Pro-Obama-lematic Media Coverage

National Review: The Democrat Gets Too Much Ink That Says Far Too Little

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Mark Hemingway.

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One of the more interesting tidbits of campaign news this week was a Pew Research poll which found that 48 percent of voters reported are suffering from “Barack Obama Fatigue” - that is, they feel that they have been hearing too much about the presidential candidate. By contrast, 38 percent of voters felt they have been hearing too little about John McCain.

While that’s an interesting finding, Pew didn’t bother to ask the logical follow-up questions - is what voters are hearing about Obama substantive, necessarily critical, or even relevant? Is it really that voters are hearing too much about Obama or are they not hearing enough of the right things?

Given that just a few weeks ago, a Rasmussen poll reported there’s a “Belief Growing That Reporters are Trying to Help Obama Win,” this would seem to be an important distinction. Forty-nine percent of voters felt the press was pro-Obama. Only 14 percent felt that the press was pro-McCain, a candidate so used to favorable coverage he jokingly referred to the media as “my base.” Even Democratic respondents to the poll thought the press was favoring Obama over McCain in greater numbers.

When almost half the electorate thinks the media is in the tank for one candidate, any story that doesn’t evaluate that candidate critically probably qualifies as “too much” in the literal and figurative sense of the phrase.

The ensuing consternation of the pundit classes about this disconnect between the voters and the media only worsens the problem. After pouring over a New York Times story about Obama’s time as a professor at the University of Chicago, the Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wrote that the story was “a reminder of Obama’s essential elusiveness, and how little we understand about how the candidate himself would resolve these thorny problems.”

Just for a second, imagine you’re Ruth Marcus: You’ve just read a New York Times story that essentially concludes that Professor Obama traded on his popularity with students while he remained totally unengaged with his colleagues and walked way from his time at the university without a significant piece of scholarship to his name. (It’s almost like a metaphor or something.) When faced with such an unflattering portrait of a leading presidential candidate this late in the game, as a news person, do you a) belie your total indifference to your information-gathering role and churn out a column about how “elusive” Obama is, to no great insight? Or do you b) leave the cozy cocoon of the editorial department and walk down the hall to the once revered news desk of the Washington Freakin’ Post and demand to know why it is that, three months away from an election, they have reported so little about the frontrunner that no one can say who he is?

Evidence that can provide insight into who Obama is as a politician and thinker certainly exists, but far too few journalists seem interested in looking for it, much less in reporting on it.

Just a few days before Marcus’ bloviations, columnist Richard Cohen graced the Post’s pages and concluded “I know that Barack Obama is a near-perfect political package. I’m still not sure, though, what’s in it.” To his credit, Cohen offered a more pointed comparison of the records of the two major candidates than Marcus’ punchless inquiry. In sharp contrast with Obama, Cohen says he “could cite four or five actions - not speeches - that John McCain has taken that elicit my admiration, even my awe.”

Now if you spend an entire column comparing the respective candidates’ records as members of the U.S. Senate you might conclude - as Cohen does - that Obama’s record is “tissue thin.” While Cohen might be generally asking a good question here, he’s falling into the same trap that the entire mainstream media pundit class has with regard to the question of Obama’s experience: assuming the junior senator from Illinois arrived in Washington fully formed, newly sprung from the skull of Athena.

The fact is, before his brief sojourn on Capitol Hill, Obama spent several years as a willing tool of the Chicago political machine. His time there does little to indicate that Obama gave Chicago residents any hope that he would change the city’s legendarily corrupt politics. Obama spent those years prostrate before the city’s notoriously unethical and avaricious political bosses.

He wasn’t just a cog in the machine, either; he worked the system to his own benefit, enriching himself in exchange for political favors, as is clearly the case with Tony Rezko - a telling episode the media now regards as speed bump on Obama’s way to the White House. Obama hasn’t even tried to wash off the stink of Chicago politics. At the same time that he’s running ads claiming McCain has oil lobbyists raising money for him, Obama has a Chicago politician named Alexi Giannoulias - who has ties with organized crime that have been widely publicized in Chicago newspapers, and who has even been connected to a mob hit - working as a “bundler” raising thousands for his campaign. But when you mention Obama’s record in Chicago, journalists stick their fingers in their ears and start saying “La, la, la. I can’t hear you.”

