Media darling whines when reporters’ eyes wander

July 22, 2008

Well, I’ve finally seen everything. John McCain, who enjoys more media affection than any political figure in recent memory, has taken to complaining that reporters are overly fond of Barack Obama.

The video is a three-minute montage the McCain campaign put together with “evidence” of the media’s pro-Obama bias. Most of the clip is made up of comments from Chris Matthews and remarks from various surrogates for the Clinton campaign during the Democratic primary.

The release of the video is part of a new contest the McCain campaign has launched, under the headline: “The Media is in LOVE with Barack.” The contest, apparently, is for Republicans to “pick the best song” to capture the media’s “devotion” to Obama.

I suppose it’s possible for the McCain campaign to come up with a more ridiculous, hypocritical line of attack, but it’s hard to imagine what that might be.

Honestly, hearing the McCain campaign whine about someone getting fawning media coverage is a bit like hearing Barry Bonds accuse someone getting an unfair advantage by abusing steroids.

Obama may enjoy occasionally-effusive praise from Chris Matthews, but the McCain campaign is cherry-picking here. Matthews is, after all, the same clown who blasted Obama for ordering orange juice in a Pennsylvania diner.

Look, I don’t doubt that there are some media personalities who are inclined to support Obama. There clearly are. But to suggest that Obama has benefited more from media bias than McCain is insane. News outlets hammered Obama relentlessly on the meaningless Rezko story. And “NAFTA-gate.” And the alleged “plagiarism.”

When videos surfaced of Jeremiah Wright’s sermons, every network put them into constant rotation, practically every day, for months. When videos surfaced of radical televangelists associated with McCain, the media took a pass.

When Obama opted out of the public-financing system, the media went ballistic. When McCain violated campaign-finance law, the media took a pass.

When Obama said he would continue to “refine” his policy on Iraq, the media spent nearly three weeks screaming, “Flip-flopper!” When McCain completely reinvented himself, and flip-flopped on everything under the sun, the media praised McCain as a “maverick.”

When Obama attended a conference of the nation’s newspaper editors, AP Chairman Dean Singleton quizzed Obama about whether he would send more troops to Afghanistan, where “Obama bin Laden is still at large.” When McCain attended the same conference, AP reporters brought him his favorite donuts and a cup of coffee — made just the way he likes it.

The media has deemed McCain’s scandalous personal life off limits. And questions about McCain’s national security incompetence. And questions about the “100 years” remark. And the Keating Five scandal. Dems can’t even use the word “confused” without reporters accusing them of attacking McCain’s age.

Once in a while, reporters have even admitted that McCain gets less scrutiny than everyone else.

McCain has, on more than one occasion, referring to the national press corps as his “base.” For crying out loud, a detailed book was recently published chronicling the astoundingly biased coverage McCain has enjoyed for years.

And McCain wants to complain that the media favors Obama? Is the McCain campaign completely out of their minds?

I’m reminded of this brilliant item Amanda at TP had last month, in which she noted that no matter what happens, the media finds a way to defend McCain.

McCain barbeques: “He was wearing a sweatshirt with a lithograph photo of his family — like a Christmas card picture. So just another grandpa at the grill.” [Mike Allen, Politico]

McCain rides first-class on Acela trains: “John McCain traveled like a man of the people Friday morning, riding an Amtrak train to Philadelphia after a late night of voting in Washington.” [Libby Quaid, Associated Press]

McCain jokes about killing Iranian civilians: “The guy seems like any guy you’d want to have around the dinner table or the bar stool.” [Chuck Todd, NBC]

McCain jokes about blowing up Jon Stewart with an IED: “Despite the fact he steps over the line sometimes. It makes him seem much more accessible to voter. You know, everybody likes a guy with a good sense of humor.” [Carol Costello, CNN]

McCain backtracks from his statements on Iraq: BLITZER: There was some straight talk, very straight talk, from John McCain today. Then, he seemed to backtrack a little bit. What happened? BASH: He realized his straight talk was too straight, Wolf. [Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash, CNN]

Note to potential presidential contenders: Barbeque, make off-color jokes, and ride first-class on trains, and the media will love you.

The chutzpah of the McCain campaign is truly limitless.

This is exactly how we got a press that pays no attention to Conservative failings but hypes ‘liberal’ failings: by accusing the press of being biased (positively) towards ‘liberals’. To avoid the appearance of that bias they’ve accepted the conservative bs without comment.

If they can make this one stick then it will make the current fawning over McCain seem like they’ve been attacking him.

