MSM Exceeds All Expectations, Closes Election With Repeated And Spectacular Demonstrations Of Bias
It was a small thing, but my favorite bit of shameless in-the-tank press bias was in July during Obama's trip to Europe. The media was locked in a feverish competition to see who could sing The One's praises most grandly and the Washington Post produced this as the lede of an actual news article:
Sen. Barack Obama, on his first and likely only overseas trip as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has remade the campaign's foreign policy playing field, neatly sidestepping Republican charges that he has been naive and wrong on Iraq and moving to a broader, post-Iraq focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. In essence, Obama has declared the war in Iraq all but over.
Of course exactly the opposite was the case. Obama's ham-fisted self-aggrandizement actually soured Americans on his campaign and an NIE was subsequently leaked that showed that the Iraq war is far from over. But who cares? Obama "neatly sidestepped" all that by traipsing around the globe on a cartoonish field trip. Sure none of that is "true" as such. But it's no more false than Obama's claims about Ayers or his legislative record - which the media also helpfully parrots.
It's not so much eye roll inducing Stupid Media Tricks - although an end to DNC-employed "lifelong Republicans" might not be the worst thing. And its not just their supine reactions to the Obama campaign's alternatively angry and petulant treatment of journalists - although it seems like expelling the NY Post and the Washington Times from the plane was a little much. And it's not even the pathetic rationalizations that they've trotted out to justify the vicious anti-Palin campaign waged by even the largest news organizations and by Obama himself.
What's really incredible is the MSM's total and utter failure to do even the most basic work on Obama's campaign and positions. Not his life or his past. His actual electoral campaign and his actual political stances. Obama's been the presumptive Democratic candidate since February. And yet - in an election about energy prices, the economy, and the War on Terror - here is a truncated list of things that have come out only in the last two weeks:
* Obama believes that citizens must seize government power to redistribute wealth. Not only did we have to wait for citizen journalists to find that, but when it came out CBS refused to air it. Somehow digging into public interviews of Obama wasn't as much of a priority as investigating the bump in Bristol Palin's midsection. No worries. That was even more important than the War on Terror, so easily accessible interviews had to wait their turn.
* Obama's energy plan will be designed to bankrupt the coal industry and send energy prices "skyrocketing." That audio's been available forever. Maybe it was deemed too unimportant to matter, although the reaction of swing staters this morning indicates that it might have at least a little bit important.
* Obama's campaign went out of its way to disable credit card checks and accept untraceable donations from foreign donors, including ones from North Korea and Iran, and in excess of campaign finance limits. Many news outlets - to say nothing of ostensibly neutral public broadcasting outfits - were laughable in their lack of coverage.
* Obama paid $700,000 to make himself look good for a few hours in Germany. Media outlets were too focused writing vicious headlines about Palin's wardrobe to mention that.
And factcheck.org is at a loss about why nobody seems to care about facts and why Americans functionally know nothing about domestic or global politics. Easy answer: you can't convey an accurate picture world if at the same time you're trying to make Biden look like not an idiot. You just can't. It's one or the other.
Did Newsweek's senior editor really say that "Olbermann is our great resource now in this country to get the truth out there" because "there's a place for ranting in America"? Of course he did. Is every single writer for Slate anti-McCain. Of course they are. Has the next generation noticed that you have to be liberal to be a successful journalist and self-selected accordingly. Without a doubt.
Americans have already begun looking elsewhere for their news. The LA Times' freefall is merely the leading indicator - although a richly deserved one - of traditional media's decline. Conservatives are going to have a lot of time on their hands over the next half-decade. A good chuck of it is going to have to be spent on building an alternative media infrastructure.
In the meantime, the next few weeks are going to be excruciating.
References:
* Obama Shifts the Foreign Policy Debate [WaPo]
* Poll Shows Obama’s Lead Narrowing in Swing States [WSJ]
* Post-Election NIE Will Conclude That Iraq Still Faces Potential "Wave Of Violence" [MR]
* Big Lies: Obama on Ayers, born-alive bill [Hot Air]
* CNN Again Fails to Check Its Facts [Paul Ibrahim]
* 'Imagine if Joe the Plumber Was That Testy' [Johnny Dollar]
* Obama's Digital Brownshirts Turned Loose On Barbara West [MR]
* A NIXONESQUE MOVE FROM TEAM OBAMA [NY Post]
* CNN Spends Evening Searching For Democrat Who Can Explain Why Anti-Palin Smears Don't Reek Of Sexism. Fails. (Plus: Guess When "Shrill" Used To Be Sexist) [MR]
* MR's Laundry List Of Debunked Palin Smears, Part I Of An Ongoing Series [MR]
* CNN Takes Lead In Ultra-Competitive "Who Can Smear Palin Most Viciously" Media Race (Plus: Pro-Obama Comedians Also Competing!) [MR]
* ABC News: McCain "Falsely Accusing" Obama Of Doing Exactly What The Crowd Who Heard His "Pig" Comment Thought He Was Doing (UPDATED: Ben Smith Wasn't In The Room, Rhetorical Sophistication Invoked!) [MR]
* Obama In 2001: "Coalitions Of Power" Need To Be Formed To Redistribute Wealth, Warren Court Neglected "Economic Justice" [MR]
* CBS Evening News Spikes Newly Found Obama 'Redistributive' Audio [NewsBusters]
* Media So Good At Their Jobs That Nobody Realizes Al Qaeda Is Getting Decimated [MR]
* Audio: Obama Tells SF Chronicle He Will Bankrupt Coal Industry [NewsBusters]
* Obama: I’ll make energy prices "skyrocket" [Hot Air]
* Ohio Coal Association Says Obama Remarks Make It Clear: Obama Ticket Not Supportive of Coal [MarketWatch]
* Obama’s Funding Fraud [Political Inquirer]
* FEC Rules Leave Loopholes For Online Donation Data [National Journal]
* "John Galt" donating to Obama this year too, apparently; Update: RNC files new complaint with FEC; Update: Foreign credit cards being accepted too? Update: Ruffini cries fraud [Hot Air]
* Secret, Foreign Money Floods Into Obama Campaign [Newsmax]
* The Obama Campaign’s Credit-Card Crack-up [PJM]
* Right Wing Blogs Repudiated Again: Obama's So-Called "Fraudulent Donors" Come Forward, Explain the Reasons for Their Support [Ace]
* Obama spent nearly $700,000 for stage, lights in Berlin [Wash Times]
* AP Headline: "Palin Adds To Wardrobe Before Reno Campaign Stop" [MR]
* Fact-checking: Does anyone care? [Politico]
* Americans Flunk Simple 3-Question Political Survey [LiveScience]
* Breathtakingly Stupid VP Candidate Very Lucky The Media's In The Tank For Obama [MR]
* "Olberman is our great resource now in this country to get the truth out there. " [Solomonia]
* Slate Votes [Slate]
* BMOC: College Papers Back Obama, 63 to 1 [Editor and Publisher]
* Times leads in circulation drop again [LA Observed]
* Pics And Video From The LA Times "Free The Tape" Protest (UPDATED: 2nd Video, 25 Pic Gallery Added) [MR]
Previously:
* Wherein Psychoanalytic Theory Is Brought To Bear On The LAT's Suppression Of The Obama-Khalidi TapeXXX
* Wherein Psychoanalytic Theory Is Brought To Bear On The LAT's Suppression Of The Obama-Khalidi Tape
* Confirmed: Media Finds The Nuance In Al-Sadr's Baghdad Setbacks
