Politics and Press

The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities.

Press

Does the U.S. Even Have a Learning Curve?

By

In 1961, American intelligence (sic) determined that they could send some troops of unhappy Cuban immigrants onto the beaches of Cuba and defeat Fidel Castro’s revolution. Scotty Reston, Washington Editor of The NY Times knew the Bay of Pigs was imminent and held the story back for reasons of “national interest”. I watched him defend that decision some years later on PBS while his Times’ colleague Tom Wicker looked across the desk and said that if he had the story he should have reported it. Period. Turns out that then President Kennedy later agreed, having been led down the primrose path by the CIA.

In 1964 the President of the United States announced to the world that an American naval ship had been attacked by North Vietnamese ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. It led to Congress giving the President the power to send American troops in great numbers to fight in a War that killed over 50,000 of them not to mention the million + Vietnamese killed. It was, as it turned out, a lie. The attack never happened and the Defense Department worked with President Johnson to provide the political rationale for our entry to what was a stupid, mindless war, and of course finally simply tragic. The American press pretty much accepted the government’s story and did absolutely no due diligence – unless you were reading the Nation, or similar serious but small publications. Until the Pentagon papers were finally released surreptitiously by The NY Times and Washington Post.

In 2003 the President of the United States announced to the world that America was at risk of an attack with weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The country was upset and confused after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center so the time was ripe for another war to get started with support from a supine press and a thoughtless American populace. It too worked – in we went and some thousands of American deaths and millions of Iraqi deaths later we were left with an ongoing horror show of our own making. While it may be unfair to pick on The NY Times, their coverage was a disaster with Judith Miller leading the way. Our current National Security Advisor John Bolton was a huge fan of that adventure.

The United States has a history of using the press to present its case and the press has a history of being so used. It is important to remember this as we are told that Iran is making trouble that could lead to a war that would make the Iraq fiasco look like a Disney light comedy. The press must be held to a high standard of factual reporting and we cannot and should not just automatically believe everything the government tells us – especially a government led by a lie-addicted president. And we might also want to calibrate cost benefit. In Vietnam we lost 50000+ American lives and the return on that investment was some good Bahn Mi sandwich shops in America. In Iraq the cost was about 4000 American lives and a national recession that ruined millions of families’ finances. The return on that investment was – well we actually don’t have a return yet. As for the Bay of Pigs? Some of the consequences of that are hidden beneath the Warren Commission but include an assassinated President, an increased cost of rum, a new radio station out of Miami, Radio Marti, and a lively Cuban American scene in Miami.

President Trump started this latest crisis by walking away from a treaty that denuclearized Iran. He walked away because his predecessor, Obama, did the treaty. There is no other rational reason. So we broke a treaty we had signed and now the Iranians are saying they will stop adhering to their part of it and why should they? So of course now having destroyed the agreement we are saying that how dare they go back to building nuclear capability. I mean – hello – anyone in there? Are we all to be so stupid? And where is the press? Much of it is pandering to Trump’s tale that Iran is breaking the treaty that we already broke. Cannot make this stuff up – country is nuts if we let our government get away with it and start a crazy war with Iran. We are 17 years in Afghanistan, 15 years in Iraq, have already given up in Syria, are in Yemen by proxy and losing. When will we ever learn?

We don’t know what the costs of an Iran adventure would be but I suggest we give Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton uniforms and send them in first. And how about Cadet Bonespur? Then our cost would be minimal and even maybe a benefit.

Trump Threatens N. Korea with “Fire and Fury”

By

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States, They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” ,President Trump

Several years ago (December 2010) this blog had a piece on the challenge of dealing with North Korea; today’s comments by Trump are evidence that little has changed.

