Bloodless Coup

People talk about end times and the antichrist because it adds depth and significance to their current temporary struggles in a way that unifies the temporary and the eternal. When Michelle Obama started talking about how Barack would fix America's broken souls, they opened the door to larger than life criticism out of their larger than life presentation. Obama's own speeches refer to his campaign as representative of the civil rights struggle, those who overcame the great depression, etc.

Yet how a single news story about emails compares to a preponderence of negative news stories about McCain and how a comparison by one of Baltar's disenfranchised columnists compares to recgonizable media personalities talking about tingly feelings going up their leg when they hear Obama leaves me as confused as Warren McNabb after a tie.

What I said was that according to research, the media was twice as tough on McCain as it was on Barack. Barack presented himself as the cult of personality, so it fits that his criticisms would be focused on that presentation, he defined it. Your assumption seems to be that if you can find a single negative story about Obama, that disproves the hypothesis that the media is biased against McCain. But the people who actually researched thousands of such articles found that for every negative article on Obama, there were two negative attacks on McCain.

"Barack presented himself as the cult of personality" - that's nuttier than a Payday bar - Obama repeatedly (again and again and again and again ...) noted that the campaign was not about him. If there was an "only him" or "cult of biography" candidate it was McCain.

And while I know you love making assumptions about us Morris, it'd be best if you didn't so often as your assumptions often turn out to be grossly inaccurate. See, me, I thought this thread was about a major media outlet taking crazy people seriously. You decided to respond to this in terms of McCain being a victim - even though he isn't mentioned in any way in this post.

"But the people who actually researched thousands of such articles found that for every negative article on Obama, there were two negative attacks on McCain."

And here we see a great example of bias in action. What, don't see it yet? Look again. Still?

Oh, okay: "for every negative article on Obama, there were two negative attacks on McCain"

First of all, either we're measuring negative articles, and you're still non-responsive to how it's possible that complex national campaigns run by complex individuals attempting to address the issues of our time can ever possibly come out as precisely equally blameworthy such that a fair and balanced (ahem) media, uninfected by human imperfection, would have legitimate negative articles in exactly equal number (right down to the column inch and word) about each candidate. Or your talking about attacks, in which case you're making a subjective distinction that your category mistake reveals the absurdity of even trying to conduct.

The bottom line is any reasonably centrist fact-checking organization came down harshly against McCain as by far the more disinguenuous campaign. And as well, as noted earlier, the campaign that dedicated a far greater proportion of its resources to talking about how awful the other guy was than the other guy did to the same. We're talking about a campaign that had very little to say for itself, against a campaign that ran 2 minute ads that didn't mention the opponent or the sitting president and that invited viewers of all stripes and inclinations repeatedly to view it's full plan, and prominently provided a URL to that same plan and left it on-screen for fully half of the ad, notwithstanding that it wasn't the most attractive or slick thing to do, because they clearly actually wanted people to, you know, read the plan.

McCain deserved more negative coverage. On balance, he ran the more negative campaign, and had less to offer in defense of his candidacy. Only an irresponsible media would strive to feign equality where there is none. Lucky for you, the media mostly does strive to feign equality. Sorry the math didn't work out better, but an honest, engaged media that wasn't afraid of right-wing histrionic would have said negative things about McCain at a far greater ratio than 2:1. You should be applauding their restraint.