This is not politics as usual. And I never used to be into conspiracy theories. I used to be accused of being too trusting, in fact. No more. I think there is, if not a corporate conspiracy, then a bunch of corporations who not surprisingly don't want to see themselves exposed by a Democratic administration, don't want to see themselves restricted to ethical behavior. I would point to some of CNN's coverage of the election, in particular a story last night in which the reporter and his researcher (or whatever) surveyed a small Tennessee town and reported that virtually all the people in the town at best doubted that Obama was a Christian and pointed grimly to his name, "not a good Anglo-Saxon name" repeatedly. The reporter gleefully said that this mistrust would have shown up in any small town they'd picked to survey when asked by Wolf Blitzer if that town was special. The reporter's grinning triumphantly was bizarre, to say the least. And of course, even if it wasn't endorsing the idea that Obama wasn't Christian it sure was repeating it over and over and over.
Next. John McCain has no soul. His hammering at Democratic refusal to drill for oil offshore is the worst sort of playing to ignorance you can imagine. Here is a link to a column today by Paul Krugman which details his crime.