[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Norman Solomon
Elected California Delegate
Sixth California Congressional District

Barack Obama's triumph on May 6 was a victory over a wall that pretends to be a fly on the wall.

For a long time, the nation's body politic has been shoved up against that wall -- known as the news media.

Despite all its cracks and gaps, what cements the wall is mostly a series of repetition compulsion disorders. Whether the media perseveration is on Pastor Wright, the words "bitter" and "cling," or an absent flag lapel-pin, the wall's surfaces are more rigid when they're less relevant to common human needs and shared dreams.

"We've already seen it," Obama said during his victory speech in North Carolina, "the same names and labels they always pin on everyone who doesn't agree with all their ideas, the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives, by pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy, in the hopes that the media will play along."

And how, they've played along. From the front pages of "quality" dailies to the reportage of NPR's drive-time news to the blather-driven handicapping on cable television, the ways that media structures have functioned in recent weeks tell us -- yet again -- how fleeting any media attention to substance can be.