By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star editorial page columnist
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has an interesting account of Sarah Palin's day campaigning in Florida. The McCain campaign's designated pitbull is going after the mainstream media and, as Milbank reports in this startling account, things are getting ugly:
In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."
Does John McCain want to win the presidency by unleashing that kind of nastiness?
The media isn't responsible for Palin's rough edges. If anything, news organizations have treated the vice presidential nominee with undue deference. She's attempting to create a parallel universe, in which context and truth take a back seat to snappy lines and folksy talk. Fortunately, most Americans seem disinclined to go there.
Delicious
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And another view.
Too bad all Barb does is read Obama's press releases. Here is another take on the crowd and blogger's reaction to this Post story.
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon1009jl.html
A sample:
"Two shouting extremists in a crowd of 4,500 are two too many, of course. The question is whether these outliers offer sufficient evidence for a clearly hostile reporter to demonstrate that Palin’s rallies have gotten ugly. Florida reporters did not see the event that way. The St. Petersburg Times ran a benign story on the Palin speech. William March of the Tampa Tribune told me, “They booed Obama and the press, but that just makes it a normal Republican rally.” March admitted that he was standing further from the speaker’s stand than national press reporters, and therefore heard less, but he maintains that the rally was no hate-fest."
As usual.
Bob Somerby at http://www.dailyhowler.com/
puts all in context the way "journalists" are supposed to:
THE POWER OF PLURALIZATION: Some readers won’t care for the following point; in this particular case, they’ll prefer the effect of pluralization. But we noticed the following error in today’s New York Times editorial—and it illustrates a basic way journalists sometimes embellish the facts. It repeats a misstatement we saw several times, just yesterday, on the liberal web. Ah, the power of pluralization! This particular type of misstatement has been used against you for years:
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL (10/8/08): [Palin’s] demagoguery has elicited some frightening, intolerable responses. A recent Washington Post report said at a rally in Florida this week a man yelled “kill him!” as Ms. Palin delivered that line and others shouted epithets at an African-American member of a TV crew.
The Times refers to this “sketch” by Dana Milbank, a highly unreliable chronicler. But in fact, Milbank only described one person at Palin’s rally shouting one epithet at that TV crew member. (“One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man.”) This morning, in her Times news report, Julie Bosman reports the same thing:
BOSMAN (10/8/08): From Jacksonville in the northeast to Pensacola in the Panhandle, the fiery crowds gathered to jeer at any hint of liberalism, boo loudly at the mere mention of Senator Barack Obama’s name and heckle the traveling press corps (at a rally in Clearwater, one man hurled a racial epithet at a television cameraman).
One man hurled a racial epithet. But that’s exactly what Milbank had said in the Post, one day before.
It’s the power of pluralization! As we’ve told you down through the years: One example becomes much more powerful when we stick an “s” on the end. In this case, one epithet-shouter turns into a group. How many people were shouting those epithets? The editors let you imagine.
By the way: Why didn’t Bosman report this event yesterday, in real time? Perhaps her editor told her this: A single epithet isn’t news. Reporting it is much like “nut-picking.”
Some of you may be upset; you may have liked the (inaccurate) plural better. But this technique has been used against you for years. It’s one way our scribes improve news.
Pitbulls should be on a leash
Denise Tiller, Midwest Voices Panelist 2008
Oh my, so since Palin can't give a coherent answer even when prepped (See Maureen Dowd's last column quoting debate missteps) her new strategy is to physically threaten the press. Maybe that works on the frontier of Alaska, but come on. This is the 21st century. We are civilized, aren't we?
Denise Tiller, Midwest Voices Panelist 2008
McCain/Palin = Unstable/Unable
Karl Rove's style is all over McCain's campaign tactics. Like those Rovian tactics? Like being lied to?
Americans, do you see the downright lies & distortions in McCain's ads, the coverups of his medical records,etc, & worse, the Troopergate coverup/stall tactic? Anything to keep the TRUTH from the American people.
Do you want more of the same, then vote McSame, but remember:
McCain/Palin = Unstable/Unable
Palin isn't ready...
I'm a 10-year Alaskan by way of Kansas.
I have a huge amount of respect for Sarah Palin for many reasons, including some of her character traits. What makes a great Alaskan doesn't necessarily make a great American.
Juneau is a long ways away from the population center and much can be hidden if the majority of Alaskan's can't question their government leaders (I'm looking at you Don Young.)
If the public knew what has happened in Alaska since Palin's nomination for VP I think they would understand her precipitous drop in popularity--we simply didn't know what all she was up to.
I don't care about what the MSM says about Palin you only need to realize that she not ready to answer questions about her qualifications, her understanding of the world or even what her knowledge base is. If she can't answer those she's not ready to govern.
My advice: separate her experience from her likability and you'll find that as you scratch the surface, it wasn't very deep.
...
PS: Pundits and columnists are not news reporters. People often forget that these people interpret news and events. Anyone with a big by-line and a photo is not a news reporter.
Attack the Media! Change the Subject! Honorable? NOT REALLY.
Desperate tactics. McCain / Palin are tearing down this country in a horrible grasp for power. They are trailing in the polls. Obama / Biden really did try to run a clean campaign, but they aren't going to be SWIFT BOATED. Now the crowds are threatening the news media covering the event. That is not just scary, it is STUPID. Do not pick a fight with people that buy ink by the barrel. Or pixels by the pound for that matter.
Doesn't it bother anyone else that terms like SWIFT BOATED and WILLIE HORTON came from the dirty tricks of the past Republican campaigns?
I wish John McCain would listen to John McCain.
"Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future or you're not ready to articulate it." [John McCain - The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer - 2/21/2000]
I think Barb Shelly is the
I think Barb Shelly is the one living in a parallel universe. Palin was not treated "with undue deference". She was subject to a smear campaign worse than any I have ever seen. The "nastiness" was unleashed on Palin. The news media is now complaining because some of what they threw is splashing back on them.
Palin's treatment by the media
worth a read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR2008100602634.html
What ??!!!!
Telling us that the Dad is the father of the
daughter's baby is "undue deference"!!
Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MSM part of biggest smear campaign since Nazi Germany
The lies that MSM papers such as the LAT and the NYT have told about Palin are incredible:
1)Lies about rape kits
2)Lies about her past political affiliations.
3)Lies regarding support for Buchanan (she didn't)
4)Lies about her status as Trig Palin's mother
5)Lies about her supporting the teaching of crationism.
6)Lies that Palin opposes sex education.
Far from 'excessive deference', this amounts to a campaign of unparalleled viciousness by the MSM.
What ever happened to corroboration of information? That has gone completely out the window for the MSM when it comes to Sarah Palin.
Right now Planned Parenthood is peddling lies about Palin and 'rape kits'.
Regarding Palin's experience, she has an order of magnitude more executive experience than 0bama, and she is far less gaffe-prone than the Kenyan, or especially, the serial liar Mr. Mendacity himself, Joseph Biden who told at least 14 whoppers in his debate with Palin and has gone on record as saying that FDR addressed the USA via TV broadcast in 1929. Palin has never made anything close to such an egregious verbal gaffe.