Ask an obvious question . . .
Amy Robach this morning asked the most rhetorical question in contemporary media: does the MSM have a thing for Barack Obama?
The weekend Today co-anchor didn't need guests Pat Buchanan or Rachel Maddow for the answer. She could have kept things in-house with NBC's own Lee Cowan, who has acknowledged “it's almost hard to remain objective” about Obama.
But pose the question Robach did, and Pat Buchanan gave her a colorful answer.
AMY ROBACH: Hillary Clinton supporters and the Hillary Clinton campaign is pointing the finger directly at the media, saying they have been harder on Hillary Clinton than we've been on Barack Obama; that there's a double standard so to speak, and I want to get both of your impressions on that. Is it true, and Pat I'll begin with you.
PAT BUCHANAN: It certainly is true. I think a lot of the media are not closet Obamacans -- they're out of the closet, and they're all for Obama, they're enthusiastic, they're caught up in the movement, as they have been in the past, like Bobby Kennedy's movement, Jack Kennedy's movement and other things. And I do think they've been exceedingly rough on Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I think before New Hampshire they were almost gloating over the defeat and the fall of the House of Clinton. And a backlash against the media frankly is one reason I think why she won New Hampshire, and they are building up for another one. I think it's going to be very tough for her to come back, but if there's one thing that can do it, it's the bias, I think, of the national media.
Air America's Rachel Maddow didn't disagree.
ROBACH: Rachel, have we given Barack Obama a pass?
RACHEL MADDOW: I think the media and a lot of the country more broadly, and people in my personal life certainly feel this way, are really interested in Barack Obama because he's a new guy on the scene, he brings a lot of new dynamics to the race. It's not just that he would be the first African-American president, it's that he's a whole new, he's a whole new bundle of things to talk about in terms of presidential politics and Democratic politics. I absolutely, people think that the media is enthralled with Obama.
Interesting formulation at the end by Maddow. Seemingly on the verge of expressing the opinion herself, at the last moment she chose to put it in the mouths of others.
In any case, the question of whether the media is in the tank for Obam makes "is the Pope Catholic?" look like a true brain teaser.
