Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Other Races
Other political races, I mean. (Behave yourself, people!)
I'll admit that I'm disappointed in the way Campaign 2008 turned out in general. Yes, John Hinderaker points out that this was not a landslide. Nonetheless, John Kerry was reelected (with 66% of the vote). In spite of everything, Barney Frank was reelected (with 68% of the vote); in spite of everything, Frank Murtha was reelected (with 58% of the vote).
Nancy Pelosi was also reelected... which is good, I suppose, in that she's slightly better for the job than Cindy Sheehan.
Another 'election' of sorts is that the national press were vindicated. They seemed to think that, if they skewed coverage heavily enough in favor of Sen. Obama -- ignoring his major issues (while pounding Sen. McCain's minor issues to death) -- they could guarantee his election to the Presidency. To all appearances, that strategy has succeeded.
I think that's extremely unfortunate. Had McCain won, the press might have been chastened in their hubris; they might even have fallen back to their proper role, of researching and reporting news as fairly as possible. As it is, I think we're going to see some extremely swelled heads among the press corps' Obama Cheering Squads.
Will they now ever get around to reporting the issues they should have covered during the campaign? To a certain extent, they have a vested interest in not doing so; it exposes them for the partisans they are. But I suspect that they won't have much of a choice. Obama must now make decisions, some of which are sure to be unpopular; he can't vote 'present' any more. He may even alienate his friends in the press, as we saw more than once during his campaign... at which time he'll learn just what a fickle friend the press can be.
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I'll admit that I'm disappointed in the way Campaign 2008 turned out in general. Yes, John Hinderaker points out that this was not a landslide. Nonetheless, John Kerry was reelected (with 66% of the vote). In spite of everything, Barney Frank was reelected (with 68% of the vote); in spite of everything, Frank Murtha was reelected (with 58% of the vote).
Nancy Pelosi was also reelected... which is good, I suppose, in that she's slightly better for the job than Cindy Sheehan.
Another 'election' of sorts is that the national press were vindicated. They seemed to think that, if they skewed coverage heavily enough in favor of Sen. Obama -- ignoring his major issues (while pounding Sen. McCain's minor issues to death) -- they could guarantee his election to the Presidency. To all appearances, that strategy has succeeded.
I think that's extremely unfortunate. Had McCain won, the press might have been chastened in their hubris; they might even have fallen back to their proper role, of researching and reporting news as fairly as possible. As it is, I think we're going to see some extremely swelled heads among the press corps' Obama Cheering Squads.
Will they now ever get around to reporting the issues they should have covered during the campaign? To a certain extent, they have a vested interest in not doing so; it exposes them for the partisans they are. But I suspect that they won't have much of a choice. Obama must now make decisions, some of which are sure to be unpopular; he can't vote 'present' any more. He may even alienate his friends in the press, as we saw more than once during his campaign... at which time he'll learn just what a fickle friend the press can be.
