There Can Only Be One

Ezra has some musings about how the press will cover the general campaign.

That worked out well. I'm actually optimistic. My hunch is that because Obama and McCain keep saying, in speeches, that they disagree, the press will actually report on their disagreements. The media is perfectly happy to be led around. The problem in 2000 was that Bush insisted he was a moderate and the press had no interest in questioning that. But that doesn't answer the question of how the disagreements will be reported. Will McCain's policies be written up as a conservative, or deliciously "mavericky?" Will the press be able to say that Obama's health plan actually gives people insurance while McCain's makes it easier for insurers to discriminate against you? Will they note that Obama's global warming plan is in line with what experts think needs to be done, while McCain's is not? On all this, I join with Krugman in gloomy pessimism.

It will not be pretty.