The Poynter Institute welcomed disgraced former CBS anchor Dan Rather to share his thoughts on his long career and on the media in general this week. In an interview with Poynter's Mallary Tenore, he complained "So often, particularly covering politics, enterprises that describe themselves as journalistic enterprises, and journalists who describe themselves as journalists, in fact just become transmission belts."

That's exactly what Poynter's interview was, a transmission belt for Rather's lamest hits, including how the press needs a "spine transplant" and his shameless insistence that his phony-documents Texas Air National Guard story is still true. If Poynter cared about the reputation of journalism, why continue to entertain and spread doubt about the falsehood of Rather's most atrocious "scoop"?

The only thing fresh here is Rather's growing socialism, as he insists (just like Bill Moyers) that money is corrupting politics and the government needs to break some alleged media monopoly where only four mega-corporations distribute most of America's news:

So number one is journalists need to get back to their business of being patriotic journalists in a free and democratic country and perform their function as watchdogs, as part of the system of checks and balances. We all know that huge sums of money are corrupting the whole political process, beginning with elections.

For example, the last presidential election in this country, when all was said and done and you put everything together, costs more than $2 billion. That's what was spent through the primaries, through the general election, all told. That money, not all of it came from special interests, but the bulk of it came from special interests -- big pharmaceutical companies, big broadcasting networks, television, radio, electronic, big labor -- and that's a very short list. But you have a more recent example here in Florida where just to win a primary, at least two candidates spend what, more than $50 million or $60 million of their own money. This has reached the serious out-of-whack stage.

So you say how can we improve coverage? Getting serious about where the money comes from, who gives it to whom, for what purpose -- and most of it is given for a purpose. The case can be made -- and I'm here to make it -- that very large, international corporations, conglomerates control the government, and I would include some elements of big labor in that.

The public is not well-served by political coverage as it is today. And I think it has to be noted, and there's no joy in noting this, that in many important ways, very big business is in bed with big government and whoever's in power in Washington, whether it be Republicans or Democrats -- not in the public interest, but in the business interest of the huge corporations and in the staying in power business of those in Washington. And this seriously affects news coverage.

Someone might say, well what is he talking about? Well let me give you an example. As recently as the 1950s, mid-1950s, there were more than 50 news enterprises, which is to say businesses, in the country that could accurately be described as having national distribution or large regional distribution.

Now, there are no more than six, and I would argue only four, very large conglomerate, international corporations who control more than 80 percent of the national distribution of news. This is out of whack. Let me pause and say I've never worked for anybody in the enterprise other than a profit-making enterprise. I believe in the capital system, but as applied to media, we have in no small degree monopolies now.

Now a great Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt did his party great service, and more importantly his country a great service, by breaking up the trust, which is to say the monopolies at the turn of the 20th century.... I'm not a business person, but in the end I think they're not in the best interest of American business. I recognize that one gets criticized very heavily when get into this area, but I'm at the age and stage in my own career where I try to draw from my experience.

I love this country, I want the country to be better for my children and grandchildren as most Americans do. And when and if the public finally get focused on this -- that too few big international companies control too much of the national news distribution -- then I think it may change. But until the public really understands what is happening with this, and understands that it is not a special pleading of journalists such as myself, can we come back to a really vibrant, truly independent, fiercely independent press that is important to the survival of freedom and representing government as we know it.

Rather should really be writing for The Nation or Mother Jones, with this kind of hard-left talk about capitalism despoiling democracy.

Poynter's Tenore is especially embarrassing when asking Rather about the latest Internet trends, where he is clearly not well versed. He claimed "There are very few journalism enterprises on the Internet" and couldn't answer whether he has his own personal Facebook page:  "I don't think so." Shouldn't a journalist who insists his craft is so grievously lacking be a little more up-to-date?

