The Fickle Media

As usual, the media cracks me up. Just how fickle can they be? Wait, wait, don't answer. Unfortunately, I already know the answer to that question.

Before the Iowa Caucus, pundits about handed Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination. After the Iowa Caucus win, Barack Obama couldn't be stopped. Following New Hampshire, Clinton was back and was on her way to the White House. Following Nevada, Clinton was rolling and only she could stop herself. After South Carolina, Obama had momentum on his side, but may be in trouble with white voters. In the week leading up to Super Tuesday, Clinton was the favorite. Slowly, but surely, however, Obama started gaining ground and some analysts believed that the once "inevitably decisive" Super Tuesday would be anything but decisive. Even then, Clinton was favored to win by at least 100 delegates. That'd be a best-case scenario for Obama. After Super Tuesday, which saw Obama win the state battle 13 to 8 (with New Mexico still being too close to call) and winning the delegate battle by anything from 2 to 20 delegates, many pundits are now saying that Hillary stopped Obama's momentum and that she was the true victor on Super Tuesday. One analyst (a Clinton supporter) even compared Clinton the Giants and Obama to the Patriots.

It's amazing how quickly the majority of analysts, anchors, and pundits swing from side to side on who is winning, who has the momentu, and who will probably win the Democratic nomination. The coverage is rarely fair and balanced. It's either overly-positive toward Clinton, overly-negative toward Clinton, or overly-positive toward Obama. There isn't much grey area with these guys (and gals). What really cracks me up is, yes, I agree that the ratio of positive to negative coverage favors Obama, when it comes to individual pundits, Hillary receives more praise than Obama.

Pat Buchanan: outspoken conservative pundit on MSNBC, who regularly favors Clinton over Obama and claims if he wins, Obama will lose 40 states in the general election.

Craig Crawford: columnist, whom regularly appears on The Countdown and Live with Dan Abrams, regularly favors Clinton over Obama.

Wolf Blitzer: The CNN-Mr. Do-It-Everything-Yet-Say-Nothing refers to Obama as the "junior Senator from Illinois" and Hillary as "the New York state Senator."

Dan Abrams: Anchor of his own show on MSNBC, Live with Dan Abrams, complains that the media's coverage of Obama is too positive and Hillary's too negative.

Chris Matthews: host of Harball on MSNBC, got into trouble with past comments regarding Hillary Clinton and how he feels that she's only the New York state Senator because then President Bill Clinton cheated on her and the country (state) feels sorry for her. So, after news of that broke, he's attempted to make it up to Hillary with more of a positive spin on Mrs. Clinton.

CNN round table ("the best political team in television"): Outside of one analyst, the group typically favors Clinton over Obama.

While anchors' coverage may have favored Obama, in terms of the more positive coverage he's received, the majority of "analysts," pundits, and op-ed/columnists favor Clinton. Many others just swing from side to side depending on the most recent result(s). It's reminiscent of sports' analysts and writers. When the New York Giants started the year 0-2, many were saying, "Tom Coughlin should get fired. He should just resign. He's done." They then won six straight and what were the writers and analysts saying? "What a great job Coughlin has done. He has officially saved his job!" Now what are they saying about the Super Bowl-winning coach? Take a wild guess...

It's sad to see much objective reporting and/or journalism anymore. I see that in Tim Russert, in Howard Fineman, and in a few others, but in the majority of these Bill O'Reilly clones? Objective journalism is simply an oxymoron.