To keep the insanity going, the NY Times today has a front-page article noticing "Dubious Claims in Obama’s Ads Against McCain, Despite Vow of Truth".
Again, rather late to the party (august bodies like the NY Times and CNN are in trouble when this blog is scooping them by a matter of weeks), but hey, it's progress.
Some have speculated that recent McCain campaign attacks on the media may have actually had some impact. Here is the McCain person's recent statement:
“Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today, not by any standard, a journalistic organization,” Schmidt said. “It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that everyday attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Sen. McCain, attacks Gov. Palin, and excuses Sen. Obama.”
Schmidt continued: “This is an organization that is completely, totally, 150% in the tank for the Democratic candidate, which is their prerogative to be, but let’s not be dishonest and call it something other than what it is. Everything that is read in the New York Times that attacks this campaign should be evaluated by the American people from that perspective.”
Whatever the case, I welcome more balanced coverage and hope it will continue.
See, that's a big difference in the campaigns- you think an Obama staffer would have responded like that? Nah, they would probably diffuse it with some bland response that doesn't invite further interest. And would have cut the guy weeks ago. While Palin has done like 4 interviews, Biden has cranked out over 80 IIRC. Now, I am no media expert, but I would guess putting your message into the stream 80 times is better than 4. Obama's organization and media savvy have put McCain's to shame, and I really don't know what McCain's campaign managers are doing half the time (I sometimes wonder if they want him to win... No joke- look at his first campaign manager.).
Of course, none of this excuses things like the tabloidesque coverage of Bristol Palin, etc. However, I do think the campaigns very different approaches have yielded very different results and are at least partially responsible for media discrepancy on a national level.
I have heard that the NYT is pretty biased, though, but how much does the NYT really affect anybody? More than FoxNews? I doubt it. I don't know anyone who reads the NYT.
Edit: Also, thanks for keeping the intelligent political posts coming. It's nice to see some reasonable discussion that doesn't turn into a flamefest if you don't agree with one view or another.