Sunday, March 23, 2008
Yup, That's Some Liberal Bias
So, as I have noted, John McCain did something very stupid earlier this week: on three separate occasions, he seemed to show a lack of knowledge of the differences between "Shia" and "Sunni", or whose extremists al Qaeda and Iraq were backing. So, in a week of stories ranging from Obama's preachers to Hillary and the blue dress, why the hell didn't McCain's slip-up get more coverage?
It's simple, really; the media loves McCain. No, I am being completely serious here. Everyone from Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post to Ana Marie Cox of Time to Jonathan Alter of Newsweek keeps claiming it was a "misspeak", and that McCain knows too much about foreign policy for it to be an indicator of anything serious.
I'm sorry, what? When Hillary showed one moment of unvarnished emotion in New Hampshire, the media quickly leaped down her throat, trying to use it as a symbol of whether or not she was too "emotional" or "sensitive" to serve in the highest office of the land. But when John McCain makes a fundamental mistake about our involvement in Iraq on three occasions over two days -- the same mistake the people he's supposed to be replacing made, and a mistake on an issue that is crucial to his platform -- the media decides it's just fine to ignore it. They rationalize it away. "It was an error," they say. "A small slip-up. A goof up."
Right. Just remember it was a foreign policy "goof up" from the guy who wants to be President of the United States and whose best buddy has been making threatening gestures towards Iran. There's no way this can possibly backfire.
