The Press Talks About an Obama Bias, All While Giving McCain Special Treatment

I am so sick of hearing about how the media are biased toward Barack Obama. It's bad enough that John McCain's campaign is making this completely bogus claim, but now the mainstream media are reporting it as if the slant towards Obama is a given. (Today, a Yahoo! news headline blared, "McCain vs. Obama: Is the media playing fair with coverage?.")

Once again, the McCain camp is taking a page from the playbook Hillary Clinton employed against Obama. And while Clinton's claim was dubious enough, for McCain to try to argue that he is not being treated fairly by the media is downright outrageous. Why? Because nobody in the history of modern politics has been a bigger media sweetheart than John McCain. And in this campaign, he is allowed to virtually say or do anything without being called on it.

The ridiculousness of McCain claiming that he is getting the short end of the stick with the mainstream media is so silly, since the idea that he gets coddled by the press is hardly a new idea. MediaMatters keeps a running list of instances in which the media have failed to challenge or present an accurate portrait of McCain's views. And it's a substantial list.

Back in March, Glenn Greenwald wrote a piece on Salon.com that expertly described the special treatment the press accords McCain, and how liberal pundits are just as likely to drink the McCain Kool-Aid. Greenwald concentrates on the idea that it is taken as a given that McCain is a foreign policy expert, so his gaffes are ignored. He writes:

"Reporters have already decided that John McCain is a Serious, Knowledgeable Foreign Policy Expert -- and an honorable, truth-telling gentleman -- and therefore there is no reason to tell voters about evidence that demonstrates that he's anything but that. Evidence that reflects poorly on McCain's foreign policy seriousness or character is actually suppressed or concealed because they think it can't be newsworthy, because such evidence just can't be true, by definition."

Greenwald goes on to note that "reporters who have long covered McCain themselves constantly admit that they accord McCain special, favorable treatment and don't even realize the deep corruption they're acknowledging." He cites Ana Marie Cox of Time saying on CNN:

"I think what happens is that you -- if you've been covering him for a long time, there's a sense that, well, he does that all the time, it's not worth reporting, because he does -- he's a cranky old man. I mean, to be quite frank [...] And also, we wrote it off to, like, you know, he hadn't had his fifth cup of Starbucks today."

The issue of the moment when Greenwald wrote his Salon.com article was McCain's repeated gaffe of saying that Iran was linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq. But it's not like McCain has stopped there. In the last couple of weeks, he has repeatedly talked about "Czechoslovakia," a country that hasn't existed for 15 years, and, just this morning, he described "the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border" on ABC's Good Morning America. Only, Iraq and Pakistan do not share a border

I am not arguing that McCain's geographical aphasia is quid pro quo proof of his foreign policy incompetence. But I am arguing that McCain never gets called on his errors by the mainstream media (Diane Sawyer was silent after his Iraq-Pakistan statement on Good Morning America), where Obama would absolutely be taken to task (and probably called inexperienced) if he made the same errors.

More importantly, the mainstream media's genuflection at the feet of McCain keeps the facts of McCain's lack of foreign policy acumen from reaching voters. Tom Brokaw cited an ABC News/Washington Post poll on Meet the Press yesterday that said that respondents overwhelmingly believe that McCain would make a better commander in chief than Obama. Given the media coverage, it's easy to see why Americans currently feel that way. But that doesn't mean the evidence backs up that belief.

As Greenwald noted in his March Salon.com article:

"The reality is that John McCain's understanding of foreign policy and his approach to national security has proven to be simplistic, destructive and idiotic. Nobody spewed more pre-invasion falsehoods and confused and misleading claims about Iraq than John McCain did. And he's been the Prime Cheerleader for one of the most destructive wars in U.S. history. The notion that he has expertise in foreign policy or sound judgment is a total myth, yet it's one that his press fans accept and enforce as orthodoxy.

"McCain's simple-minded militarism, his ignorance about national security, and his moronic view that the U.S. should run the world through endless wars ought to be one of the most intensely debated issues in the campaign. But it won't be because -- as Marcus said -- the media has already decided that McCain is a Serious Expert in these matters and that national security is his strength, and evidence to the contrary won't be reported."

I share Greenwald's frustration over how the mainstream media takes McCain's experience and expertise in foreign policy as a given. I made the same argument in this space on July 1 and pointed out how prescient Obama's judgments have been on the same issues.

