Obama Whines Again That McCain Is Questioning His Patriotism; the MSM Heartily Agrees

Obama's theme this week: I'm a Tough Guy and we won't get rolled again.

"I have never suggested and never will that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics and personal ambition," Obama said. "I have not suggested it because I believe he genuinely wants to serve America's national interests. Now it is time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same. Let me be clear-I will let no one question my love of this country. I love America, so do you, and so does John McCain."

A day earlier, Senator McCain told the same conference that Senator Obama had put his own political ambitions ahead of the national interest by trying, in McCain's words, to legislate failure in Iraq.

Truth is a defense to libel.

McCain says he's not questioning Obama's patriotism, merely his judgment.

I won't insult you by suggesting that's precisely true.

But what else can one make of someone who is still hellbound to lose a war even when it's nearly won? Obama's position was defensible when the war seemed (for some, with some good reason) to be unwinnable. Now it appears to be not just winnable, but rather difficult to lose, but damnit, Obama is still going to do his level-best to lose it.

And largely because he's captive to a revanchist left who craves defeat in Iraq like a heroin addict craves his next injection.

He is elevating his personal political needs far, far above the national interest. I'd say he's doing a rather good job of questioning his patriotism without any need of help from McCain.

Like clockwork, TPM claims that the media is giving McCain a "pass" on all this terrible patriotism-questioning:

This bears repeating a thousand times: The national press is basically giving McCain a pass on the McCain campaign's double-talk about Obama's patriotism. McCain, after all, has repeatedly said that Obama would rather lose a war than lose a campaign. McCain also said -- just this week, in fact -- that Obama's desire to lose in Iraq was driven entirely by "ambition."

And finally, the McCain campaign sent out to reporters those remarks by Joe Lieberman, in which Lieberman said Obama hasn't always put his country first. That constitutes an official campaign endorsement of Lieberman's assertion.

These facts deserve to be mentioned in every story about McCain's remarks today. But they will get scattered mention, if that.

In addition to the fact that McCain isn't being held accountable for these glaring inconsistencies in his own claims, he's also getting a pass on the assertions of his own surrogates from the very same press corps that aggressively held the Dem candidates accountable for every syllable that came out of their surrogates' mouths during the Dem primary.

I clicked on that from Google News, and knew, before the article popped up, it would be authored by Greg Sergeant, who is one of the most braindead, kneejerk idiots out there on the leftosphere.

So is the press giving a "pass" to McCain on this? Well, Newsbusters actually does what Sergeant doesn't bother to do: They watch the news and digest it, providing quotes and facts.

Is this a "pass"?

“Patriot games,” CBS Evening News anchor Harry Smith teased, “Barack Obama fights back.” Viewers then heard a clip of Obama before the VFW: “I will let no one question my love of this country.” Reporter Dean Reynolds described how “Obama is pivoting toward a more combative style, rebuking the Republicans for habitually turning differences over policy into questions about patriotism, a habit he said John McCain has readily embraced.”

Yes, Greggie, the media is giving McCain a pass, except for the national CBS and NBC broadcasts scolding him.

Greg Sergeant, and the rest of the Media Matters-type Soros brigade, has what might be called media bias envy. These idiots know damn well the media leans left, but they seem to envy the right's David vs. Goliath status, so they are forever claiming the "conservative" media is stacked against them. They're not really attacking the media-- they're deliberately defending them. The media usually defends charges of liberal bias by claiming "some on the right criticize us, and some on the left do too, so that must mean we're getting it basically right."

And it's the likes of Greg Sergeant who knowingly offer up spurious claims of "conservative bias" so that his media buddies can offer this exact defense.

Doing a media-bias post is very easy for someone on the right. It's so easy it often feels cheap. But cheap and easy though it may be, it's, you know, usually right.

Greg Sergeant's absurd claims do not have that saving grace. He tosses around kneejerk claims of "conservative media bias" without evidence or citation because they're easy posts to write. Easy, cheap, and wrong, but they serve their purpose. He and his lefty buddies get to pretend they're brave outsiders besieged by a hostile press, and the press he defends and loves gets to pretend they're equal-opportunity offenders as regards bias.

Everyone wins, except the truth, but Soros isn't seeding money to the left to produce the truth.

Perhaps Greggie should ponder how the MSM just happened to seize upon the notion that "questioning one's patriotism" is the greatest political offense possible. It's fair game, it seems, to question a candidate's intelligence, sanity, sobriety, humanity, and compassion. The media never squeals when a lefty politician claims Republicans conspire to make the lives of the poor more difficult, or to destroy cute fuzzy animals and noble trees just to make a buck for their fat-cat friends.

Those are rather deadly -- and personal -- charges. And yet they're perfectly fair. We never hear the media accusing a Democrat of "engaging in the typical game of questioning Republicans' basic compassion and humanity for their fellow man," or for their fellow earth-creatures.

How is it that patriotism came to be the one virtue it is impermissible to question?

Could it be, Greggie -- just spit-ball this with me -- that "questioning patriotism" hurts Democrats whereas all the others tend to hurt Republicans, and that is why questioning patriotism -- and questioning no other virtue or passion -- has become, in the media's eyes, the one impermissible tactic in campaigning?

"Questioning patriotism" is impermissible only because the MSM claims it to be, and they claim it to be such precisely because Democratic politicians and the leftist commentariat insisted it should be from 2001 to the present.

How come the media gives the left -- and itself, of course -- a "pass" on that, Greggie?

Oh... Bear in mind this is the same TPM that breaks out its "racial attack decoder ring," as Allah calls it, every time a Republican opens his mouth.

And of course TPM and the leftosphere is usually able to push these charges right into the MSM -- into the NYT, the "Paper of Record" -- within 24 hours of making them.

Yeah, the media is really stacked against you guys all right.

Am I to understand that "questioning patritotism" is off-limits whereas constantly claiming someone is a racist is perfectly acceptable grist for the mill?

posted by Ace at 02:17 PM

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