Marshall suggests AP biased against Obama

In All the President's Spin, we wrote about how liberals were increasingly adopting conservative tactics. The latest example: Josh Marshall saying the "Associated Press officially endorses McCain" (to which he added "Well, pretty much") for running a negative story about Barack Obama.

The article itself is less than ideal -- it's an example of the genre of campaign story in which the reporter says one candidate is "dogged" by accusations and then repeats all of them in a less-than-critical way, implicitly giving credence to them. But surely there's a more constructive response than suggesting the AP is biased against Obama, which apes the standard conservative tactic of blaming all negative stories on liberal media bias.

Comments

[David]

It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to recognize where Jennifer Loven's sympathies lie: she's a lefty who is disapointed by Obama's moves toward the center.

From an analytic POV, Marshall is foolish to suggest that a single, somewhat critical article about Obama means that the AP is in the tank for McCain, especially when they have written about ten gazillion harshly critical articles about George Bush.

However, from a strategic POV, Marshall is wisely reminding Loven and others on the left that any criticism of Obama can only help McCain.

[Howard]

From my read Loven isn't expressing any disagreement with Obama at all. She says,

"For Obama, there is no more important issue than Iraq.

Unequivocal opposition to the war drove his entrance into the race. It helped him defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton for the nomination. It made him a darling of the anti-war activists who are now prominent and influential in the Democratic Party.

Those forces won't like Thursday's statement-bordering-on-a-promise that "I'll ... continue to refine my policy" on Iraq, particularly after he visits and makes what he said would be a "thorough assessment."

Obama's problem on Iraq isn't that he is changing his position drastically, because he isn't.

Obama has always said his promise to end the war would require consultations with military commanders and, possibly, flexibility. This, in fact, is the only reasonable stance for a U.S. commander in chief to take."

***

Her basic point was that Obama, by being pragmatic, flexible or realistic, was liable to "flip-flopping" charges from the Right wing media elites and other McCain supporters.

A more secondary point was that in clarifying (or modifying) some positions Obama could displease certain more liberal supporters. But I don't see where she shows herself to be a "disappointed lefty".

I don't see that article was really negative on Obama overall, except to say that he was exposing himself to negative spin.

***

BTW, it was a single throw away line by Josh Marshall. I'd have to guess it was facetious in the first place (does Jennifer Loven actually represent the entire AP?).

[Algernon]

You may not have been reading the AP lately. They have had a series of very strange slanted stories this year, very out of character for them. They wrote up McCain joking about sending cigarettes to Iran to "kill them" like it was a heartwarming family moment with John and Cindy. They led a fairly factual story about McCain's misleading balanced budget pledge by saying (paraphrased) "Obama says McCain's balanced budget plan is unrealistic. That's easy for him to say, he isn't even trying!" There are a few other examples I'm forgetting -- The main culprits are Liz Sidoti (google her name and McCain doughnuts) and Nedra Pickler. But the Politico article yesterday revealed that Ron Fournier has been encouraging this type of writing to make the AP more "edgy."