In a list of famous Americans with a parent (or both) born in another country, the un-bylined last page “Back Story” of this week’s Newsweek listed “BARACK OBAMA (Kenyan Father)” on the page headlined: “What’s So Scary About an ‘Anchor Baby’?” The brief text below the headline, and on top of the diaper, made clear the magazine’s attempt to undermine those suggesting citizenship should no longer be automatically conferred on anyone born within the United States:

There’s a movement afoot to alter the 14th amendment, the one that guarantees citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil. Combine this with anti-immigrant policies like Arizona’s and you begin to question the idea of America as a melting pot -- as a nation of mothers and fathers welcomed here to seek better lives. But the country has benefited richly from their sons and daughters (right).

An “anchor baby” is a child born to parents in the U.S. illegally, so is the magazine suggesting that Obama’s father, as well as parents of the 32 others in their list, were all illegal aliens at the time of the births of their famous offspring? Talk about flinging scurrilous allegations and encouraging the “birther” crowd.

Larger jpg image of the page (50 Kb), full size jpg image (1 Mb). I scanned the page and the blotches/darkness within the white areas are from bleed through from the other side of the very thin paper Newsweek uses.

Imagine the reaction of the left and Newsweek if a conservative figure had called Obama an “anchor baby.” They certainly would consider it one more insult to add to the right’s “lies” about Obama.

The “anchor baby” list with Obama appeared in the very same Newsweek, the September 6 issue, featuring a cover story by Jonathan Alter on the “lies” told about Obama:

The outlandish stories about Barack Hussein Obama are simply false: he wasn’t born outside the United States (the tabloid “proof” has been debunked as a crude forgery); he has never been a Muslim (he was raised by an atheist and became a practicing Christian in his 20s); his policies are not “socialist” (he explicitly rejected advice to nationalize the banks and wants the government out of General Motors and Chrysler as quickly as possible); he is not a “warmonger” (he promised in 2008 to withdraw from Iraq and escalate in Afghanistan and has done so); he is neither a coddler of terrorists (he has already ordered the killing of more “high value” Qaeda targets in 18 months than his predecessor did in eight years), nor a coddler of Wall Street (his financial-reform package, while watered down, was the most vigorous since the New Deal), nor an enemy of American business (he and the Chamber of Commerce favor tax credits for small business that were stymied by the GOP to deprive him of a victory). And that’s just the short list of lies.

The 32 on the list (not online) in addition to Obama:

Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Alex Rodriguez, Frank Sinatra, Joan River, Fred Astaire, Dean Martin, Vera Wang, Bobby Jindal, Colin Powell, Olympia Snowe, Frank Zappa, Henry Mancini, Eugene O’Neill, Henry Heinz, Groucho Marx, George Gershwin, Leonard Nimoy, Nikki Haley, Rene Zellweger, John Cassavetes, Ray Bradbury, Michelle Kwan, Spiro Agnew, Joan Baez, Oscar Hijuelos, Ralph Nader, Norah Jones, Larry King, Eric Holder, Benny Goodman and Narcisco Rodriguez.

Spiro Agnew (“Greek Father”)? Not a name you’d think Newsweek would tout.

Earlier, my post on Newsweek’s previous edition: “Newsweek Ranks U.S. the 11th 'Best Country' – Bush’s Fault, But Obama Can Stem the Slide”

Despite unemployment at 9.5 percent and millions of people having lost their jobs since Barack Obama was elected, Chris Matthews just doesn't understand why anyone would miss George W. Bush.

Without naming this week's PPP poll finding Ohioans would vote for Bush over Obama by the tally of 50 to 42 percent if a presidential election was held today, Matthews in the first segment of "Hardball" asked his guests, "Why would you want that back?"

When Time's Michael Scherer tried to explain logically why voters are disappointed with what Obama has done since Inauguration Day, Matthews wasn't having any of it (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Here`s the point. Why are the voters now in these polls -- now, some of the polls are robocall polls. They`re not the most reliable polls. But I`m seeing enough evidence to think there`s something going on. When people say -- independent voters say they`d rather have Bush back --

MICHAEL SCHERER, TIME: That`s right.

MATTHEWS: -- after Iraq and taking this economy -- doubling the national debt, bringing the deficit out of nowhere, when Clinton left it with a big, fat surplus, why would you want that back?

