Is The Media Falling Out Of Love With McCain?
By Nicole Belle Monday Sep 15, 2008 8:00pmEric Boehlert thinks the bloom is off the rose...
Did you hear the media are mad? According to Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post, the press is angry at McCain for his patently untrue lipstick attack ("It's false. It's ridiculous"), and they're seething over how Sarah Palin keeps telling her demonstrably false Bridge to Nowhere tale even after members of the media pointed out her stump-speech applause line was a lie. (A "whopper.")
During the past week, virtually every major news outlet has produced welcomed, hard-edged fact-checking pieces about how the Republican ticket goes far beyond bending the truth and just plain snaps it out on the campaign trail.
In the past, that kind of truth-telling would have embarrassed campaigns and likely caused a dramatic change in the rhetoric. But what do McCain and Palin do in response? They pretty much ignore the press and its critiques.
Writing on The New Republic's website, Eve Fairbanks spelled out the conundrum, capturing the dumbfounded realization that spread through the press corps. It's like that scene in a movie when the superhero realizes his unique power (for the press, it's collective indignation) has suddenly been rendered useless:
Reporters demolished the claim that the Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, and yet the McCain campaign insolently still uses it. Writers dismantled the McCain campaign's untrue assertion that Barack Obama compared Sarah Palin to a pig yesterday, and yet the campaign put out an audacious ad featuring the ridiculous allegation, presumably on the assumption that Real Americans don't care what the elite press says anyway.
Instead of recoiling, the Republican ticket seems to have adopted a post-press approach to campaigning in which the candidates simply don't care what the press does or says about their honesty. More to the point, the candidates don't think it will matter on Election Day.
They may be right. And that's the media's fault. They've reported their way right into the margins. Submerged in trivia and tactics for the past 18 months, the press, I think, has damaged its ability -- its authority -- to referee the campaign.
Now if they would stop trying to draw false equivalencies between McCain's repeated lies and Obama's rhetoric...Or if they reported honestly the critiques coming from Democratic Party spokespeople instead of bringing on McCain proxy after proxy. Or worse, just admitting that giving viewers fact is beyond their pay scale:
John Amato: I wonder how much this really helps us. It's nice that they are calling it
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John McCain should never have been a serious candidate. That he is, is a sign of societal illness.
We need no Konstantin Chernenko as President of the United States!
Even Turd Blossom Says McCain is ‘Full of Shit’
A struggling minority are in denial, but the public and the bulk of the MSM are laughing at the Republicans.
Its cool to be liberal now.
The one true Chimpy legacy.
Want to know how to get their attention press corps of the world/USA?
Take a leaf out of the gossip magazine's book. Start making stuff up that can't readily be disproven. That'll get their attention.
When you're shameless, having your claims debunked with fact means nothing. They are preaching to the choir. Hopefully this no longer includes a mainstream media who no longer feel cowed by Repukes
ferrofluid ( they'll be sorry ) @ 3:
We seem to be moving back to the Left in US society at long last. The last 30 years since the 1979 backlash were too long for that stupidity.
P.S The more they rage against it, the more people will think it is true.
Took a long time for a bunch of well-educated -- one assumes -- journalists -- one assumes -- to finally address reality. It will continue to test their frontal lobes and their ethics so don't be surprised if they turn to status quo quips/clips and MTV-like drivel and distractions. After all, they have no comprehension of the role of the 4th estate in a democracy as they've shown since the Camelot bullshit in the early '60s.
We'll know the answer to the question when the media lets the American people hear directly from the candidates rather than play 30 second bites, and then feed us 50 minutes of analysis and spin from pundits.
A small light at the end of the tunnel appeared today when I heard Biden say: "I'm sick and tired of this Republican garbage!" Truer words have never been spoken this week.
David Gergen said the same thing on CNN yesterday, and Anderson Cooper actually ASKED (*ghasp*) if the spin being told by each side is symmetrical, or lopsided in favor of the Republicans.
Wow, it may be about eight years too late, but I think our little media kids are finally growing up and doing their jobs. The truly sad thing about it is that they wouldn't be doing their job if the McCain camp hadn't abused them so badly by using them as an excuse to keep Palin and McCain from being asked questions. That little exchange with Campbell Brown being used as an excuse for McCain to cancel his appearence on Larry King, and then as a further excuse to hide Palin from questioning reporters has got the media feeling a little used
So, if I can put it bluntly, the media have always allowed themselves to be used for one sided booty calls by the Republican party in general, and McCain specifically. But they only fell out of love with him when he decided he was in to BDSM.
