Frank Rich’s column from Saturday talks about Obama’s need to re-tool his message for the general election. As with most columns in the Op-Ed section, it’s pretty incoherent. But, let me take a shot at untangling this mess.

As the real campaign at last begins in Denver this week, this much is certain: It’s time for Barack Obama to dispatch “Change We Can Believe In” to a dignified death.

This isn’t because — OMG! — Obama’s narrow three- to four-percentage-point lead of recent weeks dropped to a statistically indistinguishable one- to three-point margin during his week of vacation. It’s because zero hour is here. As the presidential race finally gains the country’s full attention, the strategy that vanquished Hillary Clinton must be rebooted to take out John McCain.

“Change We Can Believe In” was brilliantly calculated for a Democratic familial brawl where every candidate was promising nearly identical change from George Bush…

First of all, Obama’s lead was 3-4%, but it wasn’t too long ago that he lead McCain by as much as 6 points. It’s now dropped to 1-3%.

Rich seems to be blaming Obama’sdrop in the polls on his week long Hawaii vacation. That’s certainly possible. Obama had a week where — theoretically — his name wouldn’t have been in the news as much as McCain’s was. However, because of the situation that developed between Russia and Georgia, the media was looking for reaction from both of the candidates. Obama’s response to Russian aggression was pretty underwhelming.

On the other hand, McCain came out with the strongest statement of support  for Georgia  out of all the parties involved. Including the Bush administration.

By thy way, here’s for something Rich and the rest of the nutroots left to consider; President Bush isn’t running for re-election. He’s not running for a third term, so running against his policies seems pretty stupid.

It branded Obama as the sole contender with the un-Beltway biography, credibility and political talent to link the promise of change to the nation’s onrushing generational turnover in all its cultural (and, yes, racial) manifestations. McCain should be a far easier mark than Clinton if Obama retools his act.

Of course, I would think that another reason for a change in strategy would be that it’s pretty difficult to portray Obama as someone with an un-beltway biography. Obama is as linked to old school Chicago politics as hot dogs are linked to baseball.

The whole change meme also branded Obama as post-partisan. Like I said above though, he’s 100% old school Chicago politics, and is rated the most liberal Senator in the Senate.

What we have learned this summer is this: McCain’s trigger-happy temperament and reactionary policies offer worse than no change. He is an unstable bridge back not just to Bush policies but to an increasingly distant 20th-century America that is still fighting Red China in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in the cold war. As the country tries to navigate the fast-moving changes of the 21st century, McCain would put America on hold.

“Trigger happy temperament and reactionary policies”, “…an unstable bridge back not just to Bush policies…”? Of course, Rich doesn’t provide any evidence to back up his claims. How is McCain unstable? How can his policies possibly be seen as reactionary?

As far as being a bridge back to an increasingly distant 20th century, and an America that was fighting Red China and the USSR, I wonder if Rich has been paying attention to the goings on in Georgia. Has he been paying attention to Russia’s former President Vladimir Putin who is also a former KGB officer (and most say is still running the country through his puppet Medvedev) and his acts of aggression that bring back not so fond memories of that cold war that Rich claims is over? Apparently not.

It seems to me that the best course in foreign policy is to keep one eye on the past (Russia), and one eye on present and emerging threats such as China, Iran, and Islamofacists.

What Obama also should have learned by now is that the press is not his friend. Of course, he gets more ink and airtime than McCain; he’s sexier news. But as George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs documented in its study of six weeks of TV news reports this summer, Obama’s coverage was 28 percent positive, 72 percent negative. (For McCain, the split was 43/57.)…

The media is not his friend? That’s absolutely laughable! But, let’s examine Rich’s claim.

The first bit of evidence that destroys Rich’s claim are statements from members of the media themselves. Chris Matthews famously said that Obama’s self serving speech on race in America was worthy of Abraham Lincoln. He called it an American tract, something that you should check in with every now and then — like reading Great Gatsby, or Huckleberry Finn.

