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June 28, 2008

Obama Flip Flop? What Flip Flop?

Rick Moran
All I can say after reading this Howard Kurtz piece in today's WaPo that if John McCain wins in November, he will have overcome the most incredible, one sided, blatantly biased reporting in the modern history of American journalism.

They are a pack. They run together. They report together. And when necessary, they are more than willing to bury a story together.

In this case, we are referring to the shocking flip flop on gun control from Obama.

But even though the earlier Obama quote and the "inartful" comment have been bouncing around the Net for 24 hours, I'm not seeing any reference to them in the morning papers. Most do what the New York Times did: "Mr. Obama, who like Mr. McCain has been on record as supporting the individual-rights view, said the ruling would 'provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country.' "

Supporting the individual-rights view? Not in November.

Even the Tribune--the very paper that the Obama camp told he supported the gun ban--makes no reference to the November interview. Instead: "Democrat Barack Obama offered a guarded response Thursday to the Supreme Court ruling striking down the District of Columbia's prohibition on handguns and sidestepped providing a view on the 32-year-old local gun ban. Republican rival John McCain's campaign accused him of an 'incredible flip-flop' on gun control."

So McCain accuses Obama of a flip-flop, and the Trib can't check the clips to tell readers whether there's some basis in fact for the charge?

USA Today takes the same tack:

"In a conference call put together by McCain's campaign, Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas said . . . that Obama has been changing his position on the gun issue and said the Democratic senator has done some 'incredible flip-flopping' on key issue."

And? And? That's all we get? He said/he said journalism?

Kurtz is the only media critic who consistently points out these little tidbits of bias. He was one of the first to ask questions about the obvious gushing done by many in the media over Obama's candidacy and has taken many in the press to task for their Obama cheerleading.

But it is disheartening in the extreme that in the one case where Obama's flip flop is so obvious it screams hypocrisy that most of the press gave him a pass and simply made it appear that he didn't have a previous position at odds with his position today.

If they're not going to call Obama out on something this grotesque, what does that say about future coverage of our new messiah?

Hat Tip: Ed Lasky

Posted at 10:51 AM | Email | | | Share Share
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