Saudi King

But more troubling is the fact that this is a president who believes the federal government has all the solutions to our fiscal woes, when in fact, the federal government is more often the cause of our economic problems.

Remember what Ronald Reagan once said: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

 Thank you President Obama. You have "helped" our nation enough. Go play another round of golf. Show us how cool you are and have another dance with Ellen DeGeneres. Visit the cackling magpies on "The View."

Or better yet. Start packing. It's time to put the adults back in the White House.

Smirkin' Joe Biden Can't KO Paul Ryan

I think the following Biblical quote sums up Joe Biden's bizarre behavior in last night's debate with Republican V.P. nominee Paul Ryan very well:

"If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet." --Proverbs 29:9.

Naturally, Democrats have rallied around Joe "the gaffer" following last evening's debate, saying that was just Joe being Joe.

I thought he was the vice-president and as such he owed a national TV audience a modicum of vice-presidential behavior--that is, being respectful rather than disdainful of your debate opponent.

Smirkin' Joe Biden in Action

And where was the alleged moderator in all of this? ABC's Martha Raddatz was strangely quiet as Biden smirked, lifted his eyes to the ceiling and shot mocking stares at Ryan.

In fact, Raddatz followed the Biden lead– interrupting the debaters 50 times. She jumped often and  heavily on Ryan, interrupting him 31 times, 12 more than the 19 times she cut off Biden. She also took a liberal tone on abortion and let Biden control the tone of  the debate by never cutting him off when he stepped all over Ryan during his remarks.

 Even CNN’s left-leaning anchor Anderson Cooper said after the debate that Biden managed to “continually inject himself” into Ryan’s comments--an understatement if ever I heard one.

Ryan suggested that Biden's behavior signaled desperation.

"Mr. Vice President, I know you are under a lot of duress to make up for lost ground," Ryan said.

Biden immediately uncorked his biggest throaty laugh of the night.

"... But I think people would be better served if we don't keep interrupting each other," Ryan said.

 In my opinion, Ryan was not forceful enough in going after Biden.

At those points when Biden burst out laughing at Ryan's remarks on such issues as Iran working toward building a nuclear weapon or how the administration was AWOL when the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were murdered by terrorists in Benghazi, Ryan should have stopped talking and said: "Joe, I am not sure why are these issues are so funny to you, but I can guarantee you they are not funny to the American people."

Smirkin' Joe Biden Guffaws Again

This is the kind of verbal counter-punching that was missing from Ryan's performance. It was patently obvious that Biden's mission was to keep Ryan off balance the entire night with his annoying eye rolling, condescending, smug attitude.

That Ryan managed to stay on his feet and weather what has to be the most disrespectful and rude conduct of a sitting vice-president in American history says something about his character.

He would not be pulled into below the belt verbal punch fest that Biden was hoping to create.

Instead, he remained on point and despite the constant badgering by both Biden and his willing sidekick Raddatz, he answered questions as best he could.

There are those who say style is not as important as substance. In a national debate for the nation's highest office, I beg to differ. Substance should take precedence. That's a given. But style should not be ignored. It says something about a person's character.

In 1988 Biden, then a presidential candidate, admitted plagiarizing a speech by Neil Kinnock, leader of the British Labor Party. It was also reported that he also plagiarized a law paper at the Syracuse University School of Law in 1965 for which he received an "F."

These revelations were reported by no less a left-leaning authority than the New York Times and as a result Biden was forced to resign from the presidential race that year. The Times and other papers said in numerous stories that Biden lacked the mental and verbal discipline to be President.

After last night, it appears he lacks the same qualities needed to be Vice-President.

EUROPE AND THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

I have just returned from a three week sojourn to Europe--specifically, Paris, Munich and Venice--and points in between aboard various trains.

A couple of things I noticed. Many Europeans are terrified that Barack Obama will be defeated in the upcoming election. This in spite of the fact that Chicago's political mafia is running the Democratic party and the Democrats NEVER or rarely lose elections in Chicago and Cook County.

