MSM: Is McCain Right, Or Is Obama Wrong? We Spout Crap, You Go Retch
I just had to switch off the podcast for Hardball with Chris Matthews. It was, effectively, a McCain love orgy putting on airs of being even the slightest bit critical. They completely bought into the McCain party line, broadcast only his ad, and talked about Obama not in terms of whether or not he has “no new ideas” in energy, but rather about how McCain and the GOP should talk about it, as if there was no question about the assertion. Rather than discuss the two candidates’ plans, they simply claimed he was–as the GOP ad alleges–just against McCain’s ideas (the gas tax and offshore drilling), didn’t have any of his own, and that Obama was out to raise taxes. I kept waiting for them to get to the other side of the story, but they didn’t–they kept gushing the same crap, almost as if the McCain campaign had written the show’s script. They accepted the GOP claims completely uncritically.
They did not even come close to talking about the fact that McCain’s ideas on energy are almost all empty pandering, as if the “gas tax holiday” had not already been debunked as saving drivers literally pennies per day. They acted as if offshore drilling had not already been shown to be worthless in the present crisis–nor that McCain just a few months ago was saying exactly that. They did not mention that oil drilling off the coast would not show any returns for five years, would not fix the refining bottleneck which fuels higher gas prices, and would not even be a long-term fix, with oil production not even coming close to significant levels even after drilling was well underway.
Nor did they focus on the fact that Obama, not McCain, was in favor of overturning the Enron loophole, which could help slash oil prices, or that Obama was more likely to bring the Iraq War to a sooner close and that the extraction of American soldiers from the region could have an equally positive impact on oil prices (after all, our presence there has done wonders for oil prices already, don’t you think?). And never mind that Obama is much likelier to take alternate energy research far, far more seriously than McCain is.
No, Hardball was more interested in simply swallowing McCain’s steaming load of BS wholesale. The more I listen to the U.S. media cover this election, the more and more disgusted and faithless I become in their being recognizable in any way shape or form to actual journalists. And considering that I had a low opinion of them already, that’s saying a lot.
I tried watching hardball last night. I had to quit about 10 or 15 minutes into it.
I get whats going on. Hardball is like a sports network. The last thing they want is a blow out. What they want is a race that is narrow and competitive between two opponents. So Mathews is trying to frame the discussion as if McCain has a plausible chance. If he doesn’t, the viewers go away. So he gives McCain more credit, way more credit than he deserves, and he frames his questions so that it favors McCain.
Mathews could of easily said, “look, McCain doesn’t stand a chance. On every fundamental issue he is woefully inadequate. He can’t tell the difference between Iran and Iraq, He can’t operate a computer in a very technological age, He’s admitted to knowing little about economics, he supports all the wrong positions, he’s got all the charisma of the Saturday Night skit of androgenous Pat. He’s never been unemployed or without insurance and married to an extremely wealthy women he’s out of touch with the average American’s plight, he’s got no charisma, in fact, he’s got anticharisma, he can’t fill a highschool gym, and Obama is filling 70,000 seat stadiums. I think its game set and match.”
But if he does that, its like watching the super bowl, where a team has a 30 point lead in the 1st quarter. What do you do for the rest of the game to entertain watchers?
Even jumping the shark, Obama should still trounce McCain. The key question is, what about the senate. I want to see Obama touring states, like Maine, which should be flipped in the senate, but the Republican is doing well, before the General election. I want a 60 person majority.
This doesn’t really involve McCain and Hardball, but I found it today and thought I’d post it. [I’m a big proponent of the space program (probably mostly from a sentimental childhood love of space, science, and reading), but so much good comes from spin offs and knowledge gained by the program that I hate to see it getting canabalized for other things (especially by a candidate I’ve supported), even if it is for education.]
What I find really ironic is that Obama’s “Plan for Lifetime Success Through Education” emphasizes the space program under the heading “Make Science and Math Education a National Priority” (page 10) while at the same time proposing cutting back on the space program in order to pay for that education. (Page 15)
It both irked and amused me so I thought I’d share it.