Andrea Mitchell Leads Media Pushback On McCain Ad

Sometimes, what gets lost amid all the hootenanny over which candidate the media is "in love" with is that there's no real evidence that anyone benefits when a reporter or a talking head fawns all over an electoral contender. More often than not, you just get a bunch of water-muddying ads, such as the ones that seem to blame Barack Obama for being a press darling despite having something of an aloof, and often prickly, relationship with them.

But it doesn't take affection, or leg-tingles, to do what Andrea Mitchell did today (via Jed Report), which is to take John McCain's despicable "Troops" ad and demonstrate what a high-toned piece of gutter fraudulence it is. Displaying nothing more than a studied neutrality in tone, and well-armed with the facts that she herself obtained while overseas with both the CODEL and the Obama campaign, Mitchell was a leader in the field of not letting lying dogs sleep. Terming the ad "literally not true," and confidently summing up the ad as "inexplicable."

[WATCH.]

Mitchell is absolutely right on the merits. From FactCheck.org:

It's a fact that Obama canceled a visit to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center at the last minute after planning it for weeks. And it's a fact that reporters and their cameras would not have been allowed to accompany him. Furthermore, Obama probably did go to the gym that day, as he does practically every day. So the bare facts stated in the ad are true, but they don't support McCain's insinuation.

We can't read minds and so are in no position to know Obama's motives, or McCain's for that matter. It's unlikely, however, that the absence of press coverage would have been a factor in Obama's decision, as the ad implies. Obama says he never planned to take reporters on the Landstuhl visit, and Department of Defense rules prohibited him from taking reporters on previous visits he made with wounded troops.

Reporters were not allowed to accompany him when he visited wounded troops at Walter Reed Medical Center on June 28. The small "protective pool" of reporters that routinely accompanies him was told by Obama's staff to remain outside, in the van, according to a reporter covering the campaign. Similarly, Obama visited wounded troops in Baghdad earlier in his overseas trip, but he did so without reporters and "without a lot of fanfare, just to say 'Thanks'," according to Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who accompanied Obama.

It's true Obama made time for at least one workout while he was in Germany. And he has been known to dedicate more than a few minutes to his exercise regimen. Two reporters who cover Obama, and who were on this trip, tell us that the candidate works out every day, and sometimes twice a day. However, the video of Obama playing basketball featured in McCain's ad is from his time in Kuwait, not Germany.

This whole episode should be sufficient to demonstrate that a single reporter committed to doing a good job is worth a thousand sycophants.

UPDATE: Olberman and Maddow demonstrate that they have no trouble telling the truth about McCain's "unconscionable" ad, either.

Comments

[smurrayesq]

Andrea Mitchell was on tv tonight saying that the fact that John McCain won the week by controlling the media, while the media was ignoring substantive issues. I am so sick of this crap. If Andrea doesn't like the press being distracted by nonsense, she could do something to stop it. She wasn't talking about substance, she was just doing what the McCain campaign wanted them to do. If the so called "journalists" would decide to ignore anything that wasn't substantive, then the public would be better served. Unfortunately, that would only take up less than an hour of the twenty four hour news cycle.

The media are the ones setting the agenda by refusing to cover the stuff that actually might make a difference in our country and our lives.

[bobdob]

John McCain is 72 years old. In short, far too old to be running the sort of juvenile campaign he's been running lately. I wonder if Senator McCain is aware that he's running for the office of President of the United States of America, and not president of his college fraternity.

John McCain is turning out to be exactly the opposite kind of person we always thought he was. What happened to the principled guy who was going to run a "positive" campaign "about the issues"?

[Uling]

A dosage of McCain's own medicine.
Why not just sling that which stinks!
http://www.geocities.com/randycrosby/PoliticsOfFear.html
(don't forget to click/enlarge)

PS: Thank you Andrea

[sclucie]

thanks to andrea mitchell. it doesn't look like greenspan in going to fall into the mccain camp either. i'm getting confused. warrren buffet supports obama, t bone pickens wants clean energy and thinks the mccain energy policy is BS, the majority of wall street is with obama. what economic figures support mccain? charlie-ca­pital-gain­s? the heads of the media conglomerates? oh THAT's right - that's why we have a daily genuflection to mccain from topper at abc (courtesy of the disney boys), doctored interviews from katie at cbs, PR releases for mccain from the la times and chicago tribune (thanks, zell - and by the way, d we get to vote in the israel elections? because i've got some pretty strong views. if not - keep zionism out of our politics) and editorials guised as news from zelany and nagurney at the nyt. and what was with that last weird editorial piece from dana over at the WP?

[IowaKid]

Thank you Andrea Mitchell. Good job keep up the good work.

[indy100]

Great ad, I loved it! Slap him with his own nasty commercials.

[hummingb]

Thank you druidlady42.