  • It looks like the start of the third appendix of this blog. Appendix 1: McCain the Flip-Flopper; Appendix 2: McCain Being Confused About His Own Words; and now Appendix Three: Evidence of McCain’s Base Supporting Him.

    Good work.

  • Progressives, and especially the Obama campaign itself, need to push back on this one really hard, or nerd@1 will prove to be prophetic.

  • BTW, I suspect the Obama campaign may have some trouble with this response — they don’t want to be seen as whiners (and they would certainly be labeled as such by the media), and so they haven’t been making a point about unfair press coverage. But they need to do it now. Ironically, as with Iraq, McCain has handed the issue to them on a silver platter. If Obama plays this one correctly, the press may even be shamed into more accurate coverage of McCain in the future.

  • I’d like to initiate a little contest that would be a montage of media clips showing McCain to be the great “joker” that he is, with the Stewart/IED clip, Bomb bomb Iran, you know…all his greatest hits. Then we could all vote on the song that best captures McCain’s sense of humor…

    Now, I’m pretty much a techno-tard. But if anyone wants to create the montage and post it, I’ll be happy to link to it through my blog and promote via email blasts.

  • “The release of the video is part of a new contest the McCain campaign has launched, under the headline: “The Media is in LOVE with Barack.” The contest, apparently, is for Republicans to “pick the best song” to capture the media’s “devotion” to Obama”

    Is he running for President or Prom Queen? Doesn’t that seem a little juevenille and catty?

    So Barack Obama is making a very presidential trip abroad and John McCain is behaving like simpering junior high schooler.

  • Of course this is the right move, strategically, by the McCain campaign– they love him, and they’ll pass this along.

    For example.

  • Straight from the Rove Playbook: #6 accuse your opponent of that which you are guilty .

  • Next thing you know McCain will be whining that the voters are in LOVE with Obama and are giving him an unfair amount of attention…and money.

    So sad to see McCain lose his base so early in the election process.

  • This line of attack may be more dangerous than we care to admit. What is the first thing the typical American remembers about Gore’s 2000 campaign? The Internet. By focusing on Obama as media creation, McCain’s campaign reinforces their (misleading) narrative of Obama’s lack of experience while simultaneously making it even more difficult for the media to ask the tough questions of McCain. That is if they cared to start asking the tough questions.

    I wonder if this is not something to be taken lightly.

  • Hey, leave Barry out of it. The media never liked Barry. A more apt comparison would be Roger Clemens.

  • How could you leave out the fact that there were sprinkles on the donuts? That was the essential point of that story.

  • Talking about whiners, Andrea Mitchell is really becoming a whiner when she interviews someone, trying to lead them into a negative answer about Obama, and then arguing with them when they do not take her cue!

  • I don’t think that we need anymore evidence that karl rove is very involved in the mccain campaign. What was rove’s strategy? Take your weaknesses and slam your opponent for them. I think a bigger deal should be made out of this, especially an explanation of the tactic itself for those unfamiliar with it. That way when people see mccain attacking Obama, they may think to themselves that maybe mccain is covering for his own faults instead of baselessly assuming what mccain says is correct. Maybe it’s too much to ask but why not try.

  • He’ll get more coverage in the next few months. For the moment, so many subjects are off-limits that reporters can’t figure out what to say. Even for the McCain campaign, this election is all about Obama, it’s all they talk about.

  • You guys are pathetic. It is four years from now that you have to defend Obama.
    In the present he is clean, good message, and appears intelligent.He is on the right side of the issues. If interparty politics trump this election,I will be convinced. it will be the next generation that comes to their senses and kicks out the old guard that have created this, and restores some integrity to this insanity.

  • While this is yet another example of Republican projection, I think it really reveals both how desperate they are, and how clueless.

    The attacks are stupid, dishonest and hypocritical, but then that’s pretty standard for a modern Republican presidential campaign. The tone and the metamessage are working against them, however, and I don’t think they realize it.

    Given that neither McCain nor Obama is currently president, one of the basic tasks of their campaigns is to help voters visualize the candidate as president.

    A president isn’t a late-night infomercial huckster, and also isn’t a cable news attack dog, or even an affable grandpa riding around in a golf cart. The president is a symbol of the nation, and should embody that, even at play. Yet McCain, in his endless bumbling carping and whiny attacks, looks anything but presidential. By contrast Obama, during the recent foreign trip, gave us a preview of what President Obama will look like (hint: pretty awesome). Whether in consultation with U.S. commanders or foreign dignitaries, he was easy to imagine as a President we could be proud of, particularly after the cringeworthy clowning of the current incumbent. I think both the country and the world are hungry for that, but it’s something McCain can’t offer them.

