Not sure what is going on, but Jokeline has been unusually reasonable as of late:
Courage is grace under pressure. McCain showed it when he was a prisoner of war, and on many issues–yes, even on his stubborn insistence that the surge would work–but he is not showing it now. He is showing flop sweat. It is not a quality usually associated with successful leadership.
Then, today, this:
Eugene Robinson nails it today on the quadrennial Republican scum festival that begins in August of every presidential election year. It seems to me that Britney-boating isn’t going to be as lethal to Obama as swift-boating was to Kerry–indeed, it is more embarrassing than devastating–but that doesn’t make it any less intolerable. I mean, we’ve got two wars, an energy crisis, an economy teetering on the edge of real serious trouble–and this is the campaign John McCain wants to run?
What is up with this? They screw up the BBQ invitations at McCain HQ?
Zifnab
McCain’s got a temper. He might have lost it at the wrong person at the wrong time. If McCain loses the media, he’s completely fucking sunk.
The Moar You Know
Running to lose. I thought this idea was a wild tinfoil-hat theory posited by a bunch of DFH MIHOP freaks when I first heard it.
I’m starting to think they’re right.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Either its as billmon suggested and the McCain campaign is upping the cranky factor so his subsequent apology will get the media putting on permanent kneepads, or Joe ‘n his fellow travellers are suddenly realizing that a President McCain will have his finger on the big red button.
Scott H
And Joe Lieberman says we should just relax and enjoy these looney tunes while the shit just gets deeper. Joe finds it “creative.”
Jake
Eugene’s article is indeed a gem:
Awesome.
4tehlulz
Anyone want to start a pool for when the GOP just starts dropping N-bombs?
Jake
Meanwhile, it seems that any rumors of the stupid leaving TalkLeft were premature.
NonyNony
My suspicion is that Klein finally had the shock that removed the blinders from his eyes and it’s forcing him to re-evaluate his internal narrative about McCain. He may have finally realized that the DFH bloggers were right and that McCain’s been playing him for a sap for a number of years. That’s got to sting.
cleek
it’s just a lovers’ spat. they’ll be back together in a few days, and the make-up sex will be hot-n-sloppy.
Poopyman
I think the events of the last couple of days really showed the McCampaign’s true colors. First, the blatant baiting with the Britanny/Paris ad, which the press called them on. Then Rick Davis goes off on Andrea Mitchell about her comments.
The Villagers don’t like it when one of their own gets attacked. They start to point things out that they wouldn’t have when they still had barbeque sauce on their fingers.
John Cole
The very best part of Armando’s asinine rant is that the very first comment claims that the “fix” to the solution is to choose Hillary as Obama’s VP.
TalkLeft is a fucking joke. I am not sure why I have it on the links anymore other than out of nostalgia.
cleek
BTD:
WTF? get over it already!
joe
McCain and Obama are both media darlings, but Obama is a newer model.
Yup, I think they’re really that shallow.
Incertus
I was sure you were talking about this one.
Elvis Elvisberg
Joe Klein has been very, very solid for months. He’s done terrific reporting on Iraq, drawing on his Pentagon contacts. And he’s really not brooking any BS from neoconservatives or McCain.
Now, right in the middle there was his FISA calamity, and he still lapses into “pox on both their houses” Broderism, but in general, he’s been very reality-friendly of late.
The Grand Panjandrum
Since the beginning of June the drumbeat has grown louder with establishment taking notice of, and reporting on McCain’s character issues. You were correct to point out Billmon’s return and how correct he has been about McCain all along. However, since this June 8 piece ( in the Daily Mail no less!) on McCain’s disgraceful divorce from his first wife the frequency of these reports have increased. McCain is finally being vetted by the press. Most of it is on the record already but it is only now all the pieces are being put together.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some the the more prominent journalists regularly read political blogs and are just now putting all the pieces together. But they operate in the Way of the Old News and are finally catching up to 21st Century instantaneous news debunking done in the blogosphere.
Or it could they ain’t smelling what McCain’s cooking anymore.