Understanding North Korea’s behavior should not be that tough in the context of America’s historical interventions in countries around the world, frequently predicated on a hypocritical desire for regime change in countries identified as “undemocratic”. When Iran democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh Prime Minister of Iran in 1951 we engineered his overthrow in 1953, installed the Shah and returned oil production to British Petroleum. In Chile we engineered the overthrow of democratically elected President Allende on 9/11 1973; he subsequently committed suicide. During Reagan’s presidency the US sold weapons to Iran so money could be passed on to the Nicaraguan contras to facilitate the overthrow of the Sandinista government. George W. Bush’s administration identified an “Axis of Evil” consisting of N. Korea, Iraq and Iran. It invaded Iraq, killed its leader, left the country in ruins and helped create ISIS. The US led NATO against Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi with an invasion of Libya, killed Gadaffi and left the country in ruins as another base for ISIS. The list of countries the US has messed around in includes Syria, earlier ventures in support of Saddam in Iraq against the Kurds and Iran, and of course Vietnam and Cambodia, Indonesia, Grenada, Lebanon, etc. The leaders of North Korea are not stupid or irrational. They have seen what we do and know that if the US is interested in regime change, a beefed up military is a good idea. And what better beefed up military than one with nuclear arms? We are – as a country – complicit in creating our own international problems.

Trump talks the talk but has never walked the walk and we can only hope he doesn’t start now with North Korea. The lack of realistic military options, the dismal history of diplomacy and the failure of both the United States and North Korea to honor previous agreements are not reasons for hope.

Bilateral, direct negotiations between the U.S. And N. Korea have been elusive, largely because U.S neocons argue that direct negotiations would be viewed as “rewarding” N. Korea for its bad behavior. This is not a nuanced understanding of adult human behavior. While there have been the occasional suggestions of possible direct negotiations (most recently by Secretary of State Tillerson) they have always been contingent on North Korea giving something up before the US can sit with them, like a poker player demanding that everyone show him their cards before he decides to bet. This has not and will not work.

The current gambit is to suggest that China solve the problem by joining in strong international sanctions and refusing economic activity with N. Korea. Successful sanctions would likely lead to a flood of Korean refugees into China which is not acceptable to China; in addition, the slim possibility of a unified Korea would produce a different kind of threat to China. Basically, China has its own interests and they are different from ours and Trump can’t tweet himself out of that reality.

For decades Americans have been presented a picture of the N. Korean leadership as semi-deranged but they behave in their own interest not ours and are not all that different from American leadership. President Trump’s childish playground rants are not all that different from Kim Jong-un’s and just about as helpful. The N. Koreans are committed to maintaining their regime; if we act militarily to dislodge them thousands of South Koreans will die along with some number of American military stationed in S. Korea.

Whatever window of opportunity existed for a diplomatic agreement to limit N. Korean nuclear development seems likely closed. So in a nuclear world we have Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump screaming threats at each other. This is likely not to end well for anyone, including and especially our Asian allies, unless wiser and cooler heads are able to influence the future while recognizing the limits of American power and the consequences of its misuse.

It might mean a future based on fear of mutual destruction as in the good old US-Soviet Cold War days of containment and threat of mutual destruction.

Threats to America’s Free Press

By

Democracy Dies in Darkness –Washington Post Motto

Throughout his Presidential campaign Trump attacked the American press with the notable exception of the unofficial Trump Fan Club: Fox News. But from the start it has been clear that Trump wants to keep the American people ignorant of much of what he actually does or has already done. So for example, early in his campaign he refused to provide press credentials to the Washington Post, apparently believing that would stop it from reporting on the shabbiness of his campaign rallies and the incendiary nonsense he used to fire up his dyspeptic voters. In hindsight a big mistake, given Post editor Martin Baron’s history with the Boston Globe, where he took down the Catholic Church in Boston for its history of sex abuse. Baron led that effort in the face of massive resistance by the institutional Church, a powerful player in Massachusetts politics. So, in the face of Trump’s attempt to muffle the Post, it has turned out to be a leader in investigating and reporting on the chaos and corruption that is the Trump White House.

But the battle to maintain respect for a free press in America continues in the face of ongoing charges of “fake news” from Trump, “alternative facts” from his staff, and total fabrications from Fox News and alt-right make-believe news organizations like Breitbart News. There are numerous examples of government attempts – many successful – to move government operations into the dark and those who treasure an open, accountable democracy clearly have enemies in high places. The shameless twisting of truth by Sean Spicer and Kelly Anne Conway have been on view for over four months with Spicer becoming a pathetic joke for Saturday Night Live and Conway quoted as saying she needs to take a shower after dealing with Trump. But while lying for the boss has historically been considered part of the game, other tactics aimed at hiding the truth are more insidious.

