Politics and Press

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

Press

2009: The Summer of Hate

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Autumn has not come soon enough. The summer of 2009 was characterized by some of the ugliest and most stupid political nonsense that the country has ever had to put up with. Birthers question Obama’s citizenship and search for evidence of his secret African, Muslim birth certificate; Obama’s efforts to reshape a disastrously expensive and inadequate healthcare program has turned into accusations that he wishes to organize death panels to move the country toward forced government-run euthanasia; dumbbell radio has initiated rumors that Obama is plotting to put conservative, white voters in prisons, etc. ad nauseum.  Republican senators and congressmen are making careers out of outright lies and there are enough people looking for reasons to hate Obama that those lies find fertile ground. Former Governor Palin continues to shock us with her vapid stupidity and ugly posturing, Senator Grassley suggests that death panels might actually be in the wind, South Carolina gives us a Congressional mediocrity who shouts “you lie” at Obama and thousands of less than ordinary people march in Washington shouting stupidities and lies into the TV microphones. “Town Hall” meetings to discuss healthcare reform frequently included the sideshow of idiots with guns, roaring their disapproval of healthcare reform while screaming their rights to carry assault rifles to political rallies. What do we do with people who rant they want no government role in healthcare and in the next breath rave about keeping government’s hands off their Medicare? What can be said to people who in one breath call Obama  “Hitler” and in the next, “Stalin”? What can we make of Fox cable commentators that promote the lie that Obama  wants America to be a “socialist” country – or even a communist country? Or that Obama “hates white people”?

American politics has always had its nutcases but mostly they have been on the fringe and political parties have tolerated them while trying to maintain at least a moderately high road of discussion and dissent. This is no longer the case with Republican politicians milking the cow of hatred and fear to further their meager agendas and much of the press reporting their lies and fabrications as if they deserve equal time. The current healthcare debate is the focus of much of the ugliness and it seems increasingly likely that we will get a watered down mess of a bill that will fail to reduce costs and improve quality largely because of the stupidity of a small portion of the country, the cowardice and venality of politicians on both sides of the aisle, and the pathetic performance of a mainstream press that focused on process issues and largely avoided calling out the liars.

A more general question is why such ugliness? Has any president in memory been insulted, lied about, and threatened the way Obama has? There has always been a robust political discourse in America but the current atmosphere is different – and I join Maureen Dowd who in today’s NY Times calls it by its hidden name: racism.

Press Clips: The Professor, the Policeman, the President and the Press

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In case anyone was on Mars and missed it, the big story the past week was the arrest of African-American Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for “Disorderly Conduct” (that is defined as “whatever the police think it is”) when caught living in his own home. But that story only became the REALLY BIG one when President Obama opined in response to a press questioner that it appeared to him that the “police acted stupidly”. This has led to the press bombarding us with critiques of the president’s choice of words and lengthy displays of support for the country’s brave policemen. Only later did some of the press consider the realities of black men’s history with the police in this country and the press largely missed the point by focusing initially on the “acted stupidly” comment and then on the race issue – but with no real depth of understanding. Perhaps the most sensible comments were from Christopher Hitchens in the online journal, Slate, in which he reminded readers of the constitutional guarantee of a “man’s home as his castle”, that there is “no legal requirement to be polite in the defense of this right”, that police are not always drawn from the best and brightest (my paraphrase of his comments), and that “Gates should have taken his stand on the Bill of Rights and not on his epidermis or that of the arresting officer”

Read Hitchens’ full piece at this link.

Walter Cronkite and Intelligent TV Journalism, RIP

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On hearing that Cronkite had died almost my first thought was that we will never have another like him – honest, a real journalist, modest, – a guy who simply and effectively reported the actual news. Hard to know what he would have made of Sarah Palin, the Senate hearings on Judge Sotomayor, the death of Michael Jackson, or the meanderings of Governor Sanford. My hope and belief is that he would have nailed Palin as a fraud, spent 2 minutes on Michael Jackson, largely ignored the sins of Governor Sanford and castigated the old, white, Southern male Senators who embarrassed us throughout the Sotomayor hearings.

