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**JeffR** · 10-20-2011, 04:34 PM

ONE: Grand Theft Audio

From the moment he became President-Elect, Barack Obama has been slandered, doubted, vilified, lampooned, ridiculed, dissed and dismissed. And that's just by his fellow Democrats; don't even get me started about the way Republicans have treated him.

So there's really no telling the party affiliation (if any) of the perpetrators of Virginia's latest high-profile crime:

… A truck filled with President Obama's podiums and audio equipment was stolen in Henrico just days before his visit to Chesterfield…

We're told the truck was parked at the Virginia Center Commons Courtyard Marriott in advance of Wednesday's presidential visit to Chesterfield.

Sources said inside that vehicle was about $200,000 worth of sound equipment, several podiums and presidential seals, behind which only the President himself can stand.

I've scoured the Henrico County Police website FAQ for anything that might cover this sort of incident. While it offers helpful replies to questions such as "How much can I drink and drive?" and "Do you sell or give away your shoulder patch?" and "Is it against the law to operate a vehicle while not wearing shoes?" I didn't see a thing about how they handle the President getting ripped off in their jurisdiction.

TWO: Presstidigitation

Only conservatives would be surprised by the findings of a new Pew Research Center study of candidate coverage by the establishment media and the blogosphere. Then again, conservatives wouldn't read it to begin with, or if they accidentally did, they simply wouldn't believe it.

In the first months of the race for president… Rick Perry has received the most coverage and the most positive coverage from the news media of any GOP contender, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

But in what is already a fluid race, Perry lost that mantle to Herman Cain two weeks ago, after the Florida straw poll and a faulty debate performance, according to the study, which combines traditional media research methods with computer algorithms to track the level and tone of coverage of candidates for president. The analysis also shows that Cain’s narrative actually started to become more positive in late August, six weeks before he began to rise in the polls.

And what about coverage of the Democratic incumbent? It's not pretty:

One man running for president has suffered the most unrelentingly negative treatment of all, the study found: Barack Obama. Though covered largely as president rather than a candidate, negative assessments of Obama have outweighed positive by a ratio of almost 4-1. Those assessments of the president have also been substantially more negative than positive every one of the 23 weeks studied. And in no week during these five months was more than 10% of the coverage about the president positive in tone.

Shocker, huh? Memo to the Henrico County police: you might want to investigate whether any representatives of the media were hanging around the Virginia Center Commons Courtyard Marriott earlier in the week. Just sayin'…

THREE: Party Manners

Although Rick Perry has been carefully fluffed by the press, his opponents have been a lot less cordial, according to the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs, which:

… analyzed the four Republican presidential debates since Rick Perry joined the field and found that the Texas governor has absorbed far and away the most attacks from other candidates.

Perry has been singled out for criticism 39 times - about twice the combined total of Herman Cain (9), Jon Huntsman (5), Ron Paul (4), Rick Santorum (1), Michele Bachmann (1), and Newt Gingrich (0) and 10 more than Mitt Romney (29).

Wait a second! Nobody has criticized Newt Gingrich?

… the soft treatment of Gingrich might be due to the fact that he is considered to be the smartest and best debater on the stage. In short, don't mess with Newt.

Maybe that's it, though of course it might just be that even his less-than-intellectually-agile fellow candidates recognize Newt for the irrelevant gasbag he's been for years.

FOUR: Best Headline of the Week

National Journal, October 17:

Cain Re-Embraces Electric Fence

The accompanying story is pretty entertaining, as well:

After first apologizing for suggesting an electric fence along the border, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain told reporters here Monday that he still thinks it’s a good idea for controlling illegal immigration.

“I’m not walking away from that,” he said.

Cain has spent the last several days explaining a controversial comment about building an electrified fence along the U.S.–Mexico border that he said could kill people trying to enter the country illegally. On Sunday, he said his comments were “a joke.” But talking to reporters here after a meeting with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has made a national reputation for cracking down on illegal immigrants, Cain reversed course.

Initially, Cain apologized when told his remarks had upset some in the state. “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa,” he said, using the Latin formula for expressing contrition. But when a reporter challenged his description of his comments, saying he didn’t seem to be telling a joke, the retired pizza executive acknowledged: “You’re right.” He said he still believes in the need for a border fence, “and it might be electrified.”

That's the sort of decisiveness that has vaulted Cain from obscurity to political superstardom. A President Cain would sure keep those illegal immigrants guessing. He'd probably keep everyone else guessing, too. About everything he said and did, assuming he ever decided to do anything, that is.

FIVE: This Time for Sure!

Back in May, Take Five discussed Harold Camping's last inaccurate prediction of the end of the world. When the forecast May 21 date came and went and the world was still here, the evangelical broadcaster and self-taught Bible expert retreated to a motel with his wife, dusted off his slide rule, and ran his numbers again.

According to his revised calculations, the world ends tomorrow. I'm assuming that means at the stroke of midnight, though Camping doesn't seem too hung up on the hour and minute. For friends and relatives in time zones west of me, I do hope you enjoy your extra final hours. If you're stuck for something to do as you await the end, head on over to Camping's website for an explanation of what that whole May 21 kerfuffle was about. These excerpts will get you started:

What really happened this past May 21st ? What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what He wanted to happen. That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God’s salvation program would be finished on that day. For the next five months, except for the elect (the true believers), the whole world is under God’s final judgment…

Indeed, on May 21 Christ did come spiritually to put all of the unsaved throughout the world into judgment. But that universal judgment will not be physically seen until the last day of the five month judgment period, on October 21, 2011…

Thus we can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on October 21, 2011, on the last day of the present five months period. On that day the true believers (the elect) will be raptured. We must remember that only God knows who His elect are that He saved prior to May 21.

You, too, without your knowledge may have become saved before that date. Anyone can continue to beseech God for mercy because salvation and the election program are entirely in God’s hands.

Hope y'all can make some sense of this. But hurry, you're running out of

**jaxx** · 10-20-2011, 06:06 PM

One....I betcha the Secret Service and the FBI shut down the locals asap. Now the perps can be realllllllly worried.

Two....The press needs to make up for this by only publishing good things about President Obama until the end of his terms. They asked for it, let them rail on the pubs.

Three....Rick Perry is sneaky, and he wears cowboy boots. I think his cohorts remember the boots bit from 2000-2008. They're afraid Newt will never shut up about 1995 so they don't cross him.

Four....Cain and Arpaio, bully meet bully. Cain caved to the bigger bully and brought his electric fence back to life. Fail.

Five....Is this guy trying to kick the bucket on the day he chooses? Seems like he's bringing them closer and closer together. He's old, ya know.

Loved it JeffR!!! roflmao

**The Desperate Blogger** · 10-20-2011, 07:43 PM

Excellent as always, Jeff.

Regarding Camping, I still maintain that he was right -- all of the WORTHY Christians ascended on May 21st, leaving the rest of us to deal with tribulations like the Republican Presidential campaign and its debates...

Grin