Fox News, too?  Hmmm.

Well, if all Obama did was gripe about what a dope McCain is, I'd break away from him to cover the rescued bear cub, too. Maybe McCain is using a dual-purpose strategy: By refusing to make a case for himself, but just call Obama names, he (A) Gets some early negative digs in against Obama, and (B) Forces the media to ignore him / reject his op-eds, thereby letting him erase his media-darling image and create a new "liberal media hates McCain" narrative.

It's probably brilliant, but I have to say that personally, if I were a Republican, McCain turning on the media would make me throw up a little. Guy spends his whole career earning a reputation as the biggest media whore in Washington, and now he wants to whine about the unfair media? Reinforces the message I wish a 527 were making: "John McCain. Kind of a Dick, Isn't He?"

Why do I get the feeling that if a McCain presidency is better than Bush's, he will be considered a success, while if Obama's presidency doesn't Transform Politics in America, his will be considered a failure?  McCain is just setting the bar extremely low for himself so he can claim the mantle of "better than expectations."  It reminds me of the North Carolina/Indiana primary day, when Obama won the larger state by a larger margin, and netted more delegates, but many in the media still said that Indiana was a turning point.

Similarly, whenever I see a national poll (not very useful, I know) saying that Obama and McCain are in a "statistical tie," and then notice that in every poll, Obama leads McCain by, let's say 5 points, and the margin of error is five points, I want to pull my hair out.  When one candidate keeps beating the other candidate in polls, it's probably not a tie.  It would be just as accurate, although not as journalistically fun, to say "Obama, statistically, could be leading McCain by double-digits!"

I'm reminded of the movie The Mighty Ducks when Emilio Esteves is nostalgic about a shot on goal he took that almost went in.  "A couple more inches to the left, and I would have made the shot," he said.  Then, that kid who I think ended up on Dawson's Creek said "Yeah, but a couple more inches the other way and you would have missed completely."

Just because most journalists think Obama should win (as a matter of predicting outcomes, not actual preference for candidates), doesn't mean he has a higher bar than McCain to win.  Level the expectations playing field, people.

Has anyone considered there may be a different purpose that is more substantive than the simple complaint, "The media loves Obama'? (Notice, I didn't suggest motive...I don't do that)

On the surface the whining only appears to be a typical ploy to blame the media, work the refs and compensate for McCain's lack of media worthy attention. In this case, resentment or envy is the apparent reason for the railing and the public is already softened up for extending the sympathy because Hillary only stopped her attack several weeks ago. But I believe those closest to McCain recognize their biggest potential problem isn't quantity of coverage. The 'not enough' attention is temporary and that is almost over. The big worry? They realize their candidate may be beyond his shelf life. When the International Tour returns to the states they will go looking for McCain. They won't be able to run or hide so their best hope is to mitigate the harm more coverage will do.

No, this isn't begging for more attention because they'll need a lottery to distribute luggage tags for the returning reporters who will have shot their wad on The Trip.  

Yes, Salter's Squad can predict the tide will roll back in and the stories they file may not be pretty.  Think: Lose Cannon

The McCain team can't control how much coverage they receive and thy expect to receive plenty of press. They need to set up The Media as the spoiler now. The Tour appears guilty anyway and McCain will have them stereotyped as evil doers when a fair amount of reports contain lapses, fumbles and whispers of adequacy.  

McCain's boys may resent Obama, the lack of coverage and wish it was 2000. But staring them in the face is a candidate who is screwing up and when Obama is back in the states they do not want that shit to hit the fans.

En français en plus! Les maudits français - ça alors!  Franchement, le vieux connard devrait se faire baiser par un brigade de la légion étrangère ...

Is it me or is it really stupid to 1) rub in the face of the reporters on your bus that they are second banana, and 2) even before becoming President, exhibiting Rumsfeldian Francophobia?

For a long time McCain went around screaming "look, Obama hasn't been to Iraq, he should go to Iraq, watch what happens when he goes to Iraq." and then he whines that when Obama goes to Iraq and Maliki endorses him he screams, "why are you looking at him, look at me" The problem is, when we look at him now what is to see isn't too pretty. Yesterday McCain said Obama wanted to lose the war in Iraq in order to win the election, which is just as much of a slam at the American people as it is on Obama because that means the American people want to elect a man that wants to lose the war. Does he even think anymore before he opens his mouth?

Jason,

You guys have done an excellent job covering the resentment shift in the McCain approach, and over the past few days, we posters have weighed in on this issue. My take has been that the impetus for the resentment has been a variation of the Old Bull being pushed out by the Young Bull. However, this morning, as this resentment approach reaches even new lows in McCainland, I am offering a new possible explanation, based upon my personal experiences and taking into account that excellent Crowley story...

