Another myth promoted by the media held that Hillary Clinton received less favorable treatment than Obama during the primaries. This claim by Mrs. Clinton and her followers led to the candidacy of Sarah Palin, whose choice was made cynically by the Republican Party. They wanted to woo disaffected Clinton voters who believed that Mrs. Clinton was robbed of the nomination when, in terms of delegate strength, she was done after Wisconsin. Her claim and that of her followers that she was the victim of unfavorable press coverage is disputed by a study from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism issued on May 29, 2008:
If campaigns for president are in part a battle for control of the master narrative about character, Democrat Barack Obama has not enjoyed a better ride in the press than rival Hillary Clinton, according to a new study of primary coverage by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.
From January 1, just before the Iowa caucuses, through March 9, following the Texas and Ohio contests, the height of the primary season, the dominant personal narratives in the media about Obama and Clinton were almost identical in tone, and were both twice as positive as negative, according to the study, which examined the coverage of the candidates’ character, history, leadership and appeal — apart from the electoral results and the tactics of their campaigns.
The trajectory of the coverage, however, began to turn against Obama, and did so well before questions surfaced about his pastor Jeremiah Wright. Shortly after Clinton criticized the media for being soft on Obama during a debate, the narrative about him began to turn more skeptical — and indeed became more negative than the coverage of Clinton herself. What’s more, an additional analysis of more general campaign topics suggests the Obama narrative became even more negative later in March, April and May.
Yet, with all of this evidence pointing to the rough media terrain that Obama had to navigate on the way to his election, as late as December 28, 2008, Howard Kurtz was complaining about the “sympathetic” treatment that the media accorded Obama. None of his guests — Terence Smith, Bill Pressman, and Jessica Yellin — challenged Kurtz. Amy Holmes agreed.
As if to put this reasoning to a test, on the same day The Washington Post and the Associated Press gave a sympathetic treatment to Chip Saltsman, a candidate for Chairman of the Republican National Committee who sent out a CD that included the song Barack the Magic Negro. He said that it was only meant to be satire.
For the media, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a former Marine, was the epitome of hate. Imus Alumni Howard Kurtz, who has said that in private he and his friends agree with what Imus says, went completely bonkers against Rev. Wright on his Reliable Sources, December 13. He accused Rev. Wright of “fulminating. Of engaging in diatribes, rants, and hate filled speeches,” the kind of criticism of black male intellectuals by whites that we’ve heard for over one hundred years, even James Baldwin, an elegant, French speaking jewel of a man was called “antagonistic,” while Pope Benedict was treated by a fawning media as though he were truly an emissary of a god. While condemning Rev. Wright, Chris Matthews said of Pope Benedict: “I think this new Pope, just on a very cosmetic level, is amazing. He’s 78 years old. I remembered him being talked about when we studied Vatican II back at the Holy Cross in the 60s. Ratzinger was a major figure. And here he is now radiant, looking strong, solid… what a leader he looks like.” For them, Rev. Wright’s offense was condemning the United States and enumerating atrocities committed by its government. Pope Benedict, when cardinal, tried to cover up one of the greatest scandals confronting the Catholic Church. The following story appeared on the site of The Daily Kos, April 19, 2005, at 03:43:27 p.m. PDT:
[A] 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy of “strictest” secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and threatens those who speak out with excommunication.
They also call for the victim to take an oath of secrecy at the time of making a complaint to Church officials. It states that the instructions are to “be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia [Vatican] as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor added to with any commentaries.”
[…] bishops are instructed to pursue these cases “in the most secretive way… restrained by a perpetual silence… and everyone… is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office… under the penalty of excommunication.”
Lawyers point to a letter the Vatican sent to bishops in May 2001 clearly stating the 1962 instruction was in force until then. The letter is signed by Cardinal Ratzinger, the most powerful man in Rome beside the Pope and who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the office which ran the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.
What we do know from his letter is that as recently as 2001, he supported and encouraged the drawing of a curtain of secrecy over widespread sexual abuse by clergy.
During the media’s all-pope-week, former altar boy Chris Matthews compared the values of Rev. Wright, the subject of a relentless vicious smear and media inquisition, unfavorably with those of Pope Benedict.
Apparently a minister saying “God Damn America” in a speech that the media quoted out of context — like an adolescent reading Hustler, they’re only interested in the meaty parts — is more offensive than a pope, who, when cardinal, tried to cover up a scandal, which has resulted in thousands of victims suffering from post-traumatic stress.
Moreover, since the media slapped the killer label anti-Semite on some of Rev. Wright’s comments, why, during a week in which Fox TV’s Brit Hume described the Pope as a man of “beatific sweetness,” was there no reference to Pope Benedict’s drawing a complaint from the Anti-Defamation League for his revival of the Latin Mass, which calls for the conversion of the Jews. The Anti-Defamation League said the Pope’s decision was “a body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations.” The Observer quoted Abraham Foxman the national director in Rome.
We are extremely disappointed and deeply offended that nearly forty years after the Vatican rightly removed insulting anti-Jewish language from the Good Friday mass, it would now permit Catholics to utter such hurtful and insulting words by praying for Jews to be converted. It is the wrong decision at the wrong time. It appears the Vatican has chosen to satisfy a right-wing faction in the church that rejects change and reconciliation.
After the election of the president, Benedict was criticized by Jewish groups for un-excommunicating a bishop who had denied the Holocaust, and for proposing sainthood for Pope Pius XII. On December 21, 2009, AFP reported that the Wiesenthal Center was “shocked at Pius sainthood moves.”
The founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center voiced dismay and disappointment Monday at weekend Vatican moves to raise controversial wartime pope Pius XII to sainthood.
The Vatican sparked anger in Jewish communities worldwide with moves to nudge Pius — whose beatification process was launched in 1967—closer to sainthood, its ultimate honor.
The Catholic Church argues that Pius saved many Jews who were hidden away in religious institutions, and that his silence during the Holocaust — when millions of Jews were exterminated by Germany’s Nazi regime — was born out of a wish to avoid aggravating their situation.
But others believe Pius’s inaction when it mattered to the lives of so many was appallingly wrong.