The Bloom Is Off The Rose

by Steve Soto

Commenter emal highlighted this illuminating piece from the Post's Dana Milbank in the "Open Thread" today, a story that gives Democrats a taste of the media's likely behavior during the general election. In short, both Obama and McCain went before the nation's newspaper editors yesterday at an event hosted by the Associated Press. While McCain was treated to the usual lovefest by the allegedly objective and not-in-the-tank Fourth Estate, Obama got a chillier and inquisitorial reception several hours later.

Yes, it was just several months ago that Clinton supporters like me at the time whined about Obama's kindly treatment from these same media, while we also suspected that the media would eventually turn their knives against him. Don't blame Hillary for this, because the media was always going to choose their crush McCain, regardless of whether or not Clinton ran a demolition derby against Obama. What this demonstrates is that Democrats have little room for error in a race against the media's darling.

The lesson here is that there's a constant need for a media accountability campaign similar to what the GOP has done to the supposedly liberal media for years. Obama himself should not be doing this for fear of being tagged as defensive or any other epithet they will smear him with; you can already see this in Milbank's story. But the effort needs to be done by the campaign or respected third parties nonetheless, shining a light on the disparate treatment every day and yes, even stirring up some media resentment within the Democratic Party. We can certainly learn a thing or two from the GOP about how "working the refs" can yield results not only from the media, but also from an energized and motivated base that increasingly sees a biased media.

It's true that while the media gives McCain coffee and donuts and yucks it up with Straight Talk in the back of his bus, an accountability effort by Democrats will be portrayed by the Beltway lapdogs as bitterness and whining. But Democrats have no choice, because the alternative is to accept the unbalanced treatment and media's framing of this contest in the false hope that voters will see through this. 2004 and 2000 are all the evidence you need that voters will not see what they aren't allowed to see.