After watching a plethora of German talk shows and reading a few German newspapers it was interesting to note that while many Europeans now realize Obama is NOT the political embodiment of the Second Coming, that he is in fact (horrors) a mere mortal, and that he and his socialist policies have made things worse in the U.S. and not better, they still believe it would be some kind of celestial blasphemy if he is not re-elected.

As one person on a talk show put it: "He is so intelligent and truthful."

This was, of course, before this week's debate with challenger Mitt Romney. I wonder what she thinks now after the big can of whoop ass Romney opened on an obviously ill-prepared Obama. Without his teleprompter, Obama was exposed as a shallow and ineffective speaker.

As the Bumbler-in-Chief scrambled for answers and to make his case to the American people during the debate I am sure he was wishing he could be on yet another golf course somewhere.

Obama is a very good golfer--having had plenty of practice to improve his golf game during his tenure in the White House. So far Obama as played 105 rounds of golf during his 3.5 years in office--more than anybody since President Eisenhower, who played about 200 rounds in his 8 years in office between 1952 and 1960.

According to Keith Koffler, a reporter for the White House Dossier: “Obama’s golfing takes about five hours, including the motorcades back and forth from the fairways. If one thinks of this as taking up much of the day – include getting ready to go and cooling off afterward – it's fair to say that Obama has spent more than three months of his presidency golfing.”

He might have added that he has spent another six months campaigning for re-election and three months on vacation. That means for almost a year the nation has had a president who has done everything but work at the job he was elected to do. I won't even go into the tax-payer dollars spent by Michelle Obama on her 16 vacations to places like Spain, South Africa, Aspen and Hawaii.

Michelle and Friends in Spain 2010

And believe me, these were not taken sitting in coach in the back of the plane or on a Greyhound Bus.

Of course, Michelle is not running for re-election. But it seems rather insensitive to be taking lavish vacations at a time when some 23 million American are out of work and millions more have lost their homes, businesses and savings.

But, hey, that's OK. After all, it is Barack Obama and he can do no wrong. Certainly not in Europe.

It is amazing how naive some Europeans are about the United States. Of course, the all act as if they know everything there is to know about this country--from its politics to its economy to its social issues.

It is difficult to blame them when you read European newspapers or watch news and talk shows.

For example, after this week's debate, a few European newspapers reported that Obama actually did well in his face off with Romney.

What debate were they watching--maybe it was a re-run of the Nixon-Kennedy debate of 1960.

Of course, maybe they were affected by Denver's mile-high altitude--an explanation that former Vice President Al Gore offered in Obama's defense.

The fact is this. Most, if not all, of the European nations that make up the European Union are left-leaning and are pushing hard for an Obama victory in November. In nations where the quality of life is measured by how many cradle-to grave entitlements you can extract from government, a U.S. that has a closet socialist in the White House is one Europeans can readily identify with.

Romney and Ryan scare the hell out of Europeans. They are, after all, in favor of reducing government's size and checking its intrusion into our lives and businesses. This is a philosophy that few Europeans understand or will ever embrace.

Just look at the rioting in Greece, Spain and Italy when governments attempt to get spending under control by curbing unsustainable pensions that begin at 55 and can amount to some 80 percent of one's annual salary.

When you make the majority of the populace dependent on government entitlements and handouts you wind up with Greece, Spain and Italy.

Now look at what's happened in the U.S. since 2008l. When Obama moved into the White House the number of Americans getting food stamps was 31 million. In 2000 there were just 17 million Americans on food stamps.

Today, some 47 million Americans are on food stamps--otherwise known as the newly named "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program" or SNAP. That means some 23 million American household are using food stamps--fully 15 percent of the U.S. population.

And that's not the whole story. Today, there are more Americans dependent on the federal government than ever before in U.S. history.

According to the Survey of Income and Program Participation conducted by the U.S. Census, well over 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.  Many are enrolled in more than one.  

That is about a third of the entire population of the country.  That figure does not include Social Security or Medicare.  Today the federal government runs almost 80 different “means-tested welfare programs,” and almost all of those programs have experienced substantial growth in recent years. 

