The Obama Band Wagon
The media suck-up for the Obama campaign trip abroad has really been amazing. Obama's credentials, both foreign and domestic, are so weak it's like a cram before the final exam. I read one account where there was one photographer left to cover the McCain campaign at one northeast stop. Another where a reporter asked someone about the McCain candidacy and the guy didn't know who he was. Last night I was walking through the living room and caught a few moments of Charley Gibson covering the McCain campaign in Ohio. They actually interviewed 3 Ohioans on what they thought of Obama! Nice balance there. It really doesn't matter what Obama says or does on this trip--he's getting so much free face time with the folks, that if there really were a "fairness" doctrine, all the broadcast and cable corporations would lose their licenses. No bias here. Move along.Perhaps my memory of former presidential campaigns has dimmed, but I don't remember candidates needing to assure the audience (foreign) that they really do love their country (then follow it up with all that we've done wrong). Do you suppose the Germans were puzzled? I do remember the 2000 campaign and that Bush promised to heal all the hostility and distrust the Clinton administration had spawned. Obama's lines here are just sort of rip and read from 8 years ago.
Obamania in Germany
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6 comments:
McCain has rightly been grumbling about Obama's star treatment, but it's hard to get the media excited when you're delivering speeches in the cheese aisle at the grocery store, or farting around in a golf cart looking older than the elder Bush.
My take is that you should be careful you wish for. McCain is staying in this race by flying under the radar but if the media should suddenly shine its unflinching spotlight on his missteps and his liver spots he's going to be in a heap of trouble.
I'm not wishing for McCain at all, but at the moment he's the only alternative. I think we have the two weakest candidates in the history of presidential campaigns.
Have you always been an ageist? That seems your only complaint with McCain. You'll get over it. But you're safe. It's still OK in American to ridicule elderly white men.
Norma,
I think you have it backwards. The hostility and distrust, that you unfairly attribute to Clinton, is actually being left behind by George W's 8-year administration. Actually, Clinton left lots of goods behind--a great economy, a huge budget surplus, the respect of the the world at large, and peace. Compare that to George W's legacy. Sure, Clinton was a naughty boy who didn't know how to zipper his pants. But that hurt no one but himself and his unfortunate family.
Joe Biden--only 5 years McCain's junior, was my first choice for president.
I respect McCain's service and I was rooting for him in the primaries, but I have begun to worry that his mind is not what it was 8 years ago. The list and scope of his gaffes is growing alarming.
Since 1960, the presidential campaign has been a glorified popularity contest. Dems would put up competent candidates only to lose to empty suits like George W Bush, who smirked his way into the White House simply because he was the candidate people would rather drink a beer with.
For the first time since Clinton, the dems have a candidate who can win a popularity contest, while the republicans put up Bob Dole II.
As soon as the MSM realizes that McCain is not the maverick he was 2000, and as soon as CBS and the NYT stop trying to censor McCain for his own good, this contest is over.
I say the sooner the better.
Mort, whether or not Clinton had accomplishments, and I can only think of the welfare reform into which he was pushed kicking and screaming, in 2000 he was portrayed as a very devisive figure against which Bush was going to clean house. Remember he didn't help Gore and I'm not sure the Gore-tights even wanted the Clintons around, they were so tainted by scandal.
I'm just saying--claiming you'll clean house of gov't corruption and business as usual is an old song and dance for candidates.
Sununu: labeling is labeling. You are an ageist, and it diminishes opportunities for all older people, not just presidential candidates.
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