I’m watching Dan Abram in his new format. He’s making the case that Senator John McCain is getting a pass on a number of gaffes in recent weeks.
It’s an interesting take and it seems he’s making a reasonable point - but let’s admit it… it’s TV, therefore a ratings game.
So… do you think the Democrats are getting too much attention? Do you think the Republicans should be getting more? If so, what kind?
Uh, well, given that the Democratic nominee hasn’t been picked yet, is seen by many to be a tumultuous battle up until the convention, and consists of two candidates who are “firsts” to run for President AND have a certain amount of charisma and/or baggage behind them… I’m sorry, but I can’t think of circumstances in which they WOULDN’T be getting more attention than McCain. 
It almost seems like he would be getting a free pass (if he is) because the press kind of want to have a specific opponent in mind when they talk about stuff like “See, look what he’s done now,” and show that opponent what ammunition they can now fire with.
The Democrats are getting all the attention and focus because the race is still on…much to the obvious disappointment of the Obama fan club here at the 'dope. 
McCain’s gaffs aren’t getting the same level of attention (for now) because he has already locked up the nomination to the collective yawns of the populace at large. Things will start to heat back up once the Dems choose their man (or woman) though.
I haven’t seen the show you are talking about, but if this guy doesn’t know this painfully obvious fact I think I’d switch channels (or whatever).
-XT
He knows. His shtick is to point out what isn’t being reported and try to act as an objective, but entertaining (subjective - he’s hit and miss) host who is currently very focused on the election. He does touch on other topics.
MSNBC - Verdict
He seems to be getting a pass from the media, but not from Obama. Obama has been slamming him this week on his Iraq strategy and reversal on tax cuts…he’s playing like he’s already got the nom…nice strategy.
-XT I’ll keep the Obama love alive.
I just watched my local news channel spend 5 minutes in their “analysis” segment ragging on McCain and his recent gaffe. Now, you might think 5 minutes isn’t much, but what news story gets that much coverage? No free pass for McCain. It’s been all over the news for the last few days. What else do you want them to do? This will come back and haunt him in the general election, but he’s lucky it happened now and not in October.
I believe that McCain definitely has been getting softballed and I predicted from the beginning that this would happen. McCain’s demonstrated ignorance about the sectarian groups in Iraq and Iran should be of far greater concern than than what Barack Obama’s pastor said about Three Strike laws, but McCain gets five minutes (maybe) and Obama gets demonized by proxy for two straight weeks. It’s gotten so bad that even some of the people at Fox News are getting sick of the non-stop, racist hate-mongering. Chris Wallace called into that stupid morning show today to bitch at those “Fox and Friends” morons for devoting two solid hours of hysterical (and distorted) ranting about Obama saying his grandmother was a “typical white person.” Nothing could be more trivial or pointless or tendentiously decontextualized but John McCain show some genuinely troubling lapses of knowledge about the subject he’s pretending to be an expert on and he gets virtually no coverage at all.
The mainstream news outlets tend to always be far more vicious to Democratic candidates than to Republicans during presidential campaigns. I don’t know why, but that;s the way it always is. Dukakis in the tank was more important than Iran-Contra. Dissecting John Kerry’s war medals was more important than a President lying his way into an illegal war.
I have predicted and will continue to predict that John McCain will get nothing but reverential, respectful treatment from the media while every syllable uttered by Barack Obama will be parsed for nefarious implications and every human being he’s ever shaken hands with with be investigated for possible terrorism. The media will simply never be sharply critical of republican candidate, especially if they’ve served in the military (there is a double standard for military service of course. All Democrats with war records are really cowards and traitors who cheated to get their medals).
True enough, but I think its more sentimentality than skullduggery. What screwed Kerry out of his dues as a war hero is his presumed treachery in turning against the war. War heroes don’t march with a bunch of dirty fucking hippies.
Joining with Kerry in promoting normalization of relations with Viet Nam was a noble effort, and greatly to his credit. A pity he was not content, and his ambition drove him to compromise with ignoble men.
McCain is getting a pass and will continue to do so until the Dem nom is picked. Everyone is expending their energy on that dogfight right now since their swiping at each other and seeing what people supporting them will do wrong next is far more entertaining than what the crown prince on the other side is up to. I think McCain would have to literally eat a baby on TV to draw people’s attention from the more interesting battle elsewhere right now.
