The entire media is in full-throat anti-Obama mode. I have never seen anything like this

[AlinPA]

(born in 1937 and watching politics since the 50's). Never. They are deathly afraid that he might win and will trash him 24 x 7.

[liberal N proud]

1. It called 'We gotta save McCain's ass mode'

The GOP owns these people and that are going to WHATEVER it takes to insure Senator McGoo gets in the White House.

[polichick]

2. They're terrified of a U.S. gov't that represents the people rather than corps.

[Skwmom]

6. Bingo!

[eShirl]

3. never?

It reminds me of 2000 and 2004.

[EFerrari]

4. Remember how they treated Bill Clinton, 24/7.

They wouldn't even call him "President Clinton" most of the time. It's going to be worse this time and we have to be prepared to push back. :mad:

[chimpymustgo]

43. They most recently did this to Hillary, before that Kerry, Gore, Bill. With stops along the way

to swipe Edwards and any other rising Dem star.

Tried to warn of this earlier, but when they're kissing your ass, it's hard to imagine that you'll ever get kicked to the curb.

[Overseas]

5. Wish that would get the American people to RECLAIM OUR AIRWAVES.

But that's just a lovely dream.

[cliffordu]

24. We are doing that right here. As long as the web stays free, we might get

our Democracy back.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

7. We much remember that they aren't bashing him for being weak

They are trashing him because he is strong and is the biggest threat to their economic, corporatist well-being. When Hillary was making the argument that Obama is unelectable, I believe that what she actually meant is that the powers that be would trash, slime and malign him, rendering him weak and ineffective. He is anything but. I commend Hillary for working to help dispell this argument that she so forcefully put forward. She was wrong and has admitted as such. Having gone through this herself, she knows how horrible the M$M and the Repukes are.

Obama is a threat. If he were as weak as they purport then they wouldn't feel the need for bashing.

[90-percent]

8. MSM

MSM should be totally orgasmic over Obama's recent FISA vote. His vote is exactly where they all stand.

I wasn't using those Constitutional Rights, anyway.

-90% Jimmy

[jenmito]

9. I couldn't believe the coverage today of McCain's attack ad and Obama's "negative response ad" and

they were claiming McCain and Obama are "tearing each other apart" as if they're both in the mud. Tamron Hall (MSNBC) had the nerve to play McCain's ad, then play the beginning of Obama's response, and then asked Claire McCaskill why Obama attacks back instead of putting forward HIS plan for energy, at which point Claire pointed out that it was NOT an attack but pointing out how MCCAIN attacked, and then he DID go on to show what he would do. The bias is incredible.

[Labors of Hercules]

17. What the fucking fuck?

They just OMITTED half the ad and then asked a question as if it didn't exist?

This is absolutely insane. The first amendment doesn't mean the press has the freedom to lie. :grr:

[jenmito]

18. They stopped the sound of the ad after his criticism of McCain's attacks...and Tamron

Hall began asking the questions to McCaskill. After she answered the way she did, the positive part of the ad was being shown in the background with no sound. :eyes:

[Cha]

33. That's what they did to Dean about 700 times and

I'm not surprised at all. They're all fucking whores.

[donco6]

22. Matt Lauer called Obama's response ad "attack".

I was shocked. In what possible way was his ad an "attack" ad?

[Cha]

34. I think people can see for themselves what

this ad of Obama's is and what mccain's is. The fucking media is making a big mistake trying to dumb down America.

matt lauer=big ol whore.

[Whisp]

26. that's what they were claiming during the primaries, that it was a dirty race on both ends.

which was hogwash.
Obama did not engage in the stupidtalk at all. Nothing he said came near to Celestial Choirs and McCain would be a better leader than Hillary and speeches don't put food on the table (except for the Clinton's cornucopia of edibles from His speeches.)

Shame on You, Hillary Clinton! :rofl: can't even imagine that kind of stupidity coming out of Obama's mouth.

