Just what McCain speech did NPR's Pam Fessler attend last night? Surely not the one that got universally panned from left and right. Do any cursory search for reactions to McCain's New Orleans, 200 White Folk zombie night speech and you will find nothing but negatives from left and right perspectives, even Fox News!But that's not going to stop Fessler from repeating all McCain's talking points unchallenged. Of Obama's claim that McCain is essentially a third Bush term, she tells us "McCain said it's just not true, that he's opposed the Bush administration on a number of policies, such as the treatment of detainees, just look at my record he told the crowd." Apparently, Fessler was so entranced with the lovely lime-green background and the dead man talking that she never bothered to look at McCain's sorry record. What Fessler did do was go sniffing around for someone who would provide a choice anti-Obama sound-bite:
"...if the crowd last night was any indication, McCain might pick up support from Hillary Clinton fans who are now looking elsewhere. New Orleans resident Vanessa Stubbs said she'd considered Clinton, but there's no way she'll vote for Obama - after his minister made what she considers racially divisive remarks."
Stubbs: "...with the recent Barack Obama and his church problems, I completely went from a liberal Democrat to a conservative Republican, and I'm very proud to say that I'm going to vote for John McCain this year."
This kind of selective journalistic rubbish deserves some scrutiny. It's clever how out of a tiny crowd of old, white McCain supporters Fessler infers that "McCain might pick up support from Hillary Clinton fans who are now looking elsewhere." She makes it sound like a major trend. I'm sorry but are there more than a handful of morons who really supported Clinton and now back McCain? And then to allow someone to say something so obviously stupid or mendacious as "I completely went from a liberal Democrat to a conservative Republican" with no follow up is inexcusable.
5 comments:
Ah, yeah, I heard this piece of ATC garbage too. Most amazing was that they used McCain's own voice for one partial segment, then had Fessler come in and paraphrase a part of the speech that McCain actually flubbed. And there were a number of lines were he just couldn't read the tele-prompter properly.
This wasn't just biased, it was s**t journalism. Where do they find these people- and just who is doing any editing (no one obviously).
You know, not to disagree with anything you've said about the NPR coverage, and not that I would vote for Madman McCain to save my life -- but I followed your link and watched the first half of the speech.
Maybe all the bad stuff happened in the second half, but honestly, I didn't see what had all the commentators panning the speech. He may not speak in the "soaring" albeit overrated tones of Obama, but the speech seemed workmanlike and designed to hit all the key points his constituency -- and the New Orleanians -- would want to hear. I heard no more than one or two minor slips of the tongue.
The only thing I found off-putting -- other than his message, of course -- was his weird Cheshire cat smile and his habitual squinting and blinking.
I wonder if the folks at Fox were disturbed by the "liberal" talk of his points of disagreement with Bush, his "bipartisanship," and his concern about disaster relief and such.
They're spinning as fast as they can! It's funny though, I have a right-wing aunt who was hoping desperately that Clinton would win, as she figured McCain could easily beat her. Now she is "scared to death of Obama"!!!
;)
Ten bucks says Stubbs is a campaign hack. Great journalism, NPR. Sheesh, do any of their journos do anything but report opposing soundbites?
Hey grimblebee, I'm happy to have some disagreement! Keeps things interesting and sharper. I think you are right, that substantively there was nothing hugely bad about McCain's speech. I think the reaction was to how poorly it came off oratorically and visually (esp. on the same night as Obama's speech). I guess I was really struck by the utter lack of commentary on the size (or lack thereof) and demographics of the audience (esp. given all the airtime given to Stubbs).
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