In a meeting today in Aspen, John McCain met with oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens to discuss his plan to address U.S. dependence on foreign oil and focus more on alternative energies including wind and natural gas (in which Pickens is heavily invested).
Before they even sat down to talk, the subject of a recent study that predicted that white Americans will be in the minority by 2042 came up. Pickens found what he apparently thought was a silver lining in the report. He said to McCain…
“You and I won’t have to worry about that.”
The candidate and the audience chuckled at what the press described as a joke aimed at their advanced age. But that was not a joke about their age. It was an admission that they believe that such a demographic shift is something to “worry” about. They are saying that those of us who will be alive 34 years from now, and are white, should be worried. They are implying that they may be better off dead then to live in an America with a non-white majority.
What exactly are they afraid of? No one in the press corps bothered to ask. One intrepid reporter did ask McCain to comment on the anti-Obama book, “Obama Nation.” McCain ducked the question with a curious non sequitor: “Gotta keep your sense of humor.” Huh? An alert staffer intruded on this exchange and advised the reporter that, “we’re not doing that.” Straight talk? Racist talk? A typical day on the McCain campaign trail.
Posted by Mark NC on August 13, 2008 at 4:03 pm.
NOComments :
Last month John McCain said that Americans are tired of the Internet. It’s highly unlikely that he was actually speaking for all Americans, or even anything more than a small brood of Luddites. It is more likely that he himself is tired of the Internet, or perhaps just tired, period. He has never been particularly fond of it, even as he chaired the Senate committee responsible for regulating it.
Amanda Terkel has authored a pretty comprehensive review of McCain’s tech resume. Her article reveals a man who is both uncomfortable with technological progress and beholden to the big corporate interests who seek to dominate the industry. McCain’s pronouncements on the subject, like the one last month, are laughable. He has confessed that he is “an illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get,” and that he “never felt the particular need to e-mail.”
Terkel points out that the United States has fallen behind most of the world with regard to broadband policy. Our failure to be competitive in this arena will cost us the loss of millions of potential new jobs. It will hamstring our children. And it will insure that we run with the back of the pack in opportunities for business growth.
McCain has led the way to the rear by opposing legislation that would keep the Internet open (Network Neutrality). Plus he has promoted the sort of deregulation that has permitted media companies to consolidate so extensively that there are now only a handful of giant players left. McCain advanced this anti-competitive agenda while claiming to be free of conflicts or personal motive. Unfortunately, Terkel proves that that isn’t the truth:
“In 1998 and 1999, McCain wrote at least 15 letters to the FCC, urging members to take action on issues that had potentially major consequences for his campaign donors. For example, McCain wrote two letters in April and May 1999, asking the commission to make a decision on a $62 billion pending merger between telephone companies Ameritech and SBC Communications. The merger went through later that year. A few weeks before the April letter, Richard Notebaert, the head of Ameritech, co-hosted a fundraiser for McCain. He took in approximately $50,000. Just before the May letter, SBC and Ameritech officials contributed or solicited about $120,000 in donations for McCain’s campaign.”
“The current campaign cycle is also shaping up to be lucrative. U.S. Telecom Association president and CEO Walter B. McCormick Jr., Sprint CEO Daniel R. Hesse, and Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan G. Seidenberg have each raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for McCain’s campaign. AT&T executive vice president for federal relations Timothy McKone has raised at least $500,000.”
McCain’s association with lobbyists is well documented, if not well reported by the media. He was embroiled in his own scandal some years ago surrounding the corrupt banker Charles Keating. Next week he is attending a fundraiser hosted by Ralph Reed, a prolific lobbyist and an associate of convicted scammer Jack Abramoff. And in this week of tabloid revelations about John Edwards and his mistress, it should be noted that McCain also had speculation swirling about his relationship with telecom lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Unlike the bulldogging National Enquirer, the New York Times dropped the Iseman story after getting yapped at by angry Republicans. But the more salacious elements of the Iseman affair are not really that important. What is most relevant is that she is another lobbyist for closing off the Internet to everyone but her wealthy multinational clients, and that she was indisputably chummy with McCain. Curiously, she has since vanished from the face of earth. She has been so well hidden that even milk cartons don’t have a picture of her. Has the McCain camp shuttled her off to Dick Cheney’s fabled “Undisclosed Location?”
