The crappiest piece of journalism I’ve seen all day, here:

Hip-Hop-Dancing Colin Powell Fuels Speculation He’ll Endorse Obama

Colin Powell has his dancing shoes on, fueling speculation that he’s gearing up to do the Obama Two-Step.

The normally staid former U.S. secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff performed an impromptu hip-hop dance alongside well-known rap stars Tuesday following a speech at a festival in London celebrating African-American music and fashion.

Click here to see photos.

His address at the “Africa Rising” celebration inside London’s Royal Albert Hall fueled speculation that an endorsement of Barack Obama is imminent.

Powell — who has yet to back a candidate — told the audience: “I stand before you as an African-American. Many people have said to me you became secretary of state of the USA, is it still necessary to say that you are an African American or that you are black? And I say yes, so that we can remind our children.”

“It took a lot of people struggling to bring me to this point in history,” Powell told the audience. “I didn’t just drop out of the sky. People came from my continent in chains.”

Powell has said in the past that he has been hesitant to make an endorsement until he hears more from both candidates.

Political pundits have speculated that his endorsement might come shortly after Wednesday night’s presidential debate at Hofstra University, during which both Obama and John McCain will square off on domestic issues.

Many political analysts — including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Novak and William Kristol — have predicted that Powell, who was secretary of state under President Bush, will back the Democrat in the race.

After Powell’s address to the audience, he took center stage — dressed in a suit and tie — to show off his hip-hop dance moves.

WHAT?

So now “Faux” News is speculating that Colin Powell is going to endorse Barack Obama - and they’ve concluded this based on their observance that Gen. Powell danced hip-hop style and exhibited pride about his African-American heritage at….gasp….a festival celebrating the talents and achievements of the African continent (which Fox misidentified as an African-American festival, which is a small but significant detail).

Are you fricking kidding me?

People have been discussing this for a long time, and it doesn’t seem like a stretch that Gen. Powell would endorse Obama, but to extrapolate like this is insulting. The only “real” analysis in the entire article comes from the paragraph where the author points out that pundits have predicted the Powell endorsement. The rest is just crap, adding nothing to the story, and the author should be ashamed of himself (herself?) for making the leap in logic, especially over such ridiculous “hints”. That’s not real journalism.

And what’s more: if I were General Powell, I would be insulted that anyone thought my African-American heritage and pride was the only thing that informed my decision about the election.

I also have to wonder: is Fox News up to something? Do they, perhaps, have information contrary to what they’ve posted here? So they can express their “shock” when Colin Powell endorses McCain over the first African-American candidate? Or maybe, they’re using this article to fuel the fire so that when Powell does endorse Obama all the right-wingers can dismiss it as just one black guy voting for another, rather than a highly educated and experienced public figure endorsing who he thinks is the best candidate? (I also have to wonder: where did my idealism go? I wasn’t nearly this cynical before this election cycle.)

Update: this article from Lawrence O’Donnell isn’t much better. No sources, no real analysis. But it does make me wonder whether news of a Powell endorsement has been leaked, so these folks are trying to get out ahead of the story.

Paul to McCain: not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin.

From the AP/Yahoo News:

At a news conference Wednesday, Paul said he received a surprise call from McCain’s campaign on Tuesday asking for his endorsement. Paul turned them down.

Paul said: “The idea was that he would do less harm than the other candidate.”

Who did they think they were kidding?  The whole idea behind a Paul candidacy is to get America away from the failed policies of both parties. Paul would lose his entire supporter base endorsing a candidate like McCain, with whom he violently disagrees.

It’s clear that both camps are worried about a razor thin margin come November, and the McCain camp - reasonably enough - at least had to try to pull in the enthusiastic Paul supporters in the hopes they’d opt for McCain over Bob Barr in November. It’s just funny to imagine that they’d think it would work.