What caused the meltdown of the banking system? Was it Texas-Hold'em Poker? According to those new puritans at New York magazine it was--gasp!--television! Worse, horror-of-horrors, it was cable television, and they want this sort of smut and financial pornography banished from the airways:
The real villains here, the truly bad seeds at the heart of this crisis, have gone unpunished thus far and are still in operation. They are Jeff Lewis and Ryan Brown of Bravo's Flipping Out, Armando and Veronica Montelongo of TLC's Flip This House, Kristen Kemp of TLC's The Property Ladder, Kendra Todd of HGTV's My House Is Worth WHAT?, and the TLC, Bravo, HGTV, and Fine Living networks in general. All of them encouraged people to take out massive loans in order to buy and renovate homes and sell them at a profit when, really, most people have terrible taste, and furthermore, are bad at laying tile. These shows are still on! WHY?But then, there are all sorts of reasons for those on the left to avoid examining some of these root causes:
Back in late December, we noted that the Connecticut Post refused to print emails from readers if they delved too heavily into a particular hometown topic:
"All letters are welcome. But there are code words hidden in some that are signals to stop paying close attention -- "Chris Dodd" and "Barney Frank."All of which points to a word that the New York Times simply can't bring itself to speak, Ed Morrissey writes:
The Times wants to sell Dodd as a victim of the "moneyed Washington subculture where powerful incumbents are invited to get something wholesale," but that's poppycock. The man who accepts a bribe is no more of a victim than the man who offers it. It takes both to create corruption, and it's hard to find a more bald example of it than this. Dodd oversaw Countrywide as part of his committee chairmanship and understood that when he accepted the two loans for below-market rates and no-points acceptance. Countrywide later went belly-up, costing the nation billions of dollars for its easy-terms lending practices, and Dodd has been among the voices blaming the collapse of the lending markets on poor oversight. Well, he ought to know that firsthand, oughtn't he?Exactly. As G.K. Chesterton noted a century ago, "It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem"--or where it began.There's more at stake in this refusal to acknowledge corruption, and we have seen it in Barack Obama's Cabinet appointments. He and Congress have excused wrongdoing for Tim Geithner that would likely have resulted in criminal prosecution for others because Geithner supposedly belongs to a rarified elite group of technocrats that the nation can't do without. That stands the rule of law on its head, and put Geithner, Dodd, and others like them beyond the same responsibilities as the rest of us plebes. Dodd, Geithner, and other DC insiders now get a pass from responsibility for their actions simply because of who they know.
Taking sweetheart deals from the industry Dodd oversaw is corruption, regardless of the circumstances. Refusing to pay taxes even after getting reimbursements from one's employer is tax evasion. When we start making up new names for old crimes based on the relative power of the person who committed them, we have ended the rule of law and created an aristocracy.
Candidate Jimmy Carter said yes on the campaign trail, but history remembers his actual presidential administration with much more of a gimlet eye. And President Obama is having more than a few Carteresque moments of his own.
Found via Steve Green's weekly roundup of Blogs at PJTV.com, Barbara Curtis writes:
On Tuesday, as press secretary Gibbs fielded questions from the press regarding Daschle's dropping out as HHS secretary, Obama and Michelle "escaped" to read a book to second graders at a DC public school:"Who is this guy? Where is the Barack Obama who charmed the country and challenged it to greatness?" is New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin's cri de coeur.There's certainly the irony that his own girls are going to the most elite school in DC while the Obamas grandstand among the common kids in a public school.
But ponder the significance of a man who spent only several months in the Senate and then campaigned for almost two years to get to the White House, who now spends two weeks flubbing administratively while entertaining lavishly, then together with his wife acts like it's such a terrible burden they have to "cut loose" and "break out."
And just imagine if Bush had done something similarly shallow in the midst of constantly crying "Crisis!" to the citizens of this country.
Over at his American Spectator blog, Robert Stacy McCain responds:
Campaigning is tough, but governing is infinitely harder. Remember when first Hillary Clinton, and then Republicans, tried to point out that Obama had no executive experience, had never really shown leadership in his legislative jobs, et cetera? Now his deficiencies are hurting him every day. The White House has many advantages, but it's not a very good place to hide.Orrin Judd looks into distance and observes: "Somewhere, a killer rabbit licks its chops."
As an adjunct to Kathy Shaidle's recent Examiner piece titled, "The Vietnam War: everything you know is wrong", Indy Jane and The People's Cube graphically illustrate what the New York Times would have looked liked in 1943 if it was Pinch Sulzberger running the show in 1943, and not his grandfather.
(And for some thoughts on how legacy mass journalism's collective tone changed dramatically during the course of Vietnam, ultimately becoming bifurcated from a wide swatch of its readers and country, follow the links here.)
Robert Stacy McCain and Donald Douglas weigh in on Judith Warner's New York Times-approved Freudian fantasies of a shack-up with Barack, or as Douglas calls it, the "Sexual Subtext in Obamessianism."
Update: The Skepticrats are appropriately skeptical about those seeking a Last Tango In Washington, and note that "It's worth checking out Gawker's post about this just for the illustration they use", which brings new meaning to the phrase "Unicorn Rider."
We'd get at least another four years of Clint Eastwood-inspired tough guy comparisons--and they were right!
If you enjoyed the recent "Picture Kill" edition of our Silicon Graffiti videoblog, which looked at a series of deliberately botched or manipulated stories by the MSM designed to drive a particular agenda or worldview, don't miss Kathy Shaidle's latest piece in the Examiner. Kathy sets the Wayback Machine and the B.S. detector (also known as the A.P. detector) to 1968 for part one of her series debunking the MSM myths of the Only War In History for the boomer era and their journalists.
"Did Saddam Hussein Bug Dan Rather Before the Iraq War?"
Join host Steve Green of VodkaPundit.com and myself for a troika of interviews with best-selling authors:
- Roger L. Simon, the CEO of Pajamas Media.com and PJTV.com, on his new book, which looks at forty years inside Hollywood, Blacklisting Myself.
- Bernard Goldberg, formerly of CBS, now with HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, and a frequent commentator on Fox News, for his look at A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media.
- And veteran talk radio host Hugh Hewitt provides a sneak preview of GOP 5.0.
Judith Warner, the author of a book titled Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety begins her op-ed in the New York Times, still, despite its anemic stock price, one of the most influential spokes in the legacy media, thusly:
The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president's health or jealous because of the cigarette.Who dreams of having the President of the United States in their shower while their spouse is yelling at him for smoking? Worse, who admits to this in public? Warner herself provides a clue, here:
"This is the first president I've known who looks, talks and acts like a peer," is how one Washington man explained it to me. "Notwithstanding his somewhat exotic life story, I feel like I understand what he's like and where he's coming from. And despite his incredible achievements, he still seems like a lot of people I know. If you stopped the clock in 2004, in fact, or maybe a couple of years earlier, he'd feel roughly like a peer in terms of accomplishments, too.Which means that if he had an (R) after his name instead of a (D) that Washington man would be calling him grossly unqualified for the White House, instead of admiring his rapid rise to power and vapid, chameleonic style.
More from the "Washington man" Warner quotes:
"Of course I know nobody with his political gifts, speaking skills and confidence, and he's also a gifted writer and thinker. But I feel like one or two different turns for Obama or me and he could have been someone my friends and I wouldn't think it extraordinary to have in our circle."Included in that category are people whose shame is so diminished, they begin op-eds in a newspaper read by millions with embarrassingly mawkish dreams of showering with the President of the United States while simultaneously reaming him out for having a Marlboro 100 in the house.Sometimes this sense of close identification turns a bit dark. There's a subcategory of people who feel that they really should have true intimacy with the Obamas.
Update: "Mind-sexing Obama??? File under Things I Could Happily Lived The Rest of My Life Without Thinking About."
That reporters would be threatened, and even physically roughed up on occasion--if not by the president himself, then by members of his cabinet--and they were right!
Amy Ridenour provides a case study of how the legacy media covers global warming:
When University of Washington Professor Eric Steig announced in a news conference and paper published in the January 22 edition of the journal Nature that he and several colleagues had removed one of many thorns in the sides of climate alarmists -- in this case, evidence that Antarctica is cooling -- he received extensive worldwide attention in the mainstream press.Of course, such biased "reporting" followed by much less visible retractions isn't just limited to global warming, but many other pet causes of the left--such as this media meme, to reference but one.But when a noteworthy error was found in Stieg's research less than two weeks after it's publication, of the mainstream press, only an opinion column in the London Telegraph and a blog associated with the Australian Herald Sun carried the news.
The Stieg paper's release was covered by 27 newspapers, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times, by CNN, by the Associated Press, by NPR and quite a few others (see reviews of the coverage at the end of this post).
After independent analyst Steve McIntyre discovered a noteworthy error in the data, and released his results on his influential blog Climate Audit beginning on February 1, based on a Nexis search I conducted February 6, none of these outlets chose to inform their readers.
Hey, somebody should do a video about this topic!
Peter Robinson writes, "Every so often a president finds himself standing completely exposed--naked, so to speak--before the political class." Reasonable people (if such a group can be found to debate President Bush's record) can disagree, but Robinson believes that President Bush was first caught with brass exposed in October 2005, when he nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court:
As she began making courtesy calls on members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, word began leaking from the offices of astonished senators that her purchase on even the most basic constitutional case law proved tenuous.In contrast, Robinson believes that President Obama's fallibility is being exposed much sooner in his administration's tenure:
Permit House Democrats to draft his stimulus legislation? What could Obama have been thinking? Only one answer fits: Obama wasn't thinking.In 2007 and 2008, Obama was given virtually no vetting by a media deep in the midst of a "slobbering love affair," to borrow from the title of Bernard Goldberg's latest book. (Incidentally, Bernie will be a guest on this week's PJM Political show tomorrow on Sirius-XM satellite radio.) He (Obama, not Goldberg) encouraged voters to view him a cipher that they could project onto any and all hopes they wanted. He frequently engaged in messianic rhetoric while campaigning, and seemed to encourage similar responses from his more rabid fans--certainly, he did nothing to tamp down such responses.After the Harriet Miers debacle, Bush quickly recovered the support of Washington Republicans. He nominated Samuel Alito in Miers' place and then returned to his other duties as chief executive. That was that. Nobody ever had Bush figured for a brilliant mind anyway.
In recovering from the stimulus debacle, Obama is unlikely to prove quite so lucky. A brilliant mind is exactly what Obama's supporters in Washington thought he had. Brilliance defined Obama. Brilliance is what Obama was all about. Now we know that he has already made some dumb mistakes.
The glee among Republicans right now is only to be expected. The long faces among Obama's startled supporters in Washington are a lot more telling.
Even when he won the election, and the media's comparisons to Lincoln, FDR, JFK, and other presidents venerated over decades or more of history continued, Obama consciously played into them, jetting back to Chicago and taking the train, a la Lincoln, to his inauguration.
What could go wrong once it became time for the least experienced executive in the nation's history to actually govern?
Samizdata.net notes:
In a recent New York Times column, Paul Krugman wrote about what he called the bad faith of the opponents of President Obama's economic stimulus plan. Krugman is apparently labouring under the view that his side has a monopoly of virtue in the current debate and that the Obama plan can not possibly be attacked on the merits.Apparently?
(HT: I/P)
"How do you turn a hearwarming tale into just another excuse to call conservatives heartless, mean ol' hatemongers? Just ask Jessica Heslam from the Boston Herald who, right in the first sentence of her story, decided it would be fun to take a slap shot at a conservative that helped save a woman's life, this week."
"NBC's Ann Curry Gushes: 'Who Are We Going to Be' Because of Obamas?"
CBS's Katie Couric scolds the New York Post for running, as she sees it and decrees it, "an unfair picture" on their cover of President Obama.
"If [ABC thinks] they are bleeding audience numbers now, what do they suppose will be their audience's reaction when it is established that their chief Washington correspondent continues to be a key strategist for the Democratic Party?"
"Reporter Escorted From White House After Seeking Obama Autograph."
President Obama: "I think it's fair to say that I don't always get my most favorable coverage on Fox, but I think that's part of how democracy is supposed to work. You know, we're not supposed to all be in lock step here..."
What is it with the New York Times' ads lately? Last month, Galley Slaves linked to their incredibly lame Bobos In Paradise On Park Ave. themed Web video ads, noted (accurately, I think) "Whatever was spent on this 'Conversations' project might as well have been flushed down a drain. Just ridiculous", and asked, "Do Newspapers Deserve to Die?"
Today, Steve Green looks at the Times' latest online ad featuring a glowing photo of The One Who Pinch Has Been Waiting For and asks:
Is it just me, or has the NYT ad department just given the President a ringing endorsement? It's one thing when the editorial page makes an endorsement, but a banner ad? Really?My favorite is the recent theme featuring the headline, "Subscribe To History," which has a remarkably ironic unintended subtext.
Liberal blogger describe liberal legacy media as racist--for asking the president a question when he visited the White House press room. ("You can't ask questions in here! This is the press room!" Ann Althouse quipped with Strangelovian satire immediately after the incident.)
Such blue-on-blue reactionary thinking was merely a matter of when, as it's far from the first time that left has formed its own circular firing squad on the issue of race.
Speaking of boomer-era flashbacks, Glenn Reynolds dubs this "Chris Dodd's Modified Limited Hangout"; Mark Tapscott writes that "There are two kinds of journalists in the world":
those who have been been given the idiot's treatment by public officials on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for public documents, and those who will be.How will Beltway journalists respond? Tapscott predicts that they'll happily play along:Believe me, I know because I didn't get inducted into the Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame for nothing (no, really, I am not making that up. Go here if you think only liberals get such honors.).
Now Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sen, Chris Dodd, D-CN, has pulled what has to be an all-time classic evasion stunt against journalists covering Congress and the economic crisis concerning his promise six months ago to make public all of the documents about his sweetheart loan deal with Countrywide Mortgage.
Dodd invited a select few Connecticut reporters to his office in Hartford Monday and gave them a few minutes to view - but not copy - a small selection of documents that he claims proves he did nothing wrong in accepting special treatment from Countrywide that saved him a reported $75,000 in refinancing a couple of loans worth a total of $800,000. The Wall Street Journal called it Dodd's "Peek-A-Boo Disclosure."
My guess is that they will do nothing because Dodd is a Democrat and he will be protected just as they have protected House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Clinton administration officials like former OMB Director Franklin Raines, and the many Democrat donors and operators like Mozilo who made millions through their associations with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They forced lenders to lend billions to unqualified buyers, shielded the process from public exposure and accountability and then cried "Wall Street greed" when their Ponzi scheme exploded and the economy tanked.In other words...
"Vietnam analogies can be tiresome", Evan Thomas writes, before attempting to yoke Newsweek's Man In The White House with the hoariest of all Vietnam cliches (hint, the first letter begins with "Q") that the New York Times is simultaneously attempting to apply as well.
And additionally, as Orrin Judd writes, if you're a liberal Beltway journalist, you don't let the fact that it's a rather sloppy history of the endgame in Vietnam in the first place stop you from using it in the first place.
Besides, Vietnam and Watergate are the two ends of the boomer axis upon which the legacy media rotates, as James Taranto wrote in 2005, in the midst of Newsweek's Koran-in-the-can debacle:
The obsession with Vietnam and Watergate is central to the alienation between the press and the people. After all, these were triumphs for the crusading press but tragedies for America. And the press's quest for more such triumphs--futile, so far, after more than 30 years--is what is behind the scandals at both Newsweek and CBS.Curious though, that such high boomer-era cliches linger on nearly 40 years after their initial debut, even when there's a president that the legacy media doesn't immediately wish to destroy.It's also behind the Valerie Plame kerfuffle, which hasn't been properly recognized as a journalistic scandal. The mainstream media accepted uncritically a Democratic partisan's unfounded allegations of criminal conduct within the Bush administration, suddenly discovering that there was no crime only when the ensuing special prosecutor investigation threatened to put two reporters behind bars. (See our February account of the New York Times' evolution on the subject.)
In response to the Koran-flushing debacle, Newsweek has acknowledged only technical problems with its reporting. This follows the pattern of CBS, which commissioned an "independent" report that allowed the network to claim it was free of political bias. In the Plame case, we don't know of any journalistic outfit that's admitted an error; the Times, for instance, still insists baselessly that Plame's "outing" was "an abuse of power."
The problem in all three cases is that news organizations were so zealous in their pursuit of the next quagmire or scandal that they forgot their first obligation, which is to tell the truth. Until those in the mainstream media are willing to acknowledge that it is this crusading impulse that has led them astray, we are unlikely to see the end of such journalistic scandals.
And who better to tell than Allahpundit (trackbacks be upon him) himself, linking to an NPR(!) Webpage: "Shhh: Al Qaeda leadership decimated, complete defeat foreseeable."
Matthew J. Darnell, who edits the "Shutdown Corner" football on Yahoo.com notes that "Matt Millen's NBC commentary comes with a warning label." He links to a Detroit Free-Press article that explains how local TV provided a little extra expository information about the former Detroit Lion during the Super Bowl pregame show:
Every time a certain familiar face showed up on camera Sunday during NBC's Super Bowl pregame show, Channel 4 ran a scroll at the bottom of the screen:You can see video of the label in the YouTube clip above. Of course, it's too bad the networks don't inform their viewers with similar warning labels applied to those working outside their sports divisions..."Matt Millen was president of the Lions for the worst eight-year run in the history of the NFL. Knowing his history with the team, is there a credibility issue as he now serves as an analyst for NBC Sports?..."Hilarious. But good for Channel 4, not toeing the company line as it sought online comments from viewers on Millen's gig. Or maybe it was just trying to distance itself from NBC's brilliant move.
During the Super Bowl, when Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald made a key play, NBC's cameras caught his father in the press booth, working the game for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. Papa Fitzgerald acted remarkably stoically to his son's on-the-field wizardry and Al Michaels quipped, (and I'm paraphrasing), "No cheering from the pressbox--that's the sign of a true journalist."
I don't know if anybody else interpreted it the same way, but to me, that was was a short sharp rebuke to just about everybody in NBC's news department in 2008.
But when old media wasn't overtly cheering, they kept rockin' in 2008, as one of Glenn Reynolds' readers notes:
What Katrina taught the media was that they could hurt Bush by lying. What 2008 taught them was that they could help Obama by not reporting at all. What will 2009 teach them? I shudder to think.Me too.
John Hinderaker adds:
A basic reality of our time is that our mass media are monolithic, and what they choose to report (or not report) depends on what fits the narrative they are pushing on the public. If our reporters and editors wanted to portray Obama as clueless and out of touch with ordinary Americans, he has given them ample opportunity to do so. But because they are Democrats and he is a Democrat, they have no desire to tell that story. So "let them eat steak" is not a theme you'll be seeing on the evening news.Lovers rarely kiss (up) and tell.
Update: "Sometimes the mask slips." And, as happens very occasionally, more than one mask slips.
"Once in a while there is a short piece spewed forth by some Old Media outlet or another that is so perfect as a primer of left-wing bias 101 that I just have to share it."
The L.A. Times is shedding jobs; it will soon have 300 fewer people employed not to publish the news.
Meanwhile, CNN isn't afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve, and its biases on its chest, though sadly, it doesn't appear that a "Wright-Free Zone" T-shirt is yet for sale.
Headline via the The Sundries Shack, which asks, "Has anyone seen FEMA lately?"
It seems we have people dying by the dozens in the midwest, where they've been freezing to death for a few days. Local officials are calling out the Federal government for its notable lack of response.But Bill Quick (found via Instapundit) believes that "'Where's FEMA?' is not the appropriate question":
The appropriate question is, "Where is the mainstream media, screaming in one united voice, that the absence of FEMA demonstrates the utter fecklessness and failure of the current President and all his policies?"This might be a good time for those who have pledged "to be a servant to my president" to head out there, rather than bitching about the contractors working next door. On the plus side though, to the best of my knowledge, no one on the left has actually been rooting for the snow and ice, unlike previous meteorological disasters:Plus his barely concealed racism, of course.
Well that's one way to stimulate the economy: sell lots and lots of Israeli and U.S. flags to the Middle East, where they'll have a remarkably short operational lifespan before replacements are needed.
In his review of Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man for the Claremont Institute, Jonah Goldberg summarized the New Dealers' attempt to deploy military methods and central planning to nationalize America's economy thusly:
When liberals speak of unity and hope, what they really mean is success. The 1930s and 1960s, unlike the '20s and '50s, were decades when liberals, broadly speaking, were "winning." When you hear liberals bemoaning divisiveness and insisting that we must "get beyond" "labels" and "ideological" differences, what they are really saying is that their opponents should shut up and get with the program. The New Deal's appeal lies in the fact that it was the first time when progressive social engineers had real power without the galvanizing dynamic of a war. The Brains Trusters had spent much of the 1920s complaining "we planned in war," i.e., during World War I; they insisted that they should be allowed to plan in peace as well. The Depression gave them their shot. And that in a nutshell is why supposedly empirically minded and "reality-based" liberals still genuflect to the myth of the New Deal. It is the ne plus ultra of liberal power. Defending the New Deal is the first requirement of liberal power-worship.Rusty Weiss spots a newspaper cartoonist so close and yet so far from this point, as he equates the passing of the so-called stimulus bill with the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima:
In one of the more insulting comparisons seen in recent memory, Albany Times Union editorial cartoonist John de Rosier does a major disservice to the honorable men who served during the Battle of Iwo Jima, by depicting recent efforts of Democrats to pass a non-stimulating 'economic stimulus plan' as equally heroic.Meanwhile, in a brief item on Jonah's own Liberal Fascism book, Frank Wilson, the book editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes:The cartoon shows Democrats in the role of the Marines featured in the Iwo Jima Memorial, a sculpture based on the famous photo by Joe Rosenthal entitled Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. The exception to this replication lies in the flag being raised - the Dem's are trying to hoist a 'bailout flag' as opposed to a flag of the United States.
If that weren't insulting enough, the cartoon also shows the Republican Party mascot, the elephant, trying desperately to pull the flag down.
In short, the Democrats are trying to save our nation by heroically raising up the Obama bailout flag, while the villainous Republicans are trying to destroy our nation by stopping their efforts.
I downloaded Goldberg's book on my Kindle because I was curious about a book that had made it on to the NYT best-seller list without ever being reviewing in the Times or most other papers and because I didn't want to pay the full price for what I suspected might be a screed. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a well-written historical survey of a set of ideas and how they grew. I was also surprised by what I learned about Mussolini.As I wrote in my own review of Jonah's book:
Mussolini similarly invented the word "totalitarianism" as a way to describe a cradle-to-grave socialism that would bind all aspects of his nation together. "Mussolini meant it to be appealing to people," Goldberg said. "It was a sales pitch for his kind of government. He meant it as we would use words like 'holistic' today, as sort of covering every aspect of life; everyone's going to be included, everyone's going to be part of the community. No child is going to be left behind. That was the meaning of totalitarianism in its original conception."Concurrently, the Philadelphia Inquirer seeks to get itself even deeper into bed with government, requesting a bailout from the state's Democratic governor. Needless to say, Il Duce would approve.
Related: The Illustrated Stimulus.
(Meanwhile, Greg Pollowitz explains how PETA played NBC.)
Steve Green writes, "They Don't Like Profits Anyway":
Via Melissa Clouthier comes this tasty little item from Gawker:Even as yet another east coast paper begs for a federal bailout, there's hope yet for another legacy media: "Snuggie Sales Prove TV isn't Dead"!...today the NYT runs an op-ed from Yale's hallowed money manager David Swensen, in which he recommends that newspapers turn themselves into non-profits with endowments (we agree, philosophically at least). "As long as newspapers remain for-profit enterprises, they will find no refuge from their financial problems." He's talking to you, NYT!The NYT is already headed towards zero profits for as far as the eye can see -- so why not make it official?
Well, that's a relief.
As we noted in February of 2003, during the Pleistocene era of our humble corner of cyberspace, CNN dusted off the Q-word three weeks before the liberation of Iraq began. This week, the New York Times similarly is "Fearing Another Quagmire in Afghanistan" a week after President Obama is in office.
As Jules Crittenden notes:
The real question raised by this article is why a major American newspaper ... currently bogged down in a considerable quagmire of its own ... would want to jump into the quagmire of quagmirism again. But it looks like we may be witnessing a fascinating evolution in which Obama, having adopted a number of key Bush war policies and practices, will be subjected to the same shoddy reporting practices.Fortunately, the Times has a legendary Pulitzer-winning journalist to airdrop into that far-off land.
(Incidentally, I wonder if the Age of Obama has caused the Times' publisher to revise this sage moment of '60s-minted Radical Chic philosophizing?)
Infidels Are Cool has the video of CNBC calling Rush to harangue him over his Wall Street Journal op-ed. It's been a while since I've watched the ostensibly business-oriented CNBC; when did their hosts start sounding like they're auditioning for the even further leftwing MSNBC?
Related: Roger Kimball suggests that maybe President Smoot "should listen to Rush Limbaugh after all."
Set the Wayback Machine for 1981, fire up your TRS-80 and experience the magical new world of...online news!
Much more retro-futurism here.
The New York Times: for show trials before they were for them. Maureen Dowd writes:
It's psychopathic to spend a million redoing your office when the folks outside it are losing jobs, homes, pensions and savings.Just as long as we start with the management who plowed this firm's stock price into the ground over the last five years.Thain should never rise above the level of stocking the money in A.T.M.'s again. Just think: This guy could well have been Treasury secretary if John McCain had won.
Bartiromo pressed: What was wrong with the office of his predecessor, Stanley O'Neal?
"Well -- his office was very different -- than -- the -- the general decor of -- Merrill's offices," Thain replied. "It really would have been -- very difficult -- for -- me to use it in the form that it was in."
Did it have a desk and a phone?
How are these ruthless, careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around (not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff?) -- and not as perps?
Bring on the shackles. Let the show trials begin.
Recently, Charles Johnson and his readers debated if CNN ran faked footage of an attempted resuscitation of a wounded young boy in a Gaza hospital, in a video supplied by a Palestinian stringer. CNN initially pulled their video, and a day later reinserted it into their lineup, claiming:
Responding to accusations that the resuscitation efforts of Mashharawi's brother appeared inauthentic, Martin said that, based on his years of reporting from Gaza, doctors often go through such efforts even with little hope that a patient can be saved.Charles Johnson responded:
If they really had "little hope" the patient could be saved, they'd be going all out with CPR, which means very vigorous chest compression (it's not unusual to break ribs if it's done right), and ventilation to oxygenate the blood--not delicately touching the boy's abdomen with the tips of their fingers as we see in the video clips.But if the jury is still out on that clip, let's take a video look at news from this decade that we know conclusively was botched, including:
- The New Republic's Danger Man, Scott Thomas Beauchamp.
- Reuters' Picture Kill fiasco.
- Former CNN chief Eason Jordan claimed US (and Israeli) troops targeted journalists For assassination--but was surprisingly cool about working with Saddam Hussein.
- Hurricane Katrina and the "Echo Chamber in the Superdome."
- Document Dan Rather.
- Jayson Blair.
- And the grandfather of 'em all: Walter "Boom Boom" Duranty.
Keep rockin'--and watch for cameos by Larry Kudlow, Hugh Hewitt, and John Hinderaker!
(If you missed any of the previous editions of Silicon Graffiti, click here and just keep scrolling.)
Update: Welcome readers (viewers?) from Little Green Footballs, VodkaPundit, the Brothers Judd and Danny Glover!
More: Welcome also readers from Pundits Insta and Gateway--and from Dr. Melissa Clouthier.
Gay Patriot writes, "Joy Behar Says Obama Too Perfect for Mockery":
On Sunday night, while doing my cardio, I caught what appeared to be rebroadcast of an episode of Larry King LIve. King asked The View's Joy Behar why comedians didn't make fun of the new president. The comedienne replied that this prez was just too perfect.*As a former employee of ABC said in 2007 on Joy's show:Can you imagine how the media would react if a conservative had chastised a comedian for making fun of former President George W. Bush because he was "too perfect"? A few google searches yielded no mainstream criticism of Miss Behar's panegyric to the president (not even on the right-maybe that's because no one else was watching?)
It is truly frightening that a comedian in a free society would think her president too perfect for mockery.
I'm saying that in America we are fed propaganda and if you want to know what's happening in the world go outside of the U.S. media because it's owned by four corporations one of them is this one. And you know what, go outside of the country to find out what's going on in our country because it's frightening. It's frightening.Come back Rosie--all is forgiven!
(H/T: IP)
James Taranto writes that already, the Obama administration has brought hope!--and change!--to one American institution: the press:
More than 144 hours into Barack Obama's presidency, the economy is still in recession, the country is still at war, and in many parts of the country it's still cold outside. Citizens are growing impatient: Wasn't President Obama supposed to bring change?Of course it was done quietly--the new White House can't figure out how to send email. (And while I'm enormously sympathetic to technology snafus, imagine how that story would be reported in the world ofYet one institution has changed dramatically, and in a very short time: the press. After spending the Bush years as a voice of opposition, American journalists have by and large turned on a dime and become cheerleaders for the man in power.
A case in point is the Associated Press, perhaps the nation's premier "straight news" outfit. During the Bush years, the AP introduced a new reportorial idiom called "accountability journalism," whose goal is "to report whether government officials are doing the job for which they were elected and keeping the promises they make." Turns out they weren't.
But the AP's new idiom, which we hereby name "pliability journalism," aims to show that everything is completely different from the bad old days of a week ago and before. A Saturday dispatch by Liz Sidoti, titled "Obama Breaks From Bush, Avoids Divisive Stands," shows how it works:
Barack Obama opened his presidency by breaking sharply from George W. Bush's unpopular administration, but he mostly avoided divisive partisan and ideological stands. He focused instead on fixing the economy, repairing a battered world image and cleaning up government.A central feature of pliability journalism is the bending of contrary facts to fit the narrative of change, hope and unity. Here's how Sidoti reshapes one such fact:So far, Obama's only real brush with issues that stoke partisan passions came when he revoked a ban on federal funding for international groups that provide or promote abortions. He did that quietly by issuing a memorandum late Friday afternoon. The move was expected; the issue has vacillated between Republican and Democratic presidents.So three days after taking office, Obama executed a 180-degree policy turn on the nation's most emotionally charged subject. That would seem to be the epitome of divisiveness. But no. It (1) has been "Obama's only real brush with issues that stoke partisan passions," (2) was "expected" and (3) was done "quietly."
Update: From the visual arts department of the pliability media, political cartoonists suddenly get cold feet at the prospect of satirizing the man who promised to raise the ocean levels and heal the entire planet.
When I was young and naive, I'd have guessed that the media didn't yet have the particulars of this story but were working hard to bring them out. Now I just assume that they know everything already but that the bombshell won't burst until the day after the midterms.And even then, it will time to play "Name That Party" if the politician in question has a D between his name and his home state's initials.
Keep rockin', MSM!
An ABC morning show host in 2007: American morale is at an all time low because 9/11 couldn't have happened without massive government help.
An ABC morning show host in 2009: "Consumer confidence has to rebound, which won't happen without massive government help."
Then: "Dissent is Patriotic."
Now: "Arguably treasonous."
Or as James Lileks wrote on election night:
I'm off to the Mall to sell razor blades so people can scrape off their "Question Authority" bumper stickers. Just remember: Dissent is still the highest form of patriotism. Except now it will be practiced by the lowest form of people.Including those who buy airtime by the gallon.
As Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters writes, Howard Kurtz, the legacy media's legacy media critic has a blinding flash of the obvious and renames MSNBC "The Obama Network":
In the '90s, many conservatives referred to CNN as "The Clinton News Network" due to its obvious biases towards the 42nd president.At one point on his Reliable Sources segment on CNN, Kurtz said, "Okay, well then I just want to be clear about it, because MSNBC denies that it has moved to the left, and I think the evidence is pretty strong."Years later, just days after the inauguration of the 44th president, one of that network's on-air hosts officially labeled MSNBC "The Obama Network."
You gotta love it.
They don't always deny it--it just depends on who's doing the asking.
(And it goes without saying that Kurtz's employers are both in the tank themselves.)
Sherman Frederick, the publisher of the Las Vegas Review Journal writes, "As our president said, it is time to grow up":
There is a growing faction of the American left that seeks revenge more than righteousness.He's absolutely right, but he lost me with that last sentence. Nip it in the bud? This isn't exactly a new development: Garofalo's shtick dates back to 2003. The origins of the black liberation theology that fuels Obama's former spiritual advisor date back to the 1960s, not coincidentally, the terrorist heyday of Bill Ayers and other paramilitary Obama supporters. Radical payback for opposing views isn't exactly new, either.Intolerant of dissenting views, this faction thinks as comedian Janeane Garofalo does that some members of the opposing political party should be "jailed." Terrorist acts (such as mailing envelopes of white power to Mormon temples because the gay marriage vote in California went the church's way) are seen by this faction as understandable and acts of legitimate political expression.
There is also an ugly racial component to it. We first saw it with Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who said, among other things, that white America had deliberately inflicted black Africa with AIDS.
When the Rev. Wright first hit the national stage, we hardly knew what to make of his irrational and separatist statements. Consequently, we pretty much ignored the substance of Wright's racially divisive rhetoric and focused on it as a day-to-day political story. It made us more comfortable, I think.
But in light of the things we saw at the inauguration, it may be time to revisit the dangers of intolerance and hate -- no matter the color of the person who makes them -- and nip this ugly mean streak in the bud.
Back in mid-2004 with an election year in full swing, Charles Krauthammer coined "the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release":
The loathing goes far beyond the politicians. Liberals as a body have gone quite around the twist. I count one all-star rock tour, three movies, four current theatrical productions and five best sellers (a full one-third of the New York Times list) variously devoted to ridiculing, denigrating, attacking and devaluing this president, this presidency and all who might, God knows why, support it.The media's pressure cooker would pop yet again the following year: as Mickey Kaus wrote at the time, Katrina allowed them to go nuclear on Bush without sounding unpatriotic, unlike their GWOT and Iraq-bashing coverage.How to explain? With apologies to Dr. Freud, I propose the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release.
The hostility, resentment, envy and disdain, all superheated in Florida, were not permitted their natural discharge. Came 9/11 and a lid was forced down. How can you seek revenge for a stolen election by a nitwit usurper when all of a sudden we are at war and the people, bless them, are rallying around the flag and hailing the commander in chief? With Bush riding high in the polls, with flags flying from pickup trucks (many of the flags, according to Howard Dean, Confederate), the president was untouchable.
The Democrats fell unnaturally silent. For two long, agonizing years, they had to stifle and suppress. It was the most serious case of repression since Freud's Anna O. went limp. The forced deference nearly killed them. And then, providentially, they were saved. The clouds parted and bad news rained down like manna: WMDs, Abu Ghraib, Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Joe Wilson and, most important, continued fighting in Iraq.
Stripped of his halo, the president's ratings went down. The spell was broken. He was finally once again human and vulnerable. With immense relief, the critics let loose.
The result has been volcanic. The subject of one prominent new novel is whether George W. Bush should be assassinated. This is all quite unhinged. Good God. What if Bush is re-elected? If they lose to him again, Democrats will need more than just consolation. They'll need therapy.
So this isn't exactly a new development in politics--this is merely SOP for the American left.
Back in July you'll recall that John McCain's campaign ran a YouTube video that dubbed Barack Obama "the biggest celebrity in the world" and compared the candidate (still in the middle of his first term in the Senate) to Paris Hilton.
You know you're over the target when you start receiving Good Morning America, and they and the rest of the enraptured legacy media were collectively infuriated by this ad:
Co-host Diane Sawyer hyperbolically derided the spot as a "political nuclear attack" and asserted that the campaign is taking "a strange new turn."And for a time it was. In mid-September, when McCain was still leading in some polls, Rich Lowry wrote:GMA news anchor Chris Cuomo seemed equally flummoxed. He opened the show by asserting, "Some odd campaign news today. There's a round of new campaign commercials that really have us scratching our heads here." A bewildered Sawyer agreed: "What sort of committee meeting do you have where you say, 'Let's use Britney!' 'Let's use Paris!' Yes, that'll be a blow!"
The enduring scandal of the McCain campaign is that it wants to win. The press had hoped for a harmless, nostalgic loser like Bob Dole in 1996. In a column excoriating Republicans for historically launching successful attacks against Democratic presidential candidates in August, Time columnist Joe Klein excepted Bob Dole -- not mentioning that Dole had been eviscerated by Clinton negative ads before August ever arrived.One of the reasons why the "Celebrity" ad so angered the MSM was that it spoke to the heart of Obama's appeal--it's not ideas and policy oriented, it's "largely aesthetic and personality-based", as Peter Wehner writes in an excellent article at Commentary. Read the whole thing, but the main thesis is here:The press turned on McCain with a vengeance as soon as he mocked Barack Obama as a celebrity. Its mood grew still more foul when the McCain campaign took offense at Obama's "lipstick on a pig" jab. "The media are getting mad," according to Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz. "Stop the madness," urged Time's Mark Halperin, exhorting his fellow journalists to fight back against the McCain campaign's manufactured outrage.
Obama's appeal, while widespread, is largely aesthetic and personality-based. This explains why a somewhat unsettling cult of personality has arisen around Obama. His appeal is not rooted in ideas or political philosophy or governing achievements; indeed, it is not grounded in any acts of governance. Yet some people already speak of him as a Lincolnian and Messiah-like figure.Which is my Michael Novak is speculating on "The Coming Fall"--when it will occur, and what might cause it.But precisely because this appeal is largely aesthetic rather than substantive, because it is not grounded in things deep or permanent, its durability is limited. Reality will intrude. A million watt smile, fashionable sunglasses, and a nice jump shot are fine - I wish I possessed each of them - but one can confidently assume that Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Hassan Nasrallah, and Hugo Chavez are immune to their charms. Inflation, deflation, and unemployment will not be determined by the eloquence of Obama's rhetoric, the dinners he attends, or the columnists and reporters he seduces.
My point is really a rather simple one: Obama will be judged by the outcome of events. The other things are fine -- but in the end, they are far less important, and in some cases they are evanescent. People magazine and the Style section of the Washington Post are fun, but they are not serious.
Right now Barack Obama, having been President for all of three days, appears to be sitting on top of the world. He is a bright, talented, and able man. But the world is an untidy and unpredictable place. Pakistan may convulse. Iran may well go nuclear on Obama's watch; if so, Saudi Arabia and Egypt might soon follow, and the most unstable region in the world would be home to several nuclear powers.
Hard decisions need to be made, often based on incomplete information and rapidly changing events. Inter-agency clashes will occur. People and agencies thought to be competent will prove to be unreliable. Intelligence agencies will not be able to tell the President all that he wishes. A massive federal bureaucracy, an emboldened Congress, and other nations will begin to assert themselves. The law of economics will not be suspended. Entitlement programs remain unreformed and therefore unsustainable. Wasteful programs will refuse to die. The deficit is exploding. People's expectations are soaring, and soon enough they will insist on results.
Barack Obama may or may not succeed as president; but whether he does or not, the things people are taken up with now will not be determinative. And if things get worse rather than better, if Obama appears overmatched by events, then what are viewed as strengths now will be seen as weaknesses later. The day's vanity will become the night's remorse.
Barack Obama is President of the United States, not a crown prince on a white horse. Fairy tales are fine; but fairy tales are childish things.
Or, great moments in live TV!
Scroll to about 1:55 into this clip (at least while it's still online) to hear a local television sex doctor completely stick her fist in her mouth, as Gawker.com writes:
Dr. Terri Orbuch, the "Love Doctor" on a Detroit news station was talking about how lovey-dovey they are and then completely stuck her fist in her mouth. She was trying to reference last June's infamous terrorist fist jab moment, shared between the then-candidate and his wife when he won the Democratic nomination.Unfortunately, thanks to the potent mixture of live TV and flop sweat, Orbuch blurted out this:
We also need to be affectionate, and you can see that with Barack and Michelle as well. They do a lot of a lot of touching, kissing, even fisting with one and other.As Gawker concludes:
See, if we weren't talking quite so much about how awesome it is that they like to touch and kiss each other, we would never have had the Presidential Fisting image seared into our brains. Thanks, Detroit!Heh.
As Glenn Reynolds wrote last week, "Remember, it's only McCarthyism if you disagree with the politics."
Mrs. George Stephanopoulos on the reaction of herself and her husband to Obama's inauguration.
As its former Ombudsman Daniel Okrent wrote in 2004, "Is the New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?"
Related: Has Caroline Kennedy gotten Pinch-ed? Don Surber thinks so!
(H/T: Radio Pundit.)
Not quite the same as the Chewbacca Defense, but worth reading nonetheless, as Robert Stacy McCain lists the sordid details of, as he calls him, "Mayor NAMBLA"--whose party affiliation dare not speak its name in the MSM.
in his last week in power, in order to ensure that the nation's capital actually survive the transition process, President Bush had declared DC a disaster area. Between the inclement weather, the lack of indoor plumbing, the minimum of functional outdoor plumbing, and hundreds of thousands of pop music-loving anti-war protesters, last Thursday, I wrote that the inauguration sounded like "a repeat of Woodstock, except with Geritol the drug of choice instead of LSD, and many fewer cool bands."
CNN's John Roberts, the architect of CNN's infamous "Wright-Free Zone" last year, agrees. As Newsbusters puts it, "CNN's John Roberts Dubs Inaugural Crowds 'Barack-stock'":
CNN's CAROL COSTELLO: You know, usually, you have a little bit of a problem getting people to agree to be on television, but not yesterday. People were begging to be on TV. They wanted their thoughts recorded. They were very much aware that history was being made, and they wanted to be a part of it in whatever way they could.Well far out, man! The lead act was pretty amazing, but did you catch Country Joe Biden And The Sea Kittens? Crosby, Stills And Rahm? Clinton Clearwater Revival? And how 'bout that oldies act, Thomas Jefferson Airplane!JOHN ROBERTS: It really was 'Barack-stock' -- peace, love, and history.
COSTELLO: It really was.
Seriously though, it did seem like there was plenty of featherweight pop culture and more than a few bad trips yesterday as well. Hopefully the administration will recover from their dalliance with nostalgie de la boue and actually govern like grownups. The legacy media's long strange acid trip of the last election cycle may have been too much for them to overcome, though.
Update: While CNN's Roberts declared yesterday to be "peace, love, and history", Michael Medved notes that "President Obama explicitly and forcefully distanced himself from the far-left 'peace activists' who provided his drive for the presidency with much of its initial energy and urgency."
When I read that the crowd today booed President Bush -- and then saw a video of it -- I thought of a quip my friend Eddie made, not long ago: "When the Left asks for a classless society, now I know what they mean."Meanwhile, Tom Brokaw has a classless moral inversion of his own, looking at the president who liberated Iraq from a would-be Stalin and quipping that his successor's inauguration "reminds me of the Velvet Revolution," which toppled the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
Just when you thought that media out of Gaza wasn't surreal enough, comes this moment, courtesy of Charles Johnson, who writes:
Al Arabiya reporter Hannan al-Masri is live on the air in Gaza when she is told that Hamas has just fired rockets from inside the Al Arabiya studio building, news which apparently strikes her as quite humorous.(Turn on closed captions for English subtitles.)
This clip casts a whole new light on the numerous American media scandals of the past decade. For example, give CBS credit--as bad as RatherGate was, they've never launched missiles off the roof of Black Rock at their competitors!
The Media Research Center is your one stop shop for Obama worshiping media clips. Savor the bias!
(No really--I'm just thrilled that even more legacy journalists are on the record regarding where they stand.)
Update: "Are They Writing for Tiger Beat or the New York Times?" Who can tell the two apart these days?
This doesn't happen often, so it's worth highlighting: Howard Kurtz, a good media critic except for his frequent see-no-liberals style, actually uses the L-word; this time in reference to weeklies such as Time and Newsweek, whose publication rate is rendered glacial by the speed of the Web.
(Incidentally, Kurtz has ties to both magazines' owners: Newsweek is owned by the Washington Post Company, which also publishes Kurtz) and Time is published by Time Warner Inc., which owns CNN, the network which airs Kurtz's weekly Reliable Sources segment.)
As Kurtz notes, in order to survive, the rival editors at both of these once prominent weeklies have been forced to turn out magazines "that are smaller, more serious, more opinionated and, though they are loath to admit it, more liberal":
When Rick Stengel joined Time in 1981, every story in progress filled a thick binder -- the reporter's version, the editor's rewritten version, the top editors' version, the fact-checked version -- that would be unimaginable in today's cut-to-the-bone corporate culture.And Kurtz lays out the survival plan later in the piece:Many of the recently laid-off staffers, Stengel says, "were people whose jobs really didn't exist any more."
When Jon Meacham joined Newsweek in 1995, "there was a phrase in the culture -- 'We need to get something in on X' -- that we never use anymore," he says. The days of a "newsmagazine of record," Meacham says, are long gone.
The rival editors are turning out weeklies that are smaller, more serious, more opinionated and, though they are loath to admit it, more liberal. They are pursuing a more elite audience, in print and on the Web, abandoning the old Henry Luce notion of catering to the masses. It is nothing less than a survival strategy.
One answer is to jettison the old straddle-the-center formula in which the newsweeklies spoke with an institutional voice rather than publish bylines. Each magazine's lead columnist -- Time's Joe Klein, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter -- is liberal. Newsweek has been running columns by Jacob Weisberg, the liberal editor of Slate, another Post Co. property. Newsweek also ran a controversial cover last month headlined "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage" -- "one of the last great civil rights issues," Meacham says. And its top writers appear regularly on liberal talk shows on MSNBC, with which it has a news partnership.Too bad you're not conscious that you've just triangulated your publication as establishment liberal."I'm not going to be silly about it," Meacham says. "A lot of people think we're left of center. I think it depends on the week and the issue. . . . I'm not ideologically driven by any means." He notes that Barack Obama's campaign limited cooperation with the magazine when Newsweek ran a cover photo of arugula last spring to symbolize his elitist image. Meacham himself wrote a post-election cover piece on why America is still a center-right nation.
Time ran a column last week by liberal academic Jeffrey Sachs titled "The Case for Bigger Government." This week's issue features Obama, Time's Person of the Year, yet again, and the cover headline "Great Expectations," plus a piece on his wife as "America's Next Top Model."
Stengel, who worked for Bill Bradley's Democratic presidential campaign, says he has tried conservative columnists -- including Bill Kristol, who left -- but has not come up with a star. "I get as many complaints from readers that we're too left as complaints that we're too right," he says. "I'm really conscious of trying to be fair and balanced."
Since the early days of this blog, I've been writing about an increasing number of legacy journalists willing to go on their record about their own, and their employers' biases. The sheer number who came out for Obama this year renders the idea of an "objective" media DOA, as many, such as Michael Malone and Victor Davis Hanson noted at the conclusion of the 2008 election. As does advertising such as this. (I can't wait to hear the response when the next GOP president asks CBS to reciprocate with his slogan on inauguration day.)
In 2006, Time magazine couldn't pick a Man of the Year, so they gave to me...and you...and everyone!
This year, virtually the entire legacy media was in the tank for President Elect Obama. And for the most part, they weren't afraid to let you know it, either explicitly as in the examples in the video and text in the second half of this post, or implicitly, by executing acrobatic stunts such as this.
Which is why the many readers of Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs blog gave the negative equivalent of Time magazine's Man of the Year Award--the Fiskie Award, named after the Walter Duranty of the 21st century--to the entire Mainstream Media.
Say, I wonder whom they'll nominate to collect their award?
Update: Gateway Pundit notes, "CNN Wants Obama's Inaugural Speech Carved in Marble... Even Before It's Delivered."
Mark Steyn writes, "The world is flattened":
After Thomas Friedman correlates (on the back of a napkin) freedom and the price of oil, Mr Taibbi correlates, rather more plausibly, happiness and the size of Valerie Bertinelli's ass (with accompanying graph).Valerie used to take life "One Day At A Time"; based on this headline at Power Line, I'd say Talibbi may have taken one life at the Times!
I've met Neo-Neocon in person a few times. Everyone knows she blogs anonymously (and man, is it hard talking to someone at a cocktail party when she holds an apple in front of her face the whole time), but who knew just how secret the life she was leading really was?
For you see, Neo-Neocon is also, simultaneously, Meryl Yourish at the same time. With the Bush administration concluding this week, this could be the final closely held American secret blown wide-open for the next four to eight years by the intrepid New York Times--not to mention its layers and layers of ace fact checkers and editors.
(H/T: Glenn Reynolds, who is also both Glenn Greenwald and Glenn Corbett. And maybe John Glenn, too. Who can say?)
Some thoughts on "the primal tribal imperative that underlies the relentless scapegoating of our 43rd president by his political adversaries" from Sisu Willis.
Related: On the other hand, "Welcome back from the Wilderness of Despair and Oppression, kids."
Selwyn Duke looks at the state of manufactured consent at the dawn of the Obama administration:
A common defense of error today is to say, with due indignation, "I have a right to my opinion!" Legally this is true, given that our First Amendment is extant. But as G.K. Chesterton once said, "Having the right to do something is not at all the same as being right in doing it." There is no moral right to an immoral opinion -- nor to one bred of emotionalism unconstrained by reason -- nor to a deceitful one.Read the whole thing.More than ever, Americans are realizing that this isn't a sentiment to which the mainstream media subscribes. In fact, with how it shamelessly carried water for Barack Obama during the election, 2008 has been dubbed "the year journalism died" (Sean Hannity is fond of this label). Yet, while such pronouncements make for compelling commentary, nothing could be further from the truth.
The reality is that journalism is alive and well -- outside the mainstream media. As for the latter's journalism, by the third millennium it was not only dead, not only laid to rest, but fossilized and buried under the stratum containing the hula hoop and pet rock. And it would take a Jurassic Park-like effort to reconstitute its DNA and resurrect the ancient beast. Thus, a more accurate statement about 2008 is: It was the year that many more illusions about the validity of mainstream journalism died. Let us now take a look at a media that has made malpractice an art.
"Leading climate expert Jim Hansen" (no relation, as far as we can tell, to a deceased but global warmingly remembered Muppet expert) believes "Barack Obama has only four years to save the world."
Of course he does. But we give Mr. Hanson bonus points for eschewing the leisurely and far overdone bourgeois pace of the ten year countdown--four isn't a number that's picked all that often from the proverbial hat for a doomsday countdown. But in any case, file this one way for election time in 2012 if--and we think the odds are somewhat reasonable here--Mr. Hanson is wrong.
In any case, no final countdown is complete without...
Some thoughts from, and about, Camile Paglia at Five Feet of Fury.
Jonah Goldberg spots Bill Moyers channeling Jimmy the Greek.
Jonah writes, "It's long past time they put Moyers out to pasture." Of course, if his statement goes down the memory hole, it wouldn't be the first time an unsavory element of Moyers is excused by the liberal establishment.
Maureen Dowd visits a Florida spa; unintentional hilarity ensues.
ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson is not happy that his audience, like Spinal Tap's, is becoming more selective:
ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson says his network needs to continue taking programming risks despite the economic downturn and plans a robust development slate for the fall.The article is titled, "McPherson Plans Robust Fall, Criticizes Nielsen." I swear at first glance, I read it as "McPherson Plans Robust Fail."McPherson told critics at the winter press tour that he plans to shoot 10 comedy and drama pilots for next season.
"We have to take swings at the plate, and we still have to be bold," he says, noting the shows that have worked best for the network such as "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" creatively broke new ground. "We want to grow our brand and built off the success we have. ... I don't want to do a total departure and do CBS-like shows."
The entertainment president also criticized Nielsen, saying the ratings measurement company contracted by networks doesn't take into account enough forms of audience viewing.
"We're talking about a different world now," says McPherson, whose network, like most broadcasters this season, has lost viewers.
Elsewhere in old media, "Scribes Guild Mourns Death of Elegant Calligraphy."
Update: Epic fail, new media style: "Hulu CEO: 'We screwed up royally.'"
Currently up on the Drudge Report is the headline, "BANK OWNED BY AMERICA; FEDS BECOME LARGEST SHAREHOLDER."
Talk about burying the lede--Drudge's headline is real story of this article from the New York Times' spinoff the International Herald Tribune. Which is why, naturally, it's buried five paragraphs in.
But as Frank Martin wrote last month:
This is how it ends. As of right now, the Senate IS the banking system. You just try prying the banking system from the hands of the Senate now. You want a loan? Sure, lets just check your voting record, lets see what kind of car you want to buy, oh darn its not a certified government "greenmobile", well sorry Mr. Consumer, we cant give you a loan for that new Toyota Dual Axle truck for your ranch, but how about a new Chevy Cobalt Hybrid? Sure thing. Sign right here Mr. Consumer.Or as I asked last month:SNAP! That's just how easy it is for you to find that you no longer have any economic choices. No banks - then no bank loans. No bank loans - then no economy. In point of fact, your entire economy is now run by just 100 people. 100 people that if most of us were in an elevator and any one of them got on, we would then get off and walk up the rest of the building rather than risk our well being by exposed to their close proximity.
And for some other video looks on how we got here, click here and here.
Update: Am I blue? You'll be, too:
Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital Blog mentions a new buzz word in energy policy discussions--blue jobs--jobs associated with oil and natural gas industries. The industry is pushing to keep the oil and natural gas energy relevant in America's discussion of energy policy to force policy makers to keep them in mind in the formulating of new policies and programs. The gas lobby wants to keep "blue jobs" in demand, jobs that total 5.8 million nationwide--in both direct and (sometimes very) indirect jobs that the gas lobby says are dependent on natural-gas related activities.In today's "POR economy" (centrally planned to perfection and/or perdition by the bluest of the Blue Staters, Pelosi, Obama, and Reid) aren't all jobs blue jobs?
"'Sometimes, Brian, I think we live in a parallel universe, where the media see the world one way when it's a Democrat in power and another way when a Republican is in power,' NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News Channel's Brian Kilmeade."
Much more here.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier takes the pulse of the MSM, with some assistance from Charlie Martin of Pajamas Media's "Edgelings" tech blog, and a little video help from your humble narrator himself.
And speaking of a troubled MSM, Newsbusters reports that the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has declared Chapter 11. Its best-known journalist in the new world of the Blogosphere and Satellite Radio directs us to this piece in the Minnesota Post for some additional details of the Strib's bankruptcy and what may be to come. (But not before including a sublime screen capture from A Night To Remember, taken at the apex between iceberg and eternity.)
Related: "Your MSM Moment of Zen."
Michael Calderone writes that there was cheering in Washington Post building at the president elect's arrival today--but heaven forfend, there's no reason to believe that any reporters cheered:
Obama arrived at the Washington Post headquarters today, as covered in priceless pool report by the New York Times Helene Cooper.Excuse me, there's no reason to think there were any reporters cheering? No, of course, not. None at all.After three and a half hours at his transition office, PEOTUS obama took another 6 minute ride through washington, arriving at 157 pm at the nondescript soviet-style building at 15th and L street that houses the washington post.Is Cooper bitter about the Times still not getting an interview?Around 100 people--Post reporters perhaps?--awaited PEOTUS's arrival, cheering and bobbing their coffee cups.
