The politics of blaming the media

We're going to say something unpopular here (which is probably not the first time).

The news media isn't John McCain's problem. And it isn't Sarah Palin's. It wasn't Hillary Clinton's either.

The news media didn't decide to invade Iraq and it won't decide whether we drill offshore. It didn't cause foreclosures and it didn't open the borders to illegal immigrants. It didn't stop the Cubs from winning the pennant in 1969, and it didn't drive the White Sox to a World Series championship in 2005.

In fact, it didn't even create our inexplicable fascination with Paris Hilton. (Paris, sad to say, is more a reflection of all of our appetites than she is of news media conspiracies.)

This isn't to downplay the news media's important role in the democracy. It clearly has one, as anyone can appreciate who has lived in Russia or China or any other country ruled by regimes with a government-controlled press.

And it isn't to downplay the news media's fairly obvious flaws and excesses.

But something downright dangerous took place at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul last week, and we hope the cynicism of it didn't go unnoticed.

Party leaders, as a matter of raw political strategy, decided to scapegoat those who report on them. Speaker after speaker, in their appeals for votes, ridiculed or derided the news media. Mike Huckabee did so. Rudy Giuliani did so. Palin did so. Almost all of them did so, at least until the last night when the strategy shifted to sweetness and light.

Politicians have carped about the press in the past. Probably forever. Sometimes for good cause. Sometimes to try to get the press off their backs. It's one of the tensions of the republic.

But what was disturbing about St. Paul was the pervasiveness of the assault. Over and over and over again. It was as though the party, and the country, had two opponents: Barack Obama and the news media, and not necessarily in that order.

Longtime columnist Roger Simon wrote about the uproar Thursday, saying, "To hear from the pols at the Republican National Convention this week, our job is to endorse and support the decisions of the pols."

We hope the public understands this.

Yes, part of the reason politicians blame the news media is frustration, annoyance that we either don't hear their message correctly or don't always report on it fairly.

But a lot of the blame is simply because politicians would prefer that we get out of the way, would prefer that we not ask tough questions or, if we do, that we only ask them of the other guy.

They charge, easily, the news media with bias.

As though they, the politicians, would be the unbiased sources.