President-presumptive Barack Obama and his NY Times

In the last few days members of Sen. Barack Obama’s staff have referred to him as “the President” and demanded off the record and backgrounder considerations the press has previously accorded only a President and the White House. And who’s forgetting the Brandenburg Gate?

But really – Obama Come to Save Us – isn’t quite President yet.

So I’ll stick with President-presumptive and hope his supporters understand.

With that cleared up, let’s look at an IBS editorial posted yesterday afternoon. My comments follow below the star line.


IBS begins - - -

If you doubt the media are in the tank for Obama, doubt no more. The refusal of the New York Times to print McCain's op-ed on Obama after an Obama piece was published has nothing to do with editorial judgment and everything to do with protecting the media's heartthrob.

Times op-ed editor David Shipley, who served in the Clinton administration from 1995 to 1997, insists it was just a request for a rewrite, as is frequently done with other writers.

But McCain isn't a freelance writer or NYT staffer. He's a candidate for president of the United States and ought to be able to express his views — unedited and unfiltered.(emphasis added)

Shipley wanted McCain to define what he meant by victory and submit a timetable for achieving both victory and total withdrawal. He wanted McCain to write his editorial on Obama's terms.

We suspect the Times was trying to protect Obama, at least during his trip, from reminders that he opposed the surge and the war and was wrong on both counts.

Obama, whose foreign policy consists of talking to our enemies while bombing our allies, told the assembled veterans at the VFW Convention in Kansas City last year, "All our top military commanders recognize that there is no military solution in Iraq."

But there was a military solution in Iraq in Gen. David Petraeus' brilliant anti-terrorism strategy that paved the way for Iraqi political and religious reconciliation.

The rest of the editorial's here.

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Comments:

Since he won the Iowa caucuses, I’ve never doubted most of the media’s in the tank for Sen. Obama.

I know Obama himself sometimes doubts that, but the Times’ latest Anything for Obama treatment of Sen. McCain should reassure him.

On the other hand, it should wake up those Americans who still think the Times and many other news organizations are in business "To give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of any party, sect or interest involved."

I’ll say more about IBS’s editorial later today.

What did you think?