Iran and Mucho Macho Americano

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Whenever I forget how pitiful the American press has become I turn to PBS’s Lehrer Report knowing that Judy Woodruff is likely to remind me. While I largely avoided cable TV and network news talk shows during the Iran election fallout I had noted in the NY Times and Washington Post the comments of various Republican politicians to the effect that the president had not been “forceful” enough in his comments on the Iranian elections. (Much like foreign leaders had not been forceful enough in discussing the U.S. presidential election of 2000 when our Supreme Court handed the presidency to G. W. Bush, rather than bother to count the votes in Florida.) Comments came from the usual suspects, Senators McCain and Graham, Representatives Boehner and Kantor, Newt Gingrich, right-wing neocon columnists like George Will and Charles Krauthammer, and of course the usual blowhard media types on Fox TV and dumbbell radio.

Obama’s point – that it was strategically essential to avoid making the U.S. the outside force to be blamed for the demonstrations – was lost on these political hacks and we were treated to the predictable displays of American artificial testosterone. Virtually every credible Iran analyst supported Obama’s approach and assessed it as correct, as did Indiana Republican Senator Lugar – one of a diminishing number of Republican Senators with foreign policy bonafides.

Understanding a difficult, complex situation in Iran requires more effort than most Americans will give to it and unfortunately more effort than most of the American press will put into it. The attraction for simple-minded blowhards to spout meaningless slogans is too strong for a country that long ago decided to see all events through a strictly American prism. This is just the time for PBS to step up and provide the kind of background and intelligence needed to sort through the complexities. Lehrer and Woodruff gave us what they too often fall back on – an interview of two politicians (Senators Graham and Kerry) on opposite sides to argue about things that more often than not avoid any prospect of actually educating the viewer about anything other than where the two stand on whatever is defined as the issue. Woodruff’s interview served to carry the GOP’s water, asking in two or three different ways just why Obama did not speak out more strongly. Senator Graham was all over that while Senator Kerry did as well as could be expected to educate the viewers on some of the realities of the situation.

It is perhaps unfair to pick on Woodruff when so many of her colleagues in the press bow to the same gods of vacuity and simplicity (anyone who watched the Obama’s press conference can attest to that), but we used to expect more from PBS than mind-numbing, self-serving debates by politicians.

For anyone seeking an intelligent, instructional and nuanced view of the Iranian situation and Obama’s response to it, I recommend Terry Gross’s interview yesterday of Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Listen to it here.

JOURNALISM LITE: THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORPS

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“Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.” – Graham Greene

A friend recently recommended that I needed to watch one or two daily White House press briefings – something I tended to avoid during the Bush years. His suggestion ended up reinforcing my sense of journalism as a profession gone awry. While I have only been able to stomach one such briefing, I’ll have to return from time to time to see if the bar has been raised from the floor on which it currently resides.

The briefing I watched last week came the day that former Senator Daschle removed himself from consideration for Health and Human Services Secretary AND Health Czar in the White House. Since his removal was an accomplished fact and since everyone within 10,000 miles of Washington knew why, it seemed that the interesting related issues would be what next for health care in America, what did Daschle’s removal mean for that program and who might be named as a replacement? Right out of the box an enterprising reporter asked whether Daschle took himself out of the post or was forced out. Press Secretary Gibbs reiterated that it was Daschle’s decision. And maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t, but so what? The next fifteen minutes was consumed by a series of mindless repetitions of the exact same question in not very subtly different forms, everyone apparently hoping for the big scoop – that someone in the White House just might have told Daschle to quit. And each question got the exact same answer that Daschle had made the decision to quit. Obviously many of the press did not believe that and had to make it clear that they were all tough-minded reporters in search of a truth that Gibbs was sweeping under the rug and that actually was rather banal and meaningless.
This is merely one example; virtually the entire briefing was comprised of these and similar process questions – who did what to whom – assiduously avoiding the substance of any issue.

So it was no surprise to watch PBS Newshour last night and catch Judy Woodruff discussing the stimulus package with guest experts and again avoiding anything that might smack of substance. Her interest focused on why president Obama had to go on the road to campaign for the package. Again, everyone within 10,000 miles of Washington knows the answer to that one but does not know so much about the substance and content of the package itself, the alternatives offered by the Republicans and the relative merit of the two sides’ arguments. If they hoped to get to that via Woodruff they were disappointed. The one exception came from guest Ellen Fitzpatrick who went off course to remind Woodruff and the viewers that the $700Billion dollar TARP giveaway to bankers was done with Republican support under the Bush presidency and that now Republicans were basically being obstructionist while offering no ideas other than criticisms. But the threat that the program would veer dangerously into substance ended at that point.