Terkel’s article, along with the other evidence cited here, should cause anyone who values the Internet to be suspicious of McCain’s plans. He is not merely ignorant, he is aggressively antagonistic toward an open, accessible, World Wide Web. He must not be given an authority over it.
Almost exactly one year ago I published a comprehensive examination of the futility of appearances on Fox News by Democrats and progressives: Starve The Beast. The thrust of the article argued that…
“Every time one of our representatives appears on Fox, they are setting back our agenda. They are not just wasting a little time trying to confront the enemy in its lair. They are literally causing harm to the efforts of the rest of us who are fervently struggling to repair and improve our country.”
The case was supported by studies that showed that Fox News audiences supported Republicans by overwhelming margins and that they were significantly more likely to have misperceptions about current news events. I also provided evidence that the centerpiece in Rupert Murdoch’s empire was a far less ominous presence in the mediasphere than they liked to imagine themselves.
It’s all still true. Rasmussen conducted a new study that affirms the previous studies. Their survey shows that Fox News viewers are still a species apart from the rest of the television population.
When nine out of ten Fox viewers say that they will vote for John McCain, you have an audience that may be more accurately described as a cult (as I described it in The Cult Of Foxonality). And while viewers at both CNN and MSNBC express a solid two to one majority for Barack Obama, that is a far cry from the near unanimous, block mentality of Fox viewers. The fact that the CNN and MSNBC audience compositions agree with one another suggests that they may be a better reflection of the population as a whole. They certainly come much closer to public opinion polling on the presidential race. Another indication of the disparity between Fox and its competitors is that 43% of CNN viewers and 38% of MSNBC viewers have a favorable opinion of McCain. However, only 14% of Fox viewers have a favorable opinion of Obama.
This corroborating evidence of how decidedly unfriendly the Fox News audience is to Democrats ought to be enough to persuade them to stay away from the network. Unfortunately, the past few weeks has seen wayward souls like Lanny Davis and Howard Wolfson lured into the Fox lair. To make matters worse, both Hillary Clinton and Obama have recently granted interviews to Fox flacks Bill O’Reilly and Chris Wallace, respectively. Obviously more persuasion is required. So let’s go to the numbers – the Nielsen numbers.
In the first half of 2008, CNN and MSNBC both improved their ratings over the same period the year before by more than 50% in the key 25-54 year old demographic. Fox News squeaked through with a measly 4% gain. In the second quarter Fox actually sunk 2%. And Fox continues to draw the oldest audience in cable news. MSNBC beats Fox with about 35% more viewers in the 18-34 demo. So Fox’s audience is not only growing slower than its competitors, it is failing to attract the next generation of news viewers. The only reason for the size of the audience they presently have is that they have cornered the market for conservative couch jockeys who congregate at their cable water cooler. Hence their dramatic overweighting of McCainiacs. The rest of the news consuming audience is splintered throughout the dial in a manner that disguises the fact that they are in the majority. There are far more non-Fox viewers than Fox viewers, but they are dispersed over a half dozen channels or more. Conservatives are all gathering together, glassy-eyed in the Fox clubhouse.
Democrats and progressives need to be reminded that a network that is overtly hostile to their interests holds no attraction for them. There is no reason to grace their airwaves. There is no benefit to doing so. They will not change the minds of the Foxpods watching programs like Brit Hume’s Special Report or the O’Reilly Factor. Their appearances will only be used to humiliate them and then to lay claim to being “fair and balanced.” It simply makes no sense to ally with a organization that is working openly and vigorously for your defeat. Can it be any clearer that people like Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Neil Cavuto, and Sean Hannity are the enemy?
And if it isn’t enough that Fox News is avowedly opposed to the goals of Democrats and progressives, then the fact that viewers are turning away from Fox while the market is growing should convince them of what the rest of the country has already decided – that Fox is not a news network, it is a tool for right-wing propaganda and disinformation. That’s why their audience share is shrinking. And that’s why we must not grant them the credibility our association implies. Just stay the HELL off of Fox News!
