'I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm a journalist'
Here is a remarkable piece by columnist Michael Malone on the media bias in the current presidential campaign- a bias so apparent and so overwhelming that not only professional journalists but even Democratic politicians are getting a little embarrassed by it.
A sample:
Why, indeed?
And a cypher is exactly what Barack Obama is. The now-famous Saturday Night Live sketch satirizing the first Democratic debate, in which absurdly hostile questions to Hillary Clinton were followed by "Sen. Obama, are you comfortable? Can we get you anything?" struck a nerve because nobody who has been paying attention and who has a shred of objectivity has missed could doubt that it was only marginally an exaggeration. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell- a Democrat- was even diplomatically asked to sit down and shut up at a media round table several weeks ago in which he complained at some length about the "embarrassing" favoritism shown Obama by the media during the primary campaign.
Now that the opposition is (shudder) a Republican, it has only gotten worse.
As Malone points out, it isn't primarily a question of the media having been too hard on Sarah Palin, or too attentive to the odd gaffe by John McCain (I differ from Malone on this point to some degree, but not completely; in any case, unlike the MSM, I admit my bias). The real embarrassment is the synchophantic coverage- or rather, precisely, the lack of coverage- given the shortcomings of Obama and Joe Biden.
I do have to admit that SNL did a pretty good riff last weekend on Joe Biden's bizarre warnings about what to expect from the early days of an Obama administration, as well as Marine-slandering ex-Marine Rep. John Murtha's serial insults to his own constituents ("Did any of you see that movie, Deliverance?"). But where has been the reporting of Biden's gaffes in the MSM?
And who is Barack Obama, anyway? Why haven't the media reported more on his radical roots and on his association with various disreputable individuals like Tony Rezko and- yes- Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright? And why haven't Obama's negligible qualifications for the White House received attention similar to those given Sarah Palin's?
Why was Obama allowed to get away with lying about the Illinois Born Alive Act- a bill that owed its very existence to a scandal surrounding the unenforceable character of the law allegedly affording protection to infants who survived abortion which Obama and his campaign continue to disingenuously get a pass for pointing out "was already on the books?" Why have Obama and his campaign been given an ongoing pass for claiming that he would have voted for the bill if it had contained the same language as a Federal statute on the same topic, "protecting" Roe v. Wade- when he and the committee he chaired had unanimously adopted an amendment adding that very language to that bill before turning around and killing the bill, as amended?
Worse, why have MSM sources like FactCheck.org been so superficial in their investigation of the Born Alive fiasco that they failed to note the unenforceable character of the law they solemnly agree with the Obama campaign was "on the books-" as if having an unenforceable law on the books changed anything?
There has been a great deal of talk about "swiftboating" in this campaign. The very term is fascinating; it refers to a group of grassroots Vietnam veterans who were in no way connected to the 2004 Bush campaign, but which were quite vocal about reservations they had about Democratic nominee John Kerry, many stemming from Kerry's own service in Vietnam. Interestingly, Kerry never denied many of them. Both the group's background and the nature of its claims were repeatedly misrepresented by the media. In so doing, they gave undeserved credibility to Kerry's implication that he was somehow the victim oa smear campaign connected to the president's campaign and/or to the Republican party.
Thereafter "swiftboating" became an oft-repeated catch-phrase among Democrats, referring to an attempt to undermine one of their candidates through what the original "swiftboat" episode had not, in fact, been: a coordinated partisan smear campaign. The preemptive whine became a very effective tactic. Obama's campaign website has featured a Fight the Smears page from early on- in theory, of course, a perfectly legitimate tactic, even though "Fight the Smears" in practice often misrepresents the facts and smears others in the process of playing defense for Obama.
There have in fact been many silly slanders against Obama, ranging from suggestions that he is or ever has been a Muslim to insinuations that he is or ever has been a Marxist (as distinguished from a socialist- a label which his professed economic philosophy arguably deserves). Somehow- by a remarkable slight of hand possible only because the media were looking the other way- the Obama campaign has managed to parlay that fact into what amounts to a working assumption that any charge or accusation against Sen. Obama must necessarily be a slander, and that any explanation, excuse, or spin the Obama campaign might respond with must necessarily be the truth.
