Newsweek lies

Our once-respected national newsmagazines are nothing more than propaganda journals. I can't remember the last time I bought one, although I was browsing through the latest Newsweek to read the profiles of Barack Obama's advisors.

Read the last last few lines of the David Axelrod blurb.

Axelrod's soft-spoken manner and slightly disheveled appearance—stand clear when he's digging into a bowl of chips and guacamole—can make him seem a bit like a bumbling history professor. But within the campaign's inner circle, no one's voice matters more. "He understands Barack's voice and the kind of campaign Barack wants to run," says campaign manager David Plouffe. The campaign's big-think architect, Axelrod recruited the pollsters and ad makers, and watches over their work, reviewing ads, shaping strategy, editing speeches and crafting the overall "message." Born and raised in New York City, he moved to Chicago as a student and was a political reporter and columnist for the Chicago Tribune. In the mid-'80s he got into politics himself, working to elect Democrats nationwide. Now he is the dominant political consultant in Chicago, where he and Obama became close friends. In 2004, Axelrod passed on wealthier and better-known candidates and signed on with the long-shot senator. The relationship calls to mind George W. Bush and his top adviser. Even so, aides say Axelrod is no Karl Rove. Both are serious strategists steeped in history and policy. But unlike "Bush's brain," they say, Obama's cerebral alter ego sees politics as a contest of ideals, not a contact sport.

Are you kidding me? David Axelrod is known in Chicago for playing rough in campaigns. Anybody remember Al Hofeld? Idealist? He just did work for the antithesis of idealism--Rahm Emanuel. I could go on about Axelrod's past but that's not the point.

This is an obvious attempt to make Axelrod's political work look noble compared to Rove's because of the magazine's ideological bias. Axelrod is a top level advisor/strategist who made it there by playing rough when he needed to. The same can be said of Rove, but there's not a top strategist in recent American history who possesses his combination of political, historical and policy knowledge.

Yet Newsweek tries to make Rove sound like the pure hatchet-man instead of Axelrod, when the opposite is closer to the truth. Shamefully false. Pure propaganda.

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