This beast has a ravenous appetite and we should not be throwing it chum. Leave it to whither and parish and cease to threaten our land and well-being. We are better rid of it. Starve The Beast!
A couple of weeks ago the Washington Times published a story about beleaguered conservatives in the entertainment industry. Just the fact that the story appeared in the Washington Times would normally be enough reason to laugh it off, but the article gets even funnier than one might imagine. It begins:
“A group of politically conservative and centrist Hollywood figures organized by actor Gary Sinise and others has been meeting quietly in restaurants and private homes, forming a loose-knit network of entertainers who share common beliefs like supporting U.S. troops and traditional American values […] The group, whose members call themselves “Friends of Abe” after Abraham Lincoln [are they sure it’s not Vigoda?], was organized as an underground movement because of fears that prominent industry titans with outspoken liberal views would retaliate, said participants. They often were reluctant to name members of the group in interviews for fear it would hurt their careers.”
To the extent that this shadowy conclave of rebels was willing to shed their reluctance to name names (behavior with which conservatives should be familiar), they thoroughly undermined their stated mission. Those courageous enough to step forward include some of Hollywood’s biggest stars:
Gary Sinise
Pat Boone
Jon Voight
Kelsey Grammer
Lionel Chetwynd
And this list doesn’t include big conservative names that have not been associated with Friends of Abe:
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bruce Willis
Tom Selleck
Patricia Heaton
Adam Sandler
Mel Gibson
Clint Eastwood
Chuck Norris
Conservatives are desperately trying to carve a place for themselves in a Hollywood they believe does not want them. There have been at least three articles in the Washington Times on the subject. It has also been taken up by the Los Angeles Times, the National Review, and Rupert Murdoch’s Weekly Standard did a cover story on it.
But can they really be serious about alleging discrimination, and fear of retaliation when, by their own accounts, they are enjoying stupendous success and popularity? Of course they can. Fealty to the truth or reality has never stopped a conservative before. It’s what the Bush administration relies on whenever they describe programs like “Clear Skies,”“Healthy Forests,” or “iraqi Freedom.” It’s what allows John McCain to complain that the media is unfair to him, or that Barack Obama is a flip-flopper. It is a strategy wherein you assert the polar opposite of what you actually mean – what actually is. This round of bitching is emblematic of right-wing methodology in politics.
It is also ironic that these efforts to exalt celebrity should bubble up at a time when the McCain campaign is mocking celebrity with juvenile ads about Britney Spears.
So it should surprise no one that conservatives would assert that, if they were to disclose their views in Hollywood, they would never be successful, and then trot out a bevy of successful Hollywood conservatives to make their case. This is the way they work, and they pray that the American people are stupid enough to fall for it. I think that’s what they really mean by a “Faith-based Initiative.”
Posted by Mark NC on August 6, 2008 at 10:14 am.
NOComments :
A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) has confirmed what many observers have already suspected. The media suffers from a severe case of Attention Distortion Disorder.
“For the first time since this general election campaign began in early June, Republican John McCain attracted virtually as much media attention as his Democratic rival last week.”
Barack Obama’s tour of the Middle East and Europe generated a slew of press reports detailing the trip and documenting the speeches and meetings with foreign leaders. This was interpreted by pundits as an excess abundance of attention paid to the Democratic candidate at the expense of John McCain. What this analysis leaves out (as usual) is any context that incorporates the content of the coverage, much of which focused on criticisms that Obama was arrogant, presumptuous, and “too presidential.”
Nevertheless, the McCain camp whined that they were being slighted and responded by releasing a series of ads that addressed serious issues like Paris Hilton, Moses, and the alleged love affair the media has for Obama. Actually, the McCain campaign didn’t really release the ads so much as they announced their existence and then let the media air them repeatedly for free. Whatever the method, the strategy appears to have had some success. The PEJ’s study shows that McCain’s press time is now equivalent to Obama’s. And all he had to do was accuse the media of being infatuated with his opponent.
For McCain to suggest that Obama is the recipient of undue positive coverage in the press is laughable. McCain himself once described the media as his base. He jokes with them on his campaign plane and invites them to BBQs at his Arizona villa. He relies on the overwhelmingly complimentary image he enjoys, including the utterly false portrayal of him as a maverick.