Pool is holding in a van outside, while Mr obama does his washington post interview, and will exercise enormous restraint by ending report before saying what really thinks about this turn of events.UPDATE: "There's no reason to think there were any reporters cheering," said a Washington Post spokesperson, adding that there are "a lot of people who work in the Post building who don't work in the Post newsroom."
Update: More from Allahpundit, who unearths a remarkably prescient quote from 2005:
"Too often, we wear liberalism on our sleeve and are intolerant of other lifestyles and opinions," an editor working for the Washington Post's Sunday "Book World" section charged in a contribution to a daily internal critique of the newspaper quoted by Howard Kurtz on Monday. Marie Arana disclosed that "if you work here, you must be one of us. You must be liberal, progressive, a Democrat. I've been in communal gatherings in The Post, watching election returns, and have been flabbergasted to see my colleagues cheer unabashedly for the Democrats."I doubt anybody's very flabbergasted these days. The one benefit of the media wearing their hearts on their sleeves for Obama is that readers now know where their journalists stand, and can choose their publications accordingly.
Update: Mission Accomplished! "Exurban League has obtained an exclusive photo of the Washington Post preparing for Obama's arrival..."
More: "I hear Barack is a good name."
The mere existence of this headline--"CBS says ratings success proves network TV viable"--is proof that the clock is ticking on the model, at least in its current form. Imagine such a headline running 10, 20, 40 or 50 years ago.
Meanwhile, Galley Slaves notes that the clock may be ticking slightly faster for one of CBS' competitors.
Of course, the viable lifespan of the original big three is likely to exceed a far older component of the legacy media.
Blogospheric train wreck finally, properly labeled by his employer.
Gee, that only took four years.
Bill Whittle writes:
[Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber] stated that he did not think reporters should be allowed on the front lines to cover conflicts. This generated a lot of heat: some from the left, whose elitist disdain for Joe was best captured by John Stewart, sneering at him for his lapses in professionalism as he reminded all of us that a career being the primary news source for an entire generation of voters cannot be entrusted to a rank amateur like some common plumber, but must instead be vouchsafed to a person with a far nobler and serious and weighty background ... a career in stand-up comedy, say.Meanwhile, Camille Paglia unloads on an infinitely bigger media figure.
Update: Related thoughts from Outside The Wire's J.D. Johannes.
Orrin Judd spots one pundit making essentially the same "American power is on the wane" argument today that he made twenty years ago.
James Pethokoukis notes that "Big Media Distorts Bush Economic Record."
It's a mixed-bag of course--just not the one being peddled on the 6:30 Evening News.
Pethokoukis writes:
The past four months have been terrible. You had the money-sucking leviathan that is the poorly implemented Paulson Plan -- and Bush's failure to push better alternatives. You had the Detroit bailout. You had a failure to vigorously defend the free-market approach that, when implemented 25 year ago, saved the imploding economies of the West and helped win the Cold War. We really needed the Explainer-in-Chief to bring his A-game. Didn't happen.He had an A-game as a speaker? Of President Bush's attributes as a leader (the best of which I'll cheerfully acknowledge), explaining anything was not his strong suit.
Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg writes that his successor "is interested in any idea, as long as its peddler starts from the same 'non-ideological' assumption that government experts know best":
The current climate reminds former Freddie Mac economist Arnold Kling of the battle of the Somme in World War I (a war everyone knew would be over in six months). "Having experienced nothing but failure using offensive tactics up to that point, the Allies decided that what they needed to try was ... a really big offensive," Kling writes. "My guess is that in 1916, anyone who doubted his own ability to direct an enormous offensive involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers would never have made it to general. Similarly, today, anyone who doubts the ability of a handful of technocrats to sensibly allocate $800 billion would never make it into government or the mainstream media."Read the rest.
"A source of mine called to say that Obama's reached out to some newspaper publishers about giving papers a tax break in the stimulus package."
Man, from P.J. O'Rourke's fingers to the Connecticut papers' mouths, to Obama's ears. If this story actually is true, it's yet another example of reality invariably trumping fiction.
Ten years ago, the late Paul Weyrich wrote:
I believe that we probably have lost the culture war. That doesn't mean the war is not going to continue, and that it isn't going to be fought on other fronts. But in terms of society in general, we have lost. This is why, even when we win in politics, our victories fail to translate into the kind of policies we believe are important.In his latest column, Jay Nordlinger looks at the state of the overculture and similarly concludes, "It seems to me that the Left has won: utterly and decisively":
What I mean is, the Saturday Night Live, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher mentality has prevailed. They decide what a person's image is, and those images stick. They are the ones who say that Cheney's a monster, W.'s stupid, and Palin's a bimbo. And the country, apparently, follows.Donkey?I have a friend who teaches at a prominent university, and she says that, when Palin's name is mentioned, the people laugh. In the course of the 2008 presidential campaign, an extraordinarily accomplished woman -- more accomplished than most of the rest of us will ever be -- was turned into a laughingstock.
What are the shaping institutions of American life? The news media. Entertainment television. The movies. Popular music. The schools, K through grad school. In whose hands are those institutions? In what areas do conservatives predominate? Country music, NASCAR, some churches? (Talk radio too, I suppose -- no wonder so many on the left want to shut it down.)
I will be talking more about this in the coming weeks, months, and possibly years. Sidney Blumenthal once wrote a book called "The Rise of the Counter-Establishment" (meaning conservative associations and institutions). The counter-establishment needs to be tended, and beefed up.
A country that believes that Cheney's a monster, W.'s stupid, and Palin's a bimbo is a country with its head up its . . .
For a longform video look at the above topic, tune into John Ziegler (he of the upcoming How Obama Got Elected documentary) talking with the hosts of Breitbart.TV's B-Cast program yesterday. (Which concluded with my recent look at our incoming gaffe-o-matic president and vice president, after a brief mime-is-money silent interlude from the hosts and their failed soundboard.)
Jennifer Rubin posits that "the president-elect may end up pleasing conservatives more than McCain would have". I think the jury's still very much out on that, but Obama's already starting to alienate the nuttier fringes of the far left--scroll down to the bottom of Zombietime's coverage of the recent Gaza War Protest in San Francisco for plenty of anti-Obama vitriol.
Last year, most PUMAs angry at Obama for derailing Hillary Clinton's election bid eventually got back in line, if not in love with The One, the bloom has come off of at least one media romance rather quickly.
"In the course of cheerleading anchoring the MSNBC coverage of Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing today, Matthews suggested that the media shouldn't cover the Republican National Committee's criticism of Clinton."
Of course--because the role of the postmodern news media is to keep things out of the news, not let them in. I wonder if the Matthews of the 1990s would recognize his 2009 counterpart.
Forbes posits that "The Most Intense Period Of The Recession Is Behind Us"--hope they're right and the worst is over.
Though that won't stop incoming President Obama, his pliant new Congress, and the Jeff Gannon-ish legacy media for calling for ever-higher taxes and tossing around trillion dollar (wait--two trillion dollars!) spending packages.
Investors' Business Daily believes "We may have witnessed in the last eight the Anti-Watergate":
Richard Milhous Nixon never forgot a slight, used federal law enforcement powers against his political enemies and infuriated the Republican Party's conservative base with policies ranging from wage and price controls to detente with communists to Supreme Court appointments.Which is at once both the most vicious parting shot and the most charitable statement the president could have said to, and about, the braying legacy media at the conclusion of his watch.Soon-to-be-ex-President Bush, on the other hand, has taken at least as much personal abuse, yet his graciousness seldom fails. While the 37th president acidly told the press, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore," the 43rd told the reporters at his final presidential press conference Monday that they were "just people trying to do the best they possibly can."
At Pajamas HQ, Steve Green profiles the man whom the American Thinker once dubbed "the new Mary Mapes"--Time magazine's Tim McGirk. Steve writes:
McGirk was the "journalist" who "broke" the "story" of the "massacre" by U.S. Marines at Haditha, Iraq. In fact, he fought with his editors to get the word "massacre" in the lede of the story, calling it "a battle I lost." A good thing, too, because the story of the Haditha Massacre has been proven to be a fake.And these days, he's shilling for Hamas--read the whole thing.But, as Clarice Feldman noted in an American Thinker article asking if McGirk was "the new Mary Mapes," McGirk is no stranger to the moral equivalence game. Reporting from a Taliban hideout weeks after the 9/11 attacks, McGirk wrote that he left, "thinking that maybe this evening wasn't very different from the original Thanksgiving: people from two warring cultures sharing a meal together and realizing, briefly, that we're not so different after all." Surely, McGirk's access to the Taliban is no mystery.
Guy Benson looks at Obama's tightly-controlled press coverage so far:
As I watched President Bush's final tango with reporters this morning, I was reminded of how Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin described President-elect Obama's press conferences thus far:I give 'em four years, myself. Eight years tops."As ferociously as we march like villagers with torches against Blagojevich, we have been, in the true spirit of the Bizarro universe, the polar opposite with the president-elect. Deferential, eager to please, prepared to keep a careful distance.The Obama news conferences tell that story, making one yearn for the return of the always-irritating Sam Donaldson to awaken the slumbering press to the notion that decorum isn't all it's cracked up to be.
The press corps, most of us, don't even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who've been advised they will be called upon that day."
How long will the Obama-friendly press corps, no matter how "deferential" and "eager to please," tolerate such tight management?
I don't think the nascent host of the six decade old Meet The Press gets a passing grade from Ann Althouse.
Jazz Shaw has an epiphany: "Joe Wurzelbacher Is Not Edward R. Murrow":
During a recent interview, Joe informed us that he felt his safety would be well augmented as a good Christian, since he expected to enjoy "the protection of God." Our parting question should be: Who will protect the Israelis and the global news audience from Joe?Israel has survived CNN, Reuters, the AP and AFP. I think they can handle Joe The Plumber.
With the news of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer spotting icebergs off the port bow, this edition of Breitbart.tv's B-Cast from last month on the topic of the rocky future of newspapers in general is well worth your time:
As is our recent video on the topic if you've missed it:
That's the subject of a recent op-ed by Terence Jeffrey--at least on the field. (Today's politicians--even Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd--have little on Jerry Jones' mid-1990s Cowboys for sheer off-field debauchery.)
And of course, journalists could learn a thing or two from their sports department as well, a topic I discussed a few years ago. Though anti-Americanism may be somewhat less in vogue in journalism for the next four to eight years as they go to work for The One.
For the past few years, I've seen a number of blogs, and particularly Ace of Spades refer to the legacy media as "The Deciders." I didn't realize its origin was this quote from David McCumber, managing editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
"I understand that people have a hard time with the concept that we get to decide what is news and what isn't, and what is fair and what isn't."Robert places that quote into sharp context--and reminds the Seattle Post-Intelligencer who the real deciders are: consumers, i.e., the readers--or the lack thereof.
Summon the meteors--because, "Sometimes, the future shows up way sooner than anyone expected."
When I flew out to New Jersey for Christmas, I greatly enjoyed reading John Derbyshire's piece on H. L. Mencken in the December 29th issue of National Review on the long flight. So I finally picked up a copy of Terry Teachout's 2002 Mencken biography, The Skeptic at the enormous Barnes & Noble in the Citibank building on 54th and 3rd in Manhattan--and read it on the flight back. It's tremendously enjoyable on one level, though the deep cynicism and Nietzsche-inspired nihilism of Teachout's subject does start to wear after a while.
But history has been remarkably kind to Mencken in one sense. Upon Hunter S. Thompson's suicide a few years ago, James Lileks wrote:
He can say what he wants. Drink what he wants. Drive where he wants. Do what he wants. He's done okay in America. And he hates this country. Hates it. This appeals to high school kids and collegiate-aged students getting that first hot eye-crossing hit from the Screw Dad pipe, but it's rather pathetic in aged moneyed authors. And it would be irrelevant if this same spirit didn't infect on whom Hunter S. had an immense influence. He's the guy who made nihilism hip. He's the guy who taught a generation that the only thing you should believe is this: don't trust anyone who believes anything. He's the patron saint of journalism, whether journalists know it or not.If Thompson made nihilism hip in the 1970s by combining a loathing of his country and the bulk of its inhabitants with gallons of Chivas and a Rexall's drugstore worth of pharmaceuticals, Mencken put it on the map in America in the first half of the 20th century--literally so in one sense, by penning one of the first biographies of Nietzsche in the English language.
And certainly Mencken's tone, if not his actually stance, was the model for newspapermen since. And really is his tone that mattered, because they didn't pay much attention to his content, aside from his writings on the Scopes trial. Unlike vast majority of journalists in Old Media, the only big government that Mencken admired was the Kaiser's; he had little use for Wilson's restrictions in WWI, and he really hated FDR and the New Deal.
In the 1920s Mencken wrote:
It is the prime function of a really first-rate newspaper to serve as a sort of permanent opposition in politics.Which is certainly a respectable position, though half the time it involves contrarianism for its own sake. And at one point, journalists drunk deep from that well--or at least claimed they did, which is why that ridiculous "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable" cliche keeps popping up, even in the 21st century. But these days?
I think they realize that America wants to see results, and they don't want gridlock. So I think this is an extraordinary moment. I guess my passion is for something to happen to fix these problems, and for dialing down of all of the sharp criticism that we have on cable talk, on talk radio, from, you know, the -Tavis Smiley:ROSE: From left to right.
MITCHELL: - the blogosphere. I just wish that we could find something in the center that would be bipartisan and would be productive and constructive.
Harry Reid, put down the crack pipe. You don't work for Barack Obama? We're all working for Barack Obama.And that's just from the past couple of days; this McCain video from the summer featured clips of numerous earlier examples from 2008:
* * * I believe that he can be a great president. But only if we help make him a great president. It is not left to his own devices, it's not going to happen. We have to help make him a great president.
As one of the my favorite recent quotes (from Umberto Eco) goes:
G K Chesterton is often credited with observing: "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything." Whoever said it - he was right. We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity.H. L. Mencken may have been a rare skeptic in a nation where religion flourished, but these days, journalists have a new savior to worship. And something tells me that Mencken would be loving every minute of it.
Update: The writings of Mencken's mid-century successor also seem remarkably prescient these days.
John Hinderaker writes, "The Illinois Supreme Court ruled today that Governor Rod Blagojevich's appointment of Roland Burris' to the Senate does not require the Secretary of State's signature to be valid":
he unanimous ruling came as no surprise, but it stripped Senate Democrats of their principal excuse for barring Burris from taking the seat to which he has been appointed. It now appears that Mr. Burris will soon be Senator Burris after all.Meanwhile, "Dems Melt in the Heat of Burris Fiasco", Jonah Goldberg observes:
Now, I certainly understand why Reid & Co. caved. For starters, Reid's not exactly the brightest crayon in the box.Finally, in the face of impeachment, Gov. Blagojevich stands tall: "A Blagojevich spokesman said the governor will not resign."But why all the fuss in the first place? Isn't this how it always works? The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, an impressive African-American writer, is amazed that "Reid has been outmaneuvered by the sort of overt, hamfisted identity politics deployed in the '70s."
The '70s? So this sort of thing stopped more than three decades ago? I had no idea. What planet do my newscasts come from?
I thought this was simply what liberals and Democrats do. When Newt Gingrich introduced the Contract with America, black Democrats denounced it as racist. Charlie Rangel proclaimed, "Hitler wasn't even talking about doing these things." When impeachment threatened Bill Clinton, he draped himself in black ministers and staffers. The NAACP ran an ad narrated by the daughter of James Byrd, a black man brutally murdered in a hate crime, insinuating that then-presidential candidate George W. Bush's refusal to support hate-crime legislation in Texas was like murdering her father again. In the recent campaign, nearly the entire liberal punditocracy insisted that opposition to Barack Obama could only be explained by racism, a story line egged on by Obama himself when convenient.
And don't tell me Blago's corruption changes the equation. Has anyone read about the baleful history of minority set-aside programs in cities like Chicago? Cronies and grifters are routinely given sweetheart contracts under the guise of fighting discrimination when in reality it's all a riot of kickbacks, "pay-to-play" and cronyism. People don't call Jesse Jackson a shakedown artist for nothing.
There are two reasons why this spectacle shocks some liberals. The first is that Blago, Burris, and Rush used this tactic on fellow Democrats. And since Democrats can't be motivated by racism, any ploy like this must be cynical. When the same gambit is used on Republicans, it's called "speaking truth to power." Second, some honestly believed that Obama represented a real change of the racial landscape. So far, alas, these folks just look naive.
Allahpundit asks, why would he?
He just got done rolling Harry Reid, and Fitzgerald's indictment is still months away. I'm not even sure what the charges against him in the impeachment trial will be at this point. Supposedly he can no longer perform the duties of governor effectively. Really? He was effective enough to make the entire U.S. Senate choke on the Burris appointment.And if all this sounds surreal so far, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Update: "Following a decision by the Illinois Supreme Court, Jesse White, the Illinois secretary of state, has certified Roland Burris' appointment to the Senate, removing a major roadblock blocking Burris' ascension to the body." Does this make the headline above official? It seems likely that Harry Reid's not going to offer very much additional pushback. But hey, between DC and Illinois, anything's possible.
The TV channel with one finger poised on the delete key suddenly has an epiphany, Steve Green writes:
Via Charlie Martin on Twitter comes this admission from CNN's Campbell Brown (video at link): "Obama's lofty ideas lack specifics."CNN declared itself and their candidate an idea-free zone during the election; why start now?Dude, hope and change. How much more specific does the President-elect need to get? I mean, those were good enough for CNN during the campaign.
Meanwhile, CNN is trashing the newest citizen journalist heading towards Israel. As a viewer, frankly, I'm not at all sure what Joe the Plumber can tell me about the Middle East. But I do know that hasn't lied to me yet about the Middle East, and that already puts him ahead of at least one TV network.
Yesterday, we mentioned "Pallywood", the perpetual Palestinian propaganda machine. In the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg recently explored "The World's Pornographic Interest in Jewish Moral Failure", which included this excerpt:
Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble -- and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I've seen in my life. And it's typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they'd learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.One of Charles Johnsons' readers believes he's spotted yet another Palestinian snuff film.
Hollywood is an multi-million dollar industry known throughout the world in creating remarkably realistic but totally imaginary worlds--and so is "Pallywood", the Palestinian propaganda factory that has manufactured plenty of consent, particularly from Big Media. Both imaginary worlds come together in this post in the news section of the Internet Movie Database, which often goes off the rails when it's not reporting on box office takes, awards shows, and other news that's directly related to Tinseltown:
The trade publication Editor & Publisher has editorially chastised the U.S. news media for providing "largely one-sided coverage" of the conflict in Gaza and "little editorializing or commentary." Only CNN and MSNBC, the editorial said, had "provided some helpful balance" in their coverage, but the broadcast news networks' Sunday morning programs, it observed, featured Democratic leaders who "said little, or nothing, critical of Israel." Such imbalanced coverage, E&P said, comes in the face of condemnation of the "disproportionate" Israeli attacks by Amnesty International and equally strong editorial criticism in the Israeli daily Haaretz and outrage by its columnists.Meanwhile, if you're finding the dinosaur media's "largely one-sided coverage" as tilting in a different direction than the picture painted by their house organ (which knows a thing or two about media manipulation themselves), Roger L. Simon writes:
If your only information about the current Middle East crisis came from CNN, you'd think it boiled down to a bunch of high-tech Israeli bullies running around Gaza torturing Palestinian women and children, while tossing smart bombs on hospitals and blowing up UN schools with Merkava tanks. Almost no context is given. That Israel had done virtually nothing for the three years since voluntarily withdrawing from Gaza but grin and bare it, as missiles after missile, many courtesy of Iran, flew willy-nilly into the Southern part of their country - a fusillade no nation on Earth, civilized or uncivilized, would begin to tolerate - is barely mentioned or mumbled into a half-audible mike while the video plays bloodied Palestinian infants screaming for mama.Tune in here.The New York Times may be worse. Bending over backwards in a morass of cultural relativist obfuscation, the paper seems to have imbued moral equivalence with a religious fervor usually found at Lourdes.
Of course, the Israelis have the media ticked off. Remembering well the media's role in the second Lebanon War when some, notably AP and Reuters, went so far as to try to palm off Photoshopped Hezbollah pictures as authentic photos from the front when the forgeries were so obvious bloggers caught them in minutes, this time the IDF has the media cordoned off miles from the action. This time they don't have the chance to lens endless photos of the same "green man" popping up at one scene of "Israeli brutality" after the other. Who could blame the Israel government for having had enough of the propaganda wiles of the MSM? I had to laugh when I heard CNN's Ben Wedeman complaining last night that the network had to rely on their Palestinian stringers inside Gaza, but assuring us they were excellent and reliable. We're supposed to take that seriously from the network whose former executive director finally admitted after several years that they had covered up (effectively lied about) Saddam's atrocities in order to get access inside Iraq? Have these people no shame? Well, I guess not.
So that brings us to Pajamas TV. We have decided to help right this imbalance in our small way by emphasizing coverage from Israel as long as this crisis is going on. We have a live camera in Jerusalem and we are going to feature the following talent there, among others: Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post, our own Middle East Editor Allison Kaplan Sommer (a Tel Aviv resident), Richard Landes of Boston University and a part-time Jerusalem resident and Nitsana Leitner of the Israeli Law Center. We admit we are biased in favor of Israel, in favor of the side we view as the good guys in a moral struggle. So bear that in mind when you tune in, but tune in every day for our Gaza Update.
Related: The reasoning seems smart merely on the surface, but Mike McNally delves further into "Why Israel is Smart Keeping the Media Out of Gaza". And on the flipside, Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard "intriguingly leaves open the possibility that Hamas is operating with a different form of rationality."
Blair's Law (named after the Bard Down Under, of course) refers to "the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force."
See also this: "CBS Buys First Front-Page Ad On New York Times":
An advertisement for CBS has become the first display ad ever to appear on the front page of the New York Times. In its own article about the appearance of the ad, the newspaper called it the "latest concession to the worst revenue slide since the Depression." It conceded that the move is "regarded by traditionalists as a commercial incursion into the most important news space in the paper." Oddly the newspaper indicated that it could not learn how much CBS had paid for the ad.Presumably it was more than this earlier sweetheart deal demonstrating yet another example of Blair's Law in action. But yes, it's amazing how quickly aphasia affects the media when reporting on itself.
Having blogged quite a bit--in both print and video form--on the media's "Red Queen's Race" to bottom, it's only fair that I link to Michael Hirschorn's piece on the final lap of the race: "End Times":
Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print--the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. . . . But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business--like, this May?But as Steven Den Beste notes:
Michael Hirschorn writes (regarding the impending demise of the NYT):Fortunately, the media's estate planning at least was remarkably prescient: their newly built mausoleum awaits them.If you're hearing few howls and seeing little rending of garments over the impending death of institutional, high-quality journalism, it's because the public at large has been trained to undervalue journalists and journalism.Ah, several things spring to mind in response to this. "Undervalue"? A thing is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and if "the public at large" considers journalism to be worth very little, then pretty much by definition they're right, because they're the ones doing the paying. The problem here is not that the public is undervaluing journalism, but that journalists have gotten into the habit of thinking that their work is worth more than it really is.Which brings up the other point: "high-quality journalism"? It's been a hell of a long time since any of that has appeared in the NYT. And that's another reason why the NYT (and the Chicago Tribune, and the LA Times, etc.) are losing circulation and money: they abandoned any pretense to "high-quality journalism" years ago, and the public increasingly won't pay for what they're offering instead. (That being "agenda journalism" aka "propaganda".)
The big reason you aren't seeing the public shedding many tears over the demise of the NYT is that we all know that they've dug their own grave. The impending demise of the NYT isn't tragedy, it's justice.
(H/T: IP)
As Charles Johnson writes, linking to this essay by Steve Emerson on the Gray Lady's love of all things radical chic:
It's bizarre and disgusting to see much of America's media making excuses for a bloodthirsty, openly genocidal death cult. Something is deeply wrong with journalism in this country.Meanwhile, Bob Owens explores the ongoing love affair between Reuters and Hamas, with an assist from out epic "Picture Kill: How We Got Here" post from 2006 on the media culture that allowed Adnan Hajj and other fauxtographers to flourish.
Don Surber proffers a modest cost-cutting proposal to the Gray Lady.
(The only downside: It would wreak havoc with the denouement of the EPIC 2014 forecast.)
Max Boot on the New York Times' Bob Herbert and quagmire punditry.
Pretty safe bet there, James! But they'll be "Dull Scandals" according to NBC--"Say farewell to hilarious sex hijinks and hello to corruption and related bummers."
So without the sex angle, which used to be a personal matter in the mid-to-late-1990s--wonder what changed in 2006?--institutional corruption on the left is a mere "bummer", and thus NBC and the rest of the dinosaur media has given themselves plenty of cover as to why they needn't bother focusing on them.
Besides, relegating the scandal to page 15-D near the supermarket coupons cuts down on having to not name the party involved.
(Via Margret's agrarian-oriented real estate.)
Related: Jennifer Rubin: "So Glad It's a New Political Era."
Just as Virginia Postrel spotted several journalists hot for "Depression Porn", Ezra Levant reminds us that it's "Not quite the 1930s":
So we're in for another Great Depression, are we? Don't believe it.Read the whole thing--as the aforementioned Postrel puts it, along with a link to historic annual unemployment rates, "Oh My God, It's 1993 Again!":Now that the epic U. S. presidential race is over, a caffeinated press corps is in withdrawal, so hyperventilating about a new Depression is their new fix. Just to pick one newspaper at random, Toronto's Globe and Mail used the phrase "Great Depression" over 300 times in December alone -- or about a dozen times each edition. And that's restrained compared to U. S. cable news shows.
The recession is bad and probably will get worse, but historical context doesn't scream Great Depression. Journalists, who are like steelworkers in the 1980s, can be forgiven for thinking the economy is collapsing--we're all afraid of losing our jobs--but the rest of you should know better.Finally, some thoughts on the media and the economy from the Blogfather, including a quote from one blogger who writes, "Compare the last 6 years (or so) of unremitting (and largely unwarranted- until recently) doom-and-gloom economic coverage, against the press' bend-over-backward efforts to avoid riling the American public after 9/11."
Glenn adds that journalists "know how to be exquisitely sensitive, when they're protecting something they care about", but it's a remarkably situational sensitivity.
Update: Why are journalists so hot for Depression Porn (and consequently led the cheers for Hoover '08)? Because of charts like this.
North Carolina's News & Observer observes that Mike Easley, the state's outgoing governor "said newspapers should be nice to him":
In an interview with the Greensboro News & Record, Easley complained about how newspapers, particularly The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer, have treated him. Both papers are owned by Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy Co.And the News & Observer is happy to oblige in one sense: there's no mention of Easley's party in the above linked article."My job is to be nice to other people, and their job is to be nice to me. Just because they're not doing theirs doesn't mean I shouldn't do mine," Easley said in audio of the interview posted on The News & Record's Web site on Christmas Day.
It's the pact that President Elect Obama and the legacy media have--why shouldn't other Democratic politicians request the same agreement, particularly since their relationship with their media mouthpieces is likely to become even cozier in the coming months and years.
(H/T: Betsy Newmark)
As I wrote in February 2006, describing our remarkably genteel legacy media:
To easily see the Victorian Gentlemanly style in action, pick up a copy of a paper like the San Francisco Chronicle. (Or scroll through their Website of course, but it's even more obvious "on dead tree".) Read their coverage, of say, the protests outside the gates of San Quentin during Tookie Williams' execution. Then peruse the photos of the same event at Zombietime.You can observe that same whitewashing style at work today, by comparing the Fort Laurderdale Sun-Sentinel's dishwater dull article on local pro-Hamas protesters, versus the viscerally intense video of the same event shot on a camcorder, edited and uploaded to YouTube.
In Reason magazine, Veronique de Rugy notes that--as usual--conventional leftwing wisdom regarding President Bush is wrong:
When Barack Obama was running for president, he made no secret about his plan to "restore common-sense regulation"--read: increase regulation--by closing the regulatory loopholes he thought the Republicans had opened. Deregulation, he argued repeatedly, is the source of evil. Much like Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression, Obama offered a sweeping, ambitious agenda: new financial regulations, new labor regulations, new energy regulations, and more.Meanwhile, a push for deregulation comes from a surprising source--Brian Lowry of the ancient show-biz bible, Variety magazine, who writes in an essay titled, "Reevaluating media regulations" that "Tough times may call for lax restrictions":Today Obama is the president-elect of the United States. With Democratic majorities in Congress, he will have tremendous power to push his "reforms." And unlike FDR before him, President Obama won't have to create a regulatory system from scratch in order to increase government control of people's lives. His groundwork was laid by George W. Bush.
Some people still seem to think Republicans take a hands-off approach to regulation, probably because the party is always quick to criticize the burdens regulations place on businesses. But Republican rhetoric doesn't always match Republican policy. In 2007, according to Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, roughly 50 regulatory agencies issued 3,595 final rules, ranging from boosting fuel economy standards for light trucks to continuing a ban on bringing torch lighters into airplane cabins. Five departments (Commerce, Agriculture, Homeland Security, Treasury, and the Environmental Protection Agency) accounted for 45 percent of the new regulations.
Since Bush took office in 2001, there has been a 13 percent decrease in the annual number of new rules. But the new regulations' cost to the economy will be much higher than it was before 2001. Of the new rules, 159 are "economically significant," meaning they will cost at least $100 million a year. That's a 10 percent increase in the number of high-cost rules since 2006, and a 70 percent increase since 2001. And at the end of 2007, another 3,882 rules were already at different stages of implementation, 757 of them targeting small businesses.
Overall, the final outcome of this Republican regulation has been a significant increase in regulatory activity and cost since 2001. The number of pages added to the Federal Register, which lists all new regulations, reached an all-time high of 78,090 in 2007, up from 64,438 in 2001.
If it takes a big man to admit he was wrong, said man needn't be quite so magnanimous to concede that changing circumstances have altered his outlook.Jules Crittenden and Robert Stacy McCain spot one key way that regulations have significantly harmed multiple legacy media; the latter writes:The perils of media consolidation have been a longstanding concern. Even during a stint working for Tribune Co. as they futilely attempted to squeeze synergies out of TV-print combinations, I banged the drum against allowing TV, radio stations and newspapers coagulate in too few hands, fearing ethical abuses or the nagging appearance of them, as well as the loss of independent voices to watchdog government and the media itself.
Today, though, amid daily waves of depressing economic news, conflicted voices sound preferable to neutered or, worse, deceased ones.
It's not a given that further relaxing restrictions on media consolidation would significantly benefit ailing broadcasters and newspapers at this late stage. Economies of scale certainly haven't kept Time Warner from shedding staff at its magazines or Tribune out of bankruptcy.
Even so, the incoming Obama administration faces difficult choices involving big media nearly as nettlesome, in their own way, as the mess it's grappling with regarding the Big Three automakers.
The absurd idea that a Connecticut newspaper might get a government bailout prompts Jules Crittenden to one of the few useful suggestions for saving print journalism:As the Red Queen's Race accelerates its velocity, newspapers lost $64 billion in share value in 2008. Which helps to explain why, as this poll notes, "Seventy-seven percent of Americans believe that the U.S. media is making the economic situation worse by projecting fear into people's minds."Throwing out the FCC's cross-ownership ban once and for all might also help.The FCC's obsolete prohibition on newspaper publishers owning broadcast franchises in the same markets has been bent, over the years, for a few politically-connected conglomerates -- for instance, Cox owns both the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB TV/radio in Atlanta.
There was a time when, if the ban had been repealed, newspapers would have purchased broadcasting outlets. If the ban were lifted now, the buyout pattern would be the other way around. But too little attention has been paid to how the FCC, by preventing consolidation between print and broadcast media, undermined the economic viability of print journalism.
The rise of cable television in the 1980s changed the game. Cable is not "broadcast" and thus is exempt from FCC regulation, and anyone who was paying attention should have realized how the growth of this new technology invalidated the FCC's original rationale in banning cross-ownership. Newspapers could have benefitted by sharing editorial staff between print and broadcast, and using the broadcast outlet to promote the print product. But the entrenched New Deal-era mentality among regulators stifled such insights, and so the absurd wall between broadcast and print remained -- with strategic exceptions, of course, for the big conglomorates that could curry favor in Washington.
The idea of newspapers being bailed out began as a post-election joke by P.J. O'Rourke, but since satire can never compete with reality for pure absurdity, it's rapidly gaining steam in the real world, thanks to an insane request by some Connecticut newspapers to a would-be government benefactor:
Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.Ed Morrissey responds:Nicastro represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain.
That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore.
Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. "The media is a vitally important part of America," he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.
To some experts, that sounds like a bailout, a word that resurfaced this year after the U.S. government agreed to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the automobile and financial sectors.
The only reason -- the only reason -- that news media is vital to a democracy is its independence from government. Think about this. Is The National Enquirer vital to democracy? [Actually, increasingly so--Ed] Will the Republic fall if Entertainment Weekly suddenly closed its doors? Not at all, not even if the entire paparazzi industry suddenly collapsed.We already know of one Connecticut newspaper that's announced publicly that it's in the tank to its region's politicians, and in the new spirit of old media -- "Comforting the Comfortable" -- it appears it will soon be joined by others.The need for a truly independent media is to make sure that the citizenry is fully informed of government activity and policy, and not just relying on the self-serving communications from elected officials. Without independence, newspapers and other media have as much value as press releases from Congressional offices.
Now, what happens when government suddenly takes a stake in newspapers and other media? Can they remain independent -- or will they cater themselves to those politicians who support those subsidies and target politicians who don't? In fact, the very act of asking for those bailouts has destroyed their independence and credibility on political matters, the very core of what makes a free media necessary for a democracy.
At this point, the best possible outcome would be to let the newspapers crash and burn. They're worthless now as an independent voice in Connecticut. If the market demand remains for print-and-deliver newspapers, then we will see private capital form to meet the demand. If not, then all the taxpayer subsidies in the world would not have saved them anyway.
Related thoughts from Roger Kimball, here.
"For at least ten seconds there, it appeared Margaret Warner thought PBS stood for the Palestinian Broadcast Service."
Fortunately, there are new media alternatives available, as "Israel Shakes Up the Information War."
Tim Graham of Newsbusters looks at the letter that was missing from most media reports of political scandal.
Perhaps the legacy media simply didn't want to risk hurting their chance to be collectivized into a sort of uber-PBS network.
Meanwhile, Tom Blumer explores the other story which quietly dropped off the legacy media's vacuum tube radar: "A Toast to Old Media's--and Old Medea's--Defeat in Iraq."
Related: "Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington's 'Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians' for 2008"
That's the headline of this new post by Allison Kaplan Sommer; think of it as more news that CNN keeps to itself...
(H/T: IP)
"Congrats. The New Republic finally smoked out a hoax! Too bad they can't apply the same standards of veracity and accountability to their own writers when the fit hits the shan."
Mickey Kaus writes, "Enjoy your daily print newspaper. It's later than you think", as the "Web Blows By Papers as News Source."
So with the Red Queen's Race marching on, will the New York Times have the money to pay off--or at least settle--on this lawsuit?
Update: Roger L. Simon: "Vicki Iseman vs. the NYT could spell Big Trouble for the Grey Lady."
...That David Bernstein of the Volokh Conspiracy wore his baseball cap with the brim facing backwards:
Who would have thought that twenty years after I, as a teenager, thought it looked cool to put my baseball cap on backwards (was it a Beastie Boys thing? Who remembers...), that youths, and even some adults (saw a guy in his 30s yesterday), would still be doing it (though there seemed to be a break for a time in the late '80s and mid '90s). Folks, the bill is on the front for reason, to shade your face from the sun. And it's soooo unclassy. Can you imagine Cary Grant wearing a backwards baseball cap? Please ladies, boycott the gents who wear the cap backwards, or at least tell them how silly it looks, and end this travesty for good. Perhaps a simple, "you know, David Bernstein had that look twenty years ago," will do.Too bad this unwitting celebrity fashion victim and his army of media handlers such as this Reuters journalist never got the memo:
The president-elect, looking uber-cool with his White Sox baseball cap on backwards, flipped the shaka to a crowd of about 30 people as he left a gym on a Marine Corps base on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where he is vacationing.As Jonah Goldberg noted last week, American society--let alone the rest of the world--is far too balkanized for such a blanket statement. And in such a diverse environment, news agencies such as Reuters need to mindful of such a wide range of readers. In other words, we all know that one man's uber-cool fashion plate is another man's uber-dork. To be frank, it adds little to the national dialogue to call the attack on the basketball courts by the president elect an uber-cool aesthetic experience.
Old media leaves Iraq as they found it--happily ignoring the big stories that don't fit their template. Until 2003, this meant spinning cheerfully for Saddam Hussein--and in at least one network's case complicit in covering up his crimes. Today, this means ignoring the progress occurring as Iraq makes continued strides towards becoming, as Mark Steyn recently put it, "the least-worst state in that part of the world."
That's going to increasingly leave the coverage of that fragile young democracy to new media professionals such as J.D. Johannes, whose name and coverage of Iraq was last seen being tossed into the memory hole by old media journalist Paul Mulshine in the Wall Street Journal.
Update: Related thoughts from Andrew Breitbart and John Nolte, here.
Michelle Malkin has a "Tale of two presidential workout fanatics"; meanwhile, Ed Morrissey has a tale of two politically-connected religious leaders. In both cases, one story has been met by praise (home run!) the other with derision. What ties these pairs of stories together? "Liberal double standards: It's just how they roll", Michelle writes.
Several of the recent posts here have focused on the surprisingly brief life and quiet death of objectivity in the legacy mass media. Or as Victor Davis Hanson wrote in the last days of the 2008 presidential election, "Sometime in 2008, journalism as we knew it died, and advocacy media took its place."
The replacement is a curiously schizophrenic beast; blending punditry and journalism; turning every newspaper into the Washington Times without the conservative op-eds, every network news department into Fox News without the pro-American populism. Regarding the latter trend, last month Robert Stacy McCain wrote:
The rise of Fox News as the No. 1 cable news outlet has resulted in ideological counterprograming. [emphasis in original--Ed] The success of a conservative news network has had an effect that might be best understood by reference to Newton's third law of motion. At first, there was the "equal effect" -- chastened by Fox's success, most networks sought to rein in their traditional liberal bias. But then, after the 2004 election, the "opposite effect" kicked in. Network executives figured, "Hey, Fox already has a monopoly on conservative viewers. Let's let our freak flags fly and give liberals what they really want." I really noticed this phenomenon during the 2006 campaign, when the media (a) pretended that the contributions Jack Abramoff's clients made to Democrats were meaningless, and (b) presented Mark Foley as the GOP poster boy. The existence of Fox News provides a ready-made excuse for liberals in the media to think of their bias as "balancing" Fox.But half of the time those on the inside either don't know what's changed, or if they do, won't admit it publicly. (Occasionally a voice in these institutions will come clean and then a successor will forget the earlier admission--or more painfully, his own.)
All of which helps to set the stage for this post by Glenn Reynolds: "Paul Mulshine Blows It."
Update: Don't miss the extended comment by Jay Rosen regarding Mulshine's column, on Fausta Wertz's blog. Jay writes (amongst other things):
We are quite well informed about why the newspaper business is collapsing. The immediate cause: readers are moving to the Net but for various reasons the advertising isn't. Newspapers are stuck with huge capital structures they cannot easily jettison and revenues are falling. No one who writes seriously about new media and citizen journalism is unaware of this. No one in new media, citizen journalism or regular journalism knows what to do about it.That's not the only reason, though it's a big one; it's an extremely safe assumption that revenues bottoming out are what's driving some of the other reasons old media's hit an iceberg (see above, and Michael Malone's great election-end column at Pajamas HQ), and is a subject we explored in video form earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Jules Crittenden also spots the extreme blurring of the lines between punditry and reporting in old media.
The Telegraph of England has an article titled, "2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved." (Hey does that mean that the earlier 1970s-version of eco-paranoia, man-made global cooling is now back in style?) If so, one reason why is that the Internet makes it possible to go back in time and compare the predictions of the past with the current reality.
It also allows us to find earlier stories where scientists and journalists suggested that their peers in each profession ditch objectivity and play on the understandable fears of laymen. Flopping Aces has a long blog post written by Dr. Tim Ball, former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg highlighting one example of the latter technique from 1989. This is merely an excerpt:
E. R. Beadle said, "Half the work done in the world is to make things appear what they are not." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does this with purpose and great effect. They built the difference between appearance and reality into their process. Unlike procedure used elsewhere, they produce and release a summary report independently and before the actual technical report is completed. This way the summary gets maximum media attention and becomes the public understanding of what the scientists said. Climate science is made to appear what it is not. Indeed, it is not even what is in their Scientific Report.And that trend very much continues nearly twenty years later--legacy media trade publication Editor & Publisher actually ran an article last year titled, "Climate Change: Get Over Objectivity, Newspapers." My post about it from August of 2007 is found here; for non-subscribers of E&P, the text of the actual article can be read here.The pattern of falsifying appearances began early. Although he works at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Stephen Schneider was heavily employed in the work of the IPCC as this biography notes.
Much of Schneider's time is taken up by what he calls his "pro bono day job" for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II of the IPCC from 1997 to 2001 and a lead author in Working Group I from 1994 to 1996. Currently, he is a Coordinating Lead Author for the controversial chapter on "Assessing Key Vulnerabilities and the Risks from Climate Change," in short, defining "dangerous" climate change." - Pubmedcentral.nih.gov
He continued this work by helping prepare the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) released in April 2007.
Schneider, among others, created the appearance that the Summary was representative of the Science Report. However, he provides an early insight into the thinking when speaking about global warming to Discovery magazine (October 1989) he said scientists need, "to get some broader based support, to capture the public's imagination...that, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we may have...each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective, and being honest." The last sentence is deeply disturbing-there is no decision required.
But then, newspapers have gotten over objectivity on virtually all stories, not just climate change--with disastrous consequences.
(Via Maggie's Farm.)
When I created my recent Silicon Graffiti video on the various and sundry financial meltdowns of the past few months, I titled it "In Dodd We Trust?" It was too good a pun not to use, even though it really wasn't about the Democratic senator from Connecticut per se, but Congressional meddling in economic matters in general.
But get a load of this recent story from Dodd's hometown house organ: as one of Ace of Spades' guest bloggers writes, "Connecticut Post: we're not interested in readers bitching about Chris Dodd or Barney Frank." The paper, evidently being buried with letters from readers regarding their hometown Friend of Angelo and his race-baiting friend from Boston, actually wrote:
...All letters are welcome. But there are code words hidden in some that are signals to stop paying close attention -- "Chris Dodd" and "Barney Frank." ...On the other hand, it's nice of the paper to let us know who they're running interference for, and dropping the increasingly outdated 20th century perception of "objectivity."
(Via Gateway Pundit.)
Jonah Goldberg writes:
Steve Clemons' proposed solution to the Caroline problem is to have Obama send her to London as the Ambassador to the Court of St. James. That'd be fine with me, I guess. Though I don't think it's as exciting an idea as he does. I do think it's odd though that Clemons spends so much of his post rehearsing the usual anti-Bush throat clearing while completely ignoring a point that's actually relevant: The media would be obliged to revisit her grandfather's stint in the same job. And that might be embarrassing to the Kennedy clan.Nonsense--all things embarrassing to clan Kennedy are conveniently airbrushed from history.
Joel Stein in the L.A. Times, January 24th, 2006:
I don't support our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car.Joel Stein in the L.A. Times, December 26, 2008:
I don't love America. That's what conservatives are always telling liberals like me. Their love, they insist, is truer, deeper and more complete. Then liberals, like all people who are accused of not loving something, stammer, get defensive and try to have sex with America even though America will then accuse us of wanting it for its body and not its soul. When America gets like that, there's no winning.Back in July, when he proffered advice to fellow liberals afraid to satirize then-candidate Obama (as his deifying leftwing adulation was at its zenith), Stein wrote, "We are the immature jerks we have been waiting for."But I've come to believe conservatives are right. They do love America more. Sure, we liberals claim that our love is deeper because we seek to improve the United States by pointing out its flaws. But calling your wife fat isn't love. True love is the blind belief that your child is the smartest, cutest, most charming person in the world, one you would gladly die for. I'm more in "like" with my country.
Who am I to argue?
(Via Cassy Fiano.)
This just in: "Americans prefer news from Web to newspapers: survey."
The enormous readership of Matt Drudge (where I found the link) proved that to be the case a decade ago, which is why he was so initially despised by those he made obsolete.
CNN's John Roberts can be witnessed between 6:50 and 7:30 point in this edition of Silicon Graffiti doing an amazing aerial 180 worthy of both Tony Hawk and Joseph Stalin--and here with the very definition of a Freudian slip. And yet, he seems surprisingly incredulous when one of October's chief hit and run victims of the drive-by media mocks his objectivity.
Update: Kathy Shaidle observes a revolving door revolving at the White House, as the upcoming Obama administration continues to take shape.
More: "That's a great thing about E. J. -- you don't have to read his columns anymore. You just know he's supporting Obama."
Glenn Reynolds links to James Surowiecki in the New Yorker, who asks, "Are Newspapers Doomed?"
"There's no mystery as to the source of all the trouble: advertising revenue has dried up. In the third quarter alone, it dropped eighteen per cent, or almost two billion dollars, from last year."Another reason why is that errors such as this are becoming increasingly easier for readers to spot.He also suggests something that I've noted in the past -- we may have been getting more news than we (that is, the market) actually wanted (that is, was willing to pay for) due to cross-subsidies from things like classified advertising. With those gone, we may wind up with less news. I hope not, but it's a plausible scenario.
To invert The Who, the Gray Lady will get fooled again, as Roger L. Simon writes:
No doubt most of you remember the Jayson Blair affair at the New York Times, when the paper jettisoned the reporter for publishing several plagiarized and, at least partially, fabricated stories on its front page. The ensuing brouhaha caused an editorial shake-up at the onetime "newspaper of record."The tipoff that it's a phony should be obvious, Allahpundit adds:Well, what's the old saying about the "second time as farce"? [I think it's from Marx.-ed. So it is.] This time the paper has outdone itself by publishing a putative letter from the mayor of Paris, attacking the potential elevation of Caroline Kennedy to the US Senate:
In the Times's defense, the letter does have a decidedly Frenchy tone ("Can we speak of American decline?"), but I ask you: Would the mayor of Paris, of all people, be likely to object to a big break for Jackie Kennedy's daughter?Heh, indeed.™
Couldn't the Times have run the email past the ghost of Walter Duranty? That man knows a thing or two about phonying up foreign stories--and he's even got a blog, to boot. (Although, to be fair, it's about as quiet at the moment as the real Duranty is.)
Finally, Dan Riehl spots a giant iceberg looming off the port bow of the S.S. Sulzberger:
If so, that will be one helluva an exit lap for this ever-accelerating race to the bottom:From 24/7 Wall St - based upon background and financials, ten major companies predicted to go away in 2009. Number 6 on the list? The New York Times. h/t An email from Pundita.
24/7 Wall St. looked at some of the largest and most well-known companies, reviewed their SEC filings if they are public, analyst reports, and media observations about their businesses and picked ten that probably won't be around at the end of next year.6) The New York Times (NYT) has to repay $400 million in debt in the first half of 2009. It does not have the money. It plans to mortgage its headquarters, but it is uncertain what that will bring in an uncertain real estate market. The firm's Boston Globe and regional newspaper operations lose money, so they will be hard to sell. NYT is controlled by the Sulzberger family which has super-majority voting shares. That won't matter much when the company runs out of money. Another big media operation, perhaps News Corp (NWS) which owns The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, will come in and auction off what it can and keep the flagship New York Times newspaper and NYTimes.com website.
In his profile of Paul Weyrich for the DC Examiner, Lee Edwards writes:
He was born on October 7, 1942, in Racine, Wisconsin, the son of working-class German Catholics. His father tended the boilers of St. Mary's Catholic Hospital for 50 years. He was politically active from an early age: at 19, he and his friends took over the Racine Republican party.The manufactured dissent that Weyrich describes witnessing in the early '70s and emulating during its second half reminds of something Tom Wolfe told an interviewer about his New York Herald-Tribune salad days:He worked for a local daily newspaper and then as a radio-television journalist before coming to Washington in 1967 as press secretary to Senator Gordon Allott (R-CO).
He learned how to organize from the liberal opposition. During President Nixon's first term, he attended a meeting of key liberals planning the enactment of an open housing bill. Present were a White House official, a Washington newspaper columnist, an analyst from the Brookings Institution, representatives from several black lobbying groups, and aides to a dozen senators.
Weyrich noted that everyone took an assignment. The Senate aides promised that their bosses would make supporting statements and contact other senators. The White House official said he would keep everyone informed of the administration's strategy.
The newspaper columnist promised to write a favorable article about the legislation. The Brookings analyst promised to publish a timely study that would impact the debate. The black lobbyists agreed to produce public demonstrations at the right time.
"I saw how easily it could be done with planning and determination," Weyrich later recalled, "and decided to try it myself." With funding from conservative businessmen like Joseph Coors and direct mail assistance from fundraiser Richard Viguerie, he helped start major conservative institutions such as Heritage, the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress (later the Free Congress Foundation), the Senate Steering Committee, the Republican Study Committee, and the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Liberals as well as conservatives acknowledged his essential role. In January 1981, the AFL-CIO described the New Right and specifically the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress as smart, effective and responsible for "a whole passel of persons sitting in the U.S. House and Senate."
Well, one of the things is what I would call "media ricochet", which is the way real life and life as portrayed by television, by journalists like myself and others, begin ricocheting off of one another. That's why to me, in Bonfire of the Vanities, it was so important to show exactly how this occurs when television and newspaper coverage become a factor in something like racial politics. And a good bit of the book has to do with this curious phenomenon of how demonstrations, which are a great part of racial and ethnic politics, exist only for the media. In the last days when I was working on The New York Herald-Tribune, I'll never forget the number of demonstrations I went to and announced that to all the people with the placards, "I'm from The New York Herald-Tribune," and the attitude was really a yawn, and then, "Get lost". They were waiting for Channel 2 and Channel 4 and Channel 5, and suddenly the truck would appear and these people would become galvanized. On one occasion I even saw a group of demonstrators down in Union Square, marching across the Square, and Channel 2 arrived, a couple of vans, and the head of the demonstration walked up to what looked like the head man of the TV crew and said, "What do you want us to do?" He says, "Golly, I don't know. What were you going to do?" He says, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You tell us."As Edwards wrote, Weyrich simply took the methods of the left and moved them starboard. Something that Mary Katharine Ham notes that Rick Warren is doing in his recent interviews with the legacy media.
James Taranto corrects a moment in the election timeline:
Remember Barack Obama's big race speech back in March, the one that invited comparisons to Lincoln? Neither does anyone else, but it seemed like a big deal at the time. On March 18 The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder did a short item called "Speechwriter of One" (quoting verbatim):(H/T: FTPS)This wasn't a speech by committee... Obama wrote the speech himself, working on it for two days and nights.... and showed it to only a few of his top advisers.This now appears to have been puffery, at least if the Washington Post has the story right:One Saturday night in March, Obama called [Jon] Favreau and said he wanted to immediately deliver a speech about race. He dictated his unscripted thoughts to Favreau over the phone for 30 minutes--"It would have been a great speech right then," Favreau said--and then asked him to clean it up and write a draft. Favreau put it together, and Obama spent two nights retooling before delivering the address in Philadelphia the following Tuesday.Favreau is the 27-year-old Obama speechwriter best known for a party photo in which he pretends to grope the right breast of a life-size cardboard cutout depicting New York's junior senator. Harmless frat-boy antics, to be sure, but it does make all the solemn praise Obama got for that race speech all the more hilarious."So," Obama told Favreau afterward. "I think that worked."
Time magazine's "Person of the Year 2008" cover story, dated December 17th: President Elect Obama's "arrival on the scene feels like a step into the next century -- his genome is global, his mind is innovative, his world is networked, and his spirit is democratic."
Time magazine, December 18th: "Obama has proven himself repeatedly to be a very tolerant, very rational-sounding sort of bigot."
"For people who think there's no cultural divide in this country, consider the treatment of two women much in the news in 2008."
Found via Mark Hemingway, the New York Times notes that W. Mark Felt, the FBI agent who was revealed in 2005 to be Woodward and Bernstein's "Deep Throat" and played by Hal Holbrook in the film version of All The President's Men is dead at age 95.
Back in 2005 with a movie then in theaters about a powerful Machiavellian ruler corrupted by power that featured performances even more wooden than Robert Redford in mind, Mark Steyn wrote "Revenge of the Felt":
''Revenge of the Sith'' is a marvel of motivational integrity compared to ''Revenge of the Felt,'' the concluding chapter in that other '70s saga, Watergate. Before the final denouement last week, there were a gazillion guesses at the identity of ''Deep Throat,'' but all subscribed to the basic contours of the Woodward and Bernstein myth: that he was someone deep in the bowels of the administration who could no longer in good conscience stand by as a corrupt president did deep damage to the nation. So Darth Throat, a fully paid-up Dark Lord of the Milhous, saved the Republic from the imperial paranoia of Chancellor Nixotine by transforming himself into Anakin Slytalker and telling what he knew to the Bradli knights of the Washington Post.During that same period, Jay Rosen wrote of "Deep Throat, J-School and Newsroom Religion":Now we learn that Deep Throat was not, in fact, Alexander Haig, David Gergen, Pat Buchanan or Len Garment, but a disaffected sidekick of J. Edgar Hoover, an old-school G-man embittered at being passed over for the director's job when the big guy keeled over after half-a-century in harness.
Hmm. Like the ''Star Wars'' wrap-up, ''How Mark Felt Became Deep Throat'' feels small and mean after three decades of the awesome dramatic burden placed upon it. The nobility of the Watergate myth -- in which media boomers and generations of journalism school ethics bores have sunk so much -- seems cheapened and tarnished by this last plot twist.
The best thing I read on the subject in the last few days was a 1992 piece by James Mann from the Atlantic Monthly. He doesn't identify Deep Throat, though he mentions Mark Felt in an important context. But get a load of this remarkably shrewd paragraph from 13 years ago:
''By coincidence, the Watergate break-in occurred on June 17, less than seven weeks after Hoover's death and [FBI outsider] Gray's appointment [as acting director]. The FBI took charge of the federal investigation at the same time that the administration was trying to limit its scope.
''Therein lies the origin of Deep Throat.''
Bingo! Mann also adds: ''Rarely is it asked whether White House aides like Haig, Ziegler, and Garment were the sort of people willing to hold 2 a.m. meetings in a parking garage, or whether they were able to arrange the circling of the page number 20 of Bob Woodward's copy of the New York Times, which was delivered to his apartment by 7 a.m. -- the signal that Deep Throat wanted a meeting.''
With the benefit of hindsight, Mann's observation seems obvious. That's what the spy novelists call ''tradecraft.'' It's the sort of thing spooks and feds do, not White House aides. Why then was it not so obvious for the last three decades?