 You Want it Dark? I’ll Kill the Flame.— Leonard Cohen

While Cohen was speaking of darker things than managing the news, the quote is an appropriate metaphor for Trump’s approach to the news: keep it in the dark, which they are trying to do in a variety of ways:

  • When Trump met with the Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the U.S. the American press was left outside while TASS, the official Russian News Agency was welcomed inside. On his current trip to the Middle East Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held a press conference for foreign press but forget to invite the American press.
  • Recently, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price appeared at an event in West Virginia and a reporter questioned him on details of the proposed Trumpcare bill. The reporter was blocked by police and then arrested.
  • Also, within the last week a reporter from C Q Roll Call was manhandled by FCC security guards when attempting to direct a question to an FCC Commissioner in a public hearing. The reporter was then thrown out of the room.
  • Trump’s Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, admitted in an interview that Trump is actively considering attempting to change U.S. libel laws, hoping to make it easier to silence the press.
  • Finally, in what is apparently representative of the President’s view of a free press, Trump has suggested that the FBI “should consider putting reporters in prison”, placing himself in the same camp as his new friend Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan. Over the past year+ Erdogan has jailed hundreds of journalists for reporting on Turkey’s human rights abuses as he moves Turkey from a secular democracy toward an Islamic near-theocracy. Not so strange bedfellows after all.

In this environment, it is imperative that the press refuse to back down and that the public support their efforts. There are plenty of examples of solid journalism that do not rely on daily attendance at the White House press briefings, where reporters are frequently treated as possible tools of the administration. In fact, the best journalism rarely comes out of the White House press briefings but rather from sources developed through hard work and asking the right questions to the right people. Democracy needs a hard working press that seeks the truth, verifies information from sources, builds a case and then informs the public of what the administration does – not what it says. And this is true for all administrations, not just the current one.

The Slow Death of Obamacare

By

“Trumpcare isn’t a replacement of the Affordable Care Act. It’s a transfer from the sick and poor to the rich and healthy.” – Robert Reich

The near death of Obamacare, long prayed for by Tea Partiers and Republicans arrived yesterday in the House of Representatives, but once again a stupid, useless bill from the Paul Ryan Chamber of Horrors will most likely suffer a slow, painful, disappearance in the Senate. As for Potentate Trump – this victory will not satisfy him, because nothing really satisfies him other than a standing ovation, which he will not get for this atrocity.

The Republican members of the House of Representatives voted yesterday for a bill that will make health insurance too expensive for those with pre-existing conditions and others including those older Americans not yet on Medicare, while lying about the actualities of the bill. This is obviously a time for the American press to do its job. Report the facts and tell the truth.

The plan is a classic trump “deal”, promise and renege. Trump’s history of not paying for services is well known and well reported. Bankruptcies and simply refusing to pay for services rendered is the playbook of a petty crook and thug – well documented – joined in this instance by Paul Ryan in applying this tried and true Trumpian approach to scamming people – this time out of their health care. In joining forces with Trump, Ryan is learning from the master scammer. A recent obvious example is Trump University which had to pay out $25 Million to scammed students.  There is a useful and entertaining catalog of his scandals and scams in a recent issue of the  Atlantic, which can be found here.

Here is how this scam works – for those with pre-existing conditions – like cancer, diabetes, birth defects, (even pregnancy!) etc. , insurance companies no longer would have to accept them at normal insurance costs, but the federal government would provide some financial assistance to those states that develop high risk pools to help cover the costs associated with insuring these people. There is absolutely no question that the amount of money in the bill is inadequate to cover such costs but those mythical “moderate” Republicans felt they had sufficient cover to vote for it.

In Republican America that is all that is required – sufficient cover to allow a vote that is inexcusably dishonest and venal. And what are the chances of states like Kansas and Wisconsin providing that kind of support? How about zero.

It is no longer a reasonable expectation that Republican Representatives will vote on reason, facts or the good of the country. But as long as the Senate avoids drinking the Kool Aid it remains a meaningless vote. Ryan’s crew may think they have fulfilled their wildest dreams, might need to change their pajamas, and can go home to their districts and boast that they voted to screw several million people out of health insurance. Witness the bizarre, obscene celebration at the White House yesterday afternoon.

