The Media Creation that is Obama

Maybe they'll let you vote twice.

Another thought provoking comment.

That's the most astute comment so far in this thread.

That's just creepy.

And I am sure that some of the many thousands of people who have come away from listening to the man feeling like they just had a religious experience would say that their experience was creepy...does not make it less real though.

Well, bully for them. If I want to be preached to about my soul, I'll go to church. This whole religious and fanatic overtone is starting to scare the crap out of me. Asking people to pray for 'God to make him an instrument'? Creeps me out.

Michelle - fix your own freakin soul. Leave mine out of this.

On that, at least, we seem to be in agreement, nappyheadedhohoho.

If Obama gets the nomination and is elected president we will have two Jesus freak presidents in a row.

Ya, but Bush always wants to play stern daddy, Obama would rather play doctor.... Hey, its a change!

At least the wives get to have a good time in the sack.

And I remember how some were appalled with the religiosity of Bush's campaign. But now it's ok?

It's ok because they're worshiping in the Church of Obama.

Then again, many understand the use of metaphor and don't freak out about it.

When you lack experience as well as lack documented success in politics, Obama has been successful in getting his words out to the media who portry them as "Kennedy-esque".

Hillary has the same problem, no experience and no success as a Senator. However, she has a reputation that she is using to fool people to think she has what she lacks and the media has bought that line.

Are pundits shaping opinions re candidates?
Are pundits shaping opinions re candidates? Are they qualified to shape our opinions? The Cable Media spend most of their air time speculating. Since when did speculation become news?---BBB

Political Pundits, Overpopulating the News Networks
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 19, 2008; C01

It's a great time for face time if you want to be a pundit on TV.

With the cable news networks ramping up wall-to-wall political coverage, the demand for people to analyze, comment upon and speculate wildly about the presidential race has expanded accordingly. The nation's economy might be coughing and wheezing, but there is no shortage of employment opportunities in Punditland.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann says that when he introduces his network's lineup of analysts and commentators on primary and caucus nights these days, it conjures up the long-winded introductions on an old variety show. "I am reminded of the way 'Hee Haw' opened," Olbermann says. "I am sorely tempted to finish [the list] with 'Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow, Gene Robinson and Pat Buchanan -- Grandpa Jones! . . . Junior Samples! . . . the Hager Twins!' "

Not to mention the rest of MSNBC's prime-time punditocracy -- the Buck Owenses and Minnie Pearls, as it were: Tucker Carlson! Chuck Todd! Howard Fineman! Richard Wolffe!

Why are so many called to opine so often? Primarily because the news networks are covering the campaign so intensely, fueled by higher-than-usual viewership this year.

During the week of Super Tuesday, 75 percent of available airtime on MSNBC, CNN and Fox News was dedicated to dissecting the campaign, according to the Washington-based, nonprofit Project for Excellence in Journalism. That was more than 10 times the amount the cable news networks spent on the next most heavily reported story that week: the tornadoes in the Midwest and Southeast (the war in Iraq didn't make the top five).

"We're devoting as much coverage to the primaries as the networks gave to NASA in the 1960s, only we're covering two or three moon shots a week," says Olbermann, who on Super Tuesday co-hosted the coverage with Chris Matthews for eight straight hours.

On other news networks as well, small armies of political pundits are needed to fill the many hours.

CNN assembles so many commentators for its primary-night shows that it arrays its talking heads in panels of four abreast, as if echoing the setup on "Family Feud." On Super Tuesday, the network's pundits and analysts included a bank of B's -- Bennett (Bill), Begala (Paul), Bernstein (Carl), Brazile (Donna) and Borger (Gloria). They were in addition to David Gergen, Amy Holmes, Roland Martin, Jeffrey Toobin and Jamal Simmons.

The fight for the mike became so intense that at one point Bennett cracked that he had been reduced to CNN's "second string" of pundits.

"My feeling is the more the merrier," says CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, who is often required to play hot-air-traffic controller to the many voices. "When you're on the air as long as we are, you want a nice diversity and range of opinions -- liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans."

