Getting To Know You

(Go ahead.  Sing that title to yourself.  It just makes you feel good.)

Since I had this conversation in brief with 2 people today, I wanted to write a post concerning one of the more ridiculous memes being foisted by the media gasbags covering the Democratic Convention.

'Gosh oh gee-willakers, I sure hope we get to know this Barack Obama fella.  Maybe he can use this here convention thingy to let us know who he really-for-true is.'

Yo.  Media doofuses.  A few points you might want to consider:

1)  You've been studying this guy for over a year now.  You've been watching him closer that a hawk scopes a gopher.  You've been bloviating for months over every move made by Obama since he was a zygote in his momma's womb.  You've considered him more carefully than Jonah Goldberg obsesses over a jelly donut topped with chocolate.  If you folks don't know who Barack Obama is by now, then you must be retarded.

2)  Hey ... Analysts.  Don't you get a paid a bunch of bucks to actually analyze things?  And you Reporters.  Isn't your job to actually ... report?  Now, if you really don't know who Obama is, then I guess you get a pass on not doing your jobs.  You're just incompetent.  Tender your resignations, please.  But if you do know who Obama is, and you aren't analyzing/reporting it, then you're choosing to not do your jobs.  You're lazy.  You should be fired.

3)  I'm deeply grateful, oh media windbags, for your deep concern about whether or not I know the *real* Obama.  But as we've already established, if I don't it's your fault.  The truth is, I think I do know who he is.  So what is the purpose behind you morons continually telling me and the voting public that Obama has to "tell me who he is"?

There's a great deal more that I could write here, but D. Aristophanes has already written it for me.

Obama’s been a national figure since his 2004 DNC keynote. He’s a best-selling author and a prominent senator. He was showcased in the longest, most covered nomination process in recent memory. Apparently, he’s even bigger than Bono and Britney Spears.

...

I’d argue that other than sitting presidents running for re-election, vice presidents following on from sitting presidents, and Hillary Clinton, who’s a special case, he’s the most known presidential candidate we’ve ever seen. Compare him to Clinton at the 1992 DNC, Dole at the 1996 RNC, Kerry at the 2004 DNC or even the fairly well-known McCain at the upcoming Minneapolis RNC.

...

But I wonder what the media crowd mean by ‘get to know him’. (And I include not just the Fox douchebags and assholes like David Brooks, but people like Olbermann and Dionne, who I’ve heard parrot this ‘Americans don’t know Barack Obama’ line of horseshit.) I wonder what ‘getting to know Barack Obama’ would entail, beyond the 24/7 presentation of the guy and his ideas for the past year.

Look, we already know the guy.  That's clear, okay?  What the media dunces are begging for are signs of distrusting the guy.  That gives them a story.  It's the two-handed narrative they desire.  On the one hand, Barack is THE ONE, anointed by God, Jesus, Zeus, Woden and Cthulhu.  On the other hand, he could be 'gangsta'.  He could be Osama Obama Bin Gotcha.  He could be Mandingo.  Or, with no juggling the truth at all, he could be a smart motivated man with a lot of talent and terrific ideas, and terrific ideas for accomplishing his terrific ideas. Now which do you think sells product in eyeballs and newsprint?  It's the juggling act, obviously.

Obama is, simply put, another politician.  He is vastly more talented than most, and a great deal smarter than many.  And, like most of us, he wants to do the right and best thing.  If people wish to disagree with what that "best thing" is, no problem.  But that ain't what the media is selling.  They're selling images of who he might be, and ignoring  what he might do.  Don't you kinda think that you're being poorly served by the media at that point?  You should.

Comments

[Dave Budge]

I can't argue that the media are a bunch of gasbags. That said, I also know a bunch of people that know who he is but don't have any clue his history, intelligence, or general politics. Seems to me (and it hurts to defend the media - believe me) that there's a point to the idea a grea many Americans (like most) don't pay attention to politics until the conventions.

Just ask my adult kids. Only one of them has any idea that Obama is from IL. And this with a father whose hard-wired to politics.

