Obama's Adventures in Journalism

The holiday weekend is almost upon us, which is fortunate, because not too many people are paying attention to the news. If they were, they might have the mistaken impression that Barack Obama is flip-flopping on Iraq. He had a press conference this morning and said that he'd pay attention to advice from the military about the best way to pull out of the occupation, which caused the press to come down with the vapors and hallucinate that Obama had said that perhaps he wouldn't really pull out after all. I'm not certain, but I have a feeling that McCain was holding back the invites for his Fourth of July BBQ spectacular until he saw who went above and beyond in reporting this story--if you don't believe me, check out the McCain campaign's helpful statement that Obama had come around to his way of thinking, as if the Democrat had just said that the U.S. should maintain a 100-year (or more) military presence in Iraq, after all. Greg Sargent takes a look at some of the skewed coverage, which we should start getting used to. Not that it's a surprise to anyone who's been paying attention, but Obama has no business expecting fair, even-handed coverage of his campaign. The liberal media is far more in the pocket of John McCain than it is willing to give Obama a fair shake. Obama doesn't seem the type to court the press, palling around with them, feeding them steaks and donuts. It's too bad that this is exactly what a 21st-century press corps pays attention to instead of dull, boring news or current events.