Funny you should bring that up:
"The Power of Political Misinformation" September 15, 2008 -- WaPo.com http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/14/AR200809...
...experiments conducted by political scientist John Bullock at Yale University show that "misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people's minds after it has been debunked..." and that "...In some cases, correcting misinformation serves to increase the power of bad information".
Just curious. . . Does it really matter?
They "boycott" us 24/7 - They do not come to our
blogs, outside of sycophantic trolls, and they do not
read/watch "our" news media -
The MSM’s Boards of Directors are all shared by the
same people, and are also shared with the boards of
the extractive, pharmaceutical, and ag-chem, et al
corporations. (proof link)
Have you seen “We’re Gonna Frickin’ Lose This Thing” yet?
(If not - please - do so now.)
Mike - - The Old Hippie at. . .
The Old Hippie's Groovy Site
The Old Hippie's Groovy Blog
“Frivolous Names - Serious Content”
Shan @ 4:
Get that Tucker McSucker guy to spread rumors about McCain's illegi...What? Oh. Never mind.
When a gun backfires it’s surprising, unexpected, and a little scary. In the old days, you ended up with black soot on your face, and a vary loud ringing in your ears.
It’s the ringing in the ears that’s causing the McCain campaign not to listen to everyone calling out their distortions (yeah, I know….lies).
This one has backfired.
"Is The Media Falling Out Of Love With McCain?"
The 12 steps are rough.
"You can't have honor without honesty." Wow....MCCaskill is my new hero. I think the media is finally catching on that they've been totally had.
and yet they can't stop talking about him. McCain this, McCain that. That's all the voters hear these days.
"Obama who?"
It's not that the bloom is off the rose, it's that the media senses McCain/Palin running away from this once sure-thing for Obama, and they can't have any of that.
They're just doing their job.
Nothing more, nothing less.
McCain is quite likable by liberals and their counterparts in the media when they are certain he can't win. But he pulls a fast one on the media, the race turns on a dime, and then there's hell to pay.
"We wanted you to keep it close, John. Not win. And win big? Fuhhgedaboutit."
McSongbird and McMilf. she's probably going to induce the heart attack that will kill him.
McBlackberry was an honorless, worthless lover who lied and cheated repeatedly and even the whore MSM has finally had enough. General Pavel Rennenkamkf Xocoyotzin@1 is so correct....Grandpa should had never been a candidate in the first place.
Facts? What part of amoral don't you understand. These people are serial liars--especially Palin, who I think is pathological. I knew a woman like her in college. You don't deal with them rationally. They are creatures who will screw their grandmothers to gain an inch. It's all about Sarah.
Candy, McCain would not jump your bones, heh, if he could even find one, no matter how much you stick up for him. Quit being nice to him because now is the time for them to start calling all of the media, "The LIberal Media" again.
Fuck them! Too little, too late. These corporate honks keep trying to define the elections or force some shitty overly simplistic narrative down our throats. They helped engineer the impending collapse. Ths smartest thing we can do is "just say no" to corporate media. (Say yes to drugs, of course!)
While the msm is still in love with Sparkle Plenty, their adoration is sounding more like "Sarah Palin! Apply directly to the forehead!"
dennis @ 18:
dennis, the guy you'd have us vote for can't even turn on a computer. stop and think about how embarrassing that really is, in 2008.
dennis @ 18:
Nice try dennis. But that ain't gonna wash. Even the blind can see that McCain is nothing more than a panderer .
McCain WAS likable, before he signed on with the neocon agenda. Now, he looks like a fish out of water. Just flippin and floppin around all over the place.
Ya know? I'll bet he's pissed off to no end right now. Because he sold out his beliefs.
[Deleted. Worst spamming concern troll ever. BTW, Aco!, you're banned. Site Monitor]
dennis@18
Mr. selective outrage, conditional scrutiny, has returned. Be our guest to ignore Grandpa's daily fuck ups and the evil church bitches glaring un qualifications to only focus your pathetic wrath for Obama only. The other day a site monitor called you a "devils advocate"....total bullshit. You're just another dumb ass who voted for Dumbya(twice) and has the gall to come here expecting your judgment to be respected again. LOL.
How can any republican be anything but humitiated by the demise of the GOP.
mudshark @ 26:
yep, just like that little fish at the end of the faith no more "epic" video...
A concerned observer! @ 27:
Uhhh, how do you know how much time I spend on the computer unless you're spending a lot of time on the computer monitoring how much time I spend on the computer?
