I see nothing but wall-to-wall McCain television ads portraying Obama as an Antichrist who wants to destroy America's energy future, while McCain is all clean, renewable energy all the time.

Too much analysis, Greg. The Ambinder post says all that needs to be said.

Did Obama sign some pledge that he's never going to say the words "Keating Five"?

Is the Obama Camp expecting the media to help them when they don't even appear to want to help themselves?

McCain is corrupt! Have we forgotten about KEATING FIVE? The Old man is not a maverick, he's a liar.

This really goes to the question of whether Obama is the media darling that McCain and others would have you believe. He does not get the benefit of the doubt. And set aside the Arab/terrorist angle, this is a CAMPAIGN FINANCE issue that is related to a guy that supposedly broke from his party to reform the campaign finance system. There is a story here and the fact that the media is not jumping down McCain's throat is telling...

This post goes to one of my pet peeves of this campaign.

The media is constantly saying that we don't know Obama, whereas we know McCain. Pundits and other MSM spew this from their mouths to the point where the public doesn't question this assertion.

- What does it mean to know someone? Is there a threshold of knowing?

- What more do we know about John McCain than Barack Obama?

- Is what we know about John McCain true or just developed conventional wisdom?

These are some basic questions that need asking. I hope media devotes some time to this while Obama is spending time with his family.

As with any non-partisan excuse for why the media are conservative shills, this one fails to explain why attacking a candidate's weakness, Rove style, despite going against arbitrary, pre-conceived notions, gets a lot of play.

This is something like a Democratic District Attorney get caught with prostitutes is huge. A campaign reform maverick up to his neck in lobbyists and corruption is HUGE - if it were a Democrat.

Greg, I want to congratulate you on a great post, in my opinion some of the best analysis you've ever given. Kudos and exactly right.

One other meme the traditional media believes that influences their story coverage: that McCain is a known-quantity, therefore biographical stories and scrutiny are less required. Perhaps he's a known quality to press inside-the-beltway (although I doubt it), but I would contend the complete story isn't even remotely known to the mass public.

How many people know just how wealthy he and his wife are?

How many people even know he was married before?

How many people know of his involvement in the Keating Five S&L scandal?

How many people even know some basic policy positions of his, like is he anti-choice or pro-choice? (surveys show huge numbers of women believe he's pro-choice).

I'd love to see this overall theme being pushed on the blogosphere and then to the traditional media more and more - the notion that everyone refuses to evaluate the details (sometimes sordid) of McCain's life because they're a "known quantity," - when in fact they're not.

http://strategy08.wordpress.com

Basically what you're saying, and I think you realize this, is that Democrats are susceptible to a broad range of debilitating attacks, while Republicans are deemed by the media to be "bulletproof" (read: shameless) and therefor attacks against them are downplayed as a rule. So, why would we accept that?

McCain is 74 years old, can't read from his own cue cards, holds one campaign event a day, and takes every weekend off. Why then does his completely flubbing and then forgetting a question at a townhall not get more traction? Where is that narritive, God knows he's susceptible to it. Is it more impolitic to suggest that someone is a terrorist sympathizer and a seditionist, or that someone is old and perhaps "losing his bearings"? Note the difference in media reaction between the two events.

Traditional media is a problem. We all get that by now. One of the reasons many of us now choose to get information from newer media like site like yours is because this thinking needs to be challenged. I don't care why one media narrative seems to constantly get traction and be pushed by cable talking heads, and why another won't. I want to know what we need to do to challenge that narrative and pierce the shell of traditional media.

Basically, I'm saying I don't get why you even bothered to write this post. We all get what's going on here. Don't explain them to us, be better than them.

Off Topic, but as an Obama supporter, I can't wait until this story posts:

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/08/08/internal_clinton_campaign_memos_leaked.html

Greg, you're kinder to the media than I am on this.

My read is simply that many in the media, either due to longtime beatings by conservatives or outright political bias, are actively trying to help the McCain campaign and hurt the Democrats. It is my belief that many media outlets and their representatives literally want the GOP to win the Presidency again, and are doing what they can to help this along.

Of course, a more charitable read is that the McCain campaign is so thoroughly lame that the media feel they have to cut it every break they can to keep their reporting "balanced". But my first explanation, I think, has a lot of evidence behind it.

DNC needs to make a hard-hitting ad about this and through in a couple of mentions of Keating and the Hess Corp. donations.

Every Arab that hears this story probably laughs so hard they need help off the floor. Me thinks mccain has been played.