Well, you can certainly throw that whole John McCain, Media Darling thing right out the window. After his campaign accused the MSM of being little more than tools of the Obama campaign, the New York Times promptly threw a temper tantrum in the form of this article accusing his campaign manager of being a tool of Fannie Mae.
The problem is, as the McCain campaign points out, much of the article is not true.
In fact, the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.
Further, and missing from the Times’ reporting, Mr. Davis has never — never — been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.
Though these facts are a matter of public record, the New York Times, in what can only be explained as a willful disregard of the truth, failed to research this story or present any semblance of a fairminded treatment of the facts closely at hand…
But, let’s assume, just for the sake or argument, that the Times’ load of codswallop is right. The question then is “So what?”
Rick Davis isn’t giving financial advice to the McCain campaign and he’s not writing a line of policy. He’s the campaign manager. That’s a crucial difference and it was pretty shady of the Times not to make this point explicity, with all the caveats that apply. Davis’ role as a guy who ran a company that lobbied for Fannie Mae might well disqualify him from being John McCain’s campaign manager. But if that’s true, how much more would being a primary beneficiary of Fannie Mae’s lobbying money disqualify Barack Obama from being President of the Unites States, which great control over not only Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae but the entire economy? The New York Times doesn’t appear to be terribly interested in exploring that question even a little bit. It is a peculiar bit of incurious behavior from an organization that has not hesitated in the past to print unsubstantiated rumors about a Presidential candidate on the front page and darned near turned an entire election with a patently false story, also on its front page.
I don’t think that the New York Times can keep up its charade as an objective observer of this election much longer. The public is starting to call the MSM out.
Jeff Goldstein also has a good take on the situation.
I’ve noted before that we are now fighting an all out ideological war for the survival of the democratic republic. In fact, I’ve been making this same argument for years now: when the press, under the cover of “objectivity,” is allowed to function as an advocacy arm for a particular ideology and its titular representatives, what follows is a necessary skewing of facts — and a carefully constructed attempt to frame “stories” with “lessons” that the public will interpret “correctly” (according to those attempting to teach the lessons from the perspective of their own personal advocacy).
This is not hyperbole: a free society relies on a free press to inform. That the mainstream press leans demonstrably left is not the problem in and of itself; the problem arises when that demonstrable bias is given cover as “objective,” and when those who believe they are basing their support for a candidate or platform on objective reporting are in effect doing no such thing, but are rather being coaxed, prodded, directed, and manipulated — in everything from what comes to count as newsworthy to, in cases like these, shoddy reporting (which may or may not be intentional), the effect of which is to leave those who rely on the media literally less informed than had the media reported nothing at all.
A free society cannot run this way. If information is power, those who control the information and its mainstream dissemination are in a position to act as the most important swing vote in any election.
Read all of Jeff’s post. It’s important.
(Via Ace, and commenters suek and spoots)
Tags: Barack Obama, Economics, John McCain, Media Bias, New York Times