I agree that we will always need a safety net for those that cannot take care of themselves, but it is utterly ridiculous that the federal government is financially supporting one-third of all Americans.  How much farther do things really need to go before we finally admit that we have become a socialist nation like our European neighbors? 

At the current rate of government-sponsored dependency, it will not be very long before half the nation is on welfare.  However, we likely will never get to that point because the colossal and unsustainable debt that we are currently running up will no doubt  destroy our financial system before that ever happens.

I can hear the shovels in China already digging our grave.

Reflections on the GOP Convention

OK, Mitt Romney isn't Ronald Reagan--at least not when it comes to speaking. But who is? Nevertheless, I thought Romney gave a good account of himself Thursday night in laying out his vision for America.

So did his running mate Paul Ryan. And so did Sen. Marco Rubio, and Gov. Susana Martinez, and former Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice and former Democrat congressman-turned Republican Artur Davis.

Each of these folks and many others gave good accounts of themselves while standing at the podium.

Even 82-year-old Clint Eastwood--without using a teleprompter--resonated with the crowd. His delivery may not have been on par with his Dirty Harry roles, but he made the audience's day with his comments on the failed policies of the Obama administration.

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney

Perhaps the defining moment in Romney's speech came when he said: "This president can ask us to be patient. This president can tell us it was someone else’s fault..… But this president cannot tell us that you’re better off today than when he took office." The "excitement" of Obama’s election has subsided, Romney said, replaced by doubt and uncertainty about the economy and the federal budget.

"If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, you should feel that way now that he’s President Obama,' Romney said. "You know, there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you’ve had was the day you voted for him."

"President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet," Romney continued. "My promise is to help you and your family."

The Obama White House, meanwhile, derided Romney's speech and the GOP convention in general as "angry and short on solutions."

You bet there was anger at the GOP convention. When you have some 23 million Americans out of work and a president who has played something like 125 rounds of golf you have to wonder who is more out of touch with this country.

Sen. Mitch McConnell said it best: "For four years, Barack Obama has been running from the nation's problems. He hasn't been working to earn reelection. He's been working to earn a spot on the PGA tour."

I don't think anybody expected Romney or Ryan to lay out a detailed strategy for dealing with the mammoth debt and other economic woes the U.S. faces during the convention. That is something that will be disclosed during the final two months of the campaign.  

There is little doubt that Democrats were surprised by the "bring it on" attitude of Paul Ryan when it comes to debating Medicare--often considered the third rail for Republicans when it comes to social issues.

The idea that Ryan wants to jettison the elderly over the cliff my slashing or ending Medicare is ludicrous. Voters--especially those already retired or about to retire--should be more concerned about the $716 billion Obama swiped from Medicare to fund Obamacare.

Joe Biden: Gaffe-Mesiter

I am eagerly awaiting the debate on Medicare that Ryan will have with Joe Biden down the road. Biden, America's #1 "gaffe-meister," will find Ryan a formidable opponent.  And Biden will lose.

Romney vs. Obama will be a lot more competitive. I don't see this as a repeat of the Reagan-Jimmy Carter debate which Reagan won handily with his "there you go again" comment.

Obama can talk. That's about all he does. Romney is a doer, not a talker. We will see contrasting styles in these debates. But one thing Romney has going for him is his laid back style.

Obama: "Callow, thin-skinned, arrogant"

Obama, on the other hand, according to Ed Klein's New York Times best seller "The Amateur," is "a callow, thin-skinned, arrogant president with messianic dreams of grandeur supported by a cast of true-believers, all of them united by leftist politics and an amateurish understanding of executive leadership."

What Romney will have do in the debates is expose what Rep Allen West (R-FL) says Obama is doing.

"Obama is basically feeding America a crap sandwich with a smile...and it’s very important for us to win the image war in the presidential race," West said. "Because a crap sandwich with a smile is still a crap sandwich!"

Will someone please pass the ketchup!

 

Some Early Observations About the GOP Convention.