I believe it was Adlai Stevenson who made an offer along the lines of: "If Republicans stop telling lies about Democrats, Democrats will stop telling the truth about Republicans."
Repeating lies has been working for years - why change what works?
The media don't want to be hauled off to camps and exterminated. McCain-Palin is the Road to Serfdom.
Two possibilities here:
The first scenario goes something like this. The right-wing pundits have now all received the memo. McCain is going down in November. The strategy is based on the depth and scope of America’s problems and the simple fact that neither one of the two candidates has even a ghost of a chance of fixing any of them.
Losing in November does two things for the Republicans. It gets them out of the burning building that they themselves set ablaze, and it sets up Obama to fail as the first African American president, thereby putting that little pipe dream to rest for a good long time. (New Yorkers won’t be seeing another David Dinkins any time soon, for example.)
They also believe that in the wake of a failed Obama term, they will be enthusiastically embraced yet again. It’s only a mere four years during which the corporate media can effectively marginalize and destroy Obama and his presidency forever.
The second possibility is a bit darker. It has McCain dumping Palin fairly soon. McCain’s handlers will replace her with Lieberman just as Israel begins dropping US made Bunker Buster bombs on Iran, with our complete approval and complicity. The probable loss of US military personnel might even reignite the populous to that 9/11 fervor the Republicans so long for.
This affords Bush the opportunity, should this insane Iranian invasion go bad, (and it bloody-well will) to pull out the last stop and declare Martial Law throughout the “Homeland”…or “Fatherland” as some might prefer to say by that point.
The mechanism is firmly in place and Bush is poised and ready for this move, thanks in no small part to all of the support that he received from the other right wing of our one party system…the Democrats.
Mike @ 12:
That's an awsome link. U.S. elections are like BlackJack. The House Rules state that the House wins all draws. The Republican "house advantage" is the press.
If the Democrats win this election, and they're interested in getting rid of the Republican house advantage the only thing they can do is bring back the Fairness Doctrine. That should be the FIRST thing they do. Once done, everything else will fall in to place. I can't see anybody standing against The "Fairness" Doctrine any more than standing against The "Patriot" Act, with the obvious contrast that the Fairness Doctrine was designed to preserve democracy while the Patriot Act was designed to destroy it. But if Orwellian language is a blade that slashes both ways, we may as well use it to PROTECT democracy for a change, instead of allowing it to be used to destroy it all the time.
As far as I know, the Fairness Doctrine is simply an FCC policy which can be reinstated by the FCC at any time. Obama would only have to appoint a chief executive who's in favor of reinstating it. The Fairness Doctrine has already been held to be constitutional by the Supreme Court. So, with one appointment, Obama could bring back GENUINE 'fair and balanced' reporting.
I'd love to see how red-faced the founders of the conservative movement would be to find out they've spent literally BILLIONS of dollars to corner the market on public information, only to have it removed with the stroke of a pen. I have a feeling Rupert Murdoch would sell all of his newspapers and television stations overnight, since there is no point in holding on to them if you can't use them for propaganda purposes.
I think the media (and McCain) are finally figuring it out about credibility and integrity. Integrity is not like a garment you can take from the shelf and wear it when it's convenient and put it back on the shelf when it's not. You either have it with you at all times, or you never have it at all.
Left&Left @ 28:
Left²,
When you've made your first post with something substantive, and name-calling doesn't count for me like it does with your buddies, please let me know. I'd honestly like to give you some credit.
You need to relax, Left². It's not over yet and you've got the MSM solidly and now unabashedly in your camp. Ya just never know. Even the Cubbies could win it this year.
A concerned observer! @ 27:
Democracy requires the active participation of its citizenry to be effective. The participation can take many forms and many of them are messy, fractured and cludgy. If you want squeaky clean discussion or presentation of issues, surround yourself with any of the propaganda from the ideologues of any political stripe. So join or shut the fuck up.
What I think Boehlert really hits the head on is that McCain and Palin are openly mocking the press by continuing to lie, and-truth be told-the press really isn't going to do anything about it.
This is not solely because they are already heavily invested in McCain's meme(though arguably, they and the companies they work for most certainly are). It's because they're as guilty for the fix they're in as anybody else. The media doesn't report the news anymore so much as sell it, and it's hard to take them seriously if they treats political stories like Hollywood celebrity news. They've made themselves into such a laughingstock over the past few campaigns that no one's going to take their indignation seriously now, even if it is righteous indignation.
