Went to bed last night nodding off to an incredibly boring CNN broadcast of full live coverage of McCain speaking to a rally of supporters. Not just a clip... it went on and on and on (at least 15 minutes of McCain live before I fell asleep)... and I was listening, thinking... this guy is going on and on about helping the middle class with a tax cut and the importance of regulation... how is one of the greatest 'deregulators' of all time allowed to get away with this sudden shift to a laundry-list of OBAMA's proposals? Since when did CNN become "The mcCain News Network"?
Woke up this morning to the BBC - playing the theme from "Rocky" and talking about McCain. In about 30 minute of news I heard about McCain the fighter, the kinder-gentler Sarah Palin (though she's still a tough, "pit-bull"), and an interview with a woman who claimed to have been a Democratic primary supporter of Hillary Clinton... (Woman: "I'm just glad to see another girl on the ticket"... BBC Interviewer: "And if Hillary Clinton had won the nomination, who would you be voting for?"... Woman: "I like Sarah more. She's more like me." ... Me: ... grinding, gut-wrenching sensation... isn't that EXACTLY the sentiment that gave us eight years of "W"? The one "you'd want to go out and have a beer with"... Help!)The last 24-48 hours at least have been all McCain all the time.
Guess what - well, gee, golly shucks - the next 24-48 hours are going to be about McCain's sudden, inexplicable (yeah, right!) 'surgre' in the polls; the "fighter" the new "come-back kid"... what a story - greatest comeback in the polls since the last-minute Carter-Reagan debate (not to mention the debacle in the dessert) allowed the actor a last minute surge to victory (and with it "Mourning in America"). At least that was somewhat driven by "real" events (the debate, a botched hostage rescue). If McCain 'surges' why will it be? Purely MEDIA driven ("left-wing liberal media..." give me a break!!).
As soon as American's attention to REAL issues (the Economy, stupid) started to seriously sink McCain, the media seems to have gone into overdrive in a desparate attempt to keep the horse-race going... Their (media's) self-interest in the horse-race (and advertising dollars in brings) may yet propel McCain (and heaven forbid... Palin) into the Presidency!For the first time in a long time, I'm getting a bad feeling. I hope Obama's ability to BUY time on TV in the US can short-cut this danger. I'm not seeing that overseas. On the news it's All McCain, All the Time.
Am I the only who has been feeling like the coverage from the media is becoming more and more... biased? I don't want to be like those whiney Republicans who claim that "to question = to attack", but I must say, most of us Obama supporters have given the so called "liberal" media the benefit of the doubt when they have been hard on Obama over the months. Though they seem to obsess over every little thing done by the Obama campaign, especially the gaffes. I know for myself I thought, well, he is relatively new on the scene, maybe that's why they spend their every waking coverage dissecting his speeches & requesting "more substance", investigating relatives abroad, playing clips of poorly chosen words over and over again, looking at any poll that suggests a Hillary gap, a Working Class gap, a Women gap, a blue gap, or a red gap.
I, for the most part, gave them the benefit of the doubt. John McCain has of course been in the senate for 26 years trying to "shake up Washington" ( i kid, i kid), so maybe they are just trying to give the viewers balance. Fast foward three to four days ago...
McCain announces a vice president whom no one in the media, "the google", not even spokespersons in the McCain camp know anything about. First the media begins by giving us campaign talking points. She's a reformer, a fresh face, a maverick, they said... examples? No.
