From soaring gas prices to Obama's adjusted skin tone, media critic Charles Kaiser rounds up this week's best and worst stories

Lone Post Calls Out Black Barack Attack

Winner: When the Daily Kos broke the story that the Clinton campaign had made Barack Obama's face several shades darker in its "who would you trust when the red phone rings at 3 a.m." commercial, all of the mainstream media ignored the story—except for the New York Post.

If you compare Obama's skin tone in the commercial (as it appears here in a clip from the debate from which this sound bite is taken), it looks just like the notorious Time magazine cover that blackened O.J. Simpson's face. Clinton spokesman Jay Carson told the Post that the idea that Obama's skin was deliberately darkened was "totally bogus."

"Coloration in every single screen shot looks different," said Carson.

However, Post reporter Bill Sanderson pointed out that Carson had previously told Fox News that Obama's face "was darkened as part of a 'saturation-desaturation' process commonly used in TV commercial production. Saturation refers to the amount of color in a picture, and it can be adjusted with common photo- or video-editing software."

Carson told the Daily Kos that he had spoken with the campaign's chief ad maker, Mandy Grunwald, "who said emphatically the ad on Daily Kos 'was not their ad.' We don't know what is up there, but it is not our ad."

Then the Daily Kos pointed out that the ad it had posted was identical to the version here on hillaryclinton.com.

At America Blog, John Aravosis also provided a particularly convincing comparison between the Clinton image of Obama and three clips of the debate from which it was taken. This means that the Clinton campaign has so far lied at least twice about this very old-fashioned dirty trick.

Reporters at the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times told me Thursday that they were now looking into this. The political editor of the Washington Post and its chief political reporter did not respond to phone messages and voice mails requesting comment.

Winners: 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley and producer Henry Schuster for a devastating piece about Remote Area Medical, a group of volunteer doctors and nurses that was formed to provide free health care in the Amazon and the rest of the developing world—and now finds the largest need for its services in the richest country in the world: our own.



Winner: The Los Angeles Times, for its report on motorists' reactions to George Bush's deeply informed reaction to a reporter's question about where the price of gas is headed: "Wait, what did you just say?" Bush asked. "You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." Motorists at the pumps were alternately shocked and offended that the president was so out of touch.

Winners: Scientists who told the New York Times one way out when gas hits $5 a gallon: a procedure based on established theory that could make it possible to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and use them to make gasoline. But it will only be economical after gas hits $4.60 a gallon. Everyone from Harper's to the Times of London agrees that gas and fuel prices are going in that direction.

Winner: Geraldine Baum, for an article in the Los Angeles Times about a new museum exhibit about sex aimed at nine- to 14-year-olds, which features a "love-o-meter" that measures the strength of romantic feelings and a pinball machine with tiny balls in the shape of sperm that race for eggs.

Winner: The always sophisticated and entertaining Antonio Vargas for his piece in the Washington Post about why so many gay people in Texas are "Out for Hillary"—because she's "the Grace Adler to their Will Truman."

Torture Watch

Sinner: British political leaders, accused in the Times of London of knowing about American torture in Afghanistan and Iraq. A former SAS soldier charged that "the British secret service had been operating in a covert joint squad with the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 and that UK operatives knew detainees were being tortured by the Americans." The UK Foreign Office did not deny the allegations.

Winner: The New York Times, for another fine editorial denouncing Bush's plans to veto a bill that would not allow CIA agents to continue to waterboard, force sexual acts, bind the eyes with duct tape, beat, shock, terrorize with dogs, induce hypothermia, mock execute, or deprive prisoners of necessary medical care, among other things.

(combined box scores, February 24 & March 2, 2008)

	Meet the Press (NBC–Russert)	Face the Nation (CBS–Schieffer)	This Week (ABC–Stephanopoulos)
White Men	16	8	20
White Women	5	5	3
Black Men	3	0	2
Black Women	1	0	3
Gay People	0	0	1

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Charles Kaiser is the author of The Gay Metropolis and 1968 in America. He has been media editor for Newsweek, a member of the metro staff of the New York Times, and a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he covered the press and book publishing. He has also written for Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times, New York, The Washington Post, The New York Observer, Rolling Stone, Details, Interview, The Advocate, Vogue, and Salon. He has taught journalism at Columbia and Princeton. To find out more, visit charleskaiser.com

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