The answer is that, thanks to All The President's Men, the media took it for granted they were America's plucky heroic crusaders, and there's no point being plucky heroic crusaders unless you've got the dark sinister forces of an all-powerful government to pluckily crusade against. Think how many conspiracy movies there've been where White House aides are the sort of chaps who think nothing of meeting you at 2 a.m. in parking garages, usually as a prelude to having you whacked. In films like Clint Eastwood's ''Absolute Power'' or Kevin Costner's ''No Way Out,'' political appointees carry on like that routinely. That image of government derives principally from the Nixon era.
Watergate is the great redemptive story believers learn to tell about the press and what it can do for the American people. Whether the story can continue to claim enough believers--and connect the humble to the heroic in journalism--is a big question. Whether it should is another question.Felt and many of the other supporting players of Watergate are slowly heading towards the exits. And with the lights about to go out on the legacy media, journalists finally have found a new religion to rally around--but will it be powerful enough to save the old order?
Update: Welcome readers of The Hill's Blog Briefing Room.
Elsewhere on the Web, Ed Morrissey's thoughts on Mark Felt are also worth reading.
Michael Graham has "The Shoe 'Nuff Truth":
Now that you've heard the Partisan Press cackle and misreport the Shoe-Flingin' Iraqi "Journalist" story for 48 hours (did the press tell you, for example, he worked at a Pro-SADDAM newspaper in Egypt?), get the Natural Truth from military analyst and historian Ralph Peters:Glenn Reynolds places the attack into context with another event that occurred near the start of President Bush's administration.If an Arab journalist had thrown his shoes at Saddam Hussein or one of his guests, the tosser would've been beaten, then tortured, then killed. Today's Iraqi government is considering whether the man should be charged under the state's democratically validated Constitution.Charles Krauthammer made a similar point on Fox News yesterday, noting that while the Arab and American media are gleefully reporting this one man's actions as reflective of Iraq, the elected Iraqi parliament--which has to go home and answer to citizens--overwhelmingly passed the Bush-backed security plan that the president went to Iraq to sign.Bush won. Even if shoe-thrower Muntadar al-Zaidi (who works for an Egypt-based media outfit) walks out in his stocking feet and becomes a hero to dead-enders, he unwittingly showed what a great thing has been accomplished in Iraq.
Let the bad guys throw shoes, and let the US military win wars and help create democracies. I'll take that deal any day.
(Via Kathy Shaidle, exploring the Zapruder film and going back and to the left wingtip.)
Times Watch has the Gray Lady's worst quotes of note for 2008--but there's still time for more!
We mentioned AP's "Byline Strike" on Tuesday, but Dan Riehl does a great job of reading between the bylines:
The real kicker is that while the journalists are busy writing about the collapse of the Global economy, or the newspaper industry looking like it's going away, all in times so bad we need a new, New Deal - they went to the table asking for a 10% raise.As Dan writes, it's obvious that even AP doesn't believe the endlessly catastrophic news they've been reading via AP.
Well, can't fault them there.
Even as newspapers are shedding staff and hemorrhaging money, Roger L. Simon spots "The Great Byline Strike Of '08" amongst journalists at the Associated Press:
I read with amusement that reporters and photographers for the Associated Press are staging (via the Newspaper Guild) a 'byline strike.' Say what? To stage a such a strike people have to have heard of you, but practically no one is more anonymous than a writer for a news service. It almost comes with the job description. You are the "Associated Press," not yourself. The AP is not exactly where you find the next Norman Mailer. News service reporters are not even as well known as bloggers. I mean whose names are more famous to the general public at his point -- Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin and (yikes) Markos Moulitsas or [insert any Associated Press writer here]?As that sage philosopher of Springfield, H. J. Simpson once told his daughter, "Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day, and do it really half-assed. That's the American way."Not that I don't have some sympathy for my AP colleagues. These are trying times for all in the media. But they made a choice by joining a news service and that choice was for a form of literary facelessness. Also, they opted for a form of homogenization, since the AP and other news services are by mission supposed to be uniform in style and content.
And therein lies the rub. Of recent years the uniformity of the Associated Press in publishing a kind of bland, accepted liberalism of the most uninspired (and sometimes distorted) sort may be the root of their business woes - not the presence (or not) of bylines or even the current economic situation, although the latter certainly plays a part. I would suggest to the writers and owners of the AP that they consider opening up their company to people of different biases and opinions. They are supposed to be a news service, after all, not a ideological distribution center. People on the more extreme right love to compare them to Tass. That's not fair. The AP is nowhere near as bad as that. But they are pretty bad. And they are failing economically. And when you're failing economically, you're supposed to do something. [Maybe they're waiting for a TARP bailout.--ed. I'd rather drive a Buick.]
And from that perspective, the staff at AP have been doing an exceptional job of alerting readers of poor working conditions there for years.
Found via Newsbusters, this Chicago Sun-Times article begins thusly:
Bye bye, black Senate seat! The political blackbirds are singing a swan song for the hopes of keeping a U.S. Senate seat in African-American hands. The Rod Blagojevich implosion may have dealt that cause a fatal blow.So much for post-racial America.Last week's stunning pay-to-play charges led to calls around the nation for a special election to choose President-elect Barack Obama's successor.
That possibility has provoked outrage among black community leaders and politicians. Not so fast, they are saying.
Ed Morrissey posts an amusing clip of Joe Scarborough riffing on the instinctive legacy media.
FrontPage Magazine quotes the speech that Bernard Goldberg (the author of the groundbreaking books on media bias, the first titled, logically enough, Bias and its sequel, Arrogance, gave during David Horowitz's latest Restoration Weekend on November 14th. It was followed by a Q&A, where this excerpt was taken:
Bernie Goldberg: I have long argued, and I continue to argue, despite what some of my conservative friends think, there is no conspiracy. Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, and in my day, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw never came in the morning, went into a room, summoned their top lieutenants, pulled the shades, dimmed the lights, gave the secret handshake and the secret salute, and said, "How are we going to screw those conservatives today?" It never, ever happened that way. And you know what? I wish it did because that is so outrageous. That is so unacceptable that nobody would tolerate it for two seconds.He's right--McCain did much damage to his own campaign through its infighting and lacking of planning and coordination, and his ham-handed "suspending his campaign" stunt in late September without really knowing what he'd do once he got to Washington to deal with that month's bailout sealed his fate.What happens in reality is worse. What happens is there are so many likeminded people in the newsroom, they not only think alike; it becomes a group-think kind of thing so that they see conservative views as being to the right of center, which they are, and they see liberal views as middle of the road. They don't even know what liberal views are because of this bubble that they live in.
What made it different this time - despite the fact that they wanted Michael Dukakis or Walter Mondale to win, it wasn't the same thing as this year because Walter Mondale was just another white guy and so was Michael Dukakis. This was different. They were on a mission. This was very important. Their cause, as I say, was noble, and they were going to do whatever they had to do to make this happen. And unlike in past years where they all denied their bias, you're right. The questioner was right. They acknowledge it. And you know why they acknowledge it in the end? Because they don't give a damn what any of you think. That's why.
Unidentified Audience Participant: What I would like to know is there's such a contradiction here in the fact that the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times are almost spinning out of existence. Why is it that they had such a powerful effect on the election?
Bernie Goldberg: I don't know that they do have a powerful effect on - I don't think the media defeated John McCain. I think the media was as corrupt as the day is long, but I don't think they defeated John McCain.
One of my friends in the room suggested maybe two or three points, but it wasn't enough to throw the election. I think people listen to this stuff.
A poll came out. It was a reputable poll. I think it was by Pew, the Pew Research Center, that said 90 percent of Republicans - the question was simply this - "Who do you think most reporters want to win the election?" and 90 percent of Republicans said they want Obama to win. But this is a statistic that should send chills running up the spine of any journalist with half a brain; 62 percent of Democrats and independents said the same thing. Now, if they don't have Republicans - we've already decided we don't trust them, but if 62 percent of Democrats don't trust them, that's a real problem because all they have, at least in theory, is their credibility. So I think they didn't put a thumb on the scale, but they put their big fat asses on the scale this time, and they wanted him to win, and they made no bones about it. But they didn't beat John McCain.
And McCain seems thrilled to be able to hang out with David Letterman and count the media as his friends again. The pressure of actually having to lead is off.
Now go over and read Goldberg's actual speech.
And for my two-part interview with Goldberg in 2004 in Tech Central Station, click here and here.)
(H/T: CG)
I originally produced the above clip, "Mugging For The Camera," back in early April as part of my Silicon Graffiti series of videoblogs, and uploaded it first to my primary video server, where I posted it here and it got a fair chunk of traffic in the Blogosphere. I then uploaded it to YouTube for hosting on my page there.
Last year, one of the subjects of the video, television reporter Rebecca Aguilar, then with Dallas-based KDFW, received a firestorm of attention (here's our post, which links to others) for her badgering tone when attempting to interview an elderly Army vet whose business was robbed on multiple occasions, and fought back. (She was eventually let go by the station.)
In late March, when a TV station in northern California reported in a rather upbeat manner about the bravery of another elderly vet who fought back rather than be mugged, it seemed to be quite a contrast to the report that aired in Dallas.
As part of my Silicon Graffiti video series, I wanted to place those two video clips side by side, as well as include comments made by other journalists and bloggers, such as the proprietors of Breitbart.TV (who are local television vets themselves), and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com, all of which was clearly within the context of fair use.
On November 18, the page containing the above video was the subject of a DMCA take-down notice sent to YouTube by KDFW. YouTube, quite appropriately, took down the video and sent me a copy of the notice. My wife and attorney sent a counter notice, and after waiting the appropriate time, YouTube restored the content earlier this evening with a note that my account would not be penalized, which means that this won't count against me on YouTube's "repeat offender" list.
As others have noted, YouTube is quick to pull videos whenever there's a whiff of controversy or a dispute regarding them. But I'm glad to see this video back up--to the best of my knowledge, it's the only record available on YouTube at the moment of newscaster Rebecca Aguilar's original report, the others having been removed due to KDFW's objections. (See here, here and here.) But it's also a reminder not to rely on the site as your primary or, especially, your only video host.
At NewsBusters Kyle Drennen spots CBS with their shoe in their mouth:
According to CBS correspondent Richard Roth, in a report on Monday's CBS Early about an Iraqi journalist throwing a shoe at President Bush during a Baghdad press conference, the incident was reminiscent of the toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein five years earlier: "Mr. Bush's message of progress was eclipsed in Baghdad by a sign of his unpopularity...The symbolism wouldn't have been lost on Iraqis, for whom shoes can be used to show extreme contempt, as with the footwear beaten against the statue of Saddam Hussein toppled by Marines five years ago."Of course, in 2002, when Saddam held his last "election", CBS hilariously reported:
(CBS) Iraq declared Saddam Hussein the winner Wednesday - by an 11 million-to-0 margin - in a war-shadowed referendum on his two-decade military rule, sending celebratory gunfire crackling from the streets and rooftops of Baghdad.Of course. More explorations of the Memory Hole, here.The 100 percent turnout, 100 percent 'yes' vote shows all Iraqis are poised to defend Saddam against American forces, the country's No. 2 man said.
"If they come, we will fight them in every village, and every house," said Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council, announcing results on what Iraq billed as a people's referendum on keeping Saddam in power another seven years.
"Every home will be a front, and every farmer, every shepherd, every Iraqi, will play his role," Ibrahim said. "All Iraqis are armed now, and by God's will we will triumph."
* * * CBS News Correspondent Tom Fenton, reports voters going to the polls in Baghdad faced a simple choice - to vote "yes" or "no" - and everyone seemed to be voting "yes."
Whether that's because they love their leader - as many people said they did - or for other reasons, was hard to tell.
A United Nations human rights report says 500 people were jailed in the last referendum after they voted "no."
Some voters went to extremes to make it clear where they stood.
"I love Saddam more than myself," one man told CBS News, as he wrote "yes" on his ballot in blood - his own blood.
Ibrahim, announcing the vote, said all 11,445,638 eligible voters had cast ballots, and all for Saddam.
"Someone who does not know the Iraqi people will not believe this percentage, but it is real," Ibrahim said. "Whether it looks that way to someone or not. We don't have opposition in Iraq."
Iraqi officials said popular outrage at the U.S. threats to Saddam's regime made the turnout and percentage even higher than in 1995, when Saddam received a 99.96 percent 'yes' vote.
Iraqi media compared it to Bush's 2000 election victory, eked out in the Electoral College despite losing to Al Gore in the popular vote.
"The truth of the matter is that he (Bush) won by a fraction of the votes, and this fraction was engineered by sly lawyers' games," said the state-run Iraqi Daily. "Maybe this is one of the main reasons for his hysterical threats on the Iraqi choice!"
Meanwhile, Power Line reviews HBO's whitewashed miniseries about Saddam and finds more than a little equivocation:
There is much more that could be said. But let us sum up: HBO and the BBC want us to see Saddam as a family man, a tyrant at home, a dictator at work, who became this way because his stepfather beat him. He was, in this version, an ordinary kind of dictator and this was an ordinary kind of Middle Eastern authoritarian regime run as a family business. The trouble is it was not. Saddam was uniquely brutal in his rise through the Ba'athist Party. His regime sought to eliminate entire groups from the nation. He launched two aggressive wars against neighbouring states. This was not a normal authoritarian regime, nor even a bad one. Saddam was a genocidal dictator who terrorized his own people. This attempt to normalize him is a disgrace.Saddam became a dictator "because his stepfather beat him"? Moviemakers seem remarkably generous when it comes to forgiving a tyrant's excesses when they can blame them all on a dysfunctional childhood.
More Hollywood forgiveness offered here.
The Business & Media Institute rounds them up; a Tech Central Station column by Arnold Kling from 2006 explains their origins.
In a related vein, Ronnie Schreiber explores "Myths of Organized Labor", memes which also derive from a similar ancestry.
If you enjoyed my Red Queen's Race video last week, Jon Stewart (found via Jeff Jarvis and Glenn Reynolds) has a fun clip summing up the newspapers' endgame in about two minutes:
Meanwhile, Investor's Business Daily notes that "Some journalists out there seem to be actually rooting for a new economic depression--the very thing that will hurt them more than it will hurt many others":
The blogosphere has a name for this syndrome: "depression lust." Virginia Postrel, an Atlantic Monthly columnist who invented the phrase, contributed to a Boston Globe story published in November that collected ideas from various people to (allegedly) give readers some insight into what a 2009 depression would look like.And of course, with the economy slowing, the AP feverishly wishes that Obama will bring it to a stop with tons of business-choking global warming regulations.The conditions "sounded pretty damned good to some people," Postrel writes on her Dynamist blog, "a sure sign of an affluent society, or at least affluent commentators," who, we should add, appear to be operating under the illusion that things would still be rosy for them in a depression because they always have been.
Journalists "seem positively giddy with anticipation at the prospect of a return to '30s-style hardship -- without, of course, the real hardship of the 1930s," Postrel blogs.
Jim Miller, who writes a political blog, has made a similar observation. "I can't count the number of times I read hopeful pieces in the New York Times saying that a recession might be coming soon, so now that one is actually here those people have to be pleased."
Did any of those New York Times stories come from David Carr, whose "Stoking Fear Everywhere You Look" appeared Monday?
"Every modern recession includes a media seance about how horrible things are and how much worse they will be," noted Carr, who did a bit of his own communicating with the dead spirits of the Great Depression.
As Postrel notes, journalists, whose industry is teetering and "who are already the equivalent of 1980s steelworkers," should be among the most fearful of a depression.
But they can't help themselves. Their contempt for the capitalism and free markets that have made so many of them comfortable is strong enough to make them wish for economic conditions not in their best interests -- and it comes through loud and clear almost every time they report.
As one of Tim Blair's readers quipped on Friday:
Obama has besmirched the "Office of the President Elect" more than anyone in American history.In mid-November, When Obama's transition team fired up Photoshop, printed out their mock "Office of the President-Elect" signs and pasted them to Obama's lectern, the media, weary of covering the real president during the final two months of his administration (except when the Florsheims fly, of course) ate it up. Itchy with anticipation over the transition and already used to giving their candidate maximum media exposure (and plenty of cover), they were thrilled to report on his press conferences as if he already was the president--why bother with the stuffy formality of transferring power in January?
And then we all learned how to pronounce the word "Blagojevich."
With a little bit of political jujitsu in mind, this weekend, the RNC responded with this ad:
Hot Air's Allahpundit asks, "Should the RNC have waited on this? No benefit of the doubt during the interregnum, at least?"
In 2000, there was plenty of doubt, and very little of it beneficial, thrown by the out party at their successors during the transition period.
Having established the precedent, why would they think the urge to attack during what was once a calm and orderly transition would cease?
As Christian Toto writes, while Roger Ebert has always been a man of the left, his BDS seems to be getting the better of him these days. In his otherwise appropriately middling review of the Keanu Reeves remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, Ebert opines:
The message of the 2008 version is that we should have voted for Al Gore. This didn't require Klaatu and Gort. That's what I'm here for.To which Christian replies:
Really? I thought you were here to help the public decide the best way to spend their hard-earned money at their local theater. Maybe that whole "thumb" thing was just a distraction.Exactly. But Ebert really lets his 1960s-minted BDS flag fly in his review of Frost/Nixon:
Strange, how a man once so reviled has gained stature in the memory. How we cheered when Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency! How dramatic it was when David Frost cornered him on TV and presided over the humiliating confession that he had stonewalled for three years. And yet how much more intelligent, thoughtful and, well, presidential, he now seems, compared to the occupant of the office from 2001 to 2009.That's not strange, that's what the media does to every Republican president when he leaves office when comparing him to a successor from his same party. Why should Nixon be the exception?
More Ebert:
Nixon was thought to have been destroyed by Watergate and interred by the Frost interviews. But wouldn't you trade him in a second for Bush?Nahh, I'm not a wage and price controls kind of guy. But that's the great irony of Nixon's presidency, as Tom Wicker of the New York Times wrote in his 1991 biography of Nixon. If the left could have gotten past their hatred of the man, they would found, particularly in his statist warmed over Great Society domestic policies, he really was one of them, to paraphrase Wicker's title--or at least he certainly governed like it.
While Ebert naturally gives the movie four stars, John Nolte provides a bit of much-needed perspective:
Frost/Nixon is a full on respectable, accomplished and intelligent retelling of the now famous series of interviews English television personality David Frost conducted with disgraced former President Nixon in 1977, just a few years after Nixon's resignation. No one can argue a successful stageplay hasn't been transformed into a beautifully shot narrative with two memorable performances by Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost. The film holds your attention and reeks of competence from beginning to end.Even Ebert circuitously admits that the film is a show about a show about nothing:All that's missing is a point.
* * * Frost/Nixon rates as an impressive television movie, but as a feature it lacks a point, any kind of real intellectual curiosity, and, most of all, an ambition to do more than win awards. There's a great Nixon film to be made about this corrupt but fascinating man, but a couple of terrific lead performances won't help anyone remember this one for very long.
[Nixon] admitted what everyone already knew, and that freed him to get on with things, to end his limbo in San Clemente, Calif., to give other interviews, to write books, to be consulted as an elder statesman. Indeed, to show his face in public.Wait--didn't you start your article by saying that Nixon was "interred by the Frost interviews"? So the interview that interred Nixon freed him to get on with things?
In actuality, the interview was hardly the heavyweight slugfest the movie and its hagiographic critics make it out to be. At National Review, Fred Schwarz goes back to the newspaper reviews of Frosts' interviews with Nixon to see how they played at the time with a media still giddy over their recent victory:
To someone who was around back then, the idea of making a major motion picture about such a notorious fizzle seems bizarre; you might as well write an opera about "The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault." Is this just a case of memory being deceptive? Were the interviews really a landmark of a milestone of a watershed, as the publicists assert? To test this, I looked back at the reception they got in the media of the time.As Orrin Judd concludes in his review of Wicker's biography:The show's producers secured lavish advance coverage by giving virtually everyone with a press card some sort of "leak": transcripts, unedited video, production notes, briefing materials, correspondence. The week of the broadcast, Nixon was on the cover of both Time and Newsweek, in that long-vanished era when those publications were considered influential. In the days leading up to the broadcast, the Washington Post ran several solid pages of Watergate transcripts and analysis, flashing back to the glory days of 1973.
After the airing of the first interview -- the only one anybody cared about, since it contained all the Watergate material -- there was far less hoopla. The Post's Bob Woodward, Nixon's erstwhile tormentor, called it "a much-touted television interview which shed little new light on the scandal."
Elsewhere in the Post, Haynes Johnson's analysis dripped with disappointment: "[The former president] proceeded, for the next 90 minutes, to give us all the familiar Nixon responses we have all seen for more than a generation. Those advance reports about Nixon being broken -- or shattered -- or even shaken by the withering interrogation of David Frost are in error. Nixon is in control throughout. He offers little that is new, and less that is of substance." Johnson continued: "Last night's program was billed as a dramatic and historic encounter between Nixon and his opponent, the relentless David Frost. It was nothing of the sort. . . . By the very end of the program, Frost looks as though he's swept up by the Nixon responses. . . . The tables have been turned. Frost had met his match."
The New York Times, in a brief, unsigned "Week in Review" item a few days later, echoed the been-there, done-that theme: "The spectacle was a familiar one . . . he portrayed himself, in typically Nixonian terms and gestures, as a victim of circumstance whose errors sprang from good intentions. . . . No important factual information about Watergate emerged from the interview."
* * * How did this one-day story suddenly become the most important event since the Civil War? Well, if there's anything the media loves more than overhyping an anti-Republican story, it's overhyping its own importance, so when they have a chance to do both at once, it's no surprise that they get a little too excited.
As I wrote here last year, Frost/Nixon is an attempt to use history, assisted by plenty of dramatic license, to retrospectively turn a loss into a win. By all accounts, Frost/Nixon does a fine job of dramatizing the negotiations and preparation that led up to the interviews. And it's hard to imagine Frank Langella, who plays a Brezhnev-looking Nixon, giving a bad performance. Still, the movie's fundamental premise is just plain wrong.
The trailer says: "In 1974 President Nixon resigned to hide the truth. But one man had a few questions." In fact, Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment; "the truth" was contained in congressional transcripts, court papers, and Oval Office tapes, and the great bulk of it came out before Frost and Nixon sat down for their "historic" clash. Some questions did remain unanswered: Why would anyone bug the DNC? Why didn't Nixon burn the tapes? Where did the 18-1/2 minute gap come from? But Frost never brought these up.
All that his much-vaunted interviews "revealed" was the unsurprising truth that, even in retirement, Richard Nixon was the same Tricky Dick he had always been.
It is perhaps the perfect punishment that Nixon has no one left to defend him now except for the same liberals who were his lifelong enemies. One imagines Richard Nixon spinning in his grave at the very thought of a NY Times columnist penning a 700 page apologia for his life and works, and one smiles.And as John Nolte writes:
Since 1976's All The President's Men Nixon's become a genre all his own. Take a look.My personal favorite is Robert Altman's Secret Honor, starring Philip Baker Hall and a half gallon bottle of Chivas Regal, and its Blagojevichian conclusion. (Language warning, but the video clip's here.)
Nixon was still very much alive when the 1984 film was made; while I don't know his response, I'd like think that deep down inside, he very much enjoyed, even a decade after he left office, still being able to cause that embittered a reaction amongst the left.
(And as for Nixon's interviewer? Much like Dan Rather's banishment to the cable purgatory of HD-Net, Frost has also been exiled to his own video Siberia.)
The traditional conventional wisdom (and by "traditional conventional wisdom", I mean about as far back as 2002), Bloggers are one-man bands, guys in their pajamas (to coin a phrase) producing material without the traditional infrastructure and interpersonal cooperation found in mass media.
The new conventional wisdom from mass media? Where do we sign up:
Under a new agreement reached this week with its labor unions, WUSA, Channel 9, will become the first station in Washington to replace its crews with one-person "multimedia journalists" who will shoot and edit news stories single-handedly.Gosh--there's a shocking new development.The change will blur the distinctions between the station's reporters and its camera and production people. Reporters will soon be shooting and editing their own stories, and camera people will be doing the work of reporters, occasionally appearing on the air or on in video clips on Channel 9's Web site.
For decades, TV journalists have worked in teams, with the lines of responsibility regulated by union rules or simple tradition. Stories were covered by a crew consisting of a camera operator and a correspondent (and further back, by a sound or lighting technician); their work was overseen by a producer and their footage assembled into a finished story by an editor.
But technology -- handheld or tripod-mounted cameras, laptop editing programs and the Internet -- have made it possible for one person to handle all those assignments, station managers say.
Welcome to the 21st century, guys--we'll be glad to show you around.
An editor at the The Hill claims that "death threats" are keeping Rahm Emanuel from attending press conferences to discuss the Blagojevich meltdown. As Mark Finkelstein writes:
Which would be the safer place to be for a political figure who's received death threats?:Presumably "The Office of the President Elect" has amongst it perks a phalanx of Secret Service agents at every press conference, in addition to dozens of journalists eager to take a bullet for either man.a. A school concert in a public venue.
b. A press conference in the company of the President-elect of the United States of America.If you answered 'b,' you're thinking like me and presumably most people. If you answered 'a,' you're A.B. Stoddard. The associate editor of "The Hill" offered up the strange excuse that death threats are preventing Rahm Emanuel from attending press conferences in the course of an MSNBC appearance this afternoon during which she also claimed that "President-elect Obama is taking steps to be as forthcoming and as open and as transparent as he promised he would be."
Meanwhile, a possible reason (or maybe not) why Rahm's been remiss.
Having aided in his defeat for the White House, the media are now allowing John McCain to safely inherit the role of inoffensive elder GOP statesman-as-lovable-loser role last worn comfortably in the late 1990s by Bob Dole.
Meanwhile even with McCain's campaign concluded, the incompetence wears on.
In contrast, "The Other McCain" offers a roadmap for GOP recovery, here.
Or, "Journalism--The Unknown Ideal", to paraphrase a lesser known, but equally appropriate title.
The media are fixating on Rod Blagojevich's helmet hair as a sign that he's "nuts", as Vanity Fair dubbed the Illinois Democrat. It allows for plenty of cheap jokes--and we're as guilty of that as anybody. But as P.J. Gladnick writes, it also allows journalists to ignore the bigger question they'd much rather avoid:
Will other media outlets also promote the idea of Blagovich as insane due to perfectly groomed hair? Hmm... John Edwards also had an obsession over his hair so there just might be something to it. Of course, insanity as evidenced by great hair is a much more palatable excuse for Democrats and their media allies than the fact that Blagojevich was a typical member of the corrupt Chicago political machine.And for background on that machine, Reason.TV looks at "Crook County":
The Wall Street Journal notes, "In Chicago, Political Celebration Gives Way to Political Shame:"
The pride that's been surging through this city since Barack Obama's presidential victory last month is showing signs of deflating now that political corruption has returned to center stage in Illinois.Gosh, there's a shocker. Meanwhile, despite being a target-rich environment there's "Not Much Humor in the Blagosphere", according to Yeah Right:To many residents, the arrest of Gov. Rod Blagojevich for, among other things, allegedly trying to sell the president-elect's vacated senate seat marked an end to the political glow the city has been basking in.
"It was as if Chicago politics had turned a corner and this was a new day," said Sean Kennedy, former president of a student Democrat organization at Loyola University here. "All of a sudden, we get pulled back into reality, and realize nothing in Chicago has changed that much."
I haven't done an exhaustive search, but I'm pretty disappointed in the lack of funny material online on the Rod Blagojevich scandal. I mean, brazen corruption + lotsa obscenity + awesome name. In my book, that ought to = comedy gold. Perhaps its just that the reality is funny enough that it is stunting the creativity of our nation's funnymen who seem to be struggling IMHO.One of their links goes to Blagojevich's Gary Hart moment from earlier this week:
Finally, though reasonable people may disagree, looking at Blagojevich's freeze-dried hair, I'd say now we know who Christopher Reeve donated his toupees to.
Just to follow up on our link earlier today to Virginia Postrel's post on "Depression Porn", Culture11 explores "Recession Chic" in the fashion magazine industry--"Who knew an economic collapse could be so fabulous?"
Meanwhile over at Ace of Spades, "U.S. Economy In Recession; Women, Minorities, and [B.S.] Artists Hardest Hit."
Back in early 2005, Howard Fineman of Newsweek wrote:
A political party is dying before our eyes -- and I don't mean the Democrats. I'm talking about the "mainstream media," which is being destroyed by the opposition (or worse, the casual disdain) of George Bush's Republican Party; by competition from other news outlets (led by the internet and Fox's canny Roger Ailes); and by its own fraying journalistic standards.Looks like Howard's employer didn't take his advice:
Facing increased costs of postage and maintaining its circulation, Newsweek has been quietly considering a drop its circulation guarantee by a million copies or more, FOLIO: has learned.In addition to Fineman's warning from 2005, these recent moments will stand as key mile markers on Newsweek's decent into Thought Leaderdom.Executives at Newsweek began discussing a rate base rollback as early as this summer, according to a pair of sources familiar with these discussions.
Both sources say that the magazine is considering slashing up to 1.6 million copies from Newsweek's current rate base of 2.6 million, which would put the magazine's rate base at 1 million.
Newsweek declined to comment.
"A million [rate base] was the extreme," said the source. But, as the year wore on, and the economic crisis worsened, "[they] didn't see a recovery."
'Thought Leader'
Aside from the cost of maintaining such a high circulation, Newsweek would like to transition from newsmagazine to "thought leader," something more akin to the Economist. "[Editor Jon] Meacham and [Time editorial director Richard] Stengel are both infatuated with the Economist," the source said. "To get that 'thought leader' position, a million is the sweet spot." The Economist's rate base in North America is 714,000.
Update: More news of fresh disaster: "Hit by Recession, NPR to Lay Off Seven Percent of Staff."
Jonathan Last notes that the Gray Lady isn't exactly helping herself win converts with its latest ad campaign. And in news regarding another medium, AP spots "broadcasters having bad year":
Broadcast TV's fall season is going so poorly that four out of five returning programs have a smaller audience than they had in 2007.Say, this trend deserves a name, don't you think?
Related: I can certainly sympathize with the image Photoshopped by Doug Ross that accompanies this post: "Newspaper CEOs rearrange deck chairs in closed-door 'Crisis Summit." This chart helps to explain that image.
(Found via Free Canuckistan.)
How much are the media in the tank for Obama? Enough so that they'll happily toss inconvenient articles down the memory hole for him.
This morning, Ann Althouse wrote:
Why am I getting the feeling that the mainstream media will do what it can to obliterate the connection between Rod Blagojevich and Barack Obama?It's more than a feeling, to quote those sage philosophers from Boston.
Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey spots plenty of airbrushing at Obama's Change.gov site.
Warner Todd Huston compares and contrasts 2008 and 2001:
Jonathan Alter was an early accuser of new President George W. Bush when he and VP Cheney began to try to warn the country that an economic downturn was well underway as he was taking office. As Bush tried to warn the nation, the media jumped all over him for "talking down the economy." Yet, as we watch the reporting of Obama's current down talking of the economy, the media has said nothing similar to the condemnation reigned upon Bush.Why would the media complain about Obama, when they're doing a remarkable job of talking down the economy themselves, as Virginia Postrel notes:The myth that people like Alter was pushing in 2001 was that Clinton bequeathed a good economy to Bush, but the reality was that the spiral had already begun to fall into negative territory months before Bush took office. Despite that obvious downturn, the media formed a chorus of attacking Bush for being too negative in the face of the American people. On March 26, Alter unleashed his Newsweek piece headlined "Thanks Ever So Much, President Poor-Mouth." Alter called Bush's warnings "risky and unusual," and made the pronouncement that Bush was wrong to do so. "Even if Bush turns out to be right in his predictions of gloom," Alter wrote, "that doesn't mean he was right to make them."
On CNN, Lou Waters needled Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer on January 12, 2001 about the "politicalization " of the economy. "President Clinton, sort of, answered that as well today. He's talking up the economy. There are economists who say you guys are talking down the economy. What's happening here in this transition period, the whole, sort of, politicalization [of the economy]...," Waters said.
On March 19, The New York Times scolded Bush that presidents were supposed to be "cheerleaders for the nation's economy."
Yet, has anyone seen any similar scolding of the new "cheerleader" in chief, Obama? Has anyone seen an Alter sternly scolding Obama for "poor-mouthing" the economy? Has there been any hectoring from CNN over Obama's grave warnings? Where is The New York Times beating up that downcast Obama?
If anyone should fear a Depression, it should be journalists, who are already the equivalent of 1980s steelworkers. But instead, they seem positively giddy with anticipation at the prospect of a return to '30s-style hardship--without, of course, the real hardship of the 1930s. (We're all yuppies now.)Read the whole thing.
Reuters: "Obama Seen Untouched by Illinois Governor Charges."
Meanwhile, as Mary Katharine Ham notes, "No need to wait for Obama to frame the issue when the Associated Press knows his favorite words already. They are great students of his oratory, after all." AP rather subjectively reports (emphasis MKH):
Though Barack Obama isn't accused of anything, the charges against his home-state governor - concerning Obama's own Senate seat no less--are an unwelcome distraction. And the ultimate fallout is unclear.Ham writes that there's another "distraction" added by AP "just a few paragraphs later, after a vigorous defense of Obama and a rigorous downplaying of his connections to Blago":As Obama works to set up his new administration and deal with a national economic crisis, suddenly he also is spending time and attention trying to distance himself from Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and charges that the governor was trying to sell the now-vacant Senate post.
Still, at the very least, the episode amounts to a distraction for Obama at an inopportune time just six weeks before he's sworn into office. It also raises the specter of notorious Chicago politics, an image Obama has tried to distance himself from during his career.As MKH adds, "The story goes on to castigate mean Republicans who just won't let the issue drop, already. Again, the AP should just drop the grown-up words and write with emoticons. The picture associated with the story even features Obama wearing a frowny face. The pathos!"
We should be sympathetic though. After all, it's not easy for a legacy media at the tail end of the Red Queen's Race, when their favorite hologram needs a little help.
As that hoary old newspaper cliche goes, the goal of journalism is "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable", a statement that makes a hash of any mid-20th century claims to "objectivity." But in the past, most journalists, print or video, paid lip service to the idea of being a champion of the little guy, the working man, Joe Six Pack, or whatever that particular week's fabulously outdated and only mildly paternalistic reference to Middle America was.
But that was a long time ago. On Sunday, Tom Brokaw suggested that President Elect Obama tank the economy even more, by sticking it to commuters' wallets:
Let's talk for a moment about consumer responsibility when it comes to the auto industries. As soon as gas prices dropped, consumers moved back to the larger cars once again. The SUVs are the big gas consumers. Why not take this opportunity to put a tax on gasoline, bump it back up to $4 a gallon where people were prepared to pay for that, and use that revenue for alternative energy and as a signal to the consumers: "Those days are gone. We're not going to have gasoline that you could just fill up your tank for 20 bucks anymore."And of course, the Washington Post is also pretty cool with that idea.
Meanwhile, rather than letting the marketplace decide who sells books and who doesn't, New York Times columnist Timothy Egan doesn't want anyone infringing on his turf:
The unlicensed pipe fitter known as Joe the Plumber is out with a book this month, just as the last seconds on his 15 minutes are slipping away. I have a question for Joe: Do you want me to fix your leaky toilet?Gosh, there's a shocker; Tim Blair makes quick work of Egan's arrogance--but it's merely the latest reminder that newspapers in general really don't want any competition for their territory.I didn't think so. And I don't want you writing books.
Of course, they're not alone in that department.
Update: Not surprisingly, Iowahawk has a few japes at Egan's expense: "Silly Plumber, Lit Is For Crits!"
Wow, I really wish I had seen this 2007 clip from McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt, before I shot my "Red Queen's Race" video over the weekend.
As P.J. Gladnick of Newsbusters notes, Pruitt does a terrific Baghdad Bob impersonation--but only before invoking his heartfelt commitment to "philosophers and rock 'n' roll songs. Sometimes it's one and the same as with Lenny Kravitz's song from a few years ago, 'Dig In.'"
With the arrest today of Illinois' Gov. Rod "Name That Party" Blagojevich for trying to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat (corruption? In Chicago? I'm shocked!), Exurban League has a photo taken at Obama's upcoming press conference.
Update: While the obvious references are to the Untouchables, Blagojevich sounds far more like Joe Pesci in Scorsese's Casino, with his Tourette's-like four, eight and 12-letter verbal explosions. They've caused quite a run at the asterisk factory at ABC News.
I hadn't planned it this way when I started working on the new video late last week, but the timing of Monday's news of fresh disaster from old media makes the latest Silicon Graffiti remarkably timely.
But first, let's define the title.
From Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass:
"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."Back in early 2007, I started wondering if the accelerating decline of print newspaper readership, media advertising revenues, and the upcoming election year were creating a strange new tone in the media. And near the tail-end of an election year in which the media weren't afraid to let you know who to vote for--and who they were voting for--Michael Malone of ABC and Pajamas Media wrote:"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power . . . only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, ten years hence, of retirement and a pension.So here's a look at how the media got there, beginning in sepia toned 1926 when mass media was born with the first radio networks, all the way to the days of the Web, the Blogosphere, and the surprising impact Craigslist has had on classified advertising revenue--and a look at declining newspaper advertising in general.In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway - all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.
And then the opportunity presents itself: an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career. With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived Fairness Doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe, be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.
And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country . . .
This accelerating downward spiral has completed unnerved much of old media--to the point where a newspaper in a city once known 160 years ago for its residents' spectacular success at mining for gold completely overlooked the solid gold story dropped into their laps, helping to create a remarkably holographic presidential candidate.
(For 21 or so older Silicon Graffiti videos, click here and keep scrolling. And a special thanks to my friend Jenifer Toksvig for doing such a terrific job of recording the opening narration.)
"New York Times Baffled How a Conservative, Oil-Drilling State Isn't in Recession."
(H/T: RSM)
And you thought Olbermann and Matthews bit people's heads off at MSNBC:
Dan Rather on the dangers of Big Media:
Investigative reporting, finding out what people in power don't want the public at large to know and disseminating it, is one of the most important roles of journalism in its role as the so-called Fourth Estate. And investigative reporting has gone badly out of fashion. The trend line is against it.But when an army of independent journalists investigated one of Dan's stories, Rather accused them of being on Karl Rove's payroll. (Dan doesn't know the half of it!) And his producer questioned their authenticity, merely because she had never heard of them as late of September of 2004, near the end of the election year.There are reasons. The reasons: It takes longer, it's more expensive than other kinds of coverage, and it causes trouble because the big, huge international conglomerate that now owns so many of the news outlets, they have special needs in Washington. They are asking for favors, these people, needing favors -- regulatory, legislative needs -- of the very people that good investigative reporters would be digging into and exposing, if you will. And this comes in conflict.
But all of a sudden, Dan's not a fan of corporate journalism--wonder why?
The self-lobotomizing effects of political correctness on the media continues, as Patterico explores "An Ongoing Mystery to Our Journalistic Betters:"
Over at The Jury Talks Back, aunursa says that CNN can't figure out why the terrorists attacked a Jewish center.Of course, it's not just the media who are slow on the uptake these days--with dark satire to spare, Iowahawk writes that Bombay is all just a case of Too Late The Terrorist: "Apologetic Mumbai Killers: 'We Didn't Get the Memo About Obama.'"It's not terribly surprising that they're surprised. I'll never forget how, after a Muslim terrorist shot up a Jewish Center in Seattle, the L.A. Times ran a box on the front page saying that the gunman's motive was a "mystery":
[Click over for page scan--Ed]
The story contained clues, such as the fact that the gunman targeted the Jewish Center after conducting a "cursory Internet search for Jewish organizations." Or the witness who said the man had screamed "I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel!" before opening fire.
I swear I am not making up those facts, or the fact that the L.A. Times declared the gunman's motives a "mystery" in the face of that evidence.
I guess these media types just keep getting mystified.
The Onion: "NASA Simulator Preps Astronauts For Larry King Interview":
NASA Simulator Prepares Astronauts For Rigors Of An Interview With Larry King
Robert Stacy McCain responds to my post on frontloading the next GOP presidential candidate's complaints about media bias and writes, "What bothers me is how Ed -- and I think most Republicans -- take hostile media as a given":
This is defeatism, and I don't like it. Go back to Rep. Smith's math: If media bias influenced 4% of voters, that made all the difference.Read the whole thing.To my mind, what this says is that if Republicans could get slightly more favorable press coverage -- say, reducing the media's pro-Democrat bias from 70/30 to 60/40 -- this improvement could make the difference between defeat and victory. Ergo, an effective public-relations program doesn't have to be 100% successful in order to make a decisive difference.
Don Surber has some thoughts on the Palinophobic Liz Smith:
Liz Smith shows her ignorance.She's no community organizer though--and let's face it, age 44 is "a life still so young" as Smith writes; it's not until you hit the wizened age of 47 when the Lincoln, FDR, JFK, RFK, RWR comparisons start to flow in.In her column today, Smith of The New York Post shows her ignorance as well as her envy for the $7 million advance that Republican Gov. Sarah Palin can expect if she writes a book.
Wrote Smith: "What could Sarah Palin, age 44, write of a life still so young? Anything she damn well wants to write. The public, it seems, is just waiting to lap it all up like that finger-lickin' moose stew."
Barrack Obama was 34 when he finished, "Dreams from My Father."
By the way, Palin has been a beauty queen (OK, runner-up), a sportscaster, a business partner with her husband, the mother of 5, a reform mayor, a reform governor and a candidate for the vice presidency.
Elsewhere, the Moonbattery blog collects more examples of the Palinphobic left--and even, as astonishing as this will be to many, that always cool, unflappable, conservative's conservative himself, Andrew Sullivan.
(Don't miss Bill Maher's reaction to one of Andrew's rare moments of excitability.)
Related: The Winner of the Sullivan Award goes to...
Back in December of 1979, 11 people died when attempting to rush into Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium to see the rock group The Who. The following week, Time magazine surprised many by running a cover story that absolved the group of virtually all blame in the incident. The cover dubbed the band "Rock's Outer Limits", and the accompanying story focused on their success as musical artists, rather than the tragedy in Ohio. (And I'd be the last person to argue that in 1979, near the height of their power as musicians, they weren't an awesome group, especially live.)
But unlike a rock group beloved in the eyes of most boomers, the discount chain Wal-Mart doesn't garner the same sort of good will amongst journalists. Responding to the incident on Black Friday when one of their employees died when the doors were opened to allow the first mob of shoppers into the Long Island store at 5:00 AM, a New York Times went out with the following absurd headline: "A Shopping Guernica Captures the Moment."
Evidently, New York Times economics reporter Peter Goodman (or perhaps his editor, depending upon who wrote the headline) fancies himself as the next Picasso. So who are the Nazis in his mind? The management at Wal-Mart who, somewhat like Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium 30 years ago failed to have adequate security and preparations for the onslaught of a crowd, or the shoppers who crushed the unfortunate sales clerk? The article, found via Newsbusters doesn't say.
I'd excuse a high school or sophomoric college newspaper journalist making such an overwrought analogy. But if the New York Times and its writers and editors can't see the difference between an unfortunate shopping incident and the Spanish Civil War, one wonders what what value the newspaper has as an information source to be trusted by their readers.
Update 12/2/08: Wow--who knew this little post would receive so much traffic? Welcome Instapundit and Five Feet Of Fury readers, and even those die-hard defenders of the establishment at Sadly No.
One Cincinnati-based reader emailed in:
The New York Times has become the WKRP of journalism. The hyperbole you noted in your blog is symmetrical to Les Nessman's comparison of the eternally hilarious turkey drop to the Hindenburg disaster. Except WKRP was supposed to be funny.Eric McErlain of the Off Wing Opinion sports blog noted that I may have mixed my Queen City stadium names:
Just a short note -- the Who concert was held at Riverfront Coliseum, not Riverfront Stadium. It's a big difference, as the former is an indoor arena with a much smaller capacity, while the latter was an open air baseball stadium.Fair enough.
More: Another reader emails in:
The article's author does not use the word Guernica in the article. It was apparently the brainchild of one of their brilliant editors who does not know the difference between Guernica and Pamplona, which is what he was obviously trying to refer to.So perhaps the Gray Lady was trying to run with the bulls, rather than attempting a Homage To Catalonia.
CNN's Jonathan Mann runs through the usual litany of acceptable progressive predecessors (but no President RFK, alas) and asks, "Which hero do we want Obama to be?"
The Americans who are comparing him to those remarkable predecessors are putting a lot of faith in a man they barely know.Which is a remarkably tacit way for Mann to damn his fellow media men--after all, if Americans truly are "putting a lot of faith in a man they barely know" that constitutes one epic failure amongst those whose job it is to inform them. But then, the modern function of the news media is to withhold information, not disseminate it. Something CNN has been quite good at in some areas--less so in others.
(Via Newsbusters.)
Related: Magical thinking at MSNBC: "Anchor Frets: Why Hasn't Obama's Election Ended Terrorism?"
Found via a link in the comments of Ron Rosenbaum's rather vicious attack on Jeff Jarvis, Alan D. Mutter, a Silicon Valley CEO and newspaper consultant has a don't-miss-it graph of how severely newspaper advertising revenues have declined since 2006. How severely? Here's the chart in video form:
But Mutter spots the one upside: "Buyout Sex, the other severance benefit":
Mary F. Pols, a movie critic who accepted one of the scores of buyouts at the Contra Costa Times, made the best of a traumatic situation by having an affair with a fellow scribe at the California paper, she revealed in Modern Love, the most consistently delectable feature in the Sunday New York Times.Of course, donning fetishwear while engaged in newspaper buyout sex is purely optional. And sheep shagging? Don't even think about it...unless you follow the apparently carefully researched advice found within the Ayatollah Khomeini's "Blue Book.""Buyout Sex," as Mary (left) dubbed it, affords a journalist the rare opportunity to get up close and personal with a colleague without having to worry about "postcoital workplace awkwardness."
In Mary's case, the affair began with drinks with a guy from the office who also was thinking about forfeiting his position in exchange for an enriched severance benefit. After an initial, vodka-propelled rumble in the cramped back seat of the colleague's car, Mr. Buyout Sex and Mary embarked on a months-long relationship.
"In the following weeks, we continued to meet for long nights of sex and conversation, both of which were more naked than I would have expected," wrote Mary. "After years of knowing each other, we were finally getting to know each other. He didn't take the buyout after all, so he could fill me in what was going on at the paper, and the connection felt warm and cozy, especially as I confronted my own undefined future."
Update: Blue Crab Boulevard adds, "They confused reporting the news with editorializing on the news. These are two, very different, things. People can tell the difference, despite the media's blindness to this. I think it is coming home for them now."
In the Washington Times, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) writes that during the 2008 campaign, "the media crossed a threshold that should be greatly troubling to Americans":
Coverage of the election by many in the media ranged from slanted or biased to actually serving as strong and unabashed advocates for Sen. Barack Obama's campaign.Kevin D. Williamson of NRO's Media Blog responds with two thoughts:For example, national news magazines such as Time and Newsweek essentially provided free advertising for Mr. Obama, featuring him on their covers far more frequently - and more favorably - than Sen. John McCain.
Day after day, the New York Times showed its favoritism by allowing Mr. Obama to dominate coverage and control the debate. For example, The Times' opinion editor, a former staff member in the Clinton administration, refused to publish an op-ed by Sen. McCain about the Iraq war just days after publishing an op-ed on the same subject by Sen. Obama.
In general, media coverage of Sen. McCain was 3 times more negative than coverage of Mr. Obama following the conventions, according to the nonpartisan Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Another way to see the media's bias is to follow the money. An analysis by Investor's Business Daily showed journalists contributed 15 times more money to Democrats than Republicans during the 2008 election cycle. And journalists who gave to Mr. Obama outnumbered those who contributed to Mr. McCain by a 20-to-1 margin.
1. It's a solid analysis of the media problems Republicans face.And when they're talking about it in late September, they're really toast, as Robert Stacy McCain wrote in his October 3rd pre-postmortem:2. Every time I hear a Republican candidate or office-holder talking about media bias in the fall, I assume that the election is over and the Republican has lost. It's not that the complaints don't have merit--do they ever--it's just that the media-bias talk tends to come up right about the time things are going undeniably south for a campaign. So maybe it's best to front-load the discussion for next time around. Candidates who are talking about media bias in October are losing elections.
I didn't comment on it at the time, but I was shocked when Steve Schmidt lashed out at the New York Times on Sept. 22. Every word Schmidt said about the NYT being in the tank for Obama was true. But you don't do that. Ever. Not in a campaign you have any hope of winning. It is one thing to criticize specific errors by specific reporters, but for a presidential campaign manager to call into question the fundamental integrity of a newspaper that more or less dictates news coverage at the three major broadcast networks? Uh uh. No way. Leave that work to surrogates. Then Wednesday, in an interview with the Associated Press, McCain himself got all hostile with the reporter. That is tantamount to an admission of defeat.But one of McCain's many weaknesses as a GOP candidate is that he counted on the media's support--or at least was praising the media--and in particular, the New York Times as late as January of 2008 in the Republican debate in Florida. This left him absolutely unable to criticize the media in any form--which is why Schmidt's meltdown in late September sounded so much like whining, even though, as Robert McCain wrote back then, "Every word Schmidt said about the NYT being in the tank for Obama was true."
Hopefully the next GOP candidate will lay sufficient upfront groundwork so that his supporters (and not just the base) will know that the media attacks are coming--and that the GOP isn't competing merely against another party, they're also competing against the bulk of the legacy media, where most voters go to receive whatever scraps of information they'll get to justify their voting decisions.
It wouldn't hurt to remind people of the media's excesses and kneejerk support for Obama in this election, as many will have forgotten it. Laying this groundwork early in the campaign would also allow the candidate to have lots of "See, I told you so" moments when the drive-by media hits start flying. Whoever the next GOP candidate is, he might want to remind his supporters of this moment, as Stephen Spruiell describes in the December 1st "dead tree" edition of NR (subscription required):
McCain's health-care plan also became the subject of a deceptive ad campaign, funded by Obama's historically deep and mostly unscrutinized campaign coffers. The ads claimed that McCain's health-care tax credit would go "straight to the insurance companies, not to you, leaving you on your own to pay McCain's health-insurance tax." A few media sources took the trouble to point out that this was a flat-out lie, and that no one would pay more in taxes under McCain's health-care plan. But at this time most of the media were busy accusing McCain and Palin of fomenting racial hatred every time some bigot unaffiliated with the campaign yelled something offensive at an open event. So much for wanting to talk about "the issues."Which of course, the Times was doing all year, even if the stories weren't true.The McCain campaign complained mightily about these and other instances of media malpractice, and the public shrugged. In perhaps the most blatant case of overt bias against McCain, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller said that each complaint from the McCain campaign made him want to "find the toughest McCain story we've got and put it on the front page, just to show them that they can't get away with it."
Spruiell concludes:
When the top newspaper editor in the country is openly discussing his strategy to attack the Republican nominee through the news pages and almost no one cares, complaining about bias just isn't going to accomplish much.If the next Republican presidential candidate doesn't get that, he's dead politician walking.The mainstream media have staked their future on Obama; that was evident in the way they conducted themselves during this campaign. Economic and political forces are driving notionally objective news organizations toward overt partisanship. Now is the time to invest in conservative alternatives and work to secure mainstream recognition for conservative voices. The media game has changed, and we have to get better at playing it.
That's the New York Times' take on Rosie O'Donnell's variety show yesterday--and if Rosie bombed with the Gray Lady, Rosie bombed.
Of course, Hollywood's enemies list seems to be an ever-growing phenomenon, rendering the annual Hollywood blacklist movie even more hypocritical than it already was.
In the latest Weekly Standard, P.J. O'Rourke says, show me the money:
The government is bailing out Wall Street for being evil and the car companies for being stupid. But print journalism brings you Paul Krugman and Anna Quindlen. Also, in 1898 Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal started the Spanish-American War. All of the Lehman Brothers put together couldn't cause as much evil stupidity as that.And right on cue, "Connecticut Legislators Want State To Subsidize Newspapers."Moreover, rescuing print journalism is a "two-fer." Not only will America's principal source of Sudoku puzzles and Doonesbury be preserved but so will an endangered species--the hard-bitten, cynical, heavy-drinking news hound with a press card in his hatband, a cigarette stub dangling from his lip, and free ringside prize fight tickets tucked into his vest pocket. These guys don't reproduce in captivity. And there are hardly any of them left in the wild. I checked the bar. Just Mike Barnicle, as usual. How's tricks, Mike? Where'd everybody go? Sun's over the yardarm. Time to pour lunch.
As the Great One (Reagan, not Jackie Gleason) said in 1986, "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
In the latest edition of Silicon Graffiti, I take a look at anger in American politics. The title derives from the nifty book on the topic by Peter Wood, whom I interviewed near the end of the 2008 election for PJM Political.
Look for:
- The exterminating Olbermann!
- Terry Tate, sacking Sarah!
- Dehumanizing bumper stickers!
- Code Pink has a plan to stick it to the man!
- Open Mic Night!
- Shocking signs!
- The don't taze me bro!
- Five Easy Pieces!
- America's favorite ex-Weatherman!
- And the world's favorite Teutonic terror tyke!
The Five Easy Pieces clip, which Wood deconstructs in the above video is a tremendous touchstone of early 1970s anger. I had planned to connect it to this passage from David Frum's 2000 book on the 1970s, How We Got Here, but it would have taken the video above the YouTube-friendly ten minute cut-off mark. Of course, there are so many examples of anger run amok from the 2008 campaign, that this video could have run infinitely longer than that. (There's a reason why Michelle Malkin's 2005 book on the topic ran for 256 pages.)
For previous Silicon Graffiti videos, click here.
if Teddy Kennedy can look back fondly to the halcyon days of the Goldwater Administration in the mid-1960s, surely we can't fault the Philadelphia Inquirer for reminiscing about AU-H20's legendary successor, President RFK.
More from Ace and Robert Stacy The Other McCain (from whom the above ironic headline derives) on that Mark Halperin quote on the media's epic fail--or deliberately ignoring all of Obama's flaws--we explored earlier today.
This quote from Time magazine's Mark Halperin is making the rounds today:
Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine's Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.First of all, setting aside the Iraq war reference (which I sincerely doubt was an oblique reference to CNN being in the tank for Saddam), how is it a "failure"? A failure implies mistakes, details overlooked, preparations for a test not completed. This was a quite deliberate choice of the media to pick a side and aid it. And historically speaking, picking a side wasn't even that much of a choice."It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war," Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."
Of course, it's not like anyone expects the legacy media to still feign objectivity, which is an affectation left over from the early days of the first radio networks of the 1920s and television networks of the late 1940s and early '50s.
But this year's media's bias against McCain, Palin and the GOP in general is a carry over from the 2004 campaign, as I noted in one of my Silicon Graffiti videos:
Near the tail-end of that campaign, one journalist even wrote an internal memo to his colleagues urging them to drop the pretense of objectivity:
It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite graveThe journalist who wrote that both sides weren't equally accountable and that the media had a duty to help Senator Kerry?I do not want to set off (sp?) and endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.
