I’ve been known, on occasion, to be somewhat crude and dismissive when faced with obvious media bullshit. Sue me. It’s what I do.
Which is why it is both surprising and extremely uplifting to see my favourite politician respond to the sort of non-issue, lazy-journalism, lowest-common-denominator pandering exactly the way that I would, were I smart enough to be in his shoes:
(You can, by the way, find the complete Obama response to that ridiculous debate, with sound and everything, right here.)
That about sums up both the mudslinging, politicking and tabloid-style discussion this Democratic party nomination battle has offered.
In keeping with this theme, we’re going to try an exercise in real-time journalism today.
I joked, months before the nomination battle was anything but a “gimme” for Senator Clinton, in a post in which I made fun of the the Los Angeles Times for declaring Barack Obama a “magical negro”, that I was going to register the blog title “Barack Obama’s Press Clippings” to keep track of the ridiculous stories that were bound to appear as mainstream America comes to grips with a “well-spoken” African-American running for the highest office in the land.
Well, it wasn’t a joke. I did register that blog, and once he secures the nomination, I may have to actually start writing it. (Only if the Red Wings and Raptors flame out in the playoffs though. I only have so much time to waste on the internet, and at least hockey and basketball are dirty games that come with rules.)
It’s a very good thing I didn’t start it yet, too, because I need about seven hours of sleep a night, I work eight hours a day, and I also enjoy drinking beer, having a life and occasionally trying to get laid. If I was to keep track of the idiocy that surrounds the Obama campaign right now, I’d be sacrificing at least the sleep and the beer, and I’d be so psychotically angry all the time that no woman would come within 20 feet of me.
But, as an exercise, just for today, in honour of my favourite moment on the campaign so far, we will try to keep track. Quickly.
So here’s the deal. It’s 10:44 a.m. I’ve got about 40 minutes before I force myself to go outside and enjoy this beautiful spring day. In that 40 minutes, I’m going to see how many “news” stories I can find about the Obama-Clinton race that simply aren’t news and don’t contribute anything useful to the political discussion.
Using news aggregators such as Digg and Fark and the ever trusty Google News, I’ll try to restrict myself to mainstream media and websites. However, if a blog claims to actually offer evidence or break news, we’ll count them, too.
This should not be considered an exercise in exploring media bias. The media is biased. Always. It’s a fact of life and we should all be smart enough to accept it and treat it accordingly. This, rather, is an exercise in finding humour in something that should piss everyone off. The contradictions and sheer exaggerations should be amusing enough themselves, without me having to take them apart.
If you want to, click the links I’ll provide and decide for yourself if this is helping Americans make a decision on the issues. I’ll just sit back, present them, and thank god that I live in a country where our elections aren’t world-changing events and as such don’t come with this healthy dose of insane inanity.
Seriously America, you guys are just fucked. I mean that.
Alright, timer starts now. Any breaks for phone calls, coffee or bathroom will be added on at the end, like injury time in soccer.
- The Los Angeles Times (The Magical Negro people!) wonders if Barack Obama was really scratching his face, or if he was giving the finger to Hillary Clinton (who was not present at the time).
(This, by the way, would be an outrage because no presidential candidate has ever flipped the bird before)
(I took two minutes off the clock to find this picture for your pleasure)
- Barack Obama — known Elitist — may have had a “welfare queen” for a mother. (This blog makes it because it does such a terrible job of offering proof, yet claims to do so. Check it out.)
- A CBS news reporter reports what Hillary Clinton says about George W. Bush and adds that she was “no doubt” taking a veiled jab at Barack Obama. If she was, Clinton is comparing her rival to W. And that’s stupid. If she wasn’t, he’s putting words in her mouth. We’ll never know because nobody asked her.
