Eric 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:

Continue reading »

Download | play    Download | play   (h/t Heather)

You gotta love the predictability of the framing from McCain's Media.  John McCain challenges Barack Obama to go to Iraq, and so he goes.  Then he makes the exact same courtesy calls with other heads of state with whom he would be in close contact should he win the presidency that John McCain made just a couple of months ago, but according to Suzanne Malveaux on CNN's Late Edition, "some people" are worried that Obama is just a little audacious for making this trip.  Riiiiigggghhhhttt.  Just who would be these people, Malveaux?  Would they be those same GOP/RNC types that have been whispering these ridiculous slurs because Obama's trip was so successful and made their candidate look like an intemperate, ill-prepared and out of touch amateur?

Senator, I want to use a word that you love to use, "audacity." A lot of people looked at the trip and they saw the palaces, the world leaders, the 200,000 that were gathered in Berlin, and they said, "The audacity of this trip, it looks like he is running for president of the world."

Are we quoting Krauthammer and Brooks again on another media outlet?  It appears so.  The question goes out to McCain's Media yet again: by what standard have these two chuckleheads--who have yet to be right on anything, mind you--earned the privilege of framing the debate of this race?

Kudos to Obama for responding the only way you should to these intelligence-insulting media narratives.

OBAMA: Well, let me make a couple points. First of all, I basically met with the same folks that John McCain met with after he won the nomination. He met with all these leaders. He also added a trip to Mexico, a trip to Canada, a trip to Colombia, and nobody suggested that that was "audacious."

I think people assumed that what he was doing was to talk to world leaders who we may have deal with should we become president. That's part of the job that I'm applying for.

And so -- so I was puzzled by this notion that somehow what we were doing was in any way different from what Senator McCain or a lot of presidential candidates have done in the past.

Transcripts below the fold

Continue reading »

On Hardball today, Matthews talked about Obama's excellent interaction with the military in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Politico's Roger Simon, a Villager extraordinaire said that the middle east trip is going swimmingly so far. Andrea Mitchell did confirm that Maliki indeed backed Obama on his Iraq plans because he brought up Obama's name by himself in his interview over the weekend earlier in the interview, but then she said a very odd thing about his "message management" as some footage of Obama played in the background on MSNBC.

  Download | play   Download | play (h/t Heather)

Andrea: Let me say something about his message management. He didn't have reporters with him. He didn't have a press pool. He didn't do a press conference while he  was on the ground either on Afghanistan or Iraq. What you're seeing is not reporters brought in, you're seeing selected pictures taken by the military, questioned by the military and what some would call fake interviews because they're not interviews with a journalist so there's a real press issue here. Politically it's smart as can be, but we've not seen a Presidential candidate do this in my recollection ever before.

I don't think journalism is the prime thing that we recruit them and pay them for.

She was upset because she wasn't "present" during these interviews. You mean you weren't able to get a gotcha moment? When she says "what some would call" I guess she means herself. Will Andrea go on a limb and say every interview on FOX News is not legitimate when Cheney, Bush or McCain appear? How about when she joins O'Reilly? Or when someone is interviewed on a blog? The Daily Show has some very interesting interviews, does that not count? Is the military not capable of performing interviews? Where does she draw the line? Saying they are "fake interviews" really goes too far. I've emailed Obama's campaign for a response.

  File this under: If Only Barack Obama Said It. After being asked a question on the "Suck Up Express" yesterday about his position on insurance companies covering Viagra but not birth control, McCain became visibly uncomfortable and was unable to reconcile his past vote against requiring the coverage of birth control with a statement one of his top advisers made just earlier this week.

Download | play   Download | play  

WSJ:

When McCain was asked for his position on the issue, he said—with a nervous laugh–“I certainly do not want to discuss that issue.”

The reporter pressed. “But apparently you’ve voted against—“

“I don’t know what I voted,” McCain said.

The reporter explained that McCain voted against a bill in 2003 that would have required health insurance companies to cover prescription birth control. “Is that still your position?” she persisted.

During the awkward exchange, with several lengthy pauses, McCain said he had no immediate knowledge of the vote. “I’ve cast thousands of votes in the Senate,” McCain said, then continued: “I will respond to—it’s a, it’s a…”

It's pretty sickening to watch the cast of "Morning Joe" laugh it up and fail to acknowledge that this is a pretty big stumble by McCain. Not only is his campaign sending mixed messages about a rather important issue to millions of Americans, the Senator is so clearly confused and caught in the headlights as he's called out on a blatant flip-flop.

Imagine if Barack Obama had been stumped like this. It would have been the story of the day, with the blaring headline: Obama Stumbles On Key Women's Issue; Will He Lose Their Support? Then talking head after talking head would be paraded on television to lecture seriously about Obama's "women problem" and whether or not this will doom his chances at winning them over.

But instead, McCain said it, and everyone has a laugh and moves on.

UPDATE:  (Nicole) McCain hasn't spent a lot of time on these issues at all.  In fact, as The Political Base recounts, last year he couldn't tell reporters if condoms stop STDs or if he supported Bush's abstinence-only education.

Continue reading »

Was this guy ever an actual liberal? I mean, he gets to write for the Washington Post, a very prestigious job----something that all the Villagers would like to have someday and he's supposed to be a liberal. What does that even mean to him? Steve wrote about him earlier today. Anyway, he actually gets honest about the press and their crush on John McCain. He spells it out for you plain as day and if you get all excited about some of the new polls coming out, well I wouldn't just yet. McCain's Media hasn't begun to fire their engines yet. They are now.

Richard Cohen:

In some recent magazine articles, I and certain of my colleagues have been accused of being soft on McCain, forgiving him his flips, his flops and his mostly conservative ideology. I do not plead guilty to this charge, because, over the years, the man's imperfections have not escaped my keen eye. But, for the record...

Cohen then lists all of McCain's flip flops to prove he's actually been awake during the process, but then leaves this very scary "warning sign" on the sign post up ahead.

But here is the difference between McCain and Obama - and Obama had better pay attention. McCain is a known commodity. It's not just that he's been around a long time and staked out positions antithetical to those of his Republican base. It's also - and more important - that we know his bottom line. As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over. This - not just his candor and nonstop verbosity on the Straight Talk Express - is what commends him to so many journalists.

Gavin writes: "But guess what? McCain’s flip-flops demonstrate that he has more character than Obama does!"

Aren't the candidates running on a platform of issues and ideas that we then use to decide who we will vote for? Then we can take on the task of (If Obama wins) starting to repair the damage that Bush and the Conservative movement have done to our country. It will take a long time to clean up the wreckage they have created and John McCain has been a big part of the problem. Not Richard. He's all into personalities instead of principles. This is what they want. A clash between Titans. The war hero maverick against the elite country club fruitcake drinking a martini and smoking a cigarette. Get used to it people. It's all they could ask for

And if you need any more evidence of Richard's wankery---here's a reminder of Cohen-2000. What liberal would ever write something like this? via Digby:

For instance, the liberal Richard Cohen, who saw where the wind was blowing back in November 2000 and wrote:

Given the present bitterness, given the angry irresponsible charges being hurled by both camps, the nation will be in dire need of a conciliator, a likable guy who will make things better and not worse. That man is not Al Gore. That man is George W. Bush."

Please email Cohen and tell him to write about principles---not---personalities. Our country is at stake.

cohenr@washpost.com

<!-- sphereit end -->