Feeding Frenzy

I have enjoyed watching the liberal media and other Democrats serve one another up over their book de jour Game Change, by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.  Over the weekend, the story broke about Senate majority leader Harry Reid's quote in the book about Barack Obama's favorable chances of winning the '08 election because he was/is "light-skinned" and has no "Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one".  Republicans cried foul, calling for Reid's resignation in light of these racially insensitive comments.  True to form, and to their hypocritical double standard, Democrats said Mr. Reid had done nothing of the kind.  In fact, President Obama had accepted an apology from Mr. Reid for his "inartful language in trying to praise me."  Praise, Mr. President?  Narcissists must see it everywhere, even where it's not.  Inartful, clumsy, or whatever, I don't think it was particularly racist either, but had a conservative or a Republican said anything near these same things that indeed would have been a game changer.

The quote from the book that I thought would have received more attention, and indeed it is beginning to, is the one supposedly from Bill Clinton to the late Ted Kennedy, regarding Barack Obama's perceived youth and inexperience, "A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee."  All the TV pundits are beside themselves speculating why the Clinton's haven't responded with their typical push back about such gaffes.  I hate to defend another Dem politician here, but the Clinton's are between the proverbial rock and a hard place on this one.  Cleverly, the authors of Game Change decided to use a quote from a deliciously iconic dead man.  Is Bill or Hillary Clinton going to call Teddy a liar?  Don't bet on it.  The Dems still need his corpse, and what's left of Harry Reid's, to help finalize the passage of Obamacare.

Remarkably, part of the discussion on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning about Game Change was the book's conclusion that much more investigative reporting needs to be done on candidates and their campaigns.  Had the voter been made aware of more of the behind the scenes drama and shenanigans prevalent in the various presidential campaigns, might the outcome have been different?  Paradoxically, as Bob Woodward pointed out, the least "revealed" candidate in the book turns out to be Barack Obama who must be the least investigated of any candidate in presidential history and who I believe is more suited to the practice and description of "telegenic fraud", rather than the scuzzball John Edwards, who Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnacle labeled as the biggest phony in the book and of the '08 election.