Political Punch

Obama is neglecting his duties in the job he was elected for in order to pursue a more powerful job. His surrogates point out that it's the freshman Senator from Illinois' judgement, that we took our eyes off the prize by going in to Iraq, as the justification for his elevation to the Presidency. I agree that we let Bin Laden off the hook by neglecting Afghanistan and going into Iraq. He is neglecting his position as Chair of the Sub-committee that oversees NATO's activities in Afghanistan. This is tremendously important to the security of this country, but he has yet to chair a single meeting (since Jan. 2007, when he assumed the Chair) in his pursuit of higher office. If he doesn't take this job seriously, what assurances do we have that he will take the position of the Presidency seriously?

The only thing of substance that obama says is when he says he agrees with Senator Clinton. My husband calls him oblahblah because he never says anything of substance (my husband is a Vietnam Veteran and a member of MENSA). My husband's question is, "Where's the Beef?" Where's the plan, besides agreeing with Senator Clinton?
hillary4change

Just another media created celebrity "product" all wrapped up in a fancy package.

I think that alone turned me off to Obama.

The longer I hear the same empty crap from Obama, he reveals his ability as an actor which what the media are looking for. To hear the Obama message the media should play his first speach over and over again, in this way he wouldn't have to travel!!!! Who was that other actor who became president? Stay tuned for: From the Whitehouse It's Saturday night live. [What a Joke]

I remember seven years ago when a white man who had no experience got elected.
The media gave him a free pass because of his name not because of his experience. Speaking of experience his was owner of a baseball team and a no show governor. Baseball is in the shape it is in because of owners like Mr. Bush and our country is in the shape it is in because of Mr. Bush.Texas is still recovering slowly.
Mr.Obama is getting a free pass because white men who rule this country can not and will not let a woman tell them what to do. God forbid. Where were Mr. Kennedy and how did he vote for the war? Camelot is over the Kennedy's are elitist and can get by with anything. They are not for the common person they are big business.
If Mr. Obama is really not Washington then why does he have Mr. Kennedy campaigning for Him?
If I did not know better The Rock Star
Mr. Obama thinks he is Jesus Christ.

Thanks for those citations that indicate media bias against Senator Clinton. Unfortunately, they are months old. Coverage in the last month alone dwarfs that of previous months. We're lucky that fairness groups will be looking at this; however, in the meantime, Clinton's opponent enjoys a free pass and all this talk about momentum and inevitability.

I've stopped watching two major outlets and will be dropping my subscription to the Boston Globe based on their overwhelmingly slanted coverage during the primary season - they really blurred the line between their editorial side and news reporting side in a way that I hadn't seen before. Even pulling back on critical coverage of Obama's pal, Deval Patrick who has been largely MIA in Massachusetts while he campaigns around the country.

I have to hope that people in Texas and Ohio realize that his campaign is media driven - shows no substance and that he has outspent Clinton 2 to 1. People may get tired of "all Obama all the time".

Subtract the 'positive coverage' Obama's received from the press in correcting lies and smears being spread through whispering campaigns.

Absolutely, the media has given Obama a pass on just about everything. It's sickening. As media, you can argue that's not the case, but let's put it another way---Why isn't the truth about Obama coming out, his flip-flopping, his shady pals, his lobbyists, the extremist church he belongs to, his wasted time in the senate, just for starters. This guy has major character flaws, what is it with the media--they're willing to take a virtually "unknown" and believe him at his word. It's the media responsibility to do their jobs. I do not watch NBC, or MSNBC anymore after that so-called journalist made those ugly comments about Hillary Clinton and her daughter. What if the same was said about Obama's wife and daughter!! It's shameful what the media has become.

The coverage of Clinton was negative before she lost any contests. In fact, one has to ask what effect the negative portrayal had on her contests. Self fulfilling prophecy? We saw with the selling of the war how much influence the media has.
Plus it's not just negative versus positive stories, it's the gushing tone of voice and smiles versus cutting comments and frowns.
I really think it's time for the media to take a hard look at what they are doing.

Technically speaking, Hillary is always sending negative responses against Obama. She is rude on both debates in Texas and Ohio. She saisd obama worked for slum apparments in Chicago during his lawyer leadership. It hurt to know that a young lady running for president has those negative thoughts, and she cried on national tv, becuse she wanted the voters to vote for her and after all of that she was only ahead by one percent of the vote. We just need a string leadership to run our country and some one who does not whine when she get asked the first question. America love Obama. Through Christ anything is impossible. I trust in God that Obama will win for president.

