Here I think is an example of news judgment within the DC bell jar.
As I noted below, the ‘news’ today, as in things that have happened today and are newsworthy, is the fact that John McCain has dropped his position on Afghanistan and embraced the one Obama has been pushing for the last year. (As a secondary matter, we can note that McCain doesn’t have the troops for his new position because they’re tied down in Iraq. But let’s not expect too much.)
And look at the headline at Mark Halperin’s The Page: “Obama Acknowledges “Shift in Emphasis” on Issues.”
And here’s Halperin’s gloss on McCain’s new Afghanistan strategy: McCain “highlights the success of the surge (and Obama’s opposition to it), says the troop increase strategies used in Iraq should also be applied to Afghanistan.”
It’s almost comical. It doesn’t fit the script so it didn’t happen.
Late Update: Okay, it’s 7:27 PM. And Halperin now has a headline noting that McCain is “supposedly adopting Obama’s position on troops in Afghanistan.” The key though is that the headline is prompted by an email the Obama campaign sent out to reporters at 6:41 PM (yeah, we got it too.) Did I mention it’s only “supposedly”?