The outrage of the media against the malice of Republican loonies is palpable. Yet one misses a similar zeal in the MSM against the numerous smears against the Republican ticket which have been current this year- including specifically a curiously odd reluctance to denounce the vicious slander that it was Gov. Palin's now-pregnant daughter, rather than Gov. Palin herself, who is the mother of the Alaska governor's Down's Syndrome infant, Trig. Certainly the MSM has not exactly exerted itself to refute any of the myriad lies which Democrats accept as revealed truth where George W. Bush is concerned. They even failed to cry foul when Kerry personally repeated the slander that Bush had been AWOL during his National Guard service, a full four years after it had been conclusively proven to be false.
But the rule of thumb seems to be if it is The One who is accused, the accusation is not to be taken seriously, much less investigated. In fact, ever since Ray Suarez of NPR gave his infamous interview wrongly accusing Sarah Palin of encouraging rumors that Obama is a Muslim, the tendency in the MSM has been increasingly to blame McCain and Palin personally for anything the lunatic fringe of the Right says or does abut Obama.
Yes, the MSM contributed has mightily to the odd conceit evidenced this year among even ordinarily rational Democrats that- while John McCain and Sarah Palin remained fair game- any criticism or charge leveled at Barack Obama was ipso facto a smear- an example of "swiftboating." The double standard which has dominated the media's coverage of this campaign has become so obvious that even people like Malone- professional journalists with no political axe to grind- are finding in embarrassing to admit to their profession.
And if, as seems likely, Barack Obama is elected president next week with a Democratic super-majority in both houses of Congress, I fear that we ain't seen nuthin' yet. The media's role as an institutional check upon those in power threatens to dissolve into the kind of syncophantic fawning precisely from which precisely a free press traditionally protects liberal democracies.
I join Malone in fearing for the effectiveness of the media, and for what remains of its credibility. And that is just another way of saying that I fear for my country.
A sample:
If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.
That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.
Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?
Why, indeed?
And a cypher is exactly what Barack Obama is. The now-famous Saturday Night Live sketch satirizing the first Democratic debate, in which absurdly hostile questions to Hillary Clinton were followed by "Sen. Obama, are you comfortable? Can we get you anything?" struck a nerve because nobody who has been paying attention and who has a shred of objectivity has missed could doubt that it was only marginally an exaggeration. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell- a Democrat- was even diplomatically asked to sit down and shut up at a media round table several weeks ago in which he complained at some length about the "embarrassing" favoritism shown Obama by the media during the primary campaign.
Now that the opposition is (shudder) a Republican, it has only gotten worse.
As Malone points out, it isn't primarily a question of the media having been too hard on Sarah Palin, or too attentive to the odd gaffe by John McCain (I differ from Malone on this point to some degree, but not completely; in any case, unlike the MSM, I admit my bias). The real embarrassment is the synchophantic coverage- or rather, precisely, the lack of coverage- given the shortcomings of Obama and Joe Biden.
I do have to admit that SNL did a pretty good riff last weekend on Joe Biden's bizarre warnings about what to expect from the early days of an Obama administration, as well as Marine-slandering ex-Marine Rep. John Murtha's serial insults to his own constituents ("Did any of you see that movie, Deliverance?"). But where has been the reporting of Biden's gaffes in the MSM?
And who is Barack Obama, anyway? Why haven't the media reported more on his radical roots and on his association with various disreputable individuals like Tony Rezko and- yes- Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright? And why haven't Obama's negligible qualifications for the White House received attention similar to those given Sarah Palin's?
Why was Obama allowed to get away with lying about the Illinois Born Alive Act- a bill that owed its very existence to a scandal surrounding the unenforceable character of the law allegedly affording protection to infants who survived abortion which Obama and his campaign continue to disingenuously get a pass for pointing out "was already on the books?" Why have Obama and his campaign been given an ongoing pass for claiming that he would have voted for the bill if it had contained the same language as a Federal statute on the same topic, "protecting" Roe v. Wade- when he and the committee he chaired had unanimously adopted an amendment adding that very language to that bill before turning around and killing the bill, as amended?
Worse, why have MSM sources like FactCheck.org been so superficial in their investigation of the Born Alive fiasco that they failed to note the unenforceable character of the law they solemnly agree with the Obama campaign was "on the books-" as if having an unenforceable law on the books changed anything?
There has been a great deal of talk about "swiftboating" in this campaign. The very term is fascinating; it refers to a group of grassroots Vietnam veterans who were in no way connected to the 2004 Bush campaign, but which were quite vocal about reservations they had about Democratic nominee John Kerry, many stemming from Kerry's own service in Vietnam. Interestingly, Kerry never denied many of them. Both the group's background and the nature of its claims were repeatedly misrepresented by the media. In so doing, they gave undeserved credibility to Kerry's implication that he was somehow the victim oa smear campaign connected to the president's campaign and/or to the Republican party.
Thereafter "swiftboating" became an oft-repeated catch-phrase among Democrats, referring to an attempt to undermine one of their candidates through what the original "swiftboat" episode had not, in fact, been: a coordinated partisan smear campaign. The preemptive whine became a very effective tactic. Obama's campaign website has featured a Fight the Smears page from early on- in theory, of course, a perfectly legitimate tactic, even though "Fight the Smears" in practice often misrepresents the facts and smears others in the process of playing defense for Obama.
There have in fact been many silly slanders against Obama, ranging from suggestions that he is or ever has been a Muslim to insinuations that he is or ever has been a Marxist (as distinguished from a socialist- a label which his professed economic philosophy arguably deserves). Somehow- by a remarkable slight of hand possible only because the media were looking the other way- the Obama campaign has managed to parlay that fact into what amounts to a working assumption that any charge or accusation against Sen. Obama must necessarily be a slander, and that any explanation, excuse, or spin the Obama campaign might respond with must necessarily be the truth.
The outrage of the media against the malice of Republican loonies is palpable. Yet one misses a similar zeal in the MSM against the numerous smears against the Republican ticket which have been current this year- including specifically a curiously odd reluctance to denounce the vicious slander that it was Gov. Palin's now-pregnant daughter, rather than Gov. Palin herself, who is the mother of the Alaska governor's Down's Syndrome infant, Trig. Certainly the MSM has not exactly exerted itself to refute any of the myriad lies which Democrats accept as revealed truth where George W. Bush is concerned. They even failed to cry foul when Kerry personally repeated the slander that Bush had been AWOL during his National Guard service, a full four years after it had been conclusively proven to be false.
But the rule of thumb seems to be if it is The One who is accused, the accusation is not to be taken seriously, much less investigated. In fact, ever since Ray Suarez of NPR gave his infamous interview wrongly accusing Sarah Palin of encouraging rumors that Obama is a Muslim, the tendency in the MSM has been increasingly to blame McCain and Palin personally for anything the lunatic fringe of the Right says or does abut Obama.
Yes, the MSM contributed has mightily to the odd conceit evidenced this year among even ordinarily rational Democrats that- while John McCain and Sarah Palin remained fair game- any criticism or charge leveled at Barack Obama was ipso facto a smear- an example of "swiftboating." The double standard which has dominated the media's coverage of this campaign has become so obvious that even people like Malone- professional journalists with no political axe to grind- are finding in embarrassing to admit to their profession.
And if, as seems likely, Barack Obama is elected president next week with a Democratic super-majority in both houses of Congress, I fear that we ain't seen nuthin' yet. The media's role as an institutional check upon those in power threatens to dissolve into the kind of syncophantic fawning precisely from which precisely a free press traditionally protects liberal democracies.
I join Malone in fearing for the effectiveness of the media, and for what remains of its credibility. And that is just another way of saying that I fear for my country.
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