Monkeywrenching the political process

[unixronin]

With the popular vote in the just-past election so close, one could be forgiven for wondering how much the election may have been influenced by what amounts to an elaborate practical joke.

Of course, the article points out that the perpetrators observed that the news media could easily have exposed their hoax had they put the least effort into checking their facts.  But in this last election, by all appearances the media didn't WANT to check their facts, as long as the report involved something damaging to the McCain-Palin campaign.  Can you imagine the witch-hunt had Eitan Gorlin and Dan Mirvish chosen Barack Obama as their target?  Ah, but wait, we don't have to imagine — we have the persecution of Joe the Plumber as an example.

When I consider how one-sided the reporting of this past election campaign was, and yet how close the popular vote was, I find it hard to avoid speculating that in this Presidential election, the people of the United States did not elect Barack Obama; the news media did.

Comments

[guppiecat]

I agree with you that the media should have checked their sources, but I disagree that the media, as a unit, decided to support Obama over McCain.

Simply put, from the beginning of his campaign, Obama did a kickass job of branding. He built a persona (I think it's pretty close to who he actually is, which helps), built a story, and was consistently on message. He made it easy to talk about him and basically led the media and nation along the path he chose.

In contrast, McCain mostly tried to define himself as "not Obama". His message was fragmentary, self-conflicting and poorly executed. It's not surprising that the media didn't give him equal coverage, there wasn't as much to cover.

Regardless of the political leanings of the people and how good their planning is, Obama is clearly a better leader. I think he'll do a better job than McCain would have. It's not fair to extend this situation to the level of a media conspiracy. The media is made of people and they can be led just like the people of this nation.

It's much like the last election. Though I dislike GWB a lot, I must admit that he is decent at controlling people. Kerry and company were not good at combating the control (through conflict or leadership), and therefore lost. I don't think that the media deliberately did anything these either, Bush just made it very hard to report negatively on him, and Kerry made it far too easy.

[luke-jaywalker.livejournal.com]

Obama might be a better leader, but that's only good if he's leading the country in a good direction.

I get the impression that a lot of people would be willing, from Obama's charisma and oratory, to follow him into hell.

And from what I've seen about his socialist opinions, that might be exactly where he wants to take this country.