Sometimes the problem with corporate media’s coverage of elections is the absence of factchecking. And then there are times when the problem is more fundamental than that–when reporters suspend a minimal level of critical judgment in order to allow a political campaign to set a preferred storyline. Recent campaign coverage has focused on a supposed Barack Obama “gaffe” that was made to appear to be an attack on small business owners.

With increasing vehemence since the midterm elections, pundits and journalists have recommended Barack Obama move to the right--and now are citing recent polling to suggest that the president has benefited from following their advice. But there is little evidence that Obama's current approval ratings have anything to do with a rightward shift, and the entire conversation rests on the premise that Obama was governing from the left in the first place. This is nothing new; there is a long corporate media tradition of urging Democratic presidents to move to the right in order to capture the "center." After the midterm [...]