There was absolutely nothing coming out from the Obama campaign that was equal in dirt to Clinton campaign. So now we are hearing the same ole, same ole with McCain vs Obama.

tells ya something.

[Clear Blue Sky]

10. RW media bias on full display...

[Mass]

11. Where were you in 2000 and 2004? On a desert island? Or under Clinton?

[AlinPA]

31. I watched it. Swift boating and all that. Smashing Gore everywhere,

especially the comedy shows on late night. This year it is much more organized. CNN was not on the same page as Fox "News " then. Likewise MSNBC. Now they are in concert.

[irislake]

12. Hmmmm.

I was thinking Obama was almost as bad as McCain. Too far right. A corporate candidate. Agree with Naomi Klein he's no "liberal". But if the media are agin him he must be slightly better than McCain. Too bad you can't elect someone like Kucinich. But then I'm a commie pinko Canadian, eh?

[nevergiveup]

13. I am almost as old as you

and I totally agree. The negativity Obama is up against from the press in astonishing. It will take an unprecedented ground game and hundreds of thousands of new voters to keep this election close. I really don't know what Obama can personally do. McCain has the press in his pocket. I really worry about the debates because the positive spin from the press on McCain, regardless of how he performs, will give everyone on DU ulcers. I ain't giving up but the situation as of now is certainly depressing.

[KurtNYC]

14. That is their job. Reagan's FCC repealled the Fairness Doctrine

First the supreme court ruled that it would not apply to cable TV and other media, then Reagan's FCC repealed it altogether. But that was only the first major step toward the media environment of today.

The second step was the consolidation of all major broadcast and print media into the control of a few entities which have very similar political interests. During the Fairness era there was only limited reason to own broadcast media eg. to be in the advertising business but after it's repeal owning media became one of the best return on investment opportunities. And many of the major broadcast entities were sold during the late 1980s (including CNN, ABC and many newspapers and radio stations). Owning media allows the owners to control public thought, to decide what is considered by most to be important and to ignore what they choose.

So what we have now is largely a liberal-free media. The range of viewpoints goes from the far right only to the middle. Debate and choices are framed in such a way that progressive options and viewpoints are not even presented.

US-based TV news media will not be "free" or populist anytime soon. IMHO the best option for news about what is happening in the world and the USA can be found via:
BBC World News -- available through PBS in many areas
The Guardian UK (has a left wing bias but relays facts not reported widely in the US): http://www.guardian.co.uk/america
The CBC http://www.cbc.ca/world/

Background sources on media consolidation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership#By_corporation

[depakid]

28. Actually, the Democrats in Congress exempted cable in 1984

while it was still a new media. One suspects they might have acted differently if they'd foreseen the nature of the programming.

At the time, the public interest standard was still taken seriously- as was diversity. And there were limits on commercial time that networks could sell. You didn't have spam channels, and you didn't have broadcasters selling blocks of the our public airwaves off to companies for sleazy infomertials.

[KurtNYC]

38. do you have a reference for that?

"Democrats in Congress exempted cable in 1984" ?

I find:
FCC v. League of Women Voters, 468 U.S. 364
The Court's majority decision by William J. Brennan, Jr. noted concerns that the Fairness Doctrine was "chilling speech," and added that the Supreme Court would be "forced" to revisit the constitutionality of the doctrine if it did have "the net effect of reducing rather than enhancing speech."

but nothing on Congress.

[zbdent]

15. They're just trying to show that they're not biased towards liberals

despite the RW study showing that they're biased towards McCain ...

[Virginia Dare]

16. They don't want Obama to start running away with it too soon..

if it's not a horse race then nobody will pay much attention anymore. It will also keep repubs away from the polls, and the Dems will trounce them in the House and Senate races.

[question everything]

19. To reverse their adoration during the primaries

They should have been, yes, fair and balanced, in covering the candidates. Instead they were falling all over themselves - Matthews' something crawled up his leg - and now they "need" to show their unbiased cover.