My hunch is that white guys hate to lose and they really hate to lose to brown guys. Now, before you guys go all nuts on me, let's look at the situation: If it is true that that Salter consiglieri is the force behind the McCain PR machine, then that guy is probably the one who is behind most of this foolhardy and stupid resentment tone and if that is the case, then I offer you this possible explanation: I have spent my life, in school, college, grad school, free lance journalism, and in a professional career of achievement and advancement, beating out guys like Salter. At every turn. And much of what I am picking up in the resentment tone, is exaclty the kind of response I have received throughout my life. Guys like Salter - and probably McCain - just hate to lose and when they lose to a certain kind of guy, well, there just has to be a nefarious set of stack circumstances that in a perfect world - which is a world where they would get the job uncontested - would not exist.

Thus Obama is "too vain" (as if McCain isn't), that Obama only wants the job to fulfill his personal ambition (as if a guy who has spent the past 10 YEARS running for president only has the interests of the good old USA at heart), that the media "favors" Obama (Pot meet Kettle), that Obama has had everthing given to him (this from a guy who attended prep school and came from an influential military family that helped to smooth over his youthful indescretions). and so on.

Naw, all this resentment stuff sounds very familar to me and as I have suggested, I think that there is an unspoken or even unacknowledged resentment on the part of the McCain camp that the "normal" slide rule, the one that always had guys like McCain getting the job has been circumvented by a new "warped" slide rule that "favors" Obama. And the palpable resentment that we are hearing and seeing from the McCain campaign is straight outta the Angry White Men playbook.

Just a thougt that I had while I was driving to work this morning..

Great comments today on this post.  I especially agree with Bigfish and Michael.  Yep, the bar is going to be set super high for Obama if he wins and it will be miserably low for McCain.  How and why no one sees this as a political or substantive problem for Obama is beyond me.  This is one of the reasons I have been trying to point out flaws in Obama.  I am trying to be realistic and get people to think about the dangerous standard being set for him.

The "media Obama bias" narrative can be powerful.  We saw that with Hillary.  There is now hard science to show the media's Obama bias and the NYT rejection of McCain's piece (how stupid of them to speficially spell out the reasons) reinforces it.  I think McCain will ultimately benefit from this bias, or the claim of it.  I also think he'll milk it for what he can.  But he won't get as much mileage out of it as Clinton did because, unlike her, he doesn't seem to be learning from his lousy campaign performance. I'm utterly stunned at the time he's wasted, the continued gaffes, the reluctance of the Repubs to come out stronger for him, and the potential for Bush betrayal again.  It's as though the Repubs are throwing in the towel.  

A fellow prof and I chatted about this yesterday and he thought that the repubs might just be willing to take this hit, i.e., lose the presidency, because the next pres is getting a terrible mess.  I was skeptical of this given the likelihood that Congress would also turn more Democratic in the Fall and would be able to hand Obama lots of victories.  Truth be told, it's simply beyond me that the repubs are running such a lame campaign.  I think Obama could beat a Rove-like campaign anyway, but I'm sure glad McCain and Co. seem to be making it easy.

Obama: "My opponent says that will commit treason to win an election. My opponent says that I'm responsible for high gas prices. My opponent says he 'doesn't know' if I'm a socialist. My opponent says that he can cut gas taxes and that offshore drilling will save us all a bunch of money. It is silly season again, it appears he will say anything, do anything..."

It is time for a frontal attack on McCain's once-admirable honor...

and jaunty, doesn't his resentment eerily echo Bill's?

McCain is just shooting himself in the foot with the media by complaining about their favoritism  toward Obama( and that contest his campaign's got going about the Obama love is so laughable). He's starting to look like a sore loser even before he's lost.

And the nerve, considering that even if he's not getting as much press as Obama, I'd bet that his unfavorable press is less as well. I mean, have you noticed how the press has been portraying Obama as aloof, cocky, and cold lately? Obama can't win -- he tries to show he's not a typical liberal sap, and they call him aloof. He tries to be presidential so that they don't call him a wimp, and they call him cocky.

Great posts all ...

Cookie: speaking as a tanned person (though probably of a different shade than yours), I can second the resentment observation.  It has been fascinating to me that I have received support and congratulations from three types of colleagues: much older of either gender; women one professional generation ahead; and colleagues one professional generation below me (again, of either gender).  White men at my rough range of age and experience and especially one professional generation above sometimes fall into paroxysms of envy that would be funny if it were not startling in its intensity.

And of course this means you hit anywhere and everywhere.  Note the latest attack on Obama re the Holocaust, of all things, following right after Obama's speech in Jerusalem.  What kind of a sick joker would politicise genocide?  Why do they think this would have any political traction, is beyong me ...

www.huffingtonpost.com/.../mccain-camp-attacks-obama_n_114486.html

I was re-reading Clive James' "Cultural Amnesia" and came across this gem from Jean_François Revel: "Ideology functions as a machine to destroy information, even at the price of making assertions in clear contradiction of the evidence".  McCain's campaign to a T.

John McCain started off the week with a yawning imagery gap , lurching toward a strategy based on either