Media Guilt?

John Kass:

The Drudge Report ran a juicy item about the fact that only one reporter showed up to cover Republican John McCain at a campaign stop in New Hampshire the other day.

Just one.

The lonely print reporter from the Manchester Union Leader stood on the tarmac, waiting for McCain's plane to land. McCain, obviously upset at being dissed by yet another meager media throng, didn't stop to chat.

"Did you ever notice that when John McCain is on TV he's always grumpy?" asked a colleague in the cafeteria who whispered, lest others denounce him for Barackian Thought Crimes.

"McCain's always made to look old and angry, a curmudgeon. And Barack Obama? He's always seen as presidential, cool, smiling, shaking hands," whispered the guy.

I believe this phenomenon is called liberal bias. And the country has caught on.

Since I mentioned it a few days ago, newspapers, Web sites, radio and TV news have been full of stories about media bias and outraged denials, recrimination and guilt. Always the guilt. Obama's people know we're guilty.

Guilt is what McCain is playing on, too, trying to shame journalists with a new video with dueling sound tracks about the Media Love that Dares Speak Barack, featuring MSNBC host Chris Matthews shrieking that when he hears Obama talk, a tingle runs down his leg.

...

Yet has anyone noticed McCain's complaining? No.

Because Obama might again work out three times in one day—the recent subject of a story explaining how he stays so skinny and young—and we'd cover all aspects of his beauty, again, if there is tape. And jealous old John McCain tromps alone on tarmacs in the night.

McCain is now cast as the crabby uncle who visits and shrieks there's no gin in your house. He grabs the TV remote control, turns off the cartoons and forces the kids to watch the ancient Mesopotamia special on The History Channel.

Just hope the kids don't dare tell uncle that Iraq doesn't border Pakistan. He'll nuke them.

Meanwhile, the Democrat Obama is treated quite differently. He's the Mr. Tumnus of American politics, the gentle forest faun of Narnia, with throngs of reporters trembling to sit with him at tea and cakes, like the little girl in the C.S. Lewis story, as he plays the flute, chanting "We Are The Change We've Been Waiting For." And nobody laughs.

You don't laugh because you can't make fun of Obama. The ground would swallow you whole.

He's still busy fighting off throngs of reporters, a cast of thousands as urgent and impassioned as in those old Hollywood biblical epics. This situation continues on his overseas campaign trip. TV anchors were all but ululating (which has nothing to do with sex) at his approach, desperate for interviews after he sank that three-point shot in front of American troops and hit nothing but net.

...

Ululating reporters is very descriptive. In fact there is much more to this piece, but it was hard for me to get by the image of the ululating reporters. I think I am going to laugh whether Obama likes it or not.