MEDIA RETURNS TO PROTECTING OBAMA MYTH

Tim Graham at NewsBusters.org brings to our attention excerpts from Charles Krauthammer's column in Friday's Washington Post. If you consider yourself fair and open-minded, we urge you to read the news busters piece (no subscription required).

Krauthammer's column takes on the media for being "in the tank" for Barack Obama.

Essentially, the media used Hillary’s Bosnia gaff to not only declare the entire Reverend Wright affair over, but to brand anyone who dared bring it up as racist or unseemly.

Krauthammer was appalled at how CNN's Anderson Cooper and Time's Joe Klein insisted no one could discuss Obama's relationship with his minister, Jeremiah Wright:

Tuzla not only provided a distraction from Obama's problem with the raving reverend, it created the perfect setting for the press to pronounce the Wright affair closed.

In his swoon-inducing Philadelphia speech, Obama had instructed the nation from on high that America was greatly in need of a national conversation on race -- a need curiously absent before his pastor's words sent his campaign into a tailspin -- and that he, Barack Obama, was ready to lead it. Everything was now on the table, except his association with Wright. Because to "play Rev. Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election" would imply
be a "distraction" from the suffering of the American people, which, of course, is the work of the usual suspects: corporate outsourcing and "the special interests in Washington."

This invitation to move on, as it were, has been widely accepted. After the speech it became an article of faith that even referring to Wright's comments was somehow illegitimate, the new "Swift-boating."

It is not just that Obama surrogate Rep. George Miller denounced the Clinton campaign for bringing up Wright when talking to superdelegates as trying to "work the low road." You expect that from a campaign. Or that Andrew Sullivan called Hillary's commenting on right "a new low." You expect that from Andrew Sullivan.

But from the mainstream media? As National Review's Byron York has pointed out [on The Corner], when Clinton supporter Lanny Davis said on CNN that it is "legitimate" for her to have remarked "that she personally would not put up with somebody who says that 9/11 are chickens who come home to roost" or the kind of "generic comments [Wright] made about white America," Anderson Cooper, the show's host
and alleged moderator, interjected that since "we all know what the [Wright] comments were," he found it "amazing" and "funny" that Davis should "feel the need to repeat them over and over again."

Davis protested, "It's appropriate." Time magazine's Joe Klein promptly smacked Davis down with "Lanny, Lanny, you're spreading the -- you're spreading the poison right now," and then suggested that an "honorable person" would "stay away from this stuff."

Amazing. We've gone beyond moral equivalence to moral inversion. It is now dishonorable to even make note of Wright's bigotry and ask how any an -- let alone a man on the threshold of the presidency -- could associate himself for 20 years with the purveyor of such hate.

Watching such a display, you get a full appreciation of Hillary's challenge. The mainstream media are back in the tank. The "Saturday Night Live" skits parodying media obsequiousness toward Obama, followed closely by the revelation of the Wright tapes, temporarily forced the media to subject Obama to normal scrutiny. But after the speech" and Tuzla, they have reverted to form as protectors of the myth of Obama.

Tim Graham at News Busters also includes a full excerpt from the Anderson Cooper example.