Not to be outmanned, Fox News's "A" team includes a sort of reconstituted "McLaughlin Group" (Eleanor Clift, Fred Barnes, Morton Kondracke, Michael Barone, Dick Morris), as well as other familiar veterans (William Kristol, Juan Williams) and a former politician (Newt Gingrich). Fox's newest campaign commentator is Karl Rove, President Bush's former political mastermind.

And those are just the prime-time regulars. All three cable networks have small, standing armies of political journalists, think-tank wonks, ex-pols and vaguely affiliated political figures (typically described on the air as Democratic or Republican "strategists") to provide commentary and predictions at other hours of the day.

Still more demand for punditry comes from the weekend public-affairs programs on the broadcast networks; from public television and radio programs; and from foreign broadcasters, which have shown strong interest in this campaign.

These days, pundits-in-waiting such as Peter Mirijanian don't have to wait long for their phones to ring. Mirijanian, a Democrat who runs his own public relations firm in Washington, estimates that he has been on TV hundreds of times over the past seven years, usually to offer comments about companies or celebrities embroiled in a crisis. Mirijanian says he now gets "two to three" calls a week from TV networks that want him to talk about the presidential race.

Pundits are in such demand that they have to be ready to suit up at any hour. Rachel Sklar, a writer for the Huffington Post Web site, recently detailed her expanding portfolio of TV-commentary assignments on her Facebook page: "Rachel is on CTV in Canada in about 5 mins (at about 9:40 pm)," she wrote. "And on CNN at 2 am, yo. And MSNBC from 3-5 a.m. Super Wednesday slumber party!"

There's the question, of course, of how much wisdom and foresight the pundits truly provide. Many pundits wrote off John McCain's candidacy early on; they suggested Hillary Clinton was doomed after losing in Iowa; and they counted Mike Huckabee out on Super Tuesday, among other miscues.

Commentators have also been called out by media watchdogs for sometimes intemperate commentary. Matthews last month apologized for saying on MSNBC "the reason Hillary Clinton may be a front-runner is her husband messed around." MSNBC guest-host David Shuster earlier this month apologized and was suspended for saying the Clinton campaign was "pimping out" the Clintons' daughter, Chelsea. And Time magazine's Mark Halperin apologized last week for using a crude word to describe John Edwards's assessment of Barack Obama's readiness to be president.

Olbermann sees strengths and weaknesses in having so many voices on a news set. On one hand, he says, having lots of people doling out short bits of commentary can feed "the Short Attention Span Theater that American politics has become." Conversely, "the advantage is, if you rotate all these people, you actually give them significant amounts of time off to think about what's happening. Or call people. Or talk amongst themselves."

It may also be helping the ratings. From late December to mid-February, CNN, Fox and MSNBC collectively recorded a 62 percent increase in their prime-time audience, compared with the same period in the last campaign in 2003-04, according to Nielsen data. During all hours of the day, the increase for the three networks was 73 percent.

So how do the networks go about drafting their pundit teams? Credentials matter. Experience working in or covering a campaign counts, producers say. It also helps if you can expound clearly, crisply and provocatively (which might explain why the cable networks like such talk-radio hosts as Maddow, Martin, Dennis Prager and Ed Schultz, among others).

Mirijanian has worked in two presidential campaigns, but his status as a go-to pundit might be a result of his experience -- as a TV pundit. "Let's face it: The bookers have to fill slots all day," he says. "They're asking themselves, 'Who do I know who can go on, who's reliable, and will do a good job?' "

When assembling a group of pundits, the goal is to create "chemistry" among them, says Bill Wolff, MSNBC's vice president of prime-time programming. "You want folks who like and respect each other, who listen to what the other guy says and then respond in an interesting, fair and compelling way," he says. "You want [viewers] to say, 'They're great together.' There's some degree of luck involved, but as they say, luck is the residue of design."

The networks also strive for balance: "Ideally, you want diversity of experience, diversity of [political views] and a group of people who look completely different from each other," says veteran news producer Tammy Haddad, who consults for the National Journal and Newsweek (owned by The Washington Post Co.). "We're seeing a much broader and deeper rotation of voices in this election, I think. In the old days, it was the same four guys."

