02-22-2008, 12:06 AM
Timing is everything
US elections 2008: Barack Obama won a huge victory in Wisconsin, but the elements of a media backlash are still lining up against him
Dan Kennedy
February 20, 2008 3:45 AM |
It was bound to happen.
For weeks, Barack Obama had sailed with the media's wind at his back. Political journalists have despised the Clintons since the 1990s. So when Obama rose to challenge the notion that Hillary Clinton was inevitable, much of the press treated him like - well, I'll let MSNBC's Chris Matthews say it: "I felt this thrill going up my leg."
Now, suddenly, Obama is on the defensive. He recently parried criticism that he's a man of words, not action, by channelling Martin Luther King Jr, Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt. As it turned out, Obama was borrowing a riff used by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick when Patrick faced the same rap two years ago. The Clintons pounced - and the media followed suit.
A few observations. Obama and Patrick share a political consultant, David Axelrod. Patrick has endorsed Obama. Patrick also said he didn't mind Obama borrowing his language. It seems absurd to accuse Obama of anything so serious as plagiarism, especially since, as Noam Scheiber of the New Republic writes, "you can't listen to a Clinton speech without hearing multiple riffs she's filched from other candidates" - including a few from Obama himself. But that hasn't stopped the Clinton forces from using the p-word.
The thing is, the Clintons' tactic is pretty much guaranteed to work, at least up to a point. At the most crucial moment of the Democratic contest, Clinton has tapped into a central reality about the media - that they desperately need to think of themselves as fair, whether they actually are fair or not. With Obama cruising to a double-digit victory in Wisconsin, and with Clinton delivering what struck me as a graceless and tone-deaf concession speech, maybe the moment will pass quickly. But the elements of a media backlash against Obama are there.
You could trace this theme back several generations, but for our purposes the 2000 presidential campaign will do. As has been documented by the likes of Bob Somerby and Eric Alterman, the press loathed Al Gore and thought George Bush was kind of a cool guy.
Because of that, the media went on a virtual wilding against Gore, accusing him of claiming to have "invented the internet" (something he never said), of having falsely boasted that he and Tipper were the models for the maudlin novel and movie Love Story (he was accurately recounting an inaccurate newspaper story), and on and on.
It's no exaggeration to say that the media, as much as the US supreme court, handed the presidency to Bush. And guilt set in. In 2004, for example, even though John Kerry was never a press favourite, the ludicrous claims of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth pretty much stayed in the conservative-talk-show ghetto except for the occasional mainstream debunking. Members of the so-called liberal media often like to prove their virility by beating up on liberal politicians. But there was a determination not to do to Kerry what had been done to Gore.
Hillary Clinton may now benefit from that same instinct. It's not merely that reporters have been unfair to her - it's that they know they've been unfair, and they're looking for a chance to make up for it. MSNBC, to name just one outlet, has been apologising on a regular basis for its hosts' over-the-top anti-Clinton outbursts. If anyone is due for some good press, it's Clinton.
This is not to say that Obama doesn't deserve some criticism. As Boston Phoenix media columnist Adam Reilly notes, Obama should already have been on notice that the rhetorical similarities between him and his fellow Axelrod client could raise doubts about his authenticity. "The real question, I think, is where Axelrod's thoughts and convictions end and Obama's and Patrick's begin," Reilly says. Axelrod has worked for John Edwards, too, and Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has found similar parallels between Obama's and Edwards' rhetoric.
But let's not look too closely for logic. If Clinton had accused Obama of plagiarism two months ago, she would have been ignored. He's getting it in the chops now because it's time - he's ahead, his press has been too positive and a lot of pundits want to balance all the nasty things they've said about the Clintons. It's Obama's turn, and there's not much he can do but hang on and hope for the best.
US elections 2008: Barack Obama won a huge victory in Wisconsin, but the elements of a media backlash are still lining up against him
Dan Kennedy
February 20, 2008 3:45 AM |
It was bound to happen.
For weeks, Barack Obama had sailed with the media's wind at his back. Political journalists have despised the Clintons since the 1990s. So when Obama rose to challenge the notion that Hillary Clinton was inevitable, much of the press treated him like - well, I'll let MSNBC's Chris Matthews say it: "I felt this thrill going up my leg."
Now, suddenly, Obama is on the defensive. He recently parried criticism that he's a man of words, not action, by channelling Martin Luther King Jr, Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt. As it turned out, Obama was borrowing a riff used by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick when Patrick faced the same rap two years ago. The Clintons pounced - and the media followed suit.
A few observations. Obama and Patrick share a political consultant, David Axelrod. Patrick has endorsed Obama. Patrick also said he didn't mind Obama borrowing his language. It seems absurd to accuse Obama of anything so serious as plagiarism, especially since, as Noam Scheiber of the New Republic writes, "you can't listen to a Clinton speech without hearing multiple riffs she's filched from other candidates" - including a few from Obama himself. But that hasn't stopped the Clinton forces from using the p-word.
The thing is, the Clintons' tactic is pretty much guaranteed to work, at least up to a point. At the most crucial moment of the Democratic contest, Clinton has tapped into a central reality about the media - that they desperately need to think of themselves as fair, whether they actually are fair or not. With Obama cruising to a double-digit victory in Wisconsin, and with Clinton delivering what struck me as a graceless and tone-deaf concession speech, maybe the moment will pass quickly. But the elements of a media backlash against Obama are there.
You could trace this theme back several generations, but for our purposes the 2000 presidential campaign will do. As has been documented by the likes of Bob Somerby and Eric Alterman, the press loathed Al Gore and thought George Bush was kind of a cool guy.
Because of that, the media went on a virtual wilding against Gore, accusing him of claiming to have "invented the internet" (something he never said), of having falsely boasted that he and Tipper were the models for the maudlin novel and movie Love Story (he was accurately recounting an inaccurate newspaper story), and on and on.
It's no exaggeration to say that the media, as much as the US supreme court, handed the presidency to Bush. And guilt set in. In 2004, for example, even though John Kerry was never a press favourite, the ludicrous claims of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth pretty much stayed in the conservative-talk-show ghetto except for the occasional mainstream debunking. Members of the so-called liberal media often like to prove their virility by beating up on liberal politicians. But there was a determination not to do to Kerry what had been done to Gore.
Hillary Clinton may now benefit from that same instinct. It's not merely that reporters have been unfair to her - it's that they know they've been unfair, and they're looking for a chance to make up for it. MSNBC, to name just one outlet, has been apologising on a regular basis for its hosts' over-the-top anti-Clinton outbursts. If anyone is due for some good press, it's Clinton.
This is not to say that Obama doesn't deserve some criticism. As Boston Phoenix media columnist Adam Reilly notes, Obama should already have been on notice that the rhetorical similarities between him and his fellow Axelrod client could raise doubts about his authenticity. "The real question, I think, is where Axelrod's thoughts and convictions end and Obama's and Patrick's begin," Reilly says. Axelrod has worked for John Edwards, too, and Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has found similar parallels between Obama's and Edwards' rhetoric.
But let's not look too closely for logic. If Clinton had accused Obama of plagiarism two months ago, she would have been ignored. He's getting it in the chops now because it's time - he's ahead, his press has been too positive and a lot of pundits want to balance all the nasty things they've said about the Clintons. It's Obama's turn, and there's not much he can do but hang on and hope for the best.