Helen Thomas press pals condone racism? Heaven forbid "esteemed" press corps represent society's enlightened elite; Rest of us choose truth.

"Enlightened elite" would seem to be sarcasm--Palin does not actually think the "elite" is "enlightened"--but so would "Heaven forbid," suggesting that she thinks the press corps actually should represent this non-enlightened elite. I honestly can't puzzle out her intended message.

As for Thomas' statement itself, the message was all too clear: It was a call for ethnic cleansing, and she was right to apologize for it. It's a sad way to end an admirable career. I would note, though, along with Glenn Greenwald, that the acceptability of calls for ethnic cleansing in the U.S. corporate media depends on which ethnicity is to be cleansed.

Corley is discouraged to see that, "for instance, 45 percent believe the false claim that legislation includes 'death panels' while 55 percent believe the false claim that coverage will be extended to illegal immigrants"--and an MSNBC passage says that, in particular,

self-identified viewers of Fox News are disproportionately misinformed":

In our poll, 72 percent of self-identified Fox News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79 percent of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69 percent think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75 percent believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly....

As ThinkProgress has pointed out, Fox News regularly distorts the truth about health care reform.

In fact, just "last week, Media Matters found that over a two day period opponents of health care reform outnumbered supporters by a 6-to-1 margin on Fox." Hear a strong corrective to all this deceit on FAIR's radio show CounterSpin: "Trudy Lieberman on Health Care Reform" (8/14/09).

Cramer claimed that Americans aren't buying into healthcare reform right now because "it just means tax increases, and there's got to be someone who pays for it." According to Cramer, the solution that "everybody" wants is for Obama to "go away": "But until we get the economy moving again, I think everybody wishes that Obama would just kind of go away for a little bit."

If Cramer looked closer at the poll, it also shows that 57 percent of the American public approve of what Obama is doing on the economy overall. Of course, Cramer is someone who claimed that Obama's policies have resulted in “the most, greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president” and is known for his irresponsible financial cheerleading (e.g., “Bear Stearns is not in trouble“).

Terkel has to wonder if, in actuality, "maybe it's not Obama who Americans want to 'just kind of go away for a little bit.'”

If you raise taxes on "people making over $250,000," that means an increase only in the 250,001st dollar and onward. It's not, in other words, as if a guy earning $249,999 and a guy earning $250,001 will be paying radically different amounts of taxes. In other words, though if you're earning $5 million a year, Obama's plan really will saddle you with a big tax increase, a person who's earning $260,000 and feels that he's facing a basically middle-class economic situation is only going to be facing a very small tax increase. And however much our $260,000 a year guy may feel not so rich, surely he can agree that $260,000 is a lot more than $130,000 or $65,000 so it's hardly absurd that he might pay a slightly higher rate.

After writing that, "even if you grant the premise of the story there's no actual problem here," Yglesias goes on to suggest ideas no career-minded corporate reporter would dare print:

That said, I wouldn't have a problem with launching a new, slightly higher rate, starting at $500,000 and a higher one starting at $1 million and another at $2 million another at $4 million another at $8 million and another at $16 million. I don’t see any reason to think that the progressivity of the scale should max out at $250,000 when obviously there's a huge difference between someone earning that much money and someone earning 10 times that amount.

While big media generally are terrified at the thought of such policies, a Gallup poll from this April 6-9 has 60 percent of respondents considering that "upper-income people" are "paying too little" federal taxes. (Fully 67 percent said the same of "Corporations.")

For more on corporate media having difficulty with the concept of marginal tax rates, see FAIR Action Alert: "CBS Cheats on Tax Coverage" (9/22/08).