For the cable networks, the benefit of punditry is that this type of talk is literally cheap. Most experts invited to comment on TV receive no compensation for their opinion slinging, according to news producers. For a select few, however, the rewards of the job can be good, and sometimes great. Several news organizations have agreements with the networks to use the organization's journalists on the air (under a deal with MSNBC, Post reporters receive $100 for daytime appearances and $300 for prime-time segments).

The next step up is a retainer deal, which binds a pundit to a particular network for regular or semi-regular "hits," as segment interviews are known.

An elite cadre at the top of the pundit pyramid -- Mike Barnicle and Newsweek's Fineman on MSNBC; Williams and Kristol on Fox News; Borger and Toobin on CNN -- have annual contracts that tie them to a network on a half- or full-time basis. Such deals can pay as much as $200,000 annually, producers say.

Punditry could be a growth market for some time to come. Assessing his stable of regular analysts, Sam Feist, CNN's political director, says: "I think we've found the right number for our recent election nights."

So CNN now has all the talking heads it needs?

Not necessarily.

"We're always tweaking our team of political contributors," he says. "I won't say we won't add more" as the campaign continues.

Feed the Beast
Feed the Beast
by Terence Smith, former media correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
February 15, 2008

Eugene Robinson, arguably the best columnist writing in America today, posed a two-part question in his column this morning in The Washington Post:

"Are the news media being beastly to Hillary Clinton? Are political reporters and commentators... basically in the tank for Barack Obama?"

Gene's answer: no and no.

My view: yes and yes.

The coverage of Hillary during this campaign has been across-the-board critical, especially since she began losing after New Hampshire. She may have brought much of the negative reporting on herself, sometimes with the help of her husband. Able and articulate as she is, Hillary can be as polarizing among the media as she is with the public.

And her campaign has taken the tough-love approach with the reporters who cover it, frequently ostracizing those they think are critical or hostile. That kind of aggressive press-relations strategy may sometimes be justified, but it rarely effective. Reporters are supposed to be objective and professional. But they are human. They resent the cold shoulder, even if they understand the campaign's motivation.

The result is coverage that is viscerally harsh: her laugh is often described as a "cackle." Her stump speech is dismissed as dry and tiresomely programmatic. She is accused of projecting a sense of entitlement, as though the presidency should be hers by default, that it is somehow now her turn to be president. When she makes changes in her campaign hierarchy, she is described as "desperate."

Chris Matthews argues on MSNBC that Hillary "bugs a lot of guys, I mean, really bugs people -- like maybe me on occasion." Further, he has theorized that she has got as far as she has as a candidate only because of a sympathy vote, because "her husband messed around."

Is that misogynistic? Perhaps. Is it unfair? Probably. Is it crude? Of course. Is Chris on to something? Maybe.

But whatever the case, Hillary and her supporters have reason to complain about the tone of their press notices, if not the substance. Of course, when a front-runner begins to stumble, the coverage is always more critical. And reporters are as subject to Clinton-fatigue as anyone else. But the attacks on Hillary have seemed over-the-top in recent weeks. A barely-suppressed glee often creeps into the commentary when Hillary loses another primary or caucus.

By contrast, has the coverage of Obama been overly sympathetic? Have reporters romanticized the junior Senator from Illinois? Have they glamorized him and his wife? Did they exaggerate the significance of Ted Kennedy's endorsement? Have they given him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his meager experience?

Of course they have.

His rise to front-runner is described as meteoric, his speeches as mesmerizing, his crowds as enraptured, his charisma as boundless. Obama is characterized as the second-coming of JFK, etc. etc. It is all a bit much.

What is behind this enthusiasm? It is not so much personal preference or political bias. It is this: Reporters love a good story, and Obamamania is as good as they come. There has not been such drama and excitement in a presidential race in years. Reporters are suckers for a story that writes itself.

