Wednesday, January 09, 2008

The stampeding herd veers

Tom McGuire predicts an impending anti-Obama media backlash "So, having been caught out as having been both non-objective and wrong, what will the monolithic MSM do next? We look for the MSM to engage in the customary self-recrimination, reflect on the manner in which they failed to inform the public, and devote themselves henceforth to doing a better job of presenting Obama fairly, i.e., more negatively.".

If McGuire's prediction eventuates, I wouldn't characterize it as a backlash. As I wrote in the comments section of the Perfect Storm, "Just as Hillary was vulnerable to the the amplification of the intimate event so is Barack. Some small thing which he might not even be aware of can build up and hit practically overnight." This is subtly different from a media backlash: what that describes is a change in the locus of a shifting weathers of the Internet.



Of course, Karl Rove may be helping things along.

Karl Rove told Cybercast News Service in an interview Wednesday that Sen. Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign was helped when she responded in a smiling, self-deprecating manner when asked during Saturday night's televised debate why some voters had an issue with her "likeability" and that her rival Sen. Barack Obama only enhanced the positive impact for Clinton when he responded like "a smarmy, prissy little guy taking a slap at her."

13 Comments:

Blogger What is "Occupation" said...

and so the market corrects...



'bout time...

1/09/2008 05:02:00 PM  
Blogger Whiskey said...

Look for Obama's cousin Raila Odinga, his promise to make Islam the sole religion in Kenya and institute Sharia to get extensive play.

1/09/2008 05:22:00 PM  
Blogger John J. Coupal said...

There will be no anti-Obama media coverage. The mainstream media do not indulge in self-recrimination, either customary or non-customary.

The prime directive for the MSM is to get a Republican out of the head of the Executive Branch and to keep him out.

1/09/2008 05:52:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

The prime directive for the MSM is to get a Republican out of the head of the Executive Branch and to keep him out.

That directive is unambiguous in ordinary times, but in this case it has run afoul of that other postulate, The Clintons And Their Era Were a Golden Age. If the MSM is caught between saving Hillary and sliming Obama it will be in a spot worse than Ulysses when he sailed between Scylla and Charybdis, the proverbial "rock and hard place".

In the old science fiction soap operas, when a robot reached this type of logical impasse, he would blow a fuse and sputter "it does not compute".

1/09/2008 06:36:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Journalists aren't as smart as robots, so they haven't got that far yet.

1/09/2008 06:39:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Grynch said...

Up to now, I refer to all MSM coverage of Barack Obama as "Obama-Hosanas", but now that he may become the favorite, look for the Undogma phenomenon to come into play. "Underdogma", as defined by Michael Scroccaro, is the liberal belief that those who have less power are virtuous and noble -- because they have less power -- and that those who have more power are to be scorned - because they have more power. Put in its simplest terms; Underdogma is an automatic gag reflex to power.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/12/underdogma.html

As long as Obama was trailing, liberals were required to support him. Once he takes the lead, they are required to attack him.

It's a crazy world...

1/09/2008 06:40:00 PM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

I think they haven't decided yet if the first woman or the first black is more important.

1/09/2008 09:34:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Too bad Barbara Jordan died, as she would have been an exemplary first black woman president. And she would have been a Democrat from Texas, so the moonbats might even have been happy, too.

I could also get behind Maya Angelou just because she'd be wonderful to listen to while she spoke.

Not Oprah, though. She's got more power, money and prestige where she's at than as a mere President of the United States.

1/09/2008 09:43:00 PM  
Blogger J. Peden said...

If the MSM is caught between saving Hillary and sliming Obama it will be in a spot worse than Ulysses when he sailed between Scylla and Charybdis, the proverbial "rock and hard place".


Maybe the whole of P.C. has been thusly caught, too? I sure hope so.

If so, the default position would be to "blame someone else". [Milton Freidman on Communists]

But who's left?

1/09/2008 09:49:00 PM  
Blogger geoffb said...

J. Peden said...

Maybe the whole of P.C. has been thusly caught, too? I sure hope so.

If so, the default position would be to "blame someone else". [Milton Freidman on Communists]

But who's left?


I expect that they will find a way to blame either Bush or, failing that, some leading conservative.

They are impelled to find a scapegoat in the "evil right" somewhere.

1/10/2008 06:44:00 AM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Global warming and/or Israel.

1/10/2008 08:50:00 AM  
Blogger eggplant said...

My slant is the liberal elite (Soros?) wants Obama as President. For reasons beyond my understanding, Hillary is unacceptable to the liberal elite. Their basic approach has been to shower Obama with endless praise and money will attacking Hillary at every opportunity. In the meantime, the liberal elite seeks to support in the primaries any Republican candidate who would be an easy knock-out during the general election, e.g. Huckabee and Thompson. Funding third party candidates who would split the Republican vote is also part of their agenda, e.g. Ron Paul. The MSM is their primary tool with selective funding as their secondary tool. The only thing that can stop them is the Internet and the blogs.

1/10/2008 09:31:00 AM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Dr. Sanity has an interesting psychological explanation on why the stampeding herd has veered towards Obama and away from Hillary:

http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2008/01/not-so-inexplicable-anger.html

1/10/2008 10:12:00 AM  

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