It is frustrating that the media repeatedly refer to McCain as being a "maverick" (a Yahoo! news search of "McCain maverick" returned 520 hits in just the last three weeks) and as someone who frequently goes against the leadership of his party, even though he voted 98 percent of the time with his fellow Republicans (43 of 44) in 2007, and with Bush 95 percent of the time in 2007 and 89 percent of the time since Bush took office (according to a Congressional Quarterly voting study).

It is also frustrating that the mainstream media is quick to call Obama a flip-flopper for changing his view on FISA (and allegedly changing his views on Iraq and gun control, even though the evidence shows that his message has been consistent on these issues), while failing to mention McCain's reversals of his positions on virtually every issue of substance, from taxes to Iraq to torture to the economy. (I wrote at length about McCain's flip-flops on July 6.)

It may well be true that Obama's trip to Afghanistan, Iraq and Europe is getting a lot of press coverage, and much of that coverage is positive. But given how the mainstream media have glossed over McCain's inadequacies, treating his foreign policy gaffes the way the press ignored John F. Kennedy's affairs, for McCain to make the claim that he is getting screwed by the mainstream media is truly laughable.

But it is effective. A Rasmussen poll released today revealed that 49 percent of those asked thought that reporters were trying to help Obama win. Give McCain's campaign credit. They've done a good job of shoveling this manure into the public consciousness.

Maybe I am making a strategic mistake here. Maybe I should be urging the media to grant McCain more coverage. Because shining a light on McCain's views, conduct, record and speaking style can only help Obama's candidacy.

Comments

[Chuckbutcher]

The lead up to the overseas trip was telling, the theme was:
How dangerous politically is this for Obama?
Will he screw it up?
How will he screw it up or how could he?
What does McCain have to gain?
How offended will the voters be by large foreign crowd?
How dangerous is Obama's trip to Israel?

The implicit assumption was gaffes and policy mistakes as well as interference with US policy, while nothing in the man's record shows anything other than a cautious politically astute individual. I do not understand how the media manages to behave in this manner.

I'd be interested to see what somebody with a Nexis account could make of Obama/McCain coverage and +/- percentages.

[swift goat pet for truth]

Same old Corporate Media.

And not all of it is McCain.
I see "the GOP is good for the economy" quite a lot, as well. As if the last 12 years meant nothing.

[jefflz]

This whole strategy - "The Press is Biased in Favor of Obama" has the ring of another Karl Rove Big Lie campaign. The facts speak for themselves all of the media coverage is slanted in favor of McCain. He is Teflon-coated since every stupid mistake he makes is ignored or barely referenced by the media. Fox Pseudo-News is 24 hrs of Obama smears. CBS News on the other hand says that Obama's popularity abroad may resemble that of Tony Blair's who was disliked at home. They failed to mention that Blair was popular in Britain until he drank the Bush Kool-Aid.- Furthermore no clear effort is made to debunk the "surge success" since Iraq is quieter primarily because the US military has spent billions buying "loyalty" from the Sunnis and we have as many mercenaries working in Iraq as we have US soldiers. The media is dominated by conservative corporate forces and there is no "love affair" with Obama. It is a myth that the press continues to willingly propagate- just like "Weapons of Mass Destruction" - remember that myth?

[Michelle2005]

I don't believe the media bias claim by the McCain camp. It's just that he never says anything new. If there'd have been NEW information to report, I believe it may have been treated differently.

Or could this be "a bunch of whiners, only imagining a media bias". lol
Phil Gramm, after all, said we, as USA citizens are a "bunch of whiners in the midst of a mental recession"

Michelle2005

[beastmode]

McCain's contention is right only in the volume of coverage Obama receives. Obama is the more interesting candidate. However to say the media favors him is outrageous while we have watched the press contort coverage to the breaking point to cover up for McCain's dozens and dozens of jaw dropping gaffes. Equal treatment would be the end of McCain's campaign - something the press probably realizes they can't afford to let happen.

[BardEric]

"Greenwald goes on to note that "reporters who have long covered McCain themselves constantly admit that they accord McCain special, favorable treatment and don't even realize the deep corruption they're acknowledging."



Huh?!? It would be more accurate to say that the media is a bit more forgiving of "senior moments"..At least they used to be.. See: Ronald Reagan. McCain is portrayed and labled as as old and senile, so we accept his "moments" as a "given" without exhaustive coverage by the MSM.

[Bluesue]

Perhaps Obama is getting more coverage but there's a lot of negative coverage. Meanwhile, Saint McCain rolls happily along making gaffe after gaffe that barely register with the media.

[DLSteinhardt]

Just take a look at Sunday's NBC Nightly News--and that's one of the better broadcasts!

