Republican presidential hopeful John McCain apparently feels just a little jilted by the media lately given all the attention being paid to the trip by Democratic White House rival Barack Obama to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe.
All three broadcast networks sent their anchors overseas to interview Obama during his travels. McCain has been maintaining his domestic campaign schedule, raising money and attending rallies in Maine, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.
McCain this week also tussled with the New York Times over an opinion piece he penned to respond to an op-ed Obama wrote about the Iraq war that ran in the newspaper. The Times sought revisions to his proposed piece, a request that McCain’s campaign rejected.
“The media is in love with Barack Obama,” the McCain campaign said in an e-mail to his supporters. “If it wasn’t so serious, it would be funny.”
To generate a little of his own buzz, the Arizona senator’s campaign pieced together clips of television news talking heads (lots of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews) professing how enamored they were of Obama and discussing the media’s purported love affair with the Democratic candidate.
They put the video to the music of two different love songs — Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and “My Eyes Adored You.” They asked supporters to vote for their favorite, and the campaign said the winning one would be aired.
Is the media infatuated with Obama or covering a legitimate news story?
Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.
Photo credit: Top: Reuters/Brian Snyder (McCain in Maine July 21); Bottom: Reuters/Ali Jarekji (Obama in Amman, Jordan, July 22)
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It has never been the job of the Opinion editor of a newspaper to tell the submitter what they should be writing about.
- Posted by John AbbottThe Opinion Editors job is to edit for spelling, grammar, and sentence structure to make that person’s opinion more readable… not to tell them what they should be writing about.
That’s why this stinks.
All great powers in the world have fallen, we are next. We are a country of Whimps, most want something for nothing, why work when you can sue someone. Why have our laws when they are not enforced. Pass more laws seems to be the plan of our Law Makers. With Obama the end will just come sooner. The only change he cares about is to be elected.
- Posted by SteveIt is shameful to see the media’s over exposure of Barack Obama foreign tour. Senator McCain, stay focus on your message…do not loose your mind.Be strong !
- Posted by Guy BlaiseLike the Bateke of Congo say “Whatever the speed of a naked man, he would never loose his testicles”
Guy Blaise
Gee, so the media is in love with an exciting candidate with ideas that the majority of Americans (and it seems the the rest of the world) seem to agree with!
Get over it!! Seems to me that Obama is just running a much better campaign than McCain. Hey McCain camp — grow up, quit your whining (ala Gramm) and just deal with it.
- Posted by lucasThe media were in love with Bill Clinton and now they want to ride Obama too. They can do wrong. It reminds me of all the German hysteria for Hitler. They were crazy for the guy. Hitler’s campaign was also all about change.
The great wizard Obama will wave his Obama-wand and solve all problems. What joke.
- Posted by JBI read both Obama and McCain’s op-ed pieces for NYT and must say McCain had every right to at least try to retaliate. Obama took shots at McCain every chance he could and continualy asserted the McCain is Bush proxy. Why was this acceptable and not McCain’s response?
“Unlike Senator John McCain…..”
“Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are…”
“They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,…”
“But this is not a strategy for success…”
“…misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq…”
“Unlike Senator McCain, I would…”
“those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history … ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.”
- Posted by ChrisThe NY Times revision request is not about liberal bias at all. The GOP has been using emotionally charged phrases such as “stay the course” and “victory in Iraq” for years. As the party has refused to define what, precisely, “the course” is (presumably it’s a course _to_ somewhere) or what would constitute “victory in Iraq,” these terms have just served as a smokescreen to confuse the public. The NY Times is simply doing its job to prevent vacuous rhetoric from paralyzing the electorate. At long last the war-hawks are being called on their deception.
It’s profoundly irritating, honestly, that Obama is dogged for the charisma and energy with which he proposes real policy when its his opponents who have made political careers on deceitful policy proposals.
- Posted by John PateThe media is market driven. Obama on a world tour is exciting. We want to see Obama in action on the world stage, we want to see him interact with foreign leaders, we want to see how foreign leaders react to him, we want to see how people around the world respond to him, and we want to see how he thinks about issues in these sections of the world. We can watch Obama visiting all these dynamic places and interacting with these important decision-makers, or watch John McCain in a townhall meeting with a few local senior citizens. Which station do you think we are going to watch? Which newspaper story do you think we are going to read?
After all, it was McCain who challenged him to take the world tour, now that it is in progress, he starts crying that he is getting not attention?
The press doesn’t care about Obama. He merely brings all of us to the press, like few have done before. We have broken the meter on cable news, and anything that comes out from the trip is going to be read!
So lets be real here.
- Posted by NancyWhat John McCain doesn’t understand that it is not the media that has a love affair with Barack Obama, It is the American people who have a love affair with Barack Obama.
