I'll admit I rarely read Mickey Kaus these days, as he has grown to seem more and more reactionary to me in the past 2 years. Nevertheless, this bit about the Calif. recall election, which gets a mention by Eric Alterman, is worthy of note. I think Kaus gets it exactly right when he says:

"The Los Angeles Times' "grope" story is a feather in its cap, in my book, even if it was late. But it doesn't make up for months of generally ponderous, embarrassingly biased and almost willfully misinformed recall coverage."

It's about 630pm in California as I write this, and I suspect Schwartzenegger will win, I'll guess with around 35-36% of the vote, with Bustamante some 6-8 points behind. And the supposedly liberal national media will be crowing about how 35 percent is a "mandate," and talking about how Arnold "rose above" the so-called trash politics of the opposition trying to label him a groper. Forgive me if I'm revolted ahead of time, but I've had a long day.