The American Debate is Dick Pohlman's column/blog in the Philly Inquirer, and it really was a delight to open the paper this morninig and see the columnist's Op Ed about the Maliki situation. Philadelphia is solidly blue, but the coverage, and particularly the letters to the editor of the Inquirer have been tilting negative towards Obama. Although the Inquirer endorsed Obama over Clinton, I haven't seen as much good news in the paper as I would like.
But after this week, and the TIME story, and seeing the paper today, I'm starting to think that maybe, maybe, the MSM is beginning to see the light.
The best part of the paper today was the Op-Ed by Dick Polman, called If Iraq has sided with Obama, how will McCain spin his spin? It went through the recent Maliki kerfuffle really clearly and with a mocking tone towards McCain.
I at first thought I must be suffering from heat exhaustion. Maliki was siding with Obama? And thereby dealing a major political blow to John McCain, who has been trying to paint Obama's Iraq proposals as naive and irresponsible? Not possible. ...
So clearly, the McCain camp needed more help. And the Bush war apparatus did its best to help, but not until the wee hours of early Sunday morning. That's when U.S. military command headquarters put out a statement, quoting an Iraqi government official, saying that Der Spiegel had "misunderstood and mistranslated" the Maliki remarks. The problem was, the statement never pinpointed where the misunderstanding and mistranslations had occurred. ...
So, in the wake of this Maliki episode, McCain basically has three choices: (1) He can flip-flop on what he said in 2004, and position himself even to the right of Bush, whose administration now speaks of "joint aspirational time horizons" for withdrawal; (2) he can ease his way toward Obama's position on Iraq, just as he has lately on Afghanistan, thereby demonstrating that the wisdom gap on national security is a lot smaller than he'd like it to be; or (3) he can try to ride out this whole embarrassment, and hope that relatively few swing voters take notice.
The Op-Ed that was published in the paper is just an excerpt from his blog, which expands further, calling this past weekend "McCain's weekend of woe" and providing links to back up that McCain had repeatedly echoed Gramm's statements about the country being a nation of whiners. Unfortunately, the comments to the blog are heavily Rethug and are churning "the surge is working" talking points.
But one Op Ed, as great as it is, isn't enough to make me believe things are changing. So I looked at the front page. Top right column (unfortunately the article's not posted on line) was this headline:
Obama's Strategy Gains Support
Analysis: Iraqi backing for a U.S. exit in 2010 appeared to give him a boost on his trip. McCain fought back.
Flipping through the paper, I also found this article:
Times says McCain's op-ed not ready as is
It asked him for a redo. Obama's ran last week.
Again, it's a very fact-based article simply stating that McCain had submitted an article, quoting Shipley's response, quoting the McCain camp's response, and adding
Bounds said the campaign would not submit a revised op-ed.
In a written statement yesterday, the Times explained its decision: "It is standard procedure on our op-ed page, and that of other newspapers, to go back and forth with an author on his or her submission. We look forward to publishing Sen. McCain's views in our paper just as we have in the past."
The Times endorsed McCain in the Republican primaries, but he has had a testy relationship with the paper.
The paper also mentions McCain's new ad about how Obama is responsible for the gas prices, calling it "an eyebrow-raising ad", and provides a snippet of an article on how NJ Gov Jon Corzine is in Israel a few days ahead of Obama and is promoting Obama as a friend of Israel.
Then I turned to the online version of the Daily News and found the following:
- A Signe Wilkinson cartoon called "John McCain's Renewable Energy Plan" showing a tanker, covered with solar panels, heading into Baghdad in 2087.
- Three politically-oriented letters to the editor, none of which was pro-McCain or anti-Obama. One was touting Wes Clark's military service over John McCain's as giving him better commander-in-chief credentials, one was slamming The New Yorker for its cover and suggesting
that on their next cover they use Republican nominee John McCain in a Nazi uniform since his campaign shows very little diversity, constantly talks of war and his wife is extremely wealthy.
The final one was condemning Jesse Jackson. I found it very heartening that the paper printed only positive Obama letters. I think most media tries to present a somewhat representative view of what they received, so not even one anti-Obama or pro-McCain letter is very encouraging.
- Three AP articles called Iraq backs Obama plan, upsetting White House, Obama gains tentative support in Iraq and NYT: McCain Op-Ed Needs More Details. Not one "isn't McCain the greatest" article or editorial.
I'm starting to see a shift, and while I don't expect it will last, I'm really curious now about other local papers and what you're seeing. My theory for a while has been that the strong McCain bias in the MSM would remain until one paper or magazine broke through, and then another, then the trickle would become a flood (hey, that reminds me of the superdelegate-tracking days when we kept waiting for the trickle to grow!). I'm still holding my breath, but am starting to feel like the narrative is shifting.
I actually credit the New Yorker cover with causing the shift. Remember when HRC complained on SNL about the media being too soft on Obama, and immediately they started being tougher on him to prove she was wrong? I think the New Yorker cover (which arrived in my mailbox yesterday; I can't even bring myself to handle it) is having a similar effect. To many, it was so outrageous and raised such issues of whether the cover went too far, that the media overall has started taking a look at itself. And I'm liking what I'm starting to see.