The Third Worth Ignoring

It's official-- thirty-two per cent of our population either never watches the news or watches it high.

According to a new Gallup Poll, 32% of Americans believe that the media coverage of John McCain is "unfairly positive," leading me to question what the media is actually supposed to be doing to John McCain. If giving his opp0nent a 3:1 screen time advantage and letting most liberal talking heads use him as a punching bag is "unfairly positive," somebody needs to research new ways to make John McCain look bad. Or-- excuse me-- stop making him look so damn good.

Let's be serious for one second. Have the media ever done anything in the post-primary cycle to make John McCain look like a good candidate? I have my issues with him, to be sure-- I don't even want to hear the two names McCain and Kennedy in the same sentence after that fiasco. But he's taking a pounding by most media outlets, particularly when most of them are mesmerized by Barack Obama's showmanship and the only shows on which he gets significant screen time are The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (although in fairness, they have begun to take the time to go after Obama).

So where could these 32% be getting the idea that McCain's being coddled? Is it because FOX News isn't mindlessly attacking him? Is it because CNN and even MSNBC have begun to embrace the idea that McCain's not a carbon copy of Dubya? Or is it because they, not agreeing with McCain's ideas, are shocked that it doesn't sound as though MoveOn.org is writing all of the stories that get broadcast? Whatever it is, somebody'd better escort these people to a nearby TV... or at least get me fifty bucks' worth of whatever they're on.