Photo/Reuters
January 22, 2008 at 1:17 AM EST
Reporters Seem Caught Off their Guard
I find this new development that reporters are discussing between Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton troubling. The day after the Black Congressional Caucus debate with Obama, Clinton, and the mostly not visible Edwards, the same old bunch of television pundits talked about the fact that Obama and Hillary exchanged barbs starting with Obama going on the offensive first apparently irritated by the fact that he felt Bill Clinton had misrepresented a statement Obama had made saying the Reagan administration was "tranformational" and had developed new ways of thinking poitically speaking which sounded to some as though Obama was saying something positive about the Reagan years. Clinton responded by repeating that she thought there definitely had been ideas in 90's promulgated by the Republicans but they were bad ideas. I strongly agree with her remarks on that score. Reporters tend to give Obama the benefit of the doubt on that one saying Obama was just remarking on the history of the Reagan years. I don't agree with that and agree with Bill and Hillary that something more could be inferred by the emphasis on the words new and transformational.
The term Transformation is associated with the notion of big changes, a new world view and implies something exciting and positive going on. I think these reporters are trying to cover for Obama's constant attempt to reach out to Independents and Republicans because that is his strategy for winning in addition to winning the African American vote and youth vote.
Hillary jolted the media world by hitting Obama back with the charge of his association with a slum landlord , Tony Rezko, after he talked about her serving on the Board of Walmart (a company the unions hate) while Barak implied he was doing great things in the poor neighborhoods of Chicago. Historically Barak does not deny he had an association with Rezko but claims innocence when it comes to his knowledge of the entrepreneur's bad business practices which included, for a time, not providing heat to the slum residences in question. (article taken from ABC News titled The Rezko Connection: Obama's Achilles Heel? By BRIAN ROSS and RHONDA SCHWARTZ Jan. 10, 2008.
I wonder why Chris Matthews and Jonathan Alter who were discussing this issue on Matthew's show avoided discussing the details of this charge. It seems the media is trying to protect Obama in some ways on this one. At the least, they could have mentioned what this whole business was about and even skewed it in a way that favored Obama if that is what they wanted to do . I don't get it. It seems like quite an explosive issue to me given that the reports show a long association between Obama and this businessman who was sued by the City of Chicago and who was in financial distress at the time that Obama asked this unsavory character for help. It might be possible that Obama knew nothing about Rezko nefarious business dealings but if Obama didn't know it seems to me that would show a lack of sophistication and ability to be on top of his own self interests. What I have read so far about Obama and Rezko is quite troubling. Perhaps, all it shows is that Obama is not perfect, not as lofty in his image as he would like to project. I am left baffled that the media seems unable to communicate this very notion or at least the idea that the playing field between Hillary and Obama is more equal than ever before. I suppose that is what was intended and I do not necessarily think making these two candidates into real humans rather than political deities is such a bad thing.
I am also wondering if the reason some of these national reporters did not explain even the most evident details concerning Rezko may come from the fact the reporters themselves are jaded and just assume that all these politicians have skeletons in their closets so why pick on just one of them. But my first hunch is that these guys were just not on top of the information which any internet junkie could find for her or himself and which seems quite unbelievable in and of itself, (that the information was not conveyed). It does not help people trying to figure out how to vote to be left so up in the air. Chris Matthews in particular seemed totally unprepared for the latest state of affairs. Why is this so? Jonathan Capehart, from Bloomberg Media, another reporter on the Matthews show had to explain to Matthews why the Walmart association with Hillary was a bad thing or was Matthews just fishing for the answer from someone else. Whatever the reason, Matthews and Alter did not seem up to the task. I think the answer to the reason for this would be quite revealing.
Sharon Raphael
No comments:
Post a Comment