It’s McCain’s fault for Obama’s better press and Obama as Curley. Quibbles and Bits 7/17
By LisaB on July 17, 2008 at 10:00 PM in Barack Obama, Chicago politics, DNC, General Election, John McCain
1) You’re probably not going to be surprised, but guess what? It’s gonna be McCain’s fault if Obama gets more coverage overseas than McCain did! Rather than address the issue of media gorging on the forthcoming Obama “world tour” by sending all three anchors, Newsweek, in the person of Andrew Romano says it’s McCain’s fault for not treating the media better.
But there’s a big difference between McCain’s trip and the one Obama will embark on next week to Europe and the Middle East. In what could be interpreted now as a possible strategic misstep, the McCain campaign chose not to take reporters along for the ride, forcing media outlets who wanted to cover the newly elected GOP nominee to travel on their own without any guarantee of getting anywhere near the senator. The small group of scribes who made the trek (Newsweek chose not to) faced a logistical nightmare, from arranging last-minute foreign visas to struggling to keep up with McCain as they flew commercially from stop to stop. (McCain traveled by a military aircraft.) In contrast, the Obama campaign is inviting reporters on its tour, handling all the logistics–including transportation–for what will certainly be a much larger press corps than usual.
Read the rest ->
Romano goes on to say the McCain campaign must be disappointed at “what could have been” had the media been handled better on HIS trip overseas.
Pardon me, but WTH? Since when are journalists supposed to be ferried, taken care of and petted? The image many of these journalists cultivate is one of hard-nosed truth seekers finding veritas wherever it might lead. Following the trail, digging for details, drinking nasty coffee out of crumpled paper cups while writing with stubby pencils on small paper tablets. Or a more modern day equivalent.
Instead, it’s all about the travel arrangements. We’ll cover you if you make it easy for us and if we’re gonna be excited!!! Free food and drinks on the official plane helps – and no cheap peanuts, dammit.
Remaining objective despite 6 figure incomes and being part of the establishment in DC is what the media bigwigs really try to sell. It’s all junk. So too is this “reasoning” for why Obama will have glorious press coverage in his near virgin tour. When journalists are pets who must be stroked and promised scooby snacks for just showing up, the fourth estate as found in the MSM is intellectually flacid.
Not that that’s a surprise.
At WaPo, Howard Kurtz has some background on media coverage.
2) Fascinating article from the Chicago Sun Times about who got $$ from Obama when he was a state senator. Like all politicians, he brought home some pork. But some of the recipients are interesting. The article mentions a certain broken promise:
A proposed botanic garden in Englewood got $100,000 from Obama, but the project never was completed because an additional $1 million in funding that Obama had said he’d “work tirelessly” to help obtain never materialized, the Chicago Sun-Times reported last week.
Looks like disappointing people is a familiar thing for BO.
This article includes a partial list of about 57 projects Obama funded.
3) The Sacramento Bee has a piece by Nat Hentoff. Hentoff is officially disillusioned by BO and actually uses the term “flimflam candidate.” Here’s how he opens:
During my more than 60 years of covering national politics, I have never seen a candidate’s principles and character so effectively tarnished — after so extraordinarily inspiring a start — as Barack Obama’s. He has come to resemble another mellifluous orator I came to know in Boston during my first time reporting on a campaign — James Michael Curley, the skilful prestidigitator whom Spencer Tracy masterfully played in the movie “The Last Hurrah.” Obama’s deflation has not been due to ruthless opposition research by John McCain’s team but by the “change” candidate himself. Like millions of Americans, I, for a time, was buoyed by not only the real-time prospect of our first black president but much more by the likelihood that Obama would pierce the dense hypocrisy and insatiable power-grabbing of current American politics.
If you don’t know the reference to James Curley, use the Google. Curley was a famous political power in Boston in his day. If Hentoff is comparing Obama to Curley, all I can say is wow! Curley was as powerful and familiar a figure in Boston as the original Richard Daley in Chicago. Neither were exactly paragons of political or moral virtue.
4) PBS has the transcript of a conversation between Gwen Ifill, Shannon Reeves of the RNC and Jamal Simmons of the DNC about the McCain and Obama speeches to the NAACP. While Simmons attacked McCain for not showing up LAST year at the meeting, Reeves refrained from attacks and was upbeat in supporting his candidate:
And the beauty of the convention today was not just the speech, but that, after the speech, he [McCain] walked behind — from behind the podium, picked up a cordless mike, and said, “If it’s OK with you, I’d like to take questions and have dialogue with you.”
And the convention just erupted. And people went into the aisles and began to ask questions of the senator. And he stood there and delivered greatly.
When Ifill asked Reeves if McCain changed any minds, Reeves responded:
But the goal not necessarily was in one speech to change someone’s vote, but first to say that I’m a leader, and that I’m worthy of being president of the United States, and I’m seeking your consideration.
However, when Ifill asked Simmons about Obama and referred to the recent Jesse Jackson controversy, Simmons brushed that aside with the idea that AAs speak to each other like that all the time and followed with this:
The problem with what happened with Senator McCain today is that, as Shannon just said, last year, when it was inconvenient for him to come, he didn’t show up. This year, when he’s trying to win a national election in the general election, he shows up.
He’s playing politics. And I think that’s the problem that a lot of people draw with the way he’s done this, whether it was immigration and how he’s talked about that in front of Hispanic audiences, he talks about comprehensive immigration. When he’s in front of conservative audiences, he talks about borders. So I think we’ve got to be careful about looking at his motives.
Ifill asks if Obama being AA was particularly important. Simmons responds:
Well, again, I think John McCain showed up because he thought this was going to maybe not so much win him some African-American votes, but it may win him some votes among independents and people in suburban communities who don’t want to think of the Republican Party or the Republican nominee as being someone who won’t go out and speak to African-Americans.
So I think, because he’s looking at this so politically, and you can tell by the way he schedules these type of speeches, by him showing up in an African-American community meeting like the NAACP during the general election, he really is doing what’s politically palatable for him right now.
Then Ifill asks Reeves if this isn’t about white votes rather than black ones. I think Reeves does a great job here:
I mean, I think that’s foolishness. I mean, you know, it’s like the senator would be darned if he do and darned if he didn’t.
If he didn’t show up to the NAACP, then Jamal would be saying, “You see? He doesn’t care about black people.” But when he comes and addresses the organization, and not just gives a speech and talks about his principles and what he believes in, but then he takes questions and let’s — hey, let anybody ask whatever question they want.
And he stood there, and he took the questions as long as they were willing to give them. So I totally don’t agree with that.
I served three terms on the national board of the NAACP and four terms as president of the branch in Oakland, California. And I’ll tell you, the NAACP audience was not caught up in last year or the year before, but was caught up in what this senator had to say today.
And regardless of the polls, the fact of the matter is one of these candidates will be the leader of the free world. I firmly believe beyond a shadow of a doubt and no fear of contradiction that that candidate will be Senator John McCain, and he will be a president of all of the people.
So you can’t on one side say, “Well, he doesn’t show up,” and then, when he shows up, you say, “Well, he only showed up to be political.” The last I checked, this was an election. In an election, we play politics.
It’s worth reading and kudos to Shannon Reeves for being, by far, the better spokesman with more information and more class.
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
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