We are poorly served by a press that frequently does not understand the fundamental issues, refuses to grapple with them in any substantial way and prefers to ask relatively meaningless process questions, either because they are not especially bright or because they are fundamentally lazy. Probably something of a mix.

Another Province Heard From on Palin

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Our leading source for innuendo, Fox News, is reporting that one Heather Mallick, analyst and columnist for the CBC has morphed into Canada’s left wing Ann Coulter. Writing about Senator McCain’s VP nominee Sarah Palin, Ms. Mallick has said in recent columns for the CBC and The Guardian the following nasty bits:

“A Mighty Wind blows through Republican convention…” noting that Republican VP nominee Sarah “…”added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn’t already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America’s name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right.”

“The semiotics are pure Palin: a sturdy body, clothes that are clinging yet boxy and a voice that could peel the plastic seal off your new microwave.”

“…red states vote Republican on social issues to give themselves the only self-esteem available to their broken, economically abused existence.”

“We share a 1,500-mile border with a frontier state full of drunks and crazy people, of the blight that cheap-built structures bring to a glorious landscape. … Alaska is our redneck cousin, our Yukon Territory forms a blessed buffer zone, and thank God he never visits. Alaska is the end of the line.”

And, et cetera. It is easy to dismiss Ms. Palin as not up to the job of Vice President without stooping to a level that diminishes the impact of the argument and anything that gives Fox News an opportunity to cry “foul” is a disservice to the real debate. Ms. Mallick provides a great example of smugness gone awry.

We leave it to our intrepid Canadian correspondents Bob and Doug MacKenzie to determine if Ms. Mallick is really Canadian?

Emergency Call for Palinectomy

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“Take Sarah Palin…… please.”
Henny Youngman (paraphrased)

On a fairly regular basis the American press loses its collective mind over some nonsense. The current nonsense is named Sarah Palin and it is time to put it where it belongs – in the comics page or the news of the absurd section. From the moment she was put on the GOP ticket it was obvious that she lacked any semblance of the intelligence, background and skill set needed to be Vice President, the proverbial heartbeat from the Presidency. Nothing that has happened since her nomination acceptance speech has changed that reality and yet we are now being pummeled with all kinds of analysis about whether Palin cleared a hurdle in the debate – a debate in which she distinguished herself by not answering the questions asked of her, by mimicking Senator McCain’s vacuous sarcasm, by making countless factual errors (lies?), by re-enacting her days as beauty queen contestant and by playing to whoever the hell is Joe Six-pack. She is Tracy Flick, the Reese Witherspoon character in “Election”.

I could go on, but it would be counter to my point. We have seen and heard more than enough of Palin –put us out of our misery; take her away. Please.

Hockey Mom Kneels at Feet of War Criminal

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If you put lipstick on Henry Kissinger he would still be a pig.

Sarah Palin has decided – or been ordered –to learn something about the world and who better to teach her than Henry Kissinger. He has been a lead player in almost every major American debacle since he leeched onto Richard Nixon in 1968.The record is one of stunning mistakes, arrogant denials and a supine press licking his backside.

So, Sarah Palin, hockey Mom, nutty evangelical, and would be Vice President went back to school today with a private tutor with the following qualifications:

– In 1970 Kissinger organized the assassination of Chilean General Rene Schneider to facilitate the removal (and death) of Chilean President Salvador Allende because apparently President Nixon did not want Allende to be president of Chile;

– Over 20,000 American soldiers died in Vietnam while Kissinger waited for a “decent interval” before calling it quits AFTER he had declared a “secret peace plan\” during the 1968 election campaign;

– Ordered secret and illegal bombing on Laos and Cambodia in 1969 for nor good purpose. The bombing led to an estimated 600,000 civilian deaths;

– In 1974 Kissinger worked with Turkey to invade Cyprus and assassinate Cypriot President Archbishop Makarios.

– Kissinger’s support of Chilean government terrorist organizations led to the assassination in Washington DC of Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier and American co-worker Ronni Moffitt in 1976;

– The Indonesian government launched its bloody invasion of Portuguese East Timor in December 1975 with the concurrence of President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It led to over 100,000 civilian deaths.