Economy was great when Clinton was in office.The saying don't mess up a good thing.What kind of change other then a black president.You idiots deserve what you ask for.Is your black president going to get you that new home new car new job.I guess you will still be where you are.BROKE but at least you'll have your black president.IDIOTS!!!

The two sources cited for this article deserve comment. 1) Center for Media for Public Affairs. While this group certainly has an excellent reputation, it's hard to accept the credibility of any study which calls FOX News the least biased network. 2) Joan Shorenstein Center. This article failed to mention that this center is funded by Walter H Shorenstein - who is such a fixture in the DNC machine that he received the 1997 DNC Lifetime Achievement Award - and has supported this Clintons for over a decade. Work harder.

This is definitely the understatement of the century.

Hillary will even be happy if the media has it as 80/20 with 20% positive towards her. Right now, it feels like 98% for Obama and 2% Clinton. The 2% I credit to Saturday Night Live.

Actually, I am still waiting for one positive coverage of Clinton from main stream media. The media must stop making the news and just report it.

The US media have been grossly negligent in failing to analyze the ridiculous protectionist and isolationis pledges of Clinton and Obama to gut NAFTA.
Under NAFTA, the US gets guaranteed access to Canada's oil and gas at the same price paid by Canadians -- and Canada is by far the biggest supplier of these precious resources to the US. If NAFTA is reopened by a President Obama or Clinton, then Canada will strike a harder bargain, and the result will be more unemployment south of the border.
Moreover, China and India -- not Canada or Mexico -- are the cause of job losses in Ohio!

If it is okay for a presidential candidate to plagiarize, then it should be okay for the white house employee to do the same.

To those who say that the white house guy case of "plagiarism" is different, I can imagine what college they attended - where plagiarism is allowed as long as the person you are plagiarizing gives his okay. Now, this definition is completely out of whack.

I am beginning to understand the thinking of the Obama supporters or ditto-heads.

Wake up people!

Bush was largely favored by the press against Gore and Kerry because of "likeability."

There is nothing more superficial.

Just a thought of course, just adding one or two cents here, but could it be, I mean could the possibility exist that 'positive coverage' of individuals in the press largely depends on these individual's positive, appealing and impressive qualities?

Why would the media coverage of say Nelson Mandela have been 'largely positive' when compared to that of say Robert Mugabe over the years? Could an explanation be that these 2 African leaders have shown some differences in politics, character, style, content etc?
Just a thought of course.

Might it be possible that a majority of the people of therefore of the press have sounding reasons to think more favorably of Obama than of Clinton? And that the difference as shown in all the favorability polls is not an expression of bias but of judgement?

The concept that the media has given Barack Obama a free ride is ludicrous. In a single week this February, almost every mainstream American publication printed articles with a common lock-step theme: that the Obama campaign lacked substance and that the millions of Americans who supported Obama were “cultists.” (Tapper, ABC 2/7; Stein, LAT 2/8;, Klein, Time 2/7; Brooks, NYT 2/8; and Krugman, NYT, 2/11, among others). All of these articles shared a common mantra, which was that Obama supporters and by association, the Obama campaign was composed of cult-followers. The coincidental timing of these articles is either a miracle of Old Testament proportion or implies that that something has gone deeply astray with the legacy of an independent press corps. What we expect from the American tradition of great journalism is objective reporting and independent thinking; what we are receiving in this campaign season is precisely the opposite. Edward R. Murrow didn’t spend a lot of time writing about kool-aid in the midst of a conflict in which hundreds of thousands of civilians were being slaughtered.

Obama has no experience and none or little past records for press to discuss about.

Hillary on ther hand helps media to sell their shows on discussing about debating on the Hillary's experience claims, her days as first lady, pre first lady and as senator.

Obama has to sell himself with help of Oprah or polititians to get media coverage.

I think both the campaign has their own challenges.

It's nice to see folks in the media finally acknowledging what the rest of us can see: the sharp bias against Clinton in favor of Obama. Now that Obama is clearly the frontrunner one hopes he finally starts to get some scrutiny. But the admissions of the press folk are incredible- tough to not get swept up in the Obama rapture etc.
I agree with you Jake - these folks are in the wrong business! The choice of a particular photo here, the choice of a word here -- it all adds up to millions of dollars worth of free advertising for Obama.

