Obama campaign… a quiet Sunday

I love this “Les Miserables” take-off… probably makes me an elitist Broadway show loving snob. Oh well, aux barricades! It’s November third and election day is tomorrow! (Thanx Tamar.)

Elsewhere, Daniel Kampf explores the role of the press during elections and finds the press falls short of its responsibility to discern and disseminate truth:

If I say Sarah Palin did oppose the “bridge to nowhere” when she was governor of Alaska and you say that she did not, must the truth lay somewhere between us? Of course not. The truth is always independent of its advocates. It’s the media’s job to discern that truth and enlighten the public to it. Instead, the echo chamber in the media serves to amplify the advocates’ competing claims, no matter how dishonest, and to foster our collective cognitive dissonance.

But it’s not enough just to report the facts. The media must construct a narrative. One of the disadvantages of the information age is to drown in data. The media must not just discover which data are true and which are not, it must explain their relevance. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I say this because I am baffled at the tenor our media has adopted in covering this campaign. That John McCain has not been branded a liar by the media, despite a campaign built largely on several outright fabrications, is beyond ridiculous. He has said, and continues to say, that Barack Obama supports sex ed for kindergartners. Obama does not. He has said, and continues to say, that Palin initially opposed the bridge to nowhere. She did not. He has said, and continues to say, that Palin never requested earmarks as governor of Alaska, despite requesting hundreds of millions of dollars worth. Palin’s campaign has said she has been to the battlefield in Iraq and to Ireland. She has never been to Iraq and she never left the plane in Ireland. Palin claimed you can see Russia from Alaska. You cannot. She said she never doubted human contributions to global warming, when she is on record having said so….

These aren’t just missteps, they are lies. And yet the media has failed to craft a narrative of “McCain/Palin: Liars.” When you tell a lie repeatedly, you are a liar….

You may say that’s tendentious, but if the media cannot punish lies, and instead, can only reinforce them, why have a news media at all?

Here we have some smug assholes with stethoscopes draped around their necks to lend themselves credibility asking questions that the press should be asking. Why should these inquiries be framed as partisan politics? Why can’t the press put a decent story together on McCain’s health and age issues?

Meanwhile… Joe Biden has posted his tax records and called for his Republican opponents to do so also.