[ Note: This is my response to this op-ed. ]
This is yet another right-wing slam piece by the conservative Michael Malone – of course he’s going to say the media is biased, that’s his own bias. He’s a man looking for a boogey man. It’s human nature to do this, and I myself have been guilty of this too many times to count.
But the truth is that the McCain campaign has literally run one of the worst campaigns in modern memory (worse even than Kerry’s dismal ’04 performance). As it happens, Obama’s campaign is going well. Imposing a fake balance on this reality would be inaccurate reporting. (For more on this, you should check out a recent article at Politico).
Barack Obama has been thoroughly vetted for the past 20 months, and any omission certainly is not related to the ideological leanings of the press. The good reporters out there always want to dig up a bombshell, regardless of who gets hit. That’s just self-interest, because they get the acclaim and book deal that comes with it (think: Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and “All The King’s Men”). Other journalists may be lazier than that, but their ideological leanings haven’t played a major role in the press’s coverage of this election.
Malone wants Obama’s drug dealer. Is that all he can come up with? Seriously? I don’t remember ever hearing about W’s cocaine dealer. As for Bill Ayers – he has in fact recently spoken with the press, albeit hasn’t said much. And I don’t know why Rezko isn’t speaking, but I doubt it is because the “media is liberal.” I’m sure it has more to do with his legal problems and self-interest.
Joe the plumber? He has become something akin to what Cindy Sheehan is on the left. A private citizen turned public political activist, who will probably take advantage of all this and make a run for office himself. The press will shine the spotlight on you when this happens. Did the media overreach? Of course they did, but then again… it is the McCain campaign who opted to use Joe the Plumber for political gain.
The irony in all this is that the far left also likes to make the “corporate” media out to be the boogey man. I’d like to think that when both the left and the right are angry with the media, they must be doing something right.
The truth is, of course there will be subtle biases one way or another, and the press may fail at times to be the guardians they are tasked with being – they are just humans after all. But for the McCain campaign to blame their downward spiral on the press… is to search desperately for a scapegoat, when all they really need to do is look in the mirror.
