Hullabaloo

Working The Kewl Kidz

by digby

The minute I read Ben Smith's report last Thursday that Obama had "refused" to visit the wounded soldiers, I wrote about it and suggested that it could have some legs. If you have followed the way the right wing noise machine and the press operate over the past couple of decades, you can smell a "sticky" story that pushes the desired narrative a mile away. And what do you know, Media Matters has spent the last few days documenting the press pushing the story:

Monday, July 28, 2008
MSNBC's Hall falsely suggested that Obama did not "visit[] wounded American troops" on overseas trip
Reuters uncritically reported McCain campaign's misleading claim that Obama "made time to go to the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops"
Sunday, July 27, 2008
MSNBC's Witt aired McCain ad without noting misleading claims about visiting wounded troops, Afghanistan hearings, military funding
CNN's Bash declared as fact McCain view that Obama "stumble[d]" in Landstuhl decision, not noting CNN analysts' position that he was in no-win situation

The story is a bit convoluted (you can click any of the links above for full explanation) but this flap is just so typical of the right's approach and the media's reflexive response. It also fits in with the arrogant, aloof, "presumptuous" (uppity) meme that's sweeping the village, which McCain himself is stoking with his plaintive cries of "feeling left out" by the media and as a spokesman for the poor neglected Real American who Obama allegedly doesn't care about in favor of liberal elites and Frenchmen (essentially the same thing.)

The McCain campaign is coming hard after Obama right now, being very aggressive and nearly hostile, adopting a tone of righteous indignation that this interloper is trying, basically, to steal the country from its rightful owners. It's pretty standard right wing populism and it's always been an effective approach for Republicans during hard times. We'll see if he can make it work, but I would hope that the Democrats start fighting this back right now. It's not going to get any better and there's no margin in letting it lie.

Oh, and by the way, lest you think that this whole thing isn't designed to get the media chattering, think again:

Okay, this is interesting: It looks as if the new McCain ad falsely attacking Obama over his canceled troop visit may not really have a lot of money behind it, suggesting that its real purpose isn't getting it before voters directly.

Rather, the real target audience may be the media -- meaning that the McCain camp's goal is largely to get the ad debated in the press and to drive the conversation that way.

Evan Tracey, who tracks media buys at the Campaign Media Intelligence Group, took a look at the McCain buys and discovered that an earlier McCain foreign policy attack ad, as well as the troop visit attack spot launched this weekend, are running in almost no battleground-state markets, with the new spot only running in Denver and Washington, D.C.:

It seems to be working ...

Update: Media Matters has more

MSNBC's Buchanan falsely suggested Obama did not visit wounded troops, repeated smears of Obama's patriotism

MSNBC on-screen text attributed to Obama camp claim that Obama met with troops in Iraq without press -- but NBC had reported it as fact