Today we were treated to the truly surreal spectacle of the media reporting that John McCain would suspend his campaign to work on the bailout bill, but only after he made his high-profile appearance at the Clinton Global Initiative conference. And yet, despite McCain's claim that the economic crisis was so urgent that it required an immediate suspension of campaign activities, he was in New York making a political speech instead of in Washington working on the bill. As CNN broadcast McCain's remarks at CGI, the chyron beneath the image read:
MCCAIN SUSPENDS CAMPAIGN
The economic crisis was important enough for McCain to suspend his campaign ... just after he makes his big speech. Country First, right? Yet the timing of his announcement, the fact that he hadn't even read the bill before Tuesday, and even his refusal to clear important events from his schedule, should make us all pretty skeptical. Some print outlets, like The New York Times and even The Wall Street Journal have questioned the circumstances of McCain's decision. Many Broadcast outlets have taken it almost at face value.
It's very clear that how it plays depends a great deal on whether or not reporters choose to report on what's happening rather than on simply what they've been told. Some in the political press are, reflexively, doing the former rather than the latter. We have comedians like Joy Behar and David Letterman calling McCain on his dishonesty, rather than the people who make millions of dollars a year ostensibly holding politicians accountable in the public interest.
--A. Serwer
