Things that make you go, Hmmm...

So Drudge got me to click on the story "VIOLATION? Chelsea Clinton at Polling Place in CT...", mostly because I wanted to see if indeed she was pulling an Ann Coulter and trying to vote in the wrong precinct or something.

Turns out she was wasn't voting in the wrong place, just delivering coffee to election workers in New Haven. (The rules, of course, being no candidate or candidate's representative is allowed to campaign within 75 feet of any polling place on voting day. The story points out Chelsea left promptly when the polls opened, and the head election judge said she wasn't doing any campaigning anyway or disrupting anything as the polls hadn't even opened yet.) Misleading headlines are fairplay in this New Journalism, of course, the more misleading, the more likely one is going to click on the story to find out the real scoop.

But riddle me this...
Also on his current page is this story, Oprah to Rescue: Talk Queen Resolves Voting Glitch...

Now I had to click on that one, because the headline left me with the quick impression that Oprah was on her hands and knees, fixing a Diebold or something, akin to pulling the jammed paper out of the office photocopier. Turns out, no -- that's not it at all. From the story:

It wasn't quite a "hanging chad" moment, but Oprah Winfrey stepped in early today to resolve one of the first voting glitches of Super Tuesday.

When Rachel Waymire got to her Chicago precinct this morning to vote, she was told that she wouldn't be able vote because only one of five election judges was present.

When Winfrey, who happened to be at the next-door precinct, heard about the problem, the talk show queen and Barack Obama supporter told Waymire she would stay with her until she was allowed to cast her ballot.

"She just kind of stood there and then as soon as I got to vote she left and she said, 'I'll call you later to make sure that you voted.' And probably about an hour later I was sitting at my desk and she called my cell phone," Waymire told WLS, adding that she voted for Obama.

Now I guess it all depends on what "the next-door precinct" is, but I'm left with the impression that Oprah wasn't in the next voting booth, but actually came over and stayed with this woman, reassuring her she'd have the right to vote once the necessary election judges were assembled. Why, the talk-show queen even called to follow up, and made sure the woman indeed cast her vote. For Obama, of course...

Now at this point in the game, surely Oprah can be considered a "candidate's representative" for all the hoopla she's been participating in, just as Chelsea presumably is the same, based on her recent input and the last name alone. No?

So what am I missing? Isn't what Oprah did considered "soft campaigning" and well within that 75-foot boundary whose intention is to keep campaigns from influencing voters so close to the polls? Or does she get a free pass because she's Oprah, after all, "To the Rescue" and all that trademark schpiel?

Of course nobody said this New Journalism stuff is unbiased, and clearly Drudge is pulling for Obama and detests Hillary (and that's two LL's for all the Hill' hatahs out there :-) C'mon, surely you can spell the name right after all these years? Basic Respect, mon!) But really, how dumb do they think people really are -- "Violation?" vs. "Fixes Voting Glitch".

This is the kind of inconsistency based on who you are, that some of us out here really fear don't want to see happen in all this "Change" talk. Know what I mean? And can you really blame us? We're not all rich liberals afterall, who presumably will remain unscathed and unaffected by the uber-liberal policies and their pricetags, and the basic military disrespect...