After last week's house-fest, the big news over the weekend was of course Obama's designation of Joe Biden as his running mate. I've only loosely kept track of the pundit verbiage, but just reading the 'analysis' offered by major news outlets suggests one point: the more 'mainstream' the outlet, the more they are likely to characterize Obama and other Democratic strategists as 'anxious', and to tie the naming of Biden to the memo of 'weakness.'

Now, it may be that strategists are anxious -- if they're not, they're probably not doing their jobs -- and it's possible that Obama chose Biden because of his experience in certain areas, but the 'weakness' meme does seem odd (especially in a campaign where the opposing side loves to stress arrogance and presumptuousness as the key themes). And frankly, Obama does not strike me, in his history or his character, as someone who stresses out over his 'weakness'. From the beginning of his career, he's tended to make bold moves and to think stragegically, rather than the cautious tactianeering that a concern for 'weakness' would imply.

As always, therefore, it's worth considering the messengers: why would the mainstream media try to pivot the Biden choice to a matter of 'anxiety' and 'weakness'?

First, perhaps because reporters absorbed with campaign details tend to have a perceptual field dominated by short-term factors, and Obama's overall polling has clearly softened over the last two weeks. Nagourney and Fournier and their ilk (regardless of political orientation) tend to see trees, not forests, and they spend their days chasing down campaign officials, who may well give an impression of 'anxiety' because they are in the same perceptual field.

But we should also remember a second issue: the media's interest is in ensuring a sustained horse-race, with a tight finish, in this election. We can expect the lead figures of the major media, therefore, to slide towards undermining tropes when speaking of whichever candidate appears to be ahead. This need not be the result of Machiavellian orders from the shadowy corporate pupeteers, not at all: it's simply built into their situation, and also fits the American vulnerability to underdog narratives.

In the end, I just sigh (and occasionally grind my teeth) when I see reputable (Nagourney) or disreputable (Fournier) journalists falling for tropes that sound like Republican talking points, and hope that the Obama campaign is smart enough about them to work on feeding the best counter-tropes into the mix.

But wouldn't it be nice if we had a grown-up media?