The Obama campaign eighty-sixes reporters from three newspapers that, coincidentally, bucked the messianic tide and endorsed McCain:
“It feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth,” quipped John Solomon, executive editor of the Times, which lost its seat after three years of travel with the candidate and just 72 hours after endorsing McCain.
That newspaper’s website this afternoon headlined a report that Obama spent nearly $700,000 in U.S. campaign donations just on staging and lights for that Berlin victory rally last summer and those 200,000 Germans who can’t vote over here. Gee, you could dress more than four Republican vice presidential candidates with that much money.
What’s not to like in that news for the Obama campaign?
The Dallas paper reported no evidence its plane departure was political. Think about it: Why would a political campaign take retribution on reporters for a decision made by their publication’s separate editorial boards? The publications, after all, pay their own way on the charters.
That would be a cheesy hardball — and quite possibly counterproductive — Chicago kind of thing for a frontrunner to do, especially one on a national unity ticket. A candidate’s organization would have to reflect an enormous ego and over-confidence to pull something like that.
Why, yes. Yes, it would.
That, and a serious disrespect for other divergent points of view:
Next thing you know such a campaign might urge supporters to clog a radio station’s phone lines or e-mail boxes just because it gave air-time to an Obama critic.
And it’s certainly not the kind of hands-across-the-aisle, bipartisan change we need and/or can believe in a national capital that could use a large dose of both.
If the campaign reacts this poorly to criticism now (and remember, the reporters don’t make the endorsements – the papers’ editorial boards do), imagine the snit he’ll throw when Putin and Ahmadinejad take off the gloves…
Still, this even may be hugely important, and in ways far beyond the mere exposure of Obama’s brittleness and petulance. He’s bitten the hand that’s fed him; the media is all about getting strokes from those in power; when those in power turn on them, perhaps the media will pull its’ collective head out.
Just a theory.
Whoa. Did the wind just get chillier? Let’s get a weather report from Sarandon and Robbins because, after all, you don’t have to be a weather man to tell which way the wind blows.
But let’s keep things in perspective: Obama may have kicked the reporters off of his magic pumpkin, but at least he didn’t call any of them an “asshole” like George W. did. Lord knows, that would have really gotten the media up in arms.