Fair and balanced what a joke. Who ever is the medias darling wins the election because the elderly, young and working poor only have tv to help them make a decision. The same old tired faces each night spit out the same old tired crap: their opinion not fact. So if you want to know who is going to win its the candidate whos mug is constantly being flashed to your tv eyes. [subbliminal messages]

Why would Clinton receive more negative coverage? Losing 11 in a row doesn't help. Complaining that election rules that your own staff and supporters helped put in place are unfair and should be changed to help you - not very positive. Allowing comments that might be interpreted as even mildly racially insensitive isn't a plus either.

Obama's campaign has been incredibly disciplined in avoiding remarks that could be interpreted as sexist. When the former general mocked Clinton's emotional moment, he had to immediately apologize. The obvious response to the red phone ad is "do you want someone who gets 'hot' (her words) at a campaign flier to answer that phone at 3am?" The Obama campaign doesn't go there since it might sound sexist.

If you believe the press, the Clinton campaign has not been well run. If you run a better campaign, you'll probably get better coverage.

Why would clinton receive more negative coverage? (Nevermind that the links you provide are all prior to Iowa). Of course, losing 11 in a row doesn't help. Complaining that election rules that your own staff or supporters helped put in place are unfair and should be changed - not very positive. Allowing comments that even might be interpreted as racially insensitive isn't a plus either.

Obama's campaign has been incredibly disciplined in avoiding remarks that could be interpreted as sexist. When the former general mocked Clinton's emotional moment, he was made to immediately apologize. The obvious response to the red phone ad is "do you want someone who loses her temper at a campaign flier to be answering the phone at 3am?" The Obama campaign doesn't go there since it might sound sexist.

If you run a better campaign, you'll probably get better coverage.

The Obama story was completely developed by the press and blown up like a hot air balloon. Actually the race is very close and has been from the very start. Of all the questions that surround Obama, almost none have been asked by the press.

No, it has not been positive. Clinton is LYING again.

-----------------

Check your local paper and or any paper for that matter:

EVERY SINGLE DAY the front page has a story like "Clinton camp says Obama is weak on terror" or "Clinton slams Obama over health care"

Why is this news, as opposed to one-sided propaganda?

I think the press has been unfairly co-opted by Clintons team, so much so that no one notices that the front page is dominated by the Clinton Machine's spin:

Somali photo
Plagiarism
Health care
Reagan quote
on and on ...

The press has totally been in the Clinton team's pocket this whole race.

Last year, they bought into the inevitability narrative.

This year, they been putting Clinton's daily barrage of talking points in their headlines almost verbatim.

"Clinton say Obama .... " is the typical daily headline on the NyTimes. It's remarkable she has totally coopted the newscycle and yet still is losing, and still complains about "unfairness"!!!

The Bush Administration, for a long time, lived and died by the (almost) truism that, if you say something is true long enough and loud enough, it will come to be believed to be true. Over the last four years, in particular, the public has caught on to that bull, and the media has tended to follow, so that Bush's approval ratings are in the toilet.

The Clinton campaign seem to be following the same mantra. If we say that the negative press we're getting is because the press is unfairly positive about Obama, or has drank the Koolaid, then it must be true. Ignore the fact that our campaign is on a huge losing streak, that our campaign can't seem to find its message, and that our campaign is going increasingly negative -- though still without a core message that's consistent -- and that we're likely to lose at least two of the four primarys on March 4th, including at least one of two "Must-Wins," -- oh, right, we've changed that message as well, they're now "must-wins" for Obama!!!

Hillary Clinton has no one to blame but herself -- and her Million Dollar a month Salary core campaign team. For that much money, she should have done much better. That she hasn't says much, much more about Hillary (and Bill) Clinton than it does about Barack Obama.

Of course you can't just look at percentages of favorable stories to conclude that there's media bias. Some candidates might have more newsworthy negative things than others.

And perception of media bias depends heavily on what you take to be the 'truth' ahead of time. Republicans really do think MSM is biased against them. Democrats seem to think the same. So what's the truth of the matter?

My take is that the media perpetuates various memes, and that leads to a mish-mash of reporting that shades the truth, albeit not in any one clear way. There seems to be little interest in scandal-type reporting at the moment. So we aren't hearing much about Rezko. And we aren't hearing much about Clinton's refusal to release her tax returns until it's too late to impact the race.

