Saturday, April 19, 2008

Nutroot Implosion

It was funny watching the hysteria from moonbats over the questions asked during the Hillary-Barack showdown the other night. Funny, I can't find any of these same voices showing outrage and dismay when Republicans were asked about their beliefs regarding biblical inerrancy.

Let's face it. We already know liberals are a bunch of hypocrites. Witness their pitiful whining that the debate didn't center around issues like the war and health care...where there's a sheet of paper's width difference between the two candidates.

The fact is, we've had lots of Democrat debates along the lines the moonbats say they wanted. And, if they were honest, they know the candidates' positions on all these issues. What they are angry about is the fact that Obama couldn't duck questions about his questionable past any longer.

And it isn't your imagination that the media worships at the Obama idol nearly as much as the slobbering Jeromy Brown, who continues to try to portray Obama as a man seeking unity (even after calling Pennsylvanians a bunch of redneck morons). No, this Politico story points out the media's rampant desire to uplife Obama and ensure his election regardless of his past associations and behaviors (as well as lack of any experience or vetting).

This is not to say that ABC’s performance was flawless. There were some weird questions (“Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”). There were some questionable production decisions (the camera cutaways to Chelsea Clinton, the stacking of so many process questions in the first 45 minutes.)

But there was nothing to justify Tom Shales’s hyperbolic review (“shoddy, despicable performances” by Gibson and Stephanopoulos) in the Washington Post or Greg Mitchell’s in Editor & Publisher (“perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years.”) Others, like Time’s Michael Grunwald, likewise weighed in against ABC.

In fact, the balance of political questions (15) to policy questions (13) was more substantive than other debates this year that prompted no deluge of protests. The difference is that this time there were more hard questions for Obama than for Clinton.

Moreover, those questions about Jeremiah Wright, about Obama’s association with 1960s radical William Ayers, about apparent contradictions between his past and present views on proven wedge issues like gun control, were entirely in-bounds. If anything they were overdue for a front-runner and likely nominee.

If Obama was covered like Clinton is, one feels certain the media focus would not have been on the questions, but on a candidate performance that at times seemed tinny, impatient, and uncertain.

Journalists are people, too. And, like people, they get caught up in the moment when they consider something historic to be happening. That's fine when you're covering the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, but unethical in a political campaign. Granted, there were and are reporters who favor John McCain (or Mike Huckabee when he was still in the race), and such coverage could have been difficult to stomach had it been long-term and pervasive (there are books out there complaining about McCain's reputation as a maverick). The difference in McCain's case was that he didn't have a fawning media on top of fawning conservative support. Indeed, McCain won despite the barrage of bashing he took from the likes of media giants like Rush Limbaugh.

As the Politico story points out, the rush to Obama's defense by supposedly objective journalists points out the holes in modern journalism, namely, the complete abandonment of objectivity and embrace of personal opinion. It's one thing to listen to the hysteria of Jeromy Brown ("They’ll call the candidate funded by the people elitist, they’ll portray the biracial man who tries to bring blacks and whites together a Black Panther, they’ll call a champion of America’s greatness unpatriotic. They’ll do it because they think you’re stupid, not because they believe it. And then they’ll tell you Obama thinks you’re stupid.") since his three regular commenters will believe whatever he tells them. It's another thing when reporters for well-regarded news services is telling you that character questions are unimportant (remember, that's how we got Bill "it depends on what the definition of is is" Clinton).

Unfortunately for Obama, ordinary voters care about things like why you are embarrassed to wear an American flag on your lapel or associate with known radicals. They are insulted when you put down their religious faith as, somehow, just an expression of bitterness (note to Obama: real Christians believe that their faith sustains them in good times and bad). And they are angry when you assume that their desire that all people in this country follow the law is, somehow, based on racism.

It's odd that the same candidate who has twisted John McCain's "100 years in Iraq" comment out of shape would whine about being asked to explain his own comments. It's strange when the man given a free ride as a "new kind of politician who doesn't care about race" sits in the pews of a bigot for 20 years and yet claims he doesn't agree with that bigot's viewpoints (we wouldn't give that pass to a Republican candidate). And, frankly, it's bizarre that a family which makes way more that your humble blogger can claim that $10,000 a year for extra curriculars compares to putting Spaghettios on the table for dinner.

Last Wednesday's performance is just the warm-up for what the apologists will be doing for Obama in the fall. The question is whether smart people will buy into it.

UPDATE: Jeromy Brown scurries home to distort and cry and have another drink after having his ass handed to him yet again.