The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.
Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.
We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.
Mark Halperin, then with ABC News.
"Today We Learned Something Horrible About Liberals."
Roger L. Simon deconstructs the wire service--but only after revealing his own inner Marxist!
Matt Drudge links to this New York Times article and notes, "REPORT: TIME INC. in 'contractual promise' with Angelina Jolie for 'positive coverage'...". The Times piece begins:
When Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt negotiated with People and other celebrity magazines this summer for photos of their newborn twins and an interview, the stars were seeking more than the estimated $14 million they received from the deal. They also wanted a hefty slice of journalistic input -- a promise that the winning magazine's coverage would be positive, not merely in that instance but into the future.Hey, as Victor Davis Hanson recently noted, "Sometime in 2008, journalism as we knew it died, and advocacy media took its place." Can't fault Brangelina for asking for the print version of what Chris Matthews has promised Barack.According to the deal offered by Ms. Jolie, the winning magazine was obliged to offer coverage that would not reflect negatively on her or her family, according to two people with knowledge of the bidding who were granted anonymity because the talks were confidential. The deal also asked for an "editorial plan" providing a road map of the layout, these people say.
As highlighted by the latest Time and Newsweek covers, the incoming Obama administration and its media cheerleaders are attempting to dial back expectations a tad. Obama's no longer God (of course, as Mort Sahl once said, if you're going to identify, identify), he's merely the second coming of Abe Lincoln and FDR. Jonah Goldberg writes, "It's a step down from divine redeemer, but you have to start somewhere":
Lincoln was Lincoln because he fought and won the Civil War and freed the slaves. News flash: That ain't what America is like today -- and thank God for it."You know what I hope? I hope Obama is another Coolidge or Eisenhower", Jonah concludes. "But I'm not holding my breath."I think Lincoln was just about the greatest president in American history, but I sure don't want to need another Lincoln. Six hundred thousand Americans died at the hands of other Americans during Lincoln's presidency. Lincoln unified the country at gunpoint and curtailed civil liberties in a way that makes President Bush look like an ACLU zealot. The partisan success of the GOP in the aftermath of the war Obama thinks so highly of was forged in blood.
Likewise with FDR. Listening to liberals gush over a "new New Deal" and Obama's call for us to emulate the "Greatest Generation," you'd think they want another Great Depression and World War.
Indeed, liberals have long idolized the 1930s as a decade of great unity. It wasn't. The 1930s was a miserable decade of poverty, domestic unrest, labor strife, violations of civil liberties and widespread fear. If liberals really loved peace, prosperity and national cohesion, they'd remember the 1920s or 1950s more fondly. And yet they don't. Why? Because liberals didn't get to impose their schemes and dreams on the country in those decades. Behind all the talk of unity and bipartisanship and shared sacrifice lies an uglier ambition: power. The audacity of hope behind all this Lincoln-FDR-Obama blather is the dream of riding roughshod over the opposition, of having their way, of total victory.
The Chinese curse and cliche "may you live in interesting times" is on point. Liberals (and a few conservatives as well, alas) seem desperate to live in interesting times. Not me.
Gee, it's always fun to see a leading German magazine running a photo of a US president with a bullet hole in his forehead.
In more "Deutschland is happy and gay" news, "German Students Lay Waste to Holocaust Exhibit."
(H/T: Steve Green, who writes, "Just like Herr Hasselhoff, we're big in Germany!")
Or--Full Metaphor Jacket:
During Tuesday evening's "No Bias, No Bull" program, Washington Post national political correspondent and CNN contributor Dana Milbank implied, perhaps inadvertently, that the incoming Obama adminstration was like the North Vietnamese advancing on Saigon in 1975. Host Campbell Brown asked Milbank about the "backlog of at least 2,000 pardon applications" to the Bush administration before the president leaves office early next year, and he replied, "Yeah -- it sort of has the feeling of the last helicopter off the embassy roof in Saigon."To be fair, it's an awfully benign metaphor, since nothing bad happened after we left Vietnam--just ask Tom Harkin.
Victor Davis Hanson writes:
Traditional journalism as we knew it --the big dailies, the weekly news magazines, the networks, public radio and TV--no longer exists. Death by suicide. RIP--around March, 2008.As rigor mortis sets in, I doubt the media are concerning themselves much about how ill-informed the average voter is, but if so, they might want to take a look at their story selection this year. Here are two recent but stellar examples of the media living up to the legacy set for it by Edward R. Murrow, et al:
CNN analyzes Obama and Palin's doodles.
Meanwhile, in a story that I'm sure its myriad of readers were undoubtedly pining for, Salon analyzes the incoming first lady's posterior.
Arthur Frampton could not be reached for comment.
A frighting schism threatens to fracture the once unified mass media: Time says that Obama is the next FDR, Newsweek says he's the next Lincoln. Kyle Smith calls on our old media overloads to settle their differences, for the good of the nation.
(Of course in reality, The One seems do be aiming his standards just a tad lower, and doing his damnedest to be the next Bill Clinton.)
If you haven't seen it already it, don't miss John Ziegler's new Website, How Obama Got Elected, and this video interview with various Obama voters on election day:
It's a long video, but stick it out until the end, when all of the interviewees reveal where they get their "news"--it's a damning portrait of the legacy media's ability to inform the public, if indeed that's a job that MSM still pays lip service to performing.
More from Newsbusters and Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.
George Will's question is directed at America's automobile manufacturers, but it could just as soon be applied to another sclerotic triptych of dinosaurs from the mass production age: the over-the-air television networks--or at least their kultursmog-spewing news divisions.
It's a tough job, but--in theory at least--somebody's got to do it; eventually.
Maybe.
So who will be the first comedian to knock The One down a few pegs?
(H/T: 5'F)
Will President Elect Obama be calling Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton? The Guardian says yes--but as always with a British paper (particularly the Grauniad), verify before trusting.
Time magazine portrays BHO as FDR.
In her latest combination defense and apology for her newspaper cooking the books to help nudge President Elect Obama over the finish line, Deborah Howell, the Washington Post's Ombudswoman writes:
Journalism naturally draws liberals; we like to change the world.To which James Lileks wrote the perfect rejoinder three and half years ago:
The first question in any J-school application ought to be "do you want to change the world?" And anyone who answers yes gets kindly turned away. Your job is to describe the way the world changes. Not pretend you're there to nudge it along towards utopia.Howell adds:
I'll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don't even want to be quoted by name in a memo.So what are you doing to change such an obviously poisoned internal culture?
Update: "As for Howell's presumption [that] 'most Post journalists voted for Obama,' that's a safe bet given how 96 percent of the staff at Post-owned Slate reported they planned to back Obama."
Back in 2004, Jay Nordlinger explored the many pros and surprisingly few cons of "Going Timesless":
Last fall, President Bush caused something of a scandal when he made an admission to Fox News's Brit Hume: He is not much of a newspaper-reader or TV-watcher; he prefers to get his news from his staff, with no opinion mixed in. For many people, this revelation was further proof that our president is a dolt, too abnormal to serve in that job.Today at Pajamas HQ, Kenneth Anderson offers "A Requiem for My New York Times Subscription."I have an even more shocking revelation: Many people in this country don't read the New York Times, and by "people," I don't mean Ma and Pa, I mean major writers and journalists, plenty of whom live in Manhattan.
* * *
Many of these ex-Times readers can give you the exact year, or even the exact day, of their withdrawal. "Four years ago." "Nine years ago." "Last June." Quite a few seem to have quit the paper in recent years, since 9/11, and since the Jayson Blair scandal (he was the con artist who was a rising star at the Times), and since former editor Howell Raines's bizarre crusade against Augusta National Golf Club.
Bill Ayers admits that--surprise!--Obama was, in Ayers' own words, "a neighbor and family friend." Charles Johnson writes that "Whatever you think of Ayers, he played this one smart":
He stayed out of the news until Obama was safely elected, because he knew if he admitted the personal friendship, and expressed his real opinions about radicalizing students, reparations, abolishing prisons, etc., his relationship with Obama would--rightfully--become a major issue in the campaign. And he counted on the media not to investigate him.And with ABC's post-election softball interview with Ayers now online, you don't need a Weatherman to know that the MSM will blow--especially during a presidential election.
"I wonder how many other 'journalists' like Chris Matthews feel it is their job to make an Obama presidency work?"
"Violence erupts between Bush aide, reporter"--and a Reuters reporter at that. But hey, one man's vicious attack dog is another man's freedom fighter.
Or vice versa.
Newsweek's Howard Fineman tells Keith Olbermann yesterday that "Obama's changing everything as he moves":
His victory speech last night in Grant Park which was so memorable on so many levels was also the first speech of his administration three months before it begins. He said, we're at the base of the mountain, not at the mountain top, and exuded a core of sort of sense of sober "let's roll up our sleeves" determination you're seeing reflective in the fact that he got this transition system running two or three months ago, another example of this guy's ability to plan and look ahead, look over the horizon. They've been working for months on this, Keith, just as they worked for months on the campaign itself before anybody noticed.As Fineman wrote four years ago, in "The 'Media Party' Is Over":OLBERMANN: The names that we mentioned here, they are just some of many possibilities that have surfaced for the new administration. It's all over the place. But what will be, is there going to be an overarching theme in the appointments? We discussed this last night, competency, bipartisanship, diversity, newness, where are they going?
FINEMAN: Well, it's going to be all of those. But I think, if you had to pick one, it would be excellence. Barack Obama is a guy who appreciates excellence and focus. He's a guy who appreciates results. As we reported reportedly, doesn't like drama queens, doesn't like egomaniacs, doesn't like leakers -- which eliminates about three-quarters of the people in Washington for sure.
And that's what he's going to focus on. It will be naturally diverse and naturally bipartisan. He's not going to pick people to fit slots because they're Republican, because they're an African-American, because they're Hispanic. He believes that the country has changed enough and developed enough and is diverse enough, as his own election has now shown, that he can pick the best people all across the spectrum and will reflect the whole country. But it's going to be excellence first and experience.
A political party is dying before our eyes -- and I don't mean the Democrats. I'm talking about the "mainstream media," which is being destroyed by the opposition (or worse, the casual disdain) of George Bush's Republican Party; by competition from other news outlets (led by the internet and Fox's canny Roger Ailes); and by its own fraying journalistic standards."Sometime in 2008, journalism as we knew it died, and advocacy media took its place", Victor Davis Hanson wrote last week--and you can see the transformation in Fineman's hagiographic appraisal yesterday.
(On the other hand, Newsweek's Evan Thomas--he of 2004's 15 points--viewed Tuesday's coronation through somewhat of a more gimlet eye.)
NBC's Chuck Todd may has been up too late watching war movies on competitor channel TCM before uttering this statement on the Today show:
President Clinton chose a childhood friend to be his chief-of-staff, Mack McLarty. What did that mean? That chief-of-staff never knew how to tell the President no. Never was a sort of behind-the-scenes guy. In Rahm Emanuel Obama knows he's getting Douglas MacArthur, or General Patton. A guy who's a field general, who will keep all of the, keep everything running on time, the trains running on time and will go after Congress.He'll make the trains run on time? So he's Mussolini, too? Hey, if you say so, Chuck.
But Patton was relieved of command by Ike at the end of WWII when he wanted to push into Russia; MacArthur was unceremoniously dismissed by Truman during the Korean War. Obama has publicly admitted on several occasions as being a rather dovish fellow. And Tim Graham of Newsbusters notes, "Like Obama, Emanuel has no military service on his resume, starting his career in Illinois 'public interest group' politics."
As Tom Wolfe illustrated in Ambush At Fort Bragg this is but the latest example of a journalist using military lingo in his speech, even as his network has routinely been astonishingly negative regarding their chief missions over the last five years.
Update: And if the left have found their MacArthur/Patton/Mussolini, the right "haven't yet found our Omar Bradley."
Umberto Eco wrote a few years ago that "We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity." And as the recently, sadly deceased Michael Crichton noted just this past May, "The truth is, we live in an age of astonishing conformity":
I grew up in the 1950s, supposedly the heyday of conformity, but there was much more freedom of opinion back then. And as a result, you knew that your neighbors might hold different views from you on politics or religion. Today, the notion that men of good will can disagree has disappeared. Can you imagine! Today, if I disagree with you, you conclude there is something wrong with me. This is a childish, parochial view. And of course stupefyingly intolerant. It's truly anti-American. Much of it can be laid at the feet of the environmental movement, which has unfortunately frequently been led by ill-educated and intolerant spokespersons--often with no more than a high-school education, sometimes not even that. Or they are lawyers trained to win at any cost and to say anything about their opponents to win. But you find the same intolerant tone around considerations of defense, taxation, free markets, universal medical care, and so on. There's plenty of zealotry to go around. And it's hardly new in human history.A rapidly dwindling number, hence the legacy media's well known financial woes. Meanwhile, Andrew Ian Dodge notes that the outcome of the presidential election may help to thin the ranks of another media group whose lockstep conformity is only barely disguised by its veneer of individuality--the liberal comedian.The media might stand as a corrective, cool and a bit detached, showing by example how to approach information and controversy. Instead, the media has clearly caught the fever of our intolerant times. Formerly, news people would never openly state their allegiance; young reporters understood it was poor form, and a senior person would carry the caution born of the experience that at least some of what one believes in the course of one's life turns out to be wrong. But it's a new era. Now, media reporters are proud to pound the table and declare their advocacy. Since so few of them have any training in science, they don't really know what they are pounding about, when it comes to global warming. They couldn't tell you even in general terms how the global mean temperature is calculated, for example. But it doesn't matter anyway. They just want to declare they believe what "everyone" believes. Who values such a news source?
(Fortunately though, It'll Be All Right on the Night. At least for now.)
Slate has a little fun with CNN's latest technological gimcrack:
Exit question: Did David Bowie's "TVC-15" single from the mid-1970s predict this latest video development?
Update: Welcome InstaReaders! Meanwhile, Hot Air's Allahpundit enharshens CNN's mellow: "Heart-ache: CNN holograms not really holograms."
First Hillary, and now half a year later, Sarah Palin. What is it with Keith Olbermann and female politician assassination metaphors?
We shared our immediate election thoughts last night on PJM Political, and Ed Morrissey has his own lengthy election postmortem, which concludes:
If the GOP wants to win 60 million votes in future national elections, it has to stand for something other than being Democrat Lite. The Republican Party needs clarity, purpose, and most importantly, an end to the hypocrisy of talking smaller government while porking up their districts. When given only a choice between real Democrats and fake Democrats, Americans will choose the former, which we found out in 2006.Meanwhile, Dr. Helen adds, "It's the economy, stupid":
I was just watching numerous young Obama fans celebrating on the Fox News channel and read the stats scrolling across the bottom of the page. They stated that over 60% of voters who were worried about the economy voted for Obama. That, for me, summed it up in a nutshell. So many right-leaning types are trying hard to figure out what they did, what the Republicans did, and why they lost. Each election cycle, there's always a theme. For the last two elections, it was Iraq and national security.Since Good News Is No News, consider this an unintentional thank you from the New York Times to the man who helped pushed the economic issue to the forefront in the media, via his success in Iraq and elsewhere in the War On Terror.Now those issues are in the background and this time around, it's the economic crisis, with a little (or a lot) of help from the media in pushing it to the forefront in people's minds.
Update: With Steve Green likely recovering from the Mother Of All Hangovers, the election postmortem by Will Collier, his partner in Stoli at Vodkapundit is also well worth your time.
To build on Michael Crichton's early-1990s predictions for the media, AFP notes that "US News & World Report, long the number three newsmagazine in the United States behind Time and Newsweek, has become the latest US media outlet to abandon print for the Web." They join the Christian Science Monitor, who announced their own move late last month.
Can this ancient, senile, sclerotic east coast dowager be far behind?
While I making the expected post-election inspection tour of NRO's Corner, I spotted this sad news from Ian Murray:
Michael Crichton has died "unexpectedly," with reports suggesting a private struggle against cancer. may he rest in peace. He was one of the few people publicly interested in science with the courage to speak out against the direction environmental politics had pushed it. All who want to honor his memory should read his Caltech speech, Aliens cause global warming.In addition to having the courage to dissent against the near-monolithic global warming orthodoxy, he also managed to do a pretty good job of predicting the future of the legacy media in 1993. As Jack Shafer wrote back in May in Slate:
In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with a Wired magazine essay titled "Mediasaurus," in which he prophesied the death of the mass media--specifically the New York Times and the commercial networks. "Vanished, without a trace," he wrote.Call it, "The End of Journalism." That's what Victor Davis Hanson did recently, whom I interviewed on today's edition of PJM Political on XM, about his latest essay, in which he wrote, "Sometime in 2008, journalism as we knew it died, and advocacy media took its place."The mediasaurs had about a decade to live, he wrote, before technological advances--"artificial intelligence agents roaming the databases, downloading stuff I am interested in, and assembling for me a front page"--swept them under. Shedding no tears, Crichton wrote that the shoddy mass media deserved its deadly fate.
"[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality," he lectured. "Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's basically junk."
* * *
As we pass his prediction's 15-year anniversary, I've got to declare advantage Crichton. Rot afflicts the newspaper industry, which is shedding staff, circulation, and revenues. It's gotten so bad in newspaperville that some people want Google to buy the Times and run it as a charity! Evening news viewership continues to evaporate, and while the mass media aren't going extinct tomorrow, Crichton's original observations about the media future now ring more true than false. Ask any journalist.
All of which were the themes of a June edition of Silicon Graffiti:, which paired my thoughts on Crichton with another pair of futurists, Alvin and Heidi Toffler:
Welcome Mark Steyn and Brothers Judd readers.
"It's taken them awhile, but good to see that MSNBC has now seamlessly integrated its own promotional advertising with that of the Obama campaign."
Well, that should make Chuck Schumer happy!
No! [James Earl Jones voice on] This is CNN [/Vader]:
But instead of the split screen or window TV viewers might typically see during live remote interviews, the Obama spokesperson will be projected as a three-dimensional hologram, making it appear as if he or she is in the Manhattan studio with Blitzer. The network plans to conduct similar holographic interviews with representatives from the McCain campaign in Phoenix.Mark Hemingway adds, "I can only hope one of the spokesman takes to opportunity to mock this ridiculous gimmick by uttering the phrase, 'Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope!'"
I'll stick with my virtual sets--at least until Adobe CS27 builds holographic technology into After Effects.
Layers and layers of fact checkers can't be wrong! Greg Packer: the man, the myth, the legend is back--and in the New York Times no less.
In "A Date With Scarcity", his latest op-ed, David Brooks writes:
Nov. 4, 2008, is a historic day because it marks the end of an economic era, a political era and a generational era all at once.It certainly is--and I explored several of those pivots in video form, last week.Economically, it marks the end of the Long Boom, which began in 1983. Politically, it probably marks the end of conservative dominance, which began in 1980. Generationally, it marks the end of baby boomer supremacy, which began in 1968. For the past 16 years, baby boomers, who were formed by the tumult of the 1960s, occupied the White House. By Tuesday night, if the polls are to be believed, a member of a new generation will become president-elect.
So today is not only a pivot, but a confluence of pivots.
Update: Shannon Love asks, "If Obama's economic policies work so well, why isn't Detroit a paradise?" and notes, "We may soon be living in a repeat of '70s and looking back at the years 1984-2007 as a golden era."
I knocked this one together pretty quickly last night; I thought the speech by David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow certainly takes on some interesting nuances when combined with the stories his self-styled successors chose to ignore or downplay in an election year. And what mediation on the thoughts of Morrow wouldn't be complete without a cameo from longtime Reebok spokesbacker, Terry Tate?
(Bumped to top--welcome Brothers Judd and Dirty Harry's Place fans.)
Andrew Breitbart boldly goes where few residents of the Hollywood area dare to go:
I have a dark secret to tell before the election so that it's on the record. It's something that is difficult to say to certain friends, peers, family and, lately, many fellow conservatives.More here:I still like George W. Bush. A lot.
For starters, I am convinced he is a fundamentally decent man, even though I have read otherwise at the Huffington Post.
President Bush is far smarter, more articulate and less ideological than his plentiful detractors scream, and, ultimately, he will be judged by history - not by vengeful Democrats, hate-filled Hollywood, corrupt foreign governments, an imploding mainstream media or fleeting approval ratings.
George W. Bush is history's president, a man for whom the long-term success or failure of democracy in Iraq will determine his place in history. He may end up a victim of his own tough choices, but the cheerleading for his demise when Iraq's outcome is yet determined has hurt America and possibly set up the next president for the same appalling partisan response.
The fact that the United States has not been attacked since Sept. 11, 2001, far exceeds the most wishful expert predictions of the time. Perhaps facing another al Qaeda-led barrage would have reinforced our need for national unity, caused us to recognize the gravity of the Islamist threat and fortified Mr. Bush's standing at home and abroad.
Yet, thankfully, that never happened. And Mr. Bush has been punished for this obvious success.
While President Bush has been marshaling a multinational force to take on modernity's enemies in foreign lands, the American left has decided to go to war against not only Republicans but also moderate Democrats.The biggest failure of the Bush administration has been their inability to clearly communicate a message to rise above the media din, and to court the media in a good will that's clearly not reciprocated.Bush hatred was a fait accompli.
Back in November 2000, when Al Gore contested Florida and the demonizing of George Bush began full-bore ("President Select," "Bush Chimp," "the illegitimate president"), I told Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, "You watch, the Democratic Party will never grant Bush his humanity, and they will never let up."
And they never did.
The Democratic Party chose to send a clear message that the impeachment of President Clinton incurred by the newly minted Republican-led Congress and the upstart new media - talk radio and the Internet - would be countered by unprecedented partisan fury.
The media will shape "the truth" that Democrats were always behind the initial Afghanistan effort or were poised to grudgingly accept the president whom they previously mocked as "illegitimate."
But those brave liberals who stood by the president were mostly a small minority, and all of them have since been excommunicated for their apostasy.
As Victor Davis Hanson wrote last week, "Sometime in 2008, journalism as we knew it died, and advocacy media took its place." He's right, of course, but the media's transformation didn't happen overnight, and according to some media critics in 2004, there was an effort by the Bush Administration in its first term to attempt to counteract it. If so, it was far, far too fleeting.
The next Republican president, whether he's sworn in this January or in the next decade, will have to understand that new media reality, or face exactly the same demonization that Andrew describes above that every Republican president since 1968 has faced, no matter how he actually governs.
(Via John Nolte.)
What is it with the New York Times and Facebook? A couple of weeks ago, Jodi Kantor uses it to bait school kids into trashing Cindy McCain's parenting skills; over the weekend another Timesperson uses it to through a hissy fit involving the Daily Show:
NewsBusters.org Contributor, the estimable Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center, made an October 30th appearance on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, during which he discussed the many illegal activities of the community organizing group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and their long relationship with the media's all-time favorite candidate: Illinois Democratic Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama. Soon thereafter, Mr. Vadum changed his Facebook Profile photograph to one of him hamming it up with his Daily Show interlocutor John Oliver.Read the rest; more birds flipped here.This was all too much for New York Times reporter Dan Mitchell. Mitchell sent Mr. Vadum a poison Halloween Facebook email, which is hostile from start to finish and in which he calls Mr. Vadum the aforementioned body part.
The Mitchell email in its entirety, with the one word redacted so as to maintain our G-rating:
Back in April, during the Pleistocene primary season, seemingly one million years ago, I wrote:
Sadly, as Slate of all publications once noted, Bruce's second manager, Jon Landau, who went from Rolling Stone critic to rock Svengali, took that Springsteen away from us, transforming Bruce in his formative years from an exciting quirky apolitical musician to just another leftwing product on the showbiz assembly line.With Jake Tapper breathlessly writing about The Boss supporting the World's Biggest Celebrity, even as his bicoastal Keystone State gaffes are in the news yet again, who knew how timely it would be at the very end of the campaign:(And speaking of Slate, nice of them to create a fun anti-Obama ad, which will have a little traction even after this week's PA primary has passed.
Related: More on Springsteen and friends in the following post.
This just in from AP: Come Wednesday, on "The morning after: Half of us will be disappointed."
(The kids at Miskatonic University will really be crushed, I'm sure. Cthulhu fhtagn--until 2012!)
He may be columnist to the world (as Hugh Hewitt describes him each week), but Mark Steyn writes, "I'm not a 'journalist' and have never described myself as one":
And, when I give speeches or appear on TV or radio and the organizers or producers send us the biographical intro in advance, my trusty assistants always insist on the removal of the word "journalist". This used to be purely for truth-in-advertising reasons - I wouldn't want audiences to get the false impression that I'd passed rigorous tests and acquired a diploma signed by Professor Miller. But lately it's been for a more basic reason. I had lunch with Ken Whyte, my publisher at Maclean's, the other day, and mentioned en passant that one consequence of a year's worth of thought-police investigations was that it was no longer possible to avoid the painful truth that, for a profession that congratulates itself incessantly on its courage, bravery, fearlessness, etc (far more than, say, firefighters do) and hands out awards all year long for "speaking truth to power", most journalists are total pussies happy to suck up to state power as long as it's in PC clothing. Professor Miller, a J-school ethics bore boldly campaigning for the right of government bureaucrats to censor writers, would seem to be an almost parodic example of the phenomenon.As Michael Malone wrote last week--and I'm sympathetic on a host of levels--"A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was 'a writer', because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist":
I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Gov. Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the Big Leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play. The few instances where I think the press has gone too far - such as the Times reporter talking to Cindy McCain's daughter's MySpace friends - can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha Bureau.Not to mention the environment. If the news industry wasn't a collective Victorian Gentleman, then Obama's quotes on coal would be screamed in 48-point Times Roman Type on every newspaper's front page--if only because it's an incredible story, no matter what your thoughts on the environment.No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side - or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for Senators Obama and Biden. If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as President of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography. That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: his job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.
Why, for example to quote McCain's lawyer, haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer - when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Senator Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?
The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber. Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a Presidential candidate. So much for the Standing Up for the Little Man, so much for Speaking Truth to Power, so much for Comforting the Afflicted and Afflicting the Comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.
I learned a long time ago that when people or institutions begin to behave in a manner that seems to be entirely against their own interests, it's because we don't understand what their motives really are. It would seem that by so exposing their biases and betting everything on one candidate over another, the traditional media is trying to commit suicide - especially when, given our currently volatile world and economy, the chances of a successful Obama presidency, indeed any presidency, is probably less than 50:50.
Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes . . .and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain's. That's what reporters do, I was proud to have been one, and I'm still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water.
So why weren't those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?
The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay-out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.
Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power . . . only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, ten years hence, of retirement and a pension.
In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway - all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.
And then the opportunity presents itself: an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career. With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived Fairness Doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe, be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.
And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country . . .
CBS's Scott Conroy writes:
Seizing on a newly released audio tape picked up by the Drudge Report, Sarah Palin took the opportunity here in coal country to accuse Barack Obama of "talking about bankrupting the coal industry."But it wasn't "newly released." It's been buried in the middle of an hour-long video uploaded by the San Francisco Chronicle that's been hidden in plain sight on the Brightcove video distribution Website since January, until some enterprising blogger stumbled over it.
In the above quote, Michael Malone writes, "Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal? The editors." And he's right. Check out what the editors at the San Francisco Chronicle signed off on: the Chronicle uploaded the video of their interview with Obama to their Website under the narcoleptic headline of "Obama's straight-ahead style"--meaning they couldn't stumble over anything the senator said that they want to highlight in their headline. Which means either the writers at the Chronicle don't know a killer story when they see one--or they're willing to bury such a story if it helps their man get into office. (See also: media and Edwards, John; note dramatic contrast with Plumber, J.T., and Palin, Sarah.)
When the MSM moans about the gallons of red ink it's spilled since 2001, it needs to ask itself if it's prepared to actually report the news, in a fashion that interests readers, or if it exists as a non-profit ideological support system.
Update: It's all about "context", which CNN is all too happy to provide (business as usual, there), rather than promoting a blockbuster story.
Still no word on the videotape that the Times is sitting on (at least until after Tuesday), but Martin Kramer respects the L.A. Times' decision--deliberate or otherwise--to stand by the reporting of one of its long-dead correspondents, who dubbed Rashid Khalidi a PLO spokesman back in the mid-1970s.
In an age where the truth is remarkably fungible, that is worthy of commendation. Check out Kramer's footnote, in which if he ponders if the Times on the opposite coast will have similar respect for the writings of their own long-deceased middle eastern correspondent, who also noted that Khalidi "works for the P.L.O." back in 1978.
As Tom Blumer writes in Newsbusters, put down all beverages before reading this quote from Al Neuharth, extracted from his column in today's edition of USA Today:
In the olden days, some newspapers actually were backed or funded by political parties. Not only did most endorse candidates, but news coverage often was slanted or opinionated.OK, to be fair, if you define "the olden days" to mean the era before the national radio networks, that's reasonable--and the era that followed, which was centered around a unified mass media, served the American public reasonably well until about 1968. But Victor Davis Hanson writes today, as I noted in an earlier post today, that era was shattered by the rise of the World Wide Web and replaced with a hyperpartisan advocacy media--which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long consumers know that that's what their getting, and not a continued feint towards objectivity.Now most newspapers try to be fair and objective in news columns.
An increasing number of journalists understand that. But to borrow from an earlier post, there are those stragglers, such as Neuharth, whom every year sound more and more like the mythological Japanese soldier discovered on a desert island years after World War II ended, who doesn't realize the war's over, and how it concluded.
Back in June, the liberal New Republic noted that Joe Klein took Time magazine's "Swampland" blog into the fever swamp, when he wrote:
The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives--people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary--plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel. And then there is the question--made manifest by the no-bid contracts offered U.S. oil companies by the Iraqis--of two oil executives, Bush and Cheney, securing a new source of business for their Texas buddies.James Kirchick of TNR replied:
"Raised the question of divided loyalties?" Why doesn't Klein just come out and answer the "question," instead of cowardly using a vague, past tense construction, and say that a cabal of Jews agitated a War for Israel? His suggestion that they advocated "using U.S. lives and money to make the world safe for Israel" is the exact same sort of thing Pat Buchanan said about the First Gulf War (remarks that led his former mentor William F. Buckley Jr. to label him an anti-Semite).With Klient's latest writing...More questions for Joe Klein. If the Jews with dual loyalties really ran our foreign policy, wouldn't they have pressed first for war with Iran, which presents a far graver threat to Israel than Saddam ever did? And how come so many non-Jews like Don Rumsfeld, former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey, the Kurds, just to name a few, all "plumped for war?"
I've never met Rashid Khalidi, but he is (a) Palestinian and therefore (b) a semite, so the charge of anti-semitism is fatuous....He's still in the fever swamp, as Jeffery Goldberg of The Atlantic writes:
I want to be absolutely clear that I'm not about to accuse Joe of being an anti-Semite, but I will note that this the first time I've ever heard a Jewish person, or a non-anti-Semite, make this sort of malicious statement, one that perverts the universal meaning of a term in order to mock the phenomenon of Jew-hatred. "Jew-hatred" is actually my preferred term, because, as I'm sure Joe knows, "anti-Semitism" was a term invented by the avant-garde Jew-hater Wilhelm Marr, who was the founder, in 1879, of the League of Anti-Semites, which argued that Germans and Jews were locked in a death struggle for racial superiority. And we know where that ended.You stay classy, Time magazine.
Since Marr's time, of course, the term has evolved from a compliment to an insult, but its meaning has held steady all these years. As I said, the only people who insult Jews by denying the meaning of the term are, in my experience, anti-Semitic. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas, told me in an interview once that his organization could not be anti-Semitic, because Arabs were the true Semites, while Jews were simply European impostors. This interview occurred at a time when Yassin's suicide bombers were systematically seeking out large groups of Jews in order to murder them for the crime of being Jewish. By Joe's dangerous new standard, the World War II-era Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini, who was a Nazi fellow traveler and a frank advocate of total Jewish extermination, could not be called an anti-Semite because he was Arab. So, really, who's being fatuous?I know that Joe derives great pleasure from criticizing Jewish supporters of the Iraq War -- the Wolfowitzes, Perles and Feiths --in specifically Jewish terms, while never seeming to use the Christianity of other supporters of the war, including Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, and other such marginal figures, against them. I don't like the double-standard, but it's part of the rough and tumble. However, emptying the term "anti-Semitism" of its accepted meaning in order to score points against John McCain? That's simply too much.
Hey, Thomas Jefferson said so and everything--but just in time for the final descent of his campaign, "Obama kicks dissenting reporters off plane."
But then, as Victor Davis Hanson writes, "Sometime in 2008, journalism as we knew it died, and advocacy media took its place"--a trend I've been tracking since early 2004.
(And these guys since the mid-1980s.)
If you want to get up to speed quickly on the background behind the Khalidi-Obama tape that the L.A. Times is sitting on, then I strongly recommend the 10-minute or so interview on PJTV between Roger L. Simon and Ben Shapiro. Click through Roger's post, here.
The L.A. Times is infamous for its 3,500-word hit piece which ran in 2003 on then California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger. It hit the streets in--when else?--October of that year.
Gosh, wonder why the Times is treading so lightly this time around?
(Gateway Pundit suggests the paper maybe interested in safety and protection over and over both mere politics.)
Related: "This Is the Khalidi Obama Embraced".
A year ago, Editor & Publisher ran a story with the above headline, in reference to climate change. (Article text available here)
Sufficed to say, the industry has taken their house organ's advice deeply to heart on a variety of other topics as well--with less than satisfactory results to their collective net worth.
That's a youthful, if momentarily glazed-looking Bill O'Reilly in the above YouTube clip from a news update twenty years ago (and about five years before this now-viral moment referenced in the above headline). Note the position of the Dow at the end of the segment, which provides some surprisingly reassuring contrast for where it stands today.
Biggest celebrity in the world already known for his faux-presidential seal and other self-reverential campaign graphics produces infomercial on mock-White House set. Chris Matthews' take? "It was romance. It was realism."
More human than human is our motto. But like another product of the Tyrell Corporation, does Obama see unicorns when he dreams?
Check out this howler in a piece in CQ Politics titled, "What McCain Defectors See in Obama":
The defectors are a mixed lot, but all represent some brand of recognizably conservative thought. Some like Doug Kmiec, Andrew Sullivan, and Ken Adelman are probably conservatives by anyone's definition, while others are cut partly from an older mold. They bear some resemblance to the moderate Republicanism of the Rockefeller era, but the issues of their time are not the same.Sullivan is as conservative these days as much as John Kerry was "the right man -- and the conservative choice -- for a difficult and perilous time."
(H/T: Orrin Judd, whose link to Powers' essay is titled, "Inherit The Windbags.")
"There's a wealth of information that would help define Obama just waiting -- and waiting -- for the press to discover", Abraham H. Miller writes, in a piece titled Obama's Chicago Secrets":
But maybe CNN and the rest of the electronic media won't send anyone to Chicago because it is blowing its investigative budget flying reporters to Alaska to explore why anyone would fire a public safety director who refused to dismiss a state trooper who tasered a twelve year old boy -- a trooper who was reported to be drunk while on duty, and who allegedly threatened someone's life. Now, there is a story we all can believe in -- "Troopergate."Don't worry, the media will apologize for not doing what was once thought of as its job.Obama gets a pass because nothing is more important to the electronic media than getting Obama elected. Obama gets a pass on Bill Ayers because, at some level, most of the people in the media business can identify with what Ayers did. That's why they won't even mention the Weather Underground's planned bombing of the Fort Dix dance. That's why the name "Diana Oughton," the naïve girl who became Ayers' revolutionary partner and lover and who blew herself up in the Manhattan townhouse bomb factory, is never mentioned in any report on Ayers. This despite Diana's story being well known, as a result of award-winning journalist Thomas Power's book, Diana: The Making of a Terrorist.
Let's face reality: If Bill Ayers had been blowing up black churches and belonged to some neo-Nazi organization, do you think his long-time association with someone who might be the next president would be so cavalierly dismissed? Do you think that Dean Stanley Fish of the University of Illinois would consider penning a letter on behalf of some non-repentant neo-Nazi? Imagine if that neo-Nazi had said: "I did not do enough bombings. I did not kill enough blacks."
The left is so wrapped up in its own high-minded sophistry that it is incapable of distinguishing between being self-righteous and being politically obscene. There is no difference between fascism and communism. They are two sides of the same totalitarian currency. They lead to the same excesses. Yet, communism is palatable to the point of being chic, while fascism is appropriately despised.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was as natural an alliance as one between Britain and the United States. The media's failure to see Ayers as indistinguishable from the terrorists who bombed the Birmingham Church is a poignant and terrible commentary on where journalism -- especially electronic journalism - is today.
Bias exists not only in the obvious such as what we are told and how it is told to us, but also in what we are not told.
As the electronic media plows its resources into examining Sarah Palin's wardrobe and repeats Democratic talking points as news, more important subjects for real investigative reporters are ignored. What was Obama's role in Rezko's pay-for-play scheme? What did Rezko expect in return for the $300,000 subsidy for Obama's Hyde Park mansion? What is Rezko now telling the federal prosecutor?
Also, is it merely coincidental that Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn (Mrs. William Ayers) worked at the same law firm as Michelle Obama? How far back does the relationship with William Ayers go and how close is it? And does the relationship stem from both seeing America through similar ideological prisms, one based on hate, and the other -- as Michelle Obama so clearly articulated -- based on shame?
Don't hold your breath for answers.
After their man crosses the finish line next week.
While my Ministry of Truth video on Monday dealt primarily with the ability to pivot history on a 180-degree fulcrum, as an additional feature, it's worth noting that the modern news media's primary role is not to disseminate information, but to withhold it. Sometimes permanently, or simply holding it back until it won't do much damage to a favored patron, at which point it can be released on page D-17 of the late Friday edition of the paper, in a two or three paragraph article in nine-point type next to the local plumber's advertisement and supermarket coupons.
The drawback to this approach of course, is that if there's a hint that the paper is sitting on a story, it can lead to wild--or who knows?--overly mild speculation about its contents.
All of which is why "2008 is not a year on which honest journalists shall look back with undiluted pleasure."
As Power Line notes, over at the once-respect publication The Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan has posted (under the same headline) a YouTube video trashing Sarah Palin titled, "Red, White and MILF." John Hinderaker responds:
I don't think there is any precedent in our history for the shameful manner in which the Left has treated Sarah Palin. Left-winger Andrew Sullivan gleefully posted a particularly disgusting example of the phenomenon today; it's a YouTube video titled "Red, White and MILF." Watch it only if you have a strong stomach. If you don't know what "MILF" means--I'm sure most of our readers don't--Google it.Sadly, that's been true for a number of years now. But from time to time, some have called the left on their actions. Here's a pioneering member of the Blogosphere in 2002 on the dangers of racism, invective and ad hominem attacks emanating from the left:I can remember when Sullivan was a respected journalist, not a gutter smear merchant and borderline pornographer. His descent exemplifies the Left's decline in recent years to a baboon-like level of discourse. The vileness of much of what passes for political "argument" on the Left has to be seen to be believed. The worst impulses of human nature have been not just unleashed, but rewarded. If you haven't looked at web sites like Democratic Underground, Daily Kos, the Huffington Post and Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, you have no idea what the phrase "gutter politics" really means.
Nowhere has the vileness of the Left been more sickening than in its treatment of Governor Palin. It is interesting to contemplate what a semi-pornographic video about Barack Obama, playing on the same sort of prejudices and stereotypes that are so disgustingly on display in Sullivan's video, would look like. Frankly, I can't imagine such a video being made, let alone featured on the web site of the once-proud Atlantic magazine. But on the Left, anything goes--the more slimy and disgusting, the better.
When a black public person like Harry Belafonte calls another African-American a slave to white masters, you see what I mean. When defenders of feminism call someone who files a sexual harassment lawsuit "trailer-trash," you get the picture. When a gay man can write a column asserting that another man is a "nasty faggot," it's hard to think of how much lower the discourse can get. When liberals denigrate the president as a "boy" or as a "sissy," to quote Maureen Dowd, homophobia doesn't lurk far behind.That blogger's name? Andrew Sullivan, oddly enough.I remember a brief interaction I had with one Barbra Streisand long, long ago when the Paula Jones suit had just been filed. I asked Ms. Streisand what she thought of the suit. "Oh, she's just a little kurva," she replied, referring to Jones. That's a yiddish expression for "whore." Charming.
As Nick Schulz of Tech Central Station spotted in late August of 2004, Harper's magazine editor Lewis Lapham "wrote about the GOP convention speeches before anyone even stepped to the podium":
But the only "mistake" Lapham made is in revealing for all to see what has long been known by anyone who pays attention to the news: the major media routinely bring to their coverage of significant political events a predetermined storyline -- you might want to call it a "Lapham". Facts that undermine the storyline are ignored or explained away as aberrations to The Truth. For the editor of Harper's and other establishment press figures, it really makes no difference to them what will be said at Madison Square Garden because the Laphams are already set, loaded in the scribblers' word processors and television anchor tele-prompters and ready to go.Or maybe these days it's best known as Ifillization, but New York magazine also jumps the gun a bit on the results of the election, just as multiple members of Lapham's Blue Media did in 2004.
Scott Johnson of Power Line --part of the "monster" that Mary Mapes, inadvertently helped to create when deliberately cooked the books at CBS in 2004 (back when viewers were still surprised that such things occurred), has some thoughts on her post this week at the Puffington Host. He reaches a conclusion similar to my take from Friday.
As to Big Media in 2008, the Professor and his readers have some thoughts on the state of "Blue Journalism."
A half century ago, Marshall McLuhan noted:
The bias of each medium of communication is far more distorting than the deliberate lie. The form and tone of some press styles may make the very concept of truth irrelevant. The most urgent and reliable facts presented in this way are a travesty of any reality.And that was during the (surprisingly brief) era in which a mass media feigned objectivity--and might have even believed it themselves. McLuhan's observation is even more true these days, as Roger L. Simon writes.
Update: Rick Moran may have caught CNN in yet another fabrication.
A reporter for Newsweek has no problem admitting to the world that he'd like to take out Rudy Giuliani--in a nonlethal way of course; "just something that put him out of commission for a year or so." But if a journalist asks tough questions of The One's veep nominee, she's immediately put on the defensive for doing her job and not merely being a cheerleader.
Certainly in terms of their collective mental health, we know that to be true from the yin and yang of the Michael Malone and Mary Mapes posts we linked to yesterday, but the Professor also spots, as he calls it, more media retrenchment:
"The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., will reduce its newsroom staff by nearly half through voluntary buyouts as New Jersey's largest newspaper seeks to return to profitability." Whatever happens to the rest of the world, the news business is already in a depression.And just as it did with the economic slowdowns in the early 1990s and the period surrounding 9/11, there's little doubt the media's own woes are coloring how they report the business news outside of their industry.
Mary Mapes, the woman who brought you RatherGate, wrote yesterday at the Huffington Post:
Americans aren't responding to the old plays -- the fake fears, the faux outrage, the conservatives who yell "Communist" at the news cameras, the pompous right-wing bloggers who once held such sway. I know all too well how scary and effective these old tactics were in 2004. Today, they are toothless. Ha, ha. Nothing makes me happier than seeing once swaggering players like Powerline, Free Republic and Little Green Footballs forced onto the sidelines, left to limply watch this campaign pass by like a parade in which they play no meaningful part. They just don't matter anymore.Mapes' post is titled, "The Monster is Dying"--so "conservatives who yell 'Communist' at the news cameras" are declasse, but attacking conservatives as a monolithic "monster" on a Weblog is reasoned nuance journalism. Charles Krauthammer, call your office!
But behind each of those "monsters" was at least one person who in one form another said, "I don't know how many people will actually listen, but why shouldn't my voice be heard as well?" (Just as the founder of the Huffington Post presumably said as well at some point.) Much like a certain Ohio tradesman with entrepreneurial dreams who is now called "the now infamous Joe the plumber," on over 500 Webpages. Or as another journalist with the same initials as Mary Mapes wrote today:
So much for the Standing Up for the Little Man, so much for Speaking Truth to Power, so much for Comforting the Afflicting and Afflicting the Comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.And calling one half of the Blogosphere "toothless" because their presidential candidate isn't an effective purveyor of the same message as they are seems awfully disingenuous to the other side--I don't think the bloggers at, say, the Daily Kos would take kindly at being called, by extension, toothless in 2004 because John Kerry was such a feckless candidate. It also fails to take into consideration that pundits supporting the out-of-party are able to go on the rhetorical offense, something that the right-hand of the Blogosphere will likely have ample opportunity to do so over the next four years.
But if indeed "The Monster is Dying", what a run! In September of 2005, a year after RatherGate broke, Mapes admitted that she had never heard of any of the blogs that she quotes above, even as she was a working TV producer at a corporation which billed itself at the time as "America's Most Watched Network", and hence, presumably, had her pulse on the nation's political scene:
Within a few minutes, I was online visiting Web sites I had never heard of before: Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, Power Line. They were hard-core, politically angry, hyperconservative sites loaded with vitriol about Dan Rather and CBS. Our work was being compared to that of Jayson Blair, the discredited New York Times reporter who had fabricated and plagiarized stories.And accurately so, of course.
But hey, from cat food eating pajama-wearing navel gazers to a journalistic "monster" in the space of seven years after 9/11 is a pretty amazing growth cycle--and something tells me that the starboard side of the Blogosphere isn't going away anytime soon, no matter how much Mary wishes it were so, and no matter what the outcome on November 4th.
Kevin D. Williamson asks readers to "Explain this reasoning to me":
According to the geniuses at the Times, the governor of Alaska is self-evidently and grossly unqualified to be vice president of the United States, but a pop singer is obviously qualified to be lecturing the world about African civil wars and developmental economics.It's more than reasonable to extend Rosenthal's attack on conservative columnists to potential conservative readers of the Times, and to reasonably assume that the Timespeople would prefer those readers avoid their product, just as many of those in Bono's industry would prefer they stay home. Which is one of the reasons why Steve Green projects out the Times' finances and writes, "The NYT in default? It couldn't happen to a nicer paper."Here's a little insight into the world of the Times op-ed page from editor Andrew Rosenthal:
Though rockers and pop stars are welcome, another group faces an uphill battle on to the New York Times' editorial page - conservatives. "[US Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice is a particularly bad op-ed writer," Rosenthal said. However, the problem doesn't end there. "The problem with conservative columnists," Rosenthal said, "is that many of them lie in print." And they can't sing.Liars? That's a bit cheeky from the newspaper that brought us Walter Duranty and Jayson Blair.Condoleezza Rice got her PhD when she was 26 and speaks fluent Russian. Bono wears snazzy glasses and can see Ireland from his house.
And even as his profession rushes headlong towards a financial cliff, veteran journalist Michael Malone writes that its moral bankruptcy has never been more evident:
Read More
Jonah Goldberg updates a Boomer/Gen-X Saturday morning video chestnut: "The new Schoolhouse Rock cartoon: 'Conjunction: a word that connects a racist attack and Barack Obama'":
This week, an editorial writer for the Kansas City Star denounced John McCain and Sarah Palin for suggesting that Obama is a socialist because he wants to "spread the wealth around." Don't they understand that "socialist" has always been a racist codeword used by bigots like J. Edgar Hoover to demonize black activists like W.E.B. Du Bois?I'm pretty sure I received the memo replacing the outdated terminology a while back from the liberal Bletchley Park.A couple problems: First, as best I can remember, Marx, Engels, Lenin, George Bernard Shaw, Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas, and Michael Harrington do not usually get a lot of attention during Black History Month. Second, as writer Michael Moynihan recently noted, Du Bois wasn't merely a socialist, he was a Stalinist! (Du Bois was not entirely unsympathetic to the Nazis, either.) [Paul Robeson was also pretty keen on Uncle Joe--Ed] Besides, when did "socialist" stop being an anti-Semitic codeword for Jew? Maybe when the left started going batty over "neocons."
In a surprise bombshell study that absolutely no one could foresee, the Politico recently announced--brace yourself!--"Study: McCain coverage mostly negative".
Which is why Boston-based talk radio host Michael Graham writes, "I have a dream for Sen. Barack Obama":
I have a dream that one day, for just 24 hours, he could be Sarah Palin.You can see ABC's attempt at flooding the zone with negative headlines on display, here. And Tunku Varadarajan of Forbes gives you the A to Z of all the negative coverage here.OK, maybe that's less of a dream and more a plot point from a bad Lindsay Lohan movie (redundancy alert!).
But imagine the Democratic nominee's day as Barack Palin Obama:
He wake up and reaches for a secret cigarette and a copy of The New York Times [NYT]. Instead of the usual partisan puff pieces ("Obama Health Care Plan Pledges Miraculous Healings For All"), the Times is running exposes about his family.
Does his spouse have extremist political views? Who pays when his kids travel to Washington? And how do we know one of them isn't really his grandkid?
Opening the editorial page Palin-Obama finds column after column filled with personal attacks and insults. Comments about his looks, how much his clothes cost, his speaking style - even suggestions that the radical teachings of his church might be a legitimate topic for discussion.
He clicks on MSNBC and sees the spittle-flecked face of Chris Matthews.
"Obama says he's cutting taxes for 95 percent of taxpayers, but he's not. He's just sending them checks! No cut in their tax rate AT ALL! IT'S A LIE, A LIE! AAARRGGHHHH!
As the MSNBC medical staff fires yet another tranquilizer dart into Matthews' thrashing body, Palin-Obama gets ready to face the day.
At the airport, Palin-Obama is under siege from the traveling press. "Why are you hiding, Sen. Obama? You haven't taken questions from us since last month. Joe Biden hasn't held a press avail since Sept. 7! Afraid he'll make another 'guaranteed crisis' comment? How many more screw-ups before you dump the guy?"
A crowd of thousands gathers to hear him speak. When Palin-Obama mentions the "destructive foreign policy of George W. Bush," someone shouts "murderer!" Another cries, "off with this head!"
By lunchtime, the cable news headline is: "Obama Whips Up Angry Mob, Some Fear Campaign May Inspire Violence."
That afternoon, Palin-Obama sits down with a CNN reporter who spends the first half of the interview asking variations of the question, "How can a half-term senator with zero executive experience and no record of achievement be president? Shouldn't you be ashamed of yourself for even running?"
"Let's talk energy independence," Palin-Obama asks hopefully. The reporter instead demands to know why Obama won't release his medical records, his original birth certificate or the names of about half his contributors.
"You're the most secretive candidate since Nixon," the reporter insists. "And besides, the guy who plays you on 'Saturday Night Live' is way hotter."
The day grinds on. False stories repeatedly corrected by the campaign continue to air. One Palin-Obama supporter - a plumber who asked John McCain a tough question at a campaign stop - had his private medical files hacked into, and found Candy Crowley hiding in his dumpster.
One more campaign stop, more questions about his wife's politics, his children's travel schedule and his clothing budget - and Palin-Obama finally reaches his hotel for a night's rest.
His nightmare of misreporting, mean-spirited negative attacks and blatant media bias is over. For Gov. Sarah Palin, it's going to last at least 12 more days.
Kathy Shaidle connects the dots and illustrates why the Gray Lady is in more than a Pinch of trouble.
As it did in 2004, the last month of the presidential election increasingly resembles dispatches from the police blotter, rather than a nation of adults carefully weighing whom their commander in chief should be. Here's but a sample of what's going on out there:
- "Overnight, the Republican Party's office on the courthouse square in downtown Murfreesboro was attacked. A large brick with a symbol for anarchy written on it was thrown through a window, taking out the entire glass front."
- "Owner Believes Lexus Vandalized Due To McCain Sticker." (Time to update these T-shirts and bumper stickers.)
- "Video: Code Pink tries to arrest Rove."
- "Angry graffiti messages were spray-painted on the garage of Norm Coleman's St. Paul home overnight and discovered this morning.
"'u r a criminal resign or else,' was scrawled in black on the side of the yellow garage in the Summit Hill neighborhood."
- Restaurant Offers Free Pizza for [Stolen] McCain Signs.
- "Does Reebok Condone Violence Against Women?"
- "Anti-McCain vandalism hits Maryland: Democrat Displaying GOP Candidate Sign Wakes Up To Find Home, RV, Truck Covered With 'Vote Obama' Graffiti."
- "NEW: Dashcam Video of Palin Protestors: 'With the opportunity of having a national figure in town, civil disobedience is one of the best ways you can get your message across,' she told 11 News." (More video here.)
- "The Hill notes that police departments across the country are preparing for post-election violence."
As Peter Wood, the author of last year's A Bee In The Mouth, on anger in America told an interviewer:
For example: "[New Anger involves] deriding an opponent for the sheer pleasure of expressing contempt for other people....New Anger is a spectacle to be witnessed by an appreciative audience, not an attempt to win over the uncommitted....If in your anger you reduce your opponent to the status of someone unworthy or unable to engage in legitimate exchange, real politics come to an end....Whoever embraces [New Anger] is bound to find that, at least in the political realm, he has traded the possibility of real influence for the momentary satisfactions of self-expression."And clearly we're seeing a lot of those momentary satisfactions of "self-expression", even if the Victorian Gentleman would prefer not to discuss their origins and root causes.
But quote swapping to help your guys and hurt their opponents? Hey, that's all in a day's work for the Obamedia.
As Orson Scott Card writes,"Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper. But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie."
Only one?
Update: Related thoughts from John Hinderaker of Power Line.
It will be curious to see how this stunt goes over with, as Ed Morrissey has dubbed them, the Tanning Bed Media:
The best-funded political campaign in American history says news organizations will have to pay--in some cases almost $2,000 each--if they want to cover Barack Obama's election-night celebration in Chicago.As Ed writes, "Don't expect too much sympathy from us for the Tanning Bed Media. The only reason why Obama's in a position to demand tithes from the worshiping media is because journalists and editors didn't do their jobs in the first place."
Somebody has been watching too much NBC.
Kevin D. Williamson spots "An Unbelievable Headline from Slate":
"Believing in vote fraud may be dangerous to a democracy's health."Still though, I'm glad to see Winston Smith is finally off IngSoc's vast government payroll and happily writing in the private sector.
Incidentally, back in 2002, Glenn Reynolds suggested one simple method of reducing voter fraud:
The fact is, if you could come up with a new technology as simple and resistant to fraud as the paper ballot, people would be pretty impressed. So why do we use machines?But since then, as any trip to the supermarket will demonstrate, the left have moved headlong into organic vegetables and away from the more modern canned variety.Perhaps in part for the same reason that some people used to prefer canned vegetables to fresh ones: "it's more modern!"
Couldn't paper ballots be sold to the left along similar lines? Vote the organic way--vote paper!
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This just in to the Tinseltown trade paper: "Republicans in biz feel stifled, bullied."
Who knew?
"Terry Tate, Office Linebacker" made his debut in a Super Bowl ad that aired in late January of 2003, pitching Reebok sneakers. And considering the average career length of a real NFL linebacker, I guess Terry should be glad he still has a job. He's a free agent these days, no longer, to the best of my knowledge, associated with Reebok, but considering his national launch, it seems safe to say that Terry and Reeboks will forever be intertwined.
