Marble Composition

Obama's Speech and The Press

Jay Rosen over at Pressthink notes that parts of Obama's speech were directed right at the mainstream media:

I was watching CNN for Obama’s speech. Moments after it concluded Wolf Blitzer was asked to tell us what he heard in it. Wolf’s ear is the big ear for the Best Political Team on Television, according to CNN. So he went first. And according to Blitzer, Obama’s speech boils down to a “pre-emptive strike” against various attacks that are still to come, in the form of videos, ads, and news controversies that are sure to keep Reverend Jeremiah Wright and “race” in play as issues in the campaign. (I don’t have his exact words; if someone out there does, ping me.)

Wasn’t the speech about that very pattern?

This is a style of analysis—and a level of thought—we have become utterly used to, especially from Blitzer but also many others on TV: everything is a move in the game of getting elected, and it’s our job in political television to explain to you, the slightly clueless viewer at home, what today’s tactics are, then to estimate whether they will work.

That Blitzer, offered the first word on that speech, did the savvier-than-thous, horse race thing tells you about his priorities (mistakenly “static,” as Obama said about Wright) and his imaginative range as an interpreter of politics (pretty close to zero.)

I point this out because this is exactly the kind of vapid horse shit we say every weekend on all of the policitcal chat shows. It's all about the "process", and rarely if ever is there any substantive discussion of a candidate's policies and how they might effect the public.

Jay has more, here.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 3/18/2008 04:24:00 PM