Au Contraire

John Cole has the exact opposite take on the state of the race as I do. For me, the crux of all of this is media framing and portrayal, and I just haven't seen anything that would lead me to believe that they'll be anything other than sheep to the Republican Party's shepherd.

McCain Ad Reactions

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo Media had this post talking about MSM response to McCain's most recent ad. Sadly predictable I guess. It's hard to see how it's a good thing when media outlets go out of their way to be fundamentally uninforming.

I should mention that if you're unfamiliar with TPM you really should check it out. When I first began regularly reading political blogs a couple of years ago TPM was among the first ones I read, (on the advice of my friend Van Dorn). I've barely missed a post since then. Josh Marshall is, in my opinion, the most insightful person writing blog commentary anywhere on the web.

Double Standard Part II

Reader audie murphy writes:

Drew--I think you've touched the tip of the iceberg with your closing comments, viz. that presenting McCain as anything less than a foreign policy expert would be inconsistent with prior reporting. I'd take your logic a step further and say that if the news agencies to rigorously question McCain's positions on the war, then that would beg a whole host of other questions, chief among them being: is it possible for a highly decorated veteran and former prisoner of war to be wrong about war strategy? In other words, just because you are a good soldier does not necessarily mean that you're an expert in matters of policy, just as raising blue-ribbon tomatoes does not make you a master gardener. I think it's interesting that anyone criticizing McCain on the issue is always careful to say (usually in the same breath) that he is a hero and that they respect his military service. To suggest that he's wrong would be to turn the whole American notion of radical individualism on its ear by implying that experience is not always the best teacher...

A couple of points. I think audie's definitely on the right track. There might be an implicit hesitancy to delve into McCain's gaffes by the MSM because they would make themselves susceptible to impugning the military/foreign policy bona fides of a war hero and all the subsequent cries of anti-Americanism that would go along with it. Obviously, any critical eye turned toward these overt mistakes would be a non sequitur in relation to his war service, but logic too rarely dictates MSM news coverage.

Additionally, this might explain some of the MSM's hesitancy, but clearly not all, particularly as it relates to such examples as McCain's references to Checkoslovakia and repeated claims by his surrogates that "not a drop of oil was spilled" during hurricane Katrina, a demonstrable lie.

Lastly, it's worth noting that if audie's analysis is correct, on some levels this might actually hurt McCain. If the MSM started to overtly question his competence, particularly as it related to his age, the potential for a helpful "stop-picking-on-the-old-war-hero" backlash would be significant. Instead his claims get only a wink, nod, and cursory scrutiny, which allows him to be eternally (and without consequence) on the political offensive -- where he probably shouldn't be.

Double Standard

Over the last several weeks and months there has been a lot written about the degree to which John McCain can regularly screw up commonly known facts about a wide arrange of issues (especially as they relate to foreign policy), such as repeatedly referring to Checkoslovakia (it hasn't existed in around 2 decades), talking about Iranian support of Al Qaeda (they vehemently dislike one another), referring to Iraq as the first post 9/11 conflict (what about Afghanistan?), messing up the basics of the "surge" timeline, etc. etc. Steve Benin at the Carpetbagger Report has done some good reporting and discussion of these rhetorical slip ups.

Most of these misstatements have not been of much interest to MSM outlets, and the ones that have generally haven't had much staying power. It seems to be a near consensus in the liberal blogosphere that had Barack Obama issued similarly incorrect statements, nearly any of them would have been on 24 hour news rotation, and cumulatively they would have ended his presidential chances. I mostly agree with this assertion.

Unfortunately, many liberals have simply noted this apparent double standard and moved on. I'd like to discuss (1) if this assertion is true, and (2) why that might be.

I'll bypass '1' for the time being, as I've weighed in, and ultimately it's fairly subjective, but for '2', as much as I've thought about it, I can't seem to wrap my head around it. I've often read that MSM executives tend to be disproportionately conservative, and that producers and reporters are often disproportionately liberal, which made some intuitive sense to me. But, I have a pretty hard time believing in some conspiracy theory wherein the executives of the country's largest television stations and newspapers sit around a table and agree not push the "why does McCain keep spouting overt nonsense" angle.

Ultimately MSM is in the business of making money, so I'm wondering how it could be that promoting Obama as a bumbling fool would be profitable (admittedly a conjecture), but doing the same to McCain would not be? Is it as simple as media narratives being self perpetuating? McCain is a foreign policy guru and conveying anything else isn't consistent with our previous position/reporting? I'm at a loss, and would love to hear anyone's thoughts.