Jon Stewart finally asked the most relevant question yet of John McCain. Sadly, Stewart is not a journalist. Even more sadly, by Stewart asking the question the media establishment is almost assuredly not to address the matter any further. I can just see the MSM refusing to take its cues from a political satirist/comedian. I would be amazed to see anyone actually follow up on Stewart's most reasonable question.
Last week I wrote about the publics concern of John McCain's relationship with the most unpopular president in modern history, George W. Bush. For over a month all we heard was about Obama's relationship to his preacher, and anyone else he might have met in his lifetime. Very little coverage about McCain's endorsement by hate preachers Rod Parsley and John Hagee. And nothing about George Bush's Rose Garden endorsement and the warm relationship Bush and McCain share. Even though the public is way more concerned about McCain and Bush than about anyone with ties to Obama, there's been zilch covered about the two by the media establishment.
Finally, Jon Stewart forced McCain to acknowledge something the media won't.
I wonder what would happen if the media applied the same sort of scrutiny to John McCain as it has Barack Obama? We have a two term president with approval ratings hovering around the mid 20s. These approval ratings haven't seen the mid 30s in over a year. And we have not one question presented to the GOP heir apparent about why he hasn't denounced someone who is obviously not well liked and certainly opposed by more than 70% of the population. This would be the most relevant question to ask anyone who is the GOP nominee.
*Update:
Originally I had a video of the Daily Show exchange up but it appears not to be working at the moment. Once I figure out the problem I'll get the video back up.
5.08.2008
The Most Relevant Question Asked Yet
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5 comments:
The simple answer to your question is that some of the base still likes Bush, believe it or not. McCain thinks he needs some of them to get elected. Despite his recent attempts to alienate the base in other ways, I think Republicans know McCain is different from Bush. McCain is trying to separate himself from Bush, and honestly, other than the war and his recent flip-flop on the tax cuts -- he is different from Bush.
I think McCain's got a bad strategy going here. He needs at least some conservatives and other Republicans in addition to his base of Dems and independents. It seems that he has given up on getting many Republican votes. That's a bad idea.
Edited to add: McCain seems to be ambivalent on tax cuts, but he is saying what we want to hear on them during this campaign.
No doubt the base still supports him, and really that is all Bush has. Roughly 23% of Americans are registered Republican. That's not that far off from his approval rating.
I would think the best way to separate himself from Bush would be to denounce his presidency, or at the very least highlight his discrepancies with the last 8 Bush years.
Other than economics (tax cuts which McCain now supports) and the war in Iraq, what else is there to talk about for the Bush presidency? Those are the two issues of which Bush has based everything on. His one and only domestic policy is the tax cuts and his entire foreign policy has been dominated by the war on terror. If those are the only two issues McCain is like Bush, then that is all that is needed to classify McCain as being another four years of George Bush.
Besides that, and I'm not trying to change the subject at all, but I think the point of my post was to show that McCain hasn't been asked one time about his relationship with Bush being a burden whereas it has been nonstop for Obama to defend himself against people that are supposedly detrimental to his campaign. McCain's answer to the question isn't as important as the question itself. It's just sad that it took a fake news program to ask the GOP nominee the most relevant question of the campaign thus far.
For all the coverage of Rev. Wright, people are way more concerned with McCain's relationship to George Bush than anything else. And I would bet there hasn't been 5% of the same media devotion to McCain's relationship to one of the biggest presidential failures in modern history as what has been devoted to words that Obama never said.
Thanks for reading Lisa!
The words 'Obama' and 'scrutiny' are pretty funny when strung together.
What scrutiny has Obama received?
None, Kent. Obama has never had the media after him for anything.
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