AP Buries The Lead

Obama finally makes it official that it is indeed Biden, and instead of pointing out the obvious story here–because that would hurt their candidate–AP simply notes:

Barack Obama named Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate early Saturday, balancing his ticket with a seasoned congressional veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues.

Obama announced the pick on his Web site with a photo of the two men and an appeal for donations. A text message went out shortly afterward that said, “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee.”

The real story here is that everyone knew hours ahead of time, via the Weekly Standard, hoary old CNN and AP itself, the Blogosphere and Drudge. Instead of hype such as this, reminiscent of the McLuhanesque purple technoprose so common in the late 1990s (he said, having written tens of thousands of words of just that sort of prose himself back then) when the Web was bright and shiny and new:

It’s beautiful.

In one fell swoop, by choosing to disclose his vice-presidential pick directly to voters through text messaging rather than revealing his pick through choice leaks to the press, the Obama camp has given us a momentary reprieve from having to watch smirk-faced pundits gloat about “inside scoops” and “my sources tell me.” No “scoops” for the Villagers, followed by anti-climactic press conferences to the people as an afterthought. No “special access” to them, no matter how much they clamor. Technology has allowed the Obama camp to keep all, reporter and regular citizen alike, on the edge of their seats.

For today, the talking heads are absolutely powerless and impotent, staring stupidly at the screen, searching for words to make themselves relevant. For once, they finally feel what we have known all along –that they have absolutely nothing to offer outside of what is selectively hand fed to them.

With all this baseless VP speculation, with their special status and access stripped away, the “insiders” are exactly where we are, inside the cone of silence huddled together in unawareness, exuding palpable excitement, and waiting for what will now be truly breaking news for all but a select few in Obama’s circle. Welcome, Villagers, to the land of the regular. I know it’s unfamiliar territory, but enjoy your stay. I know I certainly will.

I’ll bet. If there were any Obamamaniacs relying solely upon their text messages to find out who the Messiah’s veep would be, they were the last to know–and as Robert Stacy McCain noted:

Imagine the reactions of those poor saps getting their text messages: “WTF? Dude. Joe Biden?”

Bob Owens puts it this way:

It’s got to be disappointing when you discover that the candidate you helped elect into office lied to you. It must be worse to find out he’s lying to you, when he hasn’t even nailed down the nomination yet.

The anti-climactic feel of it all, a combination of a perfectly routine choice by a guy who was supposed to bring fresh bold unconventional outside the box thinking to presidential politics, coupled with more than a little techno-overreach by team Obama with the text gaffe is the real story.

Which is why it’s apparently not worth reporting by AP.