Elections '08 Media Presidential Race

Wright and the Responsibility of the Media


Often Jon Stewart gets it right.


Last night he got it very right.
Unlike every other news outlet in the country, he declined to mention Jeremiah Wright on his show—at all. But when the subject was brought up (not broached by Stewart) in his interview with Newt Gingrich, he politely pointed out the utter hypocrisy of the media’s fixation with Barack Obama’s former paster.

“I’m really stunned that his pastor has become a focal point of the campaign.”

If Barack Obama loses this nomination fair and square, fine.
But if he loses it because of the Jeremiah Wright issue, the American media is entirely complicit.

As I posted yesterday, I’m aghast at the Shakespearean nature of what Wright did at the National Press Club because of what it says about his own narcissism and his disregard for Obama’s campaign for the presidency.

But the destructive nature of what is going on in the American news media with the obsessive pawing over the Wright matter to the exclusion of EVERY OTHER ISSUE is nothing short of tragic.

No matter whom you favor for President,
every one of us loses when serious dialogue goes out the window, as it has in this campaign.

PS: BTW, what Stewart did report on (hilariously)
is the vexing and counter-factual committee hearings that took place in Congress yesterday regarding sex education.

2 Comments

  • Conan O’Brien did a funny skit on the show tonight, which won’t sit well with the Obots here. (You’ll be looking for secret Hillary connections, like with the “pillow” piece.) But he riffed on the Good Rev’s claiming everything was taken out of context. Intro’s Wright, who screams, “Goddamn you, Conan!” and when Conan asks why, he indignantly accuses him of taking his comments out of context. “I really said, ‘Good evening,’ and Goddamn you Conan!” And so it goes, pretty funny. (Maybe one of our more talented posters can find the YouTube link.)

    It’s NOT just the conservative who won’t lay off this — come on, you’ve gotta admit it’s been pretty funny watching the Obots spin like crazy to try to turn the critics into racists who’ve distorted everything, while the Good Rev. has proved he’s meant to sound exactly like he has. And Obama never dissociated from him until now, spinning him along with the rest of his supporters. Shows bad judgment, and I disagree, Celeste, that if his candidacy falls apart over this, it was all over something of no consequence.

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