There's a lot of interest in the horse race. Clinton has lost 11 in a row, and as a result her campaign has released a series of memoes containing some of the lamest spin in history. This generates some pretty negative stories about what the campaign has done worng. Obama is winning, so he gets stories about how well his campaign is working.

As for framing the contest, the media has let stand Clinton's frame. It's assumed that she has the experience and that Obama needs to prove something there. It's assumed that she's the one with all the wonky policy detail, and that Obama lacks this as seen by his reliance on oratory. Neither of these narratives are obviously true, but they are taken as givens in most of the reporting I've seen.

There are, of course, individuals with strong visible bias in the media. Matthews really doesn't like Clinton. There are other reports (Dan Abrams) who are pretty clearly Clinton supporters, but they tend to be not quite so blatant about it.

Seems to me that on different points, both candidates have had to swim upstream. And if there's currently a generally negative picture of Clinton in the press, it's because she's losing and her campaign is flailing and it's hard to see how that can be reported in a way that is not unflattering to her.

Of course Obama is getting more positive press...

There's more about Obama to be positive about!

I think the reason Hillary Clinton has been getting negative (and since her complaint I've noticed all she gets now is positive) press is because she's the one doing the negative campaigning. With her mocking Obama every chance she gets, she earns herself negative press. I don't think the media has been in a lovefest with Obama either. They've reported many a negative thing about him too. He just has chosen to handle it differently.

I was just trying to imagine myself as a reporter and working on something positive to say about HRC. Damned if I can come up with anything.

Check your local paper and or any paper for that matter:

EVERY SINGLE DAY the front page has a story like "Clinton camp says Obama is weak on terror" or "Clinton slams Obama over health care"

Why is this news, as opposed to one-sided propaganda?

I think the press has been unfairly co-opted by Clintons team, so much so that no one notices that the front page is dominated by the Clinton Machine's spin:

Somali photo
Plagiarism
Health care
Reagan quote
on and on ...

Working the refs!!

The press has totally been in the Clinton team's pocket this whole race.

Last year, they bought into the inevitability narrative.

This year, they been putting Clinton's daily barrage of talking points in their headlines almost verbatim.

"Clinton say Obama .... " is the typical daily headline on the NyTimes. It's remarkable she has totally coopted the newscycle and yet still is losing, and still complains about "unfairness"!!!

With three United States Senators running for President, the following quote seems appropriate:

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress....
But then I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain-

Enough of this "media is too hard on Clinton" storyline already. She was practically annointed the nominee a year ago by this same media who did as much as her campaign to enforce the "inevitability" argument.

She was humiliated into third place by VOTERS in Iowa yet somehow managed to leverage a measly 2-point win in NH (what happened to the paper/electronic ballot discrepancy story by the way?) and proclaimed herself the front-runner again.

Now we have the tax story. Russert has been the boldest so far but then he dropped it and everyone else ignores it. If this had been a Republican refusing to release his tax returns in time for the primaries, the media would be on this daily. Same as with the Clinton Library records. She is claiming 8 years as First Lady as relevant experience, yet will not release documents from that time.

Finally, just ask yourself, what other candidate after 11 losses by a minimum of 17 points, firing of staff, mismanagement of money, a 150+ delegate deficit, super-delegate defections, and behind by 1 million in the popular vote, would ever be considered in contention by the news media? This alone stands the media bias charge on its head.

While the bulk of the Obama coverage has been positive, we just can't give all the credit to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

So far, the media has chosen to give Obama a free ride and support a majority of his baseless rhetoric. Is there "kool-aid" in the newsrooms? Who knows?

But, I do know that any time someone dares to question the Obama hype and rhetoric, they are labeled as racist, hateful, or fear mongers. Labels for having a different opinion, I guess.

I also know that Clinton, Obama, and the Democrats are spending huge amounts of money on advertising while McCain and the Republicans are spending a relatively small amount.

The big Republican donors (Corporate America)are smiling as they watch the drain of opposition funds. And, they will be ready to spend their share for the vote that counts in November.

As a former Democrat and newly declared "Independent," I can now sit back and watch the Democratic campaign circus with amusement.

Gimme a break. The media is using the media to defend itself against Hillary Clinton which the media has been attacking at every turn. Actually, if Hillary started aiming her ads at the media, where the real fight is, she would probably move the voting mass when it finally dawned on them what's up.