[CharleyCarp]

Right.

Do we know any less of this fellow than we knew of GWB in the summer of 2000* or WJC in 1992? Really, we don't. I think it's a code for race, at least arguably: that is, 'we don't know him' means 'we know he's not one of us.'

* Bob Seger put it best: 'I wish we didn't know now what we didn't know then.

[Dave Budge]

Yep, Olbermann, Dionne, Mathews, David Gregory, all racists. Sheesh!

I think Wulfgar's point, without trying to put words in his mouth, is that (the collective) we already know him and the media should be focused on policy issues. I think that's right - but in a literary narrative there's the "who" in the who, what, where, and why.

I think there are still a lot of people who don't have but a cursory understanding of who the guy is. I live with a bunch of them.

[Rebecca]

Frankly, I know more about Obama at this point than I do Biden. Joe's a working class guy from Scranton, PA? I was surprised. I thought he was birthed whole from the generous hips of Barclays Bank of Delaware.

[Dave Budge]

That would be MBNA, Rebecca.

[Steve T.]

I think it's important to note that these folks in the media aren't talking about us (the people who give a shit and take time out of their own schedule to study candidates and issues...) They're talking about people who don't watch the news, and get most of their news from The Daily Show and viral e-mails.

Barack Obama had a life before being a Presidential Candidate, and the right has capitalized on the lack of knowledge of that life. So I think it is very, very, very important that the Dem convention focus on his biography and his family life, because people just haven't gone out of their way to learn the truth about these things. That's why so many are willing to believe the closet muslim horseshit.

[Rebecca Schmitz]

You must have missed the memo that Daily Show viewers are actually well informed, Steve.

Now if you had said the 700 Club, on the other hand...

[Wulfgar]

Dave, as D. Aristophenes points out, there is an element of passive racism in the coverage that continually demands that we see Obama as 'different' and unknown. In order for connections to be made between people, similarities are required. And as I pointed out, what the media wants isn't for Obama to show us who he is. They want to promote difference. In their narrative, we just can't 'know him'.

You are very correct, though, on what I desire. I think I do know Obama enough to know that he is the same as me in this all-important aspect: this country has issues and he wants to work at solving those issues. The media doesn't question that about the son-of-privilege/old-white-guy. After all, there's no story there. But they damn sure question that about Barack, and that's where the "who" begins to completely drown out the "what", "where" and "why", and most extra-especially, the "how".

I know full well that there are people who remain ignorant (I use that word non-pejoratively) about 'who is Barack Obama'. They remain that way because its the wrong question that is being asked, mostly by the media. His bio is out there for anyone to read. The questions are "what" does he want and "how" will he accomplish those desires. If we had a media that focused on those solid things, I wouldn't give a hoot if the guy was blue. (No offense meant to Stan Jones, who I ran into in the grocery store about a month ago. He's shorter than he looks on TV or on a debate stage. That surprised me.)

[Big Swede]

I was getting all pumped to disagree with you on your first point, but then I came to my senses. The "hawk" media knew exactly what "gopher" hole Edwards was spending time with.

[Wulfgar]

And that has ... *what* ... to do with this post, Swede?

[Big Swede]

Not only are the talking heads dumbing down said candidate info, they're filtering it also.

Poorly served indeed.

Simple enough?

[Wulfgar]

Simple is probably the right word for you to be using, Swede.

John Edwards isn't running for anything. He's not going to be elected to anything. The Enquirererere broke the horrendous story of marital infidelity well after John Edwards had the social significance of road kill. There's no reason for the media to have followed that story any more than they should have followed the story of BatBoy being John Kerry's lovechild (except that that story was printed when John Kerry was actually *running* for something.)

You're absolutely right. The media doesn't report (filters) the shit that doesn't matter. Thankfully, Swede, we have you to annoy us all with the crap which doesn't relate to anything that the rest of us care about. Please, keep up the 'good' work. After all, it keeps you from rooting in our garbage cans at night ...