Washington Post Report Shows Off Some of the Republicans' Strong Arm Tactics of the McCain Camp

Well, in fact, what Howard Kurtz is doing is giving McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt some ink in his complaints against the media.  With it Schmidt exposes the sleaze tactics the Republicans, especially he himself, are using in "McCain Strategist Blasts Media:Top Aide Says News Organizations Are 'on a Mission to Destroy' Palin".

Interestingly,  last year through early last month the National Enquirer exposed the affair of John Edwards without confirmation and they were the darlings of the right wing.  

This month it's Sarah Palin and they're dogs.  And yes, the  Sarah Palin story has not been proven true or admitted and is as likely to be false as true, but that was the same situation the tabloid faced with Edwards as far as the rest of us knew for a long time.

But Steve Schmidt is up in arms about "personal" attacks on Sarah Palin and having such a fit that newspeople are assuming that he also wants them to back off on legitimate subjects, too , it seems.

Excerpt:

Schmidt spoke on the record in denouncing as "an absolute work of fiction" a New York Times account of the process by which the McCain campaign vetted Palin. He also charged that Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman was predicting that the governor might have to step down as McCain's vice presidential choice.

Fineman said that he has "never, ever said that," and that he has pointed out positive aspects of Palin's candidacy. "They decided a long time ago that they were going to work the refs," he said.

I didn't know what "work the refs" means so I yahooed it.  It's used a lot by journalists especially in the context of political campaigns, but seems to come from the world of sports, and be about bullying the referees so that they are afraid to call against your team in the future.  

Even in the sporting world it's looked down on by a number of people.  When used against journalists who work to bring us an accurate information, especially news that will help us decide whom to choose to lead our nation, it can be downright scurrilous if done in a threatening manner.  Making sure information coming out is accurate is one thing, but trying to intimidate 4th estate is another.  They're already dragged along on a chain by their fat cat advertisers.

The Post continues:

Elisabeth Bumiller, the lead author of the Times report, said she is "completely confident about the story." As for the campaign's criticism, she said: "This is what they do. It's part of their operation."

McCain also canceled a scheduled appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live" on Tuesday in retaliation for an interview a day earlier in which prime-time host Campbell Brown repeatedly pressed campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds to provide one example of a decision that Palin had made as commander of the Alaska National Guard.

"The interview was totally fair," Brown said. "I was trying to get an answer. I was persistent, but I was respectful. That's my job. Experience is a legitimate issue when John McCain raises it about Obama, and it's also legitimate for us to raise it about Palin."

Schmidt, a former spokesman for President Bush and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, talked openly about his frustrations in an interview with The Washington Post. He said the McCain camp is in the middle of the worst media "feeding frenzy" he has ever seen.

Well, there's a lot of chum out there, friend.

(For non fishers, chum is free food for the fish floating around in the water.)

I also remember that after Biden was chosen by Senator Obama a flood of reports came out immediately about everything he'd done in the Senate and a lot of his personal life, too.  We all know that Biden first won a Senate seat when he was 29 too young to take office, though he would be 30 before installation.  We also know that his wife, and daughter were killed in a car accident between the time he was elected and the time he took office, and his sons were badly injured by the crash leaving him with stronger than normal nurturing attactment to his children.  I believe I remember correctly that Joe Biden remarried about 5 years later.

We know that Joe Biden is catholic, and grew up in working class Pennsylvania. 

After Russia, in a reprisal, invaded Georgia, Sakaashvili called Joe Biden before he called President Bush.

It all came out, personal and public.  

Why should Sarah Palin be treated any differently?

Notice that the Republicans thought, are not above taking away chances to talk to their major candidates from a network if just one of their journalists steps over their line and abandons kid glove treatment of their candidates.

Kurtz's piece goes on to pretend this is all about "fishy" stuff first brought up by tabloids of which it says:

Bloggers on the left and right increasingly drive media coverage by turning up the volume on questions until they are difficult to ignore.   

...

Major newspapers, magazines and networks no longer play their traditional gatekeeper role in the digital age, as was evident during the eight-month period when the National Enquirer was charging former senator John Edwards with fathering an out-of-wedlock baby. Most national news outlets did not report the allegations until last month, when Edwards acknowledged an affair with a former campaign aide but denied being her child's father.

Still, traditional media outlets can amplify and legitimize such reports, which may be why the McCain campaign is fighting so hard to keep the Palin allegations confined to the Internet. Denouncing the news media as biased also plays well with many Republican voters.

IMHO: The Palin people hope to instill fear, also, about reporting on the many very legitimate questions, like whether her religion which seeks to reduce the freedom of many Americans, first and foremost those of women, children, gays, and lesbians, what she did while in Alaska government, and her working style.

But then this is business as usual for the Republicans.

tags: sarah palin  steve schmidt  

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