Between Barack and a Hard Place: Is the Media Being Unfair to Barack Obama?

A recent study by the Pew Research Center for media and public affairs was done, dated Feb. 1, 2008. The center, which monitors media coverage of the political parties and candidates, concluded that Sen. Barack Obama was far more likely, as of that time, to receive positive media coverage in his quest for the Presidency than Sen. Hillary Clinton. The center, which is highly respected as a media "watchdog", is not known for having or pushing a political agenda.

In the last couple of weeks, however, the tone of the coverage of Barack Obama and his U.S. Presidential campaign, has changed drastically. What changed? Did the mainstream media just now realize that Sen. Barack Obama, junior Senator from Illinois, is half black? Did the MSM as they are known in many circles, suddenly develop a love for Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. John McCain?

The answer, like beauty, lies in the eyes of the beholder, one supposes. American blacks shouldn't be judged too harshly if many think Barack Obama is being singled out for negative coverage, in my opinion. However, if the color of Obama's skin was the reason for the switch, why would the MSM have been so positive to that point of the 2008 Presidential campaign? Could it be that the problem with Barack Obama's skin is not the color of it but the thinness of his skin?

Admittedly, I have never walked in Barack Obama's shoes, or any other black person, for that matter. But for someone who has followed every Presidential campaign since 1968, it just seems to this writer that the same thing is happening to Obama that happens to every Presidential aspirant once they reach frontrunner status in their party's nomination process. I've seen it happen over and over in past campaigns. A candidate proposing "change" in Washington D.C, or CHANGE in the case of Obama, comes along and sweeps millions of voters off their collective feet.

The candidate starts slowly, sort of like an underground rock group, builds momentum by appealing to young voters by talking about change, wins over some skeptics with talk of "hope" and "unity", and achieves frontrunner status due to the weakness or mediocrity of the other candidates. All of a sudden, the MSM throws on a light switch and starts examining the record of the candidate. Or lack of a record.

Then, the formerly fawning tubthumpers for the candidate, start informing the American public things like " Sen. Joe Isuzu smoked marijuana in college". Or someone somewhere accused the Senator of having an extramarital affair(s). Or the Senator voted for a bill that would decriminalize tearing the tag off a mattress as a state legislator 10 years ago.

I've seen this sort of thing happen with Presidential candidates in nearly every election in the last 40 years. The campaign of 2008 has been marked by the supposed "inevitability" of the election of Hillary Clinton, the left for dead candidacy of John McCain, the brief flirtation with Mike Huckabee, and the schoolgirl like infatuation with Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton was constantly under attack as frontrunner. John McCain, after becoming frontrunner for the Republicans was accused of having an affair with a lobbyist. Mike Huckabee's status as the annointed underdog candidate brought about scrutiny of his numerous prison commutations as Governor of Arkansas, roughly twice as many as his two Democratic predecessors combined.

Now Barack Obama is having media problems, it seems. In my opinion, Obama benefitted from two things when it came to media coverage of his Presidential campaign. One, the fact that his leading "political consultant", (translation: spinmeister), David Axelrod, was himself a member of the working press for many years. Axelrod was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, and I believe he was based in D.C. for much of that time. Two, Mr. Obama is not named Clinton. The Washington press' disdain for anything Clinton is well known. And the feeling is mutual, it is safe to say.

Therefore, the MSM ignored Barack Obama's lack of details in his calls for CHANGE. They focused on his wife's Jimmy Choo shoes and Harvard law degree, instead. They allowed Barack Obama to talk in high minded platitudes about the "Clinton 'machine'" and how we don't need cynical policies from the past such as "triangulation", conveniently ignoring the fact that his campaign is run by David Axelrod, who is closely associated with the Daley regime in Chicago.

The MSM decided the public was uninterested in the Tony Reszco land deal, choosing instead to focus on Obama's references to Hillary Clinton being "polarizing" and divisive". Of course, she is. And by the time the Karl Roves of the world get ahold of Sen. Obama, so will he be. That's what we have been seeing the last couple of weeks.

The resignation of uber-controversial Samantha Power from Obama's campaign for calling Hillary Clinton a "monster", the rantings of Obama's pastor of 20 years, the Wrong Rev. Wright, the calls from the Obama camp for a clean campaign out of one side of their mouth, then comparing Bill Clinton to Joseph McCarthy out of the other...these things taken individually might not have amounted to the amount of scrutiny that Barack Obama currently finds himself under. All together, however, is another matter. Not even a media that obsesses over the candidates wives' wardrobe or hairstyle can continue to ignore such contradictions and distortions.

The Obama camp released a statement by Samantha Power in which Power stated how much she had always admired Hillary Clinton and her accomplishments. So, that's why she called her a "monster?" Glad she cleared that up. Barack Obama has compared the "Rev". Jeremiah Wright to a "crazy Uncle" and allowed as how he must have been absent when all those inflammatory sermons were preached. Sounds like an "I didn't inhale" excuse to me. The guy who talks so much about reconciliation and unity has as his spiritual mentor a pastor who professes great admiration for Louis Farakkhan. Hmmmm.

The response from the Obama camp? They released a decade old picture of Bill Clinton with Jeremiah Wright. My question on that is: if Bill Clinton "played the race card" as he has been accused by the Obamanaics and a previously fawning media, what is the black separititst Wright doing associating with the then President? I'm sure Barack Obama spinmeister David Axelrod has a good explanation. We can't wait to hear it, along with a few details about what Obama's "CHANGE we can believe in" entails.

sources: pewresearch.org
journalism.org