SCHERER: Take --

MATTHEWS: What`s your reporting tell you?

SCHERER: What a lot of these voters are voting for -- these are independent voters. You know, the miracle of Obama in 2008 wasn`t that he got elected, it was that he got elected in a lot of states like Indiana and North Carolina that didn`t go Democrat very often. He did that by grabbing independent voters who were sick of President Bush, who thought the country was going in the wrong direction, and he offered a broad promise of hope and change that hasn`t been delivered. That`s what he`s suffering for.

And I think in a place like Ohio, where you`re talking about that poll, what people are saying is, "Look, you know, we weren`t being treated well with the last guy. We`re not treated being well with this guy. We`ll take whatever we can get."

Exactly. Matthews either forgot or was dishonestly ignoring that this is why the Democrats won in 2006 and 2008: the country was unhappy with Republicans and just wanted to vote "D".

Now, the country is unhappy with the Ds:

DAVID CORN, MOTHER JONES: There has been a message problem out of the White House. When you have polls showing that people don`t believe the stimulus has created jobs or saved jobs and you have Republicans echoing and -- and reemphasizing that particular lie, and it sets in, well, that`s something that actually, I think, is within the realm of control for the White House.

MATTHEWS: There are two choices when you vote, D or R. If the people push R, does your reporting tell that they know they`re voting for more lackadaisical administration, like Katrina, more hawkishness and neo- conservative fighting of wars that are wars of choice, not necessity? Do they know they`re voting for that kind of thing? And they`re voting for a guy who was so sloppy on fiscal policy, refused to veto a single spending bill, that we doubled the national debt? Do they know that that`s what R means when they vote R this November?

SCHERER: When I was in Indiana -- I was in South Bend, Elkhart, Joe Donnelly, very tough reelecting, won with 67 percent --

MATTHEWS: Yes.

SCHERER: -- of the vote --

MATTHEWS: I liked that part.

SCHERER: -- a couple years ago -- he is dealing with voters who were telling me Barack Obama`s not the guy I voted for. I thought he was going to turn the economy around. He didn`t turn the economy around. I didn`t know he was going to do this health care thing. I thought he was going to change Washington (INAUDIBLE) Washington change. That`s what they were voting for. It has nothing to do with the wars, the other --

MATTHEWS: Well, that`s the reelection talk, right.

SCHERER: No, but these are independent voters. These are people -- you know, they`re not high-information voters --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: When Obama was running for reelection or running for election, the economy wasn`t in the tank. It went in the tank during the transition. Doesn`t anybody remember that? It was the last quarter of the Bush administration that everything went to hell.

Once again, it's tough to determine whether Matthews' memory is suffering or he's just dishonest. The recession officially began in December 2007, and the financial crisis started in September 2008 - the THIRD quarter almost two full months BEFORE Election Day:

SCHERER: Obama went to Elkhart, Indiana, in February of 2009, couple weeks after he gets in office, he says, I`m going to pass the stimulus. It`s going to help you. I`m going to keep my promise --

MATTHEWS: Right.

SCHERER: -- to Elkhart. Elkhart`s unemployment now is over 13 percent and it`s been rising again this summer.

MATTHEWS: Because it was rising when he came in.

SCHERER: It was rising --

(CROSSTALK)

CORN: -- probably would be higher now if Obama hadn`t --

(CROSSTALK)

CORN: And you know, this is -- this is the administration`s obligation, and Democrats on the Hill are livid because they don`t think the White House is living up to this obligation of making a stronger case - -

MATTHEWS: There`s so much --

CORN: -- making the case that you just made!

MATTHEWS: Let`s make the points through the numbers. Unemployment when Bush came in was 4.2 percent. When he left office, it was up to 7.6 percent, way up from where he came in. When Bush came into office, we had a $281 billion Clinton-led surplus. When he left, we had a $1.2 trillion deficit. And he doubled the national debt. Those are the facts on the table.

Yes, but unemployment is now at 9.5 percent and likely climbing. There are currently 3.3 million fewer people on non-farm payrolls than in January 2009 making today's labor markets FAR WORSE than they were when Obama took office.