So I wonder what the sneaker manufacturer thinks of their former pitchman's latest video. Here's Terry, with a little digital editing help, brutally shoving a woman onto an unforgiving concrete floor and yelling oddly Freudian epithets at her, while tacitly endorsing high gasoline prices and the liberal media:
Is this funny? As they say in the NFL--you make the call! On the plus side, at least Terry's shown only trying to permanently injure Palin, not kill her, as The Economist and Keith Olbermann metaphorically called for, when Hillary was running.
So in that sense, it's a definite step forward in an election year in which the surprisingly well entrenched sexism of the liberal overculture was none too thrilled at the idea of female politicians from either party running for national office.
Noel Sheppard writes:
Whether it's an example of the host's bias or incompetence, potentially one of the most amazing aspects of Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama on Sunday's "Meet the Press" was that Tom Brokaw didn't ask the former Secretary of State about the success of the surge in Iraq or the Democrat presidential candidate's opposition to this winning military strategy.There's hope and change and audacity in the air! Why would a unbiased objective hard-hitting journalist spoil the good feelings?Given Powell's critical position in garnering support for the Iraq War, as well as his involvement in Desert Storm many years ago, it should have been essential to any interview dealing with his endorsement of either candidate how he feels the 2007 increase in troops has worked, and what the Senatorial vote on this strategy by his candidate of choice says about that person's foreign policy acumen.
Despite this logic, a full examination of the transcript and video of this almost 30-minute interview identified absolutely no reference to the surge whatsoever, and no questions posed to the former Secretary of State concerning the wisdom of Sen. Obama's position on it.
(No? Well, we can always blame it on a lack of research due to NBC's budget cuts.)
Over at the newly spiffed-up Power Line site, John Hinderaker writes that Sarah Palin apearing on Saturday Night is "a mistake, I'm afraid":
It's not that I lack confidence in Governor Palin; I don't. But I think it's almost always a mistake to visit an enemy's home turf without a clear understanding that you are among enemies.It wasn't Ford appearing on Saturday Night Live that was the real problem--it was Ron Nessen, Ford's press secretary, who hosted the show. And as I noted shortly after President Ford passed away in 2006, in a very long post quoting from a history of SNL, as one of the writers said out of Nessen's earshot when he agreed to the gig, "The President's watching. Let's make him cringe and squirm."The Saturday Night Live people are Democrats. That's all there is to it, and they will never give Sarah Palin, or any other Republican, a fair shake. Palin is, of course, more than a match for them in a fair fight. But for a fight to be fair, it must first be acknowledged that it's a fight. That won't happen tonight, and it will be almost a miracle if Palin gains from the exposure.
I'm old enough to remember when President Gerald Ford appeared on Saturday Night Live. That night, he was ridiculed as a klutz, in keeping with the image he had among liberals. It was grotesquely unfair: Ford, an all-America football player at Michigan, was undoubtedly the most athletic President of modern times. But reality won't intrude when your enemy is the editor.
News accounts indicated that the next morning, a shell-shocked Ford summoned his aides and asked who it was who thought it would be a good idea for him to appear on the television show that had been ridiculing him non-stop since he became President. I'm afraid a similar fate awaits Governor Palin.
As John notes, it's guaranteed that similar thoughts were expressed this week as well.
Back in April, Obama discussed Reverend Wright with Chris Wallace:
WALLACE: Did you talk to reverend Wright recently about his decision to make a series of public appearances at this particular point?Obama talking about his wife, back in July:OBAMA: You know, I didn't talk to him about that. I had talked to him after all this had happened, partly because I regretted -- I always regret people who are civilians, essentially, being dragged into these political fights.
And I expressed to him -- I said, "Look, we have very strong differences. I do not agree with the comments that you made. On the other hand, I regret that you have drawn so much attention."
And I've said this before: I would never have my campaign engage in a concerted effort to make Cindy McCain an issue, and I would not expect the Democratic National Committee or people who were allied with me to do it. Because essentially, spouses are civilians. They didn't sign up for this. They're supporting their spouse.I guess once you move beyond the inner circle, the definition of "civilian" becomes slightly hazier.
Clark Hoyt, the New York Times' ombudsman, writes:
Throughout this election season, most of the thousands of messages I have received about Times news coverage have alleged bias -- bias in headlines, photo selections, word choices, what the newspaper chooses to write about and what it ignores, what it puts on Page 1 and what it puts inside. Most of the complaints, but by no means all of them, have come from the right. Nobody acknowledges the possibility that, because of their own biases, they could be reading more, or less, than was intended into an article, a headline or a picture. Many go a step beyond alleging mere bias to accuse The Times of operating from a conscious agenda to help one candidate and destroy the other.At least the Times' previous ombudsman was willing to come clean four years ago."It's so obvious who the NYT is supporting for the presidency," said Cheryl Page of Jackson, Miss. "How sad that our media can't just report the news, rather than print their opinions in biased ways." There is a proper place for opinion in The Times -- the editorial and Op-Ed pages -- and there is no doubt that most of the newspaper's regular columnists and its editorial policy favor Obama. It would be a shock if The Times did not endorse him.
But the paper's news coverage is another matter. It is supposed to be evenhanded. I think I've seen bias from time to time, and I think The Times made a serious mistake early this year that gave its critics on the right a lot of ammunition: an article that suggested, but failed to prove, a romantic relationship between John McCain and a female lobbyist. (The Op-Ed page, though independent from the newsroom, added to the problem when it ran an article by Obama without first securing a companion piece from McCain. McCain then offered a rebuttal, but when the paper asked for major revisions, he refused and his supporters cried foul.) But I think the news coverage over a long campaign has been better and fairer than critics would admit.
(Hoyt's article is titled, "Keeping Their Opinions to Themselves"--not to be confused of course, with "The News We Kept To Ourselves"--different news agency; different messianic figure being propped up.)
Related: And speaking of what a difference four years makes....
In an earlier post, I linked to Ed Morrissey's discussion of the New York Times' Jodi Kantor attempting to troll Facebook for any muck she can rake on Cindy McCain.
Here's the letter from Kantor, which Ed quotes:
I saw on facebook that you went to Xavier, and if you don't mind, I'd love to ask you some advice about a story. I'm a reporter at the New York Times, writing a profile of Cindy McCain, and we are trying to get a sense of what she is like as a mother. So I'm reaching out to fellow parents at her kids' schools. My understanding is that some of her older kids went to Brophy/Xavier, but I'm trying to figure out what school her 16 year old daughter Bridget attends- and a few people said it was PCDS. Do you know if that's right? Again, we're not really reporting on the kids, just seeking some fellow parents who can talk about what Mrs. McCain is like.If the following letter is real, an attorney for Cindy McCain is attempting a little pushback:Also, if you know anyone else who I should talk to- basically anyone who has encountered Mrs. McCain and might be able to share impressions- that would be great.
Thanks so much for any help you can give me.
Jodi Kantor
Political correspondent
New York Times
These allegations and efforts to hurt Cindy have been a matter of public record for sixteen years. Cindy has been quite open and frank about her issues for all these years. Any further attempts to harass and injure her based on the information from Gosinski and Clark will be met with an appropriate response. While she may be in the public eye, she is not public property nor the property of the press to abuse and defame.It's signed, "John M. Dowd [of] Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP". While the letter states that "none of these subjects on either side are worthy of the energy and resources of The New York Times", the mere fact that "Barack Obama's drug dealer" is being introduced into the public discourse by a campaign surrogate itself is pretty remarkable. (But hey, all's fair in a presidential race, right?)It is worth noting that you have not employed your investigative assets looking into Michelle Obama. You have not tried to find Barack Obama's drug dealer that he wrote about in his book, Dreams of My Father. Nor have you interviewed his poor relatives in Kenya and determined why Barack Obama has not rescued them. Thus, there is a terrific lack of balance here.
I suggest to you that none of these subjects on either side are worthy of the energy and resources of The New York Times. They are cruel hit pieces designed to injure people that only the worst rag would investigate and publish. I know you and your colleagues are always preaching about raising the level of civil discourse in our political campaigns. I think taking some your own medicine is in order here.
But then, given that the Tanning Bed media have made the business license of someone who merely asks a question of a candidate fair game, and now, the parenting skills of a potential first lady, they shouldn't be surprised if the other side decides to push back.
Dave Burge of Iowahawk has a rare non-satiric post in which he writes:
We've all witnessed a lot of insanity in American politics over the last few years. Up until the last few days, none of it has seriously bothered me; hey, just more grist for the satire mill. But after witnessing the media's blitzkreig on Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher, I can only muster anger, and no small amount of fear.Or as Jim Treacher notes:Politicians -- Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, et al. -- obviously have to put up with some rude, nasty shit, but it's right there in the jobs description. Joe the Plumber is different. He was a guy tossing a football with his kid in the front yard of his $125,000 house when a politician picked him out as a prop for a 30 second newsbite for the cable news cameras. Joe simply had the temerity to speak truth (or, if you prefer, an uninformed opinion) to power, for which the politico-media axis apparently determined that he must be humiliated, harassed, smashed, destroyed. The viciousness and glee with which they set about the task ought to concern anyone who still cares about citizen participation, and freedom of speech, and all that old crap they taught in Civics class before politics turned into Narrative Deathrace 3000, and Web 2.0 turned into Berlin 1932.0.
Godwin's Law! you say? if the jackboot fits, wear it.
The whole "He's not a licensed plumber!" non sequitur is really fantastic. So, if you happen to be standing in front of Obama when he publicly reveals his socialism, what does the media do? Demands to see your papers. That's just delicious, is what that is.Of course, at Matt Drudge once said:
"Roger Ailes told me early on, you don't need a license to report. You need a license to do hair".Or be a plumber. But which job gets your hands dirtier?
(Meanwhile, Jim Lindgren spots a tax issue that doesn't involve Joe the Plumber, but an actual presidential candidate. Which is why the issue will never be raised by the media.)
CNN's Kyra Philips had quite an interesting slip-up today; managing to mangle the c-word into her introduction of Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez. Total accident? Freudian slip? Deliberate slur? Subliminal reference to this infamous T-shirt? You make the call!
That's Betsy Newmark's take on Joe Wurzelbacher, though it's happening in a slightly reverse fashion from George Allen's seminal gaffe in 2006. The establishment liberal media magnified Allen's own mistake a thousandfold. In this case, Obama's Kinsley-esque gaffe that demonstrates his soft socialism is undergoing a far more intense scrutiny than it otherwise would have as a byproduct of the media's declaring war on somebody who was approached by Obama to ask the candidate a question. In any case, it's a reminder that once the Two-Minute Warning sounds, strange things begin to happen:
Meanwhile, in his own video series with fellow-NRO-er Mark Hemingway, Jim Geraghty posits:
I contend we've passed a threshold in the way the media perceives their jobs; they'll never go back to paying any attention to news that is bad for their preferred candidates, and they'll never again worry about accuracy in stories that are critical of the candidates they hate.Fortunately though, even when the media wiffs a story, the truth occasionally still wins out.
While the media are off rummaging through Joe Wurzelbacher's garbage cans to investigate which brand of plumber's tape he uses, and if he has the sales receipt for it, Stephen Green explores "The Hottest Sex Scandal You Never Heard of":
In one of his recent Davenport Mystery novels, author John Sandford claimed -- satirically, it is hoped -- that Democrat scandals are "always about money," and Republican scandals are "always about sex." Except, you know, for Bill Clinton and his dress-soiling ways. John Edwards and his love child. And Mel Reynolds, convicted of having sex with teens. Or Barney Frank and his male prostitute. Or, right now down in Florida, Democratic Congressman Tim Mahoney and...But wait, there's more, involving the man who replaced Mark Foley. (Oh, him you remember? Wonder why?) Read the whole thing."Uh... Tim who?" you might fairly ask.
If you haven't heard of Mahoney, it's because our Mainstream Media is in Full Bore Yawn Until It Goes Away Mode. After all, there's an election going on, and what could be less important in a Congressional race than a Congressman who paid off his mistress to the tune of a hundred and twenty thousand smackeroos, and I don't mean on the lips.
"Uh... there's money involved, too?"
I've already linked to Glenn Reynolds' post on Joe Wurzelbacher, but this quote from one his readers is worth highlighting:
The harassment of Joe the plumber is the singular biggest mistake of the Obama campaign. The MSM is making Joe a martyr. Heck, DKos just published Joe's home address. Obama is now not only a Marxist but a Marxist bully - just another Chicago thug. America roots for the underdog and they will not take this action kindly. If Joe were a hero yesterday, wait a few days.Well, some will, but whether or not the politics of plumber destruction will be a game changer remains to be seen, of course. But the dynamics of the story do seem vaguely similar to the memorial for Paul Wellstone in late October of 2002. It was initially planned as a bipartisan memorial to an earnest Minnesota politician tragically killed when his private campaign plane crashed. The "memorial" became in the end, a hugely partisan pep rally, demonstrating for millions the most rapacious aspects of the far left in an election year. The back-to-back attacks by the establishment liberal press and their candidates on two conservative-appearing middle Americans, first Sarah Palin, and now Joe Wurzelbacher similarly demonstrate how craven the left can act when they smell blood in the water.Obi Wan's line in Star Wars when fighting Darth Vader comes to mind - "Strike me down and I will return more powerful than you can possibly imagine." Americans will realize what happened to Joe could easily happen to them. And they will remember this come November.
At least American blood. Terrorist blood should never be shed, of course.
Noel Sheppard writes:
Somehow I get the feeling we're going to be hearing much more from Joe...how 'bout you?Not in the slightest.Post facto exit question: is Joe the Plumber this election's October surprise? Could he single-handedly change this entire campaign?
Think about it: regular guy wanting to advance himself without the shackles of a socialist tax plan.
Could this be a game-changer?
As Glenn Reynolds writes, the legacy media have done "more investigations into Joe the Plumber in 24 hours than they've done on Barack Obama in two years." The media have internalized Joseph Conrad's famous aphorism from The Heart of Darkness and they're in the process of completely destroying Joe the Plumber, as an object lesson for anyone else who dares Think Different, just as they've already successfully done with Sarah Palin, just as they did 20 years ago with Dan Quayle. Occasionally, an apostate such as Ronald Reagan, Clarance Thomas, Rush Limbaugh or George W. Bush is able to survive such exposure and go on to powerful accomplishments, which is all the more reason why the media must destroy the Other, the Alien, before his message becomes too powerful.
Update: And just like that, a meme is born! Ed Morrissey (with a memetic assist from Jim Treacher) goes inside "The Tanning Bed Media."
You know that proverbial tank that the media are supposed to be in? Snapped Shot has your snapshot of exactly what it looks like.
So is John McCain a Nazi or a Confederate slave owner? I wish the Obama campaign would make up its mind, and simplify its talking points for the media down to one useful all-purpose epithet, rather than the scattershot nailbomb approach of their advisors.
From Shelby Steele:
To be born into a minority group is, among other things, to be born into a collective experience of insecurity. Put differently, it is to be born into a group of nervous people. If you are born black in America, as has been my own fate, then you are born into a particularly intense insecurity. Your people have known almost nothing but insecurity and impotence for centuries -- this as opposed to the majority culture's experience of itself as heroic and world-beating; ingenious in peace, dominant in war.Placed into dramatic context, here.One thing this means for minorities is that their group identity will often be the enemy of their individuality. In its insecurity, the group is naturally threatened by the impulse in some of its members to think for themselves. Individuals like this seem to put the group at risk. What will we do if the majority culture thinks you speak for us? Your indulgence in individuality jeopardizes the carefully constructed mask we present to the powerful majority. Your individuality collaborates with them. So knock it off. Get in line, or we will shun you to the point of extinction.
Over the weekend, Michelle Malkin pasted up quite a rogue's gallery of the violent left. John Hawkins provides an equal number of quotes to go along with them.
Just don't expect the Victorian Gentleman to pay much attention.
NewsBusters notes that the "NYT Pulls Misleading Account of Palin Puck Dropping Ceremony" at the Philadelphia Flyers' home game yesterday.
As with these prior fabrications, having a video of the event to cross-check with the reported coverage makes all the difference.
Glenn Reynolds (and no, he's not the subject of the above headline, which I'll get to in just a moment) writes:
NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE? So we've had nearly 8 years of lefty assassination fantasies about George W. Bush, and Bill Ayers' bombing campaign is explained away as a consequence of him having just felt so strongly about social justice, but a few people yell things at McCain rallies and suddenly it's a sign that anger is out of control in American politics? It's nice of McCain to try to tamp that down, and James Taranto sounds a proper cautionary note -- but, please, can we also note the staggering level of hypocrisy here? (And that's before we get to the Obama campaign's thuggish tactics aimed at silencing critics.)As I've noted before, in The Right Stuff and in subsequent promotional interviews, Tom Wolfe described the press as "the proper Victorian Gentleman":The Angry Left has gotten away with all sorts of beyond-the-pale behavior throughout the Bush Administration. The double standards involved -- particularly on the part of the press -- are what are feeding this anger. (Indeed, as Ann Althouse and John Leo have noted, the reporting on this very issue is dubious). So while asking for McCain supporters to chill a bit, can we also ask the press to start doing its job rather than openly shilling for a Democratic victory? Self-control is for everybody, if it's for anybody. . . .
I'll never forget working on the [New York] Herald Tribune the afternoon of John Kennedy's death. I was sent out along with a lot of other people to do man-on-the-street reactions. I started talking to some men who were just hanging out, who turned out to be Italian, and they already had it figured out that Kennedy had been killed by the Tongs, and then I realized that they were feeling hostile to the Chinese because the Chinese had begun to bust out of Chinatown and move into Little Italy. And the Chinese thought the mafia had done it, and the Ukrainians thought the Puerto Ricans had done it. And the Puerto Ricans thought the Jews had done it. Everybody had picked out a scapegoat. I came back to the Herald Tribune and I typed up my stuff and turned it in to the rewrite desk. Late in the day they assigned me to do the rewrite of the man-on-the-street story. So I looked through this pile of material, and mine was missing. I figured there was some kind of mistake. I had my notes, so I typed it back into the story. The next day I picked up the Herald Tribune and it was gone, all my material was gone. In fact there's nothing in there except little old ladies collapsing in front of St. Patrick's. Then I realized that, without anybody establishing a policy, one and all had decided that this was the proper moral tone for the president's assassination. It was to be grief, horror, confusion, shock and sadness, but it was not supposed to be the occasion for any petty bickering. The press assumed the moral tone of a Victorian gentleman.And a huge part of that Victorian Gent's daily job is take a rogue's gallery such as this, and make you believe that they're nothing but polite, Ralph Lauren-clad kids just back from playing touch football on the lawn at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port.
Just as it was in 1963, the legacy media's primary role in its twilight years as gatekeeper is to keep news out. Unlike back then, it's not because there isn't enough time or space to report it (bandwidth on the Internet being infinite), but to protect their friends, colleagues, political constituency and their ideology as a whole. And to make their opponents, which prior to the Blogosphere constituted a big chunk of their readership--back when the emphasis was on silent majority--look as badly as possible.
(Jim Treacher boils the schism down to just two words.)
Update: More from Treacher: "I'm going to start calling them the Deathbed Media."
As Andrew Malcom writes, John Lewis (D-GA) predictably demagogues John McCain on race:
Lewis took the occasion of McCain himself admonishing his supporters Friday night to cool it in their shouted distaste for the Democratic ticket.Malcolm adds that "McCain called on Obama to repudiate the attack, which the Democratic presidential nominee's campaign didn't really do later in the day", instead releasing their now standard-issue "Yes, but..." statement:Lewis said: "George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional right."
He said McCain and Palin are "playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all."
McCain's side fired back (note the military term) that Lewis' assault (again) was a character attack "shocking and beyond the pale."
Later Saturday, Obama's camp shot up a flare to disassociate itself from the worst of Lewis' statement, while not really rebuking the political ally who had turned his back on the Clintons so helpfully at just the right time during the primary season. But it added a qualifier to allow the odor of Lewis' remarks to linger.The overt cries of racism from the left should have been anticipated by the McCain campaign, as they were a staple of how the Obama campaign also ran out the clock in the primaries against Hillary, Victor Davis Hanson writes:"Sen. Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies," said the campaign statement. But wait! There's more:
"John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night."
Bottom line: Just like World War I, artillery back and forth. The trenches didn't move any. But unlike that military stalemate, this election race has a predetermined end. Both sides fed their troops some angry propaganda Saturday to keep them outraged and fired up out there on the front lines.
Most of us watched from the sidelines, shaking our heads and wondering over the persistent absence of serious discussion beyond bumper-sticker sound bites.
And McCain has one less day to change the game's momentum.
The common denominator in all this? Ask Bill Clinton who saw all this earlier in the primaries. Team Obama has so prepped the battlefield that it is nearly impossible to raise legitimate questions about Sen. Obama's mysterious past without incurring charges of racism and / or character assassination. The modus operandi is to have Obama high in the clouds talking about hope and change and brotherhood, descending on occasion to lament those who cruelly lie about him, and then ascend again as he unleashes a variety of surrogates who preemptively create a climate in which McCain can say very little without being condemned s illibera [sic] and worse.Exactly--except that this should have been a preemptive strike from McCain, not a Hail Mary play deep in the fourth quarter. Since hindsight is 20/20, here's a little bit of Monday morning (okay, Sunday afternoon) quarterbacking:Many of us warned about all this in March and April as we saw the Obama Rules box in Hillary. Time is running out for McCain and Palin, and they must act preemptively themselves, honestly warning that they expect to be demonized and have the race card played against them, but that such threats and invective will hardly stop them from asking even more legitimate questions.
At some point over the summer, ideally during his acceptance speech in Minneapolis, the moment of 100 percent media coverage, which would have allowed him to use the spotlight to bypass the spin of the MSM, McCain should have said something along these lines:
I respect Senator Obama as an opponent, and I also respect the process of democracy in America. The Senator and I have serious disagreements on the most troubling issues of our day. And the American people need to know as much as they can about both of the men running for the most important job in the world. While I have many friends in the media, something tells me that they won't do the most thorough job of explaining Senator Obama's history and the background of his longtime acquaintances. So it's going to be up to us--myself and my supporters, to help make that case.And have that clip, and plenty of "see, I told you so" speeches ready for when the inevitable attacks from the media and the left started to occur this fall.As I said, I have many friends in the press, and you and I will know if they're covering the election fairly if they report the facts on my esteemed opponent and his history--which, while it isn't as lengthy as mine, contains some rather curious moments--in as much detail as they discuss my history, and the background of Gov. Palin, soon to be the next vice president of the United States.
We'll know very quickly, my friends, about how both the media and my friends across the aisle intend to play this election. If they crudely describe my campaign or myself, or even subtly impugn in some way that it's racist, as happened to my friend on the other side of aisle, the great senator from New York, Hillary Clinton when she ran her gallant fight against Senator Obama, then we'll know what we're in for.
And my friends, if and when such an unfortunate moment happens, I will call out Senator Obama, his fellow Democrats on the other side of aisle, and the media for their role in abetting this.
It's time America move beyond the crude racial demagoguery and bitter divisiveness of the past, and the McCain campaign is committed to seeing that happen. Help me make it a reality, my friends!
At the start of the month, Robert Stacy McCain (John's more ebullient very distant cousin) rightly called out the campaign for its late September attacks on the media:
I didn't comment on it at the time, but I was shocked when Steve Schmidt lashed out at the New York Times on Sept. 22. Every word Schmidt said about the NYT being in the tank for Obama was true. But you don't do that. Ever. Not in a campaign you have any hope of winning. It is one thing to criticize specific errors by specific reporters, but for a presidential campaign manager to call into question the fundamental integrity of a newspaper that more or less dictates news coverage at the three major broadcast networks? Uh uh. No way. Leave that work to surrogates. Then Wednesday, in an interview with the Associated Press, McCain himself got all hostile with the reporter. That is tantamount to an admission of defeat.Exactly.
Over the summer, both on my blog and via PJTV at the convention in Minneapolis, I praised the McCain campaign's effective use of YouTube and their outreach to bloggers as examples of a campaign that seems to get the importance of new media. But so far, I've seen very little that leads me to believe that the campaign knows how to handle old media, and the prevent defense they're committed to helping Sen. Obama play.
Since the role of the MSM is now largely to withhold information damaging to itself and the left (but I repeat myself), occasionally news seeps out from some strange sources--such as Bill Maher's late night HBO show:
As odd as it might seem, for the second week in a row, a panelist on "Real Time" actually divulged information about Democrat involvement in the current financial crisis that most mainstream media outlets continue to hide from the public. With stocks cratering, and a serious economic contraction looming, one has to wonder when America's "serious" media will follow suit and expose the truth behind the current crisis.Like I said in my recent video, the Two-Minute Warning has sounded, and the legacy media only need about three more weeks to drag their candidate into the end zone.After all, in 2006, the word "macaca" and solicitous e-mail messages from a little-known congressman were headline news for weeks, and were largely responsible for the Democrats taking back the Senate and the House. Of course, all this attention came despite the misstatement by then Sen. George Allen (R-Virg.) and the behavior of Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fl.) no way threatening the finances of Americans or our very economy.
There is absolutely no question that if Maxine Waters was a Republican that had blocked GSE reform this decade, and was caught lying on national television about campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie, this would be headline and front-page news for days with full-scale coverage of how she and others in her Party were responsible for the current calamity.
Yet, it seems almost a metaphysical certitude that with about three weeks to go before Election Day, the Obama-loving media are going to keep this matter buried long enough to get their candidate in the White House.
I'll never look at Annette Bening's nude scenes in The Grifters the same way again...
Update: Rand Simberg posits:
"On the other hand, it's probably a lot easier to make Annette Bening look like Helen Thomas than vicey versy.I'd say that's an staggeringly safe assumption.
When did the Manolo become the photo editor at the Associated Press?
Rachel Lucas writes that "1984 finally arrived 24 years later."
On the doubleplus side, at least they're not feeling too comfortable in the Ministry of Truth right now.
In a fair world, Harry Reid would be the Piranha Party's first snack (bring plenty of Maalox); but if Dingy Harry does indeed believe that linking Obama to Franklin Raines is racist, then he might want to start by cleaning up the real racists that exist within his party's half of the Senate.
Back in 2005, Howard Dean, another Democratic Senator, told the late Tim Russert that "I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy." Dean and Reid certainly have their work cut out for them, eh?
Incidentally, could someone alert CNN that Robert Byrd is a Democrat? One of their Obama cheerleaders journalists seems to have forgotten that recently.
Mark Sheldon of IlliniPundit writes, "I got a call yesterday from Steven Gray, a reporter for Time magazine who was in town today doing an article on student voter registration":
He left a message on my voice mail asking for ten minutes of my time. I didn't get back to him so he showed up in my office today. He asked for five minutes, no doubt noticing how busy I was and I politely said no. He comes back with..."come on, just five minutes?"I guess it's a form of progress that Gray's reply was simply a startled, "No one does that!", because a decade ago, our sensitive legacy media considered taping your own interview "intimidation", as former CBS journalist Bernard Goldberg wrote in Arrogance, his sequel to his first inside the trenches book on media bias:I told him no, because first, I was busy, and two, I really had no idea what he would do with the video he was planning to shoot of me. He gave a little roll of the eyes and so I asked if I could have an unedited copy of the entirety of what he taped of me. He said "No one does that!" That was the end of the conversation.
He seemed like a nice guy and I have no particular reason to doubt his integrity as a reporter. Except for his instant negative reaction to my request.
Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit, has suggested that everyone bring their own cameras to interviews. I was a little busy to try that stunt, so I went with the next best thing. I wasn't surprised that the reaction was negative, if for no other reason than I expect my response was pretty much out of the blue.
Not doing the interview is probably a good career move. After all, if Time does you right, you get 15 minutes of fame. If they do you wrong, you get a lifetime of infamy on their website.
No hard feelings Mr. Gray. Next time I won't ask for the tape, I'll take Reynolds' advice and bring my own camera.
You know the old saying "They can dish it out but they can't take it"?You can read Heyward's memo at my original blog post on the topic from 2005. Bernie doesn't mention if CBS typed it up on the 1973 edition of Microsoft Word or not, though.In October 1999 the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 was about to air a story on a man named Michael Ellis, the founder and CEO of a company that markets a controversial weight-loss pill. It was the kind of investigation that doesn't always end well for the person on the other end of the camera, the one being interviewed. So, fearing his comments might be taken out of context and that the interview might be edited to make him look bad, before the 20/20 piece aired Ellis took the unedited transcript and video of the entire interview-which he'd recorded on his own-and put it out on the World Wide Web.
This made people at ABC News very angry. In fact, one vice-president told the New York Times, without a hit of irony, that "We don't want other people attempting to get into and shift the journalism process." [Things were much more fun for the legacy media when they had a monopoly--Ed]
Next to be heard was former ABC News Vice President Richard Wald, now teaching young journalists at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Wald called the CEO's strategy, "a not-so-subtle form of intimidation".
Got that? When the media disseminates information about "other people", it's news. When "other people" disseminate information about themselves, it's intimidation.
It didn't take long for the tsunami to reach CBS News, where its president, Andrew Heyward, put out the following in-house memo. I share it with you now, in its entirety.
(H/T: IP)
That's the headline from Newsbusters, hence the quotation marks above. And it's not all that surprising from a six degrees of separation point of view. Walters was was in attendance at Leonard Bernstein's Park Avenue duplex for his infamous 1970 fundraiser for the Black Panthers--and the Panthers and Weathermen were this close.
(And still are!)
As John Dickerson writes in Slate, "The 41st president's run-in with Ponytail Guy left such a mark that it haunted his son throughout his campaigns":
I remember watching a town hall during the 2000 campaign in which George W. Bush consistently refused to call on a man waving from the middle of the crowd like he was trying to flag a rescue plane. Bush pretended not to see him but let on afterwards that he'd seen him and avoided calling on him for fear of creating a moment. In 1996, when Bob Dole was given the chance to attack Clinton's character in a town-hall debate, he demurred, saying the debate should be about the issues.Indeed--Michelle Malkin suggests that bloggers carefully check the flora and fauna in the bleachers of tonight's town hall debate. Specifically, the wide array of plant life that's likely to be sprouting up amidst the whichy thickets of the audience.This year's campaign shows how partisans on both sides go after the journalists who ask questions they don't like. During the Democratic primaries, Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, and George Stephanopoulos were all savaged for the questions they asked and how they asked them. Last week, Gwen Ifill was attacked for a book she hasn't written about a subject she isn't addressing. [Say what?--Ed]
"Real" people (by which I mean people who don't do this for a living) who are asking the questions may be harder to rough up. Or maybe not. On Tuesday night, if Son of Ponytail Guy asks a question, he can rest assured that he will receive a thorough going-over in the blogosphere. So I suggest all prospective questioners Google themselves, make sure they're on good terms with their co-workers, and wipe clean their Facebook page. If they don't--or even if they do--they could become the story very quickly.
Update: I was just talking about this post at the top of today's edition of PJTV--subscribers can tune in here to watch. (And if you're not a subscriber--what are you waiting for? Click here!)
Michelle Malkin posits why NBC has yanked one of the few Saturday Night Live sketches that's both funny (at times) and actually pokes fun at the left. (Given the overt biases of both SNL and NBC as a whole, that's no doubt a big part of the reason in and of itself that the clip was pulled from NBC's video site.) And Pat Dollard has uploaded his own copy of the video, here.
Somebody doesn't want you to watch it--isn't that reason enough to click over?
Mickey Kaus spots an example of McCain "losing" the support of journalists whose support he never had in the first place. Mickey adds:
It might seem as if the MSM reaction against McCain's shift to negativism has "driven the final nail into his coffin," as Heilemann suggests. The Feiler Faster Thesis says no--given the speed with which the country now processes information, there's plenty of time for several dramatic twists and turns, including lead changes. Obamaphiles (in the press and elsewhere) are deluding themselves, I think, if they think they can ride the economic crisis and the reaction against negativity to victory in a month. Plus Obama's not that far ahead.Which isn't to say I disagree with Ace's current grim tone, though.
The news division of NBC and its affiliates were once populated by stand-up men such as John Cameron Swayze, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Tim Russert. What ever their biases, these were solid, professional broadcasters, a trend very much carried on to this day by NBC's elder statesman, Tom Brokaw.
What would would they think of this recent comment from a man who fancies himself as their successor?
Update: Olbermann's Palin Derangement Syndrome has--shocker!--spilled over to his Sunday Night Football gig--yet another example of NBC's overt politicization of its flagship sports show.
Kathy Shaidle suggests that the McCain campaign should make Bill Ayers "the hippie O.J.", adding:
It doesn't matter when Obama met up with Ayers, or how many meetings they ever had.Of course--but that doesn't prevent the AP from slagging anyone attacking their candidate and friends.It's about the fact that Ayers went from domestic terrorist to "respected community leader", to the point where Ayers was throwing well attended fundraisers for Obama, and they sat on boards together.
Bill Ayers should never have achieved such respectable positions in the first place.
Bill Ayers should be sitting in jail, not on boards!
But that's how the 1960s Left's reputation-laundering works. Look at Angela Davis, and the convicted felon and torturer who invented (the Marxist inspired "holiday") Kwanzaa and, like Davis, is now a tenured prof.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Ayers was quoted in the New York Times as saying he and his wife only regretted that they hadn't blown up more buildings. People were reminded that Ayers wife praised the Manson family murders.
That story was widely remarked upon for incredibly obvious reasons.
That story alone would make any decent, intelligent person say afterward: "Wow, I better not be seen anywhere near this guy, let alone sit on a board with him or go to his frickin' house. Boy, would THAT ever look bad."
So that means Obama isn't a decent, intelligent person. Period.
He's just another craven, arrogant, Chicago style politician.
The McCain campaign needs to spin this as an anti-hippie, anti-lefty, culture wars story:
Ayers and his wife are dangerous criminals and traitors who got away with it, and are now well off and respected. At least the Rosenbergs got the chair...
Look at how average Americans view O.J. -- make Ayers the hippie O.J.
Ask folks how they'd feel if Charles Mason was a professor now too?
Look:
a guy who has been photographed, as late as 2001, stomping on the American flag is one of Obama's supporters. [Obama served with Ayers on a board during this period, Charles Johnson notes--Ed.]
It doesn't matter if Obama denounces Ayers tomorrow.
It doesn't matter if their connection is/was "tenuous".
Here's what matters:
What does it tell you about Obama and his policies and his worldview that people like Ayers and his ilk are obviously going to vote for the guy?
Do you really want to vote for the same guy that unrepentant, unpunished domestic terrorists vote for?
Yes or no?
Pretty simple, but the McCain camp is blowing it.
Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey notes another former associate of Obama who openly* called for the US invading Israel:
Power's ultimate aim is to send a massive American or Western force into Israel to stop what Power apparently sees as an Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. She specifically states that the force has to be "massive", not like a Srebrenica- or Bosnia-sized force. Why would it need to be so large? In order to neutralize the Israeli Defense Force, and protect the forces of Fatah and Hamas.The interview ran in 2002, the period when the left essentially went to ground during the culture war in the immediate wake of 9/11, only to explode in often violent protests and bitter rhetoric in 2003 and 2004, which Charles Krauthammer memorably described as "the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release."Had Barack Obama kicked her off of his advisory panel (rumored to number 300) after making remarks like this, it could have assuaged fears about his intentions towards Israel. Instead, he invited Power to advise him after making these remarks. She resigned only after calling Hillary a monster and after insinuating that Obama may not retreat from Iraq in 16 months if the ground situation changed -- which Obama later adopted as his own position after the primaries.
Read More
Extreme Mortman explores "Finger Pointing And Photo Cropping."
As Roger L. Simon writes, the big loser in tonight's debate was the MSM, not the least of which for this textbook example of bias by omission spotted by Ace of Spades:
Did Gwen Ifill Ask a Single Question About Energy?I thought it was only CNN that kept the news to themselves. But much like Winston Smith's Ministry of Truth, these days, it's the legacy media as a whole that are designed to bottle up information, rather than disseminate it.
Update: No Questions on Abortion or Guns, Either
Update: "Watch for a whole new, severe strain of Palin Derangement Syndrome to begin tonight."
When I first read about Gwen Ifill's enormous conflict of interest between her upcoming book titled, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama and her role as a debate moderator, I was reminded of a passage in James Piereson's book Camelot and the Cultural Revolution, on Theodore White, who wrote his first best-selling The Making of the President book after the 1960 election.
As far as the Ifill scandal today, Liz Cox Barrett of the liberal Columbia Journalism Review, (the house organ of "The Media's Ancien Regime", as Hugh Hewitt memorably dubbed the Columbia Journalism School) writes "it stands to reason" that a book titled, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, and due to be published on January 20th, concurrent with the 44th president being sworn in "would sell better if a certain person is inaugurated on that day", and conservative Ed Morrissey agrees:
Yes, it does, as the "Age of Obama" would have no meaning otherwise. Barack Obama has been on the national stage a shorter period of time than John Edwards, who managed to win only one Senate race and no national contests. Obama at least won his party's nomination for President, but has two fewer years than Edwards in office at the national level. What exactly is the "Age of Obama" if Obama loses in November? And how would that impact Ifill's sales?It's tough to argue with them--but Ifill is far from the first political hagiographer to write a book beginning with the desired electoral outcome and working backwards. See if this passage on Theodore White from James Piereson's book rings a bell:
A Boston native, White attended Harvard, graduating in 1938 as a classmate of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., though (on White's telling) the two had little direct contact during their college years. Later, in the 1950s, he came to know John F. Kennedy while he (Kennedy) was the junior senator from Massachusetts and White a political reporter for Collier's magazine. During this period, between the mid-1950s and the beginning of Kennedy's campaign for the presidency in 1960, the two met often in Washington, with White gleaning from Kennedy much inside information about the leading personalities in Washington. From these conversations White conceived the idea of writing a book on a presidential election campaign from beginning to end, with an emphasis on the various personalities contesting for the White House.White was so in the tank that Jackie Kennedy, through a reccomendation from Bobby, would personally call him to the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport to transcribe the epochal Life magazine article that would forever bind the late JFK's administration and its tragic ending with Camelot.The challenge for the journalist in executing such a project was to portray the candidates in such a way that the most attractive personality came out on top--though, of course, the writer would have no control over the eventual outcome. As White later acknowledged in his memoirs, he decided to structure the book almost like a novel with its own hero and villain. Given White's friendship with Kennedy, along with his dislike for Richard Nixon, he would (if events worked out the right way) cast the election as a morality play with Kennedy representing the forces of light and Nixon the forces of darkness. When White began the project, his wife wisely noted that "It's probably a good book if Kennedy wins; but if Nixon wins, it's a dog."
(Fortunately, the Blogosphere allows voters a chance to actually see the sausage being made, unlike 1960.)
Update: Well, that's a relief: Iowahawk satirically writes, "Ifill Ethics Commission Clears Ifill". But a far greater scandal emerges: why wasn't the vice presidential nominee of his third party candidacy invited to tonight's debate?
More: Another political author, Reagan biographer Lou Cannon weighs in on Ifill's conflict of interest:
Gwen's a friend; of course, she's a liberal. I hold here in high regard and would expect that she will be fair to both sides. My only other comment is that I would never have moderated a televised debate involving Reagan--and never did--because it would have been perceived as a conflict of interest by liberals and conservatives alike even though I think I would have been balanced. But perception is very important.Of course, the media as a whole lost the perception battle long before the nation got their fill of Ifill Thursday night.
Ed Morrissey writes, "The schadenfreude quotient of this story makes it irresistible. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd got stranded by the McCain campaign in Pittsburgh after the campaign revoked her credential for the press section of the campaign airplane in August."
And Hell hath no fury like a MoDo spurned:
"It was disappointing because I didn't think John McCain would ever be as dismissive of the First Amendment as Dick Cheney."Responding to MoDo's exceptional impersonation of a shrieking Helen Thomas, Ed writes:
Does the First Amendment hinge on Maureen Dowd getting a seat on the McCain campaign jet? Did we enter a time of tyranny because she has to find other travel arrangements? Maybe Dowd should start reporting on Obama's Truth Squad in Missouri, where a campaign actually is attempting to intimidate critics into silence through prosecution. Neither Dowd nor her newspaper seem terribly interested in defending the First Amendment where it counts.Of course--spurning MoDo enjoys bipartisan support.Reporters are not owed a spot on the campaign planes. Newspapers don't have a right to that seat. They can cover the campaigns by purchasing flights on their own if they like. Maureen Dowd stopped being a reporter when she started writing opinion columns, which makes her a strange choice for the Times under any circumstances, and her column on Palin and dinosaurs should have disqualified her from the McCain beat anyway, if the Times had any editorial sense at all.
Enjoy flying coach, Maureen. Try reading the First Amendment between stops.
Flash! "October remains the month for political surprises."
Traditionally though the October Surprise was spoken of as a singular event:"Hey--remember when that guy in the seriously redorkulated duck-billed platypus hat leaked Dubya's drunk driving arrest shortly before the 2000 election?" Or the 2003 hit on Arnold Schwarzenegger by the L.A. Times, in which the paper, as James Taranto put it, accused Schwarzenegger of behaving on film sets like Gray Davis supporter Bill Clinton?
As I wrote in November of 2004 though, the Internet seemed to have accelerated both the pace of the news cycle and the sheer number of October surprises:
By the time Halloween rolled around, it felt like daily October surprises: NYTrogate last Monday (and Tuesday, and Wednesday and...); Al Jazeera pulling Osama out of a hat on Friday, 60 Minutes' oldie-but-a-goodie body armor story on Sunday, and I think the Times had some sort of other anti-Bush story on Monday. (The bogus early returns Tuesday afternoon was the final October surprise. But that's a whole other post, as this one is going into extra innings.)And that was on top of RatherGate, a CBS dirty play that fortunately went awry thanks to a bunch of guys in their umm, pajamas.
Back in 2006, in the wake of multiple hits such as the Washington Post-ginned up Macaca scandal and the Mark Foley scandal, Jim Geraghty wrote:
Could there ever be a better time for the reassuring reappearance of the man who has been in Republican circles longer than I've been alive?This would be a very timely moment for McCain to do something--for example, a YouTube clip or TV commercial highlighting previous late hits, and let his supporters know that, if the pace of 2004 was any indication, near daily hits will be coming (and already have on his veep nominee). Which would then allow him to say, when the bombs start to drop from the Obama campaign and the media (sorry for the repetition), "You see my friends, I told you this would be starting, just as it does every election cycle." And then, when questioned by the media, simply reply, "Hey, you guys do this to Republicans every four years. Such as..." McCain then fires off the list and adds, "Why should this election be any different?"Ladies and gentlemen, my longtime sage source and mentor, Obi Wan Kenobi.
Obi gets straight to the point about the Foley scandal, breaking in the final weeks of the campaign.
"At some point, some Republican is going to come out and say, 'Hey. We've seen this show before, every cycle for the past couple of cycles. Starting in September, there's a bombshell every two or three days for the last six weeks of the campaign, from the AP, from the big three networks, from the New York Times and the Post and Bob Woodward, and it's always in one direction. It's always a bombshell of bad news for the Republicans.'"
Obi doesn't list them, but a right-leaning voter can remember - the infamous fake memos used by Dan Rather, the New York Times' brouhaha over the al-Qaqaa weapons depot, the L.A. Times' story slamming Schwarzenegger, the Bush DUI...
Obi wonders if the voting public is getting inoculated; that late-breaking revelations of scandals about Republicans are becoming too transparent to move voters; that they see these stories as a sympathetic media hawking the wares of the Democrats.
But he probably won't. In any case, fasten your seat belts--October's going to be one very bumpy ride.
Los Angeles' city seal may no longer have a cross on it, but those God-fearing Christianists at the L.A. Times seem to have developed a sudden new case of religious fever:
The Los Angeles Times seems to have taken a sudden new interest in biblical study. No, they haven't become religious or anything close to that. Instead, they are microanalyzing the Bible for passages that they think they can use to slam Sarah Palin for running for vice-president.Wow, when Richard Miniter recently wrote, "In the 1950s, the most puritanical place in America was somewhere in Kansas. Today it is Los Angeles", he didn't know the half of it!
Live on stage--it's the return of Derek and the Domino Effect!
In case viewers did not understand the concept of a domino effect caused by the financial crisis, on Wednesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen offered a visual representation as she declared: "What happens on Wall Street affects all of us on Main Street. It's the classic domino effect." At that point, six giant dominos where displayed in the studio, each one labeled with a different phase of the economic crisis.Of course, in the early 1970s, when the real Derek and the Dominos were on tour, the media was telling us that domino effects were silly and outdated.
Kyle Smith reviews the new leftwing agitpropumentary on Lee Atwater:
Atwater's painful demise seems to delight the largely left-leaning pundits assessing Atwater's legacy, which inspired Karl Rove among others. Howard Fineman of Newsweek, for instance, says, "Life gets even with you in the end," an ugly comment that sounds a lot like the liberal equivalent of calling AIDS God's punishment for gays.Mewanwhile, Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria begins his latest article with the following opening sentence: "Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony?"
At the start of 2005, shortly before Newsweek started tossing Korans into toilets and American flags into garbage cans, Fineman wrote:
A political party is dying before our eyes -- and I don't mean the Democrats. I'm talking about the "mainstream media," which is being destroyed by the opposition (or worse, the casual disdain) of George Bush's Republican Party; by competition from other news outlets (led by the internet and Fox's canny Roger Ailes); and by its own fraying journalistic standards.Might want to look a bit closer in the mirror, fellas.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has the change spam we need today:
Dear Sirs,Via Steve Green, who also spots a New York Times parody (yes, there is a difference, believe it or not) that hits the mark quite well.Please do not be alarmed at the way I am contacting you, and I trust God you will see your way to assisting me.
I am Mr. Henry Paulson, and I currently serve as Secretary of Treasury in a North American country, the US of A. I am due to be receiving the sum of USD700 billion (seven hundred billions), only the money seems to be held up. I got your name from the girl who runs the computer. This is where I need your help.
As soon as you can, God willing, I will need you to give me the number of your American account where I can wire this sum. For your trouble, as part of the settlement, I will give you the sum of exactly nothing.
Please be well, and I trust in God you will assist me honestly and without delay.
Yours, truly,
Mr. Henry Paulson
USA Secretary of Treasure
"And now we can write: Round 1 in the contest to see who's most in the tank for Obama goes to CNN."
This rapidly developing story just in to the Tiffany Network:
CBS 'Early Show' Newsflash: Okay to Be Gay in HollywoodNow if we can only get more groups out of the closet there...
David Levinson Wilk of Politico claims that "Crossword puzzles heavily favor Democrats"--and he should know:
I am partly to blame.Gee, now there's a shock.On Jan. 8, 2005, I purposefully and unapologetically became the first person to ever construct a crossword puzzle for The New York Times that featured this five-letter answer:
OBAMA.
Earlier this week, Steve Schmidt, John McCain's senior campaign adviser, lambasted the Times for being "totally, 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate." The GOP, it seems, is finally catching on to a once-hidden truth:
Crossword puzzles heavily favor Democrats.
According to the puzzle database maintained by Cruciverb.com, ever since that game-changing day in 2005, OBAMA has appeared regularly as an answer in New York Times crossword puzzles. With its wonderfully convenient alternating series of commonly used vowels and consonants, OBAMA has been the answer to the clues "Senator who wrote 'Dreams From My Father,'" "Future senator who delivered the 2004 Democratic convention keynote address" and "Presidential candidate born in Hawaii."
But what about MCCAIN? Shockingly, not once has MCCAIN been an answer in a crossword in the New York Times, The Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times. No MCCAIN, no JOHNMCCAIN, no SENATORMCCAIN, not even his most recent sobriquet, the presidential-sounding JOHNSMCCAINIII.
Newsbusters' Brent Baker writes, "Couric Scolds McCain for Palin's 'Great Depression' Scare -- Which Couric Proposed to Palin."
And meanwhile, Joe Biden's Pangea of gaffes this week continues to pay dividends--as blogger "Right Wing Professor" noted, Katie never batted an eye during Joe Biden's wacky Depression-era-flashback on Monday.
Last week, Ace had some thoughts on polls:
We haven't lost -- but we are behind.I think Ace is right about the polls--but I think we can make an exception for this one.Four or five twists to go, and we need two or three of those twists to go our way.
BTW, I am not getting into the constant these-polls-are-wrong/oversampled/etc. game. I played that all through 2006 and wound up looking like a chump.
My general take is to buy polls -- especially as regards direction, if not exact numbers -- unless there's some clear problem with them.
The constant complaining that any poll I don't like must be flawed is a mug's game.
When an already closed loop is hermetically sealed:
Today is a red-letter day for the New York Times. For the first time, the paper has reported in its news section that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright once uttered the phrase "God damn America." Wright's comments were widely reported and widely discussed beginning with an ABC News report six months ago. Barack Obama even had to give a much-publicized speech because of those words, and others. But the newspaper of record has never seen fit to publish Wright's quote in its news pages. Until today.Meanwhile, Barack Obama's Wikipedia page being vandalized highlights the excesses of the sclerotic Gray Lady's polar opposite--How's that "anybody can edit it" thing working out for Wikipedia?If my search of the Nexis database is correct, Wright's quote first appeared in the Times in a column by Bill Kristol on March 17. It was mentioned again in a column by Maureen Dowd on March 23. It appeared in an editorial on April 26. It appeared in a column by the public editor on May 4, and also in an article in the Week in Review section on that same day.
But never in the front section of the paper. Until now. As with the April 26 editorial, today's mention of "God damn America" is in the context of reporting on attack ads targeting Obama. But still, it's there, on page one, for the first time.
The hacking of Obama's Wiki page puts him in interesting company, alongside Sarah Palin, Mike Love, Mike Bloomberg, and former RFK associate, John Seigenthaler, Sr--and no doubt, many more who have entries within The Faith-Based Encyclopedia.
Related: At City Journal, Adam Thierer explores both closed and open information models and writes, "The Internet Isn't Dying--On the contrary, the Web is just catching its second wind."
As Kathryn Jean Lopez writes, this election wouldn't be the same without Joe Biden. In addition to the aforementioned Barack-Olian Cluster-Gaffe--which actually snowballed to true classic proportions after Joe's appearance on CBS last night, this was Joe's other moment of greatness from his interview with Katie Couric, transcribed by the Politico's Ben Smith:
Joe Biden's denunciation of his own campaign's ad to Katie Couric got so much attention last night that another odd note in the interview slipped by.Actually, you'd probably be wondering what happened to Felix, but still: If Sarah Palin had said this, CBSNBCABCCNNMSNBC would be running it on a never-ending loop today.He was speaking about the role of the White House in a financial crisis.
"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"
As Reason's Jesse Walker footnotes it: "And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, 'Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?'"
Update: "At any rate, it looks like Biden learned his history from Faber College." Hey--knowledge is good.
More: "What's funnier is that Katie Couric didn't catch it."
Otherwise, the management of Ed Driscoll.com, Newsbusters, Pajamas Media, and its affiliates will not be held responsible for the survival of your computer's monitor when you read the following sentence by Frank Rich:
In our news culture, [Joy] Behar, a stand-up comic by profession, looms as the new Edward R. Murrow.Not that last year's Murrow is currently living up to that rep himself, of course.
On Saturday, Jennifer Rubin wrote:
The McCain camp calls out -- by name -- another reporter (this one from TIME) and goes to far as to quote her snide response when provided with information which contradicts her storyline. Ouch. And the Post's media critic isn't any better-neatly ignoring that the basis of the McCain ad in question was the Post.Well, here comes Round Two, featuring Smokin' Steve Schmidt, teeing off on the New York Times:And then, yowser, the McCain camp dares the Post to call itself "not credible." I don't know about the campaign against Barack Obama but I could watch this duel for awhile.
He's right of course (though as Allahpundit notes, "By what Orwellian definition of the term is the guy who co-wrote the McCain-Feingold bill a 'First Amendment absolutist'?"), but for anybody who paid attention to either of these stories from 2004, it's not exactly news, is it?
As yet, as another chapter in the ultimate love affair gone sour unfurls, it will be interesting to watch how the press reports the attacks on its credibility (or lack thereof) from a politician it once feted.
Related: "Hi. I'm NBC and I approved this ad."
Are you inexperienced?
I've been showing my students a video on the history of presidential debates that Chris Matthews and Tom Brokaw did in 2004 before the Bush-Kerry debates. It's a fun retrospective of the memorable moments from all the presidential and vice-presidential debates up to then. I was just listening to Matthews and Quayle rehash the Dan Quayle-Lloyd Bentsen debate. Brokaw pointed out that Brit Hume twice asked Quayle a question about what he'd do if he succeeded to the office. Then Brokaw said that he felt that Quayle hadn't really answered the question the first two times and so he asked it again. And it was that third time that led Quayle to point out that he had had the same number of years in Congress that John F. Kennedy had had by 1960. And then Lloyd Bentsen unleashed his devastating riposte that he "knew John Kennedy and you're no John Kennedy."Of course, Bentsen didn't really know JFK, but he knew that the pre-Blogosphere mass media would happily cover for him. More from Betsy Newmark:
I was just wondering what the chances are that any reporter this year would, in the presidential debates, would ask Barack Obama three times a question about whether he was prepared after three and a half years in the Senate to be president. After all Quayle had had four years in the House and eight years in the Senate in 1988 and people considered him unprepared to be vice president. Yet, Obama with his unremarkable record in the Senate, half of which he's spent on the road campaigning, is not getting that question over and over. And Charlie Gibson isn't asking Obama if he didn't have a moment of pause wondering if he was really ready to be president before he decided to run.Indeed.TMFunny how standards change back and forth, isn't it?
Stuart Taylor writes, "I no longer trust the major newspapers or television networks to provide consistently accurate and fair reporting and analysis of all the charges and countercharges." Me too--but I arrived at that point four years ago.
Exhibit A: Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post. Ed Morrissey writes:
I'm going to start this post by noting that I avidly read Kurtz' media blog, and consider it one of the best continuing analyses of both traditional and new media. I believe that Howard usually tries to approach this task without bias, and mostly succeeds, although he has certainly laid more that a few eggs (and who among us has not?). So when I tell you that Howard is talking out of his hat, I say it with respect and affection.Read the rest, and then read Cuffy Meigs, who has a video of the "Most Racist Ad EVER ... No, THIS Is ... Wait, THIS One ..."Why do I say that? His own newspaper has twice reported the relationship between Raines and Obama, and on one of those occasions, Raines was their source:
Finally, Glenn Reynolds asks:
Meanwhile, if Obama is President, will Time regard every criticism of his administration as racist?No--as long as it's a writer at Time that's making it.
Joel Stein in the L.A. Times in January of 2006:
I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. . . . But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.Today in the Boston Globe, Steve Almond writes, "I have an ugly confession to make: I don't support the troops - at least not unconditionally":
PERHAPS the most insidious byproduct of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has been a reflexive sanctification of the military. To put this in bumper stickerese: Support the Troops.As Jeanne Kirkpatrick once said:Well, I have an ugly confession to make: I don't support the troops - at least not unconditionally. When somebody tells me they serve in the military, my first impulse isn't to say, "Thank you for your service!" like those insufferable chickenhawks on talk radio.
