Why Liberal Media Bias Is Fake
Because no matter what happens, the media always picks up on two narratives: can people trust the Democrat, and how does the Democrat stop people from trusting the Republican?
With Gore, it was the NASCAR Dads and the beer test, with Kerry it was security moms and the national security gap, and with Obama it'll be the trustworthiness gap, or whatever else the pundit class decides people don't like about him.
"McCain benefits from a long-established reputation as a man who says what he believes," writes Broder. "His shifts in position that have occurred in this campaign seem not to have damaged that aura. Obama is much newer to most voters, less familiar and more dependent on the impressions he is only now creating."
This is the case in point - the reason that McCain has the reputation is because of the pundit class. The reason that he'll maintain that reputation is because of the pundit class. Once something is cemented in their heads, it's never worth examining - or even rejecting - unless, of course, they've got permission to cattily leap in that direction. McCain and Mickey Kaus could be fucking goats at the 11th Annual Keep Our Goats Free Of Human Penis Parade, and Howard Kurtz would show up the next Sunday solemnly asking his panel of reporters, including Mickey Kaus by satellite, whether or not the Obama campaign risks defiling the process he said he'd raise up from the sewer by discussing interspecies sex in public.
UPDATE: The Jed Report points out that McCain, blessedly, has yet to make any major mistakes while Obama has virtually alienated all but the largest of cities and flamboyant of homosexuals. Or something.