Crabbing at the Gabfest

The following is a copy of an email that I sent to the crew of Slate's "Gabfest" podcast. I have added links here; I sent them plain text out of fear of their spam filter.

Modified portions of the following were originally posted by me on the BH.tv forum.

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To: gabfest@[you can probably guess]
Subject: Is there a second candidate for president or not?

Hello, Gabbers,

Here's a partial transcript from the opening of this week's Gabfest ("The Semisweet Gabfest"), David speaking:

"Today we're going to talk about the usual three topics. The first one will be Barack Obama and all the various excitements about him this week including the Jesse Jackson episode, and then we'll talk about Iran firing some missiles, and then we will talk the mystery topic, about a chocolate chip cookie recipe."

Exactly. The "usual three topics." I listen to the Gabfest every week, and I've concluded that by "usual," you mean "Obama for sure," "two other things," and "anything but He Whose Maverickly War-Hero-ness Shall Not Be Questioned." Once again, you neglected to say much of anything about the many twists and turns of John McCain and his campaign.

Why is he not worthy of the same scrutiny as Barack Obama? I mean, you spent minutes talking about the clothes, hairstyle, and future pets of Obama's daughters, for cripes' sake. Did McCain really do nothing this past week that might, just possibly, outweigh that in importance?

Maybe you could have talked about the increasingly obvious bias for McCain on the part of the Associated Press (that erstwhile paragon of objectivity) being documented by, among others, The Carpetbagger Report and Talking Points Memo?

Maybe gaffes are more to your taste? Okay, then how about McCain surrogates Giuliani and Romney questioning whether Obama is "American enough," surrogate-in-chief Joe Lieberman spreading the meme that Obama is "no friend of Israel," chief economic advisor Phil Gramm saying America is a "nation of whiners," or Carly Fiorina going way off the reservation and effectively criticizing the McCain record on women's health issues?

Do these seem as bad as Wes Clark's saying that having your plane shot down doesn't necessarily mean you're qualified to be president? Should the words "bus" and "throw" be used in the same sentence about any of these people?

Okay, those are only surrogates. Perhaps some doozies from the Straight Talker Himself? How about McCain joking about killing Iranians, again, this time with cigarettes, McCain calling Social Security "a disgrace," and then trying to spin his way out of it, or McCain lying about "300 economists" supporting his budget plan? How about a few minutes on McCain's desire to kick Russia out of the G8? Does he even know that he can't do this, by himself? Or is he flip-flopping and backpedaling on this, too? Is he losing his marbles or losing his integrity? Is it fair to ask this?

Granted, one or two of these was touched on in passing, and granted, some of them are a tiny bit more than one week old. True, too, David's bit of Cocktail Chatter did touch on the Sainted One, although he apparently could not resist hastening to throw in a line about Obama being "almost as bad on this." But still. Add it all up, and it comes darn near to zero coverage.

Look. You're hardly the only member of the MSM guilty of this neglect. In fact, you're one among a unanimity. But I thought Slate's shtick was determined contrarianism. How about showing a little of it, in this regard?

Thank you.

Brendan Keefe