    It’s easy to get caught up in refuting whatever nonsense the GOP noise machine is peddling, but I think the big picture is they are losing the overall war even as they press their tactical attacks. The more McCain attacks Obama, the smaller McCain looks. The right wing propaganda mill also looks ridiculous and out of touch as it does its thing. What they end up accomplishing is reminding people why we hate them, and why we don’t believe anything they say. As a result McCain will end up next to Alan Keyes, another piece of roadkill on the side of the highway to the Obama administration.

  • Ironically, the sheer awfulness of McCain’s campaign — I thought Hillary’s was bad, but this is ten times worse — has shielded him from a lot of media criticism — so far. McCain is a truly awful politician — he’s never had to learn to be a good one because he’s never faced serious opposition since his first primary, and he comes from a strongly conservative — but ‘independent conservative’ state. (What I mean by the last is simply that they respected a Goldwater — who had a pretty low opinion of McCain — who went ‘off the reservation’ frequently. The difference between McCain and Goldwater was that Goldwater’s positions were honestly derived from a consistent philosophy, McCain’s ‘maverick moments’ are emotional spasms ‘of the moment’ — which is why he so rarely carries through on them.)

    Then throw in McCain’s monstrous ego — he probably did write that op-ed piece himself, and while it is not really a knock on him that he doesn’t ‘get’ computers, it is incredible that he doesn’t listen to aides who do — and you have the disaster he is creating for himself and his party. (I said in early 2007 that ‘any Democrat will beat any Republican’ but I never thought a Republican would set himself to be the next Alf Landon.)

    So far, the campaign has looked like a series of tennis matches between Venus Williams — healthy and at her prime — and the winner of a local country club tournament for ‘senior ladies.’

    Okay, now imagine a CNN, a WaPo or NYT covering the campaigns accurately, so far. They wouldn’t even sound like Olbermann, they’d sound like — well, er, they’d sound like THE CARPETBAGGER REPORT — the posts, not the comments. (Steve, you may be the best political reporter I’ve read consistently.)

    This would be a good thing, no? NO! Because the Murdochs, Limbaughs, Schlussels, et. al, are still out there. Imagine if every day the lead headline was (accurately) either OBAMA’S LATEST STROKE OF BRILLIANCE or MC CAIN FLUBS ANOTHER ONE. By the time of the convention, the Republicans would be able to at least recoup some losses by running a campaign based on ‘media bias’ alone.

    (And realize that the ‘pro-McCain bias’ in the current MSM isn’t that they praise him too much — okay, they repeat the ‘experienced maverick’ line a lot, but they haven’t been arguing for his positions — but that they don’t criticize him enough. Again, guys, maybe that’s the way it will still look in the middle of October, but I doubt it. Actually, by mid-October, I expect that McCain’s campaign will be getting about as little attention as Dole’s did, or Mondale’s at the same stage, and everybody will be speculating about Obama’s cabinet appointments — when they aren’t ignoring politics entirely and concentrating on the World Series.)

  • Look CB, it really is unfair of you to expect the RampStrike Xpress to focus on issues and his solutions to America’s problems. If he can’t whine about Obama and how mean everyone’s being to him what’s he going to do? Leave us gasping with another display of his masterly grasp of the economy. Bowl us over with more evidence of his stunning geo-political knowledge?

    Bwahahaaha!

    I’d like to initiate a little contest that would be a montage of media clips showing McCain to be the great “joker” that he is, with the Stewart/IED clip, Bomb bomb Iran, you know…all his greatest hits. Then we could all vote on the song that best captures McCain’s sense of humor…
    -Gridlock

    Heh. You’ve already picked the song. I read “joker” and instantly thought of Steve Miller Band’s The Joker.

    “Some people call me a space cowboy…”

  • The chutzpah of the McCain campaign is truly limitless.

    This is not chutzpah. These Republicans have experience creating false memes (is that redundant?) and playing the media like a violin. McCain is doing what most (not all) Republicans always do…lie (usually with impunity).

    McCain’s b.s. is the symptom. The disease is the media. By and large, they suck at their jobs.

  • Elvis @ # 7 provides a good link in support of the bias toward McCain (i.e. not calling him on, well, anything). Yet another example of how the Corp Media is distressing.

