Redstate

Posted at 3:27pm on Jun. 2, 2008 What Obama Didn't Say

AND NEITHER DID THE PRESS

By absentee

The media machine is quite something to behold. The process of taking an untruth, an exaggeration, or a misstatement, and turning it into a Known Fact™ is fascinating, if frightening. Take Scott McClellan, for example. Once you thresh the narrative, sort through the interviews, headlines and hype, you find there's nothing there. Here's a business plan for you.

Thank me later.

It's been the same throughout Senator Obama's storied campaign. The idea is that he's a transformative figure. He's a Christ for politics, healing the sick with his perfected health care, turning oil to wine, and making the rivers run clear and blue.

Of course, the truth is slightly less divine. His campaign has been a series of surrogate scandals, personal scandals, gaffes, mistakes, and oopsies to have easily warranted dumb guy treatment on shows like Saturday Night Live; Quayle's potato has nothing on Obama's 10,000 dead. Nevertheless, he yet glides on a soft cloud of adoration. He is the untouchable, the unassailable. He is the Obama. At least in the press it is so.

So now we have another "narrative" spreading. Witness an LA Times editorial from this morning. The dismayed tone is regretful, shaming the rest of us for hurting this poor church, for separating the Obama from his flock. The Washington Post ran a story that is filled with a number of interesting facts, but which too has a tone of mournful sadness. The New York Times reports on the "battered" congregants of Trinity, who, we are assured, will "go on worshiping as ever."

Poor Barack, pushed from his church home by an evil nation. Poor Trinity, suffering at the unjust, unseen hand of infamy. Tragic.

There is a lot that isn't being said in these obituaries. Reporters and columnists have happily jumped on the new meme that it's all a big, unfair, out of context comedy of errors. It is immediately being taken for granted that the church really hadn't done wrong in the first place. Victims of circumstance and the cruelty of selective YouTubery. Wright was really right most of the time. Moss is mostly benign. Father Pfleger is a friendly but infrequent visitor, not representative. Yes the press is leaving out a lot of information, and why not? They take their cues from the Obama, and the Obama had a lot to not say as well.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Obamafiles | swooning press | Trinity United Church of Christ — Comments (17)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:52pm on May 10, 2008 The McCain Campaign & Media Bias: A Hopeful Sign.

By Martin A. Knight

Mark Salter's double barrel response to Senator Obama's oh-so-subtle shot at John McCain's age (very nicely brought to our attention by Soren here) is interesting for another thing - it brought up the behavior of Barack Obama's most important supporting demographic.

Senator Obama is hopeful that the media will continue to form a protective barrier around him, declaring serious limits to the questions, discussion and debate in this race.

Senator Obama has good reason to think this plan will succeed, as serious journalists have written of the need for 'de-tox' to cure 'swooning' over Senator Obama, and others have admitted to losing their objectivity while with him on the campaign trail ...

Maybe I'm reading too much into this and this would be the last time and therefore insignificant - but if I'm not mistaken, I believe this is the first time any Republican Presidential candidate in recent history has even just made mention of the Press clearly favoring one (the Democrat) candidate and slanting the coverage just so to get him over the finish line.

The media's infatuation with Obama is remarkably blatant - in many cases, e.g. Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, it's practically R-rated - and it's just about noticeable by the mushy middle both teams need to win.

If Salter's press release can be taken as indicative of a future course of action, the McCain campaign may just have found a way to solidify his standing with the conservative base and also make it more likely that he will get elected this fall.

If McCain, until recently liberal journalism's favorite Republican, decides to, and then successfully makes the conduct of the media an issue in this election, the potential fallout of it could be very ... interesting. In a good way.

Posted in Archived | McCain | Media Bias | Obama | swooning press — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Read More »