Obama v. McCain - Economic Policy - MSM Offers Speculative Attacks on Obama

[Median Democrat]

The MSM has a strange idea of even handed coverage. For example, John McCain's economic policy is filled with contradictions.

First, McCain has staked his presidential chances on continuing Bush's failed ecnomic policies:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/14/economy.useconomicgrowth



Of course, McCain is already contemplating yet another flip flop suggesting he may be open to tax increases:

http://www.examiner.com/x-243-Progressive-Politics-Examiner~y2008m7d14-McCain-open-to-tax-increases-for-wealthy

For the record, he has already flipped flopped from his earlier opposition to Bush's tax cuts:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/2/5/mccain-on-the-bush-tax-cuts.html

So, for the record, that is triple flip flop.

Obama, on the other hand, has been fairly consistent with respect to his plant o chuck the Bush tax cuts. Of course, Big Media really can't defend Bush's economic policies, so they resort to innuendo and rumor to ask "Why Wall Street fears Obama," which is reminicent of the tax and spend attacks on Bill Clinton in 1992:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/SuperModels/WhyWallStreetIsScaredOfObama.aspx

The key thing is the word: "Rhetoric" which should set off warning signs that the article is about to lie. For example, two weeks ago, the Big Media talked about Obama's "shift in rhetoric" to suggest that he is flip flopping even though no substantial changes in policies were identified. Now, this article on MSN again refers to Obama's "rhetoric" without describing the specific policies that Wall Street is supposedly afraid of.

Indeed, didn't DUers' spend the last few weeks ripping on Obama for his centrist views bacause Big Media told them that Obama is now a centrist. Well, you can forget that now, because the Big Media talking point of the moment is that Obama is a leftist. That's right Big Media is now going to paint Obama as the second coming of Hugo Chavez. Of course, when Obama points out once again that no policy proposal has been changed, Big Media will now attack Obama for flip flopping. So, simply by standing still, Obama manages to flip flop, while McCain is doing virtual triple flips on his stance with tax cuts, and Big Media gives him a free pass.

[wishlist]

1. Today a msn.com homepage headline: "Why Obama scares Wall Street"

A lot of people use msn for their computer homepage, to get a quick summary of the news and markets and weather, so it ticks me off that they would have such an inflammatory headline. The logic is so stupid too that Obama scares Wall Street, when it should be the prospect of four more years of Bush policies that would scare Wall Street, since everything has gone to hell in the financial markets with Repub policies.

[Median Democrat]

2. From The Left - The Nation Criticizes Obama's Ties To Robert Rubin Proteges

The odd thing is that Obama has not announced any new economic policy proposals, yet he is not only being smeared from the right based on speculative claims that Wall Street fears him, but The Nation is critiquing Obama from the left for consulting closely with Robert Rubin protege, Jason Furman. Of course, I thought Bill Clinton did far better with the economy than George Bush, so I am not going to attack Obama's decision to hire on a Robert Rubin protege. Still, it is surprising the attacks from the right and the left with the right claiming Obama is a tax and spend leftist, and the left saying that Obama represents the second coming of Rubinomics.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/klein

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_9587487

Acting quickly after securing his party's presumptive presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama picked a well-known representative of Bill Clinton's economic policies as his economic policy director and signaled that the key players from the Clinton economics team were now in his camp - starting with Robert Rubin.
Obama, D-Ill., hired Jason Furman, a Harvard-trained economist closely associated with Rubin, a Wall Street insider who served as President Clinton's Treasury secretary. Labor union leaders criticized the move, and said that ''Rubinomics'' focused too much on the needs of corporate America and not enough on those of workers.
''For years we've expressed strong concerns about corporate influence on the Democratic Party,'' John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement criticizing the symbolism of the Furman appointment, no matter Furman's skills as an economist.
The Obama camp has cast Furman, 37, as an experienced operator in Democratic election campaigns, whose task is to tap the expertise of economists representing a broad spectrum of views. ''My own views, such as they are, are irrelevant,'' Furman said.