This really is a time for the press to step up and explain to their readers/listeners just what it all means: That the losers are: the poor, the middle class, the old, Planned Parenthood, state governments, hospitals, medical professionals, people with pre-existing conditions, and veterans.

The winners include: the rich, who get a nearly $600 billion tax break by reducing healthcare taxes that primarily affect the wealthiest 10%, insurance companies who can now charge 5X for premiums for older people, and of course, Congressmen/women, who are exempt from the rules of the bill. A good analysis of the financial aspects of the bill is provided by Robert Reich.

Pressure now lies on the Senate to prove that America has not gone totally insane. I’m not recommending anyone bet on that; save your money for your increased healthcare costs.

WATERGATE REDUX

By

The NY Times reported yesterday that student journalists at Pittsburg, Kansas High School did a terrific job of investigative journalism for the High School’s newspaper, the Booster Redux. Seems the town of Pittsburg hired a new Principal for its High School and outlined her impressive credentials in introducing her to the town. Among her credentials: “diverse and extensive experience”, “chief executive of a consulting firm that advised companies on education”, and Master’s and PhD degrees in education from Corllins University as well as
a BA degree in Fine Arts from the University of Tulsa.

The student reporters set out to do a profile of their new Principal and the fun began. During a series of interviews the students began to suspect something was wrong when details in the interviews did not match her written record and led them to dig further. It turns out that the University of Tulsa does not award a BA in Fine Arts, Corllins University does not physically exist but will sell an advanced degree to all comers. Furthermore the Principal had been released from a teaching job in Dubai for unspecified reasons.

It is not surprising that a group of eager high school journalists could ferret out the information but it is somewhat surprising that the faculty advisor and Superintendent of Schools supported them and the process throughout, High school newspapers in America are frequently tightly controlled and censorship is common. But kudos to Pittsburg High School for providing an opportunity for their students to learn valuable lessons about the importance of a free press and how serious journalists can make a difference.

LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS JOURNALISTS

By

L

We are living at a time that might very well be when the American press discovers the way to overcome the nonsense and craziness that floods the internet and forces America to recognize that good journalism costs real money and requires real independence. The 2016 election illustrated what has happened with the turn away from paid news to free internet news – much of the latter turning out to have come to us via Russian and East European internet hacks aimed at the too susceptible Americans seeking easy negative answers and drinking the Kool Aid.

In 1973 I lived outside of Washington DC and worked in the city. It was a tedious bus ride made easier by the Washington Post and its daily dose of Watergate news. There is something about getting up in the morning to the news of the next step in the demise of a cheap, petty politician whose psychology placed him on the path to political demise that makes it easer to roll out of bed at 6 AM.

It was easy to despise Nixon for his shameless duplicity on Vietnam which had led to an additional 25000 American deaths along with literally countless deaths of Cambodians and Vietnamese in the name of my country. To see him go down was the pleasing result of the courage and commitment to truth of the mainstream American press. The fact that they let Henry Kissinger get away remains an unpleasant footnote but we took what we could get.

Now we have a similarly damaged president – psychologically unfit, intellectually deficient, and thoroughly dishonest – and the mainstream press is on the case. It is early to count on a particular ending but the signs are there. A Republican Congressman heading the Intelligence Committee and being slowly sucked into the morass of dishonesty that distinguishes a cover up of massive proportions. But there is a hope that we will see Trump get what he deserves – perhaps an early retirement, maybe even an impeachment, but minimally a recognition of what a waste he is as President. We shall see…

What many Americans have discovered is that there are serious journalists who work hard – with integrity – to bring to them the facts that add up to truth over time. So let’s recognize the work of the Washington Post, the New York Times, CBS News, even lately CNN, and those others who are out there giving us the raw data that wise people can use to understand what is being done to them under the guise of a phony American populism. These media outlets have each been criticized in tweets (tweets? Good God). Big American media does not typically pose a threat to power – but they did it in 1973 against a dishonest and mentally ill president and they are doing it again.

