Press to McCain: “Don’t Cross Us… or Our Messiah”
With suspect editing of the VP candidate’s recent interview and dueling front page hit pieces against her, yesterday, Boston Phoenix blogger Adam Reilly would say that “by declaring war on the media, McCain has given them license to cover his candidacy the way they should have from the beginning.” The move “could actually be a corrective to the fawning press treatment the allegedly liberal media has for years lavished on McCain.”
Now that the Democratic and Republican pep rallies are over, the candidates desperately need the press’s assistance to get their message out. But now that McCain has given the press the finger, most members of the media will be a lot less inclined to do anything that aids his campaign.
Some of them may actually respond by leveling direct, aggressive challenges at the McCain-Palin ticket.
So much for the pretense of news being an uninvested, objective medium! (It’s just Obama’s turn to for lavishment, I suppose.)
Rather than an objective analysis, however, Reilly’s piece reads as a balm for a newly insecure mainstream media. Never fear that our candidate doesn’t have the lead one would expect based on our candidacy, the subtext goes, the other guy has finally given us reason to take off the gloves.
That’s not unexpected. What’s surprising is how very Old Media the column sounds. As far as I can tell, it’s now an open question as to whether candidates “desperately need” the establishment media to communicate with voters. Those massively successful “The One” ads grew their buzz on the Internet, which is a force that The Press can no longer ignore, and which by its very openness exposes egomaniacal twists of the truth — whether out of liberalism or revenge — as politicking masked as journalism.
McCain has always been a media favorite. As one of the true professional media hounds inside the Beltway, the establishment media has swooned over the “Maverick” for years, much to the consternation of his Republican adversaries. See Romney for President Campaign; Bush ’00 Campaign.
That the luster is starting to wear off is no surprise, if you have been paying attention to the scandalous lies concocted by Rove’s disciple for the McCain campaign: Obama supported “comprehensive sex ed” for kindergarten; Palin never supported the Bridge to Nowhere; Obama dodged a military hospital to go to the gym; you get the drift.
Even McCain had to drop the claim on the Bridge to Nowhere today.
Palin charged rape victims for rape kits
$300 to $1200
Washington Post above “hit-piece”
Palin wanted guns in bars ?
Palin wanted bars open to 5:00 am ?
Thats pro family
Simeone, when I was a kid there was a rumor flying around that Nixon was for school on Saturdays. It was just some liberal who hadn’t grown up’s way of getting kids to like HHH. I didn’t have to get too much older to figure out what was going on.
Here’s hoping you too, will catch on some day.
Factual reporting becomes “hit pieces” for those who’s eyes are blinded by love or those who’s job it is to get Beauty and the Beast into the White house.
“Some of them may actually respond by leveling direct, aggressive challenges at the McCain-Palin ticket.”
Catch up, friend. That’s been going on for weeks – months, in some quarters.
Now the question is, when do they begin challenging the Obama/Biden ticket?
Monique, I guess you were sleeping when we went through the following press feeding frenzies;
Obama’s preacher
Obama won’t salute the flag
Obama’s wife hates America
Obama’s supporter Rezko is a crook
Obama is dissing the Clintons
Obama wouldn’t visit the wounded troops without a camera crew,
and I could go on, but I think you get my point. Say what you will about Obama, he has been in the crosshairs of the press corp for as long as Palin as been governor. You can’t really believe he has escaped press scrutiny, can you?
You said: “That’s not unexpected. What’s surprising is how very Old Media the column sounds. As far as I can tell, it’s now an open question as to whether candidates “desperately need” the establishment media to communicate with voters. Those massively successful “The One” ads grew their buzz on the Internet, which is a force that The Press can no longer ignore, and which by its very openness exposes egomaniacal twists of the truth — whether out of liberalism or revenge — as politicking masked as journalism.
