The Media Laps Up McCain’s Lies and Distortions and Begs for More
Scarecrow at Firedoglake has a fine piece about how the national media is allowing John McCain to get away with double talk and lies on the surge:
David Brooks: The Media Is Responsible for McCain’s Negative Campaign
McCain had no choice but to run a negative campaign; he didn’t want to, but they made him do it:
An Old New Meme
Lately, I’ve been noticing a new meme on the right in general, and in John McCain’s campaign rhetoric in particular, about Barack Obama. He’s not humble enough; he thinks he’s president already; he’s conceited; who does he think he is; he’s presumptuous; he’s arrogant; he’s…. uppity.
Dana Milbank and the Awesome Powers of Selective Quotation
Once again, we see how the responsible, professional journalists in the traditional media operate with respect to context and interpreting the meaning of a quote. Under the title “President Obama continues hectic victory tour,” Dana Milbank writes the following (emphasis mine):
A Stunningly Dishonest Campaign Ad
Here is John McCain’s campaign ad accusing Barack Obama of blowing off wounded American troops in Germany so he could go to the gym:
U.S. Army Disavows E-mail That Claimed Obama Snubbed Troops in Afghanistan
We already know how easy it is to start a smear campaign via e-mail. Here is another illustration of that fact, but beyond that, this account of an “Obama-snubbed-the-troops” narrative that was untrue from start to finish demonstrates that visual evidence like the much-reviled “campaign op” videos and photographs can actually help to expose a vicious lie. See the last paragraph of this quoted article from Military Times for what I’m talking about.
On Misogyny, Racism, and the MSM
The Beltway as Bret Michaels
In 17 words, Gabriel Sherman unwittingly sums up precisely what is wrong with American campaign journalism:
[T]he press wants to put its love somewhere, and, right now, that love is up for grabs.
Fuck the public interest–it’s all about who’s ready to rock Adam Nagourney’s world!
h/t Atrios
That Was the Sheikh That Was
McCain’s attempts to get his cart before the horse analysis of the surge to make sense have only dug him in deeper:
On John Edwards ‘Love Child’
“Double standard!” cries Slate media critic Jack Shafer. “An elaborate cover up!” whines hacktacular OG ‘even the liberal’ blogger Mickey Kaus. ‘Liberal bias!’ wails the wingnutosphere (surprise, surprise).
All that self-righteous sturm und drang simply because the MSM hasn’t dove on recent reports from that bastion of responsible journalism, The National Enquirer, alleging that former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards cheated on his wife, Elizabeth, with a woman named Reille Hunter.
Traveling Back in Time To Justify the Surge
Here’s the bottom line about McCain’s verbal typos: People would not make so much of them if McCain’s statements on foreign policy made sense in a larger, general context. Obama sometimes misstates facts that obviously he knows, out of exhaustion (like “57 states”), but he does not make extended statements or speeches about foreign policy that are substantively and factually wrong.
What the hell are we talking about?
Taking a step back to get a broad view of the economy… If not for government intervention, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae would have failed. The anti-government free marketeers of the financial world should take note of this, because without government intervention the failure of these two mortgage lenders could have caused a consumer run on banks that would have prompted the next Great Depression. Lest we think that this crisis hasn’t effected the markets: Dow has dipped below 11,000 points today (and it’s only 11:00am — it could dip further by the end of the day). As of this minute, this graph tells me that the Dow Jones Index right now is at the same level as when Bush took office in 2001. In other words: any financial growth experienced during the Bush administration is gone.
In financial news from another industry, GM will be cutting most of its assets. Also, inflation is growing as fast as it has in nearly three decades.
All of this is huge news. Huge. How else would you define the near collapses of our financial system and automobile industry at the same time? Yet when I goto Memeorandum to see what bloggers are talking about, when I search the page for “GM” and “mac” I find nothing. Searching for “mae” finds a couple things, including this stupid piece by doughy pantload wondering how the GOP can use the collapse of Fannie Mae to their political advantage. (Nothing like seeing conservative policies fail during a conservative administration and watching them still pathetically try to blame us.) Other than that, all bloggers are talking about is the presidential race. The top item at Meme right now is what O’Hanlon thinks about Obama. Who the hell is O’Hanlon and will we care about his thoughts a week from now? Don’t bother answering that — it was a rhetorical query.
Do any of us feel ashamed about this?
Lieberman Gets the McCain Treatment From the New York Times
Did you know, or do you remember, that during Joe Lieberman’s 2006 Senate campaign against Ned Lamont, Lieberman solemnly pledged that he would work to get a Democrat elected president in 2008?
How to be on the “Far Left”, from the paper of record
According to the New York Times, an American is on the “far left” if they are angry over Obama’s support for the FISA bill. Or, in other words, if an American is vocal about defending their civil liberties, that puts them in the fringes of politics — the outcasts wandering around the hinterlands, forgotten and ignored because of their extreme views.
Nice.
Why don’t we see extreme activities which receive Republican support as being considered “far right”? Why isn’t the anti-immigration group the Minutemen ever considered far right? How come wanting to destroy social security isn’t from the far right? How come wanting to enforce religion by law (for example, by making gay marriage illegal) isn’t on the far right? How come using tax cuts to distribute more wealth to the greedy isn’t coming from the far right? I could go on — and I’m sure you could, too. Suffice to say, in today’s political discourse “far right” is defined as either God Hates Fags or Adolf Hitler; yet the “far left” consists of activists who dare to defend the Constitution.
Insert some witty cliche about the “liberal media” here. When this is the starting point defined by the mainstream, no wonder political discourse in this country is a joke.
John McCain Can Do.No.Wrong
In the eyes of the famously liberal press, that is:
According to the national media, no matter what Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says, he’s always going to be a fun, straight-talking, regular guy. In fact, every little thing he does — whether it’s joking about killing civilians or simply grilling meat — is magic to reporters. Just today, when McCain joked about shipping adviser Phil Gramm to Belarus — a place still covered in radiation from Chernobyl — reporters gushed over the “trademark John McCain wit.”
There’s more where that came from.
Ed Morrissey thinks the Belarus joke was very astute, and he’s sorry McCain did not include it in his YouTube video about how he doesn’t agree with Gramm.
Malkin keeps it classy
She called Obama’s campaign the “Jive Talk Express” not only on her blog, but as a title for her nationally syndicated column. So much for the post-racial campaign.
h/t raw story
Dear Washington Post Editors: Here’s where the story ends
Unless, of course, you can find some more corroborating facts after this point. But your story that Obama got a home loan discount should have never included this paragraph: