The old axiom goes, "if you repeat a lie enough times, it must be true". Is it just me, or does it seem like the media wants everyone to have the impression that the presidential race is going to be very close? Regulars at ASZ already know my feeling - I don't think it's going to be a terribly contested race. While in some polls, Bush is still running within the ubiquitious "margin of error", there are enough preconvention polls suggesting that Kerry is widening his lead to make even the most jaded political observers stand up and take notice.
In your heart of hearts, you know that TeamBush is exceptionally nervous right now. Nervous, desperate people do desperate (and stupid) things. The preconvention advertising atmosphere in the Pennsylvania region is most telling. There's been a lot of ad money spent in the market already. For all of that advertising money, here's the most telling thing: almost all of the Kerry / Edwards ads have been positive, focusing on the candidates accomplishments and vision. By contrast, every single Bush / Cheney advertisement has been negative against Kerry, rather than giving viewers an accomplishment-based reason to vote for Bush. Every single one.
The differences in advertising presentation of the candidates seem to be showing up in the polls, too. John Kerry has a 10 point lead in Pennsylvania right now, and larger if you take Nader out of the mix. Oregon (previously considered a tossup) is clearly swinging in Kerry's direction as well.
So why all the "dead heat" talk in the press? It sells papers, TV time, pulls in advertising revenue, and keeps the interest level up by keeping people like me howling. That's what today's media is all about.
Eric Alterman is stealing my stuff
Alterman, 7/7/04: I could probably find more in any single five minute segment of an O’Reilly, Hannity or Scarborough show. Why are the media so furious at Moore? Because he is doing their job for them and taking away their narrative. If they did it better, he wouldn’t have to. Perhaps those reporters attacking Moore should be good enough to publish some of their own comments on the war alongside it.
Cranium, 6/29/04: For crap's sake, build this movie up! "Faulty logic and innacurate assertions"?? Is it just me, or is that supposed to be the exclusive domain of Coulter, Limbaugh, Savage, and Hannity? Mike Moore is on our side! There's more truth in the worst 5 minutes of Fahrenheit 9/11 than there is in a week's worth of bloviating by any of the aforementioned neocon megaphones.I'll expect my first residual check from MSNBC next week, Eric.
Some better blogs you haven't read in the last week:
A couple of months ago, I ran into a very well written political blog, TwoGlasses. It's written by (man? woman?) the pseudonymed "Toast", a first-order technogeek and political observer. Toast has kept TwoGlasses relatively low key (as opposed to blogwhoring me), so I thought I'd give him / her a plug. Check it out.
Also, Richard (a recently-returned-from-China expat; no relation to moi) at Peking Duck puts together a nice crossection of domestic and Chinese politics. No one is paying much attention to China these days (other than when someone's writing about outsourcing issues), but we should be. It takes a few days / weeks of reading to get into the flow of Peking Duck and understand what Richard's trying to impart - but it's important stuff in the global picture.
The REAL story from the DNC Convention
Doesn't Terry McAullife get it?? I mean, with all of the nattering on by me and everyone else about the media not giving the Democrats positive coverage, convention planners go and make the media stand in line, in pain.
How ya gonna cultivate good media coverage out of that, Terry??
heh.
Stupid award
And finally for this Sunday morning, courtesy of sharp-eyed ASZ reader eteba comes this report from the Great White North:
Bush took the Stupidest Man of the Year Award and for the second time in the history of the two-year-old awards won the Stupidity Award for Reckless Endangerment of the Planet.Can't blame Canada this time, Cartman.
That award was presented by Justin Trudeau, son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. He got the biggest reaction of the night from females in the packed house, who hooted, whistled and yelled "yum" at him while he was on stage.
Bush didn't take the category alone, however, and tied with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
