The GOP Plays the Victim Card, Again

Let's see, in the past few weeks Barack Obama has exposed the flawed internal logic of the Bush-McCain Iraq policy, urged a transformative shift in resources to the Afghanistan front, applauded or denounced controversial Supreme Court decisions, made a hell of a splash on FISA, been subjected to rampant speculation about a split with the left, raised more cash than in Mark Hanna's dreams, introduced his children on national TV, announced that the Democratic convention will be taken outdoors, and promoted his upcoming fact-finding trip to Iraq, to name just a few headline grabbers. He's been a busy, busy candidate.

And John McCain? With grinding regularity, every hour, on the hour, he's done little else but peddle the indefatigable fantasy of "his" successful troop escalation in Iraq.

So in comparison, Obama and McCain's accumulated activities have not only seemed, but in fact have been, a trifle lop-sided, no?

Of course they have. But that doesn't stop the GOP from whining prodigiously about media favoritism.

Because, in further fact, there has been an imbalance, at least in the evening news: "The Tyndall Report, a news coverage monitoring service that has the broadcast networks as clients, reports that the three newscasts by the networks -- which have a combined audience of more than 20 million people -- spent roughly 114 minutes covering Mr. Obama since June. They spent about 48 minutes covering Mr. McCain."

Now, we may accept as axiomatic that media moths are naturally attracted to luminous flames of ingenuity, and not to smoldering black holes of conventionality. This truism explains, rather obviously, as truisms are wont to do, the greater coverage of the one candidate over the other.

This, however, would seem to come as a journalistic flash to "Republicans in general."

We might also lament that only 162 combined minutes of presidential-campaign coverage on all three networks, in the referenced reporting period, are pathetically inadequate for both candidates, not to mention for the viewing-voting public. But that's an altogether different matter. (Nonetheless I would happily submit that quite a few of those minutes on Obama's behalf were ones finally devoted to correcting the scandalous record about his personal history -- fresh, needed coverage dropped in the lap of La-Z-Boy dupes, courtesy the impetus provided by the much-maligned New Yorker.)

The important point, however -- the one the McCain campaign seems to have missed -- is that good candidates create coverage, and poor candidates merely expect it. And John McCain has proven himself among the poorest.

First, it almost goes without saying that as far as the extravagance of Obama's overseas-trip coverage goes, McCain helped to create his own monster. He pushed, prodded and ridiculed his opponent into packing his bags, and not surprisingly inviting the network anchors to join him.

"This is Senator Obama’s first trip -- his positions and the public’s perception of him on national security issues are important," said Paul Friedman, CBS News' senior vice president, without adding that it was John McCain, more than anyone else, who cranked up that importance.

Furthermore, as NBC News' eminently unexcitable political director, Chuck Todd, observed for the uninitiated: "This is the way all of the new guys are treated -- whether it was Ronald Reagan, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush. There’s always a candidate who gets more 'new guy' treatment versus the other one." Todd added what the McCain campaign omitted in its criticism ... "and it’s not always positive."

In that last sense, the GOP should be rather pleased that its candidate is, in fact, receiving less network coverage than Obama. Because other than tediously reminding us of his singlehanded success in Iraq, McCain has done little else but flop around on issue after issue. And he wants more coverage? Of what? His indecision, hypocrisy, opportunism and cravenness?

But finally, as suggested earlier, the mother lode of responsibility for imbalanced coverage lies with McCain and the GOP themselves. It may be that there never was much that McCain could have done to shake things up and thereby create more media stir and interest, but it doesn't appear he has even tried.

All the trends, all the polls, all the backlash from the last few years, etc., etc. have indicated nothing but an electoral steamroller for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2008. In response, John McCain has deployed nothing but peashooters.

An 18-cent gas-tax holiday. Offshore drilling, with insignificant, 10-year-delayed results. More inapplicable tax credits for the unhealthily uninsured. Well, one could go on and on ... and on. But they all add up to only one thing: an utter absence of political pizazz.

For this the Republicans blame the network news. Yet the fault, dear McCain & Co., lies not in the media stars, but in yourselves. You're proving you have nothing to offer.