The Military-Media Complex

Update: I reached John Garrett, the Fox analyst and retired Marine colonel, today, and he said he was simply trying to gather information from the Pentagon.

"You have to accept I'm a little bit biased. I've been in this business for 27 years," the Vietnam veteran said. "There's plenty of people out there to make a negative point. If there's anything that could explain or be constructive, it ought to be pointed out . . . Never once, in my recollection, did anyone in the Pentagon or DOD establishment tell me what to say."

Sticking It to Obama

In last week's Democratic debate, ABC News presented Nash McCabe as a typical voter with a particular concern. She asked Barack Obama on a video "if you believe in the American flag," and if so, why he doesn't wear a flag pin.

But the Latrobe, Pa., woman was hardly neutral. ABC found her because she had been cited in the New York Times two weeks ago as a Democrat who maintained she could not vote for the Illinois senator, saying: "How can I vote for a president who won't wear a flag pin?"

Viewers had no way of knowing that McCabe had indicated in advance that she could not back Obama against Hillary Clinton. Her question, expanded upon by moderator Charlie Gibson, forced Obama to defend his patriotism during a 40-minute sequence in which Gibson and George Stephanopoulos directed most of the tough questions to Obama.

Asked about the use of McCabe, first noted by McClatchy Newspapers, ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider says another questioner "made clear that Clinton had lost his vote over her explanation of her trip to Bosnia. . . . These questions were representative of what we heard again and again from voters regarding the importance of credibility and electability as central issues in this campaign."

Furthermore . . .

There's still plenty of buzz about ABC's presidential debate. I've criticized the unbalanced nature of the first 40 minutes. But the way some critics are trashing Gibson and Stephanopoulos, you'd think they had cornered Obama in a dark alley while taking cellphone instructions from Hillary. Some media critics are all but asking the pope to excommunicate Charlie and George from the journalistic cathedral.

I don't think Obama should have been asked about flag pins either. But maybe, just maybe, the reaction has to do with the way the critics, ideological and otherwise, view Obama.

The Politico guys, John Harris and Jim VandeHei, see the reaction as proof positive of bias:

"Hillary Clinton and her aides have been complaining for months about imbalance in news coverage. For the most part, the reaction to her from the political-media commentariat has been: Stop whining. That's still a good response now that it is Obama partisans--some of whom are showing up in distressingly inappropriate places--who are doing the whining. The shower of indignation on Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos over the last few days is the clearest evidence yet that the Clintonites are fundamentally correct in their complaint that she has been flying throughout this campaign into a headwind of media favoritism for Obama . . .

"Those questions about Jeremiah Wright, about Obama's association with 1960s radical William Ayers, about apparent contradictions between his past and present views on proven wedge issues like gun control, were entirely in-bounds. If anything they were overdue for a front-runner and likely nominee."