NOT THE DARK-SKINNED ENEMY YOU'D EXPECT

At the Drudge Report, the health care summit is so eighteen hours ago, relegated to the tiny little headlines above the big banner:



Evil Negroes! That's Drudge's lede.

Paterson's in trouble for reportedly helping to cover up a top aide's girlfriend-battering. Rangel's in trouble for lining his own pocket. But, you know, all those people's scandals look alike, right?

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Elsewhere, I find it interesting that President Obama's performance was called "arrogant" by Murdoch-wannabe journalists (Mark Halperin, the editorial board of the Boston Herald) but not, as far as I can tell, in the Murdoch press itself. I generally assume Murdoch and his minions are wily bastards, grandmasters at media manipulation -- so I'm guessing they think there's no percentage in calling the president uppi--, er, arrogant. Even Murdoch's own Fox News poll says:

By a 50 to 40 percent margin, more voters think the health care summit is a "sincere effort" on the president's part to work out a compromise than think it is "just for show."

And even though the poll says more people (50%) want nothing done on a health care bill than want one passed (46%), that's an improvement for Obama and the Dems:

The new results show an increase in support for health care reform, up five percentage points since December, when 41 percent wanted lawmakers to pass reform legislation. At that time a 54 percent majority wanted Congress to do nothing.

So, on optics, maybe Obama's doing something right, and perhaps even Murdoch is treading lightly, at least with regard to personal attacks. (The Fox News site headlines fears of the misnamed "nuclear" option rather than fear of Obama, while Fox Nation frames Obama with Pelosi and Reid and says they "Lose Summit on Substance." The Wall Street Journal online front page barely mentions the summit at all.)

And I guess Drudge just figures any black person in the wingnut dunk-the-clown chair that is his front page is just as good as another.