John Heilemann at New York Magazine has an interesting analysis of the media's orgy of adulation for Barack Obama and the vicious, bratty, adolescent and vile hate-fest targeted at Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Heilemann forgets to mention the patriarchy, but it's a good read and helps document the double standard or the process whereby the media picks our 2008 Democratic candidate for us. Canada, anyone?
Heilemann provides some needed validation for those of us who are feeling very much like alienated Democratic Party expatriates:
Divergence in tone is one thing, double standards are another. And it’s the latter that most galls the former advisers to the other, now-departed, Democratic candidates. “Obama has been able to get away with a stunning amount of hypocrisy that would get called on her,” says one such operative. “They’ve run the nastiest, most deceptive pieces of paid media: the mailer they did lying about her health-care plan, with the Harry and Louise look-alikes. The idea that it took Hillary growling Tony Rezko’s name in a debate to get any national coverage. How he complained in Iowa about 527s and then had them supporting him like crazy in Nevada and California. And nobody says a peep about it. It’s fucking comical!”
There are countless other examples of this syndrome, both large and small. The way that Clinton’s famous fumbling of a question about whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to have driver’s licenses in a debate last fall was hammered on for weeks—whereas Obama’s flubbing of the same question in the next debate was essentially let slide. The way that Obama’s evisceration of his rival in his stump speeches was applauded by the media—whereas Clinton’s plunge into negative territory was widely condemned. The way that Clinton was roundly criticized for being inaccessible, and thus unaccountable, to the press—when Obama has since January been even less available for questioning than she. . . read more
“You can't diminish Obama and hope that you will rise from the ashes."
And see: Are Fainting Spells at Obama Rallies Staged?
Barack Obama's Achilles Heel
Graphic via Is Barack Obama the Messiah?
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