COOPER: Lanny, what about that? Her remarks were clearly written out. She was glancing down at prepared text. Did the Clinton camp hope this would detract attention away from the embarrassment over the Bosnia misstatements?
LANNY DAVIS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I can only tell you what I hope, and that is we accept the expression that most people in Washington don't accept, honest mistake, and that we also don't listen to double standards.
So, let me reply to my friend Jamal [Simmons, also a CNN guest]. When Senator Obama said that he passed nuclear waste legislation that actually ended up not being passed, and "The New York Times" published that he had said that, my assumption was, he made an honest mistake.
When he claimed credit for an immigration that Senator Dodd said that he didn't really have much to do with, my assumption is, he made an honest mistake. So, Senator Clinton has said, honest mistake.
COOPER: Lanny, you're completely changing the subject.
DAVIS: Well, no, I am not. I'm talking about whether we assume people can make honest mistakes or whether we say that they're intentionally deceiving. That's a big difference. I'm not changing the subject at all. (CROSSTALK)
COOPER: My question -- let me just -- but let me just -- my question was, do you think they're trying to deflect attention away from the misstatements? You clearly didn't answer it. Do you think -- yes or no, do you think they're trying to...
DAVIS: Well, I said I don't know.
COOPER: You don't know?
DAVIS: I said I -- I believe that her answer was appropriate, not to judge Senator Obama and tell him what to do with his congregation, but to say what she would do, and not what to say what Senator Obama would do. She carefully walked that line. That's the line I walk, that I would not stay in a congregation if my rabbi said the things that Reverend Wright said. But I respect Senator Obama's decision for his reasons to stay in his congregation. I think that's an appropriate line to walk.
COOPER: Joe, let me bring you in. What do you make of all this? Have the campaigns run out of substantive ways to distinguish themselves from each other. Or is this just the media's fault, covering the spectacle, not the substance?
JOE KLEIN, COLUMNIST, TIME: Well, on the big issues, there was never really a substantive difference. I'm feeling kind of less charitable than I did last night, when I was willing to give Hillary Clinton a break for the imaginative embroidery of that story in Bosnia. It was a war story. But, today, what we saw, I think, is pretty transparent and a very clear sign of desperation. She moved the -- you know, the focus of this campaign back to race and hate speech as an issue. Now, that may well be a -- you know, a significant issue in this campaign.
But to deny that what she did today was, you know, finally moving that issue into the fore, in order to distract attention from her embarrassment is baloney. You know, I think it's pretty clear what happened today, and it's a real sign of desperation on the part of the Clinton campaign.
COOPER: Why do you think they're so desperate?
KLEIN: Well, because I think that the margin for error is very slim.The chances are that she's -- you know, that she's not going to be able to put together the math needed to win this nomination, unless Obama tanks completely. And, you know, the best chance of Obama tanking is white people not voting for him. And the best way to get white people to not vote for him is to remind them of the things that Jeremiah Wright said. It's that simple.
COOPER: Lanny, is this a sign of desperation?
DAVIS: There are few people I respect more than Joe Klein. So, we just have a disagreement. We just have a disagreement here. And he knows that I loved his book about Bill Clinton, because I told him so. I just disagree with you, Joe. First of all, she walked a line by saying what I have been saying, which is, I wouldn't stand for my rabbi saying that...
COOPER: Yes, but you said it last week to -- you said it last week to "The Huffington Post." Why is she saying it today, after about a week, after the story's already faded?
DAVIS: Well...
KLEIN: The appropriate thing -- there was an appropriate course of action for a candidate to take...
DAVIS: I didn't get a chance to answer.
COOPER: Go ahead and answer, please.
DAVIS: My answer is, I have no idea, except I think it's a legitimate way that she said it, which is that she personally would not put up with somebody who says that 9/11 are chickens who come home to roost, that Israel is a state-sponsored nation, and that there are generic comments made about white America. My rabbi...
KLEIN: Lanny, you're doing it right now.
COOPER: Lanny, it is amazing. Lanny, it is amazing. I'm not taking sides here [!], but we all know what the comments were. It's funny that you feel the need to repeat them over and over again.
DAVIS: It's appropriate.
KLEIN: You know, Lanny, Lanny, you're spreading the -- you're spreading the poison right now. And the fact is, you know, everybody...
DAVIS: That's not poison. Those are facts, Joe. Those are facts. And I'm not saying Senator -- I also said Senator Obama...
COOPER: Let Lanny finish. You have -- OK, Joe, what's your point?
KLEIN: My point is that the Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton had taken the road that I would have expected of her, as being an honorable person, which is to stay away from this stuff. And now, suddenly, after a week, she's not.
DAVIS: It's an appropriate subject.
KLEIN: And she's having her surrogates, like Lanny -- like Lanny, you know, raise stuff about 9/11 and Israel is a state sponsor of terrorism.
DAVIS: Joe, I speak for myself. Nobody tells me what to do. I'm not part of the campaign. So, she's not having me do anything.
COOPER: All right.
DAVIS: I speak for myself. I think it's an appropriate topic to talk about, but not to judge Senator Obama. That's his decision. But it's appropriate for those of us who feel differently to say what we would do under the same circumstance. I think it's respectful for Senator Obama.
COOPER: All right.
DAVIS: But it's also our opinion.
KLEIN: Lanny, I'm not a lawyer. I don't even play one on TV. But aren't, by bringing those things up, you casting some judgment on Senator Obama?
DAVIS: I'm certainly saying I would have acted differently, and it's an appropriate topic for the American people...
KLEIN: That's a judgment.
DAVIS: ... to decide for themselves.
COOPER: All right. We're going to leave it there. We're going to leave it there. We're going to leave it there.



Read the entire News Busters story here.