Kirk
Won’t be long now before McCain’s image will be the guy yelling, “Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!”
detinue
If the Mainstream Media has a Mancrush on McCain, then what do you guys and gals call what the Mainstream Media has on Obama? Complete carnal lust? You have to admit no one in the MSM has ever said they got a tingling feeling in their leg about McCain the way Chris Matthews said he got about Obama.
John Cole
The vast majority of the coverage of Obama is negative. Additionally, Obama is held to a completely different standard. If he had committed just one of the eleventythree foreign policy gaffes McCain has committed recently, his candidacy has been done. Everything is spun as good news for mcCain- losing cali by ten points- “WHY CAN OBAMA NOT CLOSE THE DEAL?” Losing Hispanics 66- 30%? “DOES OBAMA HAVE A HISPANIC PROBLEM?”
Additionally, Obama is held responsible for everything everyone fucking does. Ludacris writes a song- Obama has to answer for it. Meanwhile, nothing is St. john’s fault.
While individual members of the media may get a tingle up their leg, the bias has been obvious and clear this election.
cyntax
Yeah but props to MyDD for letting everything go that TalkLeft can’t seem to and for putting out some relevant poll analysis these days.
ThymeZone
Well, a bunch of things, not the least of which are, this is not 2004 and the electorate is in a different mood, and, Barack Obama is not John Kerry. And, John McCain is not the sitting president and will not get the deference that Bush got in 2004.
This is 2008, and it’s a different ballgame. The status quo is at its lowest level of approval ever polled, and change is in the air.
JDRhoades
Then Rick Davis goes off on Andrea Mitchell about her comments.
What’s striking about Davis’ rant is how whiny it sounds. He sounds like a high school Goth bitching about how shallow the popular kids are.
ThymeZone
I don’t know of any empirical evidence showing either the existence of such a bias, or, more importantly, any established correlation between such a bias and any actual electoral outcomes.
Vast misunderstanding of the media and its actual effects is anywhere you want to look in the US. The media are an organ of noise and entertainment, but it can’t be shown to have any particular influence of its own, owing to its own volition. The media typically polls lower than child molestation in terms of popularity and respect. I would imagine that maybe only the blogosphere gets less respect than the media in the world of blatherrhea. And, deservedly so. The blogosphere has all the bad qualities of the MSM, plus naked and in your face self-expression and performance art theatrics. Not exactly a venue suited for calm and factual dissemination of information.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
For the smarter ones in the MSM it may gradually be dawning on them that the GOP is not bringing their ‘A’ game this year (the inanity of the Britney/Paris ad may have been the turning point) and that despite it all Obama is actually going to win this year. Time to start making nice with people in the next administration, if you want to have any sort of insider access and not just be sitting on the outside listening to Keith O. and Rachel Maddow and Eugene Robinson deal the inside dirt for the N-th time.
Call it the Contact-List-Of-Dorian-Grey problem.
The ones to benefit the most will be the early movers. Jake Tapper may find the door has already closed by the time he figures out that while he was yumming on some McBBQ, the Joe Klein’s of the world were un-burning their bridges with the people on the winning side.
DannyNoonan
McCain losing Klein is worth a moment of pause. While the last few days have proven he’s certainly capable of hitting Obama at his strength with the celebrity ad, it also shows there’s unintended collateral damage to be paid. McCain could very well whip up his base by giving them a reason to demonize Obama. And he has to do that to have a chance. But going so harshly negative will turn off moderates. Klein is just that kind of moderate.
montysano
I loved this from Billmon:
And the only tool they have available is slime. They surely don’t want to run on the issues. They surely don’t want George W’s legacy hung around their neck (which BO is now doing at every opportunity). Pretty soon it’ll be “The sheriff is a n****r!”
Kirk
Here, TZ, allow me to fix that problem for you.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
—From a Center for Media and Public Affairs study dated July 28. 2008
This has been all over, man; the LA Times did an article that broke it, and a blog entry on the responses.