- OMG! Obama put the flag pin back on his lapel at a Veteran’s event, after saying months ago that he didn’t wear it anymore because he wanted to make a symbolic gesture in protest of the Iraq war. Hypocrisy, thy name is B. Hussein. (The best part of this one is the one-sentence update: “The pin was given to Obama by a disabled vet at the event.” Can you imagine the stories we’d be reading if he had refused the disabled veteran’s pin?)
- The AP chairman asked Barack a question about “Obama bin Laden” before the candidate gently corrected him. I don’t know what to think of this one.
- The US News “reports” (by asking a few people on the street) that Obama’s ‘bitter’ comments have “halted his momentum”. I mention this only to point out that, in research conducted on the same day (the key word is ‘research’ as opposed to ‘random streeters’) Gallup reports that Obama’s lead has held and even increased since he made those horrible, offensive and elitist, but pretty true, comments.
- Obama has ties to a militant ’60s radical member of the Weather Underground. OMFG! Those ties, factchecking finds, include a handshake at an event, a small donation to his senate campaign and an informal agreement to potentially sit on a committee together, which never happened. The best part of this one is that it was proposed by noted impartisan, fact-based journalist Sean Hannity and asked during Tuesday’s debate as though it were a legitimate question. Read more about the whole retarded saga here, if you must. The part where a noted Chicago rabbi calls the radical “wonderful, compassionate, thoughtful, serious” is interesting.
- Barack Obama’s wife’s college roommate’s mother was a racist who wanted segregated dorms. Interestingly enough, my ex-girlfriend’s college roommate’s mother was a blackhearted communist and total freedom-hater.
- Hamas — those totally bad terrorist guys — endorsed Barack Obama for President. Obama totally had something to do with that. He must have promised them free belts to hold their dynamite if he gets elected, or some shit like that. What a dirty terrorist. Oh wait — shit — Obama has denounced former Democratic President Jimmy Carter for engaging in dialogue with a terrorist organization like Hamas.
- This probably doesn’t count because it’s an opinion column and doesn’t claim to be anything but partisan, but it does win the ‘best headline’ award. I would like to know “What is it about Obama that Attracts Hamas, Communists, and Domestic Terrorists?”
- Fox News — in what must have been a soul-searching decision for the higher-ups — sides with the gay community by reporting that “Obama failed to grant an interview to the Philadelphia Gay News — the paper made its point this way — by publishing its interview with Hillary Clinton on the right side of its front page and leaving the space for Obama’s interview blank.” If you had “Fox News stands up for gay rights” in the Signs of the Apocalypse pool, you just took the pot.
- Obama’s campaign team is surely the only campaign team ever to rearrange where people are seated to give an impression of diversity. Nobody else has ever done this before, so that is why this is news.
Okay. That’s it. My 40 minutes are up. I had to take one coffee break and three minutes of injury time were added when the amount of links I had open on my computer made it stall. These links were not difficult to find, and had I not imposed a 40-minute limit, I would still be making this list. I had at least six more open in my browser when the buzzer sounded.
Hope y’all learned something. And I hope you’re as sincerely fed up as I am with this bullshit.
Once more, I’m not trying to claim the media is biased against Barack Obama — some outifts surely are, and some are surely spinning in his favour. That’s a fact of life. The point I was trying to make is that saturation of news agencies, national networks and 24-hour cable news outlets has made elections a round-the-clock exercise in finding stupid shit to use as content.
That’s it. That’s all. I just wanted to see how many I could find in less than an hour. The total: 12 in 40 minutes, with six more that didn’t even make the cut. That includes taking the time to vet some of the more ridiculous claims.
As a professional reporter, that 40 minutes it took to find and (halfheartedly) factcheck these stories, would cost you about $22 for my services. As an editor, it’ll run you about $26. I did it for free because I think that issues are more important than inane bullshit. It’s one of my major failings as a mainstream journalist.
So in conclusion, “if you feelin’ like a pimp, n—a, go and brush your shoulders off. Ladies is pimps, too, so go and brush your shoulders off. N—az is crazy too, don’t forget the boy told you. Get. That. Dirt off your shoulder.”
