"When a candidate changes his position as a response to the politics of the moment and the press ignores it, he's lucky. When he changes his position and the press goes out of its way to say how principled he is for not changing his position, he's John McCain."
-- David Brock & Paul Waldman
Today, Paul Waldman and David Brock are releasing a new chapter to their book, Free Ride: John McCain and the Media.. The new chapter is an update to the media coverage of McCain since the book was published, and is NOW available at www.mccainsfreeride.com.
Not surpringly the chapter contains few surprises--the press continues to give McCain a free ride, acting as his political base, and exhibiting the same lazy-minded stereotyping that was documented in the book itself: McCain is a "maverick" (even when he's singing duets with Bush) prone to "straight talk" (even when he's flip-flopping) who doesn't like to talk about his POW experience (but babbles on about it anyway, no matter how much it bothers him to do so).
As the authors explain:
Just a few months ago, McCain had cratered in the polls, and few thought he could bounce back. Yet there was one group of people who had not only the desire but the ability to give McCain the boost he needed, just when he needed it.
The point that began McCain's resurgence came around the Iowa caucuses. As McCain seemed to be staging a comeback, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham declared it "good news for all of us, whatever our politics." Chris Matthews waxed poetic: "There's something genuine here, something selfless, even quietly grand in his campaign." Matthews predicted that McCain would win 18 percent in Iowa, making him "a big hero." Chuck Todd noticed the obvious: "The media does seem to be ready to will John McCain out of Iowa."
And so they did, despite the actual results. Many may have forgotten by now that the Iowa contest was actually won by Mike Huckabee, but the media proclaimed McCain -- who came in fourth place, with 13 percent of the vote -- the actual winner. "A fantastic night for John McCain," said the Politico's Mike Allen. Tim Russert immediately booked McCain, and not Huckabee (or second-place finisher Mitt Romney, or third-place finisher Fred Thompson), to be the guest on that Sunday's Meet the Press. Matthews seemed to sum up the media's thoughts about the senator in a January 28 interview: "Senator McCain, you know you're in my heart."
Tomorrow, Paul Waldman and David Brock will be releasing a new chapter to their book, Free Ride: John McCain and the Media.. The new chapter is an update to the media coverage of McCain since the book was published and will be available at www.mccainsfreeride.com.
Today, Media Matters Action Committee hosted a conference call for bloggers with Paul Waldman to discuss the new chapter, and related issues about media coverage of McCain, and ideas about what bloggers can do to help prod the media to do a better job of... well, doing their job. The chapter is embarged until tomorrow morning, so I'm just going to do a brief rundown of the conference call itself, since I think this is going to be very useful for us in the months to come.
I started this during the week, and it now seems like ancient history... Except, of course, we all know how things just keep popping up again, like you was playing whack-a-mole....
Last Saturday, over at TPM, Josh called attention to yet another example of ABC being in the tank for McCain. First, he cited the fact that McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds called Obama "recklessly dishonest" for directly quoting McCain's own words. Then he noted that ABC News had picked up the Tucker Bounds claim and written a story around it. Now, compared to the mega-travesty of the presidential debate a few days earlier, this was certainly small beer. On the other hand, considering how much criticism ABC got for that sorry outing, you might think they'd want to keep their noses clean for a least a millisecond or so.
But noooooo!
In fact, as you'll see below the fold, the sequence followed this simple pattern:
(1) John "Straight Talk Express" McCain makes a contradictory set of statements, both acknowledging that Americans are hurting economically (which is true), and claiming that the country has made "great progress economically," under Bush (do you have to ask?)
(2) Media doesn't say diddley.
(3) Obama picks up on the absurd lie, and uses it to attack McCain as out of touch.
(4) McCain spokesperson attacks Obama as "recklessly dishonest."
(5) ABC News writes story, "Obama Twists McCain on Economy," with the lede:
Who says Barack Obama doesn't know how to "twist the knife"?
This sort of sequence is so incredibly commonplace that we barely even notice it sometimes. But it's worthwhile to stop and take a closer look at it, dissect it a bit, in order to better understand how ABC is helping John McCain.
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