Make no mistake, right-wing smears of Obama do not get into the mainstream media by accident.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Ben Smith, at The Politico, flags that today CNN’s running a ‘online poll’ asking if Barack Obama has enough patriotism to be president. As Ben, with some understatement, put it’s “it’s odd to see the mainstream media drive a largely whispered question that none of his main, named critics — Hillary, McCain, or the RNC — will touch.” Yeah, I’d say so.
That’s how it works. Starts at right-swing smear sites and hoax emails. Then the AP’s Nedra Pickler, who specializes in scooping up this slop and laundering it into the mainstream press, writes it up for the AP that runs across the country. And then picks it up and makes it a regular part of the campaign conversation.
I doubt some top exec at CNN came up with this or any name anchor. It’s some producer in the bowels of the operation. But it amounts to the same thing because it’s part of the culture and there’s no accountability.
Get ready for more.
Summary:
1) Starts at right-swing smear sites and hoax emails,
2) AP’s Nedra Pickler launders it into the mainstream press,
3) CNN or Newsweek, or time Magazine picks it up and makes it a regular part of the campaign conversation.
I would add
4) CNN, Newsweek, NYT then begin to run stories about the fact that “people are worried about __________” and they get quotes from Joe Biden saying that he is worried.