Saturday, July 19, 2008

Three Blind Mice Or One Boring Politician?

A FaceBook friend of mine, Amanda Bateman, posted a comment on her profile page with an interesting premise - that the three leading anchors on regular TV, Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Charles Gibson (plus, one assumes, their networks) are biased against poor Senator John McCain.

Her brief posting, cutely titled, "Three Blind Mice", simply stated, "And the biased media continues...should we be surprised? Probably not."

That was followed by the following three URLs.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2008/07/17/network-anchors-join-obama-world-tour-little-coverage-mccain-travel
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/07/if_a_network_anchor_falls_in_t.html

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/entertainment&id=6274320

Not that the media does NOT have a bias. Of course it does. It always appears biased in favor of whoever you oppose! But I was amused to read the first link. So, I posted a follow up note to Ms. Bateman'sc comment.

I acknowledged that she did make a valid point. But I went on to say that it was amusing to read the first link and have a real pro-Republican blogger quote the... (gulp)... New York Times for an objective comment. :-)

I did not check that blog's previous postings to see what they may have to say about some opinions that Fox News Channel simply is a Republican Party propaganda machine.

This is not to defend the anchors Amanda criticized above, or their myopic lemming-like networks. But, let's not forget that, media bias not withstanding, the media reports things based on interestingness from the public's perspective.

So, Britney Spears' sister having a baby gets on the cover of People magazine but not, say, the Sudanese leader possibly being charged with genocide.

Is that particular choice a show of "bias" against black politicians or world leaders? Of course not - though I am sure some will want to think so. No. We have to look at other possible angles also.

Even my Republican friends, and objective conservative media professionals all admit, McCain has just not been a very interesting candidate or politician in a very long while. He is NOT good at thinking on his feet when an unfamiliar question is posed to him.

(See this video online of him totally lost and clueless http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/mccain_respect_contraception/ ).

He seems uncomfortable with his position. All he can do is appear "resolute" in sticking to the failed policy of the war in Iraq.

People immediately "accuse" me that I must be some extreme liberal, or Democrat, if I dare criticize anything about Republicans. But, in fact, I am a thorough independent.

Ironically, I had been a loud supporter of John McCain for President in 2000 and fully believe we would have been far better off as a nation having him, despite his somewhat loose-cannon personality, as President than the joke of the millennium George W. Bush that fate, and the Supreme Court, foisted on us.

(2004's re-election of George Bush is something Republicans and his voters have to take the blame for and know that history will judge their actions as the most destructive single influence starting America's decline in the world at a time it should have been getting far more loved, respected and emulated worldwide).

So, much that I supported McCain over Bush in 2000, and much that I respected him for being a war hero (as opposed to a war Zero like Bush), I cannot bring myself to support him for President of the United States in 2008. He has served his country ably, well, sincerely, and should be commended and respected for that. That alone is not reason to elect him President.

Does that mean, somehow, that Obama is the perfect candidate. Surely not. Obama can make mistakes, Hillary can still cause trouble enough for the Democracks -- sorry - Democrats to lose the election.

That means McCain can obviously not give up. But, just being a candidate does not a campaign make. He needs to smarten up. He has no momentum at present. He has no great ideas. He is sticking to bad ideas on Iraq. He is not exciting to the populace. Even worse, especially from the media perspective, he is just not interesting anymore.

That is what his campaign in disarray has to focus on. Try to make him be more exciting, interesting, and, yes, more creative and original than he is at present. Can it be done?

What do you think?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Anwar I agree with you. The media only talks about what the public wants to hear. Besides, McCain is kind of old news. He's what we've seen before in the past presidents, a much older, caucasion gentlemen. Though people are very intellectual, certain things are still based on appearence. You are right, if McCain wants more media time, he's gonna have to spark some more interest. Then again, the time for change has come. A black american candidate is being taken seriously, what can be more interesting then that?