By Steve Rhodes
“The presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama was launched with the help of more positive press coverage than any other candidate – Republican or Democrat – running for the White House,” Lynn Sweet writes today.
Perhaps more positive press coverage than any candidate in history.
“While Hillary Clinton may have gotten the most press, she did not get the most favorable,” says a study cited by Sweet.
“The findings help explain a component of the Obama phenomenon – how a lawmaker with two years in the Senate within a matter of months became a front-running White House contender,” Sweet writes.
And, according to the study, it wasn’t even close.
“Obama had the most positive tone of coverage, 46.7 percent compared with [Clinton] at 26.9 percent.”
Does anyone still think Obama is Abe Lincoln?
Divide and Conquer
If Obama ever succeeds in carving up Hillary Clinton using right-wing Republican talking points, will anyone stop to ask how he would unite a country if he can’t even unite his own party?
*
And how will the party feel about Obama if Hillary wins the nomination after a bruising primary in which he feels obligated to spend his donors’ gazillions of dollars tearing up Hillary Clinton and in the process establishing the narrative for her Republican opponent?
*
And if Obama doesn’t want a return to the lunatic culture wars of the 90s, why is he the one regurgitating the whole sorry episode?
An Obama path to victory should be an inspiring agenda, not politics as usual. How ironic that he feels he has to destroy his only rationale for running in order to win.
Politics of Exaggeration
The narrative of Obama the Embellisher returned this week with a New York Times story headlined “Obama’s Account of New York year Often Differs From What Others Say.”
“Obama . . . suggests in his book that his years in New York were a pivotal period: He ran three miles a day, buckled down to work and ‘stopped getting high,’ which he says he had started doing in high school. Yet he declined repeated requests to talk about his New York years, release his Columbia transcript or identify even a single fellow student, co-worker, roommate or friend from those years.
“‘He doesn’t remember the names of a lot of people in his life,” said Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman.'”
“Mr. Obama has, of course, done plenty of remembering. His 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, weighs in at more than 450 pages. But he also exercised his writer’s prerogative to decide what to include or leave out. Now as he presents himself to voters, a look at his years in New York – other people’s accounts and his own – suggests not only what he was like back then but how he chooses to be seen now.”
*
Maybe if Hillary speeds up the release of her White House papers, Obama will release his stinkin’ college transcript.
*
“[S]everal of his oft-recited stories may not have happened in the way he has recounted them,” the Tribune reported in March. “Some seem to make Obama look better in the retelling, others appear to exaggerate his outward struggles over issues of race, or simply skim over some of the most painful, private moments of his life.”
Press Play
Obama complaining at the beginning of Tuesday night’s debate that the media had hyped his expected fight with Hillary just days after he and his campaign planted a story in the Sunday New York Times about how he was going to attack Hillary is reminiscent of him complaining about the shallow and trivial nature of campaign coverage after putting himself on the cover of GQ and appearing on The Tyra Banks Show.
I’m not sure Obama knows quite who he is yet. The brand created for him is appealing, but he hasn’t been able to grow into that identity sufficiently, has he?
Guilty, Guilty, Guilty
Yet another verdict has been rendered on former Gov. George Ryan. In the lone dissent of a three-judge federal panel that rejected Ryan’s plea to remain free on bond until his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is considered, Judge Michael S. Kanne wrote that Ryan’s trial “was riddled with errors that ultimately rendered the proceedings manifestly unfair and unjust, notwithstanding the production of overwhelming incriminating evidence against the appellants.”
This statement can now be placed on the pile with federal judge Richard Posner – earlier also writing a dissent in Ryan’s favor – concluding that “the evidence of the defendants’ guilt was overwhelming.”
Just in case anyone still thinks it was a runaway jury.
Overwhelming. It wasn’t even close, despite what some parts of the media told you at the time.
Word Games
“The agency charged with investigating police brutality in Chicago would get a new name – the Independent Police Review Authority – under an ordinance introduced at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.”
– “Key To Police Watchdog’s New Name: ‘Independent‘” Sun-Times
The Mayor’s Police Review Authority would be more accurate. The office now reports directly to Daley, despite pleas by watchdogs that it be given true independence.
Tax Swap
* “Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) said it was too bad [Daley’s] new tax package would be unveiled after the City Council held its sole public hearing on the proposed budget.”
* “The real estate tax tab for the Park Grill, the swanky restaurant in Millennium Park, now stands at $349,061.76. And the restaurant’s owners don’t have to pay a penny of it, a judge says.”
* “‘The taxation system has titled towards the rich and away from the middle class in the last 10 years. It’s dramatic. I don’t think it’s appreciated, and I think it should be addressed.’
“Those are the words of Warren Buffett, who recently took a survey of his office workers. Buffett pays 17.7 percent in income tax. The office workers pay an average of 32.9 percent.”
The Beachwood Tip Line: Mmm, buffet . . .
Posted on November 1, 2007