Last summer, the astute National Journal reporter Carl Cannon argued in an Aspen Institute panel that the media were missing the significance of Obama's candidacy, failing to grasp the inherent newsworthiness of his rise from obscurity to the national scene. Carl was right then, but nobody is missing it now, and the result is coverage that is often just short of gushing.

In the end, the contrasting tone of the reporting in the Democratic race may not determine the outcome. But it will influence it. Bill Clinton is right when he angrily protests that "the political press has avowedly played a role in this election."

In his frustration and fury, Clinton probably doesn't understand the real motivation or comprehend what is behind the critical coverage of his wife and the fawning, sometimes cheerleading reporting of the Obama phenomenon.

But he is on to something.

Good piece, as befits a Lehrer alumni.

Why Are So Many Bigshot Political Reporters Apologizing Now?
Why Are So Many Bigshot Political Reporters Apologizing Now?
by Eric Deggans
February 14, 2008

Time magazine senior political analyst Mark Halperin joined a small, yet growing club this week, when he issued an apology for saying former Presidential candidate John Edwards considered Barack Obama "kind of a pussy" on a satellite radio talk show.

Halperin's words: "In a live radio interview this week, I used a word I shouldn't have. The fact that I was conveying other people's words is no excuse for my lapse in judgment."

When I first heard about this exchange yesterday, I wondered about the journalism end of it. If Halperin heard Edwards call Obama the p-word, shouldn't he have reported it in Time? If Edwards said the word to him off the record, why did Halperin recount the exchange in public?

And if Edwards didn't use the p-word, why did Halperin tell the story to make it look as if he had -- putting the worst sort of profanity in the mouth of a guy he presumably is still covering?

But it struck me this morning, after reading the apology, that there is more going on here. The rules have changed a bit for political reporters, especially those with high profiles, and some players haven't realized it yet.

Already, MSNBC anchors Chris Matthews and David Shuster have had to apologize publicly for using language that was particularly insulting to women on their shows. Matthews basically said Clinton's career as an elected official came courtesy of sympathy generated by her husband's philandering and Shuster wondered if daughter Chelsea was being "pimped out" by her parents in making calls to celebrities and superdelegates.

In all three instances, you have people making boneheaded statements using inappropriate language. On one level, all these guys seemed to forget that they weren't bellied up to the bar with their fellow reporters after a deadline, but speaking to national audiences on professional broadcasts.

But beyond that, the presence of a black man and woman as important presidential candidates is forcing these guys to rethink how they talk about politics. And some of them are failing miserably.

Another big sign: How most media outlets talk about race. Beyond making predictions and observations about how black and white people are voting, I haven't seen much talk about race -- which is surprising for a contest which could produce America's first black president.

Instead, the media and political insiders seem to be playing a game of hot potato -- each side is waiting for the other to talk about race issues in a way which gives them license to speak, too. The most recent example of this odd dynamic was Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell's comments to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's editorial board talking down the possibility of the state's voters supporting Obama.

My pal and PG edit board member Tony Norman quotes Rendell saying: "You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate," he said bluntly. Our eyes only met briefly, perhaps because the governor wanted to spare the only black guy in the room from feeling self-conscious for backing an obvious loser. "I believe, looking at the returns in my election, that had Lynn Swann [2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate] been the identical candidate that he was --well-spoken [note: Mr. Rendell did not call the brother "articulate"], charismatic, good-looking -- but white instead of black, instead of winning by 22 points, I would have won by 17 or so."

Leave aside that he's comparing the candidacy of a black Republican football star who had never held public office to a sitting Democratic Senator who has already won a number of tough primary battles. Rendell later complained on Matthews' show Hardball that it was the media which was obsessed with race and that nothing he said would have helped Clinton, anyway.

Riiight. So far, Obama has avoided race talk by confounding assumptions. Think he can't get white votes? Then he'll win primaries in Idaho, North Dakota and Connecticut. Think he's not black enough? Then he'll win 80 percent of the black vote in South Carolina (frankly, I think a lot of black people just wanted to see whether he had a serious chance. Once he won Iowa, they were ready to line up).

