Media analysis as such really isn't my emphasis. But it's impossible to talk about politics in the US these days without taking account of the dysfunctional nature of the Establishment press. Here is a beautiful (figuratively speaking) example, Losses Signal Challenges for McCain by Paul Vitello and Michael Cooper New York Times 02/11/08. The online version features a picture of the press darling McCain, tight-lipped and resolute-looking, with the caption, "John McCain won enough delegates on Tuesday to place him mathematically beyond the reach of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination." The second paragraph of the article also says that "McCain ... won enough delegates in the coast-to-coast nominating contests on Tuesday to place him mathematically beyond the reach of his Republican rivals".
The San Francisco Chronicle version of the story from the NYT wire at least mentions in the headline the name of the person who won in order to cause those "losses" for the bold Maverick. But it wasn't necessarily much of an improvement: Huckabee's still yapping at McCain's heels, with the subtitle, "By staying in race, former governor of Arkansas gives far right a place to vent". The online version features a beaming photo of the Maverick; the print version carries side-by-side headshots of the Maverick and the Huck.
Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times blog (Running for a TV show? 02/11/08), though he doesn't reference the Times article, points out that the claim that the Straight Talker is "mathematically beyond the reach of his Republican rivals" is, well, wrong:
Mathematically, Mike Huckabee can't win the presidential nomination. (Or at least the odds are prohibitive.) So why does he run? For one thing, he's not ready to say he couldn't win a miraculously brokered convention. And, on reflection, I'm beginning to believe he's probably not running for the vice presidency.
How "quaint", as Abu Gonzales said about the Geneva Convention rules on treatment of prisoners. Where the Times tells it's readers flatly - and incorrectly - that the Maverick is "mathematically beyond the reach of his rivals", Brantley looks at the plain fact that McCain doesn't yet have a majority of delegates to guarantee his nomination and states, reasonably and accurately, that "the odds are prohibitive". How hard was that to type? Too hard for the folks at the New York Times, apparently.
One of the worst habits of our "press corps" is their this-side-says/the-other-side-says reporting, without clarification of whether one or both sides is factually correct or not. This article takes it one step farther in the fourth paragraph, where it gives just "one side", as though it were a simple opinion:
The Huckabee campaign announced Sunday on its Web site that it would challenge the results of the Washington caucuses. At issue are 1,500 votes that the Huckabee campaign says were not counted. (my emphasis)
Now, the facts in this case are really not at issue. The state Republican Party chair announced the result before all the votes were counted. Josh Marshall of TPM, where they have actually been covering the story, sums up the sequence of events in Still More Suspicious 02/11/08.
But the distinguished New York Times couldn't be bothered to do actual reporting on this strange incident, it seems, at least not for this article. All they seem be have been able to manage was the usual lazy stenography when they report later in the article:
"The Huckabee campaign is deeply disturbed by the obvious irregularities in the Washington State Republican precinct caucuses," the campaign’s chairman, Ed Rollins, said in a statement. "It is very unfortunate that the Washington State party chairman, Luke Esser, chose to call the race for John McCain after only 87 percent of the vote was counted."
The McCain campaign declined to comment on the Huckabee campaign’s statement. "We respect Governor Huckabee and his decision to campaign as he sees fit," said Jill Hazelbaker, a McCain spokeswoman.
This is just a sad substitute for reporting.
Kathleen Parker, who specializes in striking a stuffy-white-lady pose to push her brand of conservatism, praises the bold Maverick for The audacity of compromiseOrlando Sentinel 02/10/08. She explains that of course conservative Republicans should vote for McCain, otherwise one of those horrid Democrats might win the Presidency. Especially that awful Clinton woman. (If Obama wins the nomination, Parker will no doubt discover that he's a closet black militant and maybe an Islamunistofascist sympathizer, too.)
I'm not terribly squeamish about literary flourishes. But somehow, this sentence of hers just strikes me as creepy: "To be sure, political cannibalism makes for interesting dinner conversation, but the winner eventually starves to death." Say what? Has she been entertaining herself by reading the Marquid de Sade lately?
But I guess when you're a Big Pundit, you just let your fingers breeze across the keypad without wondering that much about what you're actually saying:
McCain's enemies see him as having abandoned those principles with the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill, which limited political speech, and the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill that would allow for gradual citizenship for illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria. (my emphasis)
What in the name of Zeus is "gradual citizenship"? As opposed to "rapid citizenship"? Did I miss that in the Constitutional provisions defining citizenship? Silly me. I thought you either had citizenship or you didn't. This is a whole new philosophical concept for me.
I've noticed in recent press discussions of the bold Maverick's maverickness that conservatives routinely assert that the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform violates the right of free speech. Parker goes them one better and says it "limited political speech". That's not quite as nonsensical as "gradual citizenship". But still, the campaign reform at issue limited the use of so-called "soft money" in campaigns. It didn't ban any category of political speech.
My favorite though is when she suggests that "McCain's maverick lawmaking might be viewed as principled compromise". Principled Compromise is what Republican manly-men like the Straight Talker do when they change their positions; ditzy "flip-flopping" is what Democratic sissy-wimps do when they change theirs.
And in all the praise that gushes from the punditocracy about St. McCain, I'm not sure I've encountered the concept of "maverick lawmaking" before. A maverick position would be one thing, but "maverick lawmaking"? And writing like that is what gets you into the Washington Post syndication group? Wow!
Fortunately, we have our staunch liberal columnists like Cynthia Tucker to debunk McCain's Maverick image. Or, not. She writes in Immigrant bashing goes its sorry wayAtlanta Journal-Constitution 02/10/08 about what a Maverick the ole Straight Talker is on immigration. The bold Maverick and enlightened saint has saved the GOP from that nasty Tom Tancredo. Except that when McCain maverickly spoke to the anti-immigration hardliners at the Conservative Political Action Committee last week, he, uh, well, adopted their "secure the borders first" position.
This is how strong the press script about McCain the Maverick is.
