What Fallows is saying without saying it is that it was Hillary Clinton who got the treatment in the previous 25 Democratic debates that Obama got in the ABC debate. I found the ABC event outrageously unfair to Obama, as I wrote that night. I found almost all of the previous 25 outrageously unfair to Hillary Clinton. None more so the the October 30, 2007 NBC moderated debate in Philadelphia, probably the most important night of the campaign - the one that should be remembered as the late Tim Russert's legacy as a journalist. Because the late Tim Russert was a terrible journalist (something Fallows alludes to gracefully in the article.)
The second excerpt that is revealing in the Fallows article demonstrates how internalized the Hillary Hate became, even for Fallows. The excerpt is telling:
The problem for Clinton is that while she was nearly always at the top of her game, the game she was playing changed debate by debate. In one encounter, she hailed Obama as a comrade in their joint struggle against the Bush administration and the media. In the next, she regretfully but relentlessly pointed out the ways in which he wasn’t prepared to lead. At one of the last debates, in Cleveland, Brian Williams began the program by showing back-to-back tapes of her saying “I am honored to be here” with Obama and “Shame on you, Barack Obama.” She neatly reconciled the differences in two sentences: “Well, this is a contested campaign. And as I have said many times, I have a great deal of respect for Senator Obama, but we have differences.” But there was no way to talk around the jarring inconsistency of her two statements, especially the emotional contrast as it came through on the clips. In making different cases against Obama, she reinforced the strongest argument against herself: that she would say whatever she thought might work at the moment. Obama, with a few leaden exceptions in which he made a point of criticizing Clinton in a debate, seemed like the same character from one session to the next.
This is truly one of the most obtuse things James Fallows has ever written. Is he really positing that never before in the history of a party primary has a candidate said at one point nice things about his or her opponent and later criticized that same opponent? Is he really arguing that? Is he really arguing that NO OTHER candidate in THESE Democratic debates did that? Is he really arguing that Barack Obama did not do that? The REAL story of the Brian Williams game playing is that only Hillary Clinton was asked that type of question. Barack Obama was not, even though we all know the same type of question could have been asked of him. Indeed, an important negative attack of the Obama campaign against Clinton is used here by Fallows himself without attribution, to wit - "[Clinton] reinforced the strongest argument against herself: that she would say whatever she thought might work at the moment[,]" - without even mentioning that that was an argument consistently forwarded by Barack Obama. Fallows himself unwittingly demonstrates PRECISELY what was wrong with the Media during the entire Presidential primary process - the Media was out to get Hillary Clinton. And indeed, in the October 30 debate, Tim Russert and Brian Williams DID get her. And changed the course of the contest.
Fallows demonstrates how much this Media Hillary Hate resembled another contest where the Media picked sides - the 2000 Presidential election. Fallows writes:
Hillary Clinton’s level of skill remained consistent; the ends toward which she used it varied. We have seen this pattern before, with Al Gore’s performances in his three debates against George W. Bush in 2000. In the first he was hyper-aggressive, with the instantly famous sighs that signaled his displeasure. In the second, after being mocked on Saturday Night Live for the first performance, he seemed almost sedated. By the third, he was Just Right, but the damage had been done. Bush was mediocre in all three, but consistent. By scoring logical points but confusing his identity, Gore hurt himself with the “jury.” So did Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton was actually better in the debates than Al Gore was in 2000 in my opinion. But Hillary's opponents were better than Gore's opponent. But the one constant was the Media picked sides. In 2000, the Media picked Bush. In 2008, the Media picked the anti-Hillary, Barack Obama.
It seems to me that much of the Media is sticking with Obama in the general election (as I thought they would) over McCain and I think that will continue in the debates. Fallows' article is, in theory, an evaluation of the debating skills of the candidates. A more worthy exercise would have been an analysis of the Media's performance.
By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only
