while the Democratic Presidential candidate cannot control what his church pastor says in his sermons. What do you think will be the focus of the mainstream media’s election coverage?
Come on, stupid – the formerly anonymous pastor’s rants are obviously much more relevant than the habitual foreign policy identification blunders of a candidate who touts his foreign and defense policy expertise as the best reason to elect him!
But let’s be serious for a moment: anybody who bothers to exercise even a few brain cells would know that the controversial sermons of one candidate’s religious minister are not nearly as important in electing a president as another candidate’s consistent misidentification of enemy participants in an ongoing foreign war. The real problem seems to be that the mainstream media really doesn’t want anybody to exercise his or her brain cells. Led on a leash by Faux News – as usual – the "liberally biased" mainstream media is all but begging us to believe that the sermons of Senator Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright are more relevant in choosing a president than the inexplicable foreign policy gaffes of the long-serving Senator McCain. Day after day, negatively-toned Obama articles with self-fulfillingly prophesized headlines such as "Obama’s minister’s remarks won’t fade" and "Wright flap may hurt Obama" appear on the web; simultaneously, almost nothing appears on the web regarding Senator McCain’s habitual lapses in basic Middle East political matters. [In fact, in a recent video piece, CNN reporter Kyra Phillips asked General David Patreus a question by quoting Senator McCain’s completely erroneous statements (that Iran’s Shia Muslims are assisting Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq’s Sunni Muslims) as if the Senator’s mistaken observation were fact! For goodness’ sake, hasn’t anybody heard of fact-checking any more? So not only have some mainstream media outlets totally ignored McCain’s thrice-made, inexcusable mistake, they have actually incorporated this mistake into its presentation of reality! Be afraid, folks – be very fuckin’ afraid!] The effect of the media’s unbalanced reporting of these two stories is simple: John McCain receives a free, long-running endorsement while Barack Obama receives a free, long-running reprimand. The irony, of course, is that the only truly relevant issue of the two is Senator McCain’s constant confusion about who’s training whom in Iraq. His chronic "misstatements" display either a complete lack of understanding of a subject on which he claims to be an expert or a complete disregard for honesty from the "straight-talking" Arizona Senator; neither scenario, however, would ever lead a reasonable voter to believe that Senator McCain is qualified to lead the country. Apparently the mainstream media does not want voters to be led to this conclusion – what other reason could it have (besides higher ratings and higher profits) for focusing so much coverage on a matter that is all-but-irrelevant in determining a candidate’s qualifications for the presidency?
Come on, stupid – the formerly anonymous pastor’s rants are obviously much more relevant than the habitual foreign policy identification blunders of a candidate who touts his foreign and defense policy expertise as the best reason to elect him!
But let’s be serious for a moment: anybody who bothers to exercise even a few brain cells would know that the controversial sermons of one candidate’s religious minister are not nearly as important in electing a president as another candidate’s consistent misidentification of enemy participants in an ongoing foreign war. The real problem seems to be that the mainstream media really doesn’t want anybody to exercise his or her brain cells. Led on a leash by Faux News – as usual – the "liberally biased" mainstream media is all but begging us to believe that the sermons of Senator Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright are more relevant in choosing a president than the inexplicable foreign policy gaffes of the long-serving Senator McCain. Day after day, negatively-toned Obama articles with self-fulfillingly prophesized headlines such as "Obama’s minister’s remarks won’t fade" and "Wright flap may hurt Obama" appear on the web; simultaneously, almost nothing appears on the web regarding Senator McCain’s habitual lapses in basic Middle East political matters. [In fact, in a recent video piece, CNN reporter Kyra Phillips asked General David Patreus a question by quoting Senator McCain’s completely erroneous statements (that Iran’s Shia Muslims are assisting Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq’s Sunni Muslims) as if the Senator’s mistaken observation were fact! For goodness’ sake, hasn’t anybody heard of fact-checking any more? So not only have some mainstream media outlets totally ignored McCain’s thrice-made, inexcusable mistake, they have actually incorporated this mistake into its presentation of reality! Be afraid, folks – be very fuckin’ afraid!] The effect of the media’s unbalanced reporting of these two stories is simple: John McCain receives a free, long-running endorsement while Barack Obama receives a free, long-running reprimand. The irony, of course, is that the only truly relevant issue of the two is Senator McCain’s constant confusion about who’s training whom in Iraq. His chronic "misstatements" display either a complete lack of understanding of a subject on which he claims to be an expert or a complete disregard for honesty from the "straight-talking" Arizona Senator; neither scenario, however, would ever lead a reasonable voter to believe that Senator McCain is qualified to lead the country. Apparently the mainstream media does not want voters to be led to this conclusion – what other reason could it have (besides higher ratings and higher profits) for focusing so much coverage on a matter that is all-but-irrelevant in determining a candidate’s qualifications for the presidency?
Perhaps I was wrong about what the GOP would have to do in order to "win" this election after all (see "Let’s be serious here" – February 12, 2008). I mean, based solely on the mainstream media’s coverage so far – coverage that is on track to rival the 2000 election’s frighteningly pro-Bush slant – John McCain’s going to win the presidency in a Reagan-like landslide. Of course, a McCain victory, even by a narrow margin, would be the greatest legacy of Ronald Reagan’s eight years of obsessive deregulation. Only in Reagan’s deregulated, right-wing media dominated world could a candidate from a political party so clearly out of touch with reality and out of favor with the American public win an election with the platform of keeping most of these same failed, disapproved policies. If the mainstream media continues to focus on the more or less irrelevant issue of a candidate’s minister’s sermons rather than the very relevant issue of another candidate’s repeated inability to differentiate between two foreign enemies (who are enemies themselves), it will simply be leading the American people to the voting booth without the necessary information they need to make responsible decisions. This scenario could easily lead to a GOP victory come election day, even if No, No, Nanette does not find its way back to Broadway.
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