- Posted by RonDoes McCain actually believe that the media favors Obama, or is he just dishonestly re-articulating the conservative fantasy of our media’s “liberal bias”? After all, John McCain is a principle-less, flip-flopping man who has publicly admitted that he will lie about his beliefs and opinions in order to deceive voters into supporting him (http://mediamatters.org/items/200801180 009 has the details on his Confederate flag flip-flop). Yet this supposedly liberal media wants to believe that John McCain is actually a principled maverick that support a position even if doing so costs him the support of voters.
- Posted by Eric LBias? Are you kidding? The media would have us all calling him President Obama if they could get away with it. I am simply disgusted with the media bias. I wouldn’t wipe my backside with some of these newspapers, they are completely unreputable.
If you want unbiased news coverage, you have to really look hard, but the biased news coverage is all too easy to spot. Why should I trust them to tell me the truth when the only thing they’re interested in writing is their opinion?
As if I ccouldn’t tell the difference between the two. For shame!
Obama is going to lose this election by a wide margin. The press is scared.
- Posted by PennyThe media has had their nose up Obama’s butt from the beginning. Most of what comes out in print is hot air.
- Posted by JanYes, the media is madly in love with Barak, planning their days and nights around him like teenagers with their first infatuation. It is Puppy Love, the kind of love where reality and logic to not matter. “Ah, I’m in love, I can’t sleep unless he looks at me, pays me a glance….” They text their friends, “OMG, he talked to me!”
Media advertisers just love this Puppy Love phenomenon! Obama appeals to the same set that buys Bratz dolls for their kids, and spend as much as they can on their kids’ wishes and wants. (Media, above all, are capitalists, but for their socialist reporters).
The New York Times is suffering readership losses and need to appeal to the Bratz doll set, nuff said about their rejection of McCain. ABC, CBS and ABC have lost so much ratings, they are also excited about this Puppy Love phenomenon. Reporters? They need their jobs. Period.
One can only hope that the adult American public sees Obama for what he is: Nobody.
- Posted by LynI thought it about Obama vs Hillary and now it’s happening with Obama vs McCain.
The media has already picked their winner.
- Posted by michaelgthatcher, the problem with McCain is that he doesn’t do anything except complain about Obama and repeat the same things over and over. The press cannot be expected to give McCain equal time, because Obama just has more energy to travel and do newsworthy things. You want press coverage, you need to actually go places and do things.
- Posted by BosleyThe answer is “Yes” the media is head over heals in love with Obama. Only the rabid ACORN, anti-war, psuedo-intellectual Obamamaniac would answer otherwise. What really galls me is that we even contribute tax dollars to PBS for their starry-eyed coverage of Obama. So much for the notion of a critical press that helps vet the qualifications and suitability of candidates for major office. We have now crossed over to a purely entertainment based media and, unfortunately, our leading candidate for President is running like a contestant on STAR SEARCH. God help us!
- Posted by BillMcCain himself made a big deal over Obama’s foreign trip. McCain should shut up about Obama if he doesn’t want the press to talk about Obama so much. Whiners are losers.
- Posted by BosleyOh, waaaaah, waaaaah, waaaaah. I knew kids like McBush in junior high school. They had nothing to say, no promise, no accomplishments, no friends–so they cried that everyone ‘liked’ good students better. Well, maybe they did. Because they were smart, productive, attractive (and I DON’T mean ‘pretty’) and creative. It wasn’t favored treatment. It was deserved positive responses.
- Posted by deeppeaceIn answer to your question about the media being infatuated with Obama, my observation is absolutely they are. Todays events alone had me really annoyed!!
- Posted by JohnAll morning long CNN covered Obama without commerical interruption. But at 12 noon Mc Cain was doing a Town Hall event that got interrupted and CNN never came back to finish the town hall meeting. Totally unfair!! I’m really annoyed at it too.
The American People have a right to listen to both sides without bias to any party or canidate. I don’t hold to either party and vote my mind on the best person i feel can do the job. Without knowing the other side; How can one do that??
Obama is a good looking man, that is smart, articulate and represent best what we think of as great Americans. He gives hope to his generation, the generations that follow and hopefully those that predate him. He is the role model demonstrating that we can be responsible citizens who can rise above the current mess and be a legitamate and credible leader. Then there is his voice, style and charisma, genetic or learned, comparable to legends (Sinatra,JFK)and you wonder, who would not want to be around this guy… what is there not to be attracted to.
This man is one who much like the first president can say he is there not due to his father or family but because of them.
Compare that to McCain. I am sure he is a good man and I do like him based on what I saw on “The Daily Show w*” before he started his second bid.
- Posted by R Logtenberg