I’m in the camp of once the Dem nom is selected, McCain is gonna get rat fucked. Cheeeeerist, he’s a geriatric geezer, and if you want to dig into the S&L scandal, and all the other Arizona crapola (with all due respect to residents of the State) that took place in the late 80’s and early 90’s, not to mention the recent gaffes, I do believe that this time around a small soap dish could beat McCain. Bwahahahaha, the hope of the Republican Party.
I was making this point just the other day. This is as bad as things can get for Obama, it’s a two on one fight against him, with little support. Three on one if you count the media’s current swing.
And he’s still even.
Not by the Beltway Bubble media - he’s one of the insiders, one of their friends, one of The Club.
More on that from Paul Waldman.
Bullshit. Iran Contra was all over the news for months. It’s not the press’s fault that people thought Dukakis looked stupid in the tank.-- a news story that got nowhere the amount of press as Iran Contra did. And maybe the press hasn’t gone on about an “illegal war” because it was not, in fact, illegal. And during the campaign, Kerry himself never said it was a mistake to vote for the AUMF, only that the execution of the war was done poorly. It was only after the election that both he and Edwards disavowed their votes-- something that Hillary still has not done, btw.
I think McCain has, in the last year, two years, said enough false things because he was toeing the party line, that if they were brought out, his feet would be held to the fire.
I think, were I Obama, I’d have someone working on a fuckload of calm, reasonable speeches to address the fact that McCain can’t be trusted. He may have more foreign policy experience, but he is wrong constantly… at least, he has been, insofar as he has followed the Bush party line.
And then I’d save them for a while.
McCain’s gaffes can easily be explained away as “misspeaking.” Not at all unlike Obama who obliviously said he would stay in Iraq “if al-Qaeda established a base in Iraq” (something that happened a long time ago.)
The truth of the matter is, neither candidate can hold a candle to the knowledge of our military leaders when it comes to the Iraq situation. But both aren’t as ignorant as their comments can be twisted to make them seem.
Now, the reason Pastorgate is so huge is precisely because one doesn’t accidentally go to a church for twenty years. Obama could have decided to go to an mixed-race church, or even a church that wasn’t infested with insane militant black racists, but he didn’t. It’s sad that a lot of black people in America, even the more adjusted ones buy into a lot of the worst anti-white rhetoric–Obama was caught with his pants down because he didn’t realize how insanely extreme some of the ideas that are accepted as common place in the black community seem to white America.
The worst thing that could happen to a black candidate trying to get elected in this country is the perception that he’s out to stick it to whitey.
I find it very distressing that on a board whose motto is “Fighting Ignorance since 1973” so many people tend to be wholly ignorant about what the word “illegal” means.
It doesn’t, in fact, mean “something I dislike.”
I wonder if John McCain is under the impression that the Rev Hagee’s notions about Catholics are more or less “mainstream”?
Anybody who thinks this reflects the essence of the Obama campaign doesn’t have the cognitive capacity of a zit.
Dio, if I may, I’d like to suggest that you drop the “illegal war” angle, for the purposes of this thread, and keep the focus on McCain. We need to learn some self-discipline, and figure out how to not get distracted from our primary objective, whether it be in a debate, or an election.
As much as we’d like to think so, A Dem president-elect on 11/05 is no more an inevitability than an HRC nomination is. Let’s keep our eyes on the ball.
I’m a self-avowed screaming, liberal Democrat and, to be honest, I don’t dislike McCain. He would be the first Republican in my lifetime that could win and I wouldn’t feel like I have to slash my wrists or move to Europe.
That said, YES, McCain is currently being given a free pass.
However, once the Dems have decided (and I hope it is Obama) the gloves are off.
The “pastor flap” and Obama’s “racial speech” have proven to me, without a doubt, that Obama is nobody’s fool. He is not afraid of stepping up and putting out a fire quickly, and effectively.
McCain should relish this "free pass’ as it ain’t gonna be fee should Obama get the nod.
McCain is every bit the war hero, but when it comes down to the actual debates, the American public is going to see the difference - the huge difference - between someone who might actually be able to change things and someone who wants to keep the status quo.
Free pass over.