Obama To Get Credit for Iraq Victory?

It hasn’t even been 4 weeks since Obama’s election and while CNN is now declaring actions in Iraq as humanitarian missions, Friedman at the NYT is trying to figure out a way for Obama and the Democrats to claim victory in Iraq, a mission they have opposed every step of the way and which is already coming to a successful conclusion.  Simply incredible.  Do they really think we’re that dumb?

If [Obama] can pull this off, and help that decent Iraq take root, Obama and the Democrats could not only end the Iraq war but salvage something positive from it. Nothing would do more to enhance the Democratic Party’s national security credentials than that.

What bias?

hat tip: Reynolds

The Obama Donation Groundswell That Never Was

…and the media “reporting” it endlessly didn’t make it so.

Everybody knows how President-elect Barack Obama’s amazing campaign money machine was dominated by several million regular folks sending in hard-earned amounts under $200, a real sign of his broadbased grassroots support.

Except, it turns out, that’s not really true.

In fact, Obama’s base of small donors was almost exactly the same percent as George W. Bush‘s in 2004 — Obama had 26% and the great Republican satan 25%. Obviously, this is unacceptable to current popular thinking.

hat tip to Mr. Reynolds

Media Bias Infects The Media’s Self-Examination

Media Bias Infects The Media’s Self-Examination

The mainstream media, which swooned over Barack Obama, is going through a mild period of self-examination. Howard Kurtz’ piece, A Giddy Sense of Boosterism, has sparked media self-examination over how the media debased itself through pro-Obama boosterism. Yet even in this self-examination, the pro-Obama bias shines through…

Now It’s a Humanitarian Exercise

Before the election the US was engaged in actions of war in Iraq but now that the election is over we are doing humanitarian missions…

Time’s Halperin: “It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.”

Even Time’s Mark Halperin admits that the election coverage was over the top.

Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine’s Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.

“It’s the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war,” Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. “It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.”

Replacing the MSM?

If the Mainstream media is not going to do investigative journalism then will they be replaced by those who will?

Over the last two years, some of this city’s darkest secrets have been dragged into the light — city officials with conflicts of interest and hidden pay raises, affordable housing that was not affordable, misleading crime statistics.

Investigations ensued. The chiefs of two redevelopment agencies were forced out. One of them faces criminal charges. Yet the main revelations came not from any of San Diego’s television and radio stations or its dominant newspaper, The San Diego Union-Tribune, but from a handful of young journalists at a nonprofit Web site run out of a converted military base far from downtown’s glass towers — a site that did not exist four years ago.

As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities, forcing the papers to follow the stories they uncover.

WaPo: The Media is Hyperventilating

Just as they did before the election.  Our New Pop Culture Icons.

Perhaps it was the announcement that NBC News is coming out with a DVD titled “Yes We Can: The Barack Obama Story.” Or that ABC and USA Today are rushing out a book on the election. Or that HBO has snapped up a documentary on Obama’s campaign.

Perhaps it was the Newsweek commemorative issue — “Obama’s American Dream” — filled with so many iconic images and such stirring prose that it could have been campaign literature. Or the Time cover depicting Obama as FDR, complete with jaunty cigarette holder.

Are the media capable of merchandizing the moment, packaging a president-elect for profit? Yes, they can.

What’s troubling here goes beyond the clanging of cash registers. Media outlets have always tried to make a few bucks off the next big thing. The endless campaign is over, and there’s nothing wrong with the country pulling together, however briefly, behind its new leader. But we seem to have crossed a cultural line into myth-making.

“The Obamas’ New Life!” blares People’s cover, with a shot of the family. “New home, new friends, new puppy!” Us Weekly goes with a Barack quote: “I Think I’m a Pretty Cool Dad.” The Chicago Tribune trumpets that Michelle “is poised to be the new Oprah and the next Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — combined!” for the fashion world.

Whew! Are journalists fostering the notion that Obama is invincible, the leader of what the New York Times dubbed “Generation O”?

Each writer, each publication, seems to reach for more eye-popping superlatives. “OBAMAISM — It’s a Kind of Religion,” says New York magazine. “Those of us too young to have known JFK’s Camelot are going to have our own giddy Camelot II to enrapture and entertain us,” Kurt Andersen writes. The New York Post has already christened it “BAM-A-LOT.”

“Here we are,” writes Salon’s Rebecca Traister, “oohing and aahing over what they’ll be wearing, and what they’ll be eating, what kind of dog they’ll be getting, what bedrooms they’ll be living in, and what schools they’ll be attending. It feels better than good to sniff and snurfle through the Obamas’ tastes and habits. . . . Who knew we had in us the capacity to fall for this kind of idealized Americana again?”

But aren’t media people supposed to resist this kind of hyperventilating?

The Power of the Media Is Immense

MORE: Post-election polling shows that these particular Obama voters were not cherry picked… They were just media consumers.

WaPo Again Admits the Imbalance in Coverage

A significant number of us belong to neither major party so it is also odd that the Washington Post Ombudsman is so left-right centric; perhaps this is further evidence of the extreme partisan composition of the newsroom.

But some of the conservatives’ complaints about a liberal tilt are valid. Journalism naturally draws liberals; we like to change the world. I’ll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don’t even want to be quoted by name in a memo.

Journalists bristle at the thought of their coverage being viewed as unfair or unbalanced; they believe that their decisions are journalistically reasonable and that their politics do not affect how they cover and display stories.

Tom Rosenstiel, a former political reporter who directs the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said, “The perception of liberal bias is a problem by itself for the news media. It’s not okay to dismiss it. Conservatives who think the press is deliberately trying to help Democrats are wrong. But conservatives are right that journalism has too many liberals and not enough conservatives. It’s inconceivable that that is irrelevant.”

Ayers Does an Interview and CNN Covers for Him, Again

Before the election CNN, like most media outlets, simply refused to dig in to Ayers’ connections with Obama; they were apparently too busy dumpster diving in Alaska.  Now that Ayers’ cohort in education “reform” is now the President-elect, he has done an interview with Good Morning America and CNN does it’s very best to cover for him.

The problem with Bill Ayers is not just that he was a radical in the 60’s who attempted to overthrow the government with bombs but that he is still a radical who has moved from bombs to using educational “reform” as a means to revolution.  This is not conjecture for you can read his own words.  The real issue is that Obama helped to fund Bill Ayers’ revolutionary ideas in American classrooms through serving as the head of the Annenburg Challenge but the media is not the least bit interested in this connection and what “reforms” were receiving millions of dollars that according to their own summary did not result in educational improvements.

Now that Ayers is talking how does CNN cover the story?  Simply by taking Ayers word for everything with unquestioned quote after quote and again repeating the ridiculous ‘Obama was only 8 years old’ line.  When asked about Ayers’ campaign kickoff in his house Ayers said and CNN simply repeats, “We had him in our home, and I think he was probably in 20 homes that day” as if this is an adequate defense at all.  So the then current state Senator introduced Obama in 20 homes that day?  Did you verify this CNN?  Of course not; you just reprint whatever Ayers claims.  Nice work.

CNN, you are a pathetic excuse for a news organization and every day you give us more reasons to not believe a word you write.  And that is very sad for our democratic system needs an informed electorate instead of an increasing divided one that only reads partisan viewpoints like yours.

What bias.