{"id":16478,"date":"2008-08-05T08:10:43","date_gmt":"2008-08-05T12:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16444.html"},"modified":"2008-08-05T08:10:43","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T12:10:43","slug":"media-believes-mccain-is-often-uncomfortable-with-his-own-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/media-believes-mccain-is-often-uncomfortable-with-his-own-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Media believes McCain is ‘often uncomfortable with his own campaign’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The more offensive John McCain becomes as a candidate, the more leading media personalities will come up with rationalizations to defend his bizarre conduct. It’s like being graded on a very<\/i> generous curve.<\/p>\n

This segment on MSNBC’s “Hardball” yesterday was a classic example<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who did an exceptional job last week of debunking McCain’s bogus smear of Obama over not visiting wounded U.S. troops in Germany, argued, “John McCain also doesn’t like this kind of politics, went along with his new, tougher political advisors…. I think he’s inside a bubble…. I think he’s been ginned up a little bit.”<\/p>\n

The Politico’s Roger Simon agreed. “McCain really doesn’t like attacking…which is why I think he’s often uncomfortable with his own campaign,” Simon insisted. “The Britney-and-Paris ad, I think, will go down in history as one of the most visually incoherent ads ever shown on TV.”<\/p>\n

Mike Barnicle, filling in for Chris Matthews, added, “It also, I would think, gets to his, something that he’s very proud of, has been very proud of and it’s been clear in talking to him over the years, his sense of honor. I think an ad like that offended, or would offend if he paid attention to it, his sense of honor.”<\/p>\n

Mitchell agreed. “I think he may have been misled about what Obama did or did not say,” she said, adding, “As the candidate, there’s no way he could be tracking all of this himself.”<\/p>\n

This is sheer madness. Worse, it’s not even a compelling defense.
\n
\nTo hear Mitchell, Simon, and Barnicle tell it, McCain’s relentlessly negative campaign isn’t his fault, so let’s not be too hard on him.<\/p>\n

As Josh Marshall put it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Truly a Kuhnian moment. John McCain is so honorable and straight-shooting that the only explanation for his campaign’s headlong dive into sleaze, xenophobia and gonzo bamboozlement is that McCain is so out of it and controlled by his advisors that he doesn’t actually know what they’re doing in his name.<\/p>\n

(Just the kind of guy who should be president, right?)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quite right. In fact, it’s striking the way McCain simply can’t lose when it comes to media adulation — if he runs a positive, substantive, issue-driven campaign, media personalities will sing his praises. If he runs a negative, dishonest, character-assassination-style campaign, media personalities will still<\/i> sing his praises, blaming his team of Karl Rove acolytes for steering John The Great in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

We talked yesterday about Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, in an otherwise great column<\/a>, falling into the same pattern. McCain, Alter argued, is waging a negative and dishonest campaign, but this is “out of sync with the real guy.” McCain may be on the attack, but his “heart’s not in it.” He’s foolishly taking the advice of “knuckleheads.” It’s that darn Steven Schmidt who deserves most of the blame.<\/p>\n

Kevin explained quite well<\/a> the other day why this it’s-not-McCain’s-fault argument misses the mark.<\/p>\n

Apparently he’s just a straight talking guy who woke up one morning and found himself mysteriously under the sway of a vile cabal of political hit men and unable to do anything about it.<\/p>\n

Enough’s enough. McCain hired Steve Schmidt, he approves the strategy, and he signs off on the ads. If his campaign is mired in sleaze, it’s not happening despite<\/i> McCain, it’s happening because<\/i> of McCain. Stop making excuses for him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McCain is responsible for his own offensive conduct. The sooner he’s held accountable, the sooner he might be embarrassed into acting with at least a shred of honor again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The more offensive John McCain becomes as a candidate, the more leading media personalities will come up with rationalizations to defend his bizarre conduct. It’s like being graded on a very generous curve. This segment on MSNBC’s “Hardball” yesterday was a classic example. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who did an exceptional job last week of debunking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}