Outrage. Disappointment. Righteous Indignation. Those three words epitomize the disposition of the collective media for the balance of last week. The reaction was so fierce that the average political observer would have thought that the Presidential candidate who won the popular vote was then denied the Presidency. Or, if American troops serving abroad were woefully neglected post combat in the largest military hospital in the country.
Wait, back to reality. That is a terrible analogy.
Instead, all of those aforementioned emotions aptly describe the media outcry in response to Hillary Clinton's comments last week when she defended staying in the Presidential Race until June because an unpredictable event could occur e.g. when RFK was assassinated in Los Angeles during the 1968 Democractic Primary.
The media responded swiftly, and with a collective force reserved especially for these crises that have little to do with substantive issues. Even the normally restrained New York Times derided Clinton's comment as "nauseous", and dismissed her mea culpa as a "tedious, non-apology apology" Many organizations went further, and exploited the timing of the comments to demand Clinton exit the race summarily.
Yet, despite all of the furor, Clinton's remarks, while insensitive, will hardly endanger the health of Barack Obama, as many of her critics will allege. It's almost farcical to believe that a would-be assassin of the junior Senator from Illinois would be somehow catalyzed by an off-hand, yet historically inaccurate remark by Senator Clinton. The situation is tantamount to if Tip O'Neill would have been blamed for John Hinckley's attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan in 1981. To think that would be absurd. Thus, Senator Clinton deserves a similar benefit of the doubt.
In actuality, the intensity and collectivity of the outcry tells you more about the priorities of our mainstream media than it ever would about the tact (or lack there of) on Hillary Clinton's part. Yet again, the media mobilizes against a politician over a remark that, at best, can be considered tangential, and more likely, a non-sequitur, when it comes to dealing with the litany of problems confronting the American experiment in 2008.
Yet again, substantive issues (and there are plenty of them) are shelved in favor of a more "sensational", yet entirely petty story. For perspective, let's review some of the "controversies" that have dominated the political landscape the last few months:
1. Barack Obama's Bowling Adventure: Who cares if Stephen Hawking could probably out bowl Obama? The way this story was repeated ad naseum for weeks on end, a foreign observer might legitimately believe that a candidate's ability on the lanes trumps their experience on foreign policy or legislative proposals. A downright pathetic display by the media as a whole.
2. Hillary Clinton's Voice: Fine, her voice is quite shrill. Yes, hearing her speak is akin to what it must be like when Fran Drescher orgasms. However, what can this possibility have to do with anything remotely salient to the election?
3. Barack Obama's Flag Pin: Judging by the "outrage" about this issue, a bare lapel makes you a terrorist. Easily the most pointless and manufactured story of the political season.
4. Guilt by Association: So Barack Obama serves on a board with William Ayers. Somehow the media, albeit led on this issue by the right wing skulduggery of Drudge and his minions, has translated that loose affiliation as some sort of entente with designs on domestic terrorism. This patently illogical guilt by association method is disingenuous and serves merely to distract. No other component of the media discourse has thus far disgraced its members as much as this tactic.
The similarity between each of these non-issues has been its' collective purpose to distract the electorate from the pressing issues at hand. Instead of debating how to fix Social Security before it becomes insolvent in 2019, or how to extract our forces from the calamity in Iraq without thereby igniting a civil war, the predominant political debate, as driven by the mainstream media entities, focuses on the personality flaws of the candidates, or trifling matters like those listed above.
The reasoning behind this journalistic dereliction of duty is not happenstance, or mere incompetence. In fact, the media has instead made a concerted effort to distract the public from the pressing issues, irrespective of the fact that polling data emphatically indicates that voters want discussion of health care, Iraq and the recession. They have done so because they have been so demonstrably wrong when dealing with issues of substance in the last 8 years, that to maintain the last shred of credibility, they shy away from tackling salient issues.
This phenomenon is yet another devastating aftershock of the fallout from the war in Iraq. Throughout the run up to the invasion in early 2003, the media kow-towed to both Administration interests, and to the pervasive spectre of being deemed "un-patriotic".
Unsurprisingly, now that the Iraq war has proven to be an unabated debacle, the NY Times, Washington Post and other foremost media entities are eager to throw their culpability for assisting the invasion under the rug. As a result, their propensity to confront the litany of serious issues that their readers inevitable deal with quotidian is minimal, at best. In many ways, the pendulum has swung completely for these media outlets. After initially being brazen and fulsome in their endorsement of the invasion in 2003 despite sizable evidence that spoke to absence of WMD's, 5 years later their excessive cautiousness and sensationalism not foments inaction, or worse, misinformation within the citizenry they should be working to enlighten.
Essentially, the propensity for ignorance and diversion takes a page right out of the Bush 43 playbook. Throughout the last 8 years, the Bush Administration has consistently employed a strategy of disinformation and diversion to abut news that did not fit their agenda. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has documented at length the Administration's manipulation of the Terror Alert System to contravene political news that does not conform to their agenda. Just last week, in the midst of the uproar over President Bush likening Barack Obama's willing to negotiate, or at least meet, with Iran to Neville Chamberlain's "appeasement", the White House foisted some baseless charges upon NBC News for "selective editing" of Mr. Bush's interview with Richard Engel.
Adopting the tried and true tactics of George Bush and his cohort is about as far as possible from what the country needs, given his heinous track record.
In essence, the fear of being disastrously wrong yet again has thus precluded the country from being able to rely on their media outlets to speak truth to power, no matter how difficult the times may be for the Average Joe.
The lesson to be learned is that the reader/viewer now finds himself with the responsibility to wade through the morass of petty stories to distill the candidates down to their issue positions, not their wardrobe or the disposition of their favorite clergy. After all, in the end, voting based on your feelings concerning Hillary's pantsuits or Michelle Obama will merely lead to a replication of the last 8 years in the form of a John McCain presidency.
However, if there are those out there who refuse to acknowledge these facts, and persist in voting for a candidate based on valence issues, or petty personality-based attacks, I do have a wonderful set of flag pins I'd love to sell you.
Back later this week, that is, unless the Apocalypse arrives early as a result of Israel deciding to resume negotiations with Syria.
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