My first impulse is to say, "I'm sorry to hear that." Because I am. I'm sorry to know that the person I'm talking to might someday be maimed or killed on the job, or might someday kill someone else. Or refuel a plane that drops bombs on buildings.
I can't see how anyone who calls himself or herself Christian - or human, for that matter - wouldn't be sorry.
The fact that we have an army, that we need an army, is inherently tragic. It's an admission that our species is still ruled by fear and aggression.
Reflecting at a 2002 conference on her early career as a socialist, she said it had been "relatively short." As she read the works of various socialists, she said, "I came to the conclusion that almost all of them, including my grandfather, were engaged in an effort to change human nature. The more I thought about it, the more I thought this was not likely to be a successful effort.""Human nature has no history", but then neither does much of the left. I'd call it a draw, but that might be using language that's too militaristic for some.
Related: The above "Human nature has no history" quote comes from Professor Glenn Loury, whom you can see discussing Obama and feminism in this new Bloggingheads TV interview.
Perception:
Percentage of Americans, according to Gallup, who believe we're in a recession: 38 percent.Reality:Percentage of Americans, according to Gallup, who believe we're in an economic depression: 23 percent.
"The second-quarter growth rate for the U.S. economy was revised upward, to 3.3 percent."Of course, in politics, as with the legacy media (but I repeat myself), perception invariably trumps reality.Were the preceding two quarters pretty lousy? Yeah, .9 percent in 2008's first quarter and -.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007. But the preceding two quarters, the economy grew 4.8 percent each.
Meanwhile, James Pethokoukis lists four ways to make bad news worse. So invariably, watch for these to begin to be implemented. Obama/Smoot '08!
As Rich Lowry writes, "The enduring scandal of the McCain campaign is that it wants to win"; such determination has already ended one love affair:
A crucial turning point in the presidential race came when the McCain campaign ended its candidate's habitual informal interactions with the press. The area of the McCain campaign plane where a couch had been installed so the Arizonian could hold court with journalists was cut off with a dark curtain, marking the end of an era.There's no doubt that McCain came to play, but up against the Chicago Way, is he really prepared to fight to win?Since 2000, John McCain had thrived on his irrepressible chattiness with the press, talking about anything reporters wanted for as long as they would listen. The press loved the access and avoided "gotcha" coverage, letting McCain explain any seeming gaffes. The arrangement worked beautifully for both sides -- until McCain became the Republican presidential nominee.
Suddenly, he wasn't afforded the same old courtesy from reporters, and he had to go about the grim business of driving a daily message. With the end of the running bull sessions, a trial separation began with the press that became a divorce that became a feud.
The enduring scandal of the McCain campaign is that it wants to win. The press had hoped for a harmless, nostalgic loser like Bob Dole in 1996. In a column excoriating Republicans for historically launching successful attacks against Democratic presidential candidates in August, Time columnist Joe Klein excepted Bob Dole -- not mentioning that Dole had been eviscerated by Clinton negative ads before August ever arrived.
The press turned on McCain with a vengeance as soon as he mocked Barack Obama as a celebrity. Its mood grew still more foul when the McCain campaign took offense at Obama's "lipstick on a pig" jab. "The media are getting mad," according to Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz. "Stop the madness," urged Time's Mark Halperin, exhorting his fellow journalists to fight back against the McCain campaign's manufactured outrage.
The lipstick controversy indeed represented a silly bit of grievance-mongering. But had the Obama camp's tendentious interpretation of Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" put-down as a racial slight generated similar push-back from the media? Had Obama's ridiculous depiction of Geraldine Ferraro as a quasi-racist? Had Obama's repeated contention -- with no evidence -- that Republicans were attacking him for looking different?The media have made it gospel that McCain is attacking Obama dishonestly. Of course, campaign advertisements are the last place to look for a dispassionate rendition of the facts. McCain's ads are no different. But they are no worse than Obama's spots.
Update: Somewhat like the many cynical, intelligent journalists who get that classic deer in the headlights look when asked to explain the worldview of their fellow staff, Adam Nagourney of the New York Times just can't seem to figure out why on earth John McCain is less chummy with the press these days.
Jay Nordlinger explores "the sheer hatred that Palin has aroused":
"I am almost 60 and come from Massachusetts. In all my years, I have never seen anything like this, and don't want to see it ever again. I have a friend who is both feminist and left-leaning. I asked her why they hate Palin so much. She said, 'Because she's had it all: family, career. And she did it without a man like Bill Clinton helping her. She did it on her own.'"The advertising tagline for George Clooney's 2005 Good Night And Good Luck, one of those exceedingly rare Hollywood movies about McCarthyism, was "We will not walk in fear of one another"--but there are always exceptions.I have said it before: Hillary Clinton's husband was president of the United States. Sarah Palin's works the night shift in an oil field. Who is the feminist hero? Bien sûr.
I myself have a tale to relate. An episode left me kind of shaken, honestly. Last week, I was talking to a friend of mine -- a very warm and humane woman. We've been friends for years. I had been away, and we hadn't talked politics -- but then, we never do. We never had. She's a liberal, of course -- virtually everyone here in NYC is. And I never, ever bring up politics (with pretty much anyone -- not worth the trouble) (and, of course, I do it professionally).
But she said to me, out of the blue, "What do you think of Sarah Palin?" And while I was drawing breath to answer, she said, "I hate her."
That kind of took my breath away -- because this friend of mine is no hater. But she said it with firm, horrible conviction. She said it with true emotion in her eyes. Frankly, I was too taken aback to reply, other than to say, "Well, my feeling is the exact opposite."
I can see how you might disagree with Governor Palin -- she's a conservative, after all. I can see how you might find her unprepared even for the vice-presidency. But hate? Hate a woman who rose from a modest background to be governor of her state? Who is obviously a warm, civic-minded, talented mother of five?
Hate?
It must be abortion, religion, and culture. If she were pro-choice, went to a mainline church (only on Christmas and Easter), and didn't hunt, she'd be okay. At least less attacked. But then, she wouldn't be herself, would she?
Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin notes, "The Associated Press refuses to assist federal investigators trying to find the hacker who broke into Sarah Palin's private e-mail account"; which of course recalls this seminal moment in transnational journalistic ethics--or the lack thereof.
As I mentioned on PJTV earlier today, as much I love having 500 channels to choose from via my satellite dish and, according to Technorati, 113 million blogs out there, the amount of information and opinion and the unending pace at which it's cranked out, makes it very easy to lose perspective. In a sense, a cable channel like CNBC, as great as it can be, puts an emphasis on the rapid speed of the financial markets, when for most individual investors, they're far better off (NOTE: THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. CONSULT YOUR OWN FINANCIAL ADVISOR. INSERT OBLIGATORY SEC WARNINGS HERE. POST NO BILLS. DO NOT EAT PASTE, DO NOT RUN WITH SCISSORS.) essentially buying a few decent mutual funds and hanging onto them for a decade or so, rather than buying, selling, and trading like mad.
The above headline comes from a 1979 Business Week cover story which electroplated then current trends and assumed that they would run indefinitely into the future. At the time of its writing, the Dow closed at about 975, in the midst of the last days of the Jimmy Carter administration's stagflation, culminating in double digit unemployment, interest rates, and inflation, as the above ad from that era highlights.
When I was preparing for PJTV today, I came across this PBS article, which quoted from its coverage of "Black Monday", the stock market correction of October 1987. At the time, the Dow was at 2,200, and the dropped 500 points. Note the end-of-the-world tone from 20 years ago, as PBS attempted to attack the economic policies of Ronald Reagan, and perhaps in its collective subconscious, longed for the days of Jimmy Carter--if their writers even remembered the gloom of that period at all. (Of course, a decade later, President Clinton was following the basic concepts of Reaganomics--and essentially bragging about it ("We stand for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market. Isn't that great?", presumably much to PBS's chagrin.)
How long will today's economic woes last? Well, check out this CNN article quoting from Alan Greenspan, who goes from stating that Wall Street is in the midst of "a once-in-a-century type of financial crisis"--but then adds:
"Indeed, it will continue to be a corrosive force until the price of homes in the United States stabilizes," Greenspan said. He predicted that would not happen until early 2009, and said the odds of U.S. recession have gone up in recent months.So despite the doom and destruction tone of the MSM (but then, when is it otherwise, when the GOP is in the White House, particularly during an election year?), I wouldn't start heading for the ledge just yet.
Update: Well, here's one way to liven up an otherwise gloomy day of financial reporting!
Elsewhere: "See me after class."
Found via Hugh Hewitt, John H. Taylor Spots Salon's Gary Kamiya allowing his Palin Derangement Syndome to lead him into an astonishing bit of hyperbole [After the Jill Greenberg meltdown, why is that astonishing?--Ed Good point]:
If Palin catapults McCain to victory, it will be revealed to be the most powerful and enduring force in American politics. And that fact will raise serious questions about the viability of American democracy itself...As opposed to a tyro Senator who has yet to complete his first term in office and unlike Palin has zero executive experience? (Oh wait, other than running his campaign. Harold Stassen and Lyndon Larouche, eat your hearts out!)
As Noel Sheppard writes, "Lib Photographer Admits Making McCain Look Sinister for Mag Cover", quoting from the photographer in question, Jill Greenberg:
I am a pretty hard core Democrat. Some of my artwork has been pretty anti-Bush, so maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for them [The Atlantic] to hire me.No--as long as it's understood that the magazine is taking sides in this election. But then, who isn't these days?
Update: Bumped to top, to include this post from Gateway Pundit, who has a link to Greenberg's homepage, which currently has a rotating series of vile Photoshopped and crudely captioned images of McCain. Now that's dispassionate freelance photojournalism in action!
But more than that, it's also worth flashing back to this April post from Jim Geraghty regarding the far left's meltdown over Hillary Clinton, and this article from last year by Noemie Emery on what was said by the left about President Reagan near the end of his second term. Both of which help to place the burgeoning McCain Derangement Syndrome displayed by self-professed "hard-core Dems" such as Greenberg into sharp perspective, and illustrate that there was nothing out of the ordinary about George W. Bush's presidency to set the left off over the last eight years. He was simply yet another in an endless series of political enemies of the far left who needed to be destroyed. That's valuable governing knowledge for the next Republican (heck, maybe even moderate Democrat) in the White House, whether he's sworn into office this January, or four or eight years hence.
More: Gerard Vanderluen has additional Photoshopped images of McCain that Greenberg has run on her site, along with a press release from Atlantic editor James Bennet:
"We stand by the respectful image of John McCain that we used on our cover, and we expect to be judged by it. We were not aware of the manipulated and dishonest images Jill Greenberg had taken until this past Friday.As Gerard writes, "It has been my experience that if you have to get PR to push out statements on a Sunday, you know you are in trouble. Developing..."When we contract with photographers for portraits, we don't vet them for their politics--instead, we assess their professional track records. Based on the portraits she had done of politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger and her work for publications like Time, Wired, and Portfolio, we expected Jill Greenberg, like the other photographers we work with, to behave professionally.
Jill Greenberg has obviously not done that. She has, in fact, disgraced herself, and we are appalled by the manipulated images she has created for her Web site of John McCain."
The Anchoress compares and contrasts the questions that Charlie Gibson asked Sarah Palin last week, versus the softballs he pitched to Barack Obama in June. And Newsbusters goes four years back into the memory hole, and reviews Gibson's equally softball Q&A with John Edwards.
Boston Globe: Don't trust the Boston Globe! (At least when it comes to reporting on John McCain.)
Brian Maloney, the "Radio Equalizer", catches former Air America hostess Randi Rhodes calling Sarah Palin a child molester:
She's the woman who shows up at the kid's birthday party and starts opining about everything from politics to lawn care. This is the woman that knows it all. Will shout you down, will get revenge on you. That's who she is.(Click over to Brian's site for audio of Rhodes.)She's friends with all the teenage boys. You have to say no when your kids say, 'can we sleep over at the Palin's? No! NO!'
At least she's back to demonizing Republicans. Back in early April, when we last mentioned Rhodes, she was caught on videotape calling Democrats Geraldine Ferraro "David Duke in drag", and Hillary Clinton, "A big f***ing whore, too." As Jim Geraghty wrote at the time:
In and of itself, it's shocking, but it's otherworldly when we think about what Hillary Clinton has meant to liberals for most of the past sixteen years.And while the far left's media mavens continue to wallow in madness, their more moderate establishment liberal counterparts are victims of narcissism, as Roger L. Simon writes.Maybe Bill Richardson owes James Carville money, because that would help explain the bitter jihad the former Clinton strategist seems to be on, so relentlessly decrying the New Mexico Governor as "Judas" that Richardson stopped doing media appearances. It didn't take much for Obama-backing General McPeak to declare Bill Clinton the equivalent of Joe McCarthy. And if you've read any Hillary vs. Obama thread on a liberal blog lately, you know that there have been friendlier back-and-forth exchanges in snakepits.
There's something vaguely reassuring about all this, from the view of sitting on the right. It reveals to conservatives that the nastiness exhibited in our earlier disagreements with these folks was never personal; these people are clearly nasty to anyone who disagrees with them. Geraldine Ferraro's long service to the Democratic party means nothing to many Obama backers; she's a racist, "David Duke in drag," as Rhodes put it. I'm sure Senator Patrick Leahy thought his decades of work on the left side of the aisle had bought him some street cred from feminists, but no, he was called sexist when he called on Hillary to leave the race.
Hillary gets called a "monster" by Obama's surrogates; Hillary's surrogates wonder out loud if Obama ever sold drugs. Today Clinton surrogate Ed Rendell speculates that Americans know only half the story of Barack Obama. Day in, day out, in this race it continues.
Jake Tapper (the anti-Charlie Gibson at ABC) explores "The Isotoner campaign":
Like any number of Democratic candidates before him -- Mike Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry -- Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is once again declaring that he is going to take off the gloves and fight back against attacks from the Republican Party.Curiously though, once Obama took off the Isotoners, what voters actually received were a glimpse of John McCain's hands, as Ed Morrissey writes:This is what you're going to hear from his campaign today, anyway, which is unveiling two new TV ads, including this attack ad against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
But just so you know -- this is, by my count, the 4th time Obama's campaign has officially or unofficially made such a declaration that Obama will "take off the gloves" and fight back.
That's a lot of pairs of gloves.
The Isotoner campaign, one might say.
Earlier today, Barack Obama's campaign released an ad attacking John McCain for not knowing how to send an e-mail. Their crack research team apparently never heard of Google or Lexis-Nexis, but Jonah Goldberg does. He discovers why McCain doesn't use a keyboard -- his torturers made sure he couldn't. The Boston Globe reported it eight years ago:While McCain is obviously computer literate on some level, telling the New York Times last year that he reads "Drudge, obviously, everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics, sometimes", Glenn Reynolds suggests that his campaign might want to better familiarize themselves with another technology--the video camera:McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.After Vietnam, McCain had Ann Lawrence, a physical therapist, help him regain flexibility in his leg, which had been frozen in an extended position by a shattered knee. It was the only way he could hope to resume his career as a Navy flier, but Lawrence said the treatment, taken twice a week for six months, was excruciatingly painful.
"He endured it, he wouldn't settle for less," said Lawrence, who rejoiced with McCain when he passed the Navy physical. "I have never seen such toughness and resolve."
Making fun of a war hero's severe injuries -- smooth move, Team O. Talk about computer illiteracy! Doesn't anyone on the Obama campaign know what they're doing? Didn't it ever occur to them that a man who can't raise his arms above his head might have a physical barrier to using a computer?
If this is what happens when they takes the gloves off, maybe they should just keep them on in the future.
If I were a candidate, I think I'd bring my own camera to interviews, shoot the whole thing and post the unedited raw video on the Web.Back in 2005, I quoted a passage from Bernard Goldberg's second book on media bias, Arrogance, from the chapter titled "File It Under 'H'"--for hypocrisy:The technology for this is easy - I've got a little Sony HD video camera that records on a chip and fits in a coat pocket or purse - and putting video on the Web is a snap, too.
Of course, the knowledge that this will happen is likely to be enough to keep people honest - but if anything is edited unfairly, the full video will tell the tale. No need to wait for Groundskeeper Willie to appear.
TV journalists won't be happy with this, of course, but it's hard to see a principled basis for objecting.
In the past, the tools for broadcast newsgathering were expensive and specialized, and much of the media's power came from the fact that no one else had them. Those times are long gone, and candidates, and journalists, are going to have to adapt.
Of course, there are risks for candidates, too. A gaffe-prone candidate, or one who's just bad at speaking extemporaneously, might want to present only edited videos to the public - especially if he or she can count on the news media to be generally sympathetic.
But that just makes the whole exercise more valuable to the public, as whether a candidate is willing to make the raw video available would provide a useful data point on whether the candidate is confident - and whether the press corps is in the tank.
I predict, however, that we'll see this strategy adopted soon, quite possibly in this election cycle. The news-media monopoly continues to decay, and technology continues to march on.
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Having watched several clips of Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin, I have to say I agree with Jay Nordlinger's take on Gibson's body language:
In his loud sighings and overall body language, he reminded me quite a lot of Al Gore, in the first 2000 debate.As Jay wrote in an earlier post:Remember that debate? Governor Bush did poorly, but Gore's behavior was so boorish, people tended to focus on that (and a Saturday Night Live parody absolutely slew Gore).
Palin did much better than that (and Bush rose to the occasion -- more than rose -- in the second and third debates). (Same thing happened in '04, oddly enough.) And she'll get nothing but better, I predict.
P.S. Gibson's behavior was so "out there" -- drawing attention to itself -- I think Palin should have remarked on it, in the course of her answers. What do I mean by "out there"? Well, I mean intrusive, in a way. Blatant.
Often, a good interviewer is seamless in his performance -- he almost absents himself from the proceedings, so that the questions and answers take over. But it was like Gibson was the co-star -- if not the lead star -- of the whole show.
He was as much adversary -- debate opponent -- as questioner. And that's not my idea of how these shebangs should go. (Whether the interviewee is an R or a D.)
Remember this about Gibson, too: A lot of pressure was on him. Why? Because he had the first interview, with this much-hated figure. He was standing in for the whole MSM -- and they were depending on him. He just had to be somewhat hostile, he had to trip her up, if only a little. Otherwise, his colleagues would have said he had blown his opportunity -- their opportunity -- and gone all soft.Moccasins? At the risk of venturing into the Manolo's territory, those looked like extra clunky double-soled Florsheim battleship-grade wingtips Gibson was tapping whenever he was bored with Palin, the perfect metaphor for a dinosaur media in general.In the eyes of the arrogant MSM, he was "vetting" for all.
So -- walk a yard or two in his moccasins . . .
Beyond Gibson's effete condescension, the 65,327 jump cuts in the video were obvious and glaring. And in these days of unlimited bandwidth, there's no excuse for that. I can certainly understand cutting a lengthy interview down to fit in with the rest of the material on the half hour nightly news. (Itself a relic from the Jurassic era of Eisenhower and Arthur Godfrey.) But then put the whole thing online with a few or no edits.
And in addition to ABC's edits, Gibson relied on a truncated AP quote to attack the Alaskan governor on her prayers for America's troops. And then to compound the problem, ABC puts the word 'God' in unnecessary scare quotes on the video page highlighting the exchange. Stay classy, ABC!
Update: Neo-Neocon also has some thoughts on, as she calls Gibson, "the Not-So-Grand Inquisitor":
I was constantly distracted by two things: the shockingly choppy editing, and Gibson's profoundly inquisitorial demeanor.It didn't help that it was preceded by yet another clunky jump cut, leaving the viewer not knowing where "the blizzard of words" was naturally concluded by Palin or--more likely it seems--truncated by an editor at ABC.It wasn't just his game face, and the peering over the eyeglasses (he gave new meaning to the expression "looked down his nose at her"). It was his remarkable condescension: "I got lost in a blizzard of words..." That crack sounded more like one side of a couple's quarrel overheard in a restaurant than the statement of a neutral interviewer.
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As Ed Morrissey writes:
Yet another stupid Palin smear arises today, on the front page of the Washington Post, no less. Anne Kornblut writes that Sarah Palin linked 9/11 to Saddam Hussein in telling troops departing to Iraq that they would be fighting the same people who attacked America. Perhaps the Washington Post hasn't yet realized it, but Saddam and his regime have long since been dispatched to history:Hey, it was in all the papers--even the Post!
Jonah Goldberg writes, "Whether or not Sarah Palin helps John McCain win the election, her greatest work may already be behind her. She's exposed the feminist con job":
On Tuesday, Salon ran one article calling Palin a dominatrix ("a whip-wielding mistress") and another labeling her a sexually repressed fundamentalist no different from the Muslim fanatics and terrorists of Hamas. Make up your minds, folks. Is she a seductress or a sex-a-phobe?Hey, somebody should write a book about that!But this any-weapon-near-to-hand approach is an obvious sign of how scared the Palin-o-phobes are.
Gloria Steinem, the grand mufti of feminism, issued a fatwa anathematizing Palin. A National Organization for Women spokeswoman proclaimed Palin more of a man than a woman. Wendy Doniger, a feminist academic at the University of Chicago, writes of Palin in Newsweek: "Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman."
It's funny. The left has been whining about having their patriotism questioned for so long it feels like they started griping in the Mesozoic era. Feminists have argued for decades that womanhood is an existential and metaphysical state of enlightenment. But they have no problem questioning whether women they hate are really women at all.
Since we know from basic science that Palin is a woman -- she's had five kids, for starters -- it's clear that these ideological thugs aren't talking about actual, you know, facts. They're doing what people of totalitarian mind-sets always do: bully heretics, demonize enemies, whip the troops into line.
Of course, Palin has unhinged (hey, somebody should write a book called that!) the rest of the left as well. Roger Ebert's meltdown earlier this week is a classic of the genre:
Palin is a shallow, chirpy person with those vaguely alarming eyeglasses. Now her fans all want a pair. Remember back when women wore glasses that departed their ears in plastic swoops and swirls? My theory is, anyone who wears glasses that look weird is telling me something I don't want to know.Remember all that stuff from the left in the late 1990s about tolerance and diversity and multiculturalism and "think different?" Pretty amazing how it all goes out the window when "The Shadow" appears.
(Ebert has apparently since broken out the Liquid Paper to whitewash his gaffe, but thanks to the Blogosphere, that genie's out of the bubble.)
Update: Orrin Judd writes, "Because they are materialists, the Left thinks elitism is an excess of material things, so they don't even realize that it is how divorced from American culture they are that has always hindered them."
Meanwhile, Tiger Hawk writes, "If John McCain is as lucky as he is smart, the lefty pundits and bloggers -- for example -- and their allies in the press will keeping hammering Saracuda all the way to Halloween."
Well, that's what David St. Hubbins tells me, but it won't just be Spinal Tap's drummers who explode come November if the Community Organizer loses. Mark Steyn writes:
The Washington Post's media man, Howard Kurtz, is mad as hell and he's not gonna take it for more than another couple decades or until the management buy-out offer improves:Having written one post earlier today on Charles Krauthammer's "Pressure Cooker Theory" on the madness of the leftwing in general after 9/11, and another which linked to Glenn Reynolds' "Spinal Tap Media" meme (all amps cranked to 11 all the time), when Kurtz writes, "The media are getting mad", all I can say is that I'd hate to see them when their anger actually reaches fruition.The media are getting mad.Yes, indeed. Howie feels the press is being "manipulated" by the McCain campaign.Whether it's the latest back-and-forth over attack ads, the silly lipstick flap or the continuing debate over Sarah and sexism, you can just feel the tension level rising several notches.
Maybe it's a sense that this is crunch time, that the election is on the line, that the press is being manipulated...
Maybe it is. A conventional launch strategy for a little-known vice-presidential nominee might have involved "manipulating" the media into running umpteen front-pagers on Sarah Palin's amazing primary challenge of a sitting governor and getting the sob-sisters to slough off a ton of heartwarming stories about her son shipping out to Iraq.
But, if you were really savvy, you'd "manipulate" the media into a stampede of lurid drivel deriding her as a Stepford wife and a dominatrix, comparing her to Islamic fundamentalists, Pontius Pilate and porn stars, and dismissing her as a dysfunctional brood mare who can't possibly be the biological mother of the kid she was too dumb to abort. Who knows? It's a long shot, but if you could pull it off, a really cunning media manipulator might succeed in manipulating Howie's buddies into spending the month after Labor Day outbidding each other in some insane Who Wants To Be An Effete Condescending Media Snob? death-match. You'd not only make the press look like bozos, but that in turn might tarnish just a little the fellow these geniuses have chosen to anoint.
John Hinderaker has more on Kurtz' descent into madness, while Roger Kimball calls the last two weeks an "act of auto-immolation" by the media. Alas, while setting their own pants on fire, Howie & co also managed to spill the lighter fluid all over Barack's coronation robes. The other day Boston's "alternative" paper ran a piece lamenting that MSNBC being so obviously in the tank for Obama is, in fact, damaging the Obama campaign. As Orrin Judd says:
Even if it isn't particularly true, the notion that Keith Olbermann defeated Barack Obama needs to become conventional wisdom, just to drive the Left bonkers.Indeed. When Howie claims he's getting really really mad, I wonder if he realizes he sounds like Elmer Fudd warning Bugs Bunny "You're making me vewy vewy angwy" right after he's shot his own butt off.
I just recorded a brief segment for PJTV's September 11th show. I had tons of notes prepared, since I didn't know how long I'd be on, so I'm reprinting some of them here in the form of a blog post on 9/11's impact on the culture war:
9/11 changed the culture quite remarkably, but it did so in ways that may not have been expected. Back in 2004, the great Charles Krauthammer wrote a piece in which he referred to "the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release":
The loathing goes far beyond the politicians. Liberals as a body have gone quite around the twist. I count one all-star rock tour, three movies, four current theatrical productions and five best sellers (a full one-third of the New York Times list) variously devoted to ridiculing, denigrating, attacking and devaluing this president, this presidency and all who might, God knows why, support it.The pressure was released during the 2004 election cycle, but when John Kerry lost, it mutated further into a virulent strain that was only fully released after Katrina. As Mickey Kaus very presciently noted, Hurricane Katrina gave the media a way to talk about Iraq without talking about Iraq:How to explain? With apologies to Dr. Freud, I propose the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release.
The hostility, resentment, envy and disdain, all superheated in Florida, were not permitted their natural discharge. Came 9/11 and a lid was forced down. How can you seek revenge for a stolen election by a nitwit usurper when all of a sudden we are at war and the people, bless them, are rallying around the flag and hailing the commander in chief? With Bush riding high in the polls, with flags flying from pickup trucks (many of the flags, according to Howard Dean, Confederate), the president was untouchable.
The Democrats fell unnaturally silent. For two long, agonizing years, they had to stifle and suppress. It was the most serious case of repression since Freud's Anna O. went limp. The forced deference nearly killed them. And then, providentially, they were saved. The clouds parted and bad news rained down like manna: WMDs, Abu Ghraib, Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Joe Wilson and, most important, continued fighting in Iraq.
Stripped of his halo, the president's ratings went down. The spell was broken. He was finally once again human and vulnerable. With immense relief, the critics let loose.
The result has been volcanic. The subject of one prominent new novel is whether George W. Bush should be assassinated. This is all quite unhinged. Good God. What if Bush is re-elected? If they lose to him again, Democrats will need more than just consolation. They'll need therapy.
I'm not saying Bush and the Feds don't clearly deserve major grief for not getting today's National Guard aid convoy into downtown New Orleans a couple of days earlier. Some people are probably dead as a result. But the commentators on Washington Week in Review seemed a little too happy when proclaiming this a "debacle" that will damage Bush politically for a long, long time. And I don't think they were happy just because Bush has suffered a blow. I think it's because the hurricane and its New Orleans aftermath at least seemed to solve a big problem for anti-Bush commentators and politicians. Previously, they couldn't grouse about the Iraq War without seeming defeatist (and anti-liberationist and maybe even selfishly isolationist). Even the Clintons never figured a way out of that trap. But nature has succeded where they failed; it has opened up a way out, at least temporarily. Now Bush opponents can argue, in some cases quite accurately, that without the Iraq deployment aid would have gotten to New Orleans faster. And 'if we can [tk] in Iraq, why can't we [tk] in our own South?' They aren't being selfish. They are just asserting priorities! In short, Katrina gives them a way to talk about Iraq without talking about Iraq. No wonder Gwen Ifill smiles the "inner smile."In a very real sense, 9/11 also created the Blogosphere and the idea of partisan journalism--and I don't mean that in any sort of pejorative sense--which began with Matt Drudge and Fox News in the mid 1990s, and Rush Limbaugh's national radio show nearly a decade earlier, and began to become an increasingly accepted element outside of the conservative media.
In 2004, the New York Times admitted what was obvious to all concerned--that it was a liberal publication; and a year prior, Eason Jordan, then of CNN, admitted that his network had shilled for Saddam Hussein. The pressure cooker that Krauthammer refers to led directly to some incredibly sloppy thinking, such as Dan Rather's MemoGate at CBS, and the rise of MSNBC, an openly hyper-partisan division of an otherwise staid establishment liberal news operation like NBC. This morning, MSNBC nobly ran the videotapes of The Today Showfrom 9/11, when all was chaos and uncertainty except for the two towers and the Pentagon being hit. But yesterday, as Kathryn Jean Lopez noted, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC said:
The television networks were told that the Convention would pause, early in the evening, when children could still be watching, for a 9/11 Tribute, and they were encouraged to broadcast it.In addition to hyper-partisanship, 9/11, also fueled (if you'll pardon the carboncentric pun) the rise of environmentalism in the media. Julia Gorin, whom I've interviewed for PJM Political on XM, had a piece in the Christian Science Monitor in 2006 in which she talked about environmentalism as a sort of Freudian displacement for the War On Terror:What we got was not a tribute to the dead of 9/11, nor even a tribute to the responders, or the singularity of purpose we all felt. The Republicans gave us sociological pornography, a virtual snuff film.
Tough language is borrowed from the war on terror and applied to the war on weather. "I really consider this a national security issue," says celebrity activist and "An Inconvenient Truth" producer Laurie David. "Truth" star Al Gore calls global warming a "planetary emergency." Bill Clinton's first worry is climate change: "It's the only thing that I believe has the power to fundamentally end the march of civilization as we know it."Such displacement also helps to explain the conspiracy theories and "trutherism." For a very long time, ABC had no problem running someone like Rosie O'Donnell as part of their daytime programming, who in the course of five years went from publicly claiming support for President Bush in the early stages of 9/11 to literally telling ABC viewers not to trust what they had just heard on Good Morning America and other news shows.Freud called it displacement. People fixate on the environment when they can't deal with real threats. Combating the climate gives nonhawks a chance to look tough. They can flex their muscle for Mother Nature, take a preemptive strike at an SUV. Forget the Patriot Act, it's Kyoto that'll save you.
That's why in 2004 we got "The Day After Tomorrow" - so we could worry about junk science that may or may not kill us in 1,000 years instead of the people who really are trying to kill us the day after tomorrow.
While the hawks among us worry about preventing the Armageddon that's coming, our modern-day hippies just want to make sure the planet is pristine when it does. In fact, the more menacing terrorism becomes, the more some people seem to worry about the weather. Scared and unsure how to fight terrorists, they confront "climate change," which only requires spending trillions of other people's dollars on something that may not need fixing or may not be fixable. No wonder some of these people chain themselves to trees - they think money grows on them.
Why are these people so worried about the environment, anyway? It's not like they're living on this planet. Speaking of which, scientists have recently discovered global warming on Mars. See that? Martians need to stop driving those darn SUVs!Notice that the undercurrent in all the doomsday rhetoric is America as chief culprit in the axis of enviro-evil (just as it is in all the world's turmoil). Having found a warm and fuzzy cause to snuggle up against in this big, bad, scary world, the enviros pick a fight with the one guy they're not scared of: America.
The events of the morning of September 11, 2001 have changed the culture in ways that few could anticipate that morning, and will continue to do so, no matter who wins in November.
Betsy Newmark suggests perusing this list of foiled terror plots against Americans since 9/11:
Some I'd heard of, but there are quite a few that I was unaware of. And these are just the ones where there was an arrest. We have no idea of how many were foiled without an arrest and a public announcement.As successful as President Bush's administration has been at foiling terrorist plots, I think part of the complacency amongst Americans can be blamed on a relatively poor White House communications effort. Other than the periods when Ari Fleischer and the late Tony Snow were press secretaries, the White House has been surprisingly mediocre at PR and controlling an overwhelming hostile legacy media, which barring another successful terrorist attack between now and January, may in retrospect be seen as its greatest failing.I believe that many Americans have grown to discount the whole idea that there are people out there who want to kill Americans, preferably here in the United States, and would like to orchestrate as massive a killing as possible. We have grown complacent in the seven years since 9/11 and now take the lack of attack as the norm.
While some of these plots might seem like a bunch of losers cooking up some crackpot idea that never would have been successful, remember that, if the 9/11 plotters had been arrested before they took over those airplanes, their plot would have seemed like just some bizarre idea that a bunch of incompetent kooks was dreaming up. Foiled plots might not seem that scary when they're exposed, but just imagine how those plots would have seemed totally different if they hadn't been foiled.
In the latest edition of PJM Political, Steve Green and I discuss tomorrow's seventh anniversary of 9/11.
Today though, Charles Johnson has a far more cheerful anniversary to commemorate (though it will also be underplayed by the MSM): the fourth anniversary of everybody's favorite blinking GIF.
For our video look back at 2004, check out this edition of Silicon Graffiti:
Back on the mighty XM satellite after a two week hiatus, this week's PJM Political is a chronological look back at the past two weeks, beginning with the debut of Sarahmania, through the GOP convention, and a look at the weeks to come. With a star-studded cast of pundits, bloggers--and even actors!
And speaking of Sarahmania, Fred Thompson called in today to discuss how she's driven the media absolutely bonkers.
You make the call! Nathan Goulding posts photos from both parties' conventions. Near the top of the album is a photo with this caption:
MSNBC's booth right next to Al Jazeera's. Think RNC planners did this intentionally?That whole media row on the west side of the Xcel Energy City was a wretched hive of old media infamy. While ideologically the networks housed in those booths moved from establishment liberal to very far left, in terms of skybox placement, the lineup ran from right to left as follows:
- CNN, Saddam Hussein's favorite shills.
- CBS, home of RatherGate.
- Channel 9 Action News--OK, we'll let them slide.
- And then Al Jazeera and MSNBC.
As I joked to Roger Simon on the day before the convention began and we first saw the lineup in the convention hall (and somewhat presciently in retrospect), if Keith Olbermann gets the boot mid-convention, he can simply walk next door and feel right at home. Hey, good enough for David Frost, good enough for Keith!
Jim Geraghty writes that this ABC headline "Really Belonged in The Onion":
The smears of Sarah Palin continue, as ABC News writes, "Obama Takes on Obama-like Phenomenon."Unlike the transnational Obama, as long as Hurricane Sarah doesn't play well in anti-free speech Canada, Old Europe and amongst other overseas socialists, she's safe.Compare her to a pig. Call her election "a step back for women." But calling her "an Obama-like phenomenon" is way out of line.
While PDS may be running rampant in the US, it takes Saudi Arabia to really push it to its ironic zenith:
Here's an irony to start your Iftar meal tonight: Saudi Arabia, where a woman must have permission from a male relative or her husband before traveling, will nevertheless run a Gloria Steinem column in its main English-language daily about the sufferings of American women (and their impending doom if Sarah Palin makes it to the White House).But then, feminism has stopped at the American border since 9/11/01--and sometimes not even there.
"Journalists are not going to change their coverage because of what John McCain says. They are going to change their coverage because of what Jon Stewart says."
Almost three years ago, Hugh Hewitt took a look inside "The Media's Ancien Regime" of Columbia Journalism School, in an article whose subtitle noted that the school was doing its damnedest to maintain the old world order.
Flash forward to the present, and very little has changed in the interim: Kaithy Shaidle links to a post from a young student studying journalism at NYU, who concludes--rightly, of course--that "Old Thinking Permeates Major Journalism School":
Every single journalism class at NYU has required me to bring the bulky newspaper [edition of the New York Times.] I don't understand why they don't let us access the online version, get our current events news from other outlets, or even use our NYTimes app on the iPhone. Bringing the New York Times pains me because I refuse to believe that it's the only source for credible news or Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism and it's a big waste of trees.But a consistently bland source of the most conventional wisdom imaginable!
Orrin Judd has your one-stop shopping for legacy media quotes in the aftermath of Hurricane Sarah, including this classic:
Like a lot of delegates at the Xcel -- and the woman whom they nominated as John McCain's running mate -- Ms. O'Hara was fired up by all the sudden energy, but a bit suspicious of those who were there to cover it.--David Carr writing for (where else?) the New York Times."Conservatives have a bad history with The New York Times," she said, looking at my press ID, still smiling and still very friendly. "How can I be sure that you won't take my words and twist them to suit some agenda that you already have?"
Her friends from Montana leaned in and enjoyed the spectacle as I stammered my way through a response. I'm working on an answer because I don't think it is the last time that question is going to come up.
The New York Times reports that the wannabe Woodward and Bernstein of cable TV have had their broadcasting license curtailed:
MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel's coverage of the election.Perceived? Here's the New York Times on MSNBC a year ago:That experiment appears to be over.
After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.
The change -- which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle -- is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel's perceived shift to the political left.
Officials at MSNBC emphasize that they never set out to create a liberal version of Fox News.Ed Morrissey adds, "NBC finally had enough during the conventions, according to the Times. The chant of 'NBC, NBC' during the Republican convention didn't help.""It happened naturally," Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, said Friday, referring specifically to the channel's passion and point of view from 7 to 10 p.m.
Update: More from Ace and the Texas Rainmaker.
As Jonathan Last writes, "The Atlantic Becomes a Laughingstock":
Believe me, I'm more relieved about that than you are. A friend sends along an email with this link and the subject header "Why David Bradley Doesn't Care." I'll spare you the click: It's Sullivan informing readers that his site has gotten 2 million views over the last two days.For some background on how such a fine publication arrived at this particular moment, allow me to reprint a post from last year titled, "The Atlantic Hits An Iceberg":So perhaps I should make a little more explicit why I've been so worked up about this whole thing.
I have no particular aversion to the smearing of political figures; or rather, no aversion greater than that of the average reasonable person. I find it ugly and distasteful, but I realize that it's part of the rough and tumble of politics. It has always happened. It will continue to happen. That's why you'll note that I haven't written a single word about what sites such as Daily Kos, Democrats.com, or Democratic Underground have said about her.
And I hold no particular brief for Sarah Palin, per se. As I've written elsewhere, there are reasonable criticisms of her both as a governor and as a vice presidential candidate. I don't think anything I've written about her would count as boosterism. (Although I do make the case that she was the best strategic pick available to McCain, as an analytical matter.)
What's caught my attention here, then is The Atlantic. I am, and always have been, an enormous booster for the Old Media, and smarty-pants general-interest magazines in particular. What's so notable in this whole affair isn't the tarring of Palin but the fact that The Atlantic Monthly is the vehicle for the irresponsible spreading of smears about Palin and speculation so inane that it can't be counted, by any reasonable measure, as analysis. (Here, I'm thinking of Sullivan's claim that he thought it possible both Palin and McCain would relinquish their nominations.)
If Andrew Sullivan were to have written everything he wrote this week at his own website, I wouldn't have said a word about it. The real scandal here isn't Sullivan: It's what The Atlantic has become by publishing him.
As for Sullivan's page views, I sincerely hope that David Bradley isn't making his editorial decisions based solely on eyeballs and dollars. Were that so, you could simply give The Atlantic's pages over to Perez Hilton or Slashdot or Matt Drudge or any other number of content formats. But the point of The Atlantic, like other great journals, is to be something different--to be a stage in the world of ideas, even if it's not the most profitable thing.
I find the prospect of The Atlantic devolving into some version of Free Republic or Daily Kos to be immensely worrisome. Hopefully David Bradley will do something to put his house in order. Soon.
Back in 2004, I linked to Jonah Goldberg in a post titled "The Atlantic Creeps Leftward":
The Atlantic is still a great magazine, but it seems to be inching urther and further into official Liberal Magazine Land. One can be a liberal magazine and still be a great magazine, The New Republic has proved that more than a few times. But what made the Kelly and post Kelly era Atlantic particularly special was its effort not to be predictably on one side of the political ledger.As I added back then:
Goldberg writes the Atlantic's current pieces, "contribute to the continued Slateification of the magazine, by which I mean that 'post-partisan smart' is defined as a certain kind of enlightened liberalism which enlightened liberals see as simply correct, not liberal".Hugh Hewitt writes that the era that the late Michael Kelly launched has officially concluded:
On my radio show moments ago I asked Mark Steyn about the current issue of The Atlantic which does not have one of Steyn's wonderful obituaries. (A collection of these magnificent send-offs, Passing Parade, is here.) Mark revealed that he and The Atlantic have parted ways after a disagreement.As Hugh notes above, Mark Steyn's Passing Parade is very much well worth your time. If America Alone is a darkly humorous preview of where the world might be headed, Passing Parade is a much lighter, wonderfully witty look back its most interesting movers and shakers, and I certainly hope that Steyn's monthly obit series continues with some publication, whether it's online or on dead tree.So, no need for me to purchase The Atlantic anymore. Steyn's byline was for me the reason to always buy the magazine, especially when moving about the country through airports. Other interesting stuff was always there, but the purchase was automatic because Steyn's obit was a must read. Now he's not going to be in there, and I'm not going to be buying it.
The byline has become the brand as I have often argued over the past few years. Editors and publishers who haven't figured this out yet are really living in the past, and The Atlantic has definitely enrolled itself in the club of the clueless in this regard.
Back to 2008: While Sullivan's perma-Drudge-link apparently ensures high Internet traffic, the Atlantic's brandname certainly appears to be suffering through their association with him. In swapping out Mark Steyn, who wrote some of his most enjoyable and non-partisan material for the magazine, this is one trade that eventually may be looked back upon as being akin to the Red Sox offloading Babe Ruth to the Yankees.
The editor of the Weekly Standard writes that he and his staff "believe in giving credit where credit is due. The presidential race looks a whole lot better today than it did two weeks ago. For this, thanks are owed to two men--Barack Obama and John McCain--and to that herd of independent minds, the liberal media":
A special thank you to our friends in the liberal media establishment. Who knew they would come through so spectacularly? The ludicrous media feeding frenzy about the Palin family hyped interest in her speech, enabling her to win a huge audience for her smashing success Wednesday night at the convention. Indeed, it even renewed interest in McCain, who seems to have gotten still more viewers for his less smashing--but well-received--presentation the following evening.Indeed.TM Charles Johnson links to an article on Sarah Palin that highlights the crystalline objectivity and nonpartisan fairness of the Associated Press through this quote:The astounding (even to me, after all these years!) smugness and mean-spiritedness of so many in the media engendered not just interest in but sympathy for Palin. It allowed Palin to speak not just to conservatives but to the many Americans who are repulsed by the media's prurient interest in and adolescent snickering about her family. It allowed the McCain-Palin ticket to become the populist standard-bearer against an Obama-Media ticket that has disdain for Middle America.
By the end of the week, after Palin's tour de force in St. Paul, the liberal media were so befuddled that they were reduced to complaining that conservatives aren't being narrow-minded enough. Thus, Hanna Rosin--who has covered religion and politics for the Washington Post, and has also written for the New Yorker, the New Republic, and the New York Times--lamented in a piece for Slate: "So cavalier are conservatives about Sarah Palin's wreck of a home life that they make the rest of us look stuffy and slow-witted by comparison." I suppose it was ungenerous of conservatives, in our broad-mindedness and tolerance of human frailty, to have let Ms. Rosin down, just when she was counting on us to bring out the tar and feathers. But she gives us too much credit when she suggests we make the liberal media look stuffy and slow-witted. They do that all by themselves.
WASILLA, Alaska - The mother kneels in the snow, cheerfully posing beside her bundled up daughter, behind the bloody, dead caribou the mom just shot.Charles adds:
The mainstream media. What's left to say? This may be the election in which they have finally finished the job of utterly discrediting themselves as left-wing hacks, for all to see.I wrote much the same at the conclusion of the 2004 race, and four years on, I can't say I'm surprised to see this same paradigm get even worse, which isn't exactly working out well as a sustainable business model.
Late last month, the Whiskey's Place blog wrote:
Much has been made by any number of commenters, from Steve Sailer, to John Derbyshire, to Spengler, to Mark Steyn, to in particular, Ed Driscoll, about the pathetic state of popular culture. Blogger Ed Driscoll in particular is fond of reminding us that in popular culture it's always 1968.Well, to be fair, old media certainly does a pretty good job itself in that department. This NPR article on the Academy Awards of forty years ago has the usual boomer spin on the era, highlighted in this excerpt from Mark Harris, the author of Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of a New Hollywood, talking about The Graduate:
The scenario: Upper-middle-class L.A.; disaffected college grad (played by Dustin Hoffman) is seduced by older woman (Anne Bancroft), falls in love with her daughter (Katharine Ross).I'll second the emotion that The Graduate is a great picture. But if it indeed opened up the youth market, a lot of grownups decided concurrently right around that same time to check out of the theaters, as Michael Medved (whom I met at The Best Party Ever, just to shamelessly namedrop) wrote when Jack Valenti retired from his role as the long-time president of the Motion Picture Association of America:That's not so unusual, Harris says: The idea plays like a mid-'60s sex comedy. But what even the actors didn't realize until shooting began was that the perspective would come from Dustin Hoffman's character.
"Suddenly," says Harris, "the camera head shifted, and this was looking at the Generation Gap from the other side -- from the young side."
Young people -- an audience Hollywood undervalued at the time -- flooded theaters around the country.
"And that's who movies got made for after that," says Harris.
Despite his unquestioned eloquence, elegance and charm, Mr. Valenti presided over history's most disastrous decline in the audience for feature films. In 1965, the year before he left the Johnson administration to assume his plush position as chief mouthpiece for the entertainment industry, 44 million Americans went out to the movies every week. A mere four years later, that number had collapsed to 17.5 million.And wouldn't return until Hollywood returned to making apolitical family-safe blockbusters a decade later; as I wrote a couple of years ago:In other words, some potent, puzzling force drove more than half of the nation's film fans to break the habit of movie going. That same mystical power served to suppress attendance for the next 20 years, with figures on ticket sales remaining flat until they began to rise moderately in the 1990s, reflecting the construction of thousands of new movie screens at multiplex theaters. Most recent figures (from 2003) show weekly attendance today at just over 30 million. As a percentage of the nation's population, however, the numbers on movie attendance remain only slightly improved from the devastating trough of 1970 (10.3% vs. 8.6%) and still vastly lower than the robust box-office years of 1965 (44%) or 1960 (45%).
It's amazing how many movie professionals remain altogether unaware of this long-term decline in film going--or, when informed about the depressing but undeniable figures, wrongly attribute them to the advent of television. TV sets began appearing in living rooms in the late 1940s, of course, and by the time the audience for feature films started its sharpest slump in 1966, the tube had already arrived in nearly all American homes.
Hollywood originally panicked that television would destroy its business by offering for free the sort of entertainment that cost money at the local Bijou, but during the fateful 10 years of the primary TV invasion (1950-60) the audience actually declined 34%, compared with a 60% decline in those nightmarish four years of the late '60s. In later decades, the arrival of the VCR, cable TV and DVD actually corresponded to modest increases in the motion-picture audience, so no theory centered on technological alternatives can solve the mystery of the missing moviegoers.
So what happened 38 years ago to drive millions of Americans away from movie theaters? In 1966, Mr. Valenti's Motion Picture Association of America quietly dropped its enforcement of the restrictive old Production Code that Hollywood studios had imposed on themselves since 1930. Then, on Nov. 1, 1968, Mr. Valenti introduced the "voluntary rating system" that continues in force to this day. As he proudly declared in his farewell address to the industry on March 23 of this year: "The rating system freed the screen, allowing movie-makers to tell their stories as they choose to tell them." That new freedom allowed the profligate use of obscene language strictly banned under the Production Code, the inclusion of graphic sex scenes along with near total nudity and, more vivid, sadistic violence than previously permitted in Hollywood movies.
The resulting changes in the industry showed up with startling clarity at the Academy Awards. In 1965, with the Production Code still in force, "The Sound of Music" won Best Picture of the Year; in 1969, under the new rating system, an X-rated offering about a homeless male hustler, "Midnight Cowboy," earned the Oscar as the year's finest film. Most critics, then as now, welcomed the aesthetic shift and hailed the fresh latitude in cinematic expression, but the audience voted with its feet.
I have to laugh at the tunnel-vision of the filmmakers of the 1970s (and to a certain extent, Biskind himself, as he chronicles their rise and cocaine-laden fall). Sandwiched between blockbuster crowd-favorites of the 1960s such as Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, The Sound of Music and The Dirty Dozen and then the Star Wars, Star Trek and Indiana Jones movies (not to mention the bulk of Steven Spielberg's first twenty years of filmmaking), they don't understand what an aberration their late '60s to early '70s films were. Much as I love some of the darker movies of the 1970s (such as M*A*S*H, Taxi Driver, Chinatown, and The Conversation), while all of these films were critics' darlings, its always been popcorn fare that's kept Hollywood afloat.Not to mention their favorite radio network.How a slate of leftwing political movies such as Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, The Constant Gardener, The Interpreter, and Munich could be greenlighted for release last year is beyond me, unless Hollywood in mid-2004 assumed that a Kerry win was inevitable, or after he lost, decided to put the celluloid shiv into Red State audiences. Why anyone thought these films would make money is utterly astonishing. But, to build on Michael Barone's recent op-ed, the Hollywood left is currently as stuck in the 1970s as liberal politicians are.
(Back in CA after an incredible week--see above shameless namedropping--regular blogging to resume tomorrow.)
The New York Times, May 3rd, 2007: "Oprah Endorses Obama".
ABC News, today: "Is Oprah Biased? Host Won't Interview Palin".
Related: "While it is true that only Oprah suffers from a bad business decision it is
enlightening that the very crowd pushing for reinstatement of the "fairness
doctrine" fail to see the irony."
Nuance: Andrea Mitchell has no idea what the ideology of anyone working in NBC might be, but can spot a Republican "Katharine Harris type" from miles away. She's afraid that the botched New Yorker Obama parody was actually "too sophisticated to actually be perceived the way it is intended" by the booboisies out there in Middle America. And then there was this attempt at cultural anthropology gone awry:
MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell issued an on-air apology Monday following a remark last week in which she referred to an area of southwestern Virginia as "redneck, sort of bordering-on-Appalachia country."Which is why she's probably filing a request for hazardous duty pay from NBC after this particular field assignment.
Thank God that ABC lets its hosts of The View blog. Back in 2006, there was the sophisticated and nuanced prose stylings of Rosie O'Donnell, and successor Whoopi Goldberg is proudly upholding the same commitment to high-quality journalism that has made Big Media what it is today. In both cases, the 21st century medium of the Blogosphere allows them to share with us insights into their personalities--and dare I say it--views, that simply cannot be boxed into the tubercular blue small screen of television alone.
Such as the fact that Whoopi Goldberg doesn't know the difference between "succeed" and "secede", and sees in Sarah Palin, a conservative tax-cutting pro-life candidate with libertarian leanings, the return of a hard left racially driven socialist agenda governmental leviathan bent on euthanasia and ethnic cleansing.
Or as Tim Graham puts it, "Whoopi Goldberg: Palin Sounds Pro-Nazi, Wants to 'Succeed' From U.S."
(And speaking of secession--I guess this means that the left has finally come to their senses on the Akaka bill, whose author has said could eventually lead to "outright independence" for Hawaii, and is supported by Barack Obama.)
Joe Klein attempts to explain "How McCain Makes Obama Conservative", when the word he's actually searching for to describe the community organizer is "reactionary."
Related: Roger Kimball flashes back to Bill Buckley's famous opprobrium "that he would rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston phone book than the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University", and adds that WFB would be pleased by Sarah Palin's effect on the legacy media. "I like to think that Boston phone book-or maybe it's the Juneau phone book-is finally getting some of its own back", Roger writes, but read the whole thing.
Jonah Goldberg breaks down journalists' multifaceted anger over Sarah Palin. One reason is that the choice caught Old Media--which paradoxically abhors innovation, even though it's in the news business--by surprise:
Cockroaches scatter when shocked by a flipped light switch. Grizzly bears attack when startled. And when caught napping by big news, the press corps floods the zone. Editors scream at underlings who missed the story. Networks fret they'll be scooped. And all of a sudden, the norms and standards become a blur in the race to be first. In the case of Palin, the press vaulted over every principle and standard they'd established about what is and isn't fair game, like O.J. Simpson leaping over luggage in the old Hertz commercials. It required the Jaws of Life to pry news of John Edwards' affair out the mainstream press. But when it came to the personal drama of Palin's 17-year old daughter, the press clawed for morsels like they were golden tickets from Wonka Bars.One queen of video therapy sounds like she's needing plenty of her own these days.They wouldn't have done the same thing if Palin were an unknown Democrat, because the press' reflex is to assume the worst of Republicans.
The Eagleton Option exposed the press' gut instincts, and the viscera are not pretty. Eagleton dropped out because it was leaked that he'd received shock therapy for ill-defined mental problems. Many of those who expected Palin to withdraw see her values and her choices as proof of a mental problem. "She's more a conservative man than she is a woman on women's issues," quoth a spokeswoman from the predictably shrill National Organization for Women, which always defines womanhood by a woman's commitment to left-wing feminist dogma. If you're pro-life, or even just a Republican, you're not a real woman, you're suffering from some sort of pernicious gender confusion.
How long before the Palin-haters insist she needs shock therapy, too? For her own good, of course.
Kwame "Name That Party" Kilpatrick resigns.
In other Motor City Memory Hole news, Dan Riehl notes, "Don't Look Now: ABC Pushing Plants":
Gawd this was easy, let's see what else turns up over time. Via ABC:We have Google--we can fact check your plants!The Detroit Free Press invited a panel of Michigan voters to weigh in on Gov. Sarah Palin's speech last night. Their reactions run the gamut, but the independents didn't seem to care for her very much.Ilene Beninson, 52, Berkley independent: "Her speech contained few statements about policy or the party platform. ... I am not convinced that Palin's experience as a mayor or governor in Alaska meet the qualifications to be vice president much less one stroke or heart attack away from being commander in chief."
Oh, you mean the Code Pink independent from Michigan doing a lame hunger strike for Cindy Sheehan. Yeah, how "indpendent can you get??? ha ha ha
Matthew Sheffield writes, "About a year into MSNBC's strategy of refashioning itself into the network for Bush haters, some consequences are starting to emerge for the cable channel and its corporate parent NBC":
Internally, the lurch to the left has resulted in numerous outbreaks of hostility as the remains of the old guard fight to protect themselves and the token conservatives find themselves increasingly marginalized.Just click over and NBC the accompanying video.Some external consequences are emerging a well now. While apolitical liberals still haven't kicked their CNN habit (and likely won't), MSNBC's corporate leftism has antagonized conservatives. It showed last night here in St. Paul as conventioneers held up signs denouncing the network and began a derisive chant of "NBC! NBC!" when Alaska governor Sarah Palin took a pronounced swipe at the media in her vice presidential nominating speech.