But that's only half the story, for the Democrats have controlled Congress since January 2007. As this is a Congressional election, it is a referendum on what the Party controlling the House and the Senate have done since they took over.

Here, the numbers are even more glaring, as the unemployment rate that month was 4.6 percent. Over 7 million people have lost their jobs since the Democrats took over Congress.

As for fiscal policy, the last budget created by the Republican-controlled Congress had a deficit of $160 billion. This year, with Obama and Democrats controlling everything, we're on pace for close to a $1.6 trillion deficit, or TEN TIMES 2007's shortfall.

But Matthews doesn't want to share those numbers with his viewers: 

MATTHEWS: Let`s go back to the politics again. The voter out there, he can only choose between what he had and what he has. You`re saying he`s going to choose what he had in Elkhart, Indiana.

SCHERER: They`re not voting for Bush in Elkhart. They`re voting -- they`re voting because they`re --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Their memory of what?

SCHERER: No, they`re disappointed with what they have.

Indeed, because no matter how you slice it, in most parts of the country, things are worse today than they were when Obama was inaugurated and FAR WORSE than when the Democrats took over Congress.

But don't expect a shill like Chris Matthews to report that in an election year.

On Thursday's American Morning, CNN's Deborah Feyerick continued her network's promotion of the charge the "Islamophobia" is growing in the U.S. All but one of Feyerick's sound bites during her one-sided report were from those who agree with this charge, with the sole exception being used an example of someone using "Islam...[as] a political wedge issue."

Anchor Kiran Chetry and substitute anchor Ali Velshi introduced the correspondent's report just before the bottom of the 7 am Eastern hour. Chetry stated that "attempted terror attacks aimed at the U.S. have come mostly from Muslim extremists born outside of America" and then claimed that "America's Muslim community though has been quick to warn law enforcement about these potential threats." Velshi added that "the question is, why does it appear that more and more that all Muslims are being portrayed as potential terrorists or as targets of hate."

Feyerick began by citing unnamed "experts will tell you that there's a great deal of misunderstanding when it comes to what Islam is all about. Add on politicians spreading rumors that Sharia law- Islamic law- is coming to the United States simply because a group of Americans wants to build a mosque. It's time to ask, what's really going on?" She then noted that the "Islamic center and mosque to be built near Ground Zero is not the only mosque drawing fire. About a dozen others across the country are also under attack, from angry protests and suspected arson in Murfreesboro, Tennessee to Temecula, California. American mosques, in some cases, [are] being portrayed as monuments to terror or terror training centers."

The CNN correspondent continued with a series of sound bites from those who allege a growing and threatening "Islamophobia," and singled out conservatives for apparently persecuting Muslims:

FEYERICK: Conservatively, figures show an estimated five million Muslims in America, and intensifying hostility and rise in hate speech is alarming to many, like these clerics who we met at a recent Islamic summit in Houston.

YASIR QADHI, ALMAGHRIB INSTITUTE: You would never hear any mainstream commentator say, do you think another Christian sect could open up a mosque? Do you think Jews should be allowed to open their synagogues anywhere they want? We have mainstream news presenters just asking the question bluntly, do you think Muslims should open- should be allowed to open mosques anywhere they want?

WISAM SHARIEFF, BAYYINAH INSTITUTE: What changed the game? Nineteen people changed the game? How did that happen? Because we've been your doctor, we've been your x-ray tech, your accountant. We've been serving you slushies for a long time. (unidentified man off-camera laughs) So, what tipped the scales?

FEYERICK: Wisam Sharieff, Yasir Qadhi, and other prominent American clerics say American Muslims are under siege, both by Islamic extremists and some U.S. conservatives.

QADHI: You have radical Islamic clerics, right, preaching from abroad, saying you cannot be an American and a Muslim at the same time. Well, low and behold, on the far right, you have quite a number of famous, prominent Islamophobes who are saying the exact same message.

FEYERICK: The Ground Zero mosque, as some call it, has whipped up national debate, fueled, in part, by misinformation and fear-mongering. Yet, anti-Muslim feelings had been simmering.

