(Photo by Rachel Feireman). Many Southwest Virginia Democrats shared in the excitement of John Edwards appearance this week in Roanoke. The coverage, however, was less than stellar. John Edwards addresses real issues affecting real people. He, more than most of the other candidates, calls for Americans to renew our commitment toward eliminating poverty and having true universal coverage. Although others are talking about these issues fleetingly, among the top four candidates (polling-wise), only Edwards has demonstrated that he's given the issues detailed thought. I'll examine Edwards' health care proposals in a future commentary.
The torrent of bad, distorted and distracted press concerning John Edwards hair, but the next-to-nonexistent coverage of what he says, is yet another manifestation of the Dean-ing of 2008 Democratic candidates. Obama has been vilified because of the lightness of his skin, his first name (sounds-like...), his middle name, and where he attended school as a boy. I wrote just yesterday about just one effort to demonize Hillary.
The obsession with Edwards' hair has persisted for weeks. And it is what the media serves up instead of the Edwards populist message, his having the most detailed health-care proposal of any candidate, and his extensive statements on economic fairness and foreign policy issues. None of that matters, it seems. From Al Gore's suits and Howard Dean's "scream" to this? The media loses more of its credibility each day.
Now comes NBC's Jim Miklaszewski with a double life. In his daytime job he plays journalist on TV, but in his off-time, he slams Democrats. This time he was caught! It seems he's called John Edwards a "loser" because of Edwards' defense of his expensive haircuts.
As Media Matters has written:
It's reasonable to assume that John Edwards' economic policies -- his focus on poverty and health care and the growing gap between rich and poor, and his proposed solutions to these problems -- aren't very popular at the Chamber of Commerce. Edwards, for example, has said he would repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in order to pay for his health care proposal, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lists making the Bush tax cuts permanent first among its tax policy priorities. And in 2006, the U.S. Chamber gave nearly five times as much money to Republicans as to Democrats.
At minimum, this is highly unethical. NBC isn't the first and won't be the last, of the media hack organizations using a trivial hair cut to rip a man who's working to solve real problems in America. [Every day, in every way,the necessity of blogs becomes more apparent. We have our work cut out for us.]
In the instance in question, the "loser" isn't John Edwards. It's Mr. Miklaszewski himself. If he can't do better than the administration pap he presents, then he ought to cut the pretense and go work for Karl Rove. Or, perhaps, hair critic that he is, Miklaszewsk could sign up for the roadshow of Hairspray.
All I hear about Mitt Romney lately is that he's going to stop Barack Obama from forcing sex education on kindergartners, and making our kids swim in filthy waters.
The blogs are the only answer to the problem of pervasive media bias. Please, don't let them get away with this.
I went to the story on Media Matters and they are asking that we all contact NBC. The Executive Director asks:
I'm urging you to please contact NBC and ask it to address Miklaszewski's apparent violation of their policy on paid speaking engagements. Let NBC officials know you think the public deserves a meaningful debate on ideas and policies, not an endless litany of negative anecdotes and personal attacks. Demand that NBC make public its full ethics policy for reporters. Holding networks and journalists like NBC and Miklaszewski accountable for their actions will help raise the bar and bring about more quality coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign.
I'd suggest sending an e-mail to NBC's Nightly News (Brian Williams) Nightly@NBC.com or viewerservices@msnbc.com complaining about Miklaszewski's and Chris Matthews' unethical behavior reported at Think Progress.