I've decided to continue my yesterday critique of how the media is going to tilt whatever they can towards their choice Romney, while being labelled "liberal" from now through November. Interesting story on the front page of the Huffington Post from the Daily Beast (or possibly written by a Fox New contributor with their "voice analysis" expert (no, to my knowledge they didn't use one, they just inferred)) replacing the Fox News habit of bringing in "body language" experts who always seem to agree with the Fox talking point of the day/week.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/...
The Huffy post to start should amuse anyone. A fundraising conference call goes from a normal event to "Obama BEGS donors for money". Yeah, because I'm sure he's the first politicians to have a call asking for money. I'll refrain from asking who the "Democratic" donor is who decided to release the call because I just don't care. My amusement stems from the article, written by what I thought was a "center-left" source.
Let's start with the lead in and first sentence. Instead of reporting what happened on the call, the first 2 impressions the author wants to leave you with the our anxious president is weary and nervous about beating Romney. Because politicians never ask for money when they are ahead. How you can tell this from a call is never indicated, we're just to assume because he stated his case, he must be worried. Because we all know politicians usually call donors and just say "hey, send some money" and hang up. So to start, we're set up with the narrative that a weak president is resigned to getting on his weak knees and begging his donors for money.
The next paragraph continues the tone.
“The majority on this call maxed out to my campaign last time. I really need you to do the same this time,” the president said in a highly unusual (and presumably legal) fundraising pitch from Air Force One on his way back to Washington from Colorado Springs, where he’d been assessing the terrible damage caused by uncontained wildfires. A special phone on the government aircraft is dedicated to political calls that are paid for by the campaign.
So he's asking the same people who gave to him last time to give the same this time? That "desperate"? But that's not my key interest in this paragraph, it's the first sentence and last. So political campaign calls are unusual to make from Air Force One, yet there is a phone specifically dedicated to political campaigning that predates Obama (I haven't found the exact date, but it was referenced in 2004 records requests, so it date back to at least before then). Stretching to make this some desperate attempt from the current president when some former president went through the trouble of having said phone installed and set up seperate billing solely for campaign calls, no? And on a phone his campaign pays for is "presumably legal:, lol, can we stretch any further?
The analysis continues in this vein, and I won't bore those who don't feel like reading my analysis of a phone call, because you can draw your own conclusion if you care to read. But I do want to point out the lengths in which even our actually moderate media will go to portray our current president as weak and desperate. It's a shocking, backhanded hit piece on what is a typical call that occurs in almost all campaigns (presidential or otherwise). How else do they think politicians raise money, by saying everything will be just fine if their donors sit out? This is what our side will be working against for the next few months, a media that will portray any move a Democrat makes as an underdog move made by weakness, and any move made by Republicans as forceful and purposeful. Kind of sad to watch as our media continues to tip the scales. Let me know when we hear this type of analysis every time Mitt goes off the rails with bald faced lies in an attempt to get elected. Somehow that's not ever covered as "a dog-tired Romney begging for votes with outright falsehoods". And I guess a conference call is far more "desperate" than hosting a multi million dollar resort weekend retreat to gather your supporters at?