Feyerick's example of a "famous prominent Islamophobe," to use Mr. Qadhi's term, was none other than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Before playing her sound bite of Gingrich, she used her "wedge issue" label, and afterwards, went on to cite other unnamed "experts" and highlight an apparent "hate crime" against a Muslim:

FEYERICK: Islam has become a political wedge issue with politicians like Newt Gingrich comparing Muslims to Nazis.

NEWT GINGRICH: You know, Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. There's no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center.

FEYERICK: In fact, a Duke University study finds, rather than fuel terrorism in America, contemporary mosques prevent it. National security experts and American Muslims, like Saraj Mohammed, fear there's a lot at stake.

SARAJ MOHAMMED: The more they speak and the more they incite people, they themselves are a concern to be dealt with and they have to be told, you have to stop this rhetoric. It's hurting American security.

FEYERICK (on-camera): Right. Because it's creating hatred?

MOHAMMED: Yes, it's creating a lot of hatred.

FEYERICK: The latest 2008 FBI statistics on hate crimes against Muslims don't reflect what's going on now. But experts believe the spike that happened after 9/11 could repeat itself.

FEYRICK (voice-over): In New York recently, a cab driver was stabbed after his attacker allegedly asked if he was Muslim.

QADHI: Slowly but surely, we will counter this Islamophobia. Everybody had it. The Irish had it. The Catholics had it. The Italians had it. Now, it's just time for the Muslims.

FEYERICK: ("Allah ackbar" being chanted in an unidentified location) How long it will take to counter is anyone's guess.

At the end of the segment, the CNN correspondent, along with Chetry and Velshi, forwarded the claim that the Islamic cleric behind the Ground Zero mosque, Imam Faisal Rauf, was a "moderate" and bewailed what might happen if other "mainstream" Muslims were rejected by Americans:

FEYERICK (live): Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, the one who is at the head of the so-called Ground Zero mosque, will return to New York City sometime today. He's been serving as an emissary for the U.S. State Department, reaching out to leaders in the Middle East, acting as a bridge between the U.S. and Muslim countries. He says, just as American Catholics were crucial in pushing reform in Vatican II, so will American Muslims be indispensable in bridging the chasm between America and the world's 1.2 billion Muslims. So, there's a real danger that alienating or marginalizing Western moderate mainstream thinkers is going to be a problem, simply because of religion.

VELSHI: It's a big issue. I know Imam Faisal, as you do- you'd be hard pressed to ever be able to describe him as radical, or a radical thinker. He believes he's building a bridge between different faiths, but when this label is applied, it gets applied and it sticks.

FEYERICK: Well, absolutely- and you have people simply asking questions with no fundamental proof as to what they're saying. It's one thing to say, let's find out where the money is coming from. Well, I can say that. But it doesn't mean-

VELSHI: Right-

FEYERICK: That it's coming from somewhere insidious. But that's what the allegation- that's what the insinuation is. So there's a real, sort of-

VELSHI: That's right. It's buried in the insinuation.

FEYERICK: Yeah.

CHETRY: And I know that you're hoping to get chance to sit down and talk to him one-on-one, correct?

FEYERICK: Absolutely. We spoke to the developer, who couldn't have been more honest about what this is about, and we're hoping to get a chance to speak to him as well.

CHETRY: Good stuff.

VELSHI: Thanks for your great coverage on this. Thanks, Deb.

Exactly a week earlier, on August 26, Feyerick joined the mainstream media's guessing game over the aforementioned stabbing of the Muslim taxicab driver, advancing the hypothesis that it may have been "connected to this big Ground Zero controversy, where we're hearing so much anti-Muslim sentiment." Who would have thought that a mere six weeks or so earlier, the correspondent actually played hardball with the real estate developer behind the New York City mosque, Sharif el-Gamel.

The news out of Government/General Motors during the past couple of days hasn't been particularly good.

First, August sales results were disappointing. Second, it become known today that GM will attempt to go public on November 18, a later than originally hoped post-election date chosen to hopefully allow for another reported quarterly profit to boost investors' appetite for its shares.