But I do think that one question I asked in a story last year has barely been addressed: how will black people feel if Obama doesn't champion black issues in ways they expect? And that's partially because the mostly-white press corps covering the campaigns can't figure out how to ask the question without getting criticized.

I took some criticism of my own after writing a blog post about the lack of diversity among those covering the election. Because I cited MSNBC, I heard from folks at NBC News including Keith Olbermann, who felt I was being unfair by not noting all the female and black correspondents and guest pundits they had on air.

Fair enough. But the anchors are the focus of most political coverage, especially on cable TV. They direct the conversation, they highlight subjects or ignore them, they choose the guests and set context and they ultimately serve as the voice of the channel.

On MSNBC, that list of election night anchors includes Olbermann, Matthews, Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, Joe Scarborough and Tim Russert. That seems to echo MSNBC's general lineup, in which every show hosted by a name anchor is a white male: Tucker Carlson, Dan Abrams, Matthews, Olbermann and Scarborough.

On CNN, the evening lineup is Wolf Blitzer, Lou Dobbs, Larry King and Anderson Cooper, though NBC expatriot Campbell Brown has an 8 p.m. show coming at some point. On Fox the afternoon and evening anchor crew is Shepard Smith, Neil Cavuto, John Gibson, Brit Hume, Hannity and Colmes and Bill O'Reilly, with Greta Van Susteren adding a little gender diversity at least.

But if we do wind up welcoming a President Obama or Clinton, all these folks will have to learn a new way of talking about a great many things. I'm starting to think that the candidates aren't the only people facing some serious tests this election season.

I can see Nappy's comment, but not Rabel's. Obama is not pushing God the way Bush did. The analogy is more that Obama himself is attracting a lot of praise, not that he is riding on God's coattails.

Robert Creamer Editorial

To Vilify Obama for his Ability to Inspire is to Ignore the Principal Lesson of the Last Three Decades of American Politics
Posted February 19, 2008 | 11:30 AM (EST)

It's one thing for supporters of Hillary Clinton to make the case that her experience in Washington politics would make her a better president than Barack Obama. But it's quite another to actually vilify Obama's ability to inspire as a "cult of the personality" or "nothing but words."

It is particularly disturbing when serious progressive writers who should know better repeat this attack on Obama's inspirational abilities. It demonstrates a failure to grasp the principal lesson of the last thirty years of American politics.

In fact, it is precisely the absence of inspiration in progressive politics that has kept Progressives on the political defensive for decades.

That's because to inspire people, Progressives have to appeal to something much more important than endless lists of policies and programs. To inspire people, Progressives have to appeal to our values and to our vision for the future.

John Kerry did not lose the presidency because he lacked solid, progressive policies and programs. His campaign rolled out new ten point programs practically every other day. He lost because the Republicans erroneously convinced a significant number of persuadable voters that John Kerry lacked core values -- that he was a flip-flopper.

Right after the last election I struck up a conversation with a New Jersey cab driver. I asked him, "What do you think of Jon Corzine?" "Good guy, tough guy, stands up for what he believes," came the reply. "What do you think of George Bush?" "Good guy, stands up for what he believes," he said. "What do you think of John Kerry?" I asked. "Phoney... a flip-flopper," he responded.

His evaluation of these political leaders had nothing to do with positions or policy papers. The Republicans had convinced him that Kerry didn't have core values.

From 1932 until the mid 1970s -- at least in our domestic politics -- progressive values provided the dominant frame for mainstream political debate. They defined political "common sense." By 1980, the Reagan revolution had changed that -- and rightwing values have framed the American political debate for the thirty years since.

That's largely because Progressives went into a "defensive crouch." Our candidates advocated "Republican-lite" positions. We refused to debate the fundamental differences between the progressive and radical conservative values. Chief among these differences is the central question of whether we're all in this together, or all in this alone.

Often our leaders retreated to the discussion of small, incremental policy initiatives that presumed the right wing's assumptions about the primacy of "private markets" over people, and the innate inferiority of democratically elected governmental institutions compared to corporations that are in fact unaccountable to the public interest.

