“Get off the plane.”
Reporter’s working for newspapers that endorse McCain are not allowed press seats on the Obama plane.
Obama’s spokesman Bill Burton confirms what the Drudge Report reported earlier this morning: That the Washington Times, New York Post and Dallas Morning News have lost their seats on the Obama campaign plane.
All three endorsed McCain for president.
Burton claimed that they are trying to reach as many swing state voters as possible, and therefore, they had to cut out certain publications in order to accommodate newspapers with distribution to these prized voters.
However, the Washington Times is heavily distributed in Northern Virginia – a swing state.
The Washington Times has issued a statement on their website.
The Obama campaign informed the newspaper Thursday evening of its decision, which came two days after The Times editorial page endorsed Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama. The Times editorial page runs completely independent of the news department.
“This feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering Senator Obama’s campaign, traveling on his plane, and taking our turn in the reporter’s pool, only to have our seat given away to someone else in the last days of the campaign,” said Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon.
“I hope the candidate that promises to unite America isn’t using a litmus test to determine who gets to cover his campaign.”
The Times formally protested the decision, noting that it has one of the top 20 largest newspaper Web sites in the country, distributes its print edition in the key battleground state of Virginia, and has had its stories repeatedly cited by Mr. Obama and other Democrats throughout the campaign…. Read the full statement.
Machiavellianism: The view that politics is amoral and that any means however unscrupulous can justifiably be used in achieving political power.
This revelation comes after two television stations reported being banned from access to the Obama campaign after reporters asked tough questions.
Obama is using his popularity to deceive and manipulate the press for his gain. If you are not for him, you are against him.
Newspapers and other media outlets acknowledge Obama brings more viewers so they do not do anything to upset his campaign.
The Obama campaign has been rumored to string along media outlets: Offering them hope of an exclusive. But as the campaign wears down, stations are finding broken promises instead.
He is also doing that with the American people. Offering hope, but acknowledging his message of hope will quickly turn to despair once in office.
We can fully expect to hear Obama say: “I did not know it was this bad, it’s going to take a long time to fix. Bear with us”
The Times of London reported this:
Barack Obama’s senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week’s election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harboring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.
The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of “hope” and “change” are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy.
One senior adviser told The Times that the first few weeks of the transition, immediately after the election, were critical, “so there’s not a vast mood swing from exhilaration and euphoria to despair.”
The aide said that Obama himself was the first to realize that expectations risked being inflated.
In an interview with a Colorado radio station, Obama appeared to be engaged already in expectation lowering. Asked about his goals for the first hundred days, he said he would need more time to tackle such big and costly issues as health care reform, global warming and Iraq.
“The first hundred days is going to be important, but it’s probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference,” he said. He has also been reminding crowds in recent days how “hard” it will be to achieve his goals, and that it will take time.
“I won’t stand here and pretend that any of this will be easy — especially now,” Obama told a rally in Sarasota, Florida, yesterday, citing “the cost of this economic crisis, and the cost of the war in Iraq.” Obama’s transition team is headed by John Podesta, a Washington veteran and a former chief-of-staff to Bill Clinton. He has spent months overseeing a virtual Democratic government-in-exile to plan a smooth transition should Obama emerge victorious next week.
The plans are so far advanced that an Obama Cabinet has been largely decided upon, with the expectation that most of his senior appointments could be announced shortly after election day.
- Read the full report about Obama’s plan to lower expectations.
The thing about Charismatic leaders is they only retain power and high approval ratings as long as the crisis endures.
