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May 09, 2007

The Media declares "omerta" on Obama shortcomings

Ed Lasky
Barack Obama has been effectively coated with Teflon® by a liberal media anxious that no flaws ever become apparent in the image fashioned of a man running against cynicism, the presumptive Republican nominee. How else to explain the passes granted to him on everything from his racialist "spiritual mentor" (his term), now being consigned to obscurity.  

Today brings some further examples of blatant press favoritism, double standards, and burying of inconvenient truths.

Item: Greg Pollowitz of the National Review Online Media Blog points out that the CBS website has stopped allowing reader comments on stories about Obama:

CBS Stops Reader Comments on Obama 


CBSNews.com has been getting so many vitriolic comments about Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, that it has taken the unusual step of blocking all reader comments on its stories about Mr. Obama.

The CBS decision highlights the ways in which presidential campaigns, news organizations and the general public are grappling with the growing influence of the Internet on politics. There is no rule book for resolving clashes among the anything-goes ethos of the Web, the efforts by candidates to harness it to their ends and the standards that mainstream journalism has tried to impose on what appears under its banner. [....]

But reader comments on VP Cheney are still ok (obscenities obscured with *s):
Item: Pajamas Media catches the Washington Post Photoshopping Obama's picture to make him look better (the original un-retouched photo is available from Getty Images, and the contrast is startling). Follow the link and see for yourself. This is outright propagandizing, and shameful, especially considering the treatment of Condi Rice at the hands of USA Today.

Item: Obama yesterday spoke of 10,000 deaths in Kansas, an exaggeration of roughly a thousand-fold. Everyone realizes what would have happened to any Republican who made a similar error. Yet the media has made excuses for him. From AP:

Barack Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying thousands had died. [emphasis added]

"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed," Obama said in a 27-minute speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering art studio for a fundraiser.
No doubt, there will be many future examples. This represents appalling racial condescension, not to mention abandonment of any pretense of objectivity. How on earth are voters to make a responsible decision on voting when one candidate enjoys a media vow of omerta on his flaws?

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