The Media's Unseemly Affair with John McCain

Maybe someday we'll see a TV show based on the news media's adoration of John McCain. If so, it should be called "My Favorite Maverick."

This isn't to say that McCain has no problems with unfavorable press coverage. In the last week, the ethical conflicts involving many of his top campaign aides have made it onto some front pages.

But thick coats of idolatry, lavished by journalists on "war hero" McCain over the years, have been laid on so thick that his adulated media image hardly seems to chip even when the evidence is damning.

Cliff Schecter, author of the new book "The Real McCain," commented a few days ago that the hasty-retreat departure of lobbyist Tom Loeffler from McCain's campaign "is only the tip of the iceberg in a candidacy swimming with conflicts of interest." Recent news articles have provided some details about numerous top operatives of the McCain campaign who have worked for corporations with huge stakes in Senate actions — or for foreign governments with abysmal human rights records.

As Schecter notes, "McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, and top media adviser, Charlie Black — not to mention dozens of other McCain staff — are up to their ears in lobbying fees received from a plethora of interests over the past two decades, ranging from SBC Communications to the Somali government."

Media critic Peter Hart examines the McCain media phenom in an in-depth article that appears in the current issue of Extra! magazine, published by the media watchdog group FAIR (where I'm an associate). The title of the piece is "The Press Corps' Unshakeable Crush on McCain," and it includes stunning examples of a media establishment so enamored with John McCain that facts scarcely seem to matter.

Contrasting McCain's actual record with the routine press deference that he receives, Hart comments that "a candidate could only get away with such an elaborate and long-running con with the media as willing accomplices." A typical — though unusually candid — indication of that con emerged from a classic remark by NBC's Chris Matthews, who said on Sept.

10, 2006: "The press loves McCain. We're his base."

Just last month — well after it should have become apparent to observers that McCain has discarded most of what remained of his always-exaggerated independence — U.S. News & World Report loudly banged the same old drum. "McCain is nothing if not a maverick," the magazine reported.

But actually, there's very little about McCain that qualifies for the "maverick" label. Much of such praise results from focusing on what he proclaims loudly, not on what he later says or actually does.

As a denouncer of special-interest money that funnels into political campaigns, McCain is adept at raising it himself. As a fierce critic of lobbyists, he has often hired them in his pursuit of higher office. As a vocal opponent of torture, he went on to go along with legislation that made it easy for the Bush administration to keep torturing.

In his new article, Peter Hart cites a telling comment from New Republic writer Jonathan Chait, who wrote in February that the prevalent media spin "gets McCain almost totally backward. He has diverged wildly and repeatedly from conservative orthodoxy, but he has also reinvented himself so completely that it has become nearly impossible to figure out what he really believes."

In view of his latest zigzags, moving him far to the right in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, McCain seems to be mainly consistent about his zealous opportunism and various permutations of militarism. (Disclaimer: I'm an elected Obama delegate to the upcoming Democratic National Convention, and I make no claim of objectivity about this year's presidential campaign.)

An alert press corps, more vigilant than infatuated, would nail McCain for his hypocrisies. But, as Hart notes, "American journalists, by and large, long ago decided to sell a moderate, 'maverick' McCain to the U.S. public."

Norman Solomon's books include "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." A documentary film of the same name, based on the book, was released this spring on home video.

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