You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet -- Part Two of Two

Editor’s note. Please drop me a line at daveandrusko@hotmail.com. I’d appreciate your insights.

However, there are two ironies that just plain make you laugh. The first is you have to giggle if you take a moment to put in context the competition between these two lightweights. Compared to the bare-knuckle, rough-and-tumble that once characterized American elections, this is powder-puff politics.

Frankly, it is embarrassing to hear the shrill whining about “kitchen sinks” being thrown. By comparison, they haven’t even hoisted a brillo pad in anger.

The second is Obama’s increasingly annoying injured innocent pose. It’s the “why are you media types attacking me so?” It is a testimony to the power of narrative—or framing or branding-- that someone with such a skimpy resume could even be considered for the presidency, let alone go all this time without being seriously questioned by journalists whose job it is to be fair, accurate, and  hard-hitting.

To this point Obama’s image has resisted even marginal erosion for one simple reason. Early on, with the help of an embarrassingly supine press, he established his “brand”: do-gooder, unifier, and transcender of all divisions, a man who would put an end to the old politics of bickering and narrow self-interest.

When way late in the game legitimate questions began to be asked, his default position was (and is), “See?! It’s them again, locked into the old patterns.”

Having acquired the label of someone who exists on a plane above mere partisanship, any challenge to him must, by definition, be the product of evil motivations. At a minimum, such egregious breaches of etiquette must be ruled out of order.

At this point, there's an obvious rejoinder: is this just the conclusion of his opponents, pro-life or otherwise? Just sour grapes? Thankfully a few reporters are beginning to go public with their private unease.

The latest, and probably best, appeared last week in “The Politico” [www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9718.html]. I want you to read it, so let me just offer one pair of quotations from “Obama’s secret weapon: the media,” written by John Harris and Jim VanderHei.

In the middle of their piece, they kind of ad-lib, putting aside the joint byline stance to each make a point individually.

“(Harris only here: As one who has assigned journalists to cover Obama at both Politico and The Washington Post, I have witnessed the phenomenon several times. Some reporters come back and need to go through detox, to cure their swooning over Obama’s political skill. Even VandeHei seemed to have been bitten by the bug after the Iowa caucus.)

”(VandeHei only here: There is no doubt reporters are smitten with Obama's speeches and promises to change politics. I find his speeches, when he's on, pretty electric myself. It certainly helps his cause that reporters also seem very tired of the Clintons and their paint-by-polls approach to governing.)”

Obviously, our larger concern is how this will play out in the fall. Although it is conventional wisdom that many in the media like Sen. McCain, that misses (a) that Obama is the object of adoration, and (b) once it is a Republican versus Democrat, the media will revert to form: they will find a hundred excuses and justifications to try to annihilate McCain.

Part One