Several people have quietly wondered if similarities exist between how Howard Dean was treated by the media in 2004, and Barack Obama is being treated today.
I had not paid that much attention to the particular aspects, but the last two days I have seen such unrelenting ridiculous spin, falsities....seen trivial unimportant items exaggerated beyond reason where Obama is concerned.
Today my hubby angrily walked through the room when I was on computer, said he just turned off the TV. He said My God they are doing the same thing to Obama as they did to Dean last primary. He said the only things different were the choice of topics.
I remember this article by Peter Hart from FAIR which was called "Target Dean." The attacks he presents from the media are quite different than the ones on Obama, but they were equally absurd in nature.
Dean's bluntness got him in lots of hot water, but it was nearly always the flat out unmitigated truth. Obama is more of an orator and less blunt, but that does not stop the media in their effort to make the trivial seem monumental.
From April 2004
Target DeanThey took a governor who had governed right/center, and they turned him overnight into a big freaking liberal...."liberal" was the most insulting term they knew. It was amazing.
Early reservations about Dean's candidacy were often framed as an ideological problem ("The Left's Mr. Right?" asked an August 11 Newsweek headline). Media impatience about the "cluttered" Democratic race relegated Dean to the margins, presumably on ideological grounds. Before a debate early in the campaign, NPR's Cokie Roberts lamented (4/28/03) that "some of the strongest voices are likely to come from Al Sharpton, Howard Dean, people who are not necessarily in the mainstream of the American voting public."
That wasn't catching on, so they changed the terminology to "outsider" and "insurgent."
But journalists intent on painting Dean as too far left found a dearth of material—a Time headline (8/11/03) backhandedly acknowledged this, calling the budget-balancing, pro-gun Dean "An Unlikely Spokesman for the Anti-Bush Left." Since remaking the centrist governor as a leftist seemed a bit of a stretch, the media script changed: Instead of fretting over his being too liberal, the punditocracy was vexed by Dean's outsider status and his insurgent campaign style.
They even went after his marriage, and the fact that Judy Steinberg Dean was her own person, a physician, a woman who did not like the spotlight.
Sometimes journalists seemed bothered by Dean's unconventional campaigning. The fact that Dean's wife Judith Steinberg was not traveling with him became a subplot in the Iowa coverage. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd (1/15/04) wrote that the Deans "seem to be in need of some tips on togetherness and building a healthy political marriage, if that's not an oxymoron. Even by the transcendentally wacky standard for political unions set by Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Deans have an unusual relationship." Calling Steinberg "a ghost in his political career," Dowd suggested that Dean "could use a character witness on the road to vouch for his core values," closing her column with the command: "Physician, heal thy spouse."
One of the very worst times was when Dean made the statement that we were no safer with Saddam captured. The media had a field day.
When Dean remarked that the capture of Saddam Hussein did not make Americans any safer, that was another gaffe for the press, with many reporters insinuating that an antiwar candidacy should close up shop once Hussein was in custody. Reporters were commenting on Dean's downward slide before there was any evidence of it. A December 19 Knight Ridder report led with the bad news: "Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, seeking to regain momentum that he lost after Saddam Hussein's capture, lashed out at his critics Thursday and defended his assertion that the seizure didn't make America safer."
Later, there was a poll by the NYT that showed that even in December 2003....60% of the country agreed with his statement. They never really talked about that.
Since Obama is much more of a cautious speaker, and seems to have no real scandals...they are having to make sh** up. They are using issues like Wright and Ayers that really have been twisted into something they are not.
They are jumping on every word coming out of his mouth, out of Michelle Obama's mouth...and they even have the nerve to say they must do it because the GOP will do it in November.
They are arrogant and smug in their "rightness".
But they appear to be well on the way to "Target Obama" 2008. Stay alert, Peter Hart, you might have to write another column with a similar name.
Unfortunately, this time, as last time...there are Democrats working with the media to accomplish this scenario.
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