I am confused. The media seems to be unveiling Straight Talk John McCain fairly aggressively, with the snippy exchange between McCain and Elizabeth Bumiller being the flash point.
I heard Ana Marie Cox on Reliable Sources this morning talking about McCain's temper and what it's like to be on the bus, and suggesting that McCain is much worse than he was to Bumiller on a regular basis, and that Bumiller was only shocked because she's new to the McCain bus. "He's a cranky old man" is what she said exactly, I believe. And another participant in the roundtable said something along the lines of 'well he got caught in a lie'. What exactly is going on? Why isn't the punditocracy 100% in love with Saint McCain?
Maybe it's just not fun anymore. It's well-known that McCain will call up and scream at various individuals if they displease him; I know that board members of Common Cause get a standard McCain shout-a-thon if they criticize him in the press. He screams at Senators several times a week, and it's pretty clear that he blows up at reporters fairly regularly. So maybe it just sucks on the bus right now.
Still, this doesn't explain why the press isn't venerating him as they usually do. It's not that they are doing a good job, they aren't, as they aren't covering his career as a politician. McCain has a long history of policy-making on various Senate committees, including being the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, which regulates the media. This is interesting information the press could research, but hasn't. And you haven't heard much of anything about the decisions he made as Committee Chair, or his fights and alliances with Abramoff in the Indian Affairs Committee.
It's all fascinating stuff you won't hear about. That you won't hear about it is not a surprise, as the National Association of Broadcasters is one of the most powerful lobbies in DC, dispensing Public Service Announcements to various charities in return for them vouching for NAB priorities. And so, for example, you get the Red Cross and Toys for Tots advocating against local radio caps at town hall meetings. That's not even considering the lobbying power brought to bear by the industrial conglomerates who own these media companies, which include defense contractors, entertainment companies (the copyright cartel), cable, financial services, and well, you get the point. The press has its own agenda; did you know that the New York Times is being fought over like a piece of meat in a hedge fund battle and that billionaire real estate mogul Sam Zell owns the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune, carved out a special deal for himself at the FCC, and is shuttering DC reporting staff?
That the media is a special interest organized around maintaining certain policy preferences seems quite plausible as an explanation of its behavior. While reporters don't write their stories with these biases in mind, the 'star system' where Tim Russert is on top both economically and exposure-wise reinforces them every day. All of this is to say that I just don't understand why it is that the press is turning its bitchy claws a bit towards McCain. He's going to be good to them, better than the Democrats anyway. Does he really look like that much of a loser? He must.
