Most of the people in the corporate media are hacks, but I have generally held Tom Brokaw in somewhat higher esteem. He's a GE corporate guy like all the rest, but his serious demeanor and deep voice make him come across somewhat less biased than the rest.
And so I was a bit surprised that Brokaw veered into Stephanopolis standards of "journalism" on Meet the Press today and asked Joe Biden about whether Palin should be allowed to appear on Oprah (quote from the politico).
MR. BROKAW: I want to move on in a moment, but there's another headline that appeared in the New York Post. Oprah Winfrey decided not to have Sarah Palin on the show before the election. "No-Prah!" That's the New York Post headline. "TV first lady's Palin insult," as they called it. Oprah did come out for Barack Obama, did have him on the show. Do you think that some people will see that as an elitist position, that in some ways Democrats may be afraid of her, Sarah Palin?
WTF?
Very telling that he used the word "elitist" isn't it?
The corporate media games are revving up now that the conventions are over.
They are going to make the next 2 months about Sarah Palin, not the economy
They are going to either let Palin get away with lies or generate narratives that cast her as a persectued, sympathetic, exciting, novel figure.
John McCain is going to get no scrutiny except for the daily invocation of his maverickness. The media narratives will be all about how great Sarah Palin is and how bad Barack Obama is.
Charlie Gibson snagging the first Palin interview? Oooooh. The thing is going to be edited to a few minutes at most and will showcase her ability to give pithy platitudinous soundbites to softball questions. And then the republicans will proclaim victory because she "answered tough questions."
To the extent that the media does go after Palin, it will be in a way that they know will make her look sympathetic. They will feed into a meme that she is being persecuted for being a woman.
And then the debates will come. The media will lower expectations so low for the debate that as long as he only has 1 or 2 senior moments, he will be declared the winner by the pundit class.
This is your corporate media filter at work.
They're planning to keep this close so that the GOP can steal the election by disenfrachising voters.
When polls come out the way we don't like, we all have a million reasons not to believe them.
But I think we should operate on the assumption that we are 5 points behind no matter what the polls say.
The corporate media is going to be gunning for us. The republicans are going to try to surpress our voters. There may be a Bradley effect.
Even if we are still favored by the CW, we should behave like underdogs.
What does that mean? I think we need to go on offense on John McCain's temprament. We need to make sure that the American people are as afraid of a hot-headed, impulsive maniac having his finger on the nuclear button as we are.
If we don't, we are going to be talking about Palin, Oprah, and other bullshit all campaign long.