The biggest load of BS I’ve heard since John Edwards explained that his wife’s cancer was in remission when he started up with his affair:
At the time, I wasn’t being truthful with myself. How could I be truthful with Katie Couric or CBS?
That’s A-Rod’s explanation of why he lied about taking steriods when asked point-blank by Katie Couric about it.
Slate’s Mickey Kaus and Troy Patterson sum up David Gregory’s presense as the new anchor of Meet the Press aptly.
Kaus:
Gregory seems not straightforwardly dull, but somehow goofily hollow.
It probably makes no difference to the show’s content, but the new face of Meet the Press wears a contented smirk.
[digg-reddit-me]Dear Ms. Tina Brown:
I just read Amy Siskind’s characteristically sharp blog post explaining why recent happenings in Obama-land demonstrate that we’re “back in 1950s.” Yes – Obama – by appointing women to three of his top national security posts – is demonstrating the kind of chauvinism that imbued the 1950s. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry Truman combined only had one woman serve in their cabinets in the 1950s – Oveta Culp Hobby. She was Eisenhower’s Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for two years. Barack Obama will nominate Hillary Clinton, a woman, to the most powerful cabinet position, Secretary of State; he will nominate Janet Napolitano, a woman, to be Secretary of Homeland Security; he will nominate Susan Rice, a woman, to be the Ambassador to the United Nations – and will raise the position back to cabinet-level. In contrast, the only woman of real influence in the Bush cabinet was Condoleeza Rice – as National Security Adviser and then Secretary of State. But Siskind values sheer numbers over influence and power it seems – as she praises Bush for having more female cabinet members than Obama (so far.) Bush appointed women to head departments dealing with environmental issues (Christie Todd Whitman and Gale Norton), agriculture (Ann Veneman), labor (wait – Bush had a Department of Labor? yes, and it has been led by Elaine Chao, a woman!), education (Margaret Spellings), and transportation (Mary Peters.) Of these departments, the only one Bush seemed to care for were the Interior (including the EPA) in which Bush-Cheney wanted obstructionist heads of the departments (which is why Whitman soon left). Obama has yet to announce his appointments to these positions in which Bush had women appointed.
Yet another indication that we are back in the 1950s is that prospective Treasury head Timothy Geithner does not want Sheila Blair to remain head of the FDIC. Siskind characteristically gets to the heart of the issue by ignoring issues altogether:
So now, Geithner wants to silence a woman that disagrees with him. Sound familiar?
Yes it does. I don’t know the reason why Geithner wants to replace Blair – but based on Siskind’s “analysis” it’s clear that it’s simple misogyny. At the same time, Siskind points out, a woman, Brooksley Born, warned Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Alan Greenspan about the dangers of derivatives. Siskind doesn’t need to explain what this implies. But I will: yes – men and women both warned of these dangers, and men and women ignored these warnings (in fairness, mainly men were in charge) – but what is significant – and like the 1950s – is that a woman was “ignored” by men. Just because Warren Buffet was also ignored by men when he called derivatives “weapons of mass financial destruction” doesn’t make the “silencing” of Born any less proof of sexism.
The final incident discussed by Siskind is the infamous assault on Hillary Clinton. Yes – it was only a cardboard cutout. But the fact that this was made of cardboard means that it could not give consent, making the groping non-consensual by definition. Siskind calls again for Favreau to be fired and for the “all boys club” atmosphere to be ended. She shows the photograph again – although this time blurring out the actual woman in the photograph of the “all boys club.”
Ms. Brown – I guess my point is: I too can make analogies to historical time periods that bear no relation to reality. Maybe I should be writing for the Daily Beast as well. Here’s a few sample headlines I’m working on:
And there are plenty more where these have come from. So hire me, please.
Respectfully,
Joe Campbell
</sarcasm>
P.S. Discussions of sexism and gender bias are ill-served by voices like Amy Siskind’s. I’m not trying to silence her. She can talk all she wants – and as long as she is provocative enough, the “Freak Show” that is our current media-political environment will pay attention to her. But the issues she claims to support are drowned in the idiocy of her commentary. Back to the 1950s? – c’mon. Fire someone for a Facebooked photograph? – let’s be serious. Has this woman seen the sexism and misogyny in fifties sitcoms or as portrayed in Mad Men?
