Sorry folks, running into a little bit of an issue.  I wrote today’s blog last night and emailed it to myself so that I could post it this morning, but it doesn’t seem to be arriving.  I’ll get it posted as soon as I have access to it, or when it shows up in my inbox.  Again, sorry about the delay.
One thing I’ve noticed this week as I’ve been watching McCain attack Obama for his overseas trip is that we here in America have lost our memories.  With McCain focusing on the fact that Obama was courting foreign leaders while he sat at home talking to us voters I can’t help but remember a campaign funded trip that McCain took earlier this year.  In fact, it was one of the earliest post-Republican primary trips that McCain took.  Where to?  Columbia!  That’s right, one of the first things McCain did upon entering the general election was leave the country.  Now, I’ve done a little looking and so far I can’t seem to find an article that mentions this among the coverage of the presumed nominees new attacks on Obama.  Has the press really forgotten this?  Not one little “Despite having take similar trip earlier this year...” seems to be floating around out there!  If we really want to show candidates that we’re tired of campaign mudslinging, the baseless attacks on a candidate’s character rather than policies, then we should be asking our press to be debunking these attacks rather than repeating them unbiasedly.  I’m not just talking Republican attacks, I’m talking both sides.  Our press is supposed to be here to show Americans what they don’t know, the news they don’t directly have access to themselves.  When a candidate is pushing false information into their newspapers and programming, they need to push back with a rebuttal. 

At this point in time, I’m beginning to realize that the responsibility of a clean election doesn’t necessarily rest on the candidates and their campaigns.  It rests on journalists, doing real fucking journalism.  It rests on them checking the facts and saying “Wait a second” when a candidate slings bullshit.  We can’t expect the candidates to play nicely.  We should be able to expect the journalists that are repeating their words to the American public to follow up on what their reporting a little.  The one example I can think of that is exemplifying my request would be this article in the New York Times regarding McCain’s newest ad.  I think that Sarah Wheaton did a great job here, especially pointing out that the clip the video shows of Obama “in the gym” is actually him shooting hoops with the troops in Kuwait.  This is exactly what I’m talking about!  She went the extra mile here to pick the video apart and show what absolute crap it was.  Unfortunately, the only people who see this are the people who are reading the news online, as the post comes from the political blog “The Caucus” (which is part of the New York Times site).  Most of America will just see this ad running on TV and not have the knowledge to question its integrity.

Please call on your local journalists to show some integrity and not just spew the words as though they came straight from the candidates.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 07/28 at 10:06 AM  •   •  permalink