If your experience has been anything like mine, you've been surrounded by Obamamania for the better part of the past several months. It's not related, as much as you might expect, to spending most of the day on a college campus, where support for the master orator is pervasive and contagious. Rather, like most Americans, I've been bombarded with thinly veiled propaganda from the mainstream media in support of the hope-monger for longer than I care to remember.
It's nigh impossible to turn on the news or pick up a newspaper these days without seeing Sen. Barack Obama's comforting visage. The amount of coverage Obama has received would lead one to believe that the election is all but decided - an odd conclusion given that before his whirlwind tour of the Middle East and Europe, his lead was within the margin of error in several national polls.
Obama supporters deride such claims of bias simply by saying their candidate is just "more newsworthy" than Sen. John McCain. This is a fair point, as Obama is, after all, the first black presidential candidate to be the presumptive nominee of a major party, far more telegenic than his opponent, a darn good public speaker and was sent by God himself to save us all from those evil, corporate Republican bastards.
Perhaps this explains why for every journalist donating to McCain's campaign, 20 have donated to Obama's (yes, that's 2,000 percent more) - some even directly disobeying their employers' policies in doing so.
My favorite excuse, though, is that Americans simply want to see more of Obama than they want to see of McCain. It's true that Americans can't resist a pretty face, but don't you think many citizens actually want to hear what both candidates have to offer and make an informed decision? Shouldn't Obama supporters be confident enough in their candidate to think he would withstand an unbiased analysis in the media and in the minds of voters?
The New York Times doesn't seem to think so. Days after publishing a lengthy, self-aggrandizing op-ed from Obama detailing his plan for Iraq, the liberal newspaper of record rejected a similar column from McCain. Naturally, very few other media sources reported on the rejection.
Let's consider one more egregious example of blatant bias. On Saturday, the Associated Press published a story with the headline "Analysis: U.S. now winning Iraq war that seemed lost" detailing how combat operations are slowing and the U.S. military is beginning to shift its focus toward rebuilding infrastructure and achieving a lasting peace in the war-torn country. This is pretty big news, right?
Apparently not. The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times conveniently left the story out of their Sunday print editions. This is surprising, to say the least, given the front-page coverage these papers give to the war practically every day.
Obama's "change"-based campaign will undoubtedly profit from Americans having a poor opinion of the state of the country. It's simply astonishing, though, how much the media is willing to help him cultivate such opinions. Recent polling found that 49 percent of Americans believe the media is deliberately assisting Obama's campaign. All I am wondering is: What are the other 51 percent smoking?
Joshua Simmons is an economics senior and the executive director of the Florida Federation of College Republicans. His column appears on Tuesdays.
