How the media overlooked the angry sermons

Mike Allen:

Politicians know a troublesome story has “broken through” the Eastern media echo chamber when Jay Leno is laughing at them.

In the case of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., retiring pastor and outgoing spiritual adviser to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), it took less than 48 hours.

The fracas started Thursday morning, when ABC’s “Good Morning America” ran a Brian Ross expose on Wright that included old video of him saying: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God bless America’? No, no, no. Not God bless America. God [expletive] America.”

On Friday night, there was Leno on NBC’s “Tonight Show” joshing: “McCain was running so fast from President Bush, he ran into Barack Obama, who was running from his minister.”

The story had burst onto the radar screen of average Americans with as much velocity as any other story during the 2008 campaign.

Political reporters and editors were inundated with e-mails from red-state friends and relatives wanting to know why the brouhaha wasn’t getting more instant and constant coverage from every news outlet.

To reporters who had followed the campaign, it was an old, oft-written story. But this time it had video of Wright saying things like “U.S. of K.K.K.A.,” available on YouTube and played endlessly by cable news channels.

A key part of Obama’s case is electability — the notion that he can heal the nation’s red-blue divide by appealing to Republicans, or “Obamacans,” as he gleefully calls these crossover supporters.

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On “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News, Bill O’Reilly said Friday night: “I wouldn’t sit in a church where a pastor said that. Would you? Why does Sen. Obama? That’s a simple question.”

O’Reilly went on: “On the press front, the corrupt left-wing media hates this story. The Chicago Sun-Times ignored it completely. The New York Times barely mentioned it. CBS and NBC news didn’t report it last night on their nightly programs.”

By Saturday, The New York Times had a 900-word article, “Obama Denounces His Pastor’s Statements,” on Page A13.

Obama says he was unaware of the more extreme statements until he began his presidential campaign, and initially tried to brush them off. On the trail in Ohio, he referred to Wright as “an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with.”

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Later, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren: “In terms of Sen. Obama, I think he has a credibility question.”

Gingrich continued: “Does he honestly expect the nation to believe that for 20 years, longer than 20 years, according to his own testimony, … he didn't notice the anti-American rhetoric? I mean, does somebody seriously believe that in over 800 potential Sunday visits, it never once came up, no one ever mentioned it to him? I think that strains credibility.”

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For Obama, such stories are like a leak under the basement. The damage is slow, and it’s not readily apparent. But it can be real.

Allen says the story is a reminder that regulars on the trial can be too close to a story. I think what really happens is that they had a story line they were pushing and did not want any distractions even when brought to their attention. They had heard the stories but overlooked the emotional anger of the message that Wright had been pushing for years. Perhaps that is Obama's excuse too. He may have been caught up in the fellowship and not paying attention to the message of hate, but, what does that say about his attention to detail? Is he also not hearing the message of hate from Ahmadinejad?

John Podhoretz says Hillary has been staying in the race in case Obama stumbles in handling the media examination. That is her own message of hope right now.