On a technical note: It’s not clear to me that Favreau’s hand is actually on the place where Ms. Clinton’s cardboard breast would be. And he could be just as easily holding the cardboard cutout up as pretending to fondle it. It’s less fun to look at the photo that way – and with the booze and the other guy in the photo, the slightly scandalous version seems more interesting. But it just goes to show how ridiculous these puffed-up claims by Siskind and her like are – as they not only presume he is fondling the cardboard place where the breast would be, but that he is also pretending to assault the cutout.
I have to agree with Stanley over at 37Signals.
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It’s not news that Matt Drudge has always been very sympathetic to conservatives and the Republican party. He helped sell the Iraq war; he was part of the grand right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton; he campaigned enthusiastically for Bush against Gore and Kerry. But in the past month, Drudge seems to have lost the narrative and lost his touch.
Today, he jumps the shark with this ridiculous “headline” as he desperately attempts to make “news” that could shift the election.
In the beginning of this year, he seemed comfortable in his place driving the news media – demonstrating his eye for interesting stories that had been overlooked. He also seemed to be sympathetic to Obama.
The key thing that makes Drudge worth paying attention to is his eye for interesting and overlooked stories. It is based on that skill that he has gained such a following, especially among the media. He has demonstrated an eye for those details which drive campaign narratives, and although his right-wing leanings are well-known, he managed to keep his site from becoming pure propaganda.
Since September, Drudge hasn’t only been sympathetic to McCain – he seems to have lost his eye, as he promotes one story after another that lacks punch.
He seems to have lost it – and with this, he has jumped the shark.
The New York Times reported on the struggle Obama is facing trying to break through the media fog that has focused on the small daily controversies the McCain camp keeps feeding the press. From Lipstick on a Pig to questions of patriotism and the never used Logan Act, this is the McCain camp’s deliberate strategy – distract and hope that by the time people start paying attention to the issues, it will be too late.
Given the financial crisis unfolding, and in an attempt to break through this fog, Obama released this simple ad – just two minutes of Obama speaking to the camera.
The Plan he asks you to check out is here.
Excerpts from his original speech on the subject a year ago today is here.
His follow-up speech as the crisis began to deepen this March is here.
My summary of his broad economic agenda is here.
The New York Times’ attempt to understand the underpinning of “Obamanomics” is here.
Some lies being spread about Obama’s tax plan and economic issues are here. The ad McCain released echoing these lies is here.
Roger Simon at the Politico apologizes to Palin on behalf of the media:
On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry.
On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.
We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.
We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?
We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?
Bad questions. Bad media. Bad…
[W]e should have stuck to the press release stuff like how she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere (after she supported it).
[And w]e should never have strayed into the other stuff. Like when The Washington Post recently wrote: “Palin is under investigation by a bipartisan state legislative body. … Palin had promised to cooperate with the legislative inquiry, but this week she hired a lawyer to fight to move the case to the jurisdiction of the state personnel board, which Palin appoints.”
[digg-reddit-me]Many pundits and both campaigns have declared this the year of the independent voter ((It’s also the year of the Hillary voter, Reagan Democrats, and the libertarian voter.)) – and both presidential campaigns are making serious attempts to reach out to these unaffiliated voters. It is often noted that not all of these independent voters are created equal. They can be divided into three roughly described camps:
The character independents (hereinafter, just “independents”) supported McCain over Bush in 2000; and Obama over Clinton in 2008. In this election season, independents supported Obama over Clinton and his opponents and McCain over all of his Republican opponents, and in the polls so far, the independents are breaking evenly between Obama and McCain.
How is it that this group can be so evenly split – see-sawing this way and that – when the differences between the two candidates they are viewing are so stark?
I have a suspicion as to what’s going on here – as I am in many ways a character independent myself. My central idea is this: These independents are media creations – not media creations in the way that soccer moms and security moms were – stereotypes created to give flavor to election coverage – but creations of the media environment itself. Independent voters are individuals who have internalized the media’s approach to issues.