Good luck reading about Alexi Giannoulias on page A1 of the Washington Post. That precious journalistic real estate is almost exclusively the domain of wildly erroneous exposés of John McCain. On Wednesday, they ran a story about people being coerced into contributing to his campaign, misidentifying three of the four people they claimed were involved and who actually contributed money to other candidates. And let’s not forget the story in April where the Post wrote about the candidate’s legendary temper, citing a source who is a 9/11 truther and who by all accounts is a few delegates short of capturing the nomination of the Sanity party.

And then in May, another Post hit job alleged that McCain helped arrange a land swap of federally owned lands to benefit a developer who backed him - never mind mentioning that Arizona’s Democratic governor approved of the deal and the Arizona Republic editorialized the land swap “will consolidate 70,000 acres of environmentally sensitive Forest Service lands and those owned by rancher Fred Ruskin, doubling the acreage for public access and recreation.” Rather than telling us about Obama, it seems the Post thinks we don’t know enough about John McCain, even if what they want us to know isn’t true.

Are the media simply avoiding the truth with regard to Obama, because they know that he’ll wither if subject to a fraction of the criticism McCain has been getting? Perhaps. Obama was asked a tough question - a refreshing change of pace - by a reporter this week about whether it was fair to tar McCain with connections to oil lobbyists when Obama voted for an energy bill that McCain opposed because it contained subsidies for oil companies. It prompted this outburst from the candidate: “Hold on a second Jon [the reporter’s name], I thought I was talking to you instead of debating John McCain, but I am happy to let you serve as his proxy.”

It’s pretty pathetic that Obama thinks any critical question from the press amounts to being a “proxy for McCain.” But why would you expect him to think any different? That’s what happens when you give someone too much undeserved attention, and don’t ask them enough questions.

[obbcbs]

When the press asks McCain who his SOURCE is, the SOURCE that told him that IRAQI''s were responsible for the ANTHRAX attack, and which false claim McCain trumpeted on TV on Letterman, then we will know that the press is not all McCain all the time. What nonsense to say that the media who re-ran the Afro outfitted Rev Wright 100,000 times, is pro-Obama.
What planet is this lie coming from? The media is in the pocket of the right wing. MSNBC is the only outlet that even attempts to delve into the lies of the right wing. FOX makes up lies, fist-terror, and Rev Wright analysis til the cows come home. Get over it.
McCain is guilty of a crime for helping to propagandize the USA into the war against IRAQI''s with his lie that the anthrax WMD came from Iraq.
The anthrax came from Maryland. McCain WANTED to make the war happen. He is being rewarded with this nomination and help from FOX and CNN.

[jon2012-2009]

There is a reason NRO is not part of mainstream media--and will never be mainstream, no matter how many decades it goes on to pollute the political landscape. Judging by the output I have seen on this website, it spews nothing but trash.

[mrtutto]

Obama campaign never said there were going to be a million people at the speech in Germany. It was the media who speculated that. But I hear that John McCain now has large turnouts numbering in the hundreds.

[mrtutto]

The media is in LOVE with McCain, he is getting away with character Assassination.

[mrtutto]

How can we vote for a President who can be outsmarted by Paris Hilton..... She came back at him like a bat out of Hell. All in fun of course... even though McCain never intended for it to be fun.... Otherwise he wouldn''t have repeated that ridiculous theme in his campaign.

[mrtutto]

This week John McCain will be at a loss for words, If he can''t say Obama, he can''t say anything.

[mrtutto]

Those desperate Republicans... they hang on to every little thing. This time it''s a birth certificate. Give it a rest.

[mrtutto]

Even after all that negative campaigning. McCain is still at least 5 points behind Obama..... Put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. ROVE.

[sanfelz]

The same whine came from Nixon and from the Republicans at every national election since. You remember Nixon said "I am not paranoid but they are all out to get me" in reference to the press.
It is McCain that has been getting the free ride. No mention of his nasty temper, no mention of his adultery, repeating his tasteless ads on news shows.
NRO always does its best to verify the latest conservative nonsense. NRO comments on unverifiable character issues but chooses to ignore McCain''s policy reversals and two decades of legislative failures.

