GOP Still Hating The Press. But Is That Fair?
How does a Republican candidate mired in the muck energize some of the GOP base? Beat up on the working press! There has been a long standing practice of supplanting the reason for a poor campaign and candidate, with the notion that the media just isn’t fair, and so that is why the Republican candidate is not gaining traction. If only the ‘liberal media’ would report the news, and not add in with opinions goes the worn out refrain. Yada, Yada.
The latest spasms from the Republicans over the press coverage of Barack Obama are just silly. There is a real news story underway with this international trip, and just because Obama is acting presidential and looking very natural in his role seems to make the GOP highly uncomfortable. The press coverage is warranted for the very reason that the critics within the press corps (and they exist) are seeking to discover if Obama is for real. There is no other way to get the measure of the man expect by being up close and constant. One of the roles of the press is to get the truth. And if Barrack Obama is not for real, as many in the GOP claim, than let a huge event such as this trip prove that he is not worthy of election. The working press is just doing their job.
Not only is the GOP wrong about the larger issue of the ‘liberal media’, a term which is just factually wrong, but also are wrong concerning the actual coverage of the Obama trip.
For now, cable television’s talking heads are too fixated on ruminations about Obama’s presidential timbre.
They spent days before the semisecret trip to the war zone insisting that the 46-year-old prove his gravitas. They said he had to appear presidential on the world stage.
So what did Obama do? He waded in. Soldiers, diplomats and heads of state greeted him warmly, even effusively. He seemed self-assured. He nailed the now-storied basketball shot, rode alone with King Abdullah in his royal Mercedes and committed no major gaffes.
Wouldn’t you know it, after all that, Obama is now taking a hiding for acting too presidential.
Reporters on his plane insisted Tuesday that his advisors brief them on his dinner with the Jordanian king on the record. When Obama’s staff said that presidential staffers typically gave such reports anonymously, the traveling press rebelled, reminding the hirelings that the Illinois senator remained 270 electoral votes short of that privilege.
But when Obama spoke openly about his private meeting with Iraqi leader Nouri Maliki, CNN’s Gloria Borger bashed him from the other side. Borger said Obama had “crossed the line” and played like he was in charge. The cable network’s Dobbs huffily reminded the senator that he had “not quite yet been elected.”
Yes, Obama has won the extended airplay and the kind of command-moment video that any presidential candidate would crave. But the soundtrack from the media? It’s spotty and a bit off track.
Technorati Tags: Media, Journalism, BarackObama