What this teaches journalism observers is that if you bash the media for not paying attention to you, you can get them to pay attention to you. You don’t have to provide any substance or even demonstrate that the content of the reporting was unfair. Just complain about the distribution of minutes and let the guilty consciences of the press take effect. Hillary Clinton’s campaign did the same thing during the primaries with the same result.
Further evidence of the success of this strategy can be seen in the allocation of airtime on campaign coverage. The PEJ summarizes the impact of the media focus on advertising by noting that 10% of the “newshole” was devoted to campaign ads. But it doesn’t stop there:
“Advertising was the second-biggest campaign story line last week, filling 10% of the campaign newshole. And the ripple effects were felt throughout the week. The ad generated another narrative – whether McCain campaign was too negative – that filled 6% of the newshole. The tone of the campaign, and the new McCain ad, then triggered a third major story line. When Obama accused Republicans of trying to frighten Americans because he ‘doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills,’ the McCain team responded by accusing Obama of playing the ‘race card.’ And that controversy, at 15%, became the biggest campaign narrative of all.”
In total, campaign advertising, directly or indirectly, drove 31% of the media coverage. The bulk of that coverage was centered on McCain or McCain’s criticisms of Obama. At least three McCain ads were replayed ad nauseum, but at most one Obama ad was given any analysis at all.
Since when was it the duty of the press to provide more coverage of candidate-produced commercials than to the actual issues around which campaigns revolve? The networks are making million dollar contributions to candidates when they broadcast their ads for free. Not to mention they are foregoing revenue that they might have earned had they required the candidates to actually pay for the ad time. What’s their incentive for this poor business judgment? Does it represent a political preference on the part of the media? Just take a look at the preponderance of McCain’s free media as compared to Obama’s and I think the answer is clear.
It is McCain with whom the media is in love. And they are putting their money where their heart is.
On the heels of his ad mocking Barack Obama as a Messiah-like figure, John McCain has now anointed himself as “The One.”
This new ad declares that “Washington’s broken” and “John McCain knows it.” He admits that “We’re worse off than we were four years ago.” But without acknowledging the brazen hypocrisy, the ad asserts that McCain is “the only” candidate who can fix our broken nation. Then he goes further to seriously describe himself in the same manner he had sarcastically portrayed Obama:
“One is ready to lead – McCain”
Here’s the ad:
Much of the last week was spent watching the media chew over McCain’s anti-Obama ad. With the pretense of engaging in substantive political discourse, they speculated as to whether Obama was too arrogant, and some even raised fears that he might be the anti-Christ. But McCain’s ad was a series of out-of-context snippets edited together to suggest that Obama said things that he never actually said.
Will the press take up the same debate now that McCain has made an ad where he is referring to himself in such reverential terms? Can the media possibly ignore that a just few days ago McCain was making fun of Obama as “The One” and now he is calling himself that in his own ad?
Probably. Remember that we are dealing with a thoroughly compromised press corps that is desperately trying to keep this race close so as to produce more drama and, hence, more viewers and advertising revenue.
John McCain has made Barack Obama’s alleged elitism a centerpiece of his campaign. In virtually every stop of the Doubletalk Express, McCain finds an opportunity to impugn Obama as out of touch with ordinary Americans. The press uncritically regurgitates this nonsense without even a hint of irony. They portray the wealthy McCain as an authentic man of the people despite the fact that the opposite is true.
Haven’t they noticed that it is McCain who is the son of privilege? His father and his grandfather were both Admirals. He left his first wife to marry a beer heiress worth more than $100 million. And he has lived off of the American people his whole life – first as a Naval officer, then as a Senator. Obama, on the other hand, is the son of a single mother. He worked his way through college and law school, and then eschewed the lucrative legal firms to dedicate himself to community service in South Chicago.
So how will the media handle the news that McCain has been caught gallivanting around the country in $520.00 imported Italian Ferragamo loafers?