[rayuk-2009]

It is a fact....Obama is so far ahead of McCain in every respect that his news out does poor McCain by loads. I don''t think losers like the NRO can ever grasp that reality.

[paris1969]

this was a great article ... the Media really thought that Obama''s trip abroad would really be newsworthy and it looked more like a vacation ... the Obama Campaign said there would be 900k-1-million attending in Berlin but there were only 200k .. looks like perhaps the Europeans are bored with him too!!

[brianslc819]

brainto think for myself and to make mind up for who I vote for. Not the person the media want to be voted in. So I say that enough is enough. People will decide who wins in November not the media. Right now I ca not support nether one of the canadaies because of atempt to destroy the consitution by destying the 4th admendment. I consider who voted for fisa bill the last month or so ago should be charged with treason. The people who vote the people who destroyed by votein for this bill. What will be next if they get back in office.Lets vote them all of office that did vote for the bill.

[chatmandu002]

The liberal media is in the tank for Obama and the democrats. Just take the Edwards scandal, not one major news organization even followed up on the accusations by the National Enquirer. But they reported all over the place on the accusation against John McCain. Proves they are in the tank for the democrats.
Now along with the politicians you can''t trust the media. I''ll leave getting the truth about anything to the supermarket tabloids.

[larysinclair]

Not to mention that the media has not done their job, nor has the DNC with regaards to Obama''s eligibilty to run for President of the United States of America!! Can we please see a "ACTUAL" birth certificate? Both the Daily Kos version and the "fight the smears" version which have been proven forgeries!! What is Obama hiding? The American people (thinking people) would like an answer!! I suppose it will be up to The National Enquirer, since they appear to be the only Investigative journalists left in the media!!

[vastr-wcon]

.
The ALL-HUSSEIN, ALL-THE-TIME propaganda is, of course, a feeble attempt to create the impression that it is a one-person contest. Obviously, that is the only way a Kerry-like shallow, arrogant, platitude-spouting, inexperienced, elitist, narcissistic, flip-flopping gas-bag, who is so mentally deficient from extensive drug use he even has to plagiarize his hollow platitudes, could win an honest election.

Unfortunately, the loony-left liberal media will continue to treat hussein as if he has already been elected/appointed president -- showing that they have now fully and completely abandoned all journalistic ethics and will do anything to ensure victory for TheOne.

Sorry, hussein sycophants of the liberal media - but everybody can see right through this sham. Just as the simple-minded got bored with the over-exposure of Hilton and Spears, so too will they soon tire of the hussein hype.

BTW: The parallels between these three are overwhelming - e.g. both Hilton and Spears have created as much useful legislation as hussein; all three have the same level of foreign policy expertise; they are equally shallow and self-absorbed; they are equally experienced expert-level drug users; and so on ad nauseam.

(My apologies to Hilton and Spears for comparing them to TheOne - I understand how insulting that could be.)

/

[dashortround]

The news media really doesn''t have much choice; John McCain just isn''t newsworthy - he''s boring. He has nothing to say, except complain about whatever Obama says.

Yawn...

[prittfumes-2009]

Great article. Thanks for publishing it.

[andylance1]

Drill Drill Drill for Oil

Gas Prices make us scream.

Inflate Inflate - I say to you

Obama''''s newest scheme.

[whitemale08]

We need more Obama coverage! ...not less.

These Republican PUMA types are hard-headed!

They just don''t get it; get over it.

[bluestardad]

NRO

ALL YOUR AIPAC MEMEBERS ARE STILL CRYING THE BLUES CAUSE THEY CANT BUY, BLACKMAIL, OR CHANGE OBAMA

HE IS GETTING AMERICA OUTTA THE MIDDLE EAST AN YOU CANT STOP IT!

MAYBE YOU COULD GO LIVE IN SOUTH AMERICA WITH BUSH AND MUSHARIF AFTER THE ELECTIONS!

I GUESS THE LAST NAZIS WENT THERE SO YOU SHOULD FEEL COMFORTABLE!