As so often has been the case during Democratic administrations when unfavorable developments arise, the UK press has seen potential problems with the IPO, while the Associated Press has been acting as if all is well.

In two separate items, AP reporters couldn't even bring themselves to tell readers what the company's real August sales decline was.

In a report yesterday on the industry's awful August, reporters Dee-Ann Durbin and Tom Krisher were appropriately gloomy overall, but they massaged GM's reported result (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Americans nervous about the drumbeat of bad economic news stayed away from auto showrooms. Automakers nervous about their bottom lines didn't offer deals to lure them in.

As a result, it was the worst August for U.S. auto sales since 1983, when the country was at the end of a double-dip recession. General Motors, Toyota, Honda and Ford all reported declines from the month before and from a year earlier.

The bleak results were a reminder that, for all the good news about the turnaround of the Detroit automakers, the market for cars and trucks in the United States remains frail. Initial data showed sales came in at about 997,000, down 5 percent from July, according to AutoData Corp.

"Coming in below a million units is eye-opening for August," said Paul Ballew, a former chief economist for GM. "I never thought I'd see that. That's a tepid month for August, which is supposed to be one of the top months of the year."

... "We know it's going to be a modest recovery. It's going to be bumpy," said Don Johnson, GM's vice president of U.S. sales. "What we don't want to do is get back to putting incentives in the marketplace to keep the plants running."

... Overall, sales at Ford were down 5 percent from July and 11 percent from last August. At GM, sales of its four remaining brands were down 7 percent from a month ago and 11 percent from a year ago.

For the year so far, sales are up 5 percent at GM, which is preparing for an initial public offering of its stock that could come as early as next month.

We learned today that the "next month" part concerning the IPO isn't going to happen. In her report today, Durbin's massage was more thorough:

Analyst: GM plans to sell shares on Nov. 18

General Motors plans to start trading shares again on Nov. 18, timing that allows the company one more quarter of earnings to build its case to investors, a firm that researches initial public offerings said Thursday.

Scott Sweet, the managing partner of IPO Boutique, said GM plans to price the shares on Nov. 17 and begin selling them the next day. He said the automaker wants to start a two-week a road show to drum up investor interest on Nov. 3, the day after the midterm congressional elections.

It's unclear if the IPO dates have been finalized. Two people with knowledge of the process say the automaker's board hasn't approved a date for the IPO but is expected to meet next week to discuss the issue. GM is in a "quiet period" before an IPO, so no one is authorized to discuss the process publicly.

... Sweet said his information comes from multiple people on Wall Street but declined to name them. He says the company hasn't yet established a price for the shares, but hopes to raise $15 to $20 billion with the initial public offering.

The timing could disappoint some Democrats who supported the government's $50 billion bailout of GM last year and wanted to point to a successful IPO before the elections.

... But one more quarter of earnings could help the automaker establish that it is healthy and capable of making sustained profits. GM earned $2.2 billion in the first half of 2010 despite depressed U.S. auto sales, but it lost $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter of last year.

GM also hopes the U.S. auto market sees some modest improvement this fall. On Wednesday it said its U.S. sales fell 5 percent from July and 11 percent from last August, when they were boosted by the Cash for Clunkers program.

The fact is, as seen in this Wall Street Journal compilation, that GM's August 2010 sales were 24.5% lower than August 2009. For Dee-Ann Durbin's and Tom Krisher's benefit, that's the result you get when you go to the WSJ link and compare the 185,105 vehicles sold in August 2010 to the 245,066 sold in 2009, and divide the difference (59,961) by 245,066. Yes, according to the company, sales of the company's four remaining brands were down "only" 11% from a year ago. But it's your job to report the full story, not merely to parrot the company's press release.

The folks at the Financial Times understand that, and also see how a company reporting declining sales in its largest market might encounter a bit of difficulty foisting its shares on the investing public. Reporter Bernard Simon also managed to find space for the actual year-over-year sales decline in yesterday's coverage (link requires free registration):

GM Sales Dip Casts Shadow Over IPO

General Motors’ sales in its core US market sagged in August, potentially complicating its bid to drum up investor support for its forthcoming public share issue.

