Posted By: Dauric on Monday, June 30, 2008
It's disingenuous to focus so much attention on Mr. Obama being "Malleable", when McCain has been doing his own silly-putty impersonation as a presidential candidate.If you're going to be a cynic, especially about "Media Swooners", then apply your cynicism equally, lest you become that which you despise.$0.02
Posted By: mb on Monday, June 30, 2008
To Dauric- McCain has "flip-flopped" on several subjects. But the difference is he doesn't pretend like he's not. McCain doesn't say "this is what I have always believed" despite his position being different. McCain doesn't "clarify" his position from something obviously different. McCain doesn't say multiple times and sign a paper saying he will do one thing (b/c that one thing is a good working system) and then come back saying he won't do it (b/c that one thing is broken). McCain doesn't run a campaign saying he wants to unilaterally renegotiate NAFTA despite never intending to (and telling foreign leaders that). McCain doesn't try to form foreign policy around a debate gaffe b/c he doesn't want to admit he made an understandable mistake.What McCain does is acknowledge where he has changed and explain why (except in the Bush Tax cuts- i can't remember him issuing a direct explanation for that). He doesn't play pretend... he doesn't try to bamboozle. my 2 cents.ps- concerning media swooners- McCain has received the benefit over the years from the mainstream (left leaning) media b/c he often challenged Republican policy when he felt compelled. But to think for even one second that he is getting an easier ride than Obama is just ridiculous.
My point is one of journalistic ethics, not politics. If you're making the case that one politician is guilty of some attribute (Ie: "Malleability"), when both/all candidates exhibit that attribute to similar degrees, it does no service to not critically examine both parties in comparison. Failure to examine obvious comparisons leads to appearances of undue favoritism and presenting a skewed image of reality. We're leaning more and more on commentary rather than on reporting for our news information. Newscasters fail to fact-check and hold people who speak in our media to any kind of reality-check. The information we base our decisions on is increasingly skewed to trigger emotional and instinctual responses rather than rational ones. Our politicians are not being presented to us as competing statesmen, but rather as product packages.Mr. Cagle's Post is dedicated to the principle that commentators and public discourse can be as effective as any group of reporters on the scene. While there's no-one stopping us from making this swap as a people if we are shifting the burden of informing the citizenry to commentators, then we the citizenry should demand that our commentators take on the responsibility of journalistic ethics.$0.02
Posted By: geoff on Monday, June 30, 2008
mb: McCain is getting an easier ride. His ties to this Hagee guy have not been plastered all over the press the way they tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, tie him to his pastor, etc. Has anyone looked at Mrs. McCain's history of drug addiction the way they're scrutinising Michelle Obama's hand gestures?But other than that: what you're saying is, it's OK for McCain to flip-flop because he never was and no one ever expected him to be anything but an insincere "Beltway insider" anyway (and maybe a lot of his audience would still cheer if he raised the chocolate ration from 25 to 20 grams [re-read "1984" if you have trouble with that]), but if Obama decides to be flexible in response to a changing situation on the ground, he should really "stay the course" (i.e. like Bush), because he has somehow raised our expectations to unreasonable limits?
Posted By: WB on Saturday, July 26, 2008
I can believe that morphing society and Obamas class is understanderable, as a anti-bush campaighns demand excelence, integrity, and better judgmental approuch's too.
