Posted on 11/28/2008 11:58:37 AM PST by lewisglad
I'm starting to feel a little guilty about the media's treatment of President-elect Barack Obama -- and I may not be the only one.
Chalk it up to a phenomenon I'd like to call "Obama-remorse." You know how you feel buyer's remorse after you've spent a lot of dough on some big-ticket item, only to realize that you might have made a mistake? Well, it's going to happen to the president-elect as well.
Perhaps this sort of recognition prompted Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz to do an incisive piece called "A Giddy Sense of Boosterism" on Nov. 17. As Kurtz noted, the media have tripped over themselves to celebrate and cash in on Obama's victory.
NBC News is preparing a DVD called "Yes, We Can: The Barack Obama Story." ABC and USA Today are racing to publish a book on the election. HBO is readying a documentary on the campaign, too.
As I see it, the media are having second thoughts about their performance over the past year.
First, they gave Sen. Hillary Clinton the cold shoulder and all but rolled out a red carpet for Obama during the Democratic primary season. Perhaps Amy Poehler's eerily spot-on send-up of Clinton on "Saturday Night Live" helped reduce the New York senator to a caricature, making it even easier for the reporters to consign her to a complementary role.
Once Clinton was dispatched, they lavished favorable attention on Obama, as his opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain, was forced to watch from the shadows.
Yes, I'm thrilled that he won the election, underscoring the American ideal that we live in a foreword-thinking democracy, where any man or woman can rise to the highest office in the land. And I'm proud that even Obama's staunchest foes -- particularly the man he defeated, John McCain -- seem to be willing to accept his victory and pledge to help him turn around the economy and cure the nation's other ills.
Adulation Express
But I also feel guilty because I know that the media's Adulation Express -- never to be confused with McCain's old Straight Talk Express -- is going to hit a few speed bumps before it inexorably grinds to a halt.
It's inevitable. Look at what happened to Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate.
When McCain first nominated her, she could do no wrong in the media's eyes. She was hailed for her aw-shucks demeanor, in contrast to the inveterate Beltway sharpies, and her unlikely ascent to such a big job (I suspect that Tina Fey's brilliant impersonation of Palin on "Saturday Night Live" owed as much to Palin's newness as it did to Fey's uncanny ability to look and sound like the governor of Alaska. Most SNL viewers had no frame of reference for Palin, other than her speech at the Republican National Convention, so Fey didn't have to worry about competing with a hardened image of Palin).
It's inevitable, too, that Obama will eventually have his turn under the microscope. When the media start picking apart some of his Cabinet choices or his pronouncements on the state of the economy or his declarations about Iraq, he may be surprised to find that the afterglow of his stunning victory turns sour so fast.
MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Have the media treated President-elect Barack Obama too kindly for the past year - and, if so, should that kind of treatment end now that he has won the election?
Remorse my (_|_)
They’re just rubbing our faces in it now.
I was screaming at the screen when I read the part about Sarah's honeymoon with the media.
BS the media liked Plain at first, MSNBC was running ‘troopergate’ hit pieces THE DAY she was named.
What they did to her only highlighted what they din NOT do to B. Hussein...
As I've always told my children: journalists are much worse than politicians. At least politicians are what they are, but journalists tell you that they have "revealed truth" on their side.
That’s not a mistake but a FAULT against FREEDOM,FREE SPEECH,against honesty, against american people,against USA and the world...
MSM must now try to put it right....But the harm is already done
Excuse me? Who does this writer think he's fooling? (Is this a feeble attempt to throw a bone to the other 46% of this country?)
True; but it’s also a load of hogwash. They are just preparing the people that voted for Obama of some problems to expect them; while ignoring the fact; his being elected is anything but going forward. If truth be told Obama should have never been on the ballot in the first place. His sense of entitlement for nothing and pandering this to the public is irrational. There is no sense of worthiness in this line of thinking.
Sheesh...spell check might be working, but the copy editors went to sleep.
It was always “forward” when I went to school.... can't any of them get it right... but it is CBS, so being accurate doesn't matter....
When McCain first nominated her, she could do no wrong in the media's eyes.”
That's why they sent 30 “investigative reporters” to Alaska to dig up some dirt.
Right! What they couldn’t find digging in garbage cans they made up as they went along. Olbermann reported the news about Sarah Palin by reading left-wing blogs on air.
Whatever in the world Friedman is smoking, PLEASE LORD, save some for me!!!
They could have just as easily exposed him as a fraud and championed McCain as the selfless patriot.
Well I Declair. . . . . . .
No, not BULL! Bullshit is the operative word here.
It's the Number 1 read artickle on their site!!!
“BULL! The moment Palin was selected, the media pulled out all the stops on her. Typical liberal trying to be objective.”
Exactly.
What planet does this man live on?
You are correct, the MSM is going to try and pair the post election stories attacking obama as balance for the pre-election stories.
No matter how you slice it, chris mathews still has a “ I heart obama” bumper sticker on his posterior.
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