Most Americans have figured out by now that W isn't just an annoyance, he's a disaster. But that doesn't mean he's the only disaster, and long-time DC observer Sam Smith of Progressive Review, as usual, is ahead of the pack. Last week he pointed out 11 ways in which the mainstream media (which he insists on treating as singular) are stage-managing, filtering, and otherwise rigging the 2008 presidential race.

If you have links to counterexamples, bring 'em on; so far even the blogosphere doesn't seem to have produced much commentary on this. Smith, who's a Green Party member, has been unrelenting in his criticism of both the Clinton and Bush families, and so as far as I can tell he isn't welcome in either echo chamber. His MSM indictment:

"It created the Barack Obama myth out of whole cloth. A political lightweight from the Chicago Democratic machine with a virtually non-existent record has been turned into JFK II.

"It has steadfastly refused to report on the numerous scandals associated with Hillary Clinton's past, sending years of corruption, dissembling and abuse of power down the Orwellian memory hole.

"It has not done much better with the true history of Rudolph Giuliani, creating a heroic myth based largely on behavior on one particular day, 9/11, that might have been expected of any mayor of a major city.

"With both Clinton and Giuliani it has particularly avoided their extraordinary connections with criminal figures. Whatever the ultimate import of these relationships are, the voters are entitled to know with whom their candidates have consorted.

"As we have demonstrated with our headline survey, John Edwards has been consistently blacked out of the news coverage despite being ahead of Obama in more than a half dozen states.

"When covered, Edwards has been trivialized or criticized in a manner used on no other major candidate. For example, his wealth has been targeted in a way that John Kerry's never was and Hillary Clinton's
isn't. While it is fair ground to tell about his $400 haircut, it is not
fair meanwhile to censor Obama's parking tickets in Massachusetts that
were left unpaid from college days until he decided to run for
president. Even when Elizabeth Edwards criticized Ann Coulter for her
hateful attacks on her husband, she was later said by major media to
have "defended" her remarks as though standing up for her husband was
beyond the pale.

"The media has bought into the Fred Thompson myth, despite the fact that Thompson - like Obama - has virtually nothing on his resume to recommend him for the job.

"The media has made little efforts to help voters understand the real differences between the candidates as opposed to the variations in their iconic and fantastical spin. 

"The major media has almost totally ignored the GOP vote caging scandal uncovered by Greg Palast.

"The major media has consistently treated majority American positions on the war and healthcare as out of the mainstream.

"And it has largely ignored the ever growing evidence of failure and corruption involving the use of electronic voting machines."