Ann Romney

Ann Romney. What a partner she is for Mitt. Her speech Tuesday night was absolutely on target. Did you notice, she didn't mention Obama once? Didn't need to. Her job was to talk about Mitt, her husband and father of her five boys. She did that perfectly. Did you also notice that she didn't dwell on her own problems--the fact that she is battling multiple sclerosis and breast cancer? So how will the Democrats respond? Even though Obama says family members should be off limits, his attack dogs have consistently attempted to paint Ann Romney as a rich woman out of touch with Middle America. The fact is she IS Middle America. Her father was an immigrant from Wales who came to this country with nothing and rose to be mayor of his town. She did not grow up wealthy. And neither did Mitt Romney. As Ann Romney pointed out in her talk they struggled financially early on while Mitt attended both business and law school at the same time. Obama, on the other hand, got free rides and has plenty of time to indulge in recreational drugs, speak at anti-American, communist-backed protest rallies and generally goof off--which is why he has spent a lot of money to keep his college records secret.  

Chris Christie. Was this the rousing "Obama and the Democrats can go to hell' speech a lot of the delegates were expecting? No it wasn't. In weaving a lot of his personal life into his talk, Gov Christie did not follow the script many Democrats were predicting he would. His direct attack on Obama was minimal. Instead of the brash, no-holds-barred verbal punch-fest, Christie spent most of the time talking about being a Republican governor in a state controlled predominately by Democrats. One area where he fell a bit short, I thought, was his rather feeble attempt to sell Romney. His first mention of the Republican presidential nominee didn't come until some 15 minutes into his speech. Instead, he spent a lot of time talking about the direction the Republican party should be taking in the future. It was almost as if he were setting himself up to run in 2016. Maybe he was.

LIBERAL MEDIA COVERAGE. In a word, the left-leaning mainstream media has done a mendacious job of covering the GOP convention.  One of the left's favorite attacks on the Republican Party is that it is the party of old white people, devoid of diversity and most likely racist. I hope you weren't watching MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican National Convention Tuesday night. If you were you might be inclined to believe those assertions, because missing from the coverage was nearly every ethnic minority that spoke during Tuesday’s festivities. But in case you were watching MSNBC and missed some of the best speeches here are what a few of these diverse Republicans had to say.

Mia Love

MIA LOVE. Who is Mia Love? She is a 36-year-old black Mormon congressional candidate, exploded onto the national stage with her speech at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night. Because nobody really knew who Mia Love was her name topped all others in Google searches Wednesday. Love is running against incumbent Rep. Jim Matheson (D) in Utah’s newly formed 4th district and if she wins in November, she will become the first black Republican woman elected to Congress. Tuesday evening she talked about how her parents came to the United States from Haiti with "$10 in their pockets and a hope that the America they heard about really did exist." She said Obama was a president who didn't value entrepreneurship and added: "Mr. President, I'm here to tell you that the American people are awake, and we aren't buying what you're selling in 2012." She described Obama's vision for the country as a "divided one" that is "pitting us against each other based on our income level, gender and social status." 

Artur Davis

ARTUR DAVIS. Here is how petty the My Socialist NBC network (otherwise known as MSNBC) is. It declined to cover the rousing speech by former Alabama Democrat Rep. Artur Davis, who delivered one of the nominating speeches for Barak Obama at the 2008 Democrat convention. In 2010, Davis had seen enough and switched parties. "The Democrats' ads convince me that Gov. Romney can't sing, but his record convinces me he knows how to lead, and I think you know which skill we need more," Davis told the audience Tuesday night. He accused Obama of bamboozling voters four years ago with "flowery words" and charged that the incumbent has lost the "halo" his supporters thought he had in 2008. "America is a land of second chances, and I gather in this close race you have room for the estimated 6 million of us who know we got it wrong in 2008 and who want to fix it," Davis told the delegates.

Nikki Haley

NIKKI HALEY. The Republican Governor of South Carolina and the daughter of Indian immigrants delivered a blistering speech condemning Obama. "Don't tell me that my parents didn't build their business," Haley said, referring to Obama's "you didn't build that" remark a several weeks ago. "My parents started a business out of the living room of our home and, 30-plus years later, it was a multimillion dollar company," she said. "But there wasn't a single day that was easy and there wasn't a single day my Mom and Dad didn't put everything they had into making that business a success. So, President Obama, with all due respect, don't tell me that my parents didn't build their business." Haley then accused the Obama administration of launching an all-out assault on her state. "The hardest part of my job continues to be this federal government, this administration and this president," Haley said, going on to say that "Obama will do everything he can to stand in your way," even if you play by the rules."