Trump has been critical of that part of the press that is doing its job and he has done everything he can to cow them. It is not working – he is being called on every falsehood, lie, fantasy that he calls up and it is the main stream, serious media that is doing it. As a newspaper junkie it is fun to watch it unfold and to put my money on the press to win this one as they did in 1973. It was essential for the truth to be told in 1973; it is as essential now when there are fantasists, crazy conspiracists and just plain liars out there trying to persuade us that facts don’t matter, that science is irrelevant, that kleptocracy is the way to go, that oligarchy is a good thing, that fascism is acceptable. Yes, a free press is our vaccination and our protection from the worst instincts of ourselves. Buy a newspaper.

TRUMP IN CONTEXT

By

“Liberalism itself has failed, and for a pretty good reason. It has been too often compromised by the people who represented it.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

So, is Donald Trump just the tip of the iceberg? Elections coming up in Europe might help tell us whether the age of Western liberal democracy is heading towards the exit.

While we rightly pay a lot of attention to the national disaster known as Trump it may be that he is only the first among many. The first clue that the West was heading into stormy weather was the UK’s Brexit vote – a vote that forced the Prime Minister out of office, replaced him with a pale imitation of Margaret Thatcher and has proven to be a first crack in the European Union. Then came Trump’s surprise win which has produced the beginnings of a major make-over of America’s economic and social reality, and not for the best.

But obsessing on Trump allows us to ignore a trend that has been developing for some time. Recent or upcoming elections in France, Hungary, Turkey, the Netherlands, and Poland have all indicated that Western liberalism is in decline. Poland now has a nationalist government with a shaky relationship to the EU; NATO member Turkey has effectively eliminated a free press while it heads toward a major policy conflict with the U.S. over Turkey’s unwillingness to accept American collaboration with Kurdish fighters in Syria; France is looking at a national election in which the National Front’s right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen is almost surely going to be one of the two finalists for President with a serious opportunity to win; The Netherlands’ parliamentary election this month is very possibly going to hand a victory to Geert Wilders’ extreme right-wing Freedom Party; and Hungary has already elected a Prime Minister who has turned the country against much of what have been Western values. Add to these, the strong arm tactics of Netanyahu in Israel, the rise of Russian influence in Serbia, and the rising risk to Merkel’s reign in Germany and we have the approach of a new world order.

There has been considerable press discussion of the role of Russia in all of this but the press might better put its efforts into exploring the failures of the West to develop and maintain working economies that provide jobs and benefits to restless, discouraged populations. There are exceptions – notably Germany and Canada – but by and large the West has produced an environment in which the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing, the opportunities for high quality lives have diminished for most people and economic growth is almost non-existent.

While Trump’s electoral victory no doubt hinged on many issues, in the states where it was decided, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin – the economy rose to the top. Whether Trump has the solution is highly questionable but a moot point. Probably he does not, but the Clinton campaign managed to largely ignore the issue and the people who felt it the most. This issue may also be playing out in France, the Netherlands, the UK and the rest of Western Europe. “It’s the economy, stupid” was the mantra that Bill Clinton ran on successfully in the 90’s; it may still reflect the dominant issue that affects the most people throughout the world and that determines the winners and losers of elections. So investment in defense grows while investment in production declines and the quality of the lives of the people our defenses protect remain in the background. Go figure.

IS THE AMERICAN PRESS UP TO THE CHALLENGE?

By

I take a grave view of the plight of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy.
A.J. Liebling

With the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President, the United States is now faced with the rather considerable task of making him appear to be the new normal. The press, in particular, will struggle with the task of being fair to him while not ignoring his past behaviors and the ongoing and emerging truths about his personal ethical background, business behaviors, and tendencies toward self-serving grandiose rhetoric in support of his own ego. And then, there are the lies. The traditional press tends to avoid calling politicians – especially presidents – liars but we seem to have entered a non traditional situation in which the President is not shading the facts but is rather ignoring them in order to manufacture new, “alternative facts”. This has led our two major newspapers – The NY Times and the Washington Post – to begin ongoing logs of Trump’s lies. There is no need to regurgitate the list of lies to date here – any sentient human can follow those in the daily press and even on major TV network news programs.

