That is the question facing the mainstream media in their approach to Michele Bachmann. They are at the cusp. George Stephanopolous just set the scene by making it Bachmann’s responsibility to prepare 28 kids and foster kids (most all grown by now) for the media nightmare which is about to descend upon them. Gee, nice family you got there. It would be a reeeal shame if something happened to them, you know?
CNN’s Kiran Chetry spent her whole session clearly wrestling with Bachmann for control of the narrative. Five of six questions asked by Chetry were distractions about gaffes, including one in which she asked if this was all too distracting. Have you EVER seen any of the lefty press ask Bachmann her position on tax policy? She is a high-powered tax lawyer after all. LLM in tax from William and Mary is a bit like having a black belt in media from Breitbart University.
Which is where we need to take this fight. Bachmann has her own campaign to run, and I almost do not care who wins the nomination. I will support the nominee. My real fight is with the media, because they are the only force on earth which can save Obama, and they are increasingly forced to declare or go straight. And I do not believe most of them will go straight before their own partisan gaffes are used against them by Breitbart and Palin.
So I support Bachmann, because she is running, and she is bait for the media to ruin themselves. I also support Palin because she is the same threat to the media even though she is not running. And yet the LA Times just published 24,000 of her professional and private e-mails. Now will the LA Times release the tape of Obama and Khalidi?
The reason I got so mad at Fox’s Chris Wallace is not the simple offense of a blunt and crude question. It’s that he, like Newt Gingrich, just committed a HUGE unforced error, handing the Democrats a big and effective stick with which to beat us up. Mark my words, we will hear about that question either directly or as a precedent throughout the campaigns, just like Newt’s frankly defective criticism of Paul Ryan’s plan.
Wallace’s idiotic conduct helps legitimize the conduct of people like Stephanopolous and Chetry, and in fact, he used his bashing of Bachmann as a defense against charges levelled (just a few days earlier, hmmm) by Jon Stewart that Fox News is too easy on Conservatives.
It looks like Breitbart is still our only hitter in the current inning. Expose Obama for what he is and you knock down a single element. Big deal–we already knew what he is. Expose the media for what they are, though, and you knock down Obama. That’s what he’s made of.
