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Media Views

Political Animal: A Meaningless Distraction (9/1/08) by Steve Benen

In more news from corporate media's Inverse-Priorityville, stories about a presidential candidate's lies about policy are of little interest—whereas stories about the personal lives of the candidate's children are considered to be of major importance:

Sarah Palin apparently lied about abusing her powers as governor, firing a capable Public Safety Commissioner without cause. Campaign reporters find that mildly interesting, but during a lengthy interview between John McCain and Chris Wallace yesterday, the subject didn't even come up. But now that John McCain's running mate's teenage daughter is having a baby, now reporters are... demanding answers....

The McCain campaign, as part of its pushback, had an anonymous aide tell Reuters that the Obama campaign has been behind the rumor mongering on Palin's family life, and for reasons that defy comprehension, Reuters ran the allegation without support or evidence. This afternoon, Obama hosted a press conference in which he hoped to talk about the federal response to Hurricane Gustav. Following the McCain campaign's sleazy tactics today, reporters had other issues on their minds....

As for the McCain's campaign's assertion that the Obama team played a role in going after Palin's family, Obama didn't even let the reporter finish asking the question: "I am offended by that statement.... "We don't go after people's families. We don't get them involved in the politics. It's not appropriate and it's not relevant."


Benen ends with the hope that campaign reporters "can find something else interesting tomorrow."

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