And yet the terrible truth is, we need a press and the media: the soundness of our Democracy depends heavily on reliable communication being distributed to its citizens. It doesn't take much imagination to perceive what will happen to the country when information devolves into infotainment. It's already happening.
dennis @ 38:
The MSM hasn't been in our camp for years. It may be that they can't justify backing so many lies that the McCain has put out. One thing they are not covering is issues because they are covering the lies. Which takes up more air time? Right now, the lies.
A concerned observer! @ 27:
Then get off the line, get off the line, GET OFF THE LINE!!
I am tremendously impressed that McCain managed to choose a running mate absolutely, completely devoid of any taint of: Honor, integrity (doubt she can spell that) morality, or intelligence. A being of unadulterated pride and ambition. A she-cheney beast.
Pericles @ 36:
This needs to be said over and over!!
Palin's Favorability Ratings Begin to Falter
The media fell out of love with John McCain, the minute he announced his candidacy for the republican nomination.
"Submerged in trivia and tactics for the past 18 months, the press..."
this is a good point but it really gives the msm a big break. i'm thinking they have been lapdogs for a wee bit longer than the last 1.5 years. case-in-point: if they had been doing there jobs everyone and their mother would KNOW it's a fundamental republican principle to deregulate, a concept i'm not really seeing the masses grasp. the press would have also pointed out, regarding fiorina's "not capable to be CEO comment," that this is more republican mantra. george bush was supposed to save the government because of his ability to run the country like a fortune 500 company instead of a government thanks to the MBA he bought. by the way, did he maybe just buy the paper from those criminals in spokane?
Jo @ 42:
Jesus. My tubes just blew.
I personaly don't mind when reporters are biased, either left or right. Because then I can chose who I want to listen to. It is the ones that claim to be "Fair and Unbiased". that I can't stand because then they can try to sneak their views in undercover. Everybody leans one way or the other, no thinking person doesn't have opinions, and to pretend otherwise is to insult everybodies elses intelligences. So let the MSM have their own bias but but make them announce them right out front.
dennis@38
The MSM is in no camp, Dennis. Even they are finally sick of the absolute LIES that Grandpa says every fucking day! If McBlackberry lies endlessly now, what the fuck do you think he will do when he has Presidential power? If you have ANY sense of true righteousness in your apparent bankrupt soul, you would be fighting as hard as we are to keep the Presidency from this scary old man.
Also, I've been a Cub fan all my life, THIS IS OUR YEAR!!!
one more brief comment about mccain's inability to use a computer...
his operators insist it's due to injuries sustained as a POW.
that's ridiculous.
stephen hawking can use a computer. heck, even helen keller would be online if she was alive today.
John McCain invented the wheel.
xoites defends Constitution @ 52:
Impossible, he can't make a circle because of the injuries he received as a POW.
bullfrog @ 51:
OK...
tell me in complete sentences how someone blind and deaf is going to use the intarwebs.
It's not the "elite" press it's the "liberal" press. We know that to be false but so what. For years now the right wing has so labeled anyone who challenges their dogmas and mistakes. They should have defended themselves en masse but only a few did. Many spun right to escape the stigma of being labeled liberal and the net result is this: the idea of a liberal bias in the media is so firmly ensconced in the average brain that anything they now say is dismissed. They should have cried wolf when it was chewing on their collective asses. Now truth is Kryptonite to them.
Ron @ 53:
I never said it was the round one.
Maybe the media is beginning to realize that their credibility is at stake if they say nothing, or if they appear to be enabling McCain.
Just like they want to be first with a scoop, they don't want to be last to jump off the ship that's acknowledged to be sinking under the weight of it's lies.
Anyone else notice Candy Crowley was at a state fair? Who let her out of the pen? And where's my lipstick?!
xoites defends Constitution @ 56:
LOL! How ya doin?
General Pavel Rennenkampf Xocoyotzin @ 54:
They have tactile devices, in fact if you can create a vibration with a speaker on a desk top you can create a hearing aid for a deaf person.
I will go look this up for you just for the hell of it but i know the technology is out there.
I am doing ok Ron, how are you? :)
McPale's Navy @ 58:
Thanks for the best laugh I've had all day.
Well, you can start here if you want to find out how blind people can interact with a computer.
The Palin/McCain campaign is going for broke. They're on the run. They're mavericks. Bonnie and Clyde. They've shot it out with the press and they've got a running gun battle going with the Republican Party. The Democrats are (somehow) the Establishment they're rebelling against. They've ditched honesty, integrity, honor, maturity, intelligence and whatever they said last week to lighten the load. They're on a Bridge to (hopefully) Nowhere and they're burning it behind them. It's exciting. It's adventure. It's theater. And in two months a tidal wave of enthralled American stupidity will sweep them into office. Maybe.
