There has been a lot of concern on this blog and elsewhere, that the Media (TM), after McCain's de facto declaration of war, cancelling his appearance on Larry King after Campbell Brown went toe to toe with Tucker Bounds on Sarah Palin's 'commander in chief' credentials with the Alaska National Guard, was going to roll over, whimper, apologize, and go back to swinging on McCain's tire swing and eating baby back ribs at the ranch in Sedona instead of covering the news about his woeful choice of VP and allowing her to speak to the media. I dare say, early evidence shows that the Media is striking back, and with a vengeance.
Follow me after the fold for some highlight examples from this weekend.
A chorus of condemnation is issuing from the op ed page of today's New York Times. Frank Rich is trembling with contempt for McCain, and his fiery rhetoric amounts to a media call to action:
McCain’s address, though largely a repetitive slew of stump-speech lines and worn G.O.P. orthodoxy, reminded us of what we once liked about the guy: his aspirations to bipartisanship, his heroic service in Vietnam, his twinkle. He took his (often inaccurate) swipes at Obama, but, in winning contrast to Palin and Rudy Giuliani, he wasn’t smug or nasty.
The only problem, of course, is that the entire thing was a sham.
As is nakedly evident, the speech’s central argument, that the 72-year-old McCain will magically morph into a powerful change agent as president, is a non sequitur. In his 26 years in Washington, most of it with a Republican in the White House and roughly half of it with Republicans in charge of Congress, he was better at lecturing his party about reform than leading a reform movement. G.O.P. corruption and governmental dysfunction only grew. So did his cynical flip-flops on the most destructive policies of the president who remained nameless Thursday night. (In the G.O.P., Bush love is now the second most popular love that dare not speak its name.)
Even more fraudulent, if that’s possible, is the contrast between McCain’s platonic presentation of his personal code of honor and the man he has become. He always puts his country first, he told us: "I’ve been called a maverick." If there was any doubt that that McCain has fled, confirmation arrived with his last-minute embrace of Sarah Palin.
ouch, ouch ouch. It doesn't let up. He calls out McCain on blatantly lying about Palin, lying about Obama, and making the TV viewers at home fall asleep so that no one will be aware that McCain has sold out to the evangelical right.
But the Times isn't done with its Sunday edition:
Bob Herbertpoints to the elephant in the room with the stock market tumble the day of McCain's speech:
From the faux populist gibberish mouthed by speaker after speaker, you would never have known that the Republicans have been in power over the past several years and used that titanic power to lead the country to its present sorry state.
In his acceptance speech on Thursday night, Senator John McCain did his best Sam Cooke imitation ("A Change is Gonna Come") and vowed to put the country "back on the road to prosperity and peace."
Mr. McCain spoke at the end of a day in which stock market indexes plunged. The next morning the Labor Department gave us the grim news that another 84,000 jobs had been lost in August, and that the official unemployment rate had climbed to 6.1 percent — the highest in five years.
Herbert, like Rich, is relentless in calling the GOP out on its blatant deception of the people. The gloves are off.
There's more from the female commentators as well:
Judith Warnercalls the nomination of Palin "nauseating" and "a humiliation for women."
Thus began the official public launch of our country’s now most-prominent female politician. The condescension – damning with faint praise – was reminiscent of the more overt misogyny of Samuel Johnson.
"A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs," the wit once observed. "It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at all."
Palin sounded, at times, like she was speaking a foreign language as she gave voice to the beautifully crafted words that had been prepared for her on Wednesday night.
But that wasn’t held against her. Thanks to the level of general esteem that greeted her ascent to the podium, it seems we’ve all got to celebrate the fact that America’s Hottest Governor (Princess of the Fur Rendezvous 1983, Miss Wasilla 1984) could speak at all.
Could there be a more thoroughgoing humiliation for America’s women?
AndGail Collins, who normally tempers her irony with a very light touch, sounds positively disgusted:
"... the kind of fellow whose name you will find on war memorials in small towns," Palin said.
On behalf of the big cities, can I point out that we have memorials, too? Palin had already suggested to her audience — which happened to be in a small town — that people who live in communities of modest size are harder working, more patriotic and definitely not community organizers. At least give us credit for honoring our war dead, Sarah.
"Isn’t this the most marvelous running mate in the history of this nation?" asked McCain, when he finally got a turn at the microphone. A visitor from another planet who dropped in on the Republican campaign at this point would very likely assume that the presidential nominee was a guy who had spent his life as a prisoner of war until he was released just in time to pick Sarah Palin for vice president.
There is a groundswell of anger and indignation among the MSM. And it is not limited to the Times.
Over on ABC, Jake Tapper is asking readers to help in the Palin vetting process and has started a Palin Media Avoidance Watch: and points out in his first paragraph that Roger Simon from Politico has issued an "apology" to Sarah Palin for asking her any questions at all
Link to Roger Simon at Politico
On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.
We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.
We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?
We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?
Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.
It is not our job to ask questions. Or it shouldn’t be. To hear from the pols at the Republican National Convention this week, our job is to endorse and support the decisions of the pols.
And Newsweek is following an exclusive, digging into the McCain campaign's rapidly growing involvement in derailing the Troopergate investigation and shutting down testimony.
My friends (do you see what I did there?) the media questions, probing, and vetting of Sarah Palin and the judgement and temperament questions newly raised about the Maverick are not going away, they are building a groundswell of determination by spurned media professionals who are waking up from the lethargy of easy access and comfy seats on the sofa of the Straight Talk Express, and are now going for the jugular.
We no longer need to turn to Countdown and Rachel Maddow to hear the truth about the Republican lies and smear campaigns, the ridiculous lack of responsible vetting of a major candidate for high office, or PR puff pieces that masquerade as serious news. We are going to be getting it from the Mainstream Media themselves, because they've been thrown off the Straight Talk Express.
I would love to see more examples of journalism breaking out in unlikely places - I think we are going to learn more about the McCain campaign and its unsuitability for the presidency than we have all year long.
And it's not a moment too soon.