Of course there will always be outliers – Fox News, which is to be expected, and the NY Post which seems to be Trump’s personal choice as newspaper of record. And it has been disturbing to note the overly cautious approach of the PBS Newshour which so far has avoided calling out the Fabricator in Chief. But CNN has made an obvious commitment to fight back from Trump’s lies about its coverage of the U.S. intelligence agencies’ investigation of reports of Trump-Putin conspiracies. As for the Alt Right news outlets like Breitbart News, there is no reason to expect them to become honest now that their use of fake news has helped elect their man. And the White House news operation is for now led by Sean Spicer who almost immediately made a fool of himself while embarrassing an office that, under past Presidents has at least made a pretense of honesty and commitment to facts.

So, with a daily dose of bizarre tweets from Trump, a threat to close the White House to working press, a press spokesman committed to ignoring facts and manufacturing fantasies designed to protect his boss, a freeze on information flow from government agencies, a cast of lieutenants organized purposely to mislead and a public not always inclined to do the work of separating fact from fiction, the press has a major challenge.

If the past can be trusted as a clue to the future we can expect the Washington Post to continue to provide leadership in providing tough, fact-based journalism that has been their hallmark during the campaign. The NY Times can be predicted to be tough but possibly somewhat less inclined to do the kind of hard reporting that has characterized the Post under Managing Editor Marty Baron. Several other papers can be counted on for solid work, among them the LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe and the McCatchy papers.

Editorials and op ed pieces will continue to cover a range of opinion which is appropriate. But it is up to the reader(s) to assess these pieces with an eye to the background of the authors. For an obvious example, if Newt Gingrich offers his wisdom it is safe to assume that it will be self-serving, pompous blather. We are all left with the need to remember, “reader beware” and to actually think about what it is we are reading, from whence it comes and whether it has a basis in fact. This is not always easy, but newspapers have a record and while all have made mistakes in the past (see Judith Miller on Iraq War in the Times) all have an historic record that provides a basis on which to form a judgment. So fasten your seat belts and get ready for one scary ride.

Matt Lauer’s Gift to America’s Press and Electorate

By

Last Wednesday night NBC’s Matt Lauer hosted what was to be the first serious discussion of security issues by candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. By all counts the evening was a disaster for Lauer. With each candidate appearing – separately – for 25 minutes Lauer managed to spend almost half of Clinton’s time on repeated questions about her email server while Secretary of State. It was as if Reince Priebus had written the script. Lauer then got to some of the real issues but, having wasted half the allotted time on the email nonissue, was constantly interrupting Clinton and telling her to hurry it along while she attempted to provide rational, specific answers. It was embarrassingly unprofessional, useless to potential voters and an insult to the viewers.

Lauer followed with a series of questions to Trump that included no followup, no corrections of obvious lies, and no attempts to get him to actually address issues on which Clinton had provided detailed answers. Whether you agreed with Clinton you at least knew where she stood. Trump was even allowed to get away with the old “secret plan” trick that Nixon used to avoid saying what he intended in Vietnam (a plan that turned out to cost an additional 20,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Asian lives – in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia).

Lauer’s gift to America arrived the next day. It began with an editorial in the Washington Post that ridiculed Lauer’s performances and called out the Post’s rivals in the press for their weak, even cowardly, coverage of the Trump campaign as well as their mindless focus on the nonissue of Clinton’s email server. As Charles Pierce has pointed out on his Daily Politics Blog for Esquire, while the Post’s editorial did not mention names, certainly the New York Times comes to mind. The Times’ editorial stance against Trump has been solid while its reporting has harped on the same litany of non- and phony issues that has kept cable news and talk radio twisting reality to its listeners’ interests.