    However, if you read through the comments posted afterward, it appears that the literate folks out here actually see through this crap. And by literate, I mean reading the internet article and stringing together coherent sentances in reply. So I’m not as distressed as I was prior to reading the link.

    Thanks, Elvis

  • I think I agree with Ernest.

    It’s going to take a new generation both voting and running for office to see some change. I mean, think about it. We all remember 9/11 but think about all of the children too small to know what’s going on. In 15-20 years, what are these kids going to think of this ‘war on terror?’ Probably they will view it differently from us, especially if they have not been frightened into action like we were.

  • Were you guys equally as upset when “Saturday Night Live” hit too close to home re: media treatment of Obama vs. Hillary?

  • The media should stop bending over backwards for McCain, if this is the thanks they get for it.

    I suspect it’s just another attempt at a meme they hope will stick. Hey, whatever happened to “he’s never broke with his own party” anyway?

  • Actually, by mid-October, I expect that McCain’s campaign will be getting about as little attention as Dole’s did

    I remember Dole did a couple of stunts to try to attract some attention as that campaign wound down. First, he resigned his Senate seat, so that win or lose, this would be his last political hurrah. Then, at the end he embarked on a nonstop, no-sleep bus tour for the final few days of the campaign. I’ll say this for him, he put in a real effort.

    Anecdote: As the Dole campaign finished up, Dole headed back to Kansas to see the election results. By that time, it was clear he was going to lose, so there was almost nobody there to greet him on his arrival at his home town. One person who did bother to make the effort to meet Dole at the end, even though there was no political benefit to it (Dole’s political career was clearly over) was:

    John McCain.

    Maybe Dole will greet McCain as he finishes this campaign.

  • How much money did McCain’s campaign spend on this? Seems like a waste of resources.

  • Look, it’s nothing personal, John. It’s just that, you know, you don’t look like you used to. Since your accident–you know, the accident of you becoming the candidate–your moral stature is a few inches shorter. Your conversation has become flabby. Your policy statements walk with a definite limp. And, you know, we’ve been dreaming–for years we’ve been dreaming–of what it would be like when the nightmare of our Bush-led captivity is over and we’re finally out of this Republican-administered prison. We made it through those long years by dreaming of what it would be like when the next president is here. And we just can’t, you know, picture ourselves with you any more. People…well, people change. And we’re, um, shocked by the change in you.

    It’s really nothing personal. It’s just that we’ve found someone who suits us better, understands us better, will give us a do-over, and looks like a million bucks to boot. We want to be 46 instead of 72, you know?

    You can keep the kids.

  • Were you guys equally as [sic] upset

    We’re not upset now, Charlie. We’re laughing our asses off.

  • The chutzpah of the McCain campaign is truly limitless.

    So is their tone-deafness.

    LOL.

  • TAIO said, I read “joker” and instantly thought of Steve Miller Band’s The Joker.

    Ugh!! Now I can’t get the image of McCain shakin’ a peach tree out of my head!!

    Given his whining, I think a more appropos song would be the Coasters’ Charlie Brown.

    Though it doesn’t really address his “jokes” though it does say, “He’s a clown”. Just replace Charlie Brown with John McCain and you’ve got an instant classic.

    “Why is everybody always pickin’ on me?”

  • I guess this is just another McCain Flipflop…

    …Dole, on the other hand, was visibly frustrated in the final weeks of his campaign, at one point blaming the media, whom he said had given Clinton an easy ride. “Where is the outrage?” he repeatedly bellowed at a rally in fall ’96. “Where is the outrage?” Watching the events offstage, McCain, according to the Associated Press, “rolled his eyes.” “I know it is not productive to beat up on the press,” McCain said, a line he virtually repeated to NEWSWEEK last week when asked about his own press coverage.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/141506/page/2

  • Racer X:

    Pointing out the TRUTH (you have to admit that at least SOME Media is in LOVE with Barack) along with a funny song contest (haven’t you watched The Colbert Report lately?) is not the same thing as “beat[ing[ up on the press.” Therefore, no “flip-flop”. Next canard?

  • This is another attempt to shame the media into covering him. Maybe it will work, maybe not. I know that lo these many years of the RR screaming “Liberal Bias in the Media” really DID work to their advantage. Now every newspaper out there, including the NYT and LAT have conservative assholes orominently posting on their editorial pages and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is forcing PBS and NPR to list to the right. The first thing Reagan did was eliminate the Fairness Doctrine and look at the discourse in this country!

    I’m with Linus, this could actually be dangerous. Although I hope that many of you end up being right.