Jonah Goldberg: “[Edwards] gives new meaning to the term ‘poverty pimp.’“
USA Today: “Edwards, most prominently, has undermined his passionate advocacy for ordinary Americans by seeming to be anything but ordinary himself. Expensive haircuts reinforce the elitist image of a wealthy trial lawyer…”
Bill O’Reilly: “Edwards is running a preposterous campaign. He lives like a sultan in a 30,000 foot North Carolina house […] I have no respect for him. He’s a phony and is in the tank for special interest to damage this country.”
McCain has upped the ante on Edwards’ haircut by $120.00. Plus, he has eight homes and a private jet. Does O’Reilly disrespect him or consider him a phony? Edwards and Obama share the experience of having had to work hard for their good fortune. McCain was born into privilege, and then marriage enriched him further.
The press really needs to be made to answer for their hypocrisy. What excuse could they have for the disparity in the coverage of these candidates? The reality is so obvious that the media cannot feign ignorance. It is past the time for excuses and neglect. It is time to force the media to be honest.
One of the most persistent fallacies in media culture is that there is a leftward bias in the “Mainstream” Conventional Media. That mantra is sung from every sector ranging from the expected misinformers like Bill O’Reilly to the button down suites of CNN. It has never been true, and is even unreasonable on its face. Why are so many people ready to accept the nonsense that giant, conservative corporations like Time Warner (CNN) or General Electric (NBC) are thick with liberals?
The Los Angeles Times has now published a story on a new study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University that confirms that the liberal bias myth is just that. The CMPA conducted a study that was more than the shallow query as to the quantity of coverage or whether viewers and reporters were considered to be liberal or conservative. They did a content analysis to assess what was actually being broadcast. They found that…
“…ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.”
The content breakdown revealed that 28% of the on-air statements about Obama were positive and 72% were negative. Compare that to McCain for whom 43% of the statements were positive and only 57% negative.
This is consistent with previous studies that measure content. The Project for Excellence in Journalism did a study that showed that, while there was more time spent on Democrats, it was time spent mostly disparaging them:
“…nearly two-thirds of the election coverage (61%) was specifically about candidates vying for the Democratic nomination. This was nearly three times those that focused on Republican candidates (24%). Another 13% dealt with both parties. […] conservative talkers, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage were the most Democratic focused of all – 75% of their time … and only 13% focused mainly on Republicans.”
So while there was more “coverage” of Democrats, that extra focus really only translates into more time bashing them. It was conservative programs that were the most heavily weighted toward coverage of Democratic candidates, and they weren’t saying nice things.
It’s good to see some authoritative reporting on the disparity of ideologies in the news, but the Times author, James Rainey, found himself unable to resist propagating another myth about the media propensity for bias:
“Such pronouncements, sorry to say, tend to be wrong since they describe a monolithic media that no longer exists. Information today cascades from countless outlets and channels, from the Huffington Post to Politico.com to CBS News and beyond.”
Indeed there are more sources for news than in the past, but most of them are still owned by, or otherwise affiliated with, the Monolithic Media Rainey says no longer exists. The truth is that most Americans still get the majority of their news from five multinational coprorations with conflicts of interest bulging from their seams. Until that issue is examined and resolved, the remaining myths will continue to be spread and believed.
In 1967, John McCain was shot out of the North Vietnamese sky, crash landed in a lake, taken prisoner, and held in captivity for … 41 years, so far.
No one can dismiss the unimaginable agony of enduring six years in an enemy prisoner of war camp. It is surely a brutal experience both physically and mentally. It is the sort of experience that never leaves you and, indeed, it seems never to have left John McCain. His entire post-POW frame of reference is shaped by what he went through, and also by what he missed as a consequence of his incarceration.
The tenor of his candidacy is quagmired in history, and that is not a reference to his age. It is his policy proposals that harken back to the past. And it is a vision of the past that is still very much alive in McCain’s mind. His arrest in Vietnam simultaneously arrested his growth as an observer of politics, foreign affairs, and diplomacy.
It’s hard to tell lately if McCain is running to succeed President Bush, Gen. Petraeus, or perhaps Gen. Westmoreland. The persistent theme that McCain has adopted with regard to Iraq is identical to the 1970’s era military establishment and Richard Nixon’s “Peace With Honor” contrivance. Nixon also promised to stay the course and bring our troops home when victory was achieved, despite overwhelming agreement, even amongst his advisers, that nothing recognizable as victory was likely to result in Vietnam.
