Barack Obama vs. ABC News

ABC News may want to consider a computer upgrade, because reportedly, their inbox is filling up to overflowing with complaints about the network's primetime debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  At issue is what seemed to many to be a full-fledged frontal assault against Obama by moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.  In the first 45 minutes, Obama had to answer questions about his now infamous 'angry middle class' remarks, his association with his controversial minister, Rev. Wright, his patriotism, and even his decision to sit on a board with a man who was a former member of the radical and violent group the Weathermen.

The next day, Obama himself couldn't resist commenting on the relentlessness of it all. ''Last night I think we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people.  Forty-five minutes before we heard about health care, 45 minutes before we heard about Iraq, 45 minutes before we heard about jobs, 45 minutes before we heard about gas prices.''  Or social security or the deficit or taxes or ... well, you get the idea.

What in the world were Charles and George and ABC News thinking?  I believe they were thinking like good journalists.  I really do.  Bear with me for a moment here.

First, I do think ABC made one tactical blunder, and that was putting Stephanopoulous on the stage.  ABC clearly has big plans for George and this was a chance to put him in the middle of the biggest political race in decades.  Just one problem.  Everyone knows he is a former major Clinton insider and I'm sure there are those who suspect his personal sympathies lie with her.  Having Stephanopoulous grilling Obama in a debate with Hillary Clinton is akin to having Karl Rove go after Obama were he debating Dick Cheney.  The fact Stephanopoulous was the one who brought up the bizarre 'Weathermen' connection, probably the low point of the debate, made the whole thing sort of surreal.

But let's give Obama credit.  He answered the question, and did it quite well.  He answered the next one too, and the next, and the next ... until those kind of questions melted away.

And that's my whole point about the good journalism part.  These weren't really the questions of Charlie Gibson or George Stephanolpoulous.  These were the questions of many Americans.  My inbox gets peppered all the time with people who have these kind of questions about Obama.  They wonder about his patriotism ... they wonder about his church ... they wonder about his background (some still erroneously believe he is Muslim) ... and what Obama does is he stands up there on a stage for all who own televisions to see and says "Bring it on!"

We all pretty much know where Obama stands on health care.  His views on Iraq are transparent.  He's offered enough specifics on the economy that I think most Americans have a general idea what he would do to try to fix it.  The biggest unknown for the American people when it comes to Barack Obama is the question of character.  Is this relatively young, somewhat inexperienced politician ready for the White House?

And so on the most watched debate of 2008, Barack Obama took a bit of a journalistic beating, walked off the stage, and his poll numbers shot up.  There's a lesson there.

I've been critical in past blogs of how Micron's Steve Appleton and Senator Larry Craig put themselves in situations during times of tremendous criticism of them where they don't have to answer tough questions.  Obama's experience reveals the folly of that strategy, because if you take tough questions and answer them well, it is the questioner who ends up looking bad ... but of course perhaps the problem with Appleton and Craig might be a lack of confidence they have good answers.

Barack Obama is proving more and more he does have good answers.  He comes off as 'apolitcal.'  A candidate not 'handled' by advisors ... but his own man, willing to be candid and speak his mind even under the hot glare of TV lights broadcasting to a national audience in the millions.  It might just be enough for him to win Pennsylvania and knock Clinton out of the race for good.

And if that happens, I think he should take Charle and George to lunch.  "Off the record" of course.

Comments

[Joan E. Harman]

If anyone was presumably a "good journalist" then Gibson should have been. Now as to anyone asking why Obama doesn't wear a flag pin, isn't that HIS choice? Even further, anyone who'd question the patriotism of a guy who doesn't turn the flag into a clothing accessory; well, then they need to study the U.S. flag code. Questions about Rev. Wright would only be as legitimate as questions about Senator McCain suddenly cuddling up to Rev. Falwell, a fellow instrumental in destroying his presidential run in 2000. Those questions haven't been asked, have they? Perhaps your readers pepper your e-mail box discussing truly banal and trivial issues about a candidate that they don't intend to support anyway. What is perhaps a bit more legitimate a question is Obama, as you put it, sat on the board with a former member of the Weathermen Underground. It would be just as legitimate to ask Clinton why her husband PARDONED members of that terrorist organization. It would be just as legitimate to ask GW why his family sustained a close association with Osama bin Laden's family as a "business relationship" with the Carlyle group. Even when it was becoming quite clear that Osama had created Al Qaeda, an international jihadist organization. But those questions haven't been asked, have they? So, I fail to find "good journalism" when the only questions directed at Obama are those designed to feed the voters pre-existing biases but not questions to answer such pressing problems as, if food is becoming unaffordable here, how much worse is it in Africa... Something that Gibson was well aware of, and apparently thought the question too silly to ask. But, the flag pin? That should be a leading question.

[olfalatumas]

Yes... a literate, thoughful blog by the editor and a rational response by John,the respondent. How nice to know Idaho is finally showing some rational thinkers. I couldn't agree with both of you more. Obama stood up, took the heat with grace and dignity. Politics in general is a dirty business and all involved have to stoop to levels they probably never thought possible for themselves to hold up and appeal to their supporters. It is too bad it has come to this, but if they could all do it with the style that Obama has shown of late maybe,just maybe, the thirst for dirt would not be in demand for long. The "Pin"! Just another ploy to question the man's nationalism, not his patriotism. The current administration has used National-ism to hold us in fear and keep us from speaking out about anything that they don't define as true by their standards.
Thank you both for being residents of our state!