Beat The Press
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Many, many Democratic campaigns have tried to woo the press. From Clinton to Gore to Kerry, the Democrats have tried to get the mainstream media to call things down the line or even in their favor. And time and again Democrats get burnt. So I’m glad to see MSM folks like the NY Times’ Adam Nagourney backing up the Waaaaahmbulance.
But, the next morning, Nagourney awoke to an e-mail from Talking Points Memo writer Greg Sargent asking him to comment on an eight-point rebuttal trashing his piece that the Obama campaign had released to reporters and bloggers like The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder and Politico’s Ben Smith. Nagourney had not heard the complaints from the Obama camp and had no idea they were so steamed. ‘I’m looking at this thing, and I’m like, ‘What the hell is this?’ ‘ Nagourney recently recalled. ‘I really flipped out.’
Later that afternoon, Nagourney got permission from Times editors to e-mail Sargent a response to the Obama memo. But the episode still grates. ‘I’ve never had an experience like this, with this campaign or others,’ Nagourney tells me. ‘I thought they crossed the line. If you have a problem with a story I write, call me first. I’m a big boy. I can handle it. But they never called. They attacked me like I’m a political opponent.’
That’s because the mainstream media is a political opponent. The Bush administration has shown us that the press performs most favorably to a pol when the pol beats them around rather than tries to woo them. So the Obama team goes after the media – Lord knows there are enough reasons to – big deal. Suck it up.
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
“They attacked me like I’m a political opponent.”
Yep! And good for them. There is way way too much stupidity, arrogance, and malicious reporting. There is no reason that the Press should get a pass (so to speak.)
I am no historian, I suspect the days of yellow journalism, where journalists didn’t pretend to be objective and let their bias wave, was both more honest and more accurate.
More reporters should get called on for their crap. They won’t because craven reporters and craven politicians thrive on each other to fool us and clean out our wallets.
That TNR piece is disturbing to me because I read it as an early effort to explain the bad press that’s to come. The reporters interviewed for the piece call the Obama campaign “young and arrogant.” Well, if they’re not getting donuts they can call the Obama campaign anything they want. The question is whether they’ll act like the spoiled children they are and write stories that reflect this.
You’re right. The press is no friend of Democratic politicians.
It’d be nice if the press weren’t friends to any politician, but it is good to see a Democrat actively sparring with them, instead of passively awaiting judgment. Never let it be said that the Obama campaign hasn’t learned from the mistakes of its predecessors, in trying to become the first non-southern Democrat elected in four decades.
Gotta be careful he doesn’t start sounding whiny though.
Media donations favor Obama 100-1
“So the Obama team goes after the media ”
Aaah, yes, the “reality centered” left……
Sensible people would recognize the campaign’s response as a pre-emptive attempt at hushing up the media. If a reporter knows that the campaign will atomic drop on you if dare print heresy against the Obama, that will give them pause next time they write an unflattering story.
Next step: Scream that the journalist is “racist”
Duh – the “atomic drop” is the truth. And this reporter should consider it a GIFT and a medial opportunity to respond to the Obama campaign with the evidence that what was printed is correct and unbiased – I believe it is called “a followup story” — but this is not the case.
So-called journalists, like Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee, should expect Obama’s campaign and supporters to take them. These journalists are not reporting the news, neither are they covering the political campaign of two qualified candidates. They and their newspapers are taking sides.
These despicable journalists, Nagourney,Thee and others, are trying to make the 2008 Presidential Campaign into a referendum about race and US race relations.
Their bias is clear because they are demanding that the African-American candidate is responsible to resolve centuries-old race problems.
Why isn’t John McCain expected to Close the Divide on Race? – (He’s White and Black People can marginalized or ignored )
Adam Nagourney’s and Megan Thee’s “Poll Finds Obama Isn’t Closing Divide on Race” — Why isn’t the Poll reporting that McCain isn’t Closing the Divide on Race either with White voters – Oh, I guess they forgot to do that poll.
Why in the Hell does the Obama campaign have to contact Nagourney personally about his poll when his work is published and in the public domain for all to read? Nagourney is pathetic and should be called on his bullshit.
A few typos – But the point is Why isn’t the Poll reporting that McCain isn’t Closing the Divide on Race either with BLACK voters.
juhar19:
You are right. AdNags deserved to be called out long before this. I am glad Obama is pushing back. AdNags thinks that after spending 8 years as a Bush bootlicker that Obama is gonna play all nice and coozy? Give me a break!! Guys like AdNags don’t have any self respect. If they did they’d be doing a lot better job than they are doing.
Sorry, I missed it when you guys called out the NYT and the editor (and former Clinton speech writer) wouldn’t publish an op-ed from the opposing candidate. I don’t recall all that much interest in newspapers “taking sides” then.
Oh, and you really exceeded expectations by calling the reporter a racist in the VERY NEXT POST after my prediction.
One more question: If McCain was running at 90% in a poll, 90% of caucasians that is, how would you characterize that white electorate?
duh…
despite the screen name…you have made a valid and indisputable point.
