Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is running for president, and he’s running on a Bush-style platform that won’t turn America around for working families. In a time of economic crisis, this could stop his candidacy cold—because the last thing we need is more of McSame.
There’s one problem, though: The national press, whose job it is to talk about the policies and priorities of candidates, hasn’t given McCain any scrutiny on the real issues. The media elite decided long ago that they like him too much to look too closely.
As a corrective to this media bias, Media Matters for America has released Free Ride: John McCain and the Media in which authors David Brock and Paul Waldman detail exactly how the senator has been able to manipulate the press over his decades-long career in Washington.
Brock and Waldman note that the press holds McCain to a different standard—ignoring his flip-flops, underplaying his gaffes and keeping his hard-right voting record and lack of expertise out of their coverage. They write:
To grasp just how different his media image is, imagine for a moment if every politician were portrayed the way John McCain is. The focus would stay on their perceived greatest strengths, not their most glaring weaknesses. Reporters would re-tell the stories of candidates when they seemed at their best, not the moments when they were at their worst. Their “character” would be defined in the media by the noblest thing they had ever done, and the less flattering incidents would be pushed aside, to be dismissed if mentioned at all.
Despite his image as a campaign finance crusader, McCain is deeply tied to Washington’slobbyist culture. Despite his image as a “maverick,” rather than a typical Republican, McCain has been a loyal vote for Bush’s priorities—voting with Bush 89 percent of the time, and 95 percent in 2007.
Cutting through the myths and the spin by getting to the truth about McCain’s record and policies, and applying public pressure on him to pledge a different course, are at the heart of the AFL-CIO’s McCain Revealed effort. Union members across the country, from New Hampshire to California, are working hard to mobilize and get the word out about, and to, John McCain.
Tomorrow afternoon (March 29) at 5 p.m. EDT, the progressive blog Firedoglake will host a live online discussion of Free Ride with Brock. Be there.