The Infatuated Press Tosses Its Panties at John McCain

McCamy Taylor

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Thu Jun-12-08 10:05 PM
Original message

The Infatuated Press Tosses Its Panties at John McCain

I. �McCain�s Base, which happens to be the media� George Will

In case you did not read my last journal entry, �McCain�s Yesterday�s Maverick� George Will the quote above comes from the same source, an ABC interview in which Will and others were discussing the positive coverage financially-strapped, also-running McCain was getting from the news media way back in October 2007.

Following the broadcast of his interview with John McCain on ABC's This Week, conservative pundit George Will joked with his fellow panelists on the show, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Chrystia Freeland of the Financial Times, that McCain has recently been "doing much better with his base, which happens to be the media, which is why we read about it."

Be sure to watch the video at the Raw Story link.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/George_Will_Ron_Pauls_serious_maverickism_1029.html

Ordinarily, I would not quote George Will on anything. However, back in October, John McCain was not the designated nominee. Rudi Giuliani was. Then, the Mayor of 9/11 blew it by cutting a deal with Roger Aisles to make Newscorp sole proprietor of the Giuliani FCC. That angered Fox�s competitors, and the Giuliani campaign was sunk before it was launched.

When Will talked out of school about McCain, he was being clever and honest, something he should do more often about something other than baseball.

In this case, he was also being factual. In 2006, Chris Matthews had one of his Tweety moments and said

http://mediamatters.org/items/200609110005

MATTHEWS: Every time I look at a poll -- and I expect McCain to win every one of these polls. The press loves McCain. We're his base, I think, sometimes

II. From �Maverick� to Nominee All in One Day

Here is the first time I realized that General Electric was determined to make John McCain the Republican nominee and the next president of the United States. It was on Super Tuesday, over at MSNBC. From my Journal:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/140

4:48Bonus points to Wolfe for being the first MSNBC person not to call McCain a "maverick". Yeah! Even Tom Brokaw of "we should let the election take care of itself" fame used the "maverick" word today.
Snip
5:55 Bonus points to Matthews for calling McCain a "maverick" within moments of opening his mouth at the round table. Every time an MSNBC pundits calls McCain a "maverick", GE gets a new Pentagon contract.
Snip
9:45 Eventually, Tom Brokaw comes on to offer the Republican Party some sage advice. They must not go to their convention without a designated nominee. This will be a terrible thing for their party (and presumably for the country). They must nominate McCain and make the country love him. Brokaw reminds Republicans of 1968 and what happened when Humphrey was the default nominee at the Chicago convention. He warns Republicans that McCain could be their Humphrey that helps them elect a Democratic Nixon (either Hillary or Obama) if they do not rally around him now. Everybody listens quietly while he speaks. This is what �fair and balanced� journalism is all about.
Snip
11:22 Tweety celebrates McCain�s �bicoastal power�, dismisses Hillary�s bicoastal wins as some sort of left over effect that Obama would have overcome if he had only been given more time.
Snip
1 AM "John McCain has wrapped up the nomination for the Republican Party" Did I miss something? Or was that woman reporting the news just really, really eager to please her corporate masters at General Electric.

Since then I have gone back and reviewed election night coverage. Did you know that on the night of the Iowa caucuses, Huckabee�s win meant that McCain would be the presumptive nominee? You would have known that if you paid close attention to the MSNBC coverage. They were campaigning for him all along.

III. MSNBC Reporters Toss Their Panties At John McCain

I am not going to bother with Fox News. We all know that they are biased. CBS News, which does what the Bush FCC tells it to do so that Viacom will not have to divest its media holdings has only limited effect on the nation's news reporting. The most insidious of the McCain biased TV news networks in MSNBC with its 24 hour coverage and Keith Olbermann which it uses to give the impression of being fair and unbiased. In fact, KO gets three hours a day to present his viewpoint. The McCain fan club has the other 21 hours to sell the Republican candidate.

Remember all those women who used to throw their underwear at Tom Jones? The members of the press are just as bad when it comes to the Senator from Arizona, and the biggest concentration of them can be found over at the General Electric news network, where a weakness for Pentagon contracts and a need for more nuclear reactor business have made McCain bigger than the Beatles, bigger than Tom Jones, bigger than Jesus.

We are talking Elvis.

