In Which washingtonpost.com Gives Me a Headache for the Second Straight Night

By: Ron1
Published On: 10/14/2008 10:13:51 PM

Apparently, the editors at washingtonpost.com are playing a game, trying to see how much of a pro-McCain spin they can put on at least one story per day.

However, in contrast to yesterday's example (wherein the article was pretty accurate, but the headline and lede on the website were atrocious), today's article by Michael D. Shear is pretty much just a full-on McCain campaign press release.

Here are the first four paragraphs of the article:

Sen. John McCain today proposed $52 billion in tax breaks aimed at reducing the impact of stock market losses on the nation's seniors, providing relief to the unemployed and encouraging savings.

Under his plan, unveiled as he campaigned in a suburb of Philadelphia, seniors would pay lower taxes when they tap their retirement accounts and people who sell falling stocks could write off more of their losses.

Those who are out of work would no longer be taxed on the unemployment benefits they collect. And those who make a profit by selling long-held stocks would pay only half the capital gains taxes for the next two years.

"I will help to create jobs for Americans in the most effective way a president can do this -- with tax cuts that are directed specifically to create jobs and protect your life savings," McCain said to a crowd of about 1,000 people at the Montgomery County Community College.

And it gets worse! There are a few perfunctory responses from the Obama camp in there to refute some of McCain's claims, but again we see an instance where our journalistic gatekeepers apparently see their jobs as pure stenography.

Seriously, why do we even need the establishment media anymore?  

Comments



Along those same lines (Eric - 10/14/2008 11:05:52 PM)
I flipped onto CNN for a few minutes two different times this evening and both times they had what appeared to be pro-McCain talking heads (or radio show hosts) who were all calmly discussing what McCain needs to do to win.  The calm part was a nice change from the usual rightwing hysterics, but ultimately they all concluded that McCain was just playing it wrong and if he got back on his New Hampshire primary message he could win it.  No real discussion about all the hideous problems, flip flops, inconsistencies, lies, the Sarah Palin debacle, or the fact that McCain has mostly supported (and is an extension of) the Worst President In History.  It was a "we can all feel good about McCain" fest.

The worst one was some joker who actually thought (or pretended to) that the McCain camp has been taking the high road and brought boxing gloves to a knife fight.  Ha.  What horsesh*t.

Well, regardless of details, the overall impression I got was that CNN was trying to make this a close race again.  Is the WAPO doing the same thing?  Are perhaps people losing interest in coverage because Obama is looking so strong - so the media is desperate to bump ratings?



Maybe (Ron1 - 10/14/2008 11:35:41 PM)
Looking at the various establishment media sites that focus on horserace coverage, they are pretty much all being lapped by pollster.com and fivethirtyeight.com -- it's not even close. Their internal biases prevent them from recognizing the becoming-more-obvious-by-the-day fact that Obama is pulling head almost day by day, to the point where this deal is not really competitive any more.

The inane coverage is superseded only by the glaringly obvious ineptitude and outright mendacity of the McCain campaign -- and, oh yeah, the fact that the nation's financial system is falling apart.

The only people that have at all covered themselves in glory this election season are three women -- Katie Couric, Campbell Brown, and Rachel Maddow. My guess is that it's the staid, establishment, insider editors that continue to kowtow to the conservative mindset that this is still a race. It's pretty stupid, and makes them look more useless by the day.



Sorry to say... (Eric - 10/15/2008 9:05:33 AM)
Campbell was part of that "McCain can get back in it" cheerleading squad.  Overall I do believe her stock has gone up this cycle, but with stunts like last night I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say she's covered in glory.    


I keep waiting (KathyinBlacksburg - 10/15/2008 6:52:04 AM)
for any of the major media outlets to tell the truth about John McCain's proposals and how they will hurt seniors (and younger Americans too).  But they do not tell the truth about it.  John McCain is trying to buy votes in a shameless ploy while behind the scenes preparing a privatization scheme for Social Security (he's already helped partially privatize Medicare with disastrous results).  And he's proposing a radical buy-health-insurance-on-your own approach (without group or pool pricing) which will render anyone with a preexisting condition uninsurable.  

Where is WAPO, CNN or any other outlet telling Americans the truth about this?

Sign me, also had a headache last night.  And for the same reason.  Ron1, the Bush years have taken their toll via giving me headache(s).  Every issue I care about has taken a huge hit.  McCain looks to be worse. And if that wren't enough, McCian has lied so significantly about Obama's record and run the most extremely hateful and divisive campaign in half a century.

I look forward to a little (or rather a lot of) headache relief Nov. 4th. :-)



Add Fred Hiatt to the unpaid advisors (bamboo - 10/15/2008 2:15:30 PM)
Hiatt's column in WaPo over the weekend outlined a wistful "what if" scenario for McCain to get back in the race. It was a pitiful piece of political nostalgia, wholly inappropriate for an editor at the nation's leading political newspaper.