The list could go on, but what is truly amazing is that this tired, self-promoting criminal continues to be treated seriously and respectfully by the press. If you want a reason for the world’s distrust of America you could look no further than Henry Kissinger. And he is the man chosen to instruct the naïve, silly, empty vessel Sarah Palin. You could not make this up.

The Press Goes to the Races

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Watching the press deal with the Palin nomination has certainly had its moments. The McCain camp has backed much of the press into a corner as they try to figure out whether they are allowed to ask tough questions of a woman who presents herself as not yet tough enough to be left alone with the press until she has an opportunity to learn what it is that Vice Presidents actually do all day.

There is a lot going wrong with the McCain campaign with a chief economist for the campaign commenting that neither Palin nor McCain are competent enough to be a CEO of a major corporation and another one suggesting that computerphobic McCain invented the Blackberry, but when it comes to managing the press, they have learned a lot from McCain’s newly admitted mentor, George W. Bush.

Much of the “working press” really doesn’t work all that hard, finding it much easier to write about the horse race than any of the difficult and complex issues that they seem to understand no better than Palin understands them. So the focus remains on an issue like whether Palin will drain women voters from Obama – rather than on whether her views on religion, women and sex might actually be those of a conservative right wing extremist. Or they focus on her experience as mayor of a real but very small town and ignore her ignorance of the real very large world. When chastised for being too tough toward poor little Palin many back off and write about shooting moose and her eyeglasses, leather boots and manly hubby.  And when the good ones dig around and learn the truth about Palin they are characterized as being ungracious, unfair, or even worse – “liberal”.

There are many examples of this kind of stuff and it will get worse. The so-called Republican “base” screams at the media whenever they ask a tough question or suggest that Sarah Palin might be in over her head or that McCain might be a tad too old for the job. But they are just fine with the lies and fabrications thrown at the opponents. These are our religious Christian voters???

In case anyone actually believed that the media is “liberal” witness the move at MSNBC to remove Keith Olbermann and Chris Mathews from leadership positions in their campaign coverage in response to anger from the right over their strong liberal views on issues and candidates. In fact, in the great wasteland that is cable TV, they provided a healthy antidote to CNN’s tedious, pompous Wolf Blitzer and Fox News’ virulent right-wing analysis led by the likes of Karl Rove.  At least they remain on air however and available to those in need of relief. And Maureen Dowd is regaining her mojo and there will be reporters actually committing journalism out there. You just need to search them out and that takes work and time and a willingness and interest to do so. We can hope that enough voters will make that effort.

In other news, Governor Palin has anointed Katie Couric to be interviewer number two as she moves toward becoming a heartbeat away from the presidency, following Palin’s new best friend “Charlie” Gibson. That the press would allow themselves to be treated this way is a sad commentary on a media that once included the likes of Edward R. Murrow. They have redefined “groveling”.

Desperate Act of a Desperate Man

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John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for his Vice President candidate appears to be the first paragraph of his concession speech. There is simply no good reason to consider putting someone so shallow, so ignorant of foreign affairs, and so inexperienced in the world a heartbeat away from the presidency. And while the strategy is apparent it is an affront to American women to think they will vote along gynecological lines and not recognize the difference between Hillary Clinton and a self-described “hockey Mom” whose experience reads like that of some former Christian Girl Scout who was active in the PTA and who opposes the most basic of women’s rights. Simply put, it is an insulting- even dangerous – decision that ridicules McCain’s so-called expertise in national security matters.
As for the press and media, by and large they are behaving as expected. Fox news has anointed her as a “rising star” with one of their analysts saying she was very knowledgeable about international relations because she “lives near Russia”. The NY Times headlines read: “Choice of Palin is a Bold Move by McCain, With Risks” and, “Palin, an Outsider Who Charms”. The Washington Post chimed in: “With VP Pick, McCain Reclaims Maverick image”, and “The Battle for Women Begins”. The Boston Globe went with: “McCain Surprises with VP Pick” and, “Selection is a Bold, but Risky, Political Gamble”. The stakes are too high for such weak analysis.

None of this is funny. When Palin is measured against challenges like ending the Iraq War, dealing with Iran, working toward peace in the Middle East, addressing Russian petropolitics in the Caucuses and Central Asia, developing an effective relationship with an emerging government in Pakistan, and repairing America’s reputation in the world, she becomes the punchline in a bad joke. If the quality of a candidate’s judgment is a key factor in considering competence, McCain just gave the game away.

Game over.