  • “Ugh!! Now I can’t get the image of McCain shakin’ a peach tree out of my head!!”

    But it’s perfect! Imagine a clip of a smitten reporter handing him coffee and doughnuts (with sprinkles!): “Lovey, dovey, lovey, dovey, lovey, dovey all the time.”

    Am I right? Am I right? You know I’m right.

  • Yes, Always hopeful, I have and agree they are “hilarous” (especially the one with McCain’s head on Colbert’s body ; )

  • The GOPhers are just working the refs. Bill Kristol admitted years ago that the media isn’t liberal. They just do this to work the refs. And they’ve done it successfully for forty years. FAIR found that the Washington Press corps is actually more conservative than the rest of America.

    But those who say Dems must push back have nailed it. The GOPhers have had their chance. They’ve framed, orchestrated, and ordered us to go in lock-step with them for too long. We are so done taking anything they say as credible.

  • TheCarpetbaggerReport has done a great job of listing the many more-than-flip flops of John McSame. We have to each commit to somehow telling at least 100 people (everyone we know). Benen has made it easy. All anyone has to do is get people to check out the link at the top of this website. It’s that easy. Doing that, plus spreading the word on McSAmes bad track record (including Keating five, Gramm, etc) and his many cognitive implosions should seal the deal.

  • McCain is simply jealous. He has been (and still is) the media darling but he’s had to take a backseat this week to Obama’s well reported trip abroad. Johnny Boy needs to pick a VP real soon in order to focus attention back in his direction…poor, poor jealous boy….

  • Well, I think McCain should get his wish:
    1. The media can cover his first marriage, dating Cindy, getting marriage license, divorce, then marriage to Cindy (in exactly that order) in a constant loop and run it as long as they did Jeremiah Wright.
    2 The media can cover his every goof and gaffe just as they would if they were Obama’s goofs and gaffes.
    3. The media can decide his wife is “not off limits” and disect her every word and determine she’s unpatriotic and scarey.
    Yup, the MSM love affair with Obama has to end……….. John McCain now needs equal time.

  • According to the McCain camp, Senator Obama is receiving more coverage in the news than he is and therefore, there is a media bias towards Obama. However, I disagree. Senator Obama’s trip overseas was brought about by comments from the McCain camp that ‘Obama has little experience because he has not gone overseas to Iraq and Afghanistan.’ So, Obama is now doing this.

    Additionally, although Obama has alot of press coverage, much of it is negative and bringing in alot of racial sterotypes and falsehoods about him. Senator McCain is not even called on the mistakes he is making on the campaign trail (confusing Sunni’s and Shia’s, confusing countries and borders, and numerous other gaffes). Senator McCain is handled with ‘kid gloves’ by the media who think he is their darling.

    The Senator McCain of old who can the ‘Straight Talk Express’ is no longer that person. He is now a clone to George W. Bush which the Republicans have molded into an exact copy on issues. He has changed his positions on the tax cuts for the wealthy, estate taxes, abortion, and the list goes on. The press does not scrutinize Senator McCain or they would have demanded he show his positions clearly on Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, gasoline prices, Social Security, the homeless, and other pertinent issues for voters.

    The only thing the press emphasizes about John McCain is his war hero
    status which is supposted to make him a ‘great Commander-in-Chief and a winner
    of wars’! What war has he won? Why does his prisoner of war status make him
    a better candidate than Obama? What is his real foreign policy experience? Does hehave a good judgement or will he lead us into another war (he has already said ‘there will be more wars’.

    The mainstream media’s job is to remain impartial and report the facts, not show their bias in stories and coverage. The American people need our mainstream media to keep in touch with the news and we need it to be impartial toward one candidate or another.

  • The contest, apparently, is for Republicans to “pick the best song” to capture the media’s “devotion” to Obama. — CB

    “I Can Get No Sprinklifaction” by Set in Stones

  • “The contest, apparently, is for Republicans to “pick the best song” to capture the media’s “devotion” to Obama.”

    Pink Floyd’s “Not Now John” seems awfully appropriate.

  • The media seems to be targeting a subset of readers, viewers, listeners who are at best ignorant, and at worse able to cast a vote.
    Thankfully the rest of us have the “internets”, where ideas and intelligent thought can flow freely. (Well usually)
    Personally, I feel the reason the media has not covered in depth, or ignored altogether McComplain’s obvious lack of anything resembling presidential qualities is that once they do, there is NO more presidential race. It’s over. My “timeline” for that is after the first debate. There’s no way both candidates can appear on a stage without the glaring differences becoming apparent.

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