Ignoring the Hype
July 21st, 2008
I first began thinking about largely ignoring the Obama trip overseas when the Senator decided to announce his plan for Iraq and Afghanistan before leaving. Heading to the Middle East under the guise of a “fact finding mission” it was clear the Senator wasn’t really out to find anything in those nations other than anything to reinforce his world view. As I watched Obama state his objectives I wondered, “how can you announce your strategy JUST BEFORE you see the battleground? Without listening to the generals and the troops on the ground? Isn’t this the same charge given by Democrats against Bush for so many years?”
As Obama landed in Afghanistan only to announce, after his short stay, that the nation needed more troops, the media began its onslaught of hype and I began tuning out. With no clear reflection on how he would secure those NATO forces to maintain the operation in Afghanistan, he simply echoed statements made by Bush and McCain many moons before and gave little in the way of insight or innovation. Still the press swooned.
There is little that is actually newsworthy about Obama’s visit to the Middle East or Europe. All we have is a media moment, finely crafted by a campaign that holds the media so effortlessly in its tight grasp. So far there is little in the news of policy, little insight, little more than tightly controlled press events that are nice theater but have little substance. There is nothing that addresses the reality on the ground in either battlefield and nothing that addresses our problems here at home.
Instead we are treated to the media swooning over a candidate who has purposely done everything he can do to foster the images of Kennedy and Reagan, to tee up the imagery for the press so they can write hyperbole while filling in the miles of blanks that separate history from hype.
I don’t mean to disparage Obama personally. It is the job of a campaign to manipulate the press, to control the image and do everything it can to push its point of view. It is not, however, the job of the media to give in and simply sit back to broadcast the show. It is the job of the fourth estate to ask questions, to demand more of politicians than a few staged shows. It was clear weeks ago that wasn’t going to happen on this trip. Instead we would just get the pretty pictures, the cute stories and the campaign credo.
If and when news breaks on this trip, I will note it here. Increasingly though I have come to the conclusion that it is not the job of this site or any of the media to simply tow the line of either party or campaign or to just sit back and report on the bickering, the soundbytes and the fake outrage. It didn’t work for this nation in getting us into Iraq and it won’t work for us in winning the War. We need to do better, to think harder and to tear down the nice imagery in order to get to the gritty truth.
So, maybe we should get started on that…
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