The Power of the Press

was on clear display in this week's elections. A sharp turn of fortunes for the Obama campaign came upon the heels of a sharper turn in the tenor of political reporting. The most dramatic report involved an advisor to the Obama campaign reassuring a Canadian government official that Obama's criticisms of NAFTA were political posturing. Clinton's campaign jumped on that report. But there's more to the story, according to the Globe and Mail, which reported yesterday that the original story--which appeared on the Canadian television network CTV--was inspired by a remark by Ian Brodie, who is the Karl Rove of Canadian premier Stephen Harper's administration, to reporters taking a break from covering budget talks:

"He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.

See, "Clinton's campaign." And sure, why shouldn't someone from Clinton's campaign reassure the Canadians about NAFTA? After all, it's not the Canadians we mean when we say that NAFTA weakens environmental and labor standards. But what does Clinton's willingness to use this incident to denounce Obama as a hypocrite tell us about her character? That she's crossed the threshold necessary to be commander in chief?

But more to the point: Did anyone in the media think to ask her about this when she was denouncing Obama? The logical question would have been something of this nature: "Do you categorically deny that anyone from YOUR campaign reached out to reassure the Canadians?" Or how about this one: "Do you mean that Ohio is losing jobs to Canada because of their (higher) labor protections and environmental standards?"

Instead the press went into stenographer mode. Others have pointed out that what Obama's advisor is reported to have said does not in fact contradict what Obama (and Clinton, for that matter) said in their debate last week. Given the non-story-ness of this story, why didn't the press try to work it a bit?

Perhaps because they were busy navel-gazing over whether they'd been harder on Hillary than Obama. One thing that the past quarter-century has taught us firmly about the national mainstream press is that, because they are liberal, they will go to any length to torture liberals to prove that they are not biased toward liberals. Same applies to Clinton this time around. I don't doubt that the national press dislikes her. So it turns out that she can play her "Get out of jail free" card--at least once--and get a round of creampuff coverage by accusing the national press of bias against her.

Of course, because she's a liberal, it won't work twice.