This series typifies the MSM's eagerness to revel in analyzing our political process as if it were a horse race.

Yet in truth, coverage such as this is even more perniciousness than that. Not only has the MSM chosen to report almost exclusively on trivial campaign trail issues and missteps, they go the extra mile and attempt to tell us what these missteps "mean" or what "voters are likely to think" about them. Indeed, well-paid media pundits were manufacturing outrage over Obama's "bitter" comment long before any polling was available to suggest voters knew or cared about it.

Thus, even in a feature ostensibly dedicated to pillorying Hillary Clinton, we are treated to a helpful explainer on the recent Obama "controversy" because that helps us understand why Clinton's little cartoon ship is rising out of the cartoon ocean.

Media coverage like this treats American voters like infants. Bush admitted last Friday that he approved meetings of his top advisors on "extreme interrogation measures." Shouldn't that merit the unbridled focus of the press for, oh, at least the next several weeks. Instead, today on Slate we are treated to a parade of stories on a petty manufactured controversy - a controversy that, suprisingly enough, attempts to paint the Democratic frontrunner as an "out of touch elitist" for the third time in as many presidential elections.