"I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone," Palin said in one of her biggest applause lines of the night.
Immediately thereafter, the audience started booing loudly and clapping. Within a second or so, various crowd members starting chanting out "NBC! NBC! NBC!" This quickly spread throughout the packed arena. Many conventioneers followed it up by pointing toward the MSNBC temporary studio inside the Xcel Energy Center, conveniently positioned next to the Arab television network Aljazeera by someone at the RNC.
After waiting for the boos to die down, Palin paused and delivered a retort:
"But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country. Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with the right people."
Amusingly enough, MSNBC's biggest left-wingers Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews actually had discussed these lines in Palin's speech just hours before.
"Who those reporters and commentators might be she does not say, at least not in the excerpt. It will be interesting to see if they're named in that speech," Olbermann remarked to Matthews in highly defensive conversation between the two, NBC's Tom Brokaw, and Norah O'Donnell.
"There's no one I can think of, off the top of my head, who did what she is apparently complaining of tonight, but she will be doing the complaining herself."
Evidently the audience was a little smarter on that account.
Elsewhere in the old media war against conservatives, John McCain canceled an interview with Larry King after a drive-by attack dog interrogation from CNN's Campbell Brown of his strategist Tucker Bounds with the goal of dismissing Palin's gubernatorial experience.
"Not that anybody wanted there to be a hurricane, of course. Good heavens, no. But if there had to be one, the timing was fabulous."
--Clive Crook, the Financial Times.
Greetings From Minneapolis! I have arrived; the convention may now proceed. Unless of course it doesn't.
But if it does (and hopefully that means that Hurricane Gustav's force will have greatly diminished before hitting land), this clip should aired on the Xcel Jumbotron in prime time and referenced by several candidates in their speeches:
Ed Morrissey asks:
This also prompts a question of ethics, which all of us should consider carefully. Should private conversations between politicians get videotaped surreptitiously like this? If so, then perhaps Fowler and many, many others should take better care about having a laugh at the misery of others, even among friends.Plenty of traditional liberal journalists have turned off the record remarks of politicians and celebrities into major stories. (Which is ultimately part of what earned them their "drive-by media" sobriquet from Rush.) As Roger Ailes noted several years ago:
Jimmy Carter's famous confession that he sometimes had lust in his heart for women other than his wife was uttered to a Playboy magazine journalist as he was leaving Carter's home at the conclusion of the formal interview.And there are numerous additional examples of such moments, a few of which are described in the above link.
But as is its wont, the Internet amps these sorts of moments not up to 11, but 1100. George Allen's Senatorial re-election in 2006 was sunk by his "Macaca" gaffe, which was part of a coordinated effort by the left to videotape Republican candidates during every possible appearance (and then some), waiting for any sort of gaffe that could be turned into a YouTube clip and exploited by a friendly news organization such as the Washington Post, which ran over 100 stories on Allen's gaffe in the space of about less than three months, in which he apparently mispronounced his campaign staff's nickname of the young mohawk-haired James Webb campaign operative assigned to tape him.
Whatever the explanation, Allen's gaffe, given massive exposure from the Washington Post and other quarters in the MSM ended his senatorial career, which ultimately lost GOP control of the Senate, and sank Allen's presidential ambitions. In its wake, Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos gleefully wrote:
Every appearance by a top Republican official or candidate should be recorded. Every one of them.A couple of years ago, Jonah Goldberg wrote:All it takes is one "Macaca" incident to transform a race or create one where one didn't exist. As the Montana incident blogged earlier today showed, a video can knock out prospective candidates before they even enter.
And this is no longer about finding one big blunder to put on a campaign commercial. It's about using video and (free) technologies like YouTube to build narratives about opponents, using their own words, at their own events.
Liberals are geniuses at unleashing social panics because A) it never occurs to them that their motives are anything but pure and B) because they are almost exclusively focused on short term tactics. And yet they are invariably shocked when these moral frenzies come back to bite them.The "tape 'em all, let YouTube sort it out" philosophy began on the left, but its eventual boomerang was merely a matter of when, not if.
Of the ongoing catfight between the hosts of MSNBC (with the shrapnel frequently hitting even the guests), Rebecca Dana of the Wall Street Journal writes, "Since the start of the Democratic National Convention, ratings have exploded for the cable news channel MSNBC. So have tensions among the network's top anchors":
In an uncomfortable moment Tuesday night, an exhausted-looking "Hardball" host Chris Matthews shouted at a producer ("I'll wrap in a second!") before a stilted exchange with "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann, in which the two argued about who was talking out of turn. Mr. Olbermann made a flapping-lips hand gesture, and Mr. Matthews took umbrage. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer sat quietly on-screen, waiting to be interviewed.Tough to argue with--particularly when it's coming from the woman who gave us this moment of adult, sophisticated cabaret entertainment.That incident followed a seven-minute back-and-forth Tuesday afternoon between "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough and network correspondent David Shuster. Mr. Scarborough, a former Republican representative from Florida, accused Mr. Shuster, a registered independent, of taking a "cheap shot" by mentioning his party affiliation. Mr. Scarborough sarcastically added: "I feel so comforted by the fact that you're an independent. I bet everyone at MSNBC has 'independent' on their voting cards."
Since the early days of CNN's "Crossfire," cable news has relied on strong personalities to keep drama high and viewers tuned in throughout the day, when news isn't always exciting enough to keep the audience's attention. Passionate debate can make for great television -- and terrific ratings.
But some found this level of personal bickering hard to watch.
"My reaction to that is: 'Grow up!' They have to just grow up," said Connie Chung, a former MSNBC host and former co-anchor of "CBS Evening News."
(Which also aired on--but of course!--MSNBC.)
Back in the very, very early days of this site's existence, I wrote:
When Malcolm Muggeridge was the editor of the British satirical magazine Punch in the early 1960s, Khrushchev had announced he was going to tour England alongside its prime minister. Muggeridge wrote up a list of the silliest tour stops he could think of, and then put the article to bed, ready for publication. When the actual tour list was drawn up, he had to massively rewrite the article. At least half the tour stops in his satirical piece were actually on Khrushchev and the British PM's agenda!And even your humble narrator isn't immune. Yesterday, when I was interviewing Roger L. Simon about PJTV, he started talking about bias, and remarked that everyone's biased, which is true enough; it's human nature. "You have a bias, I have a bias, everyone has a bias" I think Roger said. I immediately quipped, "Keith Olbermann doesn't have a bias--he's straight down the middle!", trying to think the most obviously in-the-tank anchor on TV, who in the past, hasn't been afraid to at least tacitly admit it.Which is why Muggeridge's Law is: there is no way that a writer of fiction can compete with real life for its pure absurdity.
Naturally, I had just unwittingly crashed straight into the brick wall of satire known as Muggeridge's Law:
Regardless, [MSNBC President Phil Griffin] said he has faith in his convention anchors -- including Olbermann, a scourge of the right -- for both the final days in Denver and next week in St. Paul, Minn.Straight down the line, straight down the middle. Objectivity all the way, dude!"Look, when Keith anchors, he plays it straight down the line," Griffin said. "This is our team. They've served us well. We love 'em, and we're going to be at the Republican convention, and it's going to be great. And I don't have any hesitation."
(Is it just me, or is Griffin starting to sound like Howell Raines railing against the furies immediately after the Jayson Blair scandal exploded in his face? But hey, if this was the gang you had to play Kindergarten Cop with every day, you'd be feeling pretty tense, too.)
When we last left Team Obama, they were attempting to get the above video banned from TV. (More on that here.) Now they're attempting to smear NRO journalist Stanley Kurtz for attempting to report the story, thereby bringing maximum attention to it, as Ben Smith of the Politico writes:
Barack Obama's campaign hasn't advertised this a great deal this week, but the campaign's "Action Wire" has been waging large-scale campaigns against critics. That includes tens of thousands of e-mails to television stations running Harold Simmons' Bill Ayers ad, and to their advertisers -- including a list of major automobile and telecommunications companies.Andy McCarthy of NRO describes the results thusly:And tonight, the campaign launched a more specific campaign: an effort to disrupt the appearance by a writer for National Review, Stanley Kurtz, on a Chicago radio program. Kurtz has been writing about Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, and has suggested that papers housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago would reveal new details of that relationship.
The campaign e-mailed Chicago supporters who had signed up for the Obama Action Wire with detailed instructions including the station's telephone number and the show's extension, as well as a research file on Kurtz, which seems to prove that he's a conservative, which isn't in dispute. The file cites a couple of his more controversial pieces, notably his much-maligned claim that same-sex unions have undermined marriage in Scandinavia.
"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," says the email, which picks up a form of pressure on the press pioneered by conservative talk radio hosts and activists in the 1990s, and since adopted by Media Matters and other liberal groups.
"It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves. At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies," it continues.
The pro-Obama callers on the Milt Rosenberg show are a riot.We're still in the early rounds, but this is playing out remarkably like John Kerry and the Swift Vets all over again. As I wrote right around this time four years ago:In the last few minutes, two called to scald Milt for having Stanley on without having an Obama rep on to give the counterpoint. Milt explains, repeatedly, that he contacted the Obama campaign (he gave the name of the campaign official his producer spoke with) and the campaign -- the HQ of which is about a quarter mile from the studio where the show airs -- declined to come on. They were offered the opportunity to have someone there with Stanley for the entire two hours, and they said no.
Another pro-Obama woman called and, after accusing Stanley of slander but of course not citing anything he said that was slanderous, stated, "We want it to stop." Milt asked what she wanted stopped, and she replied, "It's just not what we believe as Americans." Milt tried again, asking what she didn't believe. She responded that it was someone saying bad things about Barack Obama and, again, we just want it to stop.
Very compelling.
Earth to Obama supporters: no one is claiming guilt by association -- though willful association with an admitted terrorist would be worthy of noting in a presidential candidate. Obama and Bill Ayers had a working relationship. Yet, Obama claimed Ayers was just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," and has otherwise minimized the relationship. Aside from the fact that Obama is not telling the truth, which itself is important, the details of the relationship are important. If the press was doing its job, we'd have those details already. Finally, the media's job is being done ... by Stanley. He should be saluted, not smeared. If the Obama campaign has a substantive response, let's hear it. If all they can do is smear a good faith critic, they are strictly bush league ... and it comes as no surprise that their guy thought Bill Ayers was someone worth cultivating.
Kerry's massively invented narrative ("swashbuckling Swift Boat lieutenant"--as Steyn describes him--turned brave defender of soldiers' rights) was built to survive the glancing scrutiny (if you can call it that) of a 1972-era media that consisted of three TV networks with half hour evening news shows, and a few liberal big city newspapers, all of which were staffed with journalists more or less largely sympathetic to Kerry's leftist anti-American beliefs.And a year later, John O'Neill of the Swift Vets gave an interview in which he said:But between the Swift Boat Vets and the Blogosphere, there are far too many people examining Kerry's story, and his "reporting for duty" edifice has crumbled.
Is that fair? We'll, we're deciding if we want the man to have the key to the most powerful arsenal ever assembled. If he can't survive the scrutiny of the Blogosphere, who James Lileks recently described as an "obsessive sort with lots of time on their hands", is he someone who should be trusted with this power?
The 1972-style media seems to think so.
TAE: Were you surprised when Senator Kerry focused so much on his Vietnam record at the Democratic Convention in late July? How do you account for this when he clearly knew you were out there?Change the name from Kerry to Obama and the state from Chicago to Illinois, and O'Neill's quote is remarkably timely.O'NEILL: I think he thought that he had good control over the mainline media, that they were sympathetic, that they would kill the story. And I think he was very confident that was the case with the New York Times and the three major networks and CNN, and that he could intimidate the portions of the media not already friendly to him. And so he thought the story would never come out. That had been his experience over and over again in Massachusetts.
TAE: Everything changed in early August, after your first ad.
O'NEILL: All of a sudden, Kerry and the media were faced with an ad that was actually showing. There was a time when they controlled the entire world of communications. That day is over.
Back in 2004, Kerry's brain trust could at least some ignorance in the difference between old media and new--when RatherGate broke for instance, Mary Mapes of the very Kerry-friendly and very old media CBS later claimed, "Within a few minutes, I was online visiting Web sites I had never heard of before: Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, Power Line."
Four years later, what's the Obama camp's excuse? And as John Hinderaker notes:
Obama's suggestion that it is illegal for a 501(c)(4) entity to fund issue ads that are negative toward him appears ludicrous. Here's the real question, though: if Obama is elected President, will he appoint an Attorney General who will carry out politically-motivated prosecutions like the one he is now demanding? I suppose we can't know for sure, but why wouldn't he? If he demands criminal prosecution of free speech that opposes his political interests when he's a candidate, why wouldn't he order it as President?Revel in the joy and optimism--the hope and change, you might say--that comes from the audacity of litigation.
Update: Don't miss Mickey Kaus's thoughts on this story as well.
In 2004, Lewis Lapham got caught phoning it in, writing up the GOP convention for Harpers magazine before the convention actually took place. But Jonathan Last goes Lapham one better--why not intentionally write the most hyperbolic prose possible about the Democratic convention--and then see who's deep enough in the tank to actually top it?!
With a "high-ranking" though otherwise anonymous MSNBC journalist telling the Politico Website that "The situation at our channel is about to blow up", MSNBC President Phil Griffin responds:
"MSNBC does not have an ideology," Griffin said. "We hire smart people who are passionate about their love of politics and love of news."But Griffen was happy to talk about his network's ideology last fall to the New York Times:
Officials at MSNBC emphasize that they never set out to create a liberal version of Fox News.Of course, the savvier TV networks aren't as schizophrenic when it comes to admitting their biases."It happened naturally," Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, said Friday, referring specifically to the channel's passion and point of view from 7 to 10 p.m.
Update: "If they're this unhinged this week, what will they be like next week in Minneapolis?"
Jay Ambrose asks, "What if Obama was president instead of Bush":
More and more it looks as if we've won the war in Iraq, thereby giving the United States a crucial victory in the struggle against Islamic radicalism, and it is clear we wouldn't have if the most important war protester in Denver this week had had his way.Found via Glenn Reynolds. A corollary to Ambrose's story, which would make an equally good column, is how the key moments of the last four years, from the GWOT, to Katrina, to the economy would have been reported by the legacy media if all of the events were the same, but Obama or someone else from his party had presided over them. Something tells me the collective tone of Katie & co. would have been just a hair less apocalyptic.That protester is not one of the street shouters waving a banner and thinking he has thereby made a profound, world-changing statement, but Barack Obama, who rode his opposition to the war to primary and caucus wins and finally to his moment of selection as the Democrats' presidential nominee.
His position on the unpopular war was not the only thing leading to his triumphal hour at the Democratic National Convention, but the position undoubtedly was the sine qua non of his candidacy, and he did not stop with saying the war was wrong.
Early on, he proposed a U.S. troop withdrawal divorced from conditions on the ground, and he opposed the troop surge, saying at one point it wouldn't work and insisting it would put more American lives in danger.
In fact, the surge in combination with new battleground tactics and other factors vastly reduced U.S. and Iraqi casualties and has helped get us to a remarkable point. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been all but destroyed.
Aided by a population sickened of endless killings of Iraqis doing nothing but going about their daily lives, the Iraqi armed forces have grown in strength and have established order in increasingly large swathes of the country.
A confident Iraqi government has been negotiating with the United States about when we will go home. And we've already reduced the number of combat troops to pre-surge levels with more troop reductions planned for the fall.
Put Obama's timetable in place and take away the surge he did not want, and we could now be facing a deteriorating situation with deep, dark tragedies lying in wait: A quick return to a dictatorial, vicious, anti-American regime, genocide, an al Qaeda resurgence and the increased likelihood of terrorist strikes within the United States.
(See also: media coverage of American events under Clinton, Bill.)
Greg Pollowitz writes, "One thing that's becoming clear is that MSNBC's bias toward Obama is reaching a stage where it is clouding the judgment of the pundits."
Meanwhile, Stephen Spruiell asks:
Is it just a coincidence that as MSNBC is becoming increasingly more like the official network of the Democratic Party, it is increasingly engaging in that party's penchant for embarrassingly public in-fighting and back-biting?Probably not--which is why Allah has your "daily 'Olbermann antagonizes another colleague' clip."
Pajamas has a terrific round-up of photos of the protesters in Denver, including this amusing shot. It's a banner featuring a hagiographic image of Saddam Hussein and written underneath, the caption "'Good Vs. Evil': Gross Simplification".
Well, except when you're a Newsweek columnist on PBS discussing Bob Dole and Spiro Agnew, of course. Why equivocate?!
If you enjoyed my "Atlas Mugged" article on mass print media and its successor, then you'll definitely want to read this recent piece by Mark Harris on the Wired Website:
For 20 years, Ted Harbert worked at ABC. He started there right out of college in 1977, when the network, along with CBS and NBC, was the only game in town and was the hit factory responsible for Happy Days; Charlie's Angels; Rich Man, Poor Man and Roots. By 1996, when Harbert was running ABC, those glory days were ending. All three networks were still colossal, but Fox had established its beachhead, and cable's market penetration was almost complete. The '80s had seen the rise of MTV. And CNN was by then a big deal, not just an incinerator for Ted Turner's extra cash. ESPN was competing aggressively. Individually, none of these channels got much of a rating most of the time, but the damage was starting to add up.Detroit and the newspaper industry each thought the same thing--despite numerous predictions from futurists of diversification just around the corner in each industry. Why should Jurassic television be any different? And the Wired article doesn't even get into the next wave of video technology, which is slowly beginning to level the playing surface in much the same way as the Blogosphere did to print."People would say, 'Oh, they're nibbling away, they're nibbling away,'" Harbert recalls. "And we would always say, 'Well, they can nibble, but they're never gonna really take us.' And then they took us."
And speaking of Jurassic and futurists, if you missed a recent edition of my Sillicon Graffiti video blog I did on the topic, I explore what Michael Crichton and Alvin Toffler had to say about the media and demassification:
Ace of Spades earlier today:
If you've talked to Hillary supporters, you know that they're the world's most recent and most enthusiastic converts to the Anti-Media Bias Party. It's almost funny how life-long Democrats are now sputtering angrily about media bias, the way we've been fuming for most of our lives. They know damn well the media propped up Obama while working to take down their girl.Which is why Ed Rendell sounds much more like Brent Bozell in this Politico article:
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was supposed to give "closing remarks" during this afternoon's Shorenstein Center-sponsored panel discussion with all three Sunday show moderators -- NBC's Tom Brokaw, ABC's George Stephanopoulous and CBS's Bob Schieffer -- but instead, he opened up a can of worms about bias in 2008 election coverageEd must be the last guy on the planet who can use the words "impartiality" and "Chris Matthews" in the same sentence and still keep a straight face."Ladies and gentleman, the coverage of Barack Obama was embarrassing," said Rendell, in the ballroom at Denver's Brown Palace Hotel. "It was embarrassing."
Rendell, an ardent Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter during the primaries, now backs Obama in the general election. Brokaw and Rendell began debating campaign coverage, including the on-air comments by Lee Cowan, and when MSNBC came up, Rendell went after the cable network.
"MSNBC was the official network of the Obama campaign," Rendell said, who called their coverage "absolutely embarrassing."
Chris Matthews, Rendell said, "loses his impartiality when he talks about the Clintons."
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.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: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."
It's beautiful.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: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.
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.
Even the liberal Snopes Website admits that the Bush #41 supermarket scanner story, as it was reported by the dinosaur media is bogus, and yet, nearly 20 years later, as Newsbusters notes, "CNN's Yellin Perpetuates Discredited Bush Scanner Story."
You know him, you love him, you can't live without him: everybody's famous Winter Soldier in training, Scott Thomas Beauchamp is back!
Update: "Also, Bigfoot is real." I want to believe!
As Orrin Judd writes, "As tough is this ad is, consider how much information they have to provide you before they tie the whole message together. It takes twenty seconds longer than the voter's attention span...That said, it's like crack for us wonks."
And the left is reeling from the overdose; witness Michael Crowley of The New Republic's meltdown:
You thought Corsi was swift boating? This is swift boating. The 9/11 link is completely and utterly revolting.Except that it's true on multiple levels: true in the actual definition of "Swift Boating", as opposed to the pejorative that the media want to think it is, and true in that Obama has to be comfortable on some level with domestic terrorism simply to be buds with Ayers, whose Radical Chic salad days not coincidentally occurred near-simultaneously with John Kerry's Winter Soldier phase. And as Allahpundit notes:
All of this punctuated, of course, but a reminder of how decidedly un-despicable the left would an ad along these lines targeting a conservative who was palsy walsy with an abortion bomber.Of course, the timing is interesting: the Swift Vets waited until after the convention in 2004, and performed political jujitsu by using Kerry's "Reporting For Duty" speech against him; McCain is launching his pincer movement days before the convention--even before Obama has nominated his veep, which has got to be driving The One to bitter distraction--and hopefully, his colleagues in the Obamedia will all overreact as badly as Michael Crowley did above, thus writing McCain's next ad.
Preseason's officially over. As someone who's name rhymes with the GOP candidate once said, welcome to the party, pal.
Update: A correction--as Newsday notes, the above video wasn't from John McCain's campaign but the American Issues Project:
A conservative nonprofit group with a past link to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign wants to spend $2.8 million on an ad questioning Democrat Barack Obama's relationship to a founder of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground.All is proceeding according to plan.The ad, which is expected to begin airing Thursday in Michigan and Friday in Ohio, focuses on William Ayers, whose Weatherman organization took credit for a series of bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago.
American Issues Project, the sponsor of the ad, is a nonprofit 501(c)4 organization. One of its board members, Ed Failor Jr., was a paid consultant for McCain's campaign in Iowa last year. The campaign paid his firm $50,000 until July 2007. American Issues Project spokesman Christian Pinkston said Failor has no connection to the McCain campaign now.
The ad signals the emergence of the type of tough advertising by independent organizations that operate outside the financial limits of campaign finance law. It is reminiscent of the Swift Boat ads aired against John Kerry four years ago questioning his military service and are widely blamed by Democrats for contributing to his defeat.
Organizers sought to air the ad on Fox News Channel, but a Fox spokesman said the network declined to run it. He would not say why.
While Jake Tapper of ABC has done a remarkable job for an MSM journalist at keeping all of the candidates' feet to the fire, "the fine ABC News folks who monitor Tapper's comments", as Bob Owens writes, sound like they're playing the same Chicago rules that the media's favorite candidate abides by as well.
(For my XM interview this week with Bob, click here.)
If "inexperienced" is code for racism, and if Ralph Lauren's Waspy-duds are racist, (which must make this a photo of the 21st century KKK in their bedsheets) then surely the headline of the article that RedState links to is as well.
The writers of Avenue Q didn't know the half of it: by the time November rolls around everything will be code for racism--if it isn't yet already.
Related: "Roasting Obama."
Jim Geraghty writes, "Somebody Wake the Chicago Media":
How is it that the Chicago Tribune has not reported on Stanley Kurtz's fight with the University of Illinois at Chicago over access to documents relating to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a small foundation, founded and inspired by Bill Ayers, for which Obama served as board chairman?I think they're waiting for the National Enquirer to do more legwork on the story...Nothing in the Sun-Times, either...
UPDATE: A reader informs me the Tribune has run a brief AP item on the controversy, but no reporting by its own staff on this yet.
Meanwhile, this could be fun: "McCain has brought up Ayers before but I don't think he's run any ads about him. Look for that to change."
Unintentional or intentional error? You make the call, sports fans!
(Incidentally, just to follow up on John Hinderaker's post, the word in question is still contained within the page that Power Line links to, as of the time of this posting.)
Sally Quinn of the Washington Post writes:
This was not a debate. There was not a winner or a loser. The one sure winner was Rick Warren, who overnight changed the face of evangelicals in this country from the cartoon caricature of rigid, right-wing fundamentalists to one of open-minded, intelligent, concerned citizens.Cartoon caricatures? Wherever would one go to read such stereotypes?
(H/T: 5'F)
Err, the other Joe that is. Kathryn Jean Lopez has your "Most Bizarre Sentence of the Day", from Howard Fineman:
Biden has largely escaped any hint of scandal, personal or political, in a long career, even though he was forced to withdraw from the Democratic race in 1988 amid charges of plagiarism.As someone once wrote, "A political party is dying before our eyes--and I don't mean the Democrats..."
Deborah Howell, the Washington Post's ombudsman ombudswoman ombudsperson writes:
Democrat Barack Obama has had about a 3 to 1 advantage over Republican John McCain in Post Page 1 stories since Obama became his party's presumptive nominee June 4. Obama has generated a lot of news by being the first African American nominee, and he is less well known than McCain -- and therefore there's more to report on. But the disparity is so wide that it doesn't look good.And if 2000 and 2004 are any indication--and they are--it's not like the media will do anything about it, of course.
(H/T: IP)
Remember one of the loonier conspiracy theories that the left floated in October of 2004--that Bush cheated during the debates against John Kerry? Here we go again!
I blame those Katherine Harris-type election officials, myself.
Orrin Judd links to this typically disingenuous passage in the New York Times:
Regime change in Iraq in addition to Afghanistan, he argued, would compel other sponsors of terrorism to mend their ways, "accomplishing by example what we would otherwise have to pursue through force of arms."As Orrin writes, "Which raises the obvious question, which parts of this does Mr. Kerry think are wrong: that Saddam was evil; that he should have been removed; and/or that other evil regimes ought to get the message that we can and will remove them too?"Finally, as American troops massed in the Persian Gulf in early 2003, Mr. McCain grew impatient, his aides say, concerned that the White House was failing to act as the hot desert summer neared. Waiting, he warned in a speech in Washington, risked squandering the public and international support aroused by Sept. 11. "Does anyone really believe that the world's will to contain Saddam won't eventually collapse as utterly as it did in the 1990s?" Mr. McCain asked.
In retrospect, some of Mr. McCain's critics now accuse him of looking for a pretext to justify the war. "McCain was hell-bent for leather: 'Saddam Hussein is a bad guy, we have got to teach him, let's send a message to the other people in the Middle East,' " said Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.
I'd be curious as to the answers most of the Timespeople would give to those questions, as well.
I gave NBC a lot of grief last fall for their global warming stunt of turning a handful of overhead lights off in their studio as some sort of sophomoric global warming cheerleading when covering a Cowboys/Eagles NFL game, which itself burned megawatts of power from the stadium lights, the video electronics, and the satellite hookups. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel spent by those driving to the game, the network equipment trucks, the corporate charter flights, etc.
But NBC made up for it big time with this:
WTHR, the NBC affiliate for Indianapolis, reported from Beijing and described the NBC set used for the network's two highest rated news broadcasts, "NBC Nightly News" and "Today," as air conditioned - even though it is outdoors.Thanks, fellas. Everyone has that brief embarrassing fling with the teenage nostalgie de la boue Rousseauvian primitiveness of environmentalism, but it's good to have you back with the rest of us."The set is outside, but air conditioning vents make the weather bearable," Anne Marie Tiernon wrote for WTHR Eyewitness News on August 14.
The Onion: "Study: Watching Under Four Hours Of TV Impairs Ability To Mock Pop Culture."
Now that the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter story is out in the overnews, even liberal sports networks are picking up on it. And making Rielle Hunter's backstory sound weirder by the minute:
On Sunday, as I was sitting in my summer cabin in Vermont, completely absorbed in a New York Times story about John Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter, I began reading a paragraph whose message shot through me like a sudden bolt of electrical current. The story centered on Ms. Hunter's refusal to take a DNA test to determine the paternity of her 5-month-old daughter, but that was not what startled me. It was this: "Ms. Hunter was born in Fort Lauderdale. Fla., in 1964 as Lisa Druck and moved to New York City in her 20s, becoming part of a Manhattan social scene that included the writer Jay McInerney ..."Read the whole thing.Here, I jumped up and blurted loudly to my wife, Judy: "Good God! John Edwards was having sex with the daughter of the guy who taught Tommy Burns how to kill horses by electrocuting them!"
As Power Line noted a week ago, as sexy as the John Edwards story is, the far greater news story is the Russian invasion of Georgia. And the confluence of the stories, and the media malpractice that both stories in their own way demonstrate, provides us with quite an incite into the MSM's collective mindset.
Regarding the latter story, Rush Limbaugh notes, It's a Sorry Day for Our Media:
Ladies and gentlemen, permit me a brief moment for a personal message to Campbell Brown, Suzanne Malveaux, and Ed Henry of CNN. Of course, Suzanne Malveaux asks the president of Georgia, "Have you reached out to the Russians, have you tried dialogue?" And then Ed Henry and Campbell Brown made the ludicrous assertion that we can't do anything because we did something arguably worse by going into Iraq than what Russia is doing in Georgia. So specifically to you, Campbell Brown and Ed Henry, you are journalists. You are people who chronicle the passing of events. You witness these events, and you cover them. As such, your memory ought to be reliable. Iraq was not a sovereign nation. Iraq lost its sovereignty because Iraq invaded a sovereign country called Kuwait. In the ensuing war to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, Iraq lost. They then begged us to stop slaughtering their supposedly invincible million man army as it was retreating to Baghdad, which we did.As I wrote back in 2004, when I reviewed Orrin Judd's Redefining Sovereignty for TCS Daily:As terms of the ceasefire, Campbell Brown and Ed Henry, we resume the right to resume kicking their asses at any point if they did not live up to the terms of the surrender agreement. Shockingly, Saddam Hussein did not live up to those terms and continued in wanton violation of 15 Security Council resolutions. You covered all of this, Campbell Brown and Ed Henry, you covered it all. For you to compare Saddam Hussein to the president of Georgia, a democratic and elected president amongst a free people, if you want to start making comparisons, Putin is closer to Saddam Hussein than Saakashvili. These are our best and brightest trained journalists, ladies and gentlemen, covering the stories and then forgetting that they were even there. I doubt that they forgot. They're just pushing the agenda anyway. They willingly sacrifice their credibility, all in the pursuit of an agenda.
The essays that Judd chose for this section illustrate his opinion that America itself has redefined sovereignty so that the right to maintain the governance of a nation now depends on a regime's ability to maintain basic civil rights, and a conform to liberal democratic norms.The media seem to believe their own B.S.: Saddam's winning every election with a 99.96 percent plurality is not a sign of democracy--just ask the Andrew Sullivan of 2003.Judd notes that the isolationist (or non-interventionist) Right has been quite hostile to this development, "which does of course involve us in the internal affairs of states from Syria to Burma to Somalia to Haiti." However, Judd's selections demonstrate that this is consistent with America's past. Americans after all settled the continent all the way to the Pacific, fought a Civil War at home, and abroad fought Imperialism, Nazism, and Communism successively, all the while requiring other peoples to adopt our own foundational principles.
Rachel Lucas quotes an incredible passage in a San Francisco Chronicle article on an Oakland family that is, shall we say, rather financially overextended:
Joann's parents, Johnnie Gardner, 87, and Estelle, 88, bought the two-bedroom in the Sobrante Park neighborhood in 1954 for $11,500. His salary as an electrician at the Oakland naval shipyard allowed them to make the payments.The interviewee "can't quite say", and the reporter dare not press her, because if she does, the sob story she's attempting to write would likely dissolve instantaneously. Just another dispatch from the age of outrageous credulity.But in recent years, Joann and her brother refinanced it several times for increasingly larger amounts.
The final refinance at the end of 2006 left the family owing $454,000. The monthly payments of $3,362 exceeded the household income of $3,144.
What happened to the money from all the refinances?
Gardner can't quite say. Some went to paying off credit cards; some was eaten up in huge loan fees. What is clear is that the family has not made a mortgage payment since December 2006.
Thomas Frank feverishly lets it all hang out:
The most cherished dream of conservative Washington is that liberalism can somehow be defeated, finally and irreversibly, in the way that armies are beaten and pests are exterminated. Electoral victories by Republicans are just part of the story. The larger vision is of a future in which liberalism is physically barred from the control room--of an "end of history" in which taxes and onerous regulation will never be allowed to threaten the fortunes private individuals make for themselves. This is the longing behind the former White House aide Karl Rove's talk of "permanent majority" and, 20 years previously, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's declaration to the Republican convention that it's "the job of all revolutions to make permanent their gains".That's the stuff! Every time I think that the right is just bumbling around in the dark and rapidly losing ground to the left, something like this from the other side truly warms my heart. As one of Charles Johnson's rotating metatags says, "please more print and distribute and get blessing!"When I first moved to contemplate this peculiar utopian vision, I was struck by its apparent futility. What I did not understand was that beating liberal ideas was not the goal. The Washington conservatives aim to make liberalism irrelevant not by debating, but by erasing it. Building a majority coalition has always been a part of the programme, and conservatives have enjoyed remarkable success at it for more than 30 years. But winning elections was not a bid for permanence by itself. It was only a means.
The end was capturing the state, and using it to destroy liberalism as a practical alternative. The pattern was set by Margaret Thatcher, who used state power of the heaviest-handed sort to implant permanently the anti-state ideology.
"Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul," she said, echoing Stalin. In the 34 years before she became prime minister, Britain rode a see-saw of nationalisation, privatisation and renationalisation; Thatcher set out to end the game for good. Her plan for privatising council housing was designed not only to enthrone the market, but to encourage an ownership mentality and "change the soul" of an entire class of voters. When she sold off nationally owned industries, she took steps to ensure that workers received shares at below-market rates, leading hopefully to the same soul transformation. Her brutal suppression of the miners' strike in 1984 showed what now awaited those who resisted the new order. As a Business Week reporter summarised it in 1987: "She sees her mission as nothing less than eradicating Labour Party socialism as a political alternative."
As I wrote yesterday, it's obvious that the chief role of the legacy media is keeping news out of circulation, rather than generating it. Matthew Sheffield concurs:
In far too many newsrooms, the question is no longer about serving the public's right to know but protecting the public from things it wants to know. No wonder they're looking elsewhere.And just to follow-up on my quote on Tuesday from Umberto Eco about the age of outrageous credulity, the legacy media's role as gatekeeper is combined with their utter naivete when faced with a candidate whom they admire, as John Weidner writes:
Everybody who retained any objectivity could see that [John Edwards] was a phony, and were not surprised by this. When a guy talks populism and green-ism while building the biggest mansion in the county, there's a 99% chance that he's a sham. When a guy spends minutes in front of a mirror fluffing his hairdo, there's a 99% chance that he will not resist the sexual temptations available to a celebrity.Hey, Sam Kinison figured out that last part over 20 years ago.And when you make millions as a trial lawyer, it means you are skilled at convincing people of things that just ain't so.
Most importantly, what you are comes out in your life. If you are real, then a presidential campaign will bring lots of stories to the surface, from people who were impressed with the candidate's actions long before they could be helpful in any campaign. If Edwards really cared about that poor little girl supposedly shivering because she could not afford a coat, he would have been spending time working with groups who help the poor. And doing so long ago, before it might gain him any advantage. (And if Shapiro were a real journalist he would have taken note that cheap coats are available at any thrift store, and that people just give old coats away by the ton. The story was always bogus.)
Update: Dean Barnett adds:
So is it shocking that such a fellow would cheat on his mortally ill wife while recklessly jeopardizing his political agenda (not that he ever gave a fig about that agenda)? Of course not. The more pressing question is how he was able to get away with such a stunt. Okay, he personally charmed Walter Shapiro so Shapiro gets a pass based on his apparent congenital gullibility. But what of the rest of the putatively objective media that didn't get to bask in Edwards' golden glow over "raw" dinners? Why were only Mickey Kaus and the National Enquirer curious about this fellow who so energetically sought to be the world's most powerful man?Related thoughts from Mark Hemingway.
Great moments in MSM leads:
While the amount of sodium cyanide found in a Denver hotel room was enough to kill hundreds of people, the FBI says they do not believe there is any link to terrorism.I feel safer already, don't you? Though Charles Johnson spots one possible link.
The MSM spends much of their working days making sure that any negative news involving their favorite Democratic candidates is kept carefully wraps, but Jack Shafer of Slate suggests that the legacy media goes one step further, and boycotts the upcoming Republican and Democratic conventions:
With just one exception over the last three decades, the two major parties have known the identity of their likely presidential candidate weeks or even months before gaveling their national political conventions open. For that reason, one way to improve coverage of the four-day, quadrennial conventions of Republicans and Democrats would be for the TV networks to assign sportscasters like Bob Costas, Joe Morgan, and John Madden instead of political journalists to report on the gatherings. They know how to make a game with a foregone conclusion seem entertaining.That last suggestion brings to mind a quote from Tom Wolfe back in 1980:
Just try to think of the last major scoop, to use that old term, that was broken on television. I'm sure there have been some. But what story during Watergate? During Watergate there were new stories coming out every day. None were on television, except when television simply broadcast the hearings. The can do a set event. And that's what television is actually best at. In fact, it'd be a service to the country if television news operations were shut down totally and they only broadcast hearings, press conferences and hockey games. That would be television news. At least the public would not have the false impression that it's getting news coverage.Rather than the MSM trucking in so much video gear to the convention halls that their collective carbon footprint is almost as big as Al Gore's, Shafer suggests dumping the whole thing to C-Span:
A still better way to improve convention coverage would be to withdraw all reporters and force the curious to rely on a C-SPAN feed: Unless a brokered convention threatens to break out, these political gatherings tend to produce very little real news. Yet the networks, the newspapers, the magazines, and the Web sites continue to insist on sending battalions of reporters to sift for itsy specks of information.I made the same suggestion four and a half years ago, but safe to say it's never going to happen: convention coverage is the one thing that the legacy media of television gets right, because it's fixed and static, like a sports broadcast; and for new media, it's a chance to see and be seen.
"CNN's John Roberts Pushes Obama's 'Similarities' to Eisenhower, Reagan", which is awfully ironic, considering that both presidents were looked down upon by the left during their terms in office--and that's putting it mildly.
Eisenhower, the man who masterminded the D-Day Invasion, was considered a mental lightweight by most establishment liberals. (Recall also Woody's anti-Ike joke at a fictional Adlai Stevenson rally in an Annie Hall flashback.) And of course, Reagan was absolutely despised by the MSM, as Noemie Emery perceptively recalled last year.
But then, this is all part of the full-service effort that CNN's John Roberts has been putting in this year in aid of the Obama campaign; recall his infamous "Wright-Free Zone" moment back in April.
One Al Gore clubhouse inside of another, as Ted Kaczynski's cabin is on display now at the News mausoleum in Washington, DC.
As Jaime Sneider of the Weekly Standard writes:
So I guess the question is does the "hands on" experience of the Newseum allow visitors to handle the contents of Kaczynski's cabin? Do recall among his only possessions was an underlined copy of Al Gore's Earth in the Balance.For our Silicon Graffiti segment on the Newseum, click here.
(Headline explanation here.)
Brian Fitzpatrick writes that America has a "New Newspaper of Record: the National Enquirer."
The old one seems more obsessed these days with keeping the news away from the public than actually reporting it. Which is increasingly reflected in its bottom line.
Which is why the legacy media keeps rockin'!, on both coasts.
Not surprisingly, I couldn't let the scandal involving John Edwards and Rielle Hunter go without doing a quick Silicon Graffiti on it. The video builds on--and brings up to date--an essay I contributed to the New Partisan in 2005, tying in today's media-created hucksters, with Orson Welles' last completed movie, F For Fake which had just come out on DVD back then. The new SG also quotes (in slightly truncated form), one of my favorite passages from an essay by Umberto Eco:
G K Chesterton is often credited with observing: "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything." Whoever said it--he was right. We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity.Fortunately, the customers seem to be much less credulous these days than those who supply the product.
20 years after Saturday Night Live said goodbye to everyone's favorite Atari Democrat, and from the man who brought you this classic moment:
If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age.Comes the breathless question...Just what if Michael Dukakis had won!
Which begs for a follow-up: What if George Bush had won in 1992?
News from 2004 reaches Tim Rutten!
The whole story of the 2004 election was that the gatekeepers were dethroned--the Swift Vets made their case against John Kerry by doing an end-around old media by running their commercials on the Internet, and Dan Rather's case against George W. Bush was demolished in a tidal wave of distributed information sharing, first via Free Republic, which was joined shortly thereafter in the Blogosphere. Both stories demonstrated precisely how Old Media's role as a gatekeeper was dethroned:
Old Media Dethroned
Edwards' admission signals the end of the era in which traditional media set the limits of acceptable political journalism.
When John Edwards admitted Friday that he lied about his affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, a former employee of his campaign, he may have ended his public life but he certainly ratified an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism.From the start, the Edwards scandal has belonged entirely to the alternative and new media. The tabloid National Enquirer has done all the significant reporting on it -- reporting that turns out to be largely correct -- and bloggers and online commentators have refused to let the story sputter into oblivion.
Earlier today, Glenn Reynolds reminded us--well, the left, to be precise--of Eason Jordan's admission that he was willing to allow CNN to lie for Saddam Hussein, in order to able to put "LIVE FROM BAGHDAD" on the CNN Chyron. Jordan finally came clean on this propaganda coup for Baathist Iraq in mid-2003 after Saddam fled US soldiers in an op-ed titled, "The News We Kept To Our Selves." Evidently, the L.A. Times thought they kept the news of 2004 to themselves as well.
Ace has a great round-up on the media's stonewalling of the John Edwards story:
OPERATION PROTECT ELIZABETHBut the classic showstopper is this moment from MSNBC's David Shuster, in which he feigns shock at the John Edwards' staffers are covering for his boss, and actually has the chutzpah to admit that he followed their advice on not covering the story:Never leave a fellow liberal soldier behind, and never stop fighting until the battle is won. The campaign continues.
"All the News That Doesn't Harm Elizabeth Edwards"
I really can't f***ing believe the media is now deciding whether to report big stories of national scope based on whether someone they like might be distressed by their reportage.
Of course I can believe it; I have to believe it. It's what they're doing, obviously.
I guess the New York Times didn't like Cindy McCain all that much when it reported on McCain's non-affair with his non-paramour.
Should media organizations be required to disclose which people they "like" and wish to "protect," and which people they "don't like" and "don't wish to protect," so that we might know beforehand where their biases may lie?
Seems like a bona fide conflict of interest, more so than many others. If the media is in the tank for Elizabeth Edwards, we need to know that, in order to properly evaluate their coverage of her husband.
More from Ace:
The media has two jobs here, which I've been seeing all day.Shuster was temporarily suspended by MSNBC, seemingly on orders of Hillary Clinton's campaign, after his "pimped out" remark; nobody should be surprised that he, or MSNBC as a whole, spiked a story based on another Democrats' threat.Job One: Reassure the public you knew all about this and are hardly surprised, because you don't want them to think you're so out of the f***ing loop this snuck up on you. So everyone's in "Oh, of course I knew, it was all so obvious!" in-the-know cool-kid mode.
Job Two: The trickier one-- attempt to explain how it can be you knew all about this but didn't report it, or bother to do the minimum threshold of follow-up. Bear in mind, the National Enquirer is a small outfit. When they assign three or four people to a story, that's a substantial fraction of their entire component of reporters and photographers.
It's nothing for a network news organization to assign three or four people to a story -- they've got hundreds of unpaid interns chomping at the bit to do something besides edit and fetch coffee, for God's sakes. So even if they didn't want to send a reporter, they could have sent a dozen recent graduates out there to get the story... which they would have gotten. This was not exactly a Phillip Marlowe murder mystery here.
Note that Job One and Job Two are basically impossible to square in any satisfactory manner. But they're quite righteous and smugly self-complimentary about both.
In this video, David Shuster lets everyone know he knew allllll about this way before the Iowa primary, but failed to report on it -- or, apparently, follow up at all-- because "credible sources" within John Edwards' camp assured him the story was garbage and that he'd be embarrassed to report it.
"You're only as good as your 'sources' are," Shuster says. Well, Dave, your sources are apparently shit, buddy, and you're so f***ing credulous, stupid, or in the tank you deem them "very credible." So I guess you're not that good, eh?
Unable to let it stand there -- with David Shuster looking pretty bad -- he goes on to say how goshdarn angry he is about being lied to by his very credible people/crochet club buddies.
It's their fault, you know.
Which is odd.
Edwards' people were just doing their job. They did their job well.
It was Shuster who failed to do his job.
Why are they to blame? They never held themselves out as disinterested parties or objective observers. They're supposed to be invested in their client's/friend's future.
The undernews finally floats over the top, as ABC News reports, "Edwards Admits to Sexual Affair; Lied as Presidential Candidate" Lionel Hutz a liar? Say it ain't so, Homer!
John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extra-marital affair with a novice film-maker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.So is this enough to get his speaking slot at the Denver convention reinstated, or will he still be considered toxic in a couple of weeks?In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 42-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.
Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter's baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.
Edwards said he knew he was not the father based on timing of the baby's birth on February 27, 2008. He said his affair ended too soon for him to have been the father.
Note this element in the ABC story:
A former campaign aide, Andrew Young, has said he was the father of the child.At this point, the spin that currently puts the story in the best possible light for Edwards is that, as Allah writes, "Rielle Hunter is his lover--but the kid is not his son. Er, daughter." And as the ABC article notes, "A former campaign aide, Andrew Young, has said he was the father of the child."According to friends of Hunter, Edwards met her at a New York city bar in 2006. His political action committee later paid her $114,000 to produce campaign website documentaries despite her lack of experience.
Edwards said the affair began during the campaign after she was hired. Hunter traveled with Edwards around the country and to Africa.
Edwards said his wife, Elizabeth, and others in his family became aware of the affair in 2006.
Edwards made a point of telling Woodruff that his wife's cancer was in remission when he began the affair with Hunter. Elizabeth Edwards has since been diagnosed with an incurable form of the disease.
When the National Enquirer first reported the alleged Edwards-Hunter affair last October 11, Edwards, his campaign staff and Hunter vociferously denounced the report.
"The story is false, it's completely untrue, it's ridiculous," Edwards told reporters then.
He repeated his denials just two weeks ago.
Edwards today admitted the National Enquirer was correct when it reported he had visited Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hilton last month.
This sounds more like behavior more at home with a rock group on tour passing a favored groupie from musician to musician than (presumed) adults trying to position their man to run for the most powerful office in the land.
Mickey Kaus will--very safe to say--have more on this story; for our interview last week with Mickey on XM Satellite Radio, click here.
Dean Barnett explores a topic I've written a fair chunk about as well over the years, the post-objective news world:
By only moderating the conventional news presentation models slightly, Fox became tremendously attractive to right wing viewers. It's little wonder that it took so long for someone to try the same thing on the left. Of course, getting to the left of the other networks required more extreme behavior, but that's a challenge Olbermann has more than met. In doing so, his show has become a major success story, especially among those desirable young viewers.Of course it is.Fox's and Olbermann's success will provide encouragement for other news organizations. The New York Times today published a remarkably obtuse editorial that merits some attention. Writing about the Hamdan trial in an essay risibly titled "Guilty as Ordered," the editors observed:
Now that was a real nail-biter. The court designed by the White House and its Congressional enablers to guarantee convictions of high-profile detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba--using evidence obtained by torture and secret evidence as desired--has held its first trial. It produced ... a guilty verdict.Naturally, the Times rushed this editorial into print before Hamdan was sentenced to a mere 5 1/2 years in jail. The editorial also acknowledges that he was found not guilty of the more serious charge, and was indeed guilty of the charge that he was convicted of. And yet the editors ludicrously wrote, "Guilty as ordered."The military commission of six senior officers (whose names have not been made public) found Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who worked as one of Osama bin Laden's drivers until 2001, guilty of one count of providing material support for terrorism.
The rules of justice on Guantanamo are so stacked against defendants that the only surprise was that Mr. Hamdan was actually acquitted on the more serious count of conspiring (it was unclear with whom) to kill Americans during the invasion of Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001.
The charge on which Mr. Hamdan was convicted seemed logical since he did work as Mr. bin Laden's driver.
This is fever swamp stuff. What's more, it's intellectually lazy/supremely idiotic fever swamp stuff. Take it from someone who reads the Daily Kos--something so intellectually incoherent and factually sloppy would never make it on to the Kos front page. And yet there it was, the lead editorial for America's paper of record this morning.
I have difficulty in believing that the Times editors have all been simultaneously beaten with a stupid stick. Instead, it's more likely that the Times, whether consciously or unconsciously, is trying to follow the new news paradigm of looking for an audience among partisans.
Oh, I hope we're not too messianic, or a trifle too satanic, the sequel:
The McCain campaign is unquestionably targeting the 44 million+ Americans who have read the Left Behind series. The makers of the ad chose all of Obama's quotes very carefully and filled it with image after image equating Senator Obama to the anti-Christ, and especially to Nicolae Carpathia, the anti-Christ in the popular end times novels....You know, sometimes the Leaning Tower of Pisa is merely the Leaning Tower of Pisa.The anti-Christ, in the Left Behind series, Nicolae Carpathia set up a religion called THE ONE World Religion. Carpathia started his career as a young charismatic junior Senator. He made his rise, with Satan's support, by spreading a message of unity, hope, and peace, in an anomic world in the wake of the rapture....
The text and voice over are exact copies of previews for Christian Specific end-times movies.
Special big city jailed mayoral edition.
(Big--but rapidly shrinking--city, incidentally.)
There's a hint of disappointment lurking in the subtext of John McCain's recent videos highlighting just how in the tank the MSM are for Obama; as Michelle Malkin quipped, "Hell hath no fury like a Maverick spurned". And while McCain may have initially counted on the media's support, he really should know better. While the media loved Maverick in the 2000 primaries--at least compared to that Bush guy--and for iconoclastic quotes afterwards, when presidential elections start in earnest, the MSM knows which party they're backing--and they're not afraid to let you know as well.
The latest edition of our Silicon Graffiti videoblog, v-cast, Internet TV show, or whatever the kids are calling these things this week begins with this moment at the conclusion of the 2000 election and goes all the way to 2004's grizzly aftermath, and beyond. With a few surprises along the way...
(Previous editions of Silicon Graffiti can be found by tuning in here.)
The initial seeming near-blackout on the John Edwards scandal in the overculture notwithstanding, the American media aren't the only ones with gaping memory holes: Canada's CBC News profiles Syed Soharwardy, with nary a mention of this minor bit of unpleasantness.
(Via Kathy Shaidle.)
Related: Ezra Levant asks, "Is turn-around fair game?"
Over at Pajamas Media, Bridget Johnson tolls the death knell for L.A.'s newspaper industry.
We looked at the technological reasons why the newspaper industry is sinking in a recent Silicon Graffiti video. But L.A.'s a unique situation: if only the town's chief industry lended itself better to big, juicy stories that sold newspapers--or if only there was a big hot breaking scandal going on in the town that the town's biggest paper could sink its teeth into!
Oh well--clearly, it must be hard generating news in such a sleepy, backwater locale.
Time magazine must be enormously proud of the civil tone and the rigorous quality of arguments advanced by one of its most prominent figures.Wehner notes one of the dangers of MSM blogging:
Wouldn't you know it? In my recent exchanges with Joe Klein, I made the point that blogging was harming Klein because it allowed his unfiltered rage to make its way into print (so to speak), thereby embarrassing him and Time magazine. Klein responded with a blog post offering... more unfiltered rage.On the other hand, at least it allows the rest of a chance to see what's behind all the increasingly sclerotic claims of "objectivity", "fairness," and other legacy media reflexive arguments left over from the mid-20th century.I sense a pattern developing.
Matthew Sheffield has an interesting observation at Newsbusters. He notes that "non-ideological points are pretty much the only type of criticism that you'll see the establishment liberal press allow to be made against Democratic presidential candidates. Republicans, meanwhile, can be criticized at a personal level and on a policy level":
Think back: In 2004, George W. Bush was portrayed by Big Media as an arrogant, stupid, warmonger peddling reckless tax cut. In contrast, John Kerry was portrayed as a high-falutin' rich kid who was being dogged by false charges of insufficient patriotism. (Right-leaning arguments against a Democrat are always spurious.)And even there, I'm not sure how critical the response was from Big Media. On the one hand, the exceedingly establishment liberal Saturday Night Live's "Dukakis After Dark sketch" in 1988 (now apparently embargoed on Hulu or YouTube) had a great line from Jon Lovitz, who played Dukakis:In 2000, Bush was portrayed as an ignorant doofus who wouldn't have gotten anywhere without his daddy's status. On the ideological side, he was a stupid isolationist with a fetish for tax cuts and destroying Social Security. Al Gore, meanwhile was just a robotic arrogant jerk.
Go further back and the trend still holds. Bob Dole was an old desperate sell-out pandering to the far right, Bill Clinton was just a philanderer who wasn't sufficiently liberal. George H. W. Bush, meanwhile was basically the same as Dole with the added horror of being the legatee of the fiend Ronald Reagan.
You have to go back to 1988 with Michael Dukakis to find a Democrat who encountered widespread criticism in Big Media for his ideology. That is a pretty sad fact.
Well, thanks for coming to the party. That just about does it for the campaign. You know, I think the one thing that really hurt us is the fact that Reaganomics works. It really does. I mean, aren't you better off than you were eight years ago? I know I am. How about the rest of you? [ looks at his guests, who shake their heads in agreement ] I wish you weren't, but you are. You are better off. And there's no denying it. Well, I'd like to thank my guests - my running-mate, Lloyd Bentsen, who'd asked me to remind you he's still on the ballot down in Texas; Jane Fonda; Daniel Ortega; an, of course, my good friend Ted Kennedy. Good night.But the title of the equally establishment history of the campaign by Jules Witcover and Jack Germond, Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars? The Trivial Pursuit of the Presidency 1988, tells you exactly how the authors thought that Dukakis was beaten, through symbolism, and not ideology.
But beyond that, I'd say that Matthew is spot-on. The media's cognitive dissonance in 2004 over the response to the early-1970s reserve activities of the two major candidates--"lying" Swift Vets, versus "fake but accurate" TANG documents illustrates Sheffield's Law perfectly.
Paul Mirengoff of Power Line writes that "Obama Removes his mask": "It's not even quite August yet and he's still ahead in the polls, but Barack Obama has played the race card, claiming that he expects Republicans to inject race into the campaign.":
It seems clear, therefore, that the race card has become a permanent part of Obama's hand, a wild card to be played whenever the spirit, or the circumstances, so moves him.But for maximum effectiveness, you only get to play this card once--use it repeatedly, and it increasingly seems like crying wolf. And firing it in late July, when nobody but us wonks is paying much attention to the presidential race seems like a rookie error. Which plays right into the McCain camp's hands when the media takes the bait, as Ace writes:What does Obama's latest play tell us about the current circumstances? I think it tells us that, despite Obama's presidential preening, he senses he may be in trouble. The "world tour" bounce appears to have been a short-hop only, and his pretentiousness is beginning to grate even on some in the MSM. The McCain campaign is ridiculing Obama as a celebrity and little more. There's enough truth in this suggestion to make the candidate uncomfortable. He doesn't feel he can ignore the attack, but he also cannot respond with "I am too a man of substance who deserves my celebrity." Hence the whining; hence the race card.