Lester Holt suggested Obama was walking a "tightrope" between policy and politics during his foreign trip. He threw it to Richard Engel in Afghanistan, who supported this false narrative by quoting Adm. Mullen, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs, on FoxNews, talking absolute nonsense, that Obama's withdrawal plan from Iraq should reflect "conditions on the ground." Which it does.

The next report was from Andrea Mitchell, in Baghdad, who ALSO quoted Adm. Mullen's nonsensical criticism on Fox, while she DID note that Obama's OWN plan relies on "conditions on the ground"! But listening to her, you'd think Mullen's key phrase was that Obama's plan was "very dangerous."

Who edits that newscast?!? I get NBC from iTunes, and I was grateful to be able to stop and rewind, repeatedly, to pick up on all the ridiculous non sequiturs, in pursuit of a narrative that Sen. Obama was "walking a tightrope."

He wasn't.

Not to mention that Sen. Obama was referred to, seven times, as "Obama," while Sen. McCain was referred to, repeatedly, as "John McCain."

[Mitchell Bard - Huffpost Blogger]

DLSteinhardt, thanks so much for commenting. I appreciate another interesting, anecdotal example of the point.

[bodo]

The media can make you or break you. It does not take a genius to know that it is stupid of McCain to attack the media.

[grayforester]

In the wake of nine eleven the media bias was even stronger. I think the American people grew twice as defensive of what they perceived as America's intent and will. Despite the relationship between the defense industries and the media, I think this opinion shift was substantially organic.

Since then the same populace has been threatened by forces within our government, and the coverage of Obama's candidacy reflects a majority opinion of the American people: we must navigate a new course as we are on the road to Hell. It's not bias; it's consensus.

[umen]

Boy oh boy, couldn't agree with you more. I watched McCain speaking at a "town hall" this morning, and he was rambling and incoherent the whole time. Sometimes he actually makes Bush sound articulate. Speaking on the energy issue, he accused Obama of being anti-nuke (wow, I thought "nukes" meant nuclear bombs, not nuclear power plants), anti-offshore-drilling, anti-gas-tax-holiday. He did not bother to address what Obama is for - renewable sources of energy such as wind & solar & bio diesel. He did not address the dangers posed by "nukes" and offshore drilling. He just hit his talking points and rambled on.

I can just imagine what his op-ed piece to the NY Times must have been like, for them to reject it. Maybe "My Friends, Obama wants us to lose in Iraq. I want us to win. And we are winning. We are winning, my friends. Obama is wrong. The end."

[hopeless277]

It's a win-win. When McCain screws up and it does get reported, he cries bias. When he doesn't screw up and it doesn't gets reported, he screams press bias again. Only when the compliant press intrupret his screw ups and traslate into what they think he meant, is he pleased. America deserves John McCain as president. Then, when this country finally lies in ashes, we can at least build from the ground up.

[SurrealPumpkin]

I don't deserve him. I don't want him.

[Highwind]

I completely agree with you, Mitchell. Barack Obama is not going around saying, 'I lived in Indonesia so that makes me an expert on foreign policy.' John McCain is the one going around saying 'I have all this foreign policy experience because I was a POW.' Give me a break. At some point, the press has to say, how many times is McCain going to keep mixing up the locations the countries or naming countries that don't exist anymore.

[harriscrl3]

What McCain is seeing as media bias is simply a better candidate. He is a better statesman a shrewder politician and more knowledgeable about world affairs not to mention an intriguing and diverse background. Even McCain himself said that Obama is an accomplish person. He impresses on him to go to Iraq thinking that he is going to go and fall flat he goes and is impressive because he is the better candidate. Its having a C student running against a talented A student at a time when people are disappointed in C students.


Carol

[doodlefarbe]

Interesting bits in the recent Rasmussen polling cited in this blog.

Almost 80% of repubs think the media are trying to help the Obama campaign - I suppose that's no big surprise. They've been so trained to see bias that they see Pisa as laying on the ground.

But almost 30 percent of Democrats agree! How did that happen?

And 50 percent of independents also believe that overall the media is trying to help the Obama campaign.

How does that fit?

[Mitchell Bard - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for going deeper into the polls, doodlefarbe. I think that your numbers bear out what I was saying: The McCain strategy is having an effect on perception.

[doodlefarbe]

Hola Mr. Bard, but I'm not sure whether it supports or refutes. These sorts of polls track back prior to the McCain campaigns current whining.

Also, the sheer coverage disparity (Sen. Obama being a "significant" portion of 150-200% of news stories compared to McCain (see Pew's PEJ website)) goes back further than the McCain camp's complaints.