And you’re going to tell me that the multi-billion dollar media empires have no serious effect? That the media — even that media that comports itself to be “just entertainment” (as Rush likes to Cover His Ass with), does not significantly shift opinions in the public sphere? Just because the media polls low doesn’t mean people don’t listen, and, indeed, pay attention.
A lack of informed discussion, as you mentioned, only means it’s influence is destructive, not that there’s no influence.
Martin
Win
Calouste
More Joe Klein:
Oops. Ouch. The only thing that is missing there is “on both counts” for added emphasis.
John McCain has been buying positive coverage from reporters with checks underwritten by easy access to him, now and in if he would make the White House. The reporters are starting to discover that those checks’ underlying value is something akin to the Zimbabwean dollar, i.e. there are too many of them and chances you can get anything worthwhile for it are declining by the day.
It’s getting to the point where the press is going to think that covering a few McCain scandals and a possible replacement at the convention is going to get more eyeballs than a horserace that is not there.
JDRhoades
Not that this is going to stop conservatives from whining about how MEAN everyone in the media is to Honorable John McCain and Republicans in general. After I wrote a column about a similar study a few years ago, I got an e-mail saying “I don’t care what your so-called ‘facts’ say, everyone KNOWS the media is liberal.”
Gus
Maybe he’s mad because McCain doesn’t offer kosher alternatives at his BBQ’s.
Brachiator
Reporting like this has got to hurt, too (Economic Models Predict Clear Obama Win In November).
Let’s see McCain try to “attack ad” his way out of this one.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Agreed. This may just be noise, but the movement away from McCain of Klein, Mrs. Greenspan and others may be the raindrops before the deluge.
The thing about the MSM punditry is that by and large they are lazy, they are cowards, and they operate by herd instinct. If the air starts to go out of McCain’s media reputation balloon, the rush to the exits may be very sudden – like a run on an insolvent bank, because none of them will want to be the last one left with tell-tale traces of BBQ sauce on their face and caught still licking their fingers. That person will be the scapegoat for all of them – the one who everybody else laughs and points at. The Conventional Wisdom is both fickle and cruel, and they all know it.
Johnny Pez
I think cleek is right. I also think he should pay for the lobotomy I’ll need to wipe that image from my memory.
TenguPhule
Enjoy your AIDS.
ThymeZone
Just a tip, one thing you never want to do with me is try to put words in my mouth. I am the only one who will do that.
What I said, and repeat, was, I know of no empirically based correlation between any putative bias, and any election outcome. I have never seen any such proof or evidence that would lead to a conclusion that somehow these blatherheads actually effect outcomes in any predictable way whatever.
Sorry, but your link proves nothing, unless it’s my point. Quite honestly, that link of yours is just a bunch of silliness. And I am probably the most rabid and touchy Obama supporter here. I am $4k into his campaign so far and plan to be $5600 into it by Labor Day.
If you have such proof, feel free to advance it. All I have ever seen is anecdotal and speculative and proof by assertion. Do you have something else?
TenguPhule
TZ, I have a lot of respect for you.
But that has got to be one of the stupidest things you’ve ever said here.
TenguPhule
Al Gore.
Howard Dean.
John Kerry.
John Edwards.
The Bush blowjobs following 9/11.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
I didn’t. Look again, and note the question marks I put into that piece? That’s asking if you are saying X, and then if so I respond Y. Those are NOT, for the record, rhetorical questions, but serious, if confrontational, attempts to gain clarity of what I have to say is a pretty off-the-wall assertion.
Also:
Respectfully? That is not the fullness of your assertion, as though it was your only point. You point was in two parts, and I addressed the first part, which you deemed “less important”, as well as you 2nd (more overall?) point.
For that matter, what is wrong with that study, in and of itself?
So, am I correct in restating your thesis as “no solid scientific studies have deemed the media’s role in a election cycle is sufficient to change the outcome of an election?” I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, man, I’m trying to grasp your analysis. And I want to make sure I understand it before I further address it; I don’t like what you’re saying, but my goal here is not to insult you as a person.
OK?