"OK…
tell me in complete sentences how someone blind and deaf is going to use the intarwebs."
Tactile sensory software and keyboards already exist which help decode things on computer screens for people in that exact same situation.
Given that Helen Keller was deaf and blind and yet learned how to speak understandably, I'm sure they worked out something for people in a similar situation where computers were concerned.
Left&Left @ 50:
Lefty, I could see you seeking out that poor bastard who interfered with the foul ball in the NLCS a few years ago and totally beating the crap out of him. I bet he votes for McCain too.
I'd ask you what one or two lies, (or what you call lies) that you felt were the most egregious and I'd deconstruct them just to soothe your tormented soul, but if I get started I'll be up till 2 in the morning again and I just can't do that.
xoites defends Constitution @ 60:
Cochlears are the only thing that works for the deaf. You presume first that a cochlear would work, and second that blindness can be overcome. I know someone who is nearly blind and hard-of-hearing, not deaf. The combination of the two severely restricts her Internet use. I'm also hard-of-hearing but I can actually see. Hard-of-hearing =/= to deaf.
Regardless, it's not such a stretch to imagine torturing and breaking someone's arms and fingers restricting the ability to type.
Even so, John McCain, regardless of computer proficiency or lack thereof, is completely unqualified for the Oval Office.
Shan @ 65:
Not only did she learn how to speak, but she became a peace activist which is the part of her story that always gets intentionally ignored.
General Pavel Rennenkampf Xocoyotzin @ 67
Please read 63.
Shan @ 65:
The accent makes other hearing-impaired people difficult for me to understand. I'm not sure that understandable is in the higher range of that category. It took 3 or so years of speech therapy for me to speak fluently, and that was when I actually had hearing aids.
Technology is marvelous, but like everything else, it has its limits. Unless you genuinely think that hearing aids and cochlears give you perfect hearing.
Palin bubble starting to burst.
THIS time, the better candidate WILL win.
Peace.
xoites defends Constitution @ 61:
Fine but I have to leave for awhile. Talk to ya later.
xoites defends Constitution @ 68:
xoites defends Constitution @ 69:
Thank you, you satisfied my curiosity on how the blind use computers. Deaf people using it is not unbelievable, as I'm hard-of-hearing myself.
Back to John McCain bashing, the hijacking hath ended.
Bye. :)
Well we all know what happened to Bonnie and Clyde at the end.
A concerned observer! @ 27:
I'm in New York and all my grown sons are in L.A. and the truth is that I do spend quite a bit of time online and especially at C&L. I do feel a certain comradery on this site with various posters such as Pissed off Patricia and L.A. Confidential etc.
I wish I could snap my fingers and we'd all be in a big restaurant somewhere chatting it up! But this turns out to be the next best thing. And I do thank John Amato for this excellent website (blog!) and all the site monitors who try to keep things civil and on the up and up. Job well done.
I just saw a McCain commercial where Palin not only opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, she actually stopped it. OMG, are they on another planet? At the end of the spot, the announcer says they "will make history". He was right about that!
There are people with no arms who can use computers, so I'm sure Senator McCain could find a way to do so.
Boo Fuckin' Hoo, MSM. Go ahead and tet your panties in a twist.
Won't change a frickin' thing in the good old US of A
dennis@66
Bartman made a mistake, just like you did voting for Dumbya(only he owned up to his monumental fuck up). Thanks, but no thanks for your offer to spin Granda's land fill of bullshit( A Herculean task indeed). The truth is Dennis, your candidate HAS TO LIE TO WIN and you know it.
Abbybwood @ 76:
With a total media blackout on how many people in this country are unhappy and specifically why they are unhappy and with no evidence of them on television or on the radio unless they are pissed off about things that only piss off Republicans the rest of us would feel isolated and alone without some place to commiserate.
(I promise i will try to write in longer sentences in the future. ) :)
Well said abbybwood. ;o)
Not that anyone is listening, but McCain's greatest weakness is the current weakness of the republican brand, and the apathy and demoralization of his base that goes along with it. McCain and Palin, being denigrated or treated negatively by the press, EVEN THOUGH IN ALL MEASURES OF FAIRNESS IT IS DESERVED will nonetheless do nothing except help McCain overcome this weakness by driving more of his base to the polls, who might have stayed home.