CHRIS MATTHEWS OPENING THE SHOW: A divide as American as the Grand Canyon, a speech worthy of Abraham Lincoln. Let’s play Hardball!

 

[***]  [***]  [snip]  [***]  [***]

MATTHEWS: Let’s all listen now to a bit of the speech. We should all, by the way, at some point after the program, please wait for the end of “Hardball,” at least. But check this out on our Web site, MSNBC.com, you can watch the whole speech. I think this is the kind of speech I think first graders should see, people in the last year of college should see before they go out in the world. This should be, to me, an American tract. Something that you just check in with, now and then, like reading Great Gatsby and Huckleberry Finn. Read this speech, once in a while, ladies and gentlemen. This is us. It’s us with the scab ripped off. It’s white people talking the way they do when they’re alone with other white people, some people. It’s black people talking the way they are when there’s not white people around. It’s an honest statement from a guy who comes from both backgrounds. We have never heard anything like this.

Matthews also hailed it as one of the great speeches in American history, and said that it sent a thrill up his leg.

MATTHEWS: We’ll talk about the politics of all this and whether voters will be convinced, by what many of us think is one of the great speeches in American history and we watch a lot of them, when we return. You’re watching “Hardball” only on MSNBC.

[***]  [***]  [snip]  [***]  [***]

I have to tell you, you know, it’s part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama’s speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often.

Lee Cowan — a reporter for NBC — admitted that it was hard to remain objective while covering Obama.

It seems as though NBC is now expanding its bias to include paid supplements. In a print promotional distributed by NBC News, reporter Lee Cowan enthused, “When NBC News first assigned me to the Barack Obama campaign, I must confess my knees quaked a bit.” This is the same journalist who in January famously confessed to “Nightly News” host Brian Williams that it’s “almost hard to remain objective” when covering the “infectious” energy surrounding the Illinois senator.

Cowan’s latest quote appeared in a NBC advertising section entitled “The Peacock.” The first person article, which recounts Cowan’s excitement over covering the Obama campaign, also featured the correspondent bubbling, “The task seemed daunting. Not only would the Illinois senator land me square in the center of rough and tumble presidential politics, but his campaign was truly historic. I wondered if I was up to the job. I wondered if I could do the campaign justice. I wondered if the experience would swallow me whole.“

And, of course, there’s no since in even discussing MSNBC’s blatant bias in favor of Obama.

Rich also cites a George Mason University study that claims to show that Obama received more negative coverage this summer than McCain did. But, when you dig a little deeper into the particulars of the study you find that If anything Obama received better coverage than McCain did.

First of all, Rich openly admits that Obama received more ink and airtime than McCain did. So, that right there will affect the numbers.

What Obama also should have learned by now is that the press is not his friend. Of course, he gets more ink and airtime than McCain; he’s sexier news.

The George Mason University study sheds a little more light on the difference in the amount of coverage.

Obama’s bad press has come at a time when he was much more visible than McCain.  Since June 8, he has been the subject of 120 stories on the three network evening news shows, 50% more than John McCain’s 80 stories.

That’s right, 50% more coverage than McCain over the same time period.

Next, let’s take a look at what was defined as negative coverage.

Negative: “You raised a lot of eyebrows on this trip saying, even knowing what you know now, you still would not have supported the surge.  People may be scratching their heads and saying, ‘why’?” – Katie Couric, CBS

Negative:  “Far more Americans say John McCain would be a good commander in chief than Obama” – Jake Tapper, ABC

So, in the first example cited, a legitimate question asking why — even after it’s proven that the surge was a success — Obama still wouldn’t support the surge is placed in the negative coverage category? It seems to me that this is a legitimate question.

The second example is Jake Tapper citing a poll. It seems foolish to me to describe this as negative coverage when you have a very real example of negative coverage against John McCain. That example being a thinly sourced story  with absolutely no proof of an alleged affair 8 years ago plastered all over the front page of the New York Times.

There’s much more to be covered. I’ll hit part two tomorrow.