Sales were a quarter lower than in August 2009, when demand was bolstered by the Obama administration’s cash-for-clunkers scrappage incentives. GM has also eliminated four brands since then.

More worrying, however, was a 7.2 per cent decline from July. Low-margin sales to car rental operators and other fleet owners climbed to 28 per cent of the total, from 25 per cent in July. “August was definitely what we call ‘one of those months’,” said Don Johnson, GM’s head of US sales operations.

Mr Johnson said that consumers remained cautious amid an unexpectedly slow revival in employment. In the longer term, however, he forecast that there was “pent-up demand building” that would “eventually be released when the economy gets a firmer footing”.

... GM filed a bulky draft prospectus for an initial public offering with US and Canadian regulators last month. The US and Canadian governments hold 72 per cent of GM’s equity.

The document warns that in spite of a pick-up in demand since late last year, “many of the economic and market conditions that drove the [earlier] drop in vehicle sales, including declines in real estate and equity values, increases in unemployment, tightened credit markets, depressed consumer confidence and weak housing markets, continue to impact sales”.

If the recent revival falters, the prospectus warns, “our results of operations and financial condition will be materially adversely affected”.

It's hard to fault Mr. Johnson for his optimism, but if he thinks the revival in employment has been "unexpectedly slow," he's been reading too many happy-talk missives from Team Obama.

Durbin at the AP and an unbylined Reuters article both report that GM will conduct its IPO "road show" during the two weeks after the November elections. Reuters says that "The final value of the IPO has not been set but one source said early plans for the IPO envisioned selling $12 billion to $16 billion in common stock and $3 billion to $4 billion in preferred stock that would convert to common stock under a mandatory provision." That's $15-$20 billion of the $50 billion (really more) the government "invested" in return for a 61% stake during the company's emergence from bankruptcy. Even if the IPO flies, it will still be Government Motors.

Both Reuters and the New York Times correctly noted GMs 25% year-over-year August sale decline. Since AP couldn't bring itself to do so, the graphic at the top right of this post, which may have seemed a bit over-the-top when it appeared a few weeks ago, is more appropriate than ever.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

A recurring rubric at James Taranto's Best of the Web Today column at the Wall Street Journal online is "We Blame George W. Bush," for tongue-in-cheek blaming of the former prez for things palpably beyond his purview. Let's add another item to the list.  Dem senator Russ Feingold has blamed his tough re-election race on, yes, W.

Let's think about that. If Bush were such a bad president.  If his policies were so disastrous for the country. Wouldn't that boost the chances of an incumbent Dem senator who, like Feingold, had voted against Bush policies every step of the way?

Hey, I don't try to understand Dem reasoning: I just report it.  Feingold made his logic-defying allegation on this evening's Ed Show.

ED SCHULTZ: Even the progressive Russ Feingold is in a real tough fight for his seat in Wisconsin.  Senator Feingold is a progressive—as progressive as you can get—he voted against the Iraq war, he voted against the Patriot Act, he voted against the Wall Street bailouts; all very strong progressive positions. But somehow we've gotten to the point where the less a candidate knows about Washington it seems the better off they are, and now Feingold, a guy who has always fought the good liberal fight is up against a candidate who is trying to buy the election so he can go to Washington and extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

Senator Russ Feingold joins us tonight, here on the Ed Show. Senator, good to have you with us tonight.  You know, you have been one of the most hard-working guys out there.  You do over 70 town hall meetings a year.  What are you hearing in Wisconsin? And why are you polling below 50%?

RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, this is a year of challenges because of the mess that was left us from the Bush years.

Wait a second, Russ! If Bush were so awful, and you fought Bush every step of the way as Ed documented, wouldn't that make you a winner in Wisconsin?  Could it possibly be that, now under Obama and a Dem congress, W [to quote those old Cross Your Heart commercials] is looking "suddenly shaplier"?