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Obama is Here, But We Won't Let You See Him
One answer to the "Where is Obama" post from earlier today, is to be found in Thomas B. Edsell's informative column at Huffington Post on April 24:
"Media Jump Ship from Obama to Clinton"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/24/media-jump-ship-from-obam_n_98545.html
excerpt:
<blockquote>
In a blink of an eye, the media has jumped ship from the Obama campaign and become a crucial Clinton ally, pressing just the message -- that Obama is a likely loser in the general election -- that Hillary and her allies have been promoting for the past six weeks.
The new tenor of media coverage is visible almost everywhere, from Politico, Time and The New Republic to The Washington Post and The New York Times.
For Hillary, the shift is a potential lifesaver as she struggles to keep her head above water; without it, she would, metaphorically, drown.
<blockquote>
So it appears that it's not so much that Obama isn't here, but that the MSM has been highly effective in shifting their attention to Hillary, and fooling us into thinking that Obama is off his game.
In simple terms, the media is playing "peek-a-boo" with us, and the infants among us are buying it.
Comments (6)
WAAAAAAAAA! I WANT MY BARRY BACK! GURGLE.
You mean THOSE kind of "infants"?
(insert guffaw here)
VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE
NOT YOUR GUILTY CONSCIENCE
April 27, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
You couldn't vote because you don't have a conscious.
April 27, 2008 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you can't distinguish between conscious and conscience.
I'm truly enjoying this. After months of Obama being the media darling, the media is finally nailing him and what's more, he's giving them the ammunition!
April 27, 2008 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Astral, did you read the comments on that HuffPo article? Or the bio of the blogger? Consensus all around is that it's a made-up story. Most of those cited have been writing that way for a long time anyway, like Joe Klein and Politico. And the HuffPo blogger himself.
April 27, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ditto that, Arugula. The post on Huffington got trashed by the commenters. It's sort of like Greg's "Obama didn't take on Fox" post.
April 27, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't place much stock in the reader comments on HuffPo. I can barely read through the first ten or so before I give up. I know there are always some good insights to be found, but so much of the comments are just obnoxious insults, and i don't spend much time on them anymore.
The main point of my post is that there is a consensus that media attention has shifted towards watching Hillary to struggle to stay in the race. If there is any point to be made, I think it is that Obama actually is a known quantity at this point. We know his history, his views, and his platform, and the only thing the media gets excited about is some new tantilizing chance of a minor scandal. But even the faux-scandals burn out quickly.
So it's much more fun for the media to try to keep Hillary in this thing, or just to watch the trainwreck that it has become.
Where is Obama? Greg Cohen asks. Well, he's out there promoting his message, just as he has been doing for the past 15 months. He's on the news everyday, such as today's Fox interview, but there is no new chum for the sharks, and they're getting bored, so in essence, they are beginning to turn their attention to generating whatever controversies they can gin up.
I'm still in agreement with Thomas Edsel's assessment of the media.
April 27, 2008 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
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