Too late. I stopped watching MSNBC, Keith Olbermann, Cafferty and Jon Stewart. They are just like the Fox crowd, all predictable. The difference is, I suppose, that the Fox crowd at least do not turn 180 degrees as it fits their needs.

[jenmito]

21. You mean like their non-stop coverage of Rev. Wright? If anything, the narrative the

media had, even when Hillary couldn't win mathematically, was, "Never count out the Clintons. Hillary has become a real fighter. She could still win this..." Then it was, "Why can't Obama close the deal? What's his problem with white voters?" Blah blah blah.

[question everything]

36. Yes, this pretty much was the turning point

All of a sudden they realized that they were praising him as a "phenomenon" without bothering to dissect him the way they did with, yes, Hillary.

So they moved from all praise to all criticism.

And after they put Hillary down and trashed her and Bill, when it was clear that she could not win, once the race card - introduced by the Obama supporter - was there, then they retreated and used the comments that you cite.

[laugle]

41. Your analysis is

so right on..........Just wait until after the convention, they have seen nothing yet............

The RW is starting to unify around McCain, not because they like him, but because they smell blood and the possibility of defeating Obama.........2 months ago they didn't think they had a chance!

People had better wake-up, Obama should have been way ahead after Hillary dropped out, but his poll numbers are very stagnate. He lost 7 out of the last ten races and that should have been a clue.........these races were after the Rev. Wright, Ayers, Rezco, etc. came out.

Couple that with many Hillary supporters who are voting for McCain and you have a very close race..........

[BeyondGeography]

27. Let's hear it for Fox!

Some more clear thinking from confusedabouteverything.

[jenmito]

30. Howard Wolfson was on Faux yesterday agreeing with O'Reilly, saying Obama

shouldn't have talked about torture or anything negative about America in his speech in Germany.

[chill_wind]

20. K & R n/t

[smoogatz]

23. It's to be expected.

The corporate media are protecting their interests, as always. They did the same thing in the primary--long after Hillary was mathematically eliminated, the media were busily pretending it was still a horse-race. The basic rule is that McCain can say and do any damn thing he wants and the media will pretend it's not idiotic or mean-spirited or war-mongering or anti-democratic or classist or racist or whatever, but one tiny stumble from Obama and they'll be on him like piranha--and if somehow Obama manages to run a perfect campaign, the criticism will be that he's too perfect, too aggressive, too popular (a celebrity!), too eloquent, too charismatic, etc. The good news is that Obama's got this shit covered, and then some. Maybe I'm an optimist, but it's also my view that the voting public just isn't buying the Republican bullshit this time around. And wait 'til the debates--I think there's a good chance that McCain will humiliate himself so thoroughly that the race will effectively be over by September. Although the media, of course, will declare the debates a "tie" unless McCain actually drops trou, craps on stage, and flings poo at the moderators while hooting like a gibbon.

[grannie4peace]

25. these times

i was born in 46 & wish to hell i'd cared about politics earlier.i've heard some really sad things among the people. my sister(who i love) sent me some rw cartoons about obama. no basis in fact at all. trash. scare them into subjection...if any of them would listen to him speak they could see the difference clearly.He does not bs people.there is great power in the truth-:toast:

[jenmito]

29. So far, everyone on MSNBC has been saying BOTH McCain and Obama have been running negative

campaigns. :eyes:

[high density]

32. More the reason for Obama to really go negative

They call him negative anyway to begin with, so he should get something out of it.

[karynnj]

35. Did you miss 2004?

The media spent hundreds of hours on the SBVT and then did not think Kerry's speech where he refuted the charges before the Firefighters interesting enough to be noteworthy - imagine that the race speech dealing with the Wright issue would have gotten no coverage.

In addition, though it was more subtle, they did the same thing with Kerry's Senate career. They had a standard, not applied to anyone else - that they would credit him only for bills, where he was the first named sponsor and where there was a voice vote. This eliminated most legislation that he wrote - including when he was the main person behind it and it was accepted into a bigger bill.

