Wing-Nuts Go Crazy Over Today's Media Coverage of McCain

Posted by David Neiwert, Firedoglake at 2:03 PM on August 18, 2008.

The wingnutosphere is in top form today, which means that the whining and moaning and bleating has reached a full-throated roar.


Oh, how awful it is (whine whimper) that NBC and Andrea Mitchell aren't being "fair and balanced." (See especially the fatuous garbage being peddled at Newsbusters, as well as Red State.) And we all know what that means. Hey, that's not in the playbook!


And gee, aren't those liberals just so meaaaaan for implying that Honorable John McCain, the Man With More Honor Than Anyone Evah!!!, might have lifted his "cross in the sand" tale from other sources. See especially American Spectator and Confederate Yankee, as well as Tom Maguire, who whines that liberals are now Swift Boating poor John McCain.


Leave John McCain alooooooone!

Of course, we know what would have happened if either John Kerry or Al Gore had told a story like that: the entire newshours belonging to Chris Matthew, Wolf Blitzer, and Bill O'Reilly would have been spent indulging in speculation about whether the story was really true, or whether their having told it would have revealed something about their deep hidden character flaws. (Gore, the supposed serial prevaricator, especially.)


But that's because such a story would've fit into the prewritten media narratives about those men (Gore the liar, Kerry the not-so-heroic vet). Realizing that John McCain is lifting campaign stories like campaign cookbook recipes cuts against the prewritten media narrative about John McCain (Mr. Honorable and Honor-bound POW Vet of Mavericky Honor).


Funny thing. I wonder how many of these same wingnuts indulged in bashing John Kerry's military record on far more specious grounds? Like, perhaps, every last one of them? (Maguire does duly note call himself "a proud Swiftboater myself," but doesn't seem to realize how bereft of a leg upon which to stand this leaves him.)


Mmmmmm. Smells like ... victory.

Tagged as: media, blogosphere, mccain, wing-nuts

David Neiwert is a freelance journalist based in Seattle, and the assistant editor of Crosscut.