Media Question of the Evening
A torture related media observation/question from Eric Boehlert:
Does anybody else think it’s odd, albeit telling, that for chunks of the corporate press corps, the emphasis surrounding the release of the Bush era torture memos is now centered on the political problems they’ve created for the Obama administration–how the memos reflect poorly on the current White House—and not, y’know, what the memos say about the administration that actually okayed the law breaking in the first place?
Please note how the press has (surprise!) turned the torture memo story into a Beltway process one (i.e. the Obama White House is “creating confusion and political vulnerability”), and turned away from the larger issues at hand.
This is an interesting question, and goes to a fairly routine set of behavior that seems to want to find landmines for Democrats at the expense of looking at possible wrong-doing by Republicans. What do you think about this?
Tags: Media
I don’t think it’s odd, I think it’s typical. The media has a separate set of standards for Republicans and Democrats. When Bush squeaked by in 2004, it was a mandate. When Obama wins by a much larger margin, he’s trying to do too much. Republicans can be wrong about everything and still be on TV. Democrats can’t get on TV when they’re correct.
From day one, the media treatment of Bush was that he was too stupid/corrupt/checked-out to be held accountable for anything.
This is simply a continuation of that.
They have to debate this politically because if (and hopefully when) the talk shifts to “does the US torture?” the debate is over.
screw that man! Did you hear we are gonna die from the Swine flu!?
I won’t debate at all the question of media bias, but I think there is a secondary dynamic at work here. The media works, lives, and dies in the present. Bush is now old news for them; his name no longer “sells”; people want to know what Obama is going to do, not what Bush did. Aside from that, as a politician running for President they never managed to lay a serious glove on Obama (not for lack of trying; Axelrod was just that much better than they were); now they are aching to see if they can “take his measure.”
I agree Steve that the media lives in the present. It almost like “Bush who?”
Torture trials would sell papers and make dramatic daytime television.