Sign the MoveOn petition on distractions.
Editor & Publisher called this week’s ABC presidential debate “perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years.”
Moderators George Stephanopolous and Charlie Gibson spent the first 50 minutes obsessed with distractions that only political insiders care about–gaffes, polling numbers, the stale Rev. Wright story, and the old-news Bosnia story. And, channelling Karl Rove, they directed a video question to Barack Obama asking if he loves the American flag or not. Seriously.
Enough is enough. The public needs the media to stop hurting the national dialogue in this important election year. Can you sign the petition to ABC and other media outlets and pass it on to friends who are also fed up?
A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to ABC and other media.
Sen. Obama’s comments on the distraction debate are worth watching:
What, you mean the part where he gives Hillary the finger and the audience cheers?
Stay classy, Obama.
I agree with Susie. I wrote a strong e-mail to MoveOn.org complaining about their “protest” because “poor widdle Baracky” got his poor widdle feelings hurt and had to answer questions from mean ol’ weporters.
Puh-frickin’-lease.
Obama (who, as I reminded MoveOn.org in my e-mail, failed to support that organization’s right to attack Petraeus) has been handled with kid gloves by the media this entire campaign. Hillary’s barely gone a day without being slammed by the media, the Democratic “leadership” (whose neutrality begs a bit of questioning as well) and the Obama Legions, yet Obama gets a little scrutiny and HE CAN’T FRIKKIN’ TAKE IT.
For MoveOn.org to complain on behalf of their (non-supportive when it comes to standing up for their rights) candidate is just beyond the pale.
For you, Dave, to bring it up is even more absurd. Do you HONESTLY believe that the mainstream media (and the Republican Party) is going to play nice following the conventions? If you do, you certainly don’t have much of a sense of history. We keep hearing how the public is “tired of negative ads” and yet, the public keeps lapping them up EACH AND EVERY TIME THEY’RE USED.
Again, Hillary Clinton STOOD UP FOR MOVEON.ORG. when the Senate voted. Barack Obama wimped out (which, in my opinion, was the same thing as voting to condemn the group).
Furthermore, Barack Obama, AS A UNITED STATES SENATOR, has a voting record almost identical to Hillary Clinton’s. Why then is Barack the “more progressive”? Oh, right. Because he didn’t vote on the Iraq Resolution at all SINCE HE WASN’T THERE. Of course, John Kerry, who was there to vote, actually voted FOR the resolution–as did Hillary. Did that stop the “progressives” from wholly supporting Kerry’s nomination after the media managed to convince the public that Dean was crazy? Not at all. It would seem that the “progressive” community itself holds a double standard on the War. ESPECIALLY AS BARACK OBAMA’S VOTING RECORD ON WAR-RELATED ISSUES IS IDENTICAL TO HILLARY’S.
This rabid anti-Hillary campaign from the “progressive” community (which was eager for her in 2004, by the way) is shockingly similar to the same outrageous anti-Hillary campaign perpetrated by the far right for the past 15 years.
Barack Obama needs to toughen up and learn how to take it “like a man”. And his Kool-Aid drinking fans need to make sure he does. This “kid gloves handling” Obama gets all the time does him no favors at all.
Wow! Your commenters have issues. As someone who has been pissed off at the media in the past for all of their trivial and sexist treatment of Hillary, I signed MoveOn’s petition. But before MoveOn’s petition came out, I created this one: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/new-news, which essentially says the same thing as MoveOn’s, only is people-powered, which has different cache.
The fact is that the larger problem (which, apparently, some HRC people don’t really care about) is that this treatment of rumor and innuendo as “news” is really only beneficial to one group: Republicans. They love the stuff! Democrats–not so much. So, to me, it’s great that we’re finally getting to some traction explaining to people why the media sucks! When people focus on issues, Democrats win.