Obama was aked about his "bitter" remarks, Farrakahn, a guy named Ayer from the Weather Underground, why he does not wear a lapel pin with an American flag on it (neither did anyone else on the stage), and of course, about Reverend Wright. Obama had answered these gotcha questions previously.
With respect to Rev Wright, I was startled today when I came across the following remarks by Daniel Schorr on NPR :
Who is the real patriot, willing to service his country? One such man in 1963 served two years in the Marines, then volunteered to become a Navy medical corpsman. In that capacity, he helped to care for President Johnson after his surgery in 1966. ... And who was that patriot? A young, African-American man who went on to become the pastor of a church in Chicago. That's right, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
I was startled because I have not heard this before, not in any newspaper, not on any TV show, not anywhere. You would think that the way the media has attacked both Obama and the reverend they would want to say something positive - you know, to even the playing field. The media did not do this because if they did what would happen to the "scandal"? How could there possibly be an election campaign without "scandals"?
The media follow the Republicans who are reknown for their Karl-Rove-character assassination capabilities. The Republicans have spent decades making "liberal" a dirty word. Since this caused conflict, the media followed suit. The media have reached the point where gotcha is lauded.
Conservative David Brooks gave the moderators an A for an excellent performance: the media are suppose to produce controversy and Gibson and Stephanopolous did just that. Most other Republican commentators agreed.
This type of politics is what Obama has criticized. As the Washington Post reports:
Obama was right on the money when he complained about the campaign being bogged down in media-driven inanities and obsessiveness over any misstatement a candidate might make along the way, whether in a speech or while being eavesdropped upon by the opposition. The tactic has been to "take one statement and beat it to death," he said.
I said the Republicans started gotcha politics. Yes, but Clinton is doing the same thing. She denigrates Obama every chance she gets and the media love it because it produces conflict. But it also produces polarization and hatreds and sniping and is preventing us from solving real problems. Barack Obama wants to change all this. He wants to replace non-issues with real issues, bombast with discussion and negative with positive political debate.
Barack Obama wants to replace the politics of gotcha with the politics of reason.
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