Kelly O�Donnell has been McCain�s number one female fan at MSNBC. Here, from Media Matters, is an example of her biased coverage of his campaign.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804020006

In a report on Sen. John McCain, NBC News' Kelly O'Donnell referred to McCain's "statesman-in-waiting trip overseas last month to pump up his international image," but did not note that, during the trip, McCain made the admittedly false claim, more than once, that "Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq." O'Donnell also did not mention that the trip included a fundraiser in London.

And here we have the other O�Donnell, Nora, spreading the lie that McCain departed ways from Bush on the handling of the Iraq War in an attempt to boost his rep as a �maverick�.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200803260006

On MSNBC, Norah O'Donnell falsely claimed that Sen. John McCain "called for Don Rumsfeld's resignation." In fact, McCain did not call for Rumsfeld to resign; he said the decision about whether Rumsfeld should leave was the president's.

These lovely ladies toss their unmentionables at the presumptive GOP presidential nominee regularly. Unfortunately, the men at MSNBC are almost as bad, and watching them fawn over the aging senator is not a pretty sight. Here is Brian Williams, from the night of the Texas and Ohio primaries.

WILLIAMS: And you know, when he had to ditch into the lake in the middle of Saigon, I mean, it was an extraordinary story, this great young naval aviator, son of an admiral, and the people, the men he was with for the years in the Hanoi Hilton in the years he was there, what he put up with, struggling to then get a political foothold back in the United States in Arizona, struggling to put his physical body back together, there is no quit in the guy.
He has sometimes joked that he�s been scared by the professionals. So a minor thing like life, running for president, a political campaign, you�ve got to bring it worse than that if you�re going to get John McCain�s attention. People would be well counseled to remember those qualities and traits as this campaign goes on.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23482973

Boxers or briefs, Brian?

Here is someone else who just loves John McCain. From the night of the New Hampshire primary, Chris �Tweety� Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Well, the wild thing about McCain is, although he�s a great military man who has served this country and that is obviously a patriot in all the great ways you can be a patriot, both in public service and in his military career, in his sacrifice, he�s not popular among the regular Republicans, the people that go to meetings and organize the Republican Party victories.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22574559 /

When you felt Obama crawling up your thigh, did he encounter John McCain there, too? Tweety is a slut.

Tom Brokaw comes up with a pair of briefs for the old soldier on the night of the Florida primary

TOM BROKAW, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: We�ve been talking repeatedly here and on other nights about how John McCain has demonstrated what a tough warrior he is. He�s not the perfect conservative in the eyes of a lot of people, but they find him authentic.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22919148

Matthews calls McCain a �maverick� six times, Scarborough calls him a �maverick� three times and David Gregory praises him for his �authenticity�.

Oh, and then there is Tim Russert basically admitting that they are not going to cover any negative McCain stories as long as they can think of a lame reason to justify their decision.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/07/matthews-russert-admit-theyve-given-john-mccain-a-free-pass/

Matthews: ��You think the Democrat warhorses know that as long as there�s a fire going on in one of those rings, the Barack Obama ring, we�re not going to focus much on John McCain�s weaknesses?�
Russert: �Yes, they believed initially that ignoring the McCain campaign was beneficial and helpful to the Democrats, but as this has gone on, they see in their minds, and we get flooded with e-mails, Senator McCain making a mistake on Shi�a vs. Sunni, making a mistake about the first Persian Gulf War and the second, vis-�-vis oil, his own relationship with Pastor Hagee and why isn�t that talked about and reported on the way Reverend Wright�s relationship with Senator Obama is talked about. But, all that in time. It is only May. This has been going on for some time, but it�s going to be a long, long campaign and when Senator McCain is back in the media�s light, he�ll receive the same kind of scrutiny.�

There you have it. The MSNBC John McCain Fan Club. Russert, Williams, Matthews, both O�Donnells, Brokaw. Send them underwear, because at the rate this campaign is going, they are going to need it.

IV. Media Matters Rules the World

I wish they did. Here is a link. You can get more details about the press corp�s love affair with the war hero who thinks that America owes him something more than medals for his time in the Hanoi Hilton---even though he already got a free pass on the Keating 5 scandal. Basically, John McCain will do anything for money and adoration and applause. I would not be surprised at all if the press likes him, because he is willing to give them a good story (which is what reporters want more than anything else).

That is not what the country needs, though. Good stories do not solve anything except boredom.

http://mediamattersaction.org/freeride/addendum