McCain gets donuts; Obama gets likened to a terrorist

You know, most people grow out of the “I’ll do anything — ANYTHING! — to be part of the Kewl Kids Clique” when they graduate high school.

The rest, apparently, go into journalism.

Shall I wash your dick for you, sir?

You’re either on the bus or you’re off the bus.

Coffee, tea, or me? What a bunch of stewardesses.

This is going to be a long, long slog to November.

There’s got to be some way to shame them over this.

How much would it take to coordinate a campaign sending sets of knee pads to Ron Fournier at the Associated Press? They only cost $10-$20 a pair, plus shipping.

Maybe that’s too pricey. Dunkin Donuts would be cheap, and light to ship. Plus, they’d be stale when they got there, so he couldn’t actually put them to good use.

Actually, BBQ sauce would be another thing to send them, too.

Still, I’d hate for them to get any actual benefit out of the campaign.

It’s part of the pattern of McCain’s entire life. Son and grandson of four-star admirals, US Naval Academy (where he finished 894 out of 899 classmates), a sequence of five costly “lost plane” events ending with his capture, the USS Forrestal incident which cost 167 US lives, cushy Captiol Hill job representing the Pentagon, no significant opposition running for office, donuts.

So you think donuts with sprinkles is bad , eh ? Check out this birthday that all the media elites held for McBush and then tried to conceal what they had done. The Corporate/Repiglican/Media is simply a criminal enterprise .. akin to a mafia. They are in fact a clear and present danger to what is left of our once great country, a clear and present danger to what is left of our democracy.

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THE HAPPY BIRTHDAY EXPRESS: “I honestly don’t know what to say about this.” Those were Brother Greenwald’s words when he posted the videotape of the press corps’ recent fete at John McCain’s crib in Sedona. For ourselves, we recalled a grander affair, conducted during the 2004 Republican convention in New York. A certain saint threw himself a birthday bash—and darlings, forget about Holly Bailey! When the sanctified solon turned 68, the firmament’s biggest stars were there! To his credit (explanation below), Richard Leiby did the play-by-play for the Washington Post. This is your press corps on creme brulee—French tarts, loin of lamb, lobster salad:

LEIBY (8/31/04): Sen. John McCain tended to his political base Sunday night: the entire national media. The maverick Arizona Republican, once (and future?) presidential aspirant and press secretary’s dream hosted a hyper-exclusive 68th birthday party for himself at La Goulue on Madison Avenue, leaving no media icon behind. Guests included NBC’s Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert, ABC’s Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters, Ted Koppel and George Stephanopoulos, CBS’s Mike Wallace, Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer, CBS News President Andrew Heyward, ABC News chief David Westin, Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons, CNN’s Judy Woodruff and Jeff Greenfield, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, CNBC’s Gloria Borger, PBS’s Charlie Rose—pause here to exhale—and U.S. News & World Report publisher Mort Zuckerman, Washington Post Chairman Don Graham, New York Times columnists William Safire and David Brooks, author Michael Lewis and USA Today columnist Walter Shapiro. They and others dined on lobster salad, loin of lamb, assorted wines, creme brulee, lemon souffle and French tarts.

[…]

One guest, who asked not to be identified, described invitees as “the Journalistic Committee for a Government of National Unity.” After singing “Happy Birthday” to McCain, many of the guests—Russert, Borger and Shapiro, among others—cabbed to Elaine’s, where Zuckerman hosted a mob scene that included Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, PBS’s John McLaughlin and New York Gov. George Pataki, The Post’s Mark Leibovich reports. By 11 p.m. the Second Avenue landmark—with red carpet outside—was elbow-to-elbow with martini-sipping guests. Thus commenced Campaign 2008 (we think).

Somehow, it was the singing of “Happy Birthday” which always struck us as most wrong: At any rate, free food! And plenty of pandering! And after they sang “Happy Birthday” to Mac, the gang cabbed it up to Elaine’s.

If you don’t understand the press corps’ coverage of McCain, perhaps you can find a hint or two in Leiby’s dispatch.

