Eric Boehlert: McCain and Palin are laughing at the press -- and it's the press' fault

McCain and Palin are laughing at the press -- and it's the press' fault

by Eric Boehlert


Chris Matthews was steamed.

As John McCain's manufactured "lipstick on a pig" story was taking flight last week, Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball, kicked off the hour by teeing up the story. In a note to viewers that telegraphed his disdain for the lipstick controversy, he announced that during the show, he'd share his own thoughts "about how, with a troubled economy, crumbling bridges, rail and roads, a failing educational system, a war that is now going on for five years, and an uncertain American economic future, we're sitting here talking about lipstick."

Later, he complained the story was "an insult to the intelligence of our democracy."

Did you hear the media are mad? According to Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post, the press is angry at McCain for his patently untrue lipstick attack ("It's false. It's ridiculous"), and they're seething over how Sarah Palin keeps telling her demonstrably false Bridge to Nowhere tale even after members of the media pointed out her stump-speech applause line was a lie. (A "whopper.")

During the past week, virtually every major news outlet has produced welcomed, hard-edged fact-checking pieces about how the Republican ticket goes far beyond bending the truth and just plain snaps it out on the campaign trail.

In the past, that kind of truth-telling would have embarrassed campaigns and likely caused a dramatic change in the rhetoric. But what do McCain and Palin do in response? They pretty much ignore the press and its critiques.

Writing on The New Republic's website, Eve Fairbanks spelled out the conundrum, capturing the dumbfounded realization that spread through the press corps. It's like that scene in a movie when the superhero realizes his unique power (for the press, it's collective indignation) has suddenly been rendered useless:



Instead of recoiling, the Republican ticket seems to have adopted a post-press approach to campaigning in which the candidates simply don't care what the press does or says about their honesty. More to the point, the candidates don't think it will matter on Election Day.

They may be right. And that's the media's fault. They've reported their way right into the margins. Submerged in trivia and tactics for the past 18 months, the press, I think, has damaged its ability -- its authority -- to referee the campaign.

more...

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200809160015?f=h_column

telling the truth. I did see a segment on NBC last night calling Palin and McBush out on their lies. Tweety was apoplectic on his show yesterday. They are reacting...

...until he changes it. They need to keep bringing these things up with McCain and Palin every time they're interviewed, because that the story now: McCain/Palin don't care about the truth.

30 years or so...

Which is why there will shortly be no Republicans walking the streets. They will be locked up either in jail, or in mental hospitals.

They criticize the press as being "unfair" and "liberal"
They lie incessantly
They refuse to hold press conferences to explain their lies

So what's left for the media? They expose the lies and there's nobody from the McSame campaign to counter.

by the drum. It holds for today's media.
The bottom line is that they are not going after McCain because of his backward policies or to protect the nation. They are going after him because they have been dissed and they are pissed about that.