The Looming Convention and the Media

Republicans have long complained of the "liberal" media and its bias against their platform and candidates. But as I have been writing here, this is a largely false myth based predominantly on the very wedge social issues that elections are so often fought over. Ignored is the fact that the media has become increasingly complicit with conservative ideology by supporting the notion that all government is corrupt, that America has a responsibility to do whatever is necessary to maintain its security, that the market is implicitly superior to government intervention (with some challenge in the past few years -- but certainly supportive of the "a few bad apples" discourse that dominated the corporate corruption scandals of a few years ago), by embracing the celebrity and consumer culture and by fully supporting, and driving, the notion of politics as spectacle and all politicians as corrupt.

But the true conservative media bias goes beyond all this. Research has shown that in 2000 there were far more negative stories about Gore than Bush. The media fully embraced the notion of Gore as a "liar," even as the leading evidence turned out to be false. During the recount, they embraced the Republican discourse that we needed a quick end to the process even as most Americans were willing to wait and ensure the real winner won (particularly as half a million voted for the presumptive loser). Four years later the uncritical coverage of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth helped sink Kerry -- who I would argue the press essentially chose as the candidate when they turned on Howard Dean. Now we see a similar trend emerging with Obama.

This article from the "liberal" New York Times shows both the cynicism of the mainstream media and the subtle forms of bias I think exist across the board (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/us/politics/18convention.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1219072258-9d9uRMRaN1atFtdWAxORQQ&pagewanted=print).

Here is the opening: "One of the first images prime-time viewers will see of the Democratic National Convention next week is that of Michelle Obama, who will begin the four-day introduction of her husband, and her family, on her terms.
Like everything else at the orchestrated gala, that is by design."

This has become a common trope of the media. The "orchestrated" or "constructed" nature of all political events. While this is clearly true, it is because of the media that politics has become such a tightly scripted and spectacle oriented exercise. They demand this construction of a tightly crafted image and persona that they can then describe in simple terms. And then they critique that process and themselves for the emptiness that this process has become. At the same time, there seems to be more scrutiny of this image construction among Democrats than Republicans. There are certainly a lot of negative stories about McCain, but few that actually question the construction of him as both a good conservative stalwart and a rebel without a party. This has been left to the blogosphere and leftist press. The same can be said of Bush, who bought the ranch so prominently displayed in the campaign the year before he ran, and acted like an Average Joe, even though he was a former presidents son who had spent most of his youth in elite East Coast Schools.

A few lines down the article comes the subtle bias that troubles me the most:

"The introduction of a candidate is a task facing every presidential campaign, but one that carries unique challenges for Mr. Obama because of his race and questions about his patriotism, values and faith that Republicans have already vigorously sought to raise and exploit."

By making the questions about his patriotism, values and faith precede the presumptive subject of those who are doing the questioning, one is left to assume these questions transcend the Republican party and are in fact legitimate. They become the questions of an election that would otherwise be about real issues like the war, economy and government corruption. But just as the Republican party has vigorously sought to raise and exploit these issues -- through the media -- so has the media played along with little question: even taking the celebrity issue more seriously than seemed reasonable.

Another article, in the New Republic today (http://www.tnr.com/toc/story.html?id=5607f0de-44eb-4606-af0e-99029525ebb2), complains that Obama may be too cool for most Americans, showing an aloofness that could ultimately hurt him. I think that very coolness under fire is exactly what we need after a president that has trouble putting a sentence together, that said a number of absurdly stupid things on the international stage and that has done more harm to America's reputation overseas than anyone in recent memory. Yet this trope is again out of the Republican handbook for winning an election without any superiority of platform or message -- just make Americans doubt Obama enough to choose the safe choice.

More on this as examples emerge . . .