Now, McCain accuses Obama of preferring to lose a war in order to win a political campaign. But it is McCain who is pursuing a political goal at the expense of America’s interests. McCain is crafting an election scheme that parallels Nixon’s in 1972. Win the office by assuring voters that America is always right and thus, invincible. Then worry about proving it later. Unfortunately, the post-election scenario would also mirror Nixon’s, with an eventual withdrawal from Iraq that fails to achieve any objective articulated by Bush or McCain. And like Nixon’s mis-adventures in Laos and Cambodia, McCain’s Iraq exit could include a detour through Iran. But McCain doesn’t concern himself with these realities because he is too fixated on prevailing politically. And that’s exactly what he is hypocritically accusing Obama of.
As further evidence of McCain’s confinement to the past, consider his recent advertisement titled “Summer of Love.” It begins with images of colorful Hippies at protests, and music festivals. The announcer declares it a time of “uncertainty, hope and change,” skillfully associating uncertainty with two words that have become iconic within Barack Obama’s campaign. It then proceeds to insult an entire generation by asserting that McCain had “another kind of love – of country,” thereby implying that young Americans in the 60’s and 70’s were less than patriotic. As one of them I can assure you that it wasn’t because we hated our country that we dedicated ourselves to peace, civil rights, and free expression. Are those unpatriotic aspirations?
This is not the first time that McCain has attacked the Woodstock generation. In fact, he even opposed modest funding for a museum that commemorated the era and the event. Some may agree with McCain that…
“The Woodstock Museum is a shining example of what’s wrong with Washington on pork-barrel, out-of-control spending.”
Personally, I think that an event that drew nearly half a million people, featured some of the most popular and creative artists in the world, and emerged as emblematic of one of the most significant cultural movements of the century, deserves a small facility for remembrance and study. In addition, the Bethel Woods Arts Center, as it is called, is a working contemporary venue that enriches the community both creatively and financially.
The fact that McCain cannot recognize the importance of that era, and the contributions of citizens who lived through it, is representative of a larger problem for him. The time he spent in captivity was a defining time for those of us back home. There were so many socially profound events that altered just about everyone who lived through them. John McCain was not one of them. The history that shaped millions of Americans, McCain only heard about secondhand, after the fact. For example:
The first heart transplant.
The assassinations of Martin Luther King and two Kennedys.
So it may not be so surprising that McCain is trapped in a time warp, unable to relate to a country and world that shared these tumultuous experiences, but from which he was excluded. It may explain his hostility to a generation that was arguably more engaged in public service and community activism than any generation before or since. It puts into perspective the persistent pessimism expressed in the ad above that ends by saying to voters “Don’t hope for a better life.”
While many of us who went through the 60’s and 70’s have assimilated those experiences and included them as we’ve grown over time, McCain has remained stagnant and, in many ways, ignorant in the procession of time. That’s why, for us, the Summer of Love will always be remembered with an equal measure of frustration and pride that reflects the reality of that historic time. But McCain will only recall a combination of frightening changes and an idealized portrait of a sitcom utopia. That’s not a vision for the future that offers much hope. It’s not a vision of the future at all. Contine reading →
John McCain’s campaign is floundering and desperate. He is bankrupt both financially and intellectually. And nothing illustrates this more than his pathetic attempts at self-promotion through media manipulation. Rather than present his policies and personal attributes to sway a skeptical electorate, McCain has opted to beg for attention from the press and hope they favor him with some attention.
Much of the time that Barack Obama has been overseas, McCain has been complaining that he is being ignored. He is whining that the three network anchors are ditching him to tag along with Obama. Never mind the fact that he isn’t making any news, he believes that his adventures in Kennebunkport and fundraising events warrant the same reception that Obama gets while meeting with world leaders in war zones.
McCain’s campaign reacts to all of this by manufacturing news. His staff punks Robert Novak into publishing a tip that McCain will name his VP pick this week. Now Novak suspects that it was never true and he calls it “pretty reprehensible.” But it bought him some free press.
