The Right's "bias" charade

Why do they make such absurd claims? Because it is clear that it works.

John McCain's campaign, and its conservative allies, have spent much of the year attacking the news media. No surprise there; that's what conservatives do, even conservatives who have been the beneficiaries of a decade of glowing, fawning coverage from swooning reporters.

McCain and his allies were attacking the media back in the Spring, when reporters were obsessively scrutinizing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- and openly acknowledging that they weren't giving McCain similar scrutiny. They attacked the media in late summer, when the media were breathlessly touting the "authenticity" of a Sarah Palin speech that was filled with falsehoods. And they have attacked the media throughout the fall, even as it has become clear that the scrutiny reporters promised back in the spring that they would eventually give McCain isn't coming. It isn't a coincidence that scrutiny never came: it is, in part, an obvious and intended result of the attacks McCain and his allies have been leveling on the media all year.

But if, as the polls suggest, Barack Obama is elected next Tuesday, those attacks will have ultimately proven unsuccessful, right? Wrong.

First, that's a silly way to assess whether a strategy has "worked"; a candidate can derive benefit from a strategy without winning.

Second, it ignores the long-term goals of the attacks: to delegitimize an Obama presidency in the eyes of many Americans, and to browbeat journalists into covering an Obama administration much more critically than they otherwise would.

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