Should a Candidate Admit Error?
Mark Davis, in an op/ed column in The Dallas Morning News, asks the question, "Should a candidate admit error?"
The answer, of course, is, only if he's made an error. John McCain, for example, voted to give George Bush authorization to launch the disastrous war in Iraq. More recently, he has confused Sunni and Shia. He mixed up the timeline between the the Sunni Awakening in Iraq's Anbar province and the beginning of the so-called "surge." He referred to a non-existent Iraq/Pakistan border. He repeatedly referred to Czechoslovakia, a country that hasn't existed in over a decade. He first said he wouldn't raise taxes; then he said nothing would be off the table; now he's back to saying again he won't raise taxes. The list of errors seems to grow longer with each campaign speech or interview McCain gives.
Should John McCain admit error? Most definitely. But don't count on it.
Ok, in the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I haven't read Mark Davis' column. I only saw the headline. Yet I knew pretty much what it would say. And it wouldn't be about John McCain's numerous errors, right? I wager that's one prediction I won't need to admit error on.
No, Obama's Ego Is Not Out Of Control
Yesterday it was Michael Landauer, on The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, who headlined a Karl Rove talking point with his blog post titled, "Does Obama hate the military?"
Today, Sharon Grigsby takes up another Rove talking point with her own blog post titled, "Is Obama's ego out of control?" In each case, they add a question mark at the end to indicate, I guess, that maybe it's true, maybe it isn't. Then both go on to talk about it as if it is. As Michael Landauer says,
"I'm gonna ignore this tired old shoot-the-messenger garbage and address the issue, if that's acceptable to Obama disciples. See, I think it's OK to question these things. I don't want a president who can't be questioned, even if that is what the evil Karl Rove wants!"Grigsby's other coworkers at the News also come to her defense, pointing out that Grigsby is an Obama supporter. Like that's at all relevant. Lazy writing is lazy writing, no matter who does it.
The point is not politics of the author of the blog item. The point is not that the blog item is critical of Obama. The point is that the subject is right out of the talking points that Rove and the McCain campaign have been feeding the press for the last couple days. More important, the point is that neither Landauer nor Grigsby applied any kind of critical analysis to the talking points. Both pretty much accepted the talking points as true. That's lazy.
Landauer didn't analyze whether or not Obama does or does not hate the military. He just began making suggestions for how Obama can change his image, as if it's an image problem he's dealing with and not a lie.
Grigsby didn't analyze whether a quote snippet she referenced, taken out of context, even supported the Rove contention that Obama is arrogant. (The full quote presents just the opposite impression.) She just asked when does Obama's presumed behavior become "pompous and pretentious?"
The Dallas Morning News Trailblazers blog also covered this latter story, in a blog item by Wayne Slater. Reader "Linda" had the best explanation for what Slater did right, in contrast to Grigsby. She says,
"Wayne Slater's blog is the kind of thing I look for in an editorial commenting on election stories of this nature. He identifies the story-behind-the-story, and in the title of his post he puts the talking point in the proper context. In the body of the article, he chastises the MSM for picking up Rove's talking points and supports his point with a summary of quotes from national papers. Kudos to Wayne Slater for getting it right."My takeaway from the discussion generated by these two blog items is this rule of thumb for commenting on The Dallas Morning News blogs. You can criticize what Barack Obama says. You can criticize what John McCain says. But you can't criticize what the bloggers say. What passes for journalism on The Dallas Morning News blogs is off limits.
2 comments:
Obama's ego out of control? The GOP will attack Obama like this. If he spends his time criticizing McCain then it will be "Obama has no ideas of his own." If he talks about his own ideas then "Obama has a big ego."
Connecting to another entry of yours: You are right for pointing out the low road. Most of McCain's stumps at the moment are not aimed at his superior ability to be president but at Obama. Obama's recent speeches have been about Obama. This is a sign of McCain's currently weak campaign. He is having to play catch up and knock down the front runner while Obama simply has to reinforce himself.
johnyaya's analysis is right. McCain's recent tactics show weakness. But as long as he gets the press to play along, the tactics could work for him. On the other hand, if we start seeing blog posts titled, "Is McCain Desperate?" or "How Low Can McCain Go?" then we'll know that the press is not going along.
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