From Media Matters:
Wash. Post uncritically quoted NC voter's assertion that Obama "will refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance" if elected president
...In an April 28 article on record-breaking Democratic voter registration figures, The Washington Post uncritically quoted one voter's assertion that "[f]rom what I can tell, if he [Sen. Barack Obama] becomes president he will refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance." The voter, North Carolina resident Al Landsberg -- who, according to the Post, receives "frequent political e-mails, most of them critical of Obama" -- was apparently referring to a chain email containing a photograph of Obama that appeared in Time magazine. In that photo, Obama was standing but did not have his hand placed over his heart. Moreover, a caption below the photograph indicated that it was taken during the national anthem -- not the Pledge of Allegiance....
Yes, I realize you know all about this and you don't need me to remind you that the right is never, ever going to stop trying to defeat Obama by fooling the rubes with it. (Not that I want to insult Mr. Landsburg by calling him a rube, but, as the Post article notes, he does pronounce the Illinois senator's surname "Embowa.")
I bring this up because I want to know what John McCain does when he hears the national anthem -- and I'm certain the media can answer that question:
... by all accounts, [Rudy] Giuliani and [John] McCain are legitimate pals, friends since 1998. When the New York Yankees lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series, the two even attended six of the seven games together.
Not only was this the World Series, but this one that involved a New York team playing just after 9/11. McCain sat next to Giuliani, who was one of the most famous people in the world at that moment.
Thus, there must have been still and video cameras on the two of them every minute of every one of those six games.
So since this hand-over-heart question has become one of the central issues in American political life -- bigger, apparently, than the war or economy (even though Obama has been photographed with hand on heart during the pledge at other times) -- shouldn't the media spend hours combing through photo morgues and video archives to determine whether John McCain put his hand over his heart at each of the six games of the '01 Series when the national anthem was played? Doesn't America need to know this?
...Whoops, I forgot. America doesn't need to know this about McCain. America only needs to know this about the Democratic front-runner, just as America doesn't need to know whether the people who talk about Barack Obama and the flag pin actually wear flag pins themselves.
Sorry. Never mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment