October 06, 2008
Why do you need to read blogs?
Why do you need to read blogs? Because the MSM (Mainstream Media) is so in the tank for Obama that you simply cannot be well informed if you don't venture onto the internet.
The latest -- and most repellent example -- comes via the eagle-eyed Patterico, who lives to expose the bottomless pit of mediocrity and mendacity that is The Los Angeles Times.
Today John McCain finally began to tell the country about his own efforts to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Democrats’ incredible inaction. Yes, as many of us had urged, McCain finally talked about the economy, and the conservative blogs went nuts. Republican bloggers know that McCain has to talk about this, because the economy is the top issue concerning Americans, and McCain has a good story to tell — even if it’s one that the media has been ignoring.
Speaking of which:
How did the L.A. Times cover McCain’s stunning speech taking on this core economic concern?
By pretending McCain never said it, and by quoting Barack Obama talking about how McCain is scared to talk about the economy.
I’m not joking:
At a rally here, McCain also lumped Obama in with Chicago politics’ history of corruption, while Obama responded that the Republicans were fostering political shenanigans and scare tactics.
. . . .
“It’s as if somehow the usual rules don’t apply, and where other candidates have to explain themselves and their records, Sen. Obama seems to think he is above all that,” McCain told the cheering crowd. “Whatever the question, whatever the issue, there’s always a back story with Sen. Obama. All people want to know is, what has this man ever actually accomplished in government? What does he plan for America? In short, who is the real Barack Obama? But ask such questions and all you get in response is another barrage of angry insults.”
That’s precisely the point where McCain started to talk about Democratic responsibility for the economy. McCain’s very next words, which never appear in the L.A. Times, were these words:
Our current economic crisis is a good case in point. What was his actual record in the years before the great economic crisis of our lifetimes?
At which point McCain launched into the amazing speech quoted by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, during which he laid out the case, at great length, for the Democrats’ responsibility for the mortgage crisis.
Does the L.A. Times report one word of that?
No.
Instead, they cut the quote of McCain’s speech short there, right before he talks about the economy, and proceed to quote Obama as claiming that McCain is scared to talk about the economy:
Speaking with reporters in Asheville, N.C., where he is studying for Tuesday’s debate, which is to focus on the economy and domestic issues, Obama pointed to recent reports that the McCain camp wanted to get away from economic issues, a topic that polls show benefits the Democrats.
“I was a little surprised over the last couple of days to hear Sen. McCain say, or Sen. McCain’s campaign say, that we want to turn the page on the discussion of the economy and a member of Sen. McCain’s campaign saying today that if we keep talking about the economic crisis we lose,” Obama said.
“I cannot imagine anything more important to talk about than the economic crisis, and the notion that we’d want to brush that aside and engage in the usual political shenanigans and scare tactics that have come to characterize too many political campaigns, I think [that] is not what the American people are looking for,” he said.
Of course, the economic crisis, and who is responsible for it, is exactly what McCain talked about.
But you’d never know that by reading the L.A. Times. The paper does make sure, however, to include this Obama attack on a nearly 20-year-old scandal barely involving John McCain:
Democrats, mindful that unanswered allegations hurt Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s presidential bid in 2004, hit back by portraying McCain as a friend of the same kind of bankers whose subprime mortgage dealings are causing a crisis on Wall Street.
Right: they talked about McCain’s (non-)involvement in the ancient Keating Five scandal. That is worthy of mention. But when McCain talked at length about the responsibility for the current crisis, all we’re told is that he’s scared to talk about the economy.
Orwellian, isn’t it?
But it’s business as usual at this newspaper.
And yet millions of voters still think they're getting an impartial, fair accounting of what's being said by the candidates from the morning papers tossed in their driveways.
If you weren't reading Patterico's post, you'd think that McCain was indeed afraid to talk about the economy, and you'd also think that Obama wasn't a lying crapweasel.
But now you know that you'd be wrong.
No thanks to the L.A. Times.
Shameful.
Posted by Mike Lief at October 6, 2008 11:58 PM
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