Does John McCain own the Washington Post or just their gonads?
I think it’s the responsibility of the media to point out where candidates have changed positions, but today’s effort to do so looks like it was authored by the disgraced Karl Rove.
First, it was titled to suggest Obama was a hypocrite, but the article also lists Clinton’s inconsistencies. Apparently John McCain has been a model of integrity and truthtelling because he’s not even mentioned in this too obviously partisan slash and burn attack. The WaPo writer - whose byline is deliberately excluded to protect the reputation of the propaganda pusher - represents ‘balance’ as it exists in a soul that’s obviously owned by the GOP.
Second, Obama adding a qualifier to a public financing pledge is a reasonable modification, not a flip-flop. Clinton’s change on NCLB is not a campaign reversal but simply a rejection of the way Bush implemented the law. Bush’s co-sponsor, Ted Kennedy, has echoed those complaints. Those are just two clarifications of where the hit piece is wrong. There are more.
But the bottom line is why is an anonymous hit piece being done by WaPo? Have they been bought off by McCain or is he threatening their families? Clearly, something very, very dirty’s going on.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
For what it’s worth, the Obama and Clinton “flip flop lists” are side by side on the physical paper page. They are sidebars (well, kind of a “center island bar”) to the Michael Dobbs story “Democrats Equally Adept and Shifting Positions”. I suppose it comes down to whether that is a story that is inherently biased by focusing on Dems, or whether it is reasonable given that the Dem primary is still underway and voters may want this kind of comparison.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
uh … isn’t the republican primary still going on? hasn’t huckabee said enough times already (even i understand it) that he is going to take it to the convention? hello?
i swear to god, these media folks don’t seem to even read their own newspapers/watch their own tv programs.