They will obfuscate this issue, becaue there is no logical or rational counerpoint.
“One more question: If McCain was running at 90% in a poll, 90% of caucasians that is, how would you characterize that white electorate?”
Brilliant. What say all of you?
“Sorry, I missed it when you guys called out the NYT and the editor (and former Clinton speech writer) wouldn’t publish an op-ed from the opposing candidate. I don’t recall all that much interest in newspapers “taking sides” then.”
Taking sides? McCain wrote an op-ed piece that wasn’t worth publishing. It contained nothing newsworthy.
The NYT even gave McCain advice on how to improve it. Instead, he acted like a pathetic victim.
“One more question: If McCain was running at 90% in a poll, 90% of caucasians that is, how would you characterize that white electorate?”
That’s right, blacks have never voted for a white president before, so they must be racist.
Fucking moron.
duh, Jul 25th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Sorry, I missed it when you guys called out the NYT and the editor (and former Clinton speech writer) wouldn’t publish an op-ed from the opposing candidate. I don’t recall all that much interest in newspapers “taking sides” then.
I must have missed when you said McClueless was a weaselly old fart who can’t help but flip flop, after he slammed Obama for making a speech in a foreign country a few weeks after he made speeches in a coule of foreign lands.
How very objective you are in your analysis…
Oh, and you really exceeded expectations by calling the reporter a racist in the VERY NEXT POST after my prediction.
But you maintained expectations when you launched an ad hominem propaganda catapult against the ‘reality centered’ left while shamelessly fellating the Illegally Installed Drunken Cokeheaded Deserter. How typically hypocritically Republican’t of you!
One more question: If McCain was running at 90% in a poll, 90% of caucasians that is, how would you characterize that white electorate?
I can’t speak for others (even though I’ll be framed as representing mainstream Democratic thought once I say this), but I would characterize that poll as extremely skewed by a bunch of Republican’t corpo-weasels paying their shills to FReep the poll and claim to be a bunch of white guys.
If Obama is running at 99% in an independent poll of my fellow co-workers (who I’ve pre-selected so that 1 of them is a Republican’t and the rest are human), how would you characterize my fellow co-workers? And what would that (and/or your silly cherry-picked poll example) have to do with the price of rice in China?
“One more question: If McCain was running at 90% in a poll, 90% of caucasians that is, how would you characterize that white electorate?”
“Brilliant. What say all of you?”
If you think that point is brilliant, you are even more clueless than I thought you were.
Simply examine Tom’s tangential screed, and look up the saying Res ipsa loquitur
QED
“Simply examine Tom’s tangential screed, and look up the saying Res ipsa loquitur”
Yeah, you act like a fucking idiot till someone calls you a fucking idiot. And then you complain when someone calls you a fucking idiot.
You’ll fit right in with the right-wing trolls around here.
Simply examine Duh’s attempt to shoot the messenger and distract from the lack of coherent response in his latest comment, and then try and figure out how his response would be different from any of the other Republican’t Putsch fellators catapulting their propaganda around here.
And then, just as an intellectual exercise, try and imagine what it would be like to have an honest, objective, rational individual who does not support the Democratic Party respond to my statements implying that any media bias would be in favor of the Republican’ts, not the Democrats, that the appropriately named ‘Duh’ has contorted himself into avoiding.
QED.
duh: “One more question: If McCain was running at 90% in a poll, 90% of caucasians that is, how would you characterize that white electorate?”
You cannot compare minorities and majorities. By definition they are not the same thing.
Now, if America was mostly black, and whites had been an oppressed minority for 200 years of the country’s history, and were still largely considered second-class citizens a mere 50 years ago, then the comparison with Obama’s popularity among blacks would be warranted. As it stands, your analogy doesn’t rely on any logical argument (which is typical of Republicans in general – it’s all emotions with you guys).
“Instead, he acted like a pathetic victim. ”
I know. Call the freakin’ waaahmbulance. The press has been giving McCain’s geriatric slip-ups a free pass for months, and then at the first sign that they are not completely bought by the GOP the latter scream outrage at this perversion of journalistic integrity.
McCain and friends are really getting desperate…fun to watch, I must say.
That was the Nagourney polling article that said only 28% of whites approved of Michelle Obama! The article didn’t mention that polling data also showed that fewer whites, only 20%, approved of Cindy McCain.
So the “reporter”s point was a black person can’t be president, and he played with facts to make his point. He’s lucky to get a stern memo. McCain would’ve tried to punch his face in.
“That was the Nagourney polling article that said only 28% of whites approved of Michelle Obama! The article didn’t mention that polling data also showed that fewer whites, only 20%, approved of Cindy McCain. ”
Yes, but I have it under good authority that Cindy McCain is a trollop and a cunt.
(That was a joke, by the way.)
No, they attacked what he wrote, as something that was published, AS THEY ARE FULLY WITHIN THEIR RIGHTS TO DO SO.