Patrick Ruffini makes a prediction about media bias:

Watching MTP [Meet the Press] this morning, it seems fairly apparent to me that the Democratic nomination fight will eat up two thirds or more of the media’s 2008 coverage over the next year. This despite the fact that the outcome of the Republican nomination seems to be more in doubt than the Democratic one, and the GOP has no shortage of accomplished national figures running.

This is a way for the media to show its bias without being ideological. They will simply deign Hillary vs. Obama vs. Edwards to be more newsworthy, and go from there. This is because the media approaches Democratic primaries more as participants than as spectators.

I’d agree.  Further, Jonathan Strong makes an observation that will subtly affect the coming media overkill:

The Democrats have also accused the President of tying Saddam’s Iraq to 9/11.  The President has never suggested that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks; the President did adopt the doctrine of preemption which Democrats have, now, roundly rejected.  Indeed, by rejecting preemption, the Democrats are effectively telling the American people and our allies that the United States must wait to be attacked before acting in its own defense. [emphasis added]

Democrats have restrained themselves from criticism of the war in Afghanistan, but fail to acknowledge that it was not the Taliban who attacked the United States on 9/11, just as Saddam did not carry out the 9/11 attacks.  They thereby are supportive of the President’s policy to hunt down and destroy those that support and harbor terrorists as the Taliban did.  The dishonesty in this for the Democrats is that Saddam supported and harbored terrorists for decades.  It is widely known that he paid the families of suicide bombers and allowed Al Qaeda figures to hide in Iraq before and after 9/11 as Mrs. Clinton acknowledged in 2002.  The inconsistencies of the Democratic Party’s principles in war fighting are far reaching and endanger the security of the United States.

The Democrats have now positioned themselves politically so that they can only benefit if America suffers a defeat in Iraq.  If the President’s troop surge results in the pacification of Baghdad and significant increase in the stability of the country, the President will be proven right and the Democrats wrong.  More sadly, rising casualties in Iraq will benefit the Democrats so long as they advocate a strategy of “the faster we pull out, the better”. 

Most frightening is the inability of the Democratic leadership to grasp that American credibility in the world is at stake.  This lesson should have been learned after America’s defeat in Vietnam.  The premature withdrawal of the United States from that country and the refusal by a Democrat controlled Congress to fund and supply South Vietnam’s fight against the Viet Cong helped to spur Soviet aggression in other parts of South Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East.

The heavy coverage of the Democrats, plus their tendency to “declare defeat and go home” should make the next few years interesting.  As Democratic candidates pander to their base and fall over themselves trying to out-surrender each other—bring the troops home tomorrow!  now!  yesterday!—American swing voters will be watching.  I doubt that the typical swing voter follows things closely, but since Clinton and Obama have effectively declared, they’ll be under scrutiny, and they will make gaffes that even swing voters will notice.  Further, the conservative base of the Republicans, appalled at the prospect of defeat, will be more likely to vote for a less than pure Republican candidate.

Posted by Hubbard in Politics, Journalism