A while ago, I wrote a piece about a fundamental flaw in the mainstream media coverage of virtually every issue, every event, and every policy. While opinion columnists and the partisan press often take a side in reporting these issues – for example, “Global warming is real;” or “Obama is not a Muslim;” or “As far as we can tell, the Swift Boaters are just making stuff up” – the mainstream media will report both sides of each issue or policy or accusation. Within their piece, they might give slightly more credence to one point of view than another – and end the piece on a high note for one side or another – but they are generally careful to avoid taking sides, even when the facts support one side overwhelmingly.
The problem is that the mainstream media has adopted an understanding of fairness that treats competing claims as equally valid, irrespective of the opinion of the reporter, or even of the facts. ((This is demonstrated rather clearly in this piece in the Washington Post from 2004 that asserts that both Kerry’s account and the Swift Boaters’ accounts “contain significant flaws and factual errors” while only providing evidence to back up the flaws and errors in the Swift Boaters’ allegations. The main flaw in Kerry’s information is that he did not provide enough evidence to disprove the Swift Boaters, while the Swift Boaters also provided no evidence to prove their case. Thus, overall the piece portrays it as a wash.))
The mainstream press attempts to adapt every story into their he-said, she-said paradigm – rather than fulfilling their journalistic responsibility to attempt to write the first rough draft of history, however flawed it may be. They avoid the facts at hand and instead merely transcribe the competing allegations, careful not to let their own reporting interfere. This leads – for example – to 53% of stories in the mainstream press about global warming to question the basic premises of this theory, while within peer-reviewed scientific journals, 0% of stories call into question the basic premises. This disconnect between reality as understood by science and the reporting on the science is what has lead to a 15 year interim between the scientific consensus on global warming and the finally emerging political consensus. If the reporters covering this story had done their work properly, they could have called the global warming skeptics what they were – oil industry shills – instead of reporting on their work as independent and nearly as credible as the vast majority of scientists.
Most voters’ only contact with any presidential candidate is through the media – so it is only natural that the media substantially affects their choices. ((This goes for those whose main sources are partisan media as well.)) An independent-minded person viewing or reading media that presents every issue as he-said, she-said has to develop a method of resolving this conflict between the he’s and she’s. While a partisan will pick a team, and strongly tend to come down on the side of that team, an independent takes pride in seeing both sides of every issue – just as the media does. But while the media can avoid taking a side, an independent must – every two years or so – vote and make a choice. ((I don’t mean to suggest that independents don’t have strong opinions and preferences; rather, once they have resolved how to deal with the media’s framing, they often have very strong opinions.))
While the media is always able to find opposing sets of competing allegations, reality is not so simple. The media shouldn’t give equal time to claims by McCain that offshore drilling will reduce oil prices significantly and by Obama that it will not. They know one side is wrong and the other right. The media shouldn’t give equal time to scientists and skeptics about global warming. One side has evidence – the other side only has money. Since the right learned to manipulate the media by directly contradicting their opponents’ positions, no matter the facts, they have won election after election.
By distorting the news to fit into their paradigm, the media has created a class of voters who see both sides of every issue – even when the facts clearly favor one side. For the past ten years, as the media has been manipulated, so have they. And obvious policy choices and elections suddenly become competitive. This same pattern is emerging this year as the media treats Obama’s policies and McCain’s policies equally – even when one is reality-based and the other defined by political expediency. And so, independents are split equally so far in a year that should favor the Democrats.
But you can see that the Republicans are getting nervous – as the media finally began to cover the McCain campaign with the same intensity it has been using to cover Obama’s because of the Palin pick. Yesterday – all night – the Republicans attacked the media. They want to raise doubts in the minds of independents in case the media finally turns on them. In the end, it’s clear how the media will cover these attacks. They will get McCain operatives to give quotes bashing their reporting, and then they will get some reporters to comment on how they’re trying to be fair. And independents will see both sides.
Rachel Zoll, under the headline, “Pelosi gets unwanted lesson in Catholic theology” concludes with this scolding that seems directed only to the Democrats:
It is a complex discussion. The Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, has some advice for candidates who seek to join the debate: Stick to politics – and support programs that truly help reduce the number of abortions.
“It is a big mistake,” Reese said, “for politicians to talk theology.”
What I find amusing about this whole conclusion to Zoll’s article is that it makes exactly the point that Obama and Pelosi were trying to make. Obama said that deciding when human life begins was “above his pay grade” and Pelosi said that the issue was complicaed. They both wanted to avoided theological discussions. Now, Rev. Reese is scolding them for talking about theology – which is, clearly, exactly what both wanted to avoid – and is exactly what many on the right are explicitly trying to do.
[FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell at a Tech Policy Summit. Picture by TechPolicySummit used under a Creative Commons license.]
[digg-reddit-me]With some new information, I’m adding to the timeline I created to demonstrate the significance of FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell’s comments on net neutrality (which is also a useful link to check out if you’re unfamiliar with the Fairness Doctrine) a few days ago.
The situation:
The Politics:
Obama is in favor of net neutrality.
McCain thinks it’s all confusing ((His exact quote is: “I go back and forth on the issue.)) and claims he doesn’t know what his position is (though he has made definitive statements opposing it.)
The Democrats are generally in favor of net neutrality.
It has not been a big issue for Republicans, but a few have come out against it (see Ted Stevens.) The conservative base hates the Fairness Doctrine though with a passion.
Since the idea occured to them: Big internet companies want to charge more for customers to access certain internet sites, or to allow certain sites to have priority and to slow down others, and in general to assert control over internet content.
October 2007: The Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank funded by companies opposed to net neutrality, publishes a report explaining that a good way to attack net neutrality is to call it “The Fairness Doctrine for the Internet (PDF).”
Spring 2008: Internet providers begin experiments with tiered pricing and other anti-net-neutrality practices.
After McCain secures Republican nomination: He begins to rake in large sums of money from AT&T, the US Telecom Association, Verizon, and other companies opposing net neutrality.
June 2008: A Republican Congressmen introduces a bill to outlaw the Fairness Doctrine (which has been illegal since the 1980s).
Later in June 2008: A conservative reporter publishes a story which alleges that Nancy Pelosi is considering reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.
August 12, 2008: FCC Commissioner, Robert McDowell, says that net neutrality could lead to the regulation of political speech on the internet, as if it’s the Fairness Doctrine for the internet.
The Drudge Report publicizes the speech with the scare headline:
FCC Commissioner: Return of 'Fairness Doctrine' Could Control Web Content...
Now: Conservative talk radio hosts are talking about how net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine for the internet. (I heard Steve Marlsburg, a bete noir of this blog, who is so old he probably still calls the internet the world wide web ranting on this subject on his show yesterday.) Conservative bloggers are jumping on the bandwagon.
Next week, McCain plans on releasing the details of his Technology Policy which is reported to be “market-oriented.”
Then for my pessimistic speculation…
These conservatives begin to raise the issue in attacks on Obama, liberals, etcetera. Progressives and liberals defend net neutrality.
And then: Independent-minded people and journalists who haven’t been paying attention to this issue finally notice now that conflicts are arising. Journalists cover the issue giving “both sides” and independents throw up their hands, unable to pick a side.
And: Conservatives mount a campaign attacking Democrats. Even those conservatives who support net neutrality are silent because they’re happy for any issue on which they can hit Democrats and which they can use to fund raise.
Finally, January 2009: After the election, Democrats attempt to pass net neutrality legislation. A grass-roots structure has been created to oppose them, and many Republicans have publicly committed to oppose it. An obvious policy choice that should have bipartisan support becomes a struggle to enact.
(On a hopeful note, I think this is a fight the Democrats and supporters of the internet can win.)
This is how public opinion is manipulated. This is how our political system is corrupted as the obvious and clear policy is shrouded in spin and the consensus is replaced by deliberate polarization.
…
Matt Stoller of OpenLeft is more sanguine about the effects of this campaign to tar net neutrality:
Now, the question is not substantive, it’s whether this campaign will work to persuade people that up is down, that black is white. I don’t think it will.
But what I think Stoller is missing is that this propaganda campaign does not seem directed to the public at large, but at conservative activists. The Fairness Doctrine is not something that gets the blood of the average American boiling. But it does evoke a Pavlovian response among conservative activists and right-wing radio listeners.
And although these groups are not large enough to force their way, they are large enough to derail the political conversation and make it harder to enact this obvious policy. Even if some do realize they are being manipulated, many are willing to go along with the party-line and take the necessary positions to gain power.
All of which points to one thing: without Barack Obama as president, net neutrality may not have the necessary support.
