The Times (London) declares that Hamas just had the biggest propaganda coup in its history:

As tens of thousands of Palestinians clambered back and forth between the Gaza strip and Egypt today, details emerged of the audacious operation that brought down a hated border wall and handed the Islamist group Hamas what might be its greatest propaganda coup.

Hamas, which took control of the coastal territory last June after a stand-off with Fatah, has denied that its men set off the explosions that brought down as much as two-thirds of the 12-km wall in the early hours.

I agree that Hamas’s exploits and the rushing of the crossing into Egypt of an estimated 350,000 Palestinians doesn’t make for a pretty picture for the Israelis. But it’s only propaganda if it has an effect on the desired party. And we all know that the American media—presumably, those are the folks that Hamas wants to impress—are obsessed with only one thing: the campaign for the American presidency. We know this because they barely bothered to cover Bush’s Middle East trip.

Nevertheless, Newsweek and Time also both declare this a PR victory for Hamas, and seem to be pulling for Hamas over both Israel and the United States to boot.

Meanwhile, the MSM barely pauses its campaign coverage—except when they’re descending ghoulishly on the body of a strapping 28-year-old actor, who died in SoHo yesterday, as ETP’s Rachel Sklar reports [e.a.]:

Cable news, too, reported on Ledger’s death — though only Fox covered it in the 5pm hour (MSNBC stuck with “Hardball” and CNN with “The Situation Room,” both of which seemed to stick with the Hillary/Obama spat and Thompson non-candidacy). We’ll see how those ratings stack up (indicator: The Ledger story was last night’s most-viewed clip on MSNBC, and #3 on CBS). …

The New York Times also covered Ledger’s death yesterday via its “City Room” blog; today’s comprehensive article by James Barron had no less than fourteen people listed as contributing reporters. …

The three nightly newscasts all ran segments covering Ledger’s death, with varying degrees of sensationalism: ABC teased it at the top of the broadcast with “First word is it could be drug related” and CBS’ website described the situation as “what authorities suspect is a drug-related death”; NBC stayed away from the cause of death in the tease and written description, and Ann Thompson noted that “police are looking at the possibility of an overdose,” noting the presence of bottles of “prescription drugs [and] non-prescription drugs.”

Though the day started out with the fed rate cut, Dem debate and Oscar nominations, the day’s big story was about Ledger’s death — and traditional media outlets could only run to catch up with the internet, particularly TMZ which, as usual, posted anything and everything in order to completely flood the zone. (Though I noticed the TMZ guy on with Greta Van Sustern didn’t correct her when she said TMZ had broken the story; from the looks of it, that one goes to Radar.) Not like we need any more indicators that the nature of the news cycle has changed, but this is once again evidence that the internet has muscled out the traditional media in covering — and driving coverage of — high-profile stories like this. For good or ill.

It’s definitely for ill, Rachel, if it excludes coverage of, you know, the news we actually need to know. But so it goes …

I knew there was a reason that I prefer a low-profile life and lifestyle

I would particularly enjoy watching the fall and humiliation of this guy.

Engram also suggests that there is no reason for the well-adjusted person who is not living beyond his/her means to panic. So I won’t.

Some great post-debate observations about what political correctness hath wrought:

Obama is polite, and Hillary is rude.

But you can’t say that.

No, really. If you think about it in identity politics terms, you can’t say those things comfortably about either. Say Obama is polite, and you can be accused of implying that he’s a rare exception, that the others in his identity group are rude. Say Hillary is rude, and you’re “stereotyping women!” It’s bad enough that such nonsense is promoted in nearly every college in the country. I hate to see it working its way into the highest offices of the land.

So, at the risk of being a racist pig, I’ll say once again that Obama comes across as nice, while at the risk of being a sexist pig, I’ll say once again that Hillary comes across as rude.

At the rate things are going, it will be considered racist — and sexist — to judge individuals by the content of their character.

I too found Hillary

Shrill, braying, and grating.

There are people who like that in a leader, however. And for some of us—i.e,, the bichesbitches in the house—the idea of having a shrill, braying, and grating female in charge is a great revenge fantasy.

I do, however, agree that we should be able to call her “shrill” without being accused of sexism, and to call Obama “polite” without being accused of racism. At the very least.

Did you hear the news? The entire Bush administration conspired to mislead America into war in Iraq!

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

And you idiots fell for it!