Yet bloggers- not unlike right wing radio talk jockeys- always seems to need -desperately? – the old media to enable their thoughts (blathering). Most of what you do on AR is a counterpoint to the MSM. Where would you be without it? What will the future blogging / yakking be like if the old media is shit canned. No more journalistic standards. No more actual reporting. You don’t do that. In fact, you wrote that you knew of no standards for blogging. I think your blogs relevance is intrinsically tied to the OLD MEDIA. Without it your comments would be nothing more than a popgun fart.
>>”I guess you were sleeping when we went through the following press feeding frenzies…”
Not really. Many of the stories you listed weren’t broken by the MSM. They were reported on AFTER they had been reported in other forums.
The media is biased. It has been for quite some time. The public is just now waking up to it.
I give kudos to the McCain campaign for mounting a vigorous defense of Sarah Palin. If they hadn’t gotten the facts out directly to the American public, the MSM was prepared to rip her apart and “Qualyze” her all in the name of “vetting” her.
Unfortunately for them, they’ll now have to focus on Palin’s record rather that her daughter’s child or fueling rumors about book burning.
Anthony,
Palin needs vigorous defense desperately. In fact it needs be so vigorous that it twists the facts. Tell me about, for example, Palin charging rape victims $300 to $1200 for rape kits. Tell me about her attempt to fire the local librarian because she “didn’t support her mayor”. That’s Nazi stuff and it should scare the hell out of anyoune who isn’t a Nazi at heart. Come to think of it, it’s probably why she doesn’t scare you.
Finally, this from Depak Chopra
OldTimeLefty
Sorry, OTL, I don’t see it that way. The librarian (Mary Ellen Emmons) was notified about being terminated at the same time the pubic works director, the police chief, and the city museum director/finance director were told that they would be history as well. Emmons had been an outspoken supporter of Palin’s mayoral opponent and had been appointed to the city libarian job by Palin’s mayoral opponent. I believe Palin probably tried to fire Emmons because Emmons backed Palin’s political opponent, not over a disagreement over the books that sat on the shelves of the city library. But that’s politics. I doubt the next Governor will keep Carcieri’s cabinent members either. So is that something bad? Or is it just the winnner’s perogative to choose his or her employees in the executive branch? I suppose it depends on who you ask. Given that Palin never tried to ban any books, more than likely, Palin just wasn’t thrilled about spending city dollars on a salary that would then be used by the recipient to oppose her in the next election. So if you’re trying to get me to believe that Palin fired the librarian for political reasons, I’d probably buy that. But if you’re trying to get me to believe that the librarian was fired for refusing to “ban books”, I think that is severely stretching the truth. I don’t know much about the rape kit issue. Feel free to enlighten me. Assuming it is true, I’d suppose that it was a financial decision. Some of the questions I’d have are: How do other towns handle the issue of payment for the kits–ts it common practice to charge victims? Were there federal or state funds available that Palin thought should be used instead of town funds? If Wasilla made victims pay… Read more »
OTL,
Following up on my last post, do you have any more information on the rape kit questions I posed?
Or am I left to assume that it is yet another falsehood being spread to discredit Sarah Palin?
Anthony,
I almost posted on the AP report with the rape kit line when it was fresh but decided that it didn’t merit mention; the story was long on insinuation and short on facts (which I didn’t have time to research).
The synopsis is that during the time that Palin was in office, rape kits became an issue in Wasilla, and the state passed a law forbidding the practice of charging rape victims for the tests (which local or state police typically covered). Whether the practice existed in Wasilla when Palin came to power, the report didn’t say. Whether the policy came from the town council (or however that all works in here town), the report didn’t say.
It did quote the then-police chief as saying that the reason he opposed the statewide ban was because the police attempted to recoup the costs from insurance companies, where possible. Whether that means the town would cover the costs (rather than passing them on directly to the victim) when the insurance would cover them… the report didn’t say.
In short, it’s the usual leftist spin to state as fact that “Palin charged victims for their rape kits.”