The traditional media's insipid love affair with John McCain reached new depths this weekend when a CNN reporter rushed to his defense against...wait for it...a high school student who "heckled" him by asking a question.
It was all started by that awful, horrible Katelyn Halldorson. You'll remember that bad-girl Katelyn grabbed a microphone or something and, like, flamed John to his face at his old private high school in Virginia.
"I think judging by the amount of press representatives here and also by the integration of your previous political endorsements in your earlier personal narrative, we can see that this isn't completely absent – er political motivation isn't completely absent," she said. "Yet we were told that this isn't a political event. So what exactly is your purpose in being here – not that I don't appreciate the opportunity, but I'd just like some clarification."
John was all like, 'Back off!'
"I knew I should have cut this thing off. This meeting is over," McCain joked, before launching into a long description of his biography tour and it's emphasis on "the values and principles that guided me, and I think a lot of this country in the past." He said he also hoped to provide voters with "a vision of how I think we need to address the challenges of the future."
McCain concluded the visit by saying, "I hope that attendance here was not compulsory...I apologize if you were unwillingly in attendance here."
Yeah, ok, so it was compulsory. And it was a campaign speech, sure. But still, who did Katelyn think she was asking a really long question? Fortunately CNN's Jim Acosta wasn't going to stand by and just let her wail on John.
ACOSTA: But it was earlier this week in Alexandria, Virginia, where he [McCain] visited a high school—a uh, high school...Episcopal high school in Alexandria, Virginia–where apparently a student there started heckling the Senator and John McCain then had to respond. So here is John McCain responding to what appears to be a student heckler earlier this week in Alexandria, Virginia...
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So there you have it, John McCain, who is no stranger to incoming fire, able to handle that heckler there...
Heckling? She wasn't heckling John. She had him pinned down with hostile fire. She was practically mauling him. John's only chance of rescue was for intrepid journalists to infiltrate behind enemy lines and extract him, at great risk to themselves, from the maw of mild criticism.
And so it goes with our pathetic news media. Every time Our Hero gets into political trouble, journalists can be found to succor McCain from himself.
Only three weeks ago he came in for ridicule for claiming falsely that Iran was backing al Qaeda, a claim McCain had already made multiple times as it turned out. It exposed McCain's cluelessness about his signature issue, Iraq. But he could count on CNN to rush to his rescue. Wolf Blitzer went so far as to air an edited tape of McCain's latest blunder as if the goal was to persuade viewers that Our Hero "quickly corrected" his "misstatement". It wasn't an isolated incident. Quite the opposite, we saw that reporters regularly and confidently presented that incident as a verbal miscue, a mere slip of the tongue, ignoring all the other times McCain had made the same preposterous claim.
Why? It's partly because to report the plain truth, that McCain is grossly ignorant even in areas where he claims expertise, would tend to disqualify him for the presidency. Too many journalists have imbibed the bizarre 'wisdom' that reporting should not actually exert any influence on its subject matter. So if the truth about McCain would destroy his campaign, then it's unfair to tell the truth.
But there's much more at work as well. In contrast to their often catty treatment of the Democratic candidates, journalists have attached nearly Homeric attributes to McCain ('maverick', 'straight-talk', 'war hero') that inform their stories about him. John-of-the-loud-war-cry can almost do no wrong in their eyes, and reporters love to draw unfavorable contrasts to the other candidates.
The Wright "scandal" is a perfect example. The loud gnashing of teeth that Wright's idiotic comments evoked was accompanied by something closer to journalistic silence regarding McCain's "spiritual guide", neo-Crusader Rod Parsley, and the equally crazy bigot whose benediction McCain eagerly sought out, John Hagee.
Unlike Mr. Obama's continued problems over offensive comments by his longtime pastor, Mr. McCain appears to have weathered the Hagee affair with help from Catholic allies who didn't press the issue.
And with the help of journalists doing likewise, I'm sure. It's a pretty stunning demonstration of how reporters shield McCain from criticism, given how vile Hagee is.
"Hagee is on television every day talking about the need to nuke Iran as a part of his view of biblical eschatology, and apparently nobody has raised any question" about Huckabee preaching at Hagee's Cornerstone Church or McCain seeking, and getting, Hagee's endorsement before the Texas primary, [Dean of the Wake Forest Divinity School, Bill] Leonard said.
"Jeremiah Wright didn't want to nuke anybody.
Here's an unusually obnoxious example of the journalists' McCain syndrome, from the height depths of the Wright "scandal".
John McCain's Phoenix pastor, Dan Yeary, is a folksy patriotic Southern Baptist who opposes abortion and believes homosexuality to be a biblical sin, but says Christians have an obligation to love such sinners.
That puts Yeary, who heads the church attended for the past 15 years by the Republican presidential candidate firmly in the U.S. Southern Baptist mainstream, and in line with the Republican Party.
He offers a sharp contrast to Democratic contender Barack Obama's former preacher Jeremiah Wright, who has stirred controversy with his fiery comments on race and America.
A "folksy patriotic" pastor - what's not to love? Bet he's the kind of guy journalists could count on to help infiltrate enemy lines and bring Captain McCain back alive.