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. Beyond the weird clothing and hats that seems to have become de rigueur at American political conventions in the past few decades, I agree with House Speaker John Boehner: these things should be shorter. “I’m not sure that having a four-day convention, for the future, makes a lot of sense,” Boehner said at a luncheon hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. He also suggested that the party platform should be cut down to one page. “Anybody read the party platform?” he asked. "I’ve never met anybody who has."

AMEN

Did He or Didn't He? Here's an Idea: Ask the IRS!

Forgive me if this sounds a bit simplistic, but with "Dirty" Harry Reid charging that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a tax cheat couldn't this be resolved if someone were to ask the IRS if it is preparing a tax evasion case against the former Massachusetts governor?

I mean if Romney hasn't paid any income taxes for the past 10 years, as Dirty Harry suggests, wouldn't that qualify for some prison time? Isn't that the way the Feds got Al Capone in Chicago?

But wait, didn't Tim Geithner fail to pay taxes also? But, of course, he is a Democrat and Obama minion, so I guess that's OK. Right Harry?

During several years, Treasury secretary nominee Timothy F. Geithner failed to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes totaling some $26,000, even though he was advised by his employer, the International Monetary Fund, to do so. Instead he signed an agreement indicating that he understood that such payments were his responsibility and received extra pay from his employer specifically for that purpose.

Mr. Geithner "came clean" only when he was caught, first by an IRS audit that found he owed Social Security taxes for 2003 and 2004 and then when additional tax liabilities for 2001 and 2002 were discovered after his nomination as Treasury Secretary.

So, if Mitt Romney has, like Geithner, failed to pay taxes, why wouldn't an IRS audit indicate that?

The answer is quite likely that the IRS has never done such an audit and that Romney has indeed paid his taxes for the past 10 years.

Of course, this doesn't stop the Chicago political mafia led by David Axelrod and the Chick-fil-A  hating Mayor Rahm Emanuel from slinging slime at Romney.

Hey, that's Chicago politics. It's the way the game is played in the Windy City and its where our feckless leader in the White House learned the rules.

Don't think the filthy tactics are finished with the Dirty Harry rant in the Senate, either. The Obama/Axelrod mafia has just begun its descent into the dung heap that is Chicago politics.

As a general assignment reporter for the Chicago Tribune in the 1970s I witnessed my share of the corruption that has long been a trademark of Chicago's Democratic machine.

A recent report by the Political Science Department of the University of Illinois revealed that Chicago is Number 1 in public corruption while the State of Illinois is ranked Number 3 so far as corrupt states go.  The report said that since 1976 - federal prosecutors rung up a total of 1,531 public corruption convictions in the Northern District of Illinois. The 1,828 total convictions for Illinois lagged only behind California and New York.

Since the 1970s, four of Illinois’ seven governors have been convicted (Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich) of corruption. In addition, dozens of Chicago alderman and other city and county public officials have been found guilty.

Corruption is intertwined with Chicago city politics, the report said, adding that about a third of sitting alderman since 1973 have been corrupt and the city has averaged 51 public corruption convictions each year since 1976.

With this kind of pedigree is anybody surprised then that the Obama campaign is pulling out all the stops to smear Gov. Romney and anybody who supports him?

Is it any wonder that the Obama campaign is dead set against any kind of voter identification law? After all, while Chicago may not be the home of AMCTV's the "Walking Dead" it has always been the home of the "Voting Dead."

Bringing the dead from their graves to support Chicago's Democratic Machine would be more difficult if they had to show voter IDs. And of course, the same can be said for the millions of illegal aliens who show up at the polls to vote for the Democrat party candidates--not to mention those who vote multiple times.

What we are seeing in the Obama administration is the Chicago-ization of national politics.