Beginning in 2005, our successful defense of Social Security, the obvious failure of NeoCon foreign policy, and the spectacle of Katrina -- began to change that. Progressives began to emerge from their defensive crouch and stand up proudly for progressive values once again.

Then came Obama, with his ability to inspire Americans to devote themselves to our values in a way that resonates with average people. His self-confident appeal to hope and possibility -- his "yes we can" -- have captured the imagination of millions of Americans. His ability to inspire has allowed him to simultaneously engage swing "persuadable" voters and the millions of stay-at-home "mobilizable" voters who would support progressive candidates if they could just be motivated to vote.

People want to be inspired. Inspiration is about making people feel empowered to be more than they are. They want to be inspired because they desperately want meaning in their lives. They want to be part of something larger than themselves and they want to feel that they can play a significant part in that larger purpose.

Meaning comes from being devoted to something outside of yourself -- to a cause, to a person, to a religion, to your art.

That's why "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" is so resonant -- so inspirational.

The Right has understood this need for meaning--and has addressed it -- with calls for devotion to the "Conservative Movement," to fundamentalist religion, to xenophobic nationhood.

For three decades, Progressives have often tried to compete by offering the bloodless alternative of a "policy agenda" -- and many times a timid one at that.

For thirty seven years I have devoted much of my professional life to campaigns to implement progressive policy initiatives. So I certainly agree that we need sound, bold policies. Once in office, a new president must in fact deliver on real, concrete policy.

But to change policy in a fundamental way requires more than good programs. It requires a progressive realignment of the American political debate. It requires that we redefine the value frame for American politics. And that requires inspirational leadership that proudly affirms our values.

Just as important, it requires inspirational leadership that can mobilize millions of Americans to demand the enactment of a progressive program once a new president is in place. Frederick Douglass was right. "Power surrenders nothing without a struggle. It never has. It never will." Progressives won't win legislative battles with an insider game.

In 1993 we had a Democratic President and Democratic Congress, but we lost the battle for universal health care. What we needed then, and what we need now, is a massive national mobilization to pass universal health care, change our labor laws, enact campaign finance reform, provide universal access to higher education and preschool, end global warming and change our foreign policy.

Leadership, more than anything else, is about mobilizing people into action. People take action when they feel empowered -- when they are inspired. They will not take action simply because they are "convinced" we are right. They will take action when they are motivated by inspiration to be a part of an historic endeavor.

Inspiring leadership is not just "another quality" that would be "nice" to have in a president. And it is certainly not to be assailed as a "cult of the personality."

America needs inspiring leadership to re-establish the preeminence of progressive values; to define a progressive vision for its future; to mobilize Americans to enact a progressive agenda -- and most importantly -- to convert this historic opportunity into generational progressive political realignment.

No one knows for sure what either a Clinton or an Obama presidency would mean for America. But I believe that Barack Obama presents us with a candidacy more likely to provide the inspirational leadership that we need, than any politician since Robert Kennedy's quest for the White House ended that June night in 1968.

The fight clearly has come down between Obama and McCain and so far I think Obama has the edge because of McCain's caving in on the right wing agenda has dismayed his independent supporters.

McCain is using Hillary's words against Obama; the question is; will it work on anybody who never would have voted for Obama in the first place? I doubt it.

.

John McCain's Feb. 19 Speech

Like the republican policies have worked. Last I looked when we had a democrat in office; we had good years economically; when we have a republican; we have bad years. I think most Americans have done with being fooled by the republicans with their empty talk of no taxes and fighting enemies who are not current enemies. Cutting taxes for the wealthiest and corporations just put the burden on the states to raise taxes on middle class and the working poor to sustain government perks such as schools for our kids and highways and needful things like that. Fighting Iraq distracted us from our real enemies which is and has been the real AQ which is mainly has always been in Pakistan and now again in Afghanistan. Obama has been stressing this and I think it will go over to normal working class Americans. I am cautiously optimistic about Obama winning the general election and becoming the next President of the US. Boy; wouldn't that be something?

Obama = Yes We Can!

McCain = No We Can't


Yup, that'll work in November