Republican Consultant Gives Reporters Too Much Credit
by Big Dog on Dec 23, 2008 at 12:32 Political
Barack Obama has the media in his hip-hop pocket. They have carried his water for two years and helped to quash any negative story, and there were many, that arose over that time. When the Blagojevich story broke Obama was quick to say neither he nor his staff had anything to do with the situation and the media bought that, until it was revealed that Rahm Emanuel had contact regarding the open Senate seat.
Obama and his camp went into damage control mode and decided to conduct an internal investigation. The investigation was completed last week and they, reportedly at the request of US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, held the results. They are supposed to be released this week, maybe as soon as today (I bet it will be tomorrow). How convenient the report will be released while Obama is at a plush Hawaiian retreat many miles away. The internal review will show that there were no contacts that were inappropriate (as opposed to NO contacts). The media will accept this as gospel and move on to Christmas parties and other social gatherings. Accepting the results as closing the issue is like allowing a person to conduct his own tax audit. I bet Major League Baseball wished it had been allowed to conduct its own audit into steroid abuse and have it accepted as the final word.
Republican consultant Ron Bonjean, however, believes that the report will set off a flurry of activity from reporters eager to discover the independent truth:
“The contacts are a potential Pandora’s box,” Mr. Bonjean said. “They’ll take reporters in all different directions, like having dozens of little rabbits running around the White House.” WSJ
The only activity will be reporters running around eager to prove what Obama concluded was true. They will not dig into anything that might discredit their chosen one and will do whatever it takes to validate their support. Chris Matthews said it was his job to ensure Obama was successful. His job, as well as most in the media, was to ensure Bush was unsuccessful but with The One, it is different because they all backed him. The media went to bat for Obama and carried his water through every potential scandal.
Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, and Tony Rezko (and many others) all had associations with Obama that bore further scrutiny but the media were asleep at the wheel. The birth certificate issue is valid but the media refuses to run with it and that includes those who report from the right. The media have failed to exercise due diligence in reporting and vetting Barack Obama and it will likely not exercise journalistic integrity until something happens that cannot be ignored. They did the same with Bill Clinton whose character was in question from the start. Michael Isikoff was prepared to break the Monica Lewinsky story but Newsweek killed it. If Drudge had not published it there would likely not have been the flurry of activity that followed.
Obama will enjoy much of the same treatment until he is involved in something that cannot be ignored so indicating that reporters will be running around like rabbits following the Obama report’s conclusions is being generous with regard to American journalists.
It is very likely that Obama’s people had contact with Blagojevich and that the Senate seat was discussed. If Obama’s report is not complete in all dealings in the matter and it is discovered that other contacts were made then he will be tainted from the start (OK, more tainted). The MSM cannot allow this to happen.
It will be a fun four years watching the media fall all over Obama though I imagine some of his shine is beginning to fade. He has already ticked off the gays and has Barney Frank talking negatively about him.
The media might still love him in the end but they might be the only ones.
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Tags: Blagojevich, cover up, media, Obama, report, scandal