Oct 7, 2008 11:36 AM
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New York, 4:14 AM
Wed Feb 10
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So. The McCain campaign oddly decided to run against the media this year. It's not that odd, because Republicans have been doing it quite successfully since 1968, but this is the first year they've had a candidate who started off beloved by the media. And they just sorta pissed that away. Then in running against the media, they pissed off the media, and suddenly John McCain can't get any favorable coverage anywhere, and then they push back againt the media even more, and then Times executive editor Bill Keller says: “My first tendency when they do that is to find the toughest McCain story we’ve got and put it on the front page, just to show them that they can’t get away with it.” Sorta giving the game away! So that explains the gambling story. But those terrible old standards of make-believe "fairness" are what then led the Times to enable the insane and vicious tone the campaign suddenly took this week.
The Times put that gambling story on the front page even though there didn't seem to be that much to it. Now Keller admits, basically, that they did it because the McCain campaign was bothering them. So, obviously, then they had to be fair and put some sort of theoretically damaging Obama story on the front page a week later! And they did, with Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths, the story of how goofy '60s Weatherman Bill Ayers cleaned up and went legit and eventually served on a non-profit board with Barack Obama, which means Obama is a terrorist. Like, seriously, this is what they concluded:
A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”
NOW the increasingly, incredibly detestable Sarah Palin is standing before huge angry frothing crowds saying "I read in the New York Times" (BOOOOOO) "that Barack Hussein Osama is a terrorist" (BOOOOOOOOO) "so let's form a posse and kill the liberal media" (YAAAAAY). And, honestly, it's a desperate campaign in self-destruct mode, but that doesn't make it less disgusting and scary, that a major party is engaging in this kind of rhetoric unashamedly before these kinds of crowds.
And it's all the Times fault, just like everything else.
Send an email to Alex Pareene, the author of this post, at alexp@gawker.com.
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