The Press and John Edwards

This may come as a surprise to the nation’s political reporters, but I don’t care whether Barack Obama has quit smoking or not. I also don’t give a rip whether Rudy Giuliani wears dresses, how badly Hillary Clinton sings, which Hollywood producer is endorsing which candidate, or whether Mitt Romney is a Mormon, Jew, Hindu or atheist. But most of all, I’m sick of hearing about John Edwards’ $400 haircut. And John Edwards’ big house. And Edwards’ lecture fees, anti-poverty think tank and previous work for a hedge fund. In short, I’ve had it up to here with the media trivializing the presidential race — and I’m puzzled about why Edwards is taking the brunt of recent media criticisms.

Most of the time when you tune in to national coverage of the presidential race, you’d think these guys were reporting on a beauty pageant. Trouble is, the winner of this particular contest will have a very big affect on all of our lives — as evidenced by the walking national disaster currently occupying the White House.

It says something about the current state of American media’s political coverage that we’re not surprised when Wolf Blitzer segues effortlessly from John McCain’s fund-raising problems to Paris Hilton’s release from jail, as if both items were equal, like two merely different forms of celebrity gossip. Granted, it’s easier to produce shallow stories than to do actual legwork, but come on, people, it’s a friggin’ presidential race.

I’ll give the media credit for one thing. They’ve been consistent — consistently pro-Republican. McCain, if you’ll notice, is always called a “maverick,” even though he’s been prostituting himself to the Christian right for more than a year. Romney may be a transparent opportunist who has changed every position he’s ever taken, but he “looks like a president.” And Giuliani is usually referred to as a “hero of 9/11,” although it’s never explained exactly what he did to earn the distinction, other than showing up for work that day. On the other hand, Obama is “untested” and often “cranky”; Clinton is “cold,” “calculating” and, unlike the men, subject to having her wardrobe questioned. As for Edwards, well, is there anything the mainstream media likes about the guy?

Edwards has been hit with more than his share of media nonsense lately, and I don’t just mean from conservatives. When political sideshow freak Ann Coulter said last week that she wished Edwards would be “killed in a terrorist assassination plot,” it was only surprising for about a minute. The right-wing echo chamber has been hammering Edwards day in and day out for a while now, and Coulter’s latest bomb was simply their new low.

The most interesting thing about the Coulter/Edwards dust-up was how it was covered by the mainstream press. Most of them, up to and including the supposedly “ultra-liberal” New York Times, seemed less disturbed by The Bony One’s murderous wishes than by the Edwards campaign’s use of Coulter’s attack as an online fund-raising tool.

That was just the latest example, though, of the mainstream press’ fondness for jumping on Edwards. Usually, they’re more interested in the haircut or the house, with the implication that Edwards is a hypocrite for being so rich and still wanting to end poverty. (Never mind that the wealthiest of all presidents, Franklin Roosevelt, did more to relieve poverty than any other.)

At first, I thought maybe Edwards had irritated the press by hanging tough in the Democratic race despite their clear wish to report a “Hillary vs. Obama” racehorse storyline (if you don’t think media “personalities” can be that petty, then you, my friend, haven’t worked in media).

The more I’ve seen and heard the coverage, however, the more I suspect the mainstream media simply does not want Edwards to become president. I think they’ve realized that Edwards means it when he calls for real change in the way the federal government operates — which could, after all, threaten the status quo they’ve spent years protecting and benefiting from. In other words, the national media folks, whose own self-esteem luxuriates in their access to power, sense that Edwards isn’t “one of them.”

Here’s a guy who is essentially a self-made man (something Americans used to admire) who earned his wealth by taking on big corporations and irresponsible hospitals. He speaks out more forcefully than any other presidential candidate about getting out of Iraq, and he’s produced detailed plans for universal health care, relieving poverty in the United States and insuring a good education for all. He’s the only major candidate who hasn’t taken money from Washington lobbyists or PACs, and, alone of all the candidates, he’s spoken honestly about how his programs would be paid for.

What seems to annoy the media mavens the most about Edwards, though, is that nearly every poll shows him doing better against the Republican contenders than any other Democratic candidate. The latest Rasmussen poll, for instance, shows Edwards as the only Democrat to handily beat Giuliani, McCain, Romney and Fred Thompson, and by an average of 13 points. That has to irritate the hell out of the Washington press corps. If Edwards were elected, after all, they’d have to start genuflecting to someone who, unlike themselves, hasn’t sold his soul to the highest bidder.

This article appears in Jul 4-10, 2007.