It isn't all the Obama campaign's fault

I've been hard on Barack Obama and his campaign lately, for their continuation of the long Democratic tradition of taking the Republican sucker-punches and not punching back. In the last few days, Obama has shown some signs of realizing that "taking the high road" doesn't work (though I still wonder what took him so long, given that he saw Republicans turn the "sure bet" John Kerry into a war wimp while the guy who stayed home and snorted coke off the asses of hookers was regarded as a war hero because they'd seen him on TV in a flight suit with socks stuffed into the crotch).

But Obama's faltering in the polls isn't all his fault, because John McCain has a willing and eager accomplice in the mainstream media, whose talking heads and byliners are still covering him as if he were still the carefully constructed "maverick" of 2000 and earlier. I can't even watch "Morning Joe" for two minutes anymore because of the shamelessness of Joe Scarborough's mad mancrush on McCain. And that's on MSNBC, which is one of the LESS egregious offenders.

Multiply Joe Scarborough by all three of the major networks where America still gets most of its news, throw in CNN and Faux Noise, and major newspapers still afraid to pick on the guy who spent five years in a Hanoi prison (in case you didn't know, John McCain was a POW. Did I mention he was a POW? I'll bet you didn't know he was a POW. You know, I heard he was a POW. Gee, I forgot to tell you; he was a POW....), and you have a complete and impenetrable echo chamber in the tank for John McCain.

Robert Parry, Consortium News:

On Monday, Obama gave a detail-rich speech on how he would address the energy crisis, which is a major point of concern among Americans. From ideas for energy innovation to retrofitting the U.S. auto industry to conservation steps to limited new offshore drilling, Obama did what he is often accused of not doing, fleshing out his soaring rhetoric.

McCain responded with a harsh critique of Obama's calls for more conservation, claiming that Obama wants to solve the energy crisis by having people inflate their tires. McCain's campaign even passed out a tire gauge marked as Obama's energy plan.

For his part, McCain made clear he wanted to drill for more oil wherever it could be found and to build many more nuclear power plants.

These competing plans offered a chance for the evening news to address an issue of substance that is high on the voters' agenda. Instead, NBC News anchor Brian Williams devoted 30 seconds to the dueling energy speeches, without any details and with the witty opening line that Obama was "refining" his energy plan.

So, instead of dealing with a serious issue in a serious way, NBC News ignored the substance and went for a clever slight against Obama, hitting his political maneuvering in his softened opposition to more offshore drilling.

Williams's quip fit with one of the press corps' favorite campaign narratives, Obama's flip-flopping. But the coverage ignored far more important elements of the story, such as the feasibility of Obama's vow that "we must end the age of oil in our time" or the wisdom of McCain's emphasis on drilling -- and nuking -- the nation out of its energy mess.

And, as for flip-flops, McCain's dramatic repositioning of himself as an anti-environmentalist -- after years of being one of the green movement's favorite Republicans -- represents a far more significant change than Obama's modest waffling on offshore oil.

The Sierra Club, one of the nation's premier environmental organizations, has repudiated McCain and now is running ads attacking his energy plan. But McCain's flip-flops -- even complete reversals -- remain an underplayed part of the campaign story. They just don't fit the narrative of maverick John McCain on the "Straight Talk Express."

And that's just one example. The McCain campaign must be grinning from ear to ear at all the free air time their ads are getting on television news and opinion shows, despite the fact that if we had a press that wasn't so in thrall to McCain, the fact that he has his own little Norman Hsu problem (with a nice little twist only a Republican could have), except this one bundles contributions from the very same kind of Middle Eastern people that McCain's constituency wants to bomb back to the stone age.

If you want to know why women all over Daily Kos are proposing marriage to Keith Olbermann, a guy's guy with a girlfriend half his age and a history in that most assholish of media, sports broadcasting, it's because he's the only talking head on television with his own show who isn't still blinded by a man in a 40-year-old uniform and who doesn't care how good the barbecued ribs are.

It's not beyond comprehension that the press can be bought. It's just a shame that they can be bought so cheaply. Good barbecued ribs aren't that hard to make. I use a homemade dry rub, marinate the ribs in them all day, cook them VERY slowly, and put on the wet sauce in the last 10 minutes of grilling.