Grand Moff Texan
Hmmm. Looks like Klein’s been reading me. That was my take and the pun in my headline.
.
ThymeZone
Uh huh. Well, whatever. I told you exactly what I was saying, there is no ambiguity.
Oh that’s too bad, because that is what we do best around here, really. But it’s a leap from what I said to “insulting me as a person.” I made no such charge. I simply said, don’t put words in my mouth.
Anyway, my point was, and is, that I don’t know of any verifiable or predictable link between media “bias” (whatever that is taken to mean, which I find almost universally subjective) and any particular electoral effects or outcomes. Never seen any such material, would love to see it if it were out there.
You can take the present situation as an example, if you like. I see both sides in the current contest claiming that the media is being unfair to their side. And since I am strongly pro-Obama, I can argue anecdotally that Obama is and has been getting rotten treatement from the press from the beginning of his primary campaign … and yet, he won the primary phase, and is on target to win the general election phase. McCain’s numbers are stuck, and the race tightens in key states … there’s no evidence that any of this “bias” is affecting anything. Just today I saw stories all over the tubes to the effect that the supposedly fawning coverage of Obama’s trip overseas has not produced a poll advantage.
Where’s the beef? I don’t see it, that’s my point. My only point. My point of points. My pointy pointy point.
ThymeZone
Then of course you will produce the evidence to prove that?
Sorry, I’ve been around too long and seen too much to believe that bullshit. There’s no provable correlation there, never has been.
If I am wrong, produce the proof, or shut the fuck up.
ThymeZone
Uh huh, and his approval rating now? The approval of the war, now? All in the face of that supposedly one-sided biased coverage? All even in the face of supposedly nonexistent coverage, wherein antiwar types (like me) argued that the press was ignoring the war because it was too negative a story back in the day when the press was ignoring the war because it was too negative a story … and still the approval ratings fell and fell.
The facts show the exact opposite of what you are supposedly asserting. Show me the proof otherwise. Show me that a flaccid press attitude toward the war has produced approval of the war. Approval has steadily declined in the face of that flaccid coverage.
Bush’s popularity has tanked even as the press has generally given him a pass. What does that prove to you?
Fuck it, never mind, believe whatever the fuck you want.
JDRhoades
Prove what, that it was the stupidest thing you’ve ever said here? I suppose he could do an exhaustive survey of other stupid things you’ve said, would that do?
KRK
In addition to losing the by-liners like Joe Klein, McCain might also be losing the media underlings, which has to have an effect. Yesterday John Aravosis posted the first couple paragraphs from a print-version Rolling Stone article called “The No-Talk Express,” which has a Fox News technie and Wall Street Journal reporter complaining about how bored they are because McCain does only one event per day and is off limits for “downtime” otherwise.
I guess holding in his temper is more tiring than McCain expected.
les
I don’t know, T-Zone. I agree with you, estimates/tales of press bias are often/mostly subjective; although the positive/negative story count should, but might not, be less so. But (and this doesn’t prove cause/effect) I sure hear a buttload of voter types justifying their choices with bad/false information that was spread, uncorrected, by print and airwave media. These yahoos don’t come up with lies about Obama’s tax proposals, for example, by themselves. Also, I suppose, this kinda stuff doesn’t necessarily imply bias, just stupidity and laziness.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
O/T – Did anybody else see this (h/t Patrick Appel sub’ing over at Sully’s site):
Anti-Bush Republican challenging Ted Stevens in Alaska
Somebody tell this guy to be watch his back if Cheney suddenly announces he’s going hunting in Alaska.
JDRhoades
I suppose, this kinda stuff doesn’t necessarily imply bias, just stupidity and laziness.
As I put it in a recent panel discussion on conspiracy theories: I don’t believe in vast conspiracies as much as I believe in vast stupidity.
Noah
Is this John McCain on Sesame Street?
Delia
I think losing Andrea Mitchell could be potentially more devastating to McCain than losing Joe Klein. After all, she has access to the collected economic wisdom of Mr. Andrea Mitchell.