The media has been nicer - though unfair - to Obama. The footage last week was great and they are showing far more footage of his rallies than Kerry's.

[AlinPA]

40. This time it is much more organized. Cable news is one big Fox "News" now. CNN and MSNBC

have copied them.

[karynnj]

46. It was then too - it is just more obvious now.

Thing back to the coverage of the conventions.

MSNBC in all their panels discussing it included the Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough and usually 2 or 3 other people - where NONE were Democrats - they were usually 2 Republicans and Ron Reagan. I thought it might be that they wanted to have Republicans counter the Democrats at the convention and would likewise have mostly Democrats when the Republican convention came. This, of course did not happen, it was the same type of panel. In fact, Ginsberg, the man who was the lawyer for both B/C and SBVT was added as one of the panel! The coverage was absolutely uncritical and admiring with no criticism of mocking the purple heart bandids. (Contrast 1992 - where after the positive Clinton convention, the negative (remember Marilyn Quayle and Buchanan) Bush one was bashed by the media - that comparison also shows how hypocritical the Monday night quarterbacking of Carville and Begala was)

For CNN, there are 4 words to say "Candy Crowley Wolf Blitzer" Crowley was the main person covering Kerry. In 2000, she was a Bush groupie and by 2004, nothing had changed on that and she was negative every time she spoke of Kerry. Remember the happiness Blitzer showed in 2004 when Cheney picked himself in 2000, bringing back (for Blitzer) the good old days covering Gulf War I- that never went changed either.

[Supersedeas]

37. i dunno -- it looks a lot like the demonizing of Gore and Kerry to me: same GoP Media

[highplainsdem]

39. I guess you weren't around for all the attacks on Clinton. Suggest you read

"The Hunting of the President" by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons.

Obama has gotten generally favorable, very favorable, media attention so far. Even the GOP attacks have been relatively mild. I expect it to get much worse either right after the covention, or possibly convention week, and I'll think they're really after him when they start talking about his Chicago background. The fact they haven't had much to say about that so far makes me wonder if that will be their new line of attack after the convention.

This sort of attack

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/33028.html

which turned up while I was checking Google News for stories on Obama that day.

These are the sorts of attacks I'm most worried about, that I hope the campaign is prepared to fight against.

This sort of thing could potentially do a lot more damage to Obama's image than silly ads ridiculing him as just a celebrity like Britney and Paris. And again, the fact the GOP hasn't said much about Obama's Chicago background so far makes me think they believe it can be an effective line of attack for at least a short time -- meaning it's better for them to bring it up closer to the election. I'd be less concerned if they'd bring it up now, in the summer, and let the Obama campaign shoot any attacks from that angle down now and get voters used to it as old news.

[jobycom]

42. About what we expected, isn't it?

It was never going to be easy.

They were on Clinton like this in 92, so bad he started avoiding the media and going on talk shows. He was in third place behind Bush and Perot at this stage of the game, and every time he stepped in front of the media they asked three questions: What about the womanizing, what about the draft dodging, how come you can't make these questions go away?

At this point for Gore, he was a serial liar an exagerator whom the media accused of a whole range of misstatements they knew he didn't make.

We knew it would be race with Obama. That's okay, let it out, let them make their accusations, tip their hands. He will take care of it at the convention, like Clinton and Gore did.

But as always, we'll have to beat the media as well as McCain. We knew that going into this.

[windbreeze]

44. Then you weren't watching what they did to Gen.Clark and Dean in 2004...

There is no way to get your message out...if you are being ignored, or if everything you do and say is fair game for extreme criticism...the media in this country has far more power than they ever should have been given...and it should be obvious that they are once again attempting to elect our president for us...not too hard to do when they control whatever message gets out.....wb

[Mme. Defarge]

45. Pure, or impure,

fascism.

[eridani]

47. Are you forgetting what they did to Gore in 2000? n/t