Posted on 09/12/2008 1:04:24 PM PDT by mojito
Howard Kurtz's column in the Washington Post is surprisingly blunt and surprisingly revealing. The mainstream media, Kurtz says, are mad. Their anger, though, is oddly unidirectional:
"The media are getting mad. Whether it's the latest back-and-forth over attack ads, the silly lipstick flap or the continuing debate over Sarah and sexism, you can just feel the tension level rising several notches. Maybe it's a sense that this is crunch time, that the election is on the line, that the press is being manipulated (not that there's anything new about that)."
There certainly isn't. Barack Obama has been manipulating the press for years. His manipulation didn't make the media mad, though, because reporters were willing accomplices who have been trying to get Obama elected. It's the thought that John McCain could be manipulating them that has the media seeing red:
News outlets are increasingly challenging false or questionable claims by the McCain campaign, whether it's the ad accusing Obama of supporting sex-ed for kindergartners (the Illinois legislation clearly describes "age-appropriate" programs) or Palin's repeated boast that she stopped the Bridge to Nowhere (after she had supported it, and after Congress had effectively killed the specific earmark).
But the two examples Kurtz cites are ads that are indisputably true. Obama did support sex education down to kindergarten. Kurtz thinks that's OK, because the sex education for five-year-olds would be "age appropriate." He's entitled to that opinion, but my opinion, and that of most voters, is that any sex education for kindergartners is a terrible idea. In any event, whether you think teaching five-year-olds about sex is a good idea or a bad idea, the ad is true.
Likewise with the ad that says Governor Palin killed the Bridge to Nowhere: it's a simple fact that no one, including the Democratic Party in Alaska, thought to deny until Palin was selected to run for Vice-President. We wrote about it here. As the Anchorage Daily News reported on March 12, 2008:
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.
If Kurtz or other members of the media want to criticize some other aspect of Palin's record they are welcome to do so, but the suggestion that she didn't kill the famous bridge is ridiculous.
That's not to say that there is no false advertising in the air this campaign season. We wrote here that Barack Obama's oft-repeated claim, in a television ad and elsewhere, that he "reach[ed] out to Senator Lugar...to help lock down loose nuclear weapons" is flatly untrue. It was Sam Nunn who "reached out to Senator Lugar" in 1991. Obama's minor amendment to the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Act in 2006 had nothing to do with "locking down loose nuclear weapons;" on the contrary, it specifically excluded them. Obama's amendment has turned out to be a bad idea, too. But these and other falsehoods by Obama aren't what the press is "getting mad" about, and reporters have no intention of reporting on them.
While noting that the media in general are "getting mad," Kurtz himself is mad about the "lipstick on a pig" flap:
"The lipstick imbroglio is evidence that the Drudge/Fox/New York Post axis can drive just about any story into mainstream land. Does anyone seriously believe that Barack Obama was calling Sarah Palin a pig?"
I'm not sure what Obama had in mind, but I find it odd that in pages of outrage devoted to the supposed excesses of the McCain campaign, Kurtz finds no room to mention the fact that prominent Democrats (not anonymous emailers, who are much worse) have said that Governor Palin is Pontius Pilate and that her primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.
The truth is that Sarah Palin has been the object of the most vicious and concerted smear campaign in modern American history. But that fact doesn't cause the media (or Howard Kurtz) to get mad.
It's not too hard to diagnose why, as Kurtz correctly says, "the media are getting mad." They're getting mad because their candidate is losing. They've spent years building him up and covering for his mistakes and shortcomings, and he is such a stiff that he can't coast across the finish line. I'd be mad too, I guess, but I think I'd have the decency not to take it out on Sarah Palin.
The Drive-By’s have hitched their wagon to the wrong team and they are headed over the cliff.
The PRESS is being manipulated? Now that's funny considering it was they who practically selected the candidates on both sides.
Point one: Who gets to decide what 'age appropriate' sex ed for kindergarteners is? Plenty of leftist politicians support teaching 5 year olds about homo sex. A Mack truck could be driven through the term 'age appropriate'.
Point two: Age appropriate or not, sex ed has NO PLACE in the younger grades AT ALL.
It's going to be a verrrrrrrrrrry long 50 days in the trenches!!!
Who knows what kind of nasty surprises that Obama and his media people have in store for Americans.
The Obama people are such a vile lot.
Based on the crowd response, I'd suggest that they sure as hell interpreted it that way.
I can't comprehend why there is any argument over this contention.
Sure, it was a childish cheap shot. But that's the kind of candidate the Democrats nominated. So, let's all get beyond it...including the press.
“The media are getting mad.”
And millions of their readers and viewers are getting angry at the press for its obvious attempts to try to control the outcomes of elections.
The media are mad if they think they get away with it in the era of the internet.
If their guy doesn't win, we'll get a period of introspection, like we got in 2000 and 2004 as to what they did wrong. If he wins, they'll be patting themselves on the back for two years until the dems lose the house, senate and governors seats.
We saw this in 1992. They did the exact thing in 92, but now we have the web to counter their monopoly. They had a two year victory lap of parties and events. There was only three channels along with PBS and CNN, which as we know are all leftists. We didn't have a voice back then. Nothing. Imagine 2004 rathergate w/o the internet. That is what it was like.
Does anyone seriously believe that he wasn't?
I'm trying to come up with a reason he wasn't, and can't think of a single reason, scripted or not. He knew why the audience laughed extra hard. He sealed the fate when he refused to apologize (it was intentional), then joked about it on Letterman.
"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
Euripides, Greek tragic dramatist (484 BC - 406 BC)
The MSM's been crazy for years! "Destroy" is what I can hardly wait for! ;-)
Well, the crowd certainly seemed to think so. There was a roar of cheers and laughter that certainly wasn't merited if, as so many in the media assert, it was a simple case of Obama using an old adage.
Obama himself admitted that it wasn't simply a case of using an old adage. On Late Night With David Letterman, he said that he intended the comment be interpreted as Sarah Palin being the lipstick on McCain's pig. Am I wrong? Do the media have a better idea than Obama about what he meant?
And isn't it just a little bit too much to believe it was a coincidence that Joe Biden made a similar lipstick comment the same day? Am I wrong? I can't find my links to it; is there anyone who can post that information?
Plus, I've read a couple of columnists who indicate that "the" Democratic website had used the lipstick line. Am I wrong? Does anyone know WHICH website that was?
I guess I should believe it was a coincidence that on at least three occasions when speaking about Hillary Clinton, Obama suddenly had an itch on his cheek that required scratching with his middle finger? The crowd reacts to his immature gesture.
Yes.
What's more, he's a black separatist commie who will install a secret police force to get whitey.
No, I'm not joking.
Just remember, media backwards is aidem. Say it fast.
‘Nuff said.
Kurtz’s column is so out of touch with reality, it is surprising he hasn’t been fired.
Oh horsesh**. They've willingly been in bed with him since the very beginning.
“and after Congress had effectively killed the specific earmark”
thanks to McCain and no thanks to Obama/Biden
GFY
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