Yesterday, in his comment to my post on Disgruntled, Divided Democrats, American Elephant wrote:
the media is going to cover [Obama’s liberal voting record and inexperience] up . . . while attacking McCain, and distorting his record. That means all Americans will see of Obama is an attractive, personable candidate with a deep, resonating speaking voice and a lot of money for slick commercials.
Soon after I read those words, I chanced upon an article on Drudge proving that very point. The very title, “Obama accuses McCain of ‘losing his bearings’” echoed the Obama campaign’s critique of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee “for repeatedly suggesting the Islamic terrorist group Hamas preferred Obama for president.”
Suggesting? A spokesman for the terrorist group actually said that. That’s not suggesting that’s telling things as they are.
Reflecting the MSM spin on McCain’s alleged problem with his temper, “reporter” Libby Quaid contended the Obama campaign’s accusation “brought an angry response from McCain’s campaign” (emphasis added). And how was the response angry? Or is anyone angry by definition who dares criticize the statement of the great Obama and his acolytes? Or is merely angry because John McCain is supposed to be a very angry man?
Seems she was just adding this adjective to reinforce an image the media is trying to manufacture about the Republican contender. Note how New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus uses the word “hair-trigger” to define the Senator’s temper as if it’s a matter of long-established fact, not opinion. All stemming form yet another front-page article in the Times or Washington Post trying to bring down John McCain’s high favorables.
It’s not just the Times and the Post. Contending that the GOP “has been successfully scaring voters since 1968,” Newsweek reporters Richard Wolffe and Evan Thomas contend “the GOP will try to paint Obama as ‘the other’—as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters.”
Once again as the McCain campaign’s Mark Salter informs us, an organ of the MSM has “embraced the primary communications strategy [of] the Obama campaign.” (At least Newsweek‘s editors didn’t call this letter angry.) (Via the Weekly Standard‘s Michael Goldfarb.)
Note that one of the authors of this hit piece is Evan Thomas who once said media bias would give Kerry a 15-point bump in the 2004 matchup with George W. Bush. Looks like he’s doing his part to make sure they give a similar advantage to this year’s Democratic nominee.
Re: Angry. Since Salter wrote the response (and if you don’t think it’s at least angry, I’d hate to see what you call rage) and not McCain, how is the evil MSM calling McCain angry? The article clearly states that the response came from the campaign, not McCain himself. What’s the problem?
Although I see in your comment lower about Salter’s other letter that maybe you know Salter wrote the first response. So were you just trying to hint that the media drew a link between the “angry” descriptor of the campaign response and McCain in an attempt to show bias, even though you know otherwise?
And as for this “the GOP will try to paint Obama as ‘the other’—as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters.”, are you somehow trying to say that the GOP won’t do this? Has anything in the past 4 months of flag pins and old pastors shown otherwise? Do you really think the GOP won’t do (and indeed is already doing) exactly this? How is this pernicious media bias? Is it now biased reporting to report things unfavorable to the GOP? Just because McCain tut-tuts how he would never campaign that way didn’t stop the NC GOP from running their ad, and it won’t stop anybody else from doing the same. Or are you claiming that no Republican-supporting groups will run that kind of campaign this year?
I plan to vote for McCain, but to be honest, he does frequently appear to be debating whether or not to punch the person interviewing him. In some cases, that might be a good thing.
And what is wrong with McCain occasionally getting angry? The MSM just loved it when Truman blow his top. In fact they encourged him to “give them hell, Harry”.
Oh, I think the media bias this time around will make 2004 look like fair and objective reporting. After all, whatever they did last time wasn’t enough, so this time around, they are going to pull out ALL the stops!
I’m reminded of the leaked memo by ABC News’ then political Director, Mark Halperin, instructing all his reporters and producers to favor Kerry in their reporting because, while “both” candidates were “lying”, Bush’s supposed lies were supposedly more grievous and integral to his campaign, while Kerry’s very real lies were theoretically minor and inconsequential.
The Obamedia Watch begins.
Thanks for the link!
Few things in modern American politics get my blood boiling like this lie — the Democrats’ latest mantra in an endless cacophony of lies.
The fact is that Republicans are facing the realities of the world and dealing with them in a responsible manner as opposed to Democrats slashing military and intelligence budgets and doing absolutely nothing while terrorists attack America over and over and over. People aren’t voting for Republicans because they are frightened, polls show over and over again that only a teeny tiny minority of Americans actually fear being the victim of terrorism, but because they rightly believe that Republicans have a better plan for dealing with our enemies.
But what really chafes my hiney is that Democrats do absolutely nothing BUT scare voters into voting for them:
“Vote for us or global warming will destroy the environment!”
“Vote for us or Republicans will take your social security away!”
“Vote for us because Republicans are racists who want to harm you”
“Vote for us because Republicans are homophobes that want to take your rights away”
“Vote for us or Republicans will take your benefits away”
“Vote for us or you will have to choose between eating and buying medicine”
“Vote for us or Republicans will ship your jobs over seas”
“BIG” oil! “BIG” pharmaceutical! “BIG” business! Evil corporations! and all liberals other bogus bogeymen.
And on and on and on. And unlike Republicans supposed fear mongering which is nothing more than reacting to reality that Democrats dropped the ball on — all of Democrats fear mongering, like everything else they do, is based on complete and demonstrable lies.
GAWD you have to be so blitheringly STUPID to be a Democrat. Grrrrr.
Is the Media Trying to Help Obama Beat McCain?
Did you just land on this planet?
I think its more than if any Republican was going to get nice treatment from the Media, it would be McCain. But as we saw that just as there was a democrat who could beat a Clinton, there is a canidate that the media loves more than McCain.
I think McCain will still have a better time than Hillary, I would think so anyway. He does have a long relationship the media and he is always proactive about this issue, he going to do his best to be more open and friendly to them than Obama.
Are you really surprised, Dan? Seems rather a blinding statement of the obvious to me.
You should put that comment in past tense. When McCain was losing and on the outs with Republicans, the media loved him. As soon as he won the nomination and is now actively courting both moderates and conservatives, MSM turned on him.
There have been two big smear pieces in the NYT, and Dan has just given us a few of the examples of how MSM is going after him.
McCain’s honeymoon with the media is over, they will do everything in their power to thwart him at every turn. Had Hillary been able to stay on top, they would still be in love with her. For them, it’s got to be a Dem. They switched over to Obama when he started winning. Obama has the added benefit of being one their darling minorities, which of course helped.
Interesting how he is the Black man running for president, the fact that he is biracial is only brought up when he veers too far to the hating side of the Black experience, ie. Rev. Wright.