Others have followed. Andrew Bacevich in an op ed in the Boston Globe, late night TV hosts joking about it, social media full of viewers’ rants, NBC executives reported by CNN to have said his performance was “a disaster” and the Chairman of NBC News felt compelled to defend Lauer in an internal memo released to the LA times

The Washington Post was singled out by Trump during the primaries and its reporters were no longer allowed access to the campaign. In response, the Post did what it does best: continued to report the news as it sees it, much as it did during Watergate. The Managing Editor of the Post is Marty Baron who came to the Boston Globe and took on the Catholic Church over its record of child abuse, against the advice of some who feared reprisals by the Church. We know how that worked out

So, Lauer’s gift has been to force some part of the press to look at itself and consider its own performance. Whether it is a gift that keeps on giving remains to be seen, but the evidence will be there for all to see. Will the mainstream press give priority to major issues and stop harping on fundamentally meaningless issues like Clinton’s personal emails? Will it not be bullied by Trump’s arrogant behavior and demand actual answers to questions about meaningful policy issues? Will it push back on Trump’s comments about Vladimir Putin and report the reality of Putin’s behavior and its risk to the U.S. and its allies? And will the press stop catering to the American fringe by regurgitating right wing fantasies on Vince Foster’s death, Whitewater, Clinton’s personal emails and President Obama’s birthplace?

Hillary Clinton is by no means a perfect candidate. But the press owes us its best efforts to treat her fairly by seeking from both candidates answers to the serious questions we face. Anything short of that is a dereliction of duty,

TRUMP: THE CANARY IN THE COAL MINE

By

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,…
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity……….WB Yeats

It is simple to blame Donald Trump for the ugliness, banality and venality of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. But he can also be viewed as the proverbial canary in the coal mine. There is clearly a large amount of fear, frustration and anger in America and Trump may merely be its visible representation. While there is considerable angst over the possibility of Trump becoming president, it is worthwhile to look beyond him to the people that have enabled him to occupy such a prominent position. These include those who voted for him in primaries, but also the press for not treating his candidacy seriously, and for a political party that has in general lost its bearings.

The Republican Party has, since the Bill Clinton years, become an obstructionist institution dedicated to pandering to the basest instincts of it’s least rational members. The election and reelection of President Obama has intensified their commitment to avoid all attempts at actually governing, including the simple activity of holding hearings on a Supreme Court nominee. They managed to produce a primary election season of unrelenting nonsense and stupidity. The list of candidates is mind numbing in its lack of talent, intellectual capacity and fundamental honesty. They fooled no one and are now left holding the bag called Trump.

But Trump, as ugly and mean-spirited a candidate as we have seen since George Wallace, can be seen as a warning to the country and its putative leaders that much of the country’s rot has settled into that portion of a population that has identified with Trump’s nativist view of America’s place in the world. A world in which foreigners are threats, Muslims are all potential terrorists, women are only sometimes useful tools, and what is needed are simple-minded solutions, implemented by a proto-fascist leader.

While this environment was largely created by the Republican Party some responsibility can be shared by Democrats who participated in relaxing the rules regulating banking and financial institutions, in waging useless and stupid wars from Vietnam to Iraq, and institutionalizing unfairness in the economy. But regardless of how we parcel out the blame it is clear that the United States is facing a serious, long-term threat that is largely self-generated by rancid politics, a weak media, and an uninformed populace.

Many Americans were seriously injured by the 2007-2009 recession brought on by rapacious financial institutions and inadequately addressed by the government. Many Americans have had to learn – or relearn – that American military power can be misused, costly and with long term negative consequences. Many Americans have become scared of terrorism that since 9-11 2001, has cost fewer deaths in America than guns fired by toddlers. Many Americans have seen their jobs move to foreign countries with cheap labor while international companies pay little or no taxes in the U.S..

Given the failure of government to address America’s problems in a meaningful way it is less of a surprise that a campaign based on bigotry, ignorance, bombast and bullying could be successful. And given the nastiness of the Republican attacks on President Obama’s legitimacy it becomes understandable that a naive populace would gravitate to the man with the easy answers and the loud voice. Whether there are enough such voters in America is a question to be answered in November but regardless, the country has some very tough issues that will require more than a presidential election to begin to address.

The job of the canary in the coal mine is to die in order to alert miners of the existence of poisonous gases. Donald Trump’s job as a canary does not require his death. In fact he has done his job well enough already to alert much of the world of the existence of some poisonous gases in the United States. Now it’s time for the miners to begin the long task of digging themselves out. Denying Trump his ultimate prize would be a good first step.