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Obama's Media Attack Dogs

Over at ABC, Michael Malone's piece on biased election coverage is worth a read, and I especially found this part worth commenting on:

I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play....

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.

If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.

That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?

The media has tried to create the narrative that John McCain has been running a more negative, nasty, campaign than Obama. But the important thing to remember is that campaigns go negative when they want to draw attention to something that isn't being covered. In Obama's case, the media has gone after McCain and Palin so aggressively, that there isn't any reason for him to get his own hands dirty. In McCain's case, however, he's been forced to take matters into his own hands -- just as Hillary did -- because the media refuses to seriously scrutinize Obama. It really struck me being in the spin room of the final debate at Hofstra earlier this month, how the media was overtly confrontational with the McCain surrogates, but when it came time to engage the Obama folks, the questions would be along the lines of, "Do you think that John McCain was too nasty tonight?" So really, it's a vicious circle. The media goes soft on Obama, so McCain sharpens his attacks, and then they criticize McCain for running a more negative campaign.

View all comments (4) | Leave a comment

ruth| 10.28.08 @ 9:26PM

Everything in this article is true. It's obviously true. But why are they doing it? I don't want to sound like a tin-foil hat nut, but is it a conspiracy? Everything is just so well organized--from the outrageously biased media coverage to Acorn to the 'October Surprise' financial meltdown. Stinks to high heavens to me.

Frank| 10.29.08 @ 1:16AM

I would like to see a copy of Senator Obamas records from Columbia,and Harvard Law School.I would also like to see a copy of his Birth Certificate.As far as i know this has never been made public.They made fun of Bushes academic records,and yet Gore ,and Kerry had roughly the same mediocre grades.We know McCain was near the bottom of his class at Annapolis.Obama is implied to be a genius.Let us see if he is.Grades are no mark of a good general or president.Grant was last in his class at Westpoint,and Truman never went to collage,and they did allright.Jimmey Carter was probably close to a geius,as was Wilson.Carter was aterrible President,and Wilson got us in a war we didnt belong in.

Frank

Viv| 10.29.08 @ 7:25AM

Frank, Obama graduated 'magna cum laude' and here is his birth certificate. http://www.politifact.com/media/img/graphics/birthCertObama.jpg

His marriage license, driver's license, etc, are all freely available on the web.

Jack Bauer| 10.29.08 @ 8:13AM

Viv -- that's NOT Obama's original birth certificate. It's a modern facsimile created recently.

Where did Obama "graduate?" Where's the public record that proves he deserved any accolade?

He spent EIGHT years of his life in college education. No wonder his wife bitches so much about paying college debts.

Where's his 1984 thesis on "Soviet Nuclear Disarmament"? How did he get into ANY college. Where are his grades? How did he get into Harvard. What did he do at Columbia. Was he a member of the many socialist cliques at Columbia? Did he attend socialist conferences at Columbia?

Obama rose without trace -- and any faint trace has been carefully airbrushed away in case it scares the folks.

The Obama media doesn't care.

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More Blog Posts by Philip Klein

http://spectator.org/blog/2008/10/28/obamas-media-attack-dogs

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