Last Friday, Jamison Foser did a superlative post about the way this gang of hopeless galoots insists on calling McCain a “war hero”—even when the designation bears no resemblance to the issue at hand. Beyond that, reporters love to work McCain’s “straight talk” slogan into “reporting.” Stephanopoulos sang “Happy Birthday” that night—and soon was asking the saintly solon for “straight talk answers” on ABC’s air. To judge from Leiby’s guest list, E. J. Dionne wasn’t big enough to make the affair at La Goulue (French for “glutton”), but today he describes his ongoing love for the Great McCain—and he shamelessly equates Obama and Farrakhan to McCain and Hagee. It’s hard to be more disingenuous that that, as many others have already noted. But so what? This has gone on for the past dozen years, and may well decide this year’s race.

But readers, back to the birthday brawl! We first posted Leiby’s text in October 2004, after Ted Koppel attended a fete for Colin Powell instead of prepping for a critical Nightline (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 10/19/04).On that date, we offered links to past HOWLER posts which showed the big stars of the mainstream “press corps” at play with the people they “cover.” We saw Russert at Rumsfeld’s Christmas party, bragging that he had foreseen Saddam’s capture. (He had seen it in a dream!) We saw Koppel attending that Powell bash, then failing on that night’s critical program. We saw Gwen Ifill dining with Darling Condi, then rolling over for her gal pal in a major interview.

Yes. This is the way your “press corps” works—though Kevin and Josh and Matt won’t tell you. Sedona was just a suggestion, a cook-out, a small affair thrown for the proles.

By the way—why the praise for Leiby’s report? (It appeared in “Reliable Source.”) Here’s why: The “press corps” didn’t just sing “Happy Birthday” to McCain in 2004—they gave him a subsequent birthday gift. You see, despite the star power at that bash, almost no one reported it! Lloyd Grove did a brief piece in the Daily News, saying McCain had thrown “a smallish dinner” (text below). But almost no one else in the press corps mentioned this event at all. You see, they luvv to do celebrity stories—unless the celebrities involved are themselves. In that case, they know they must hide their behavior—the behavior of their group’s biggest players. The comical story of Jack Welch’s “Lost Boys of the Sconset?” That comical—and revealing—story has almost never appeared in print. Within the clan, housebroken pool boys know they must hide the truth about how the “press” lives and functions.

They sing Happy Birthday to those they adore—and then, they pimp to get them elected. Dionne is pimping again today, just as he’s done in the past. The comparison to Obama is disgracefully fake. But so what? Saint John gets a toast.

Lloyd Grove’s smallish dinner: In the Daily News, Grove seemed to get the scope of things wrong. That said, we don’t mean to criticize Grove. Few others said word the first:

GROVE (8/31/04): McCAIN FOR SOMETHING! The media elite met to eat at La Goulue Sunday at a smallish dinner hosted by media favorite John McCain and wife Cindy.

The buzz was that the press-friendly Arizona senator, who was celebrating his 68th birthday, is considering another run for President four years from now.

“This is like any other trade convention—everybody’s talking about what the new power mower might be,” quipped McCain ad-maker Mike Murphy. Among the guests were Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel and Dan Rather, Barbara Walters, Jeff Greenfield and even New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani.

“Oh I see,” one diner remarked on surveying the crowd. “It’s a party for the base.

That was Grove’s entire item. According to Nexis, this was the second longest account of this heady, newsworthy affair.

On MSNBC, Tucker Carlson described statements on the “pastor’s pages” section of Sen. Barack Obama’s church’s newsletter as “wild,” “anti-Israeli statements” and asserted: “I think Obama will feel the need to address that directly fairly soon.” But no one mentioned Obama’s prior condemnation of his pastor’s “views on Israel” and the church’s republication of an op-ed by a Hamas official. Read More

The Associated Press quoted Sen. John McCain claiming that Sen. Barack Obama will “raise taxes” on homeowners. In fact, Obama has proposed “at least $80 billion a year in tax cuts to middle-class workers, homeowners and retirees,” and specifically called for “extending a mortgage credit to taxpayers who do not itemize, generating about $500 in savings for 10 million people.” Read More

Politico’s Mike Allen wrote, “It looks like [John] McCain will resist pandering when he speaks later today on the housing crisis.” But Allen has yet to note that McCain said he does not think the Federal Reserve acted improperly by extending a $30 billion line of credit to facilitate the acquisition of the near-bankrupt investment bank Bear Stearns by JP Morgan Chase

I just read Milbank’s article. Obama said to the AP crowd, “If I had to carry the banner for eight years of George Bush’s failures, I’d be looking for something else to talk about, too.” Good for him!