Dirty Harry Reid's despicable performance in the Senate last week reminded me of watching a Chicago City Council meeting in full swing--you don't want to wear clean clothing in that noble chamber when the mud-slinging starts.

When Barack Obama was elected President he promised there would be no "politics as usual." He was right. Instead we are getting politics at its worst--a huge dose of political corruption, chicanery and thievery courtesy of Chicago's Democratic crime family of which Obama is an offspring.   

The Newsroom, Episode 3: I Give Up

OK, I have watched three episodes of HBO's series "The Newsroom." Enough is enough.

What I was hoping would be a breakout, first class TV series about journalism, how it is done and why it is important to our country has nose-dived from that lofty perch into the abyss of partisan political diatribe.

Three episodes ago the show began with what I thought was promise. Sure, there were gaffes (correspondents being embedded in Vietnam which didn't happen; nobody on the staff actually doing any reporting; and lots of soapy chatter about who is sleeping with whom, etc), but I could forgive some of those.

In last Sunday's episode any thought that this show would portray reporters and producers actually doing their jobs without inserting their own political biases into every event, interview or broadcast was snuffed out.

Jane Fonda as Media Mogul Leona Lansing

Instead, we get a dose of fictional Atlantis Cable Network (ACN) anchor Will McAvoy (initially the token conservative in The Newsroom) ranting and raging at the Tea Party and others who disagree with the Obama administration as though he were the White House Press Secretary. My advice to Obama: Fire Jay Carney and hire Will McAvoy.

Apparently, McAvoy's avowed super-liberal executive producer (MacKenzie McHale) has managed in just three episodes to exorcise McAvoy's imprudent conservative demons and convert him into a more agreeable (but no less ill-informed) version of MSNBC's über-liberal ersatz journalist Chris Matthews.

Like Matthews, McAvoy bellows at the camera and insults those with whom he disagrees.

So THAT is who the McAvoy character is modeled after. I was hoping it might be somebody who has the integrity to keep his/her opinions under wraps while actually reporting the news. But sadly, that is not to be the case in The Newsroom.

With a newsroom full of producers, writers and others who view the world through a defective prism that can only reveal the left side of any issue, any hope that this series would provide viewers with a glimpse of how real journalists work has vanished.

Just about everybody on the show violates the Code of Ethics produced by the Society of Professional Journalists and that at least some of us try to adhere to. Indeed, that code might as well be toilet paper in The Newsroom's lavatories.

The Preamble to the SPJ's code states:

"Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society's principles and standards of practice."

I won't duplicate the entire code here but there are at least three areas where The Newsroom is in obvious violation:

·       "Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible."

·       "Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context."

·       "Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant."

Ostensibly, News Night 2.0 (the new name of the show), is a return to good old-fashioned news. Give them what they need, not what they want--even if it hurts.

Yet Will McAvoy, in laying out the format of for his viewers, says: “My party’s being hijacked....something that began as a “middle-class movement responding to bad trends” was “co-opted by the radical right.” Because he is a confessed Republican (holy crap!), Will apparently believes he is the perfect person to take the tea party to task. So now the Tea Party is the target. 

Enter Jane Fonda as Leona Lansing, the woman who owns Atlantis World Media which includes Atlantis Cable News. And here Fonda is REALLY acting--playing the role of a cold-hearted conservative cable network owner. Now THAT does strain credibility.

Charlie (the Sam Waterston character who is the boss of ACN's news show) stresses the urgency of criticizing Tea Party congressmen, and makes a comparison between Senator Joseph McCarthy and Republican Rep. Michelle Bachmann.

Leona dismisses that as baseless: rabid anti-Communist McCarthy, she says,  was "obviously bad" whereas Tea Party supporter Bachmann is nothing but "a bad hairdo" and not anyone to worry about.

Perhaps the most cringe-inducing comment made during episode three, as far as journalists are concerned, comes from Charlie who, in response to the perceived imbalance of News Night 2.0's presentation of the news says: “balance is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the truth, logic or reality.”

OK, I've got it. ACN is now the fictional twin of MSNBC. And Will McAvoy is evolving into Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz and Keith Olbermann all rolled into one persona.

My advice: Don't stay tuned.