Fascinating Article In LA Times: Note the 'journalists"mentioned and how they approach obama (I'm looking at you Jackie Tapdance


The media portray him as a GOP maverick. He's really a die-hard conservative.
By Eric Alterman and George Zornick
June 20, 2008
Like the vast majority of our 300 million or so fellow citizens -- but unlike most of the political reporters covering the presidential campaign -- your authors have never had the pleasure of meeting Arizona senator and Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

We've never sat with him in a semicircle on the red velvet couches of the Straight Talk Express downing Dunkin' Donuts and participating in endless bull sessions that long outlast our store of questions. We've never talked strategy with him over drinks or been fed information to use against his opponents. Perhaps even more regrettably, we have not enjoyed the pleasure of a sunny afternoon at Chez McCain, "swinging lazily back and forth on a tire swing strung up under a massive sycamore tree in a quiet Arizona canyon," as the candidate, according to a Newsweek reporter, "carefully monitor[ed] giant slabs of pork ribs on a smoking grill."

Perhaps if we had spent more time hanging with him, we too would call him John when speaking with him, as some journalists do. We'd appreciate his hospitality and his eagerness to speak his mind, and, let's be honest, we cannot be certain that, were he still running against George W. Bush, we would not fall into the habit of referring to the McCain campaign as "we" -- as in "I hope we kill Bush" -- which apparently happened with some frequency during McCain's unsuccessful 2000 run, according to Tucker Carlson.

But even though we might be taken with McCain personally, we like to think we would resist the urge to offer the sort of spontaneous testimonials to his character that have gushed from the pens of so many journalists. These would include calling McCain "a cool dude" (Jake Tapper, Salon); "an original, imaginative and at times inspiring candidate" (Jacob Weisberg, Slate); "the bravest candidate in the presidential race" (Dana Milbank, the Washington Post); "an affable man of zealous, unbending beliefs" and "the hero [who] still does things his own way" (Richard Cohen, the Washington Post). We certainly hope that we would not say, as Charles Lane did, writing in the Oct. 18, 1999, issue of the New Republic: "I know it shouldn't be happening, but it is. I'm falling for John McCain."

Believe us, we could go on (and on and on). But suffice it to say that no candidate since John F. Kennedy, and perhaps none since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, has enjoyed such cozy relations with the media.

Of course, there is no law against a journalist falling in love with a politician. There's also no question that before the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. became the most famous man in America, coverage of Sen. Barack Obama was also extremely favorable. And it's true that McCain's easy ride has hit speed bumps in recent weeks.

But years of devotion are not likely to be erased overnight, even in the event of an unlikely U-turn on the part of mainstream journalists. The reality is that McCain has enjoyed a degree of indulgence over the years that has made it almost impossible for most Americans to understand the kind of presidency he now proposes.

This is partly quantifiable. Consider this, for instance: During the nine-year period from 1997 to 2005, no one was invited onto the Sunday morning network shows more than McCain, who appeared 124 times, according to Media Matters, the progressive media monitoring group -- over 50% more than his closest competitor. What's more, he was accorded 86 solo interviews, also more than anyone else.

McCain's legendary diversionary walks from the path of the Republican straight-and-narrow so impressed his friends in the media that they appear to have passed a secret law among themselves never to refer to the senior Arizona senator without using the word "maverick." As David Brock and Paul Waldman demonstrated in their book "Free Ride," the words "maverick" and "McCain" appeared within 10 words of each other 2,114 times in 2000 -- a pace that also has been reflected in McCain's 2008 coverage.

What's the effect of all these years of loving treatment at the hands of the media? On issue after issue, and from every side of the journalistic political spectrum, a campaign of distortion has helped to ensure that the real John McCain -- and his extreme conservative positions and politically inspired flip-flops -- remain far from the consciousness of the average voter.

According to an extensive Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken in early May, for instance, only 27% of voters have positive views of the Republican Party. A clear majority of voters in the same survey said they wished for a Democratic president. And yet, in what the Journal reporters termed a "remarkable" finding, McCain remained in a dead heat with Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton in head-to-head matchups. The authors' explanation: "McCain's image is trumping negatives such as the war and the economy."

In a Pew Research Center survey from May, most voters described McCain as "a centrist whose views are fairly close to their own."

These voters might as well be visiting Casablanca for the waters. The reality is that McCain has repudiated virtually all of the moderate, supposedly maverick positions that liberal reporters and columnists used to find so admirable. He voted for President Bush's right to waterboarding; he now rejects his own immigration plan; he hopes to extend the tax cuts he once condemned; and he's fine with Bush's plan for domestic spying.

Today, McCain calls himself a thorough-going conservative, and he's got the statistics to prove it. He has voted with his party almost 90% of the time this term, which puts him ahead of 29 other Republicans. According to data analyzed at VoteView.com, McCain's voting record in 2005-06 would place him second in the contest for America's most conservative senator in the 109th Congress and eighth in the 110th Senate. McCain supported Bush in 95% of his votes in 2007 and has managed to achieve a perfect 100% score so far in 2008.

But voter ignorance of the "real McCain" is not the fault of the voters. They are simply consuming reports from the media that refuse to take McCain's politics seriously -- like the one by Slate's liberal editor, Jacob Weisberg, subtitled "Psst ... He's Not Really a Conservative," instructing voters that when considering a vote for McCain, it is necessary to "discount his repositioning a bit."

Sure, his plans for Iraq are even more aggressive, expensive and unlikely than are Bush's. Withdrawal, McCain believes, would be "morally reprehensible" and an "unconscionable act of betrayal." And yes, his tax plan is rather more regressive than that of the president. His views on social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage are as one with those of the Christian right, and his environmental policies are essentially a dodge. Yes, he's flip-flopped to the right on one issue after another as the presidential race has gotten underway. But so what? He is, after all, a really "cool dude," according to some of America's most thoughtful journalists.

And when, dear reader, was the last time one of these guys steered you wrong?