If I didn't lknow better, I'd say Andrea Mitchell works for the McCain campaign! Her questioning Obama's motives in such a dour, negative way is not journalistic reporting. I don't see Kelly O'Donnell doing thast to McCain!
I think NBC should switch them for the next phase of the campaign. Ms Mitchell could spread some of her dourness around the McCain camp and Ms O'Donnell could report some favorable things from the Obama camp!

[hummingb]

Thank you Andrea!

Finally, some truth regarding all the "false facts" coming out of the John McCain Camp.
I'm happy to see a reporter holding McCain's feet (even in his $525.00 shoes) to the fire!!

[JohnCVermont]

It is a little sad when we all get so excited when, for a brief moment, there is an example of Journalism.

[JayeSF]

LOL...good on JCV ! Exactly. Mitchell has the guts to do exactly what the press is supposed to do...what they have always traditionally doen (up until the past 10 years, that is)report and report objectively....and investigate and report the facts as necessary....and this is being considered a huge and great thing.

In a way...it IS, of course....and we can only hope to see more spine from the mainstream press.....but it is a sad statement that, in these times, this is the exception as opposed to the rule....

[ndngrrl71]

It's about time journalists start acting like it. McCain has gotten away with so many lies.

[unionave]

I don't know what Andrea has been doing lately but she looks better each time I see her . A serious case of brains and beauty .

[noamjunior]

Mitchell is NOT leading any kind of push back for Obama, she is DOING HER JOB AS A JOURNALIST by examining a political ad and pointing out it's complete lack of any factual basis.

[patricklee5150]

Exactly!

[progressivelady]

At least andrea wasn't scared to ask the tough ? like the rest of the media especially Katie

[bryansmith]

ugh, Katie...

[GhostOfSchlesinger]

Thanks, Andrea and Keith and Rachel. And thanks to any journalist willing to take the risk of objectivity as regards this campaign.

Like GW Bush, John McCain helps me to understand why my veteran dad used to scream at the television - sometimes tossing refuse at the screen - whenever Richard Nixon came on camera. I feel the same sense of rising anger; the same sense of helplessness in the face of an endless stream of obvious lies.

Then Andrea Mitchell, demonstrating guts that would surely make Tim Russert smile approvingly, simply calls a lie a lie.

I pray that journalists at other networks discover their courage as have Andrea, Keith and Rachel.

Sure, it's easier to play it safe when confronted by the right wing mob that seeks to silence anyone that speaks truth to power.

But it isn't right.

And in the long run history will remember those that planted their feet on principle in this most critical political season of our lifetimes - even as jobs are threatened and peaceful protesters are "escorted" to "free speech zones" by police.

Mitchell and Olberman and Maddow will join Murrow and Cronkite and Russert. Those that peddle the McCain campaign line - assiduously avoiding the truth that is the primary principle of their profession - will join the long list of yellow journalists that gave us the Spanish-American War, Japanese Internment camps, McCarthy's blacklists, the Vietnam War and Iraq.

[Levittown]

All the facts that Keith and Rachel have validated should be posted in every newspaper and on every news show so that the public, you and I can see that the real John McCain is a hero only in his mind.

What he did fifty years ago should have made him a better person and a better Senator. Somewhere along the way he got lost. His temper flare ups, his public abuse of his wife and his mental lapses
disqualify him from the highest and most respected office in the world. The shame of all this is that the Republican party has to put this man up for that office.

[sclucie]

there was also that little problem with the keating 5. and the fact that he has reversed every position he ever stood for.

[dawlishgal]

Most people who capitulated to the enemy while imprisoned and tortured wouldn't try to use "heroism" as a reason to vote for him. I know that I would have capitulated too under those extreme conditions, but at least I wouldn't be touting myself as some kind of hero while leaving out the part about collaborating with the enemy and allowing myself to be used in a propaganda film in which I admitted to all sorts of atrocities.

It is interesting that while McCain embraced Bush after Bush's nefarious swifties faked up reasons to slime Kerry, Obama is not organizing a group of veterans to smear McCain for capitulatiing. Republicans seem perfectly confident that Democrats won't stoop that low....they always expect others to behave better than they are willing to behave. That is what makes them Republicans.

[Solange]

The media share responsibility for the debacle in Iraq--including the lives lost and maimed--because, if they'd done true investigative journalism rather than acting like the communications arm of the Bush White House, they wouldn't have helped Bush and Co. sell the war to the American public. (I was against the war from the beginning, but far too many Americans fell for the pro-war ad campaign.) It is sad that today a journalist who searches for the facts and tries to tell the truth is an exception to the rule. Once again, the Presidential campaign is being reduced to the lowest common denominator because the media are following McCain's mendacious, fear-mongering talking points rather than his policies. Instead of repeating McCain's truly stupid, pathetic ads, the media should refuse to air them repeatedly--and concentrate on tell ing us--the electorate--what each candidate plans to do if elected. We cannot afford another eight years of Republican mismanagement. If the members of the media help the Rove-McCain campaign to play the fear card again, as they did in 2000 and 2004, it will be criminal--look at what the last eight years have done to this country.