SAN ANTONIO It took many months and the mockery of "Saturday Night Live" to make it happen, but the lumbering beast that is the press corps finally roused itself from its slumber Monday and greeted Barack Obama with a menacing growl.
The day before primaries in Ohio and Texas that could effectively seal the Democratic presidential nomination for him, a smiling Obama strode out to a news conference at a veterans facility here. But the grin was quickly replaced by the surprised look of a man bitten by his own dog.
Reporters from the Associated Press and Reuters went after him for his false denial that a campaign aide had held a secret meeting with Canadian officials over Obama's trade policy. A trio of Chicago reporters pummeled him with questions about the corruption trial this week of a friend and supporter. The New York Post piled on with a question about him losing the Jewish vote.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/03/AR200803...
John at Christian Political Response credits SNL with the media sea change: "Saturday Night Live for the past two weeks has opened their show with skits depicting the media as Barack Obama lovers, refusing to ask the candidate tough questions and sucking up to him, while at the same time hammering Hillary Clinton. It seems the media cares what the media thinks about itself." At New Republic's Stump, Michael Crowley makes the same point: "Last week Clinton spokesman Phil Singer was ridiculed for telling the press corps they should take cues from Saturday Night Light's skits on pro-Obama media bias. Last night CNN's Anderson Cooper conducted an entire segment on based last weekend's debate-parody sketch, in which correspondents John King and Candy Crowley basically conceded that Obama has gotten gentle treatment."
http://www.slate.com/id/2185807/
Over the last few days, the tone of the Democratic contest seems to have shifted, with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign more buoyant and Senator Barack Obama’s more defensive.
That shift may be traceable in part to the “Saturday Night Live” show on Feb. 23, when, back from the writers’ strike, it mocked the news media for treating Mr. Obama more gently than it treated Mrs. Clinton.
Mrs. Clinton amplified that view later in a debate, and her aides stoked it all week, practically browbeating reporters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/us/politics/05press.html?ref=politics
See an example of the Toledo Blade interview with Obama
http://swampbubbles.com/toledo-blade-and-obama
See a clip from the debate:
If I were a die hard Hilary supporter I'd probably be saying it's about time.
The media has given him a pass on almost every issue up to this point. What's a huge shame isn't that they waited so long to do this it's that they waited until right before what could have been a decisive election to do it. I'm sure not everybody heard it before they voted and I'm sorry the media's job as a watchdog is to inform the voting public in sufficient time.
They could have done this a week earlier and it would have mattered in the election.
MikeyA
That's the tough question the press should be pounding on. What exactly are the Clinton family's financial ties to Dubai and Saudi Arabia???
Where are McCain's tax returns? At least Hillary says she'll release them after the primary. McCain says he won't release them at all.
Any ties the Clintons have with Dubai and Saudi Arabia will be a fraction of what the Bush family has.
Maybe SNL needs to do a skit on John "media hero" McCain
What is your implication? That he's a media darling? I highly doubt that. He's been told many times in his campaign to give it up by the media. Even the "conservative media" isn't for him.
Or is your implication that his status as an American hero is only created by the media? I would again say this isn't true. His war record has been criticized by many and he was criticized for calling his torturers "gooks".
So while I disagree on both counts I'm curious as to which definition you'd say I'm close to?
MikeyA
What is your implication? That he's a media darling?
Yes. Just google "John McCain media darling" and you'll get plenty of info. From both mainstream America and the conservative point of view. There are books on it.
If John McCain is a media darling, what does that make Obama?
It's his wife's beer money -- she's got the 3rd largest Bud distributor, with an estimated family value of $35m - $60m. McCain 'claims' his military pension of $57k and little more. Unless he's got hidden stash from his old pre-campaign finance reform buddy Keating.
Now GHW Bush had significant resources with or without arabian oil ties. The Bush clan are old money and fine with or without Aramco wealth. Relatively speaking, the Clinton ties are much more significant. Shrub Bush made his money the honest way, family connections.
Recall Bill and Hillary left the White House with a negative net worth and borrowed the down payment on the NY home from Terry McCauliffe, now they've got a net worth north of $40 million??? That's a lot of speeches, even at $200k per. But Hillary's too busy with SNL to release the tax returns. And Bill will never reveal who paid for the Clinton Presidential Library.
All in all, Obama's pretty well vetted, Clinton spin not withstanding.
"And Bill will never reveal who paid for the Clinton Presidential Library."
We don't need him to reveal it. It was Mark Rich.
MikeyA
We are now paying for the library, now. As well as the others.
"
The William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum is part of the presidential libraries system administered by the
National Archives and Records Administration, a federal agency. "
http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/
And we will be paying to maintain Bush's and the next and the one after that...