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October 11, 2008

McCain finally chafes on hatred of Obama

PBS News Hour & NPR have strange notion of "balance"


Short collection of McCain tempering his brown-shirted lunatics

It's about time McCain stepped in and squashed all the crazy notions about Obama that run wild at his rallies, spew forth from Limbaugh & ilk, and generally infect the population of wingnuttia. Josh Marshall sees the moment as, "Weird, sad, surreal."

Yes. Unfortunately I believe Marshall is correct to suggest the most likely explanation for McCain getting uneasy with his mob is political. "I think it would [be] naive to conclude that McCain did this for any other reason but that the attacks appeared to be backfiring," Marshall wrote.

I have not much more to say on the issue beyond what I have written HERE, HERE, and HERE, except the following: I can't believe how in mainstream reporting, fanning of flames of out-of-control wingnut hatred (until now) by McCain and especially (still) by Palin has been "balanced" by Obama statements that McCain is "erratic." This was a meme on public broadcasting last night:
Kwame Holman, PBS News Hour: The tone of the presidential campaign became increasingly personal this week--Obama questioned John McCain's temperament, calling his response to the economic crisis "erratic." McCain and his campaign repeatedly focused on Obama's association with a former 1960s radical, William Ayers, with whom Obama served on a charitable foundation board ... [Audience member at McCain rally shouts "I'm mad!!!!"] ... audience members showed anger toward the Democratic nominee ...
The insufferable Robert Siegel on NPR's All Things Considered framed the story in similar "balance," McCain is erratic = Obama is a terrorist sympathizer, but for some reason I'm not finding that particular audio on the web page for the Friday Oct. 10 show. THIS Scott Horsley report soft-peddles the loonies, but otherwise isn't all that bad.

Update: NPR Check with good arguments is less charitable about the Horsley piece. See HERE.

Update 2: "Palpable hate." Wow, check out THIS, H/T NPR Check, from above post.

Posted by The Owl at 17:20. Filed under: Politics

Comments

FAIR has out a story on "Ayers = Keating?":
http://www.fair.org/index.p...

"The two stories are not at all similar. Obama has had passing contacts with Ayers over the years, mostly via the board of a small non-profit; Obama once held a fundraiser in Ayers' house. (Ayers, who helped carry out a handful of nonlethal bombings in protest against the Vietnam War, is an academic in Chicago and well known in education policy circles. Federal charges against him in connection with the bombings were dropped in the 1970s.) The New York Times story that launched Ayers back into the media spotlight found that "the two men do not appear to have been close."

Why would the Times devote so much space to a non-story? The article offered one clue: "Their relationship has become a touchstone for opponents of Mr. Obama.... Conservative critics who accuse Mr. Obama of a stealth radical agenda have asserted that he has misleadingly minimized his relationship with Mr. Ayers." Unsurprisingly, the same day the Times story was published, Palin began citing it to inaccurately accuse Obama of "palling around with terrorists" (NYTimes.com, 10/4/08)"

Posted by The Owl on October 11, 2008 at 17:33
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