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McCain Media Massage

One of the few upsides about being late for your headshrink appointment is that you have plenty of time to read the magazines you almost wish you subscribed to (but that you know you’d never get around to reading.) In my guy’s waiting room was a fresh copy of Newsweek (February 18, 2008) which normally has a liberal bent, but from the cover and article inside about McCain it almost felt like a Rovian trick to get moderate liberals considering a vote for McCain.

The article went into detailed descriptions of why the CMC are spewing hatred at the presumptive GOP nominee. Rush, Coulter, Hannity, you name ‘em — they have all said that a vote for McCain is anti-Republican, anti-Conservative, anti-Regan, and anti-American. Oddly enough, though, the polls show that America thinks he’d do a good job as POTUS despite all that.

The conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe that McCain’s spin doctors snuck this story onto the lead of Newsweek to flush out on-the-fence voters for their candidate. The optimist in me — which has a much smaller voice — thinks that Newsweek is simply covering the kind of topics that it’s readership want to know about. What confuses the whole matter of whether Newsweek has become a shill for McCain is this picture from another story supposedly about the campaign trail and Obama.

p.s. The only weekly magazine I make time for these days is Entertainment Weekly…and sometimes it takes me 8 days to finish it.