The Blog @ Spolitics

Is the Media a Chorus for The Obama Campaign?

by Heywood U. Reedmore -- September 11, 2008 at 1:03 pm | In 2008 Election | No Comments

In a Politico article about the despondency running through the Democrat party, I noticed one quote in particular:

“[Obama's] struggling with an enormous wind at his back, a hatred for George Bush and a mainstream media that is little short of a chorus for his campaign.”

Even the Democrats acknowledge that the press is singing Obama’s tune. Consider the coverage given to McCain’s ad attacking Obama on education. One media outlet after another printed the Obama campaign’s talking points that the bill referenced in the ad was only aimed at protecting kids from child predators and left it at that. Yes, the bill promotes teaching kids in grades K through 12 how to defend against sexual harassment and unwanted sexual advances (it’s not specific to child predators). But first and foremost — and repeatedly — the bill calls for teaching kindergarten students how to prevent the transmission of STDs. How do you teach a kindergarten student about STDs without teaching them about sex? Was the press too lazy to read the bill or did they just not want to report this fact?

Next consider the coverage of McCain’s “The Original Mavericks” spot. First the ad:

Many in the media lashed out against the claim that Palin “stopped the ‘Bridge to Nowhere.’” TPM called is a “falsehood.” The New Republic called it a “naked lie.” The Washington Post called it a “whopper.” News outlets like CNN have echoed those thoughts.

Let’s see how the Anchorage Daily News covered the story before Sarah Palin was a candidate for VP:

A common target for earmark snipers is the so-called “bridge to nowhere” plugged by Alaska Rep. Don Young into the five-year transportation bill in 2005. Congress stripped the earmarks directing the spending but let the state keep the money to use on the bridge if it wanted.

Palin ruffled feathers when she announced – without giving the delegation advance notice – that the state was killing the Ketchikan bridge to Gravina Island, site of the airport and a few dozen residents.

Congress didn’t kill the bridge as some in the press are claiming. They simply removed language from the bill that would have mandated the funds be used to build the bridge. It was clear that the project’s backers still intended for it to go forward and Palin killed it.

In fact, her decision to do so (and her anti-earmark stance in general) caused a riff between her and Alaska’s Congressional delegation — which led to the posting of earmark requests online. A couple of days before Palin was announced as McCain’s VP, The New Republic wrote an article about “The last days of Alaska’s kleptocracy” that claimed Don Young had threatened to “crush” Sarah Palin. (Now that Palin is the Republican nominee for Vice President, the New Republic is calling her a liar for saying she stood up to him.) The situation became so heated that Palin wrote an Op-Ed to defend her position on earmarks. Was she reacting to changing circumstances in Washington? Sure. Amongst those was an exploding deficit that warranted more fiscal discipline. But was she flip-flopping or capitalizing on an opportunity to change the status quo? She also mentioned some key facts the press keeps missing as they try to portray her as a porker:

This year, we have requested 31 earmarks, down from 54 in 2007. Of these, 27 involve continuing or previous appropriations and four are new requests. The total dollar amount of these requests has been reduced from approximately $550 million in the previous year to just less than $200 million.

So who’s really lying? The press has been pushing a lot of bogus stories — some at the behest of the Obama campaign. They carried the Obama camp’s water on that whole Eagleton canard. In fact, there are so many bogus stories about Palin that Factcheck.org has tried to deal with the en masse under the headline, “Sliming Palin.” And while they blame a chain e-mail for the rumors, you’ll notice most of them were reported in the media. Fox News has it’s own count of errors made by CNN alone. Charlie Martin is also keeping a list and it keeps growing.

The Obama campaign has been rattled by the addition of Sarah Palin to the ticket and they are doing everything they can to destroy her. Based on the evidence, the media is eagerly trying to help them.