Attackdogs against Clinton, Lapdogs for Obama

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The other day, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, devoted her column to defend Michelle Obama against possible future attacks from Republicans. Dowd, who was and still is along with her colleague Frank Rich one of the leading attackdog among the perennial Hillary (and Bill) Clinton haters, wrote that “Mrs. Obama is the new, unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of ‘Kill the witch.’ If anyone plays the “Kill the witch” game as ugly as it can get, it is columnist Dowd—at least when it comes to Hillary. Even after Senator Clinton threw the towel and endorsed Senator Obama, Dowd couldn’t stop going after Hillary. Nor could Rich or the obnoxious talking heads on cable television—especially those on MSNBC.

The attacksdogs against Clinton are lapdogs for Obama.

All during the campaign, female pundits were as sexist as their male counterparts in their united front against Hillary. And they fought mightily against those who accused them of gender bias. Dowd closed one of her recent columns with yet another defense against the charge of the mainstream media’s gender bias, when she wrote that Clinton “didn’t lose because she was a woman. She didn’t lose because
America isn’t ready for a woman as president. She lost because of her own — and her husband’s and Mark Penn’s — fatal missteps.”

Don’t believe it.

Even Katie Couric who knows a thing or two about gender bias in the media, especially when it comes to the coveted positions of TV-network anchors, said the other day,

“However you feel about her politics, I feel that Sen. Clinton received some of the most unfair, hostile coverage I’ve ever seen.”

According to one account, “Couric went on to say that latent sexism contributed, in part, to Hillary's defeat. She referred to one ‘rominent member of the commentariat’ who said he ‘found it hard to be objective when it came to Obama.’

‘That's your job,’ she remembers thinking when hearing this, before suggesting that he ‘find another line of work.’”

For these remarks, I am sure, Katie will be put through the wringer one way or the other by those in the media who can’t overcome their gender prejudices..

As for Dowd’s defense of Michelle Obama against the “Kill the witch” players, she predicts, “Now Republicans can turn their full attention to demonizing Michelle Obama.” In other words, as lapdog for Obama this columnist rises in direct defense of Michelle and indirectly of Barack Obama even before what she calls “Mincing of Michelle” has begun. So, Dowd sings the praises of Michelle as “a devoted daughter, wife and mother who has lived the American dream, from the humble South Side of Chicago to
Harvard Law School.”

Nothing wrong with praising Mrs. Obama—except for the fact that this comes from the same columnist who was and still is a leading “Kill the witch” player against Hillary and who now goes all out in defending Michelle against possible Republican “Kill the witch” plays in the future! 

Those in the media who voice their opinions have a right to do so. Readers and radio/ TV-audiences know the ideological and partisan preferences of columnists, editorial pages, and talk show hosts. But even in the realm of opinion, press ethics require adherence to truth and fairness and balance.

Unfortunately, gross partisanship is part and parcel of today’s mainstream media’s campaign coverage—and not only when it comes opinion pages and talk shows on radio and television. 

Comments

[Brigitte]

John, you are so right--Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd and so many others among columnists, talk show hosts but also among news anchors and reporters have been biased beyond belief during the primary season--with Hillary Clinton the most obvious victim. What you describe so well in terms of campaigns' alleged and real choreography of the preferred backgrounds at events is a perfect example in that these media types will ignore how their favorite candidates manipulate the composition of the visible supporters and blame others for such stagecraft even if there is no evidence.
I have not see Mr. Rich writing about African-Americans pushed from camera range at events where the Obamas appeared nor will I read in Rich's column about American Muslim women rejected from the podium-near crowd before Senator Obama appeared on stage.

[John]

This is an excellent post. Frank Rich has been horrible this election season. Something you might want to think about writing is about one of Rich's most egregious columns about the town meeting that Hillary Clinton had before Super Tuesday. He lambasted her for including certain types of people from different races and genders in the background and among the questioners.

He wrote: "The campaign’s other most potent form of currency remains its thick deck of race cards. This was all too apparent in the Hallmark show. In its carefully calibrated cross section of geographically and demographically diverse cast members — young, old, one gay man, one vet, two union members — African-Americans were reduced to also-rans. One black woman, the former TV correspondent Carole Simpson, was given the servile role of the meeting’s nominal moderator, Ed McMahon to Mrs. Clinton’s top banana....But the wholesale substitution of Hispanics for blacks on the Hallmark show is tainted by a creepy racial back story."

First, this was not true, as there was an African-Americans that participated. And the idea that a campaign tries to make things look diverse (or not) is not news. I am waiting for Frank Rich to castigate Obama this weekend for having his campaign ask Muslim women with headscarves to be moved out of camera sight at an event in Michigan? I am also waiting for Frank Rich to castigate Obama for holding his rally on the last day of the primary in lily-white liberal Minnesota, so he gets lots and lots of white faces in the background, pushing African-Americans out of the way. And why are McCain and Obama always putting white women in the backgrounds now?

[Eric Chen]

Tribalism.