Sunday, June 22, 2008

Alarm over 'Unfair' Campaign Money

By Jeff Cohen
June 22, 2008

There was real emotion in his voice when ABC News anchor Charles Gibson used Friday night’s newscast to stand up for little-guy McCain against online-fundraising-powerhouse Barack Obama.

By opting out of public financing, Gibson intoned, the Democrat could obtain “two times, three times, four times, as much money as John McCain.”

Read on.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Charlie Gibson has some deep need to be in with the in-crowd, so I'm not surprised he's on board with McCain. More puzzling to me was that BOTH Mark Shields and David Brooks marked Obama down for not taking the money on Friday night's News Hour. Brooks, of course, was no surprise, but Shields? Wasn't he a Democratic consultant?

Anonymous said...

I'm a known "conspiracy theorist" which makes me wonder at these right-wind anchors who really don't know what the "fairness" doctrine" means. I suspect that the enormous surge of money to Obama is scaring a lot of people on the right - and Gibson's remarks are just the tip of the iceberg. There will be lots of people who will be asked many pointed questions about their journalistic pursuits and whether they ever asked or looked for the truth during these past 8 years, if the Democrats win by the numbers I hope they do.

Anonymous said...

This is just another demonstration of the complete loyalty so called media critics like Jeff Cohen have for the Democratic Party. I'm sure he realizes that corporate american is one of Obama's biggest fans. He's loved by Wall Street and huge investment banks. Look who he recently put on his economic advisory board. According to the Center for Responsive Politics the top 5 donors to Obama's campaign are corporate lobbyists. Does anyone honestly think that the corporate media would have let Obama into the fold of mainstream coverage if he was like Jesse Jackson with only labor and citizen funding behind him? Let me ask all you so called leftists that back this right wing corporatist, why is it that Kucinich didn't get the same press that Obama got? Has anyone read the recent FAIR study showing that Kucinich had the least coverage of all the candidates and Obama had the highest coverage? Do you honestly think that a progressive leftist finally got through the disinformation and won the Democratic nomination and all we have to do now is get him in the White House and we'll have national health care, media reform, a living wage, a change in policy on the Israel/Palestine issue, a crack down on corporate crime, and end to imperialism and a complete withdraw of all corporate a military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan?
Stop pretending that Obama is some kind of a messiah just because you hate John McCain. I don't like McCain too, but I most certainly am not going to live in fear every 2 or 4 years and vote for the lesser of 2 evils when I know for a fact that is a lie. If you let yourself be afraid now in this election, then you might as well kiss your freedom good bye because there is no way you will ever vote for who you want or make demands with your fist pounding. Fear will forever restrict you and forever enslave you in a system that dictates to you who to vote for. ie, Who is backed by corporate america.

-Matt
Nader/Gonzalez 2008

Anonymous said...

Obama is in the hip packet of BIG MONEY, even though David Axelrod has orchestrated the kabuki theatre that Mr. Walk on Water is funded by the Average American.

Take his capitulation on the FISA fiasco -- it is most likely a barometer of things to come for the forseeable future. The Democratic Party is sliding inexorably to the right -- the so-called "leadership" on the FISA bill is the most current example of the party's rightward tilt.

The DNC, in its quest to pick up seats in the House and Senate, sought candidates who appeal to more conservative voters. The seats they picked up haven't really helped strengthen progressive or civil-liberties' causes. In fact, the battleground is often within the Dem party now.

Obama cast himself as an agent for change, but has already shown that he lacks the cajones (and the will I'm afraid) to lead on matters of importance to progessive values. (Remember he's still in the Senate, he's not just a presidential candidate, plus as the presumptive nominee, he's also the de facto leader of the Democratic Party -- so he has three forums in which to prove his leadership bona fides. IMO, he's failed in all three forums so far to show the kind of leadership that will be necessary to lead the country.) Obama's capitulation on FISA, IMO, is prima facie evidence that his "cooperation and working together" theme means giving the conservatives what they want.

Those "swing" seats that are touted by the DNC as so important for winning a veto-proof majority won't amount to a hill of beans, because we're going to have a bunch of Blue Dogs siding with the Repubs, essentially eviscerating the Dem Party even more.

No. Some of you look forward to an Obama presidency, but I think it's time to take a longer view and start working from Day One (now) to build a true opposition against our government's slither to the right. Even if Obama wins the presidency, and the Dems nail big gains in Congress, the slide to the right will continue unless there is a powerful opposition.

I don't see that opposition starting with Obama.