Earlier this week, McCain submitted an op-ed to the New York Times as a putative response to a previously published op-ed by Obama. The Times rejected the piece as lacking substance or even relevance to Obama’s article. The McCain camp, along with most of the rightist rabble, giddily declared that this is proof of media bias. In fact, it is merely proof that respectable news organizations will not allow themselves to be exploited by wily campaign media hacks (sometimes). Since McCain’s op-ed was not responsive to Obama’s, and it offered nothing newsworthy of its own, it was nothing but fluff and undeserving of publication.
Now McCain is supposedly preparing to release a new ad (below) that portrays Obama as a media darling. The ad is titled “Love” and his website introduces it saying…
“It’s pretty obvious that the media has a bizarre fascination with Barack Obama. Some may even say it’s a love affair.”
I actually agree that the press is fascinated with Obama, although there is nothing bizarre about it. He is the first African American ever nominated for president by a major party. He is a relative newcomer to the national political stage. And he is generating more interest from voters than any other contemporary politician. McCain, on the other hand, has been in Washington for thirty years. He has run for president before. And from the public he is eliciting not much more than yawns, even amongst many Republicans. It would be bizarre if the press were not fascinated with Obama.
In addition, the new ad seems to inadvertently boost Obama’s profile. The intent of the ad is to show the quantity of positive references to Obama by various media figures. But the result is that it affirms that there is an abundance of positivity surrounding Obama. Many viewers will retain the impression that Obama is very well liked and forget any points made regarding media coverage. McCain’s previous ad (“Gas Pump”) had a similar effect. At the end, it asked who was responsible for higher oil prices, and answered the question by playing a recording of a crowd chanting “Obama!” Again, the audience will likely recall the display of adulation and not what question was asked.
However, the big problem with the new ad is that it will never appear on TV. The whole ad campaign is a fraud. Notice that it is just under 3:00 minutes long? That is far too long for broadcast. The only purpose of announcing it now is to get the media to report on the ad and have it broadcast as part of editorial coverage. McCain is angling for free media. Will the press allow themselves to be used this way? Probably. Especially the cable news nets who have an insatiable appetite for pre-produced video and lots of time to fill.
The bottom line is that McCain’s campaign has no momentum and nothing of interest to say that might generate coverage. So they are resorting to begging journalists to cover him instead of the guy over there in the Middle East. They are resorting to begging friendly reporters into printing fake news items. They are resorting to begging the New York Times for editorial space in which to publish their press releases. They are resorting to begging cable news networks to air stories on ads that they never intend to broadcast.
Update: As if to punctuate the analysis above, the McCain campaign has helpfully announced a pitiful response to Obama’s trip overseas. McCain has purchased ad time in American cities with the same name as the cities Obama is visiting (i.e. Berlin, WI, Paris, ME).
This is further evidence that McCain is still praying for free media as these are small markets that will have little impact on national trends. He’ll get some, of course, from Fox News. But this ad buy comes at the same time that Obama announced his $5 million purchase of air time during the Olympics. So while McCain is making penny ante, symbolic ad buys, Obama is going for the Gold. Nice juxtaposition.
Last month John McCain said that Americans are tired of the Internet. It’s highly unlikely that he was actually speaking for all Americans, or even anything more than a small brood of Luddites. It is more likely that he himself is tired of the Internet, or perhaps just tired, period. He has never been particularly fond of it, even as he chaired the Senate committee responsible for regulating it.
McCain’s association with lobbyists is 
And if it isn’t enough that Fox News is avowedly opposed to the goals of Democrats and progressives, then the fact that viewers are turning away from Fox while the market is growing should convince them of what the rest of the country has already decided – that Fox is not a news network, it is a tool for right-wing propaganda and disinformation. That’s why their audience share is shrinking. And that’s why we must not grant them the credibility our association implies. Just stay the HELL off of Fox News!
John McCain’s campaign is floundering and desperate. He is bankrupt both financially and intellectually. And nothing illustrates this more than his pathetic attempts at self-promotion through media manipulation. Rather than present his policies and personal attributes to sway a skeptical electorate, McCain has opted to beg for attention from the press and hope they favor him with some attention.