The
days when network news reporters showered John McCain with good
press are long, long gone. With just three weeks until Election
Day and Barack Obama leading in the polls, network reporters now
pivot between outrage and disdain for McCain’s campaign tactics,
acting as one-sided umpires calling foul after foul against the
Republicans.
“Next we turn to presidential politics and what is becoming an
increasingly nasty and bitter contest....The McCain campaign has
unleashed a blistering barrage on Obama,” ABC anchor Charles
Gibson rued on the October 6 World News, referring to a McCain
speech criticizing Obama as unready for the presidency. Reporter
Ron Claiborne called it McCain’s “fiercest, most sustained,
harshest attack on Barack Obama of the entire campaign.”
“It’s getting ugly,” CBS’s Harry Smith announced that same day
on the Early Show. “With a flurry of new negative ads and
attacks, it’s clear the gloves are now completely off,” reporter
Chip Reid agreed, citing McCain’s “new bare knuckle strategy,
attacking Barack Obama’s character.” On that night’s CBS Evening
News, Jeff Greenfield suggested the Republicans hoped to keep
voters from voting: “There’s a theory that says ‘make the
campaign ugly, and people won’t turn out to vote.’”
“It’s hard to tell which one’s sinking faster: the stock market,
or the tone of this campaign,” CBS’s Jeff Glor scolded on the
October 7 Early Show.
“Attacking your opponent’s character [is] nothing new in
politics,” ABC’s David Wright admitted on Thursday’s Good
Morning America. In what was ostensibly a news story, Wright
editorialized against McCain: “In the last couple of days, the
Republicans have been laying it on thick, chumming the
waters.... It’s a full-bore attack on Obama’s character,
suggesting he’s yellow, disloyal and doesn’t belong....In the
primaries, John McCain insisted he wasn’t going to run a
campaign like this, and that’s left some of his supporters to
wonder why he’s doing it now.” [Audio/video (1:54):
Windows
Media (7:04 MB) and
MP3 audio (650 kB)]Every four years, liberal reporters pose as non-partisans
scolding all negative campaign tactics, but they always aim most
of their fire at the Republican ticket as unfairly besmirching
the Democrats.
Polls this year show most Americans know the
press is rooting for an Obama victory — a fact only underscored
by the media’s howling outrage against any criticisms of their
favorite candidate. For more, see the October
7,
8
and
10 CyberAlerts.
