TPM Reader JW laments the McCain, media bigs love affair.
Ya, the lobbyist story was pretty much the ballgame. Bumiller’s NYT piece yesterday was buried in the avalanche of Democratic primary coverage. If the lobbyist story, and McCain’s reaction, didn’t tarnish St. McCain then I can’t imagine a little pandering to crazy right wing religious fanatics will do the trick. The Lobbyist story undercut everything about McCain. It’s like if the press found out Obama didn’t really believe in Hope or Hillary really wasn’t a Senator from NY. It went to McCain’s fundamental argument — I’m not one of Them, not a Politician, can’t be bought by Lobbyists. In fact, he IS ALL OF THOSE THINGS. But he got away with it.
And the reason the press isn’t all over the Hagee thing (besides the normal, its okay if you are a Republican) is that they think McCain really doesn’t like Hagee, but is gritting his teeth and engaging in
smart politics by getting the religious right’s vote. Whereas, they think Obama is trying to have it both ways: get the benefits of a Farakhan endorsement (what are those?) while avoiding the bad of being
associated with him.Oh well. We’ve gone through 8 years of this, what’s 4 more?
I’m not quite so despairing.