Obama's attempts to mau-mau (am I allowed to say that?) the press may or may not be successful; but some reporters aren't buying the Obama camp's preferred practice of crying racism at the drop of a hat.Exactly.But it definitely won't work with the broader public. So Obama's game here is a dangerous one for him. White people bitterly cling to their resentment that they can't say boo without being accused of being closet, or out and proud, racists. If Obama thinks he's actually going to persuade the middle by claiming that you don't vote for him, you must be a racist, he's in a for a bad surprise.
This worked in the primary, because all liberals are required to pretend that every single cry of racism is valid. Not so among the bitter, clingy folks.
After Barack Obama's more-than-enthusiastic greeting by many attendees at the UNITY convention for minority journalists in Chicago on Sunday, some in the media have expressed outrage that some have now questioned their objectivity, despite the appalled reactions from some of their own peers to the display and the live video shown on CNN [above].Indeed--I'd say you're living up to your responsibilities just fine.April Yee wrote on Andrew Romano's blog on Newsweek.com on Monday about the question of whether minority journalists can cover the Illinois senator objectively. She quoted Ernest Suggs of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who objected to this question even coming up in the first place: "That mindset needs to change.... It is offensive that because we have the same color or the same agenda, our journalistic ethics and responsibilities go out the window."
Remember the bad old days of Kremlinology, when analysts would study who was airbrushed out of Soviet photos to see who was out of power?
Greg Pollowitz notices--for some reason known only to the L.A. Times and don't you dare read anything into it--a curious update of the photos of potential veep candidates by the Times.
Mickey Kaus's ongoing victory lap takes him to the virtual studios of PJM Political this week.
John McCain? No--Osama bin Laden!
Osama bin Laden wanted to introduce himself to America with an ABC television interview months before al Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa, the interviewer testified on Tuesday.Michael Moore and Brian Williams could not be reached for comment.Former ABC correspondent John Miller, testifying at the first Guantanamo war crimes trial, also recalled comparing bin Laden with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt as he made small talk during filming of the May 28, 1998, interview at an Afghanistan mountain hideout.
It was a rare opportunity for an American journalist, and Miller detailed a movie-thriller route to get to bin Laden, complete with multiple plane flights in Pakistan, a nighttime border crossing into Afghanistan, and muzzle flashes from automatic weapons at an al Qaeda checkpoint.
"You are like the Middle East version of Teddy Roosevelt," Miller, who is now the chief FBI spokesman, told bin Laden in a selection of the interview tape screened for the trial of bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan.
In that Orwellian L.A. Times sense of the word, of course.
Last night, when I was wading through background material about John Edwards for my interview today with Mickey Kaus for this week's PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio, I noticed something odd about Edwards' Wikipedia profile--there's no mention of a rather high-profile scandal that's orbiting directly above him, which seems pretty odd; Wikipedia pages are rather notorious for often being the first to be updated when news or a scandal breaks. And they definitely have news of Bob Novak's health scare, which broke earlier today. And today, instead of silence, there's this at the top of Edwards' profile there.
(Oh--did I mention I'm interviewing Kaus on Edwards this week? Tune in here on Wednesday; it will be more informative than this interview, I assure you.)
Robert Stacy McCain writes, "Blogging sucks: Women, minorities hardest hit:"
If there's anything in the world I hate, it's women reporters writing "Oh, we're so oppressed" stories in the New York Times:I wrote my rebuttal to this legacy media perennial three years ago; and it's not as though the Times itself is in the black, as Thomas Lifson and I discussed this week on PJM Political.[M]any women at the conference were becoming very Katie Couric about their belief that they are not taken as seriously as their male counterparts at, say, Daily Kos, a political blog site. Nor, they said, were they making much money, even though corporations seem to be making money from them. . . .Ladies, please: If your blog sucks, it's not because of some patriarchal conspiracy, OK? And as for making money, you could almost certainly fit into my living room every independent blogger who earns a full-time living off blogging. Generally speaking, bloggers either have some other job to support their blogging habit, or else they're "blogging for the man" (e.g., the Atlantic Monthly bloggers, the Gawker cartel, etc.).Yet, when Techcult, a technology Web site, recently listed its top 100 Web celebrities, only 11 of them were women. Last year, Forbes.com ran a similar list, naming 3 women on its list of 25.
"It's disheartening and frustrating," said Allison Blass, a BlogHer attendee. . . .
(Via Dr. Helen.)
Mickey Kaus wonders if the Obama-worshiping media will help toss John Edwards under the bus for him:
Will the Pro-Obama Bias Turn Anti-Edwards? At this point, does Barack Obama want John Edwards to even show up in Denver, much less give a prime time speech? Even if the Love-Child saga progresses no further than it already has, an Edwards Denver appearance will inevitably be accompanied by renewed speculation about his seemingly scandalous and politically toxic behavior. Obama's in what looks like a surprisingly close race. He doesn't need to carry Edwards' baggage. He needs a positive convention. And Obama has previously shown a willingness to bury troublesome associates without much fuss (ask Jim Johnson).Glenn Reynolds suggests, "If so, just pass the word and the L.A. Times will be all over the story. With memos to bloggers encouraging them to cover it!"If you're an Obama strategist, mightn't you conclude that the best thing for your candidate would be if the press weighs in quickly and definitively concludes that Edwards is guilty, with the result that he and his whole sordid story go away until after November?
Heh, Indeed.TM
Meanwhile, if Edwards is increasingly likely to be out as Obama's veep nominee, Michael Costello proposes a viable replacement. His wide stance on the issues will certainly get the media's toes-a-tappin'!
Sounding a bit like the Bud Lite "Real Men of Genius" commercials, The Columbia Journalism Review salutes you--the men of...Real Journalism!
Today's front-page piece in The New York Times about Congressman Charlie Rangel's rent-control boondoggle--he has four rent-controlled apartments in Manhattan, including one that serves as a campaign office--is a clear illustration of what separates a real journalist from the thousands of pretenders who take great pleasure in denigrating the embattled MSM.Except of course, when gatekeepers are perfectly happy to keep things quiet:The very existence of the piece makes the case. We don't typically find such stories on blogs, in part because most "citizen journalists" don't have a professional journalist's DNA. They too often pursue personal agendas, or partisan ones. There is evidence that this is changing--the citizen journalists at places like Off the Bus and the Chi-Town Daily News strive for journalism that is intellectually honest--and that is a welcome change indeed. Journalism--however flawed--is built upon the ideas that public servants should be held to a higher standard, that the powerful must be checked when they abuse that power, that the public has a right to information that the powerful would rather keep hidden.
From: "Pierce, Tony"(Found via Steve Boriss.)Date: July 24, 2008 10:54:41 AM PDT
To: [XXX]
Subject: john Edwards [sic]
Hey bloggers,
There has been a little buzz surrounding John Edwards and his alleged affair. Because the only source has been the National Enquirer we have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations. So I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified.
If you have any questions or are ever in need of story ideas that would best fit your blog, please don't hesitate to ask [sic]
Keep rockin, [sic]
Tony
Mickey Kaus explores "Edwards and the agony of the MSM", beginning with his paraphrase of a Business Week article on John Edwards by Jon Fine:
Fine notes that "Edwards isn't considered a likely vice-presidential candidate by the press." That's true. But he is a likely Obama cabinet official. Many Dems would like to see him as Attorney-General. That's what's at stake in the love-child coverage. The Enquirer has killed him as a VP candidate. But if the MSM goes into full "protect Elizabeth" mode the damage might yet not quite be enough to stop his confirmation by a Democratic Senate next year. "Protect Elizabeth" = "protect A.G. John."After a long list of MSM outlets that fail to report the story, Mickey quotes Jim Treacher:
"Which story gets a bigger audience: A story the blogs run with but the mainstream news ignores, or a story the news runs with but the blogs ignore? I'm thinking the news comes out ahead, but just barely. And at this rate, not for much longer."And it's not like such an MSM bottleneck on a story that everyone knows the basics of hasn't happened before. As Tony Blankley wrote in late August of 2004:
Mark the calendar. August 2004 is the first time that the major mainline media -- CBSNBCABCNEWYORKTIMESWASHINGTONPOST L.A.TIMESNEWSWEEKTIMEMAGAZINEASSOCIATED PRESSETC. -- ignored a news story that nonetheless became known by two-thirds of the country within two weeks of it being mentioned by the "marginal" press.As Blankley wrote, August 2004 may have been the first time the undernews bubbled straight to the surface, but obviously, it will be far from the last.It was only after a CBS poll showed that Kerry had lost a net 14 percent of the veteran's vote to Bush -- without aid of major media coverage or substantial national advertising -- that the major media outlets began to lumber, resentfully, in the vague direction of the story. And even then, they hardly engaged themselves in the spirit of objective journalism.
According to Editor and Publisher, the respected voice of official big-time journalism: "Chicago Tribune managing editor James O'Shea tells Joe Strupp the Swift Boat controversy may be an instance of a growing problem for newspapers in the expanding media world -- being forced to follow a questionable story because non-print outlets have made it an issue. "There are too many places for people to get information," says O'Shea. "I don't think newspapers can be gatekeepers anymore -- to say this is wrong, and we will ignore it. Now we have to say this is wrong, and here is why."
Now, there are two revealing statements there. First, it is odd to see Mr. O'Shea, an official, credentialed seeker of truth, complaining about "too many places for people to get information." He sounds like a resentful old apparatchik glaring at a Xerox machine in the dying days of the Soviet Union.
The second noteworthy statement is the hilarious complaint that they can no longer merely think a story is wrong and ignore it: "Now we have to say this is wrong, and here is why." It apparently escaped his thought process that if he hadn't yet investigated the story, it might not be "wrong." A seeker of truth in a competitive environment might have phrased the sentence: "Now we will have to report it to determine if it is right or wrong."
AMC's Mad Men series is filled with poke-the-viewer-in-the-ribs moments where characters in a TV series set in 1960 are smoking and drinking like, err, mad--even with their kids around, and on the way, in the case of one pregnant character who smokes like a chimney. And yet somehow, we all managed to survive such a stone knives and bearskins culture. So I have to laugh when a celebrity gossip site, full of photos of Hollywood actresses in various stages of undress and occasionally in various stages of acts that would have caused the boys in the Hayes Office to go into complete myocardial infarction in 1960, has a puritanical headline such as this: "Britney Spears in a Bikini is Smoking... In Front of Her Kids."
Gosh--I know I'm shocked.
Something else the characters in Mad Men wouldn't be the least surprised by, because they had a millennium of history and common sense to go by: "Social stigma drives some women to remove tattoos."
And as usual, the L.A. Times, where history and culture are always in the present-tense, is surprised by (a) a topic that Theodore Dalrymple was writing about nearly a decade and a half ago and (b) your grandmother understood 50 years ago.
(Via Conservative Grapevine.)
"We don't see a need to improve upon our credibility by, say, putting the audio on the web."
--Der Spiegel, which according to Patterico, helpfully rewrote Iraqi PM Maliki's remarks for "clarity."
Related: "Photo Ops and 'Fake Interviews': Obama's Excellent Overseas Adventure."
"Some of us have a theory that he might once have been a president of the United States, but that he did something horrendous, so that all records, everything was wiped out about him. There is nothing in history books. There are no pictures on stamps or money."
Unlike the fellow in the video archives that Woody's asked to identify in the above clip from Sleeper, it seems increasingly unlikely that John Edwards will ever be president. But Mickey Kaus wonders if the Ministry of Information will quietly toss Edwards' file down the memory hole to avoid the potential risk of doubleplus ungood malreported prolefeed:
Will this be the first presidential-contender level scandal to occur completely in the undernews, without ever being reported in the cautious, respectable MSM? That's always seemed an interesting theoretical possibility--a prominent politician just disappears from the scene, after blogs and tabloids dig up dirt on him, but nobody who relies on the Times, Post, network news or Mark Halperin has the faintest idea why.Didn't the MSM already do that to the 1970's-era back story of Edwards' running mate in 2004?
"This is my proposed Quayle Test. Ask yourself: How each time Obama says something stoopid, would the press would have crucified Dan Quayle for it?"
(Via Glenn Reynolds.)
Where's Walter Winchell when you need him? "SEN. JOHN EDWARDS CAUGHT WITH MISTRESS AND LOVE CHILD!"
That's the stuff! (The stuff that probably just cost the Silkmeister a chance at being Obama's veep.)
"Free piece of advice to the lovelorn Maverick: Perhaps McCain should leave the media mockery to others who haven't had their lips planted on the MSM's backside for decades."
Having been rejected for publication by the New York Times, copies of which are no doubt sold throughout our northernmost 51st state, John McCain clearly has a slam-dunk case for the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.
According to this AP report from April, Katie Couric's evening news show "averaged 5.34 million viewers last week, breaking a record low for CBS News' flagship show that had been set the week before, according to Nielsen Media Research."
And the rest of you 295 million troglodytes who tuned her out? Sexist bastards, the lot of you:
"Unfortunately I have found out that many viewers are afraid of change. The glory days of TV news are over, and the media landscape has been dramatically changed. News is available now for everyone, everywhere, all the time, and everybody fights for the last pieces of the shrinking pie. The corporate pressure and the ratings terror are intensifying all the time, and the situation is not simple. I find myself in the last bastion of male dominance, and realizing what Hillary Clinton might have realized not long ago: that sexism in the American society is more common than racism, and certainly more acceptable or forgivable. In any case, I think my post and Hillary's race are important steps in the right direction."All that pioneering bravery, and for only $15 million a year.
Warner Todd Huston asks, "So, What Should we Call The Media, Anyway?"
Roger Kimball offers some advice to John McCain:
This fact is one reason I generally try to refrain from dispensing advice to candidates. But the recent dust-up--first reported, I believe, by the Drudge Report--over The New York Times's refusal to print an op-ed by John McCain responding to an op-ed they published the week before by Barack Obama prompts me to depart, at least partially, from this tradition.I agree, except that since the Times' unforced error already occurred, Sen. McCain should exploit their incredible double-standard as much as he can; it will rally his base and build sympathy amongst undecideds. Much like RatherGate (which this is already being compared to, rightly or wrongly) and its proprietors' meltdown ended up being a pretty healthy gift to President Bush, McCain should collect as many dividends as possible from the Times' enormous gaffe.I say "at least partially" because my advice is negative: I do not have a 5-point program for ending taxes, avoiding death, or obtaining waterfront property in Maine free of charge. But I hate to see wasted energy just as much as Al Gore says he hates it, and I have a simple one-stop program for saving the McCain campaign--and the campaigns of other Republican candidates--quite a lot of energy. (By the way, you can read the McCain op-ed in The New York Post here.)
It's as simple as it is efficient: Ignore The New York Times. More and more of your constituents are doing so, why shouldn't you? Join the many happy folks who have Kicked the Times: Don't read it, don't refer to it, don't regard it as an authority on anything. You'll feel cleaner and your blood pressure will thank you. Above all, do not write, and do not allow your staff to write, op-eds for the Times. On the off chance that the paper actually publishes your piece, you will only help to bolster its sense of smug self-righteousness and perpetuate the illusion that the paper treats the candidates, or the issues, even-handedly. They don't, and you shouldn't collude in fostering the destructive myth that they do.
Update: Just fire up Premiere Pro and tack a line or two onto the end of this ad!
Rick Moran writes, "The story of John McCain's discarded op-ed explains why the New York Times is dying":
Someday, when newspapers are a thing of the past and you take your grandkid to the museum where artifacts of the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune are on display in vacuum sealed cases to protect the yellowing, brittle paper from disappearing entirely, there will be a special exhibit devoted entirely to the New York Times.The news industry has already built the museum that Rick describes--join us on a video tour!Famous front pages will be featured along with pictures of the Sulzberger family who owned the paper for generations, famous reporters, and the last publisher when the paper folded in 2018--Matt Drudge.
The inscription on the shiny bronze plate below the exhibit might read:
Thought of as the "newspaper of record" for more than 100 years, the Times eventually succumbed to disappearing ad revenue, a catastrophic decline in circulation, and the consequences of a perpetual, unrelenting, obvious and sickening bias exhibited against its political enemies.
Roger L. Simon confesses, "When I read this morning on the Drudge Report that the New York Times had rejected John McCain's op-ed, I think I knew how he was feeling. I too have been rejected by the paper":
In my case it came after having written for them successfully several times, notably a couple of humorous essays I did for the New York Times Book Review about my travels to the Soviet Union and Spain with International Association of Crime Writers, so I was particularly hurt by their rejection of an article the magazine section had commissioned from me in early 2003.As I wrote back in 2004, after the Times' then-ombudman wrote, "Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? Of course it is":The subject of that article? The burgeoning interest in political blogs. I took the position that such bloggers as Glenn Reynolds and Mickey Kaus were becoming more influential with readers than newspaper columnists and would soon be a serious alternative to (though not a full replacement for) mainstream media. The Times turned it down. As with McCain, they asked me to "try again" and I did--but I soon realized I had a message they didn't want to hear or promote.
So it came as no surprise to me that the paper nixed John McCain's view on Iraq, wanting him to explain what "victory" meant. (How risible is that after all this time!) Despite its pretense of even-handedness, the Times is no more "fair and balanced" than Fox News or anybody else. No media outlet is. They try to hide it by publishing select political opponents like David Brooks, but that is no more than smoke screen. Bias is as American as apple pie. (Come to think of it--bias is as human as breathing.)
Okrent's admission has repercussions throughout virtually all of America's media. For example, the New York Times finally admits it's liberal, but still carries the motto, "All the news that's fit to print".Of course, the Times doesn't know it (well, maybe they do now), but in a sense, they did McCain a huge favor by generating sympathy for McCain amongst his base, which often doesn't feel all that simpatico with their candidate. But thanks to the Times, --"You're a real conservative at last, Maverick!"What does that do to the folks who claim that because Fox sometimes tilts to the right (don't tell Geraldo and Greta, though) that they shouldn't be using "fair and balanced"?
Meanwhile, Greg Pollowitz notes the op-ed that ran in place of McCain's.
Scott Whitlock writes:
On Monday's "MSNBC News Live," journalist Andrea Mitchell and Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart discussed whether Americans are not "sophisticated" enough to understand the attempted satire in the cartoon featured on the cover of the current New Yorker magazine. According to Mitchell, "...The only question there is whether [the cover] is too sophisticated to actually be perceived the way it is intended."Congrats, Andrea! You've just personified each and every element present in the second most famous New Yorker cover.
Charles Johnson notes that "the Barack Obama campaign has been making sure Obama doesn't have to answer any real questions from the international media."
(Such as a question about his choice of venues in Germany.)
Meanwhile, here's a domestic reporter that Obama would actually be quite wise to meet with:
On Wednesday, presumptive Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama blamed his wife's high negative ratings on "the conservative press--Fox News and the National Review" as well as "rants by Sean Hannity."In the late 1960s and 1970s, when television meant four liberal networks and the sole token conservative program was Bill Buckley's Firing Line, Ronald Reagan benefited greatly by regularly going into the network hornets' nests, debating, and regularly besting his ideological opponents in the media.He also said, "And you know, the problem is that rarely do these folks have the guts to say it to your face."
On Thursday, Hannity struck back (video embedded right):
Senator Obama, here is my invitation. Anything I've ever said about you, you can sit right here, and I will say it to your face. Do you have the guts to come on this program and take some tough questions?
And at least until this year, John McCain counted many of his best friends in those same networks. On the opposite side of the aisle, Hillary easily survived an appearance on Bill O'Reilly's show this year; and as Roger Ailes noted last year, "The candidates that can't face Fox, can't face Al Qaeda".
Even as liberal comedians continue to knock their product, if not its target, the legacy media celebrates a broad diversity of marketing slogans as it prepares for November:
CBS News creative director Bob Peterson has rolled out this new logo for CBS News coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign. CBS continues with the "Campaign '08" theme, while ABC calls theirs "Vote '08" and NBC's is "Decision '08"Oh to have been a fly on the wall when the real Don Drapers of Madison Avenue submitted their bills for those innovative slogans!
Michael M. Bates writes that back in print regarding former Senator Max Cleland is "a liberal myth, one still being circulated by the New York Times":
"Obama's Lobbyist Policy Excludes Cleland" was posted last night on the New York Times's "The Caucus" blog. It relates that former Georgia Senator Max Cleland was disinvited from a Barack Obama fundraiser because the decorated war veteran is now a registered lobbyist.Fortunately, we have YouTube--we can fact check your Sulzberger!The piece ends with:
As a surrogate for Senator John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, Mr. Cleland often got marquee billing at campaign events, even landing a coveted speaking role at the Democratic National Convention. He lost his bid for a second term in 2002 after a Republican television advertisement depicted him as unpatriotic.
Bates goes on to quote Michael Crowley in the liberal e-zine Slate:
Most famously, Chambliss ran a vicious ad on Cleland's homeland security votes featuring images of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. In the popular liberal mythology, the ad disgustingly questioned Cleland's patriotism. "To this day I am motivated by--and I will be throughout this campaign--the most craven moment I've ever seen in politics, when the Republican Party challenged this man's patriotism in the last campaign," John Kerry has said.Evidently, the Times is counting on its readers not to simply search for the video themselves--but of course, why Timesperson Michael Falcone couldn't do that himself and embed a link or the actual video is also a reasonable question.But that's not what happened. The ad, though sleazy in its use of Osama and Saddam, didn't question Cleland's patriotism. It questioned his political courage and judgment. It focused narrowly on his behavior in office and his actual votes against the Homeland Security Department. With images of Bin Laden and Saddam flashing onscreen, a narrator declared that, "As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead." The ad then listed Cleland's votes against the Homeland Security Department and said he was stalling "the president's vital homeland security efforts." It concluded: "Max Cleland says he has the courage to lead, but the record proves Max Cleland is just misleading."
Unfortunately, Cleland did a lousy job of responding to such attacks. As he was pummeled on national security--clearly the issue of the day as war with Iraq neared, Cleland stuck to stale Democratic themes like Social Security. Occasionally, Cleland and his supporters counterattacked, but they were ineffective.
That's Bill O'Reilly's take, in response to AP disparaging Tony Snow in their obit, after canonizing Tim Russert.
But then AP already announced that they're quite happy to ditch objectivity, as I noticed in my previous post.
Venomous Kate writes, "When we were visiting the in-laws last week, I didn't have internet access and actually found myself reading a dead-tree newspaper for the first time in several years":
It was discomfiting to settle for poorly written stories that barely skimmed the surface of an issue while realizing that immediately educating myself further on a topic or reading a dissenting opinion wasn't an option. More than once I found myself questioning statistics in a story about the election or the war but I couldn't hop online to do some fact-checking of my own.Indeed--although as I've written several times here over the years, increasingly journalists are quite happy to either (a) tell you their biases or (b) even if they don't, let it all hang so far out that it's obvious. And in a curious development that in a way is the final triumph of the Blogosphere--AP is encouraging its journalists to inject more of their biases into a story, not less.No wonder so many technophobes can't discuss politics beyond sound bites and headlines, I found myself thinking. How can we ever consider our voting populace educated if they're limited to merely accepting biased statements as "news"?
But therein lies the biggest limitation and turn-off for many readers: you either know and accept that a newspaper or news magazine has a political prejudice and will be running slanted stories that leave you in the dark or you assume you've got the full story when, in fact, you probably don't. (And you know what they say about people who "assume" things.)
That's the real change the internet's brought to MSM: readers who are interested in the issues no longer have to depend upon a paper to decide for them "all the news that's fit to print".
Don't understand the situation in Darfur, much less know where the place is? Hop online and read Wikipedia, then explore from there. Wonder why Conservatives think Obama's secretly a Muslim when, after all, he attended a (possibly racist) church? Do some exploring and decide for yourself.
When you read the news online, additional information is just a mouse click away. When you read it in a newspaper or magazine you're not just subscribing to their publication but to their political biases as well.
Having been through the whole Dan Rather/National Guard memo debacle in the last election, I know better than to trust the accuracy what I see in print. MSM's political bias has, in my mind, become a given.
Judging by the drop in subscriptions and advertising revenue for print media, even people who don't spend their entire days at the computer are starting to realize and reject this limitation, too.
So is this the beginning of the end for newspapers and news magazines in printed form? Quite possibly. But it might also signal a new beginning, too: that of the curious, self-educated reader. News organizations desiring to stay in business might want to take note and work with that. A good start: eliminating the annoying registration requirements and paid access to archives which simply send online readers looking for a more convenient source of news. An even better approach: stop fearing the blogosphere and start linking to it, instead.
Unless, of course, newspaper and magazine editors really are afraid readers will discover just how biased their stories are.
Just the facts? That's strictly Jack Webb and Dragnet '66, dude.
Related: As for another mass media whose freshness date has long expired? "Some People Still Watch TV And Get What They Deserve."
Ever since the media's infamous "DemocRATS" articles first ran in September during the 2000 campaign, usually the subliminal advertising paranoia begins to arrive late in the race, as with the Republican follow-up in October, 2004.
But as a helpful way to deflect attention from the New Yorker's cartoon, ABC has discovered that theoretically it's possible, that if you watch John McCain's new, nearly eight minute long video attacking Obama's Iraq War flipflops while you stand on your head, look cross-eyed, simultaneously chant passages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead and take hits from an Evian-cooled bong full of Acapulco Gold, it's possible to see what looks like it might be the letters Al Qaeda, in one of the video's 14,000 or so frames.
Abraham Zapruder could not be reached for comment.
And no word yet, if you play the anti-Obama ad backwards, if it spells out Paul Is Dead, Here's To My Sweet Saul Alinsky, or Hillary Is The Antichrist.
See if you can spot the disparity between the photo and its caption in this NPR story. Here's the text:
Angelica Hernandez (left) and her mother, Gloria Nunez, struggle to make ends meet on a very limited budget.Click over for the photo.
The headline of the article is "For Some Ohioans, Even Meat Is Out Of Reach", which of course, probably makes PETA quite happy, in much the same way that rising gasoline prices give a warm fuzzy feeling to Gore and Obama.
That's the advice to comedians from leftwing journalist Joel Stein, (who knows a thing or two about recovering from the proverbial botched joke himself), as he explains, "How To Make Fun Of Obama" in the L.A. Times. As Stein tells comics, you "have an arsenal of jokes to use against a 71-year-old ex-POW cancer survivor and Obama is too touchy a subject?
Ronald Reagan's famous quip to Jimmy Carter during the presidential debates in 1980 was designed to puncture Carter's ever-growing hectoring punitive liberal tone. Carter's natural elitism was masked by his initial sunny campaign persona and omnipresent smile during his 1976 campaign, but worn down by four years in which Carter's fecklessness was no match for rising inflation, unemployment and interest rates, a flat-lined stock market, a newly radicalized and reprimitivized Middle East, and a Soviet Union which had reacquired its taste for land acquisition, all a direct result, as the Gipper would go on to prove once in office, of Carter's outdated playback coupled with Carter's own built-in sense of malaise.
Fortunately for the American public, Barack Obama has arrived at the same dissipated and humorless state merely from being out on the campaign trail, instead of after four painful bumbling years actually in the Oval Office!
Of course, those could well be on the way no matter what happens, but Obama's current malaise may be why, as James Bowman posits, the New Yorker tried to do Obama a favor this week, by giving him something to punch against, to restore the populist charm of his campaign back in the earlier, carefree days of the primaries:
The most disturbing thing about this media storm is the utter humorlessness not only of the hard left and the media, which we already pretty much knew about, but of the Obama campaign itself, which professed to be mightily offended by the cartoon. And suddenly I am struck by another possibility: that the posture of taking offense was the Obama campaign's repudiation of the support of the eggheaded, Kerry-loving, cheese-eating faction that so many Americans look on as elitist. At the risk of being seen to have jumped on the paranoiac band-wagon myself, I wonder if giving the offense in the first place was The New Yorker's way of offering him that opportunity to disclaim the elitist tendency he was so damaged by when Hillary Clinton successfully identified him with it during the primary campaign.But of course, Obama is no mood to look at gift cover in the mouth, as Kathleen Parker writes:
Oh, for a good riposte.But that was before the Cult Of Obama was cemented into place as the official narrative, right around the time of this messianic MTV moment. As a result, Charles Krauthammer writes, "Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself":Barack Obama's levity-free reaction to the now-famous New Yorker cartoon leaves one reluctantly wondering: Is he humor-challenged? Perchance, does he take himself too seriously for a nation of wits and wags?
So soaring has been Obama's rhetoric and so dazzling his smile that we've missed the possibility that the Illinois senator is less the lanky rock star and more the purse-lipped church lady, clucking his tongue in disapproval of the chuckling masses.
His campaign's angry reaction to the magazine cover shows a stunning lack of political dexterity. It wasn't always so.
In earlier days, Obama was self-deprecating and light of touch. But something happens as people get closer to Washington, as Obama himself has pointed out in other contexts. A popular story that Obama tells concerns a Las Vegas debate during which he was asked about his weaknesses.
Obama answered that he has trouble keeping up with paper, that his desk is a mess. O.K., it wasn't knee-slapping hilarious, but it was honest and, therefore, endearing. A real answer from a real person.
In contrast, two of Obama's contenders, both Washington veterans, responded to the same question with the kind of painful earnestness that makes dogs cynical. As Obama recounts it, one of them said his biggest weakness was that "I'm just so passionate about helping poor people." The other said, "I'm just so impatient to help the American people solve their problems."
Oof.
Obama continues the story: "So then I realize, well, I wish I'd gone last and then I would have known." (Laughter, applause.) "I'm stupid that way, I thought that when they asked what your biggest weakness was, they asked what your biggest weakness was. And now I know that my biggest weakness is I like to help old ladies across the street."
Now, that's funny. And there's a reason the other two candidates — John "passionate" Edwards and Hillary "impatient" Clinton — aren't leading the Democratic ticket.
There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?Much like Senator Kerry before him, Obama's newly discovered humorlessness is a gift to John McCain and his advisors if they're savvy enough to use it to their advantage, and in a sane world, it would be a gift to late night TV as well, if they only they were smart enough to get their own sympathies out of the way and have some fun for a change:Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.
Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.
After all, in the words of his own slogan, "we are the ones we've been waiting for," which, translating the royal "we," means: " I am the one we've been waiting for." Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his lectern, until general ridicule -- it was pointed out that he was not yet president -- induced him to take it down.
"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough slammed the "hacks" at "The Daily Show" on Wednesday for only making fun of Republicans and giving a free pass to Democrats. Discussing a July 15 New York Times piece that described how TV comics and talk show hosts are hesitant to make fun of Barack Obama, Scarborough mocked, "I never want to hear anybody from 'The Daily Show' or any of these other shows ever saying again, 'We speak truth to power.' 'Cause you know what they do? They speak truth to Republicans."Because Obama is rife for satire, as Kyle Smith notes:After admitting that Republicans have made many mistakes over the last seven years, the MSNBC host continued to eviscerate the crew at the "The Daily Show" and others: " But, please, don't be subversive, because you're not. Because you're a hack. You're a hack for the Democratic Party and you only tell jokes about one side."
Jimmy Kimmel says comedy writers refuse to make fun of Obama because he's black: "There's a weird reverse racism going on." Others vow that, gee, they'd be wiling to make fun of Obama but, damn, he just hasn't done anything worthy of making jokes about yet.As Kyle wrote, it's "Day Five since Barack Obama's camp revealed he has suffered an acute humorectomy"; if, as Joe Scarborough wrote above, a similarly humor-challenged conservative were discovered (cough--Quayle--cough), they'd circle around him like sharks getting their first taste of chum.Naw, nothing funny about being the first admitted coke user to be nominated by a major party. Nothing funny about palling around with a member of the Weather Underground. Nothing funny about spending 20 years going to the church of a psychotic rage-a-holic preacher who makes Jimmy Falwell look like St. Augustine. Nothing funny about having a wife who said she had never felt proud of her country before. Nothing funny about flippity-flopping on your no. 1 issue–campaign finance–or voting for a surveillance bill you vowed to fillibuster. His problems with quitting smoking alone would be the subject of a million late-night riffs if he were a Republican.
Comics insist they're equal-opportunity offenders but they're really not. When they talk about making jokes about Obama, they shy away from anything whose punchline implies some failing and go off-roading into neutral comedy territory like his father's goat-herding or his habit of tying everything into his talking points. Kimmel suggests going for laughs by making fun of Obama's ears. Hard-hitting stuff, James. A writer for Letterman suggests that the audience won't go for any racist stuff. True, but so what? There's nothing racist about mocking cokeheads or wobbly principles.
Well, have it fellas--the water's fine, if you're willing to dip a fin toe in. Even Jon Stewart says so.
It's victim politics a-go-go! First up in an interview in GQ, Mark Penn (whom the magazine describes as "her beleaguered chief strategist") shares some thoughts on why Hillary lost:
...Look, there’s no question that the Obama campaign took comments that could not in any way, shape, or form in an objective reality be seen as racist, and they told surrogates to characterize them that way. And I think that was the… And not only that, but when you look at who was making the comments, people who devoted their lives, you know—President Clinton was there in Little Rock—who devoted their lives to kind of repairing the breach racially in this country, it was doubly, it was really doubly unfair and troubling.All of which is awfully rich coming from someone associated so closely with the couple that brought you the politics of personal destruction. But Rich does have a point, and Obama's surrogates have found a new target--those white racist reactionaries...at the limousine liberal Manhattan magazine that dubbed Bill Clinton the first black president a decade ago:
Myrlie Evers-Williams, 75, the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, told an NAACP luncheon group Tuesday that political spin masters and the news media are painting the Obamas as unpatriotic and dangerous radicals. She said the attacks are serious enough to use the term lynching, even though that usually refers to racially-motivated killings.While his surrogates and supporters patrol the old media, Obama himself takes on those upstarts on the right:Evers-Williams, a chairwoman emeritus of the civil rights organization, said New Yorker magazine’s recent cover is an example. The magazine’s cartoon cover shows a turban-clad Barack Obama bumping knuckles with a gun-toting Michele Obama as an American flag burns in a fireplace…
“As I watch the political scene unfold, I realize there is more than one way to lynch someone,” said Evers-Williams. “I look at the picture of the New Yorker and to me that was subtle, political lynching. You can call it satire if you want.”
GLAMOUR: An AP poll shows that while the positive ratings on Michelle are higher than those of Cindy McCain, her negative ratings are higher as well. I’m curious about how as a husband that makes you feel. Does it mystify you? And what do you want to say to those Americans who don’t know the woman that you know?Which is of course, yet another page from the Clinton playbook: it's hard to think of any potential first ladies prior to Hillary in 1992 being used as campaign surrogates; as late as 2003, Howard Dean's wife basically stayed home while he campaigned.SENATOR OBAMA: It’s infuriating, but it’s not surprising, because let’s face it: What happened was that the conservative press—Fox News and the National Review and columnists of every ilk—went fairly deliberately at her in a pretty systematic way…and treated her as the candidate in a way that you just rarely see the Democrats try to do against Republicans. And I’ve said this before: I would never have my campaign engage in a concerted effort to make Cindy McCain an issue, and I would not expect the Democratic National Committee or people who were allied with me to do it. Because essentially, spouses are civilians. They didn’t sign up for this. They’re supporting their spouse. So it took a toll.
No wonder television's comics are afraid to make sport of Obama, despite his myriad flaws, not the least of which is buying into his own messianic press clippings. Fortunately, there is one iconoclast willing to say that the emperor-to-be is bereft of his Burberry suit.
The International Herald Tribune (aka, the road show edition of the New York Times reports, "Media stars will accompany Obama overseas":
Senator John McCain's trip to Iraq last spring was a low-key affair: With his ordinary retinue of reporters following him abroad, the NBC News anchor Brian Williams reported on his arrival in Baghdad from New York, with just two sentences tacked onto the "in other political news" portion of his newscast.Media bias in the presidential race? Say it ain't so, Katie! Say it ain't so!But when Obama heads for Iraq and other locations overseas this summer, Williams is planning to catch up with him in person, as are the other two evening news anchors, Charles Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, who, like Williams, are far along in discussions to interview Obama on successive nights.
And while the anchors are jockeying for interviews with Obama at stops along his route, the regulars on the Obama campaign plane will have new seat mates: star political reporters from the major newspapers and magazines who are flocking to catch Obama's first overseas trip since becoming the presumptive nominee of his party.
The extraordinary coverage of Obama's trip reflects how the candidate remains an object of fascination in the news media, a built-in feature of being the first African-American presidential nominee for a major political party and a relative newcomer to the national stage.
But the coverage also feeds into concerns in McCain's campaign, and among Republicans in general, that the media is imbalanced in their coverage of the candidates, just as aides to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton felt during the primary season.
Update: Roger L. Simon has a schadenfreudinistic angle on the trip: "Poor Dan, deprived of a junket like this by a bunch of bloggers." You can hear my interview this week with one of the key bloggers who helped to retire Dan Rather's flak jacket, here.
From my point of view, I'd say that these days, it's primarily a gossip and style rag that gets in waaaay over its head whenever its Bush-obsessed journalists let their hatred drive its political coverage despite the inevitably diminishing returns.
Oh wait, that's why people hate Vanity Fair.
Seriously though, while I haven't blogged much about Jesse Helm's death, due to my discomfort with much of his career baggage, I can't help but think he got this moment right:
Sometime in the mid-1990s, the Times wrote a blistering editorial about Jesse Helms. The senator's new, eager press secretary quickly drafted a letter to the editor, and took it in to the senator. Helms, of course, had not seen the editorial. He glanced at the letter and said, "That's nice, son. Do whatever you want with it. But understand something: I don't care what the New York Times says about me, and no one I care about cares what the New York Times says about me." Therein lay some of the senator's power.An interesting development, as the Vanity Fair article notes, is that Times hatred became bipartisan this decade, which I'm sure the Times loves, though (and especially after this essay) it provides less ideological cover than they think.
Gary Condit, conservative? Mark Hemmingway catches the Washington Post in yet another round of Name That Party:
The Washington Post has a been putting out lengthy special report out on the Chandra Levy case. Here's how they describe Gary Conditin in today's installment:Only if you're a New Yorker subscriber.They met at hotels and inside his fourth-floor, turn-of-the-century condo at the top of Adams Morgan, an eclectic neighborhood of ethnic restaurants, offbeat shops and jam-packed nightclubs near the National Zoo and Rock Creek Park. It was not a typical neighborhood for a conservative congressman from a right-leaning agricultural district. [Emphasis added]
Now reading that, would you get the impression Condit was a Democrat?
Chris Matthews has an exceptional idea, as Newsbusters notes: Matthews Worries 'Right' Will Turn New Yorker Cover into T-Shirt."
Capital idea, Chris! In an age where brand synergy is all, I'm sure the fellas at Those Shirts and the legal bean counters inside the New Yorker's offices could work out a licensing agreement that would be mutually beneficial. Considering how much the Manhattan-based print media have been suffering financially, I'm glad to see that Matthews is always on the lookout for ways to increase their revenues through carefully selected cross-promotional opportunities.
Seriously though, it's amazing, isn't it? A decade spent comparing President Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Rush Limbaugh, and more recently wishing that fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton would snuff it is all perfectly fine, but the left is positively apoplectic when their own firing squad turns circular.
(Which actually happens with surprising regularity.)
(Although, to be fair, it's tough to picture the Shawn-era New Yorker that Tom Wolfe satirized in his classic "Tiny Mummies" article doing anything that would actually get them this much negative press, particularly amongst the left.)
Michelle Malkin writes welcome to the big leagues, rook, where the establishment left routinely satirizes politicians of all stripes. What, you thought you'd get a pass?
Charles Johnson makes a great observation about the L.A. Times: unlike many blogs which allow for instant publication of their readers' comments, the L.A. Times requires editor approval before comments appear under their articles. Which means that an editor had to sign off on each of the vicious attacks on Tony Snow that are appearing under his obit.
Which is why Patterico asks: Given how quickly Howard Kurtz has been known to slam the starboard half of the Blogosphere when its commenters lose it, will he respond in-kind to the leftwing editors of the L.A. Times allowing readers with a similar slant to run amok there?
While Charles Johnson has spotted a serious example of fauxtography, and is thus only receiving belated, grudging acknowledgment from the Jurassic media, Ann Althouse looks at fauxtography's lighter side, and asks, "Why is it so hard for a magazine to shoot a decent celebrity cover?":
Some shocking examples of uglification here. My theory is that magazine editors want professional models and are annoyed to by the fact that celebrity faces on the cover help circulation so much that they can no longer do what their aesthetic sensibilities tell them is right. Thwarted, the wreak their revenge. It's passive aggression.And speaking of fauxtography's lighter side, one of the house bloggers at Yahoo's music blog spots "Jennifer Hudson's Slim Chance" and asks, "Is it just me, or does Jennifer Hudson look, um, DIFFERENT on her debut album's cover?"
Tony Snow, Fox News anchor, frequent Rush Limbaugh guest host, and of course, White House Press Secretary, has passed away at age 53.
By all accounts a remarkably fair and optimistic man; a sunny conservative in the mold of--well, isn't it obvious?--he was much beloved by fellow conservatives and many--but not all--on the opposite of the aisle in the legacy media.
Ed Morrissey has some thoughts here. And the Corner has loads of posts on Snow--just keep scrolling.
Snow's death, comes so quickly after the death of Tim Russert; both men passed at away at compartively young ages, in their mid-50s. News reports and op-eds in the coming days will allow for very interesting comparisons of how the legacy media treats one of their own, versus someone who questioned the conventional wisdom of an industry which pays lip service to multiculturalism and diversity, and yet reflexively leans, and hires, almost exclusively to the left. AP has already gotten their digs in; others are sure to follow.
Greg Pollowitz writes that Obama's gaffes, flip-flops, and triangulations have convinced the all-knowing final arbiter of all-things conservative that "Santa Claus does not exist."
Of course, Sullivan concluded his brief but very public fling with conservatism back in 2004, when he endorsed a senator who, by the way, served in the Navy during Vietnam as "the right man - and the conservative choice - for a difficult and perilous time."
Hmmm: Senator, Navy man, Vietnam vet. If only Sullivan could find such a candidate running for the White House in 2008!
Update: Related thoughts from Ann Althouse.
"WHAT'S WORSE THAN MAUREEN DOWD? Fake Maureen Dowd!"
But what happens if you cross the streams and Dowdify fake Maureen Dowd? Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light...
What is it about octogenarian presidents of CBS that seem to assume that the power to run a television network confers immortality? In 1990, Christopher Buckley reviewed Sally Bedell Smith's biography of William S. Paley, and wrote:
"WHY do I have to die?" the aging William S. Paley repeatedly asks of a somewhat helpless friend toward the end of Sally Bedell Smith's fascinating and exhaustive biography of the man who built the Columbia Broadcasting System. At this point, having kept company with Mr. Paley's ego for more than 600 pages, no reader is likely to be surprised at the old solipsist for having posed such a bizarre question, and so unphilosophically at that. If CBS's corporate logo was its famous "eye," Mr. Paley's innermost being ("soul" seems not quite the right word) bore the indelible stamp of an "I." The friend "could give no answer except to reassure him that his mother had lived into her nineties." The reply was possibly ironic, as it was Mr. Paley's cold and unloving mother, Goldie, who by shunning her young son had forced him to turn to the larger world for constant, indeed unremitting, affirmation.But as it must to all men, death came to William Samuel Paley on October 26, 1990, at age 89. But note the echos of Paley's famous existential question in this quote uttered by his latest successor, age 85:
* * * TO the end of his career, Mr. Paley remained a desperately insecure man: jealous of his wife's affection for her son from her first marriage; jealous of Frank Stanton, whom he disastrously hounded from CBS, thereby insuring the ensuing succession of catastrophes that have made the network now, as Mr. Stanton put it perfectly, "just another company with dirty carpets." Lear-like, Mr. Paley ultimately subverted and ruined CBS, the thing he loved above all else -- besides himself -- driving out Mr. Stanton's successors, undermining the company by leaking unfavorable reports about them to the press, meddling in programming even though his quondam powers had by now left him, fretting obsessively about his perks, his private jet, his helicopter, his office, unable to let go; gobbling down experimental, supposedly life-prolonging protein pills every half-hour, gorging on supposedly restorative cucumbers, unable to let go, even of life. For Bill Paley, "Why do I have to die?" was the perfectly logical question.
"I DON'T want to die. I love what I'm doing. I love Viacom. I love CBS. And so I don't want to die. I have a will to live. The same will to win that I've always had. And, I'm gonna fight death as long as I can. I like it here. I don't want to go anywhere else" - Sumner Redstone on CNBC's "Business Nation."Ask not for whom the station identification tolls for...
Kathryn Jean Lopez chuckles, "Someone Typed This with a Straight Face?"
From Media Matters, attacking The New York Times Magazine reporter for not doing a hit piece on Rush Limbaugh:I'd say the Times itself cleared up the alleged part pretty clearly four years ago.The mighty, and allegedly liberal, New York Times
Emphasis, of course, mine.
Donald Sutherland is yet another superstar actor to whom Bill Whittle's Lou Grant Effect remains inviolable. As an actor, Sutherland nearly always invests his characters with charisma and charm; from the original Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman's M*A*S*H to the small town cop investigating crimes in the big bad city in Klute, to his wealthy proto-bobo Manhattan art collector in Six Degrees of Separation. But without a script and a director, this is the result:
As far as conspiracy theories go, the one actor Donald Sutherland posited at the Huffington Post Monday certainly doesn't rank very high.Meanwhile, the otherwise regal Lauren Bacall also has a painful case of Hollywood, Interrupted:After all, there's a long line of political pundits predicting the Clintons are conspiring to steal the Democrat presidential nomination from Barack Obama.
But, coming from Kiefer's dad, and the original "Hawkeye" Pierce from "M*A*S*H," the entertainment value is, well, delicious.
Get out the popcorn, folks...you won't be disappointed (emphasis added, h/t NBer Gary Hall):
The DNC's 'Terry McAuliffe mind-set' ruined the campaigns of Gore, Kerry and Senator Clinton and now the legions of McAuliffites who have surrounded Barack Obama are doing their damndest to undermine the possibility of his Presidency...There's a well sourced rumor of Machiavellian proportions running around that what's going to happen is that his base support will be so demoralized they won't have the vital conviction they'll need this August to withstand a McAuliffite push to persuade disenchanted delegates on the floor of the convention to make a resurgent Hillary Clinton the Party's nominee!...His heart and soul is being gutted and ours with it... This morning's news in the Washington Post is that he's revised his positions on abortion and troop withdrawal! His supporters are being sent to hell in a handbasket and it has to be stopped!Suddenly, Sutherland sounds more like Frank Burns than Hawkeye!
Q: You told Larry King, Im a total, total, total liberal and proud of it. Are you excited about the election?Yes, if there's one thing about the legacy media, it's that they really, really despise Obama. Particularly at CNN. And the Washington Post. And The New York Times. And...A: I am. Im a big Barack person. What I find really hard to take is the way the media behave. They seem to pick on Barack much more readily than they do on McCain. They suddenly say hes this kind of politician, hes not what we thought, dah-dah-dah-dah. I dont understand why these anchors say, Were not supposed to take a side, were supposed to just give the news, but they dont just give the news, and they dont tell the truth, excuse me. I only listen to Keith Olbermann. To hell with the rest of them. Im an MSNBC type now.
Ed Morrissey writes:
The Weather Channel has been a major advocate for global-warming policies. Combining it with the Keith Olbermann/Chris Matthews network will probably result in a major release of greenhouse gases on its own. Given NBCs inability to impose even a modicum of balance and objectivity at MS-NBC, we can expect Jeff Zucker to use this new outfit as a platform on which to push even harder for statist policies on energy production and use.But will the lights stay on in the studio?
The most busted name in news has a remarkably appropriate redesign of their logo this year!
In 2004, John McCain defended fellow Senator John Kerry against the exceedingly well-deserved attacks by the Swift Boat Vets and related groups. But in the world of Washington, no good deed goes unpunished; and even the Associated Press has to laugh (check out the second paragraph quoted below) at the turn of events involving their candidate's latest surrogate to take a shot at McCain's military service:
John Kerry says Republican John McCain doesn't have the judgment to be president.And Kerry is expert in changing in profound and fundamental ways, that millions of Americans found surprising and frankly upsetting.If that's the case, then it's probably a good thing McCain rejected overtures from Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, to form a bipartisan ticket and run with Kerry as his candidate for vice president.
Kerry had no kind words his Senate colleague Sunday, accusing McCain of poor decision-making on everything from backing tax cuts for the wealthy to making support for continuing the U.S. military presence in Iraq the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.
"John McCain ... has proven that he has been wrong about every judgment he's made about the war. Wrong about the Iraqis paying for the reconstruction, wrong about whether or not the oil would pay for it, wrong about Sunni and Shia violence through the years, wrong about the willingness of the Iraqis to stand up for themselves," Kerry, who supports Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"If you like the Bush tax cut and what it's done to our economy, making wealthier people wealthier and the average middle class struggle harder, then John McCain is going to give you a third term of George Bush and Karl Rove," the Massachusetts senator added, echoing an Obama campaign talking point.
Kerry later said the McCain of 2008 isn't the McCain he courted in 2004.
"John McCain has changed in profound and fundamental ways that I find personally really surprising, and frankly upsetting.
McCain has built his famous "Maverick" reputation by building bridges across the aisle, to the point where numerous conservatives wonder which party McCain owes his allegiance to. How does he view these blue falcon attacks, now numbering at least a dozen if not more, on his military record? Did he expect them as part of business as usual in Washington?
Kerry was apparently surprised when his post-war anti-American actions from the early 1970s were questioned in 2004. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page of this Newsweek postmortem from immediately after the 2004 election to Kerry's apoplexy when Charlie Gibson questioned him about his infamous early-1970s ribbon toss.) I'd be curious if McCain, who was a POW in Hanoi during Kerry's Winter Soldier days, is equally surprised.
On Thursday, I wrote about the ongoing efforts--from a variety of sources--to reframe World War II, in an effort to cast the Allies' efforts in a much more cynical light than history currently remembers them.
But Matthew Yglesias sets the Wayback Machine way, way back, in an effort to reframe not 1945, but 1776.
In early May, about a week after their anchors and reporters gushed that Rev. Wright had hit--in Soledad O'Brien's words, "a home run" with his nationally-televised speech to the NAACP in Detroit, only to then have his performance erased from the record books by the league commissioner, CNN anchorman John Roberts, in a moment of hard-hitting unbiased journalistic integrity foreshadowed by Saturday Night Live, assured Obama that his network was now a "Wright-Free Zone."
And the Washington Post is happy to expand that zone: "WaPo Addresses Obama's Faith -- With NO Wright?"
Well, it's not like Obama titled a book or anything after one of his former pastor's sermons...
Bill Schneider of CNN writes:
Spend a few days in western Europe talking about American politics and you discover that you are in deepest Obamaland. Not much different from Berkeley, California, or the South Side of Chicago.Orrin Judd replies, in a post titled, "This Reads Like A GOP Press Release":
So Obamaland is Europe, Berzerkly and the South Side and Democrats can't figure out why they lose elections?Indeed.TM The euro-feel of Obamaland and its putative leader's campaign proposals isn't exactly a big surprise for anyone who's been paying the slightest bit of attention to the growing distance that voters in the Bluer alcoves of the American political map have been putting between themselves and their compatriots in the Red States post 9/11.
Whether on the small screen, or the big stage, Rosie O'Donnell is class all the way:
On Wednesday, the "comedienne" did a guest stint at a Cyndi Lauper concert in Vancouver, Canada, during which she called Ann Coulter a bitch, and rather indelicately compared her experience on "The View" to the scene in the movie "Born Innocent" when Linda Blair was raped in the shower at a girls' reformatory.Imagine how the viewers felt. Here's what Rosie had to say; click over to Newsbusters for the video and Ann Coulter's response:
I hate Ann Coulter. That bitch is annoying, let me tell you right now...And speaking of annoying, remember "The View?" Do you get it here in Canada? It was a cute, little tea party show with the ladies turned into a women's prison film. We were tough girls elbowing each other shaving down spoons into shank (?), "Come here, you little bitch." Remember "Born Innocent," that Linda Blair movie? Remember the broomstick, Wooh, I know how she felt. It was like one, big, dysfunctional, Irish Catholic family. Do anything except tell the truth.To borrow from an old Dennis Miller riff, that last sentence is the Rosetta Stone of Humor; the number of punchlines it inspires is bottomless. Start by flashing back to this, a classic Rosie moment from a year ago, and then write your own!
I try to avoid both of their shows like the plague, so it's fun to step back and be a neutral observer in this hilarious cat fight between Greta Van Susteren and Anderson Cooper that Newsbusters links to. On her blog at Fox News, Van Susteren writes:
Were a news program, while Ms. Van Susterens show is not a news program, Mr. Doss told TVNewser on Tuesday. Its missing-person-of-the-day. Theres an audience for that, but its not what we do. Were covering the world, not just covering whos missing today.It's an army of Gretas! To whom, size matters not, as the Muppet-like president of the Dagobah Network News likes to tell his staff of young apprentices.Not a news program?
Now why is he picking a fight? and why is trying to make less of us at 10pm ? Is it because we consistently beat them and have for years?
This is silly that the CNN executive producer of Anderson Cooper is taking a swipe at our hard work but I am going to defend my staff from what is intended to pretend our show is not news.
Yes, now let me KEEP THEM HONEST:
Lets take a look at thisI asked someone to get me some information (I am busy at 10pm so do not get to watch their show.) What CNN is doing at ten? And how do they conduct themselves? Credibility or not?
To paraphrase MS/NBCs Keith Olbermann, yes many in the news industry behind the scenes - even my friends at CNN - laugh about the fact that CNNs 10pm show has been a marketing experiment. It has been rumored that in one year they spent about 27 million dollars in advertising of Anderson Cooper in their experiment. No network has ever spent that kind of money just to market one person. By the way, the President of CNN told me that Anderson Cooper has a staff of nearly 60. We beat them with our staffof about 12.
Don't miss the ridiculous T-shirt promoting Cooper that Van Susteren highlights at the end of her post, which illustrates a moment that sums up absolutely perfectly the swank and cutting-edge sophistication of the legacy media and its political party:
As Roger Kimball notes:
Buried in a story about baby-boomer profs retiring:Indeed. Especially when the headline of the Times' article is, "The 60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire."
In general, information on professors political and ideological leanings tends to be scarce.Clearly, more research needs to be done: the Ford Foundation should fund a multi-year study to ascertain the political and ideological leanings of professors. Thats one of lifes great mysteries.
But the truly curious thing is why that era has lived on for so long--1968 was forty years ago; as far away from us as Clara Bow and Calvin Coolidge were to the sixties. So why has its juvenile ethos cast such as a long-lasting spell on the left? As I wrote a few months ago:
Tom Stoppard describes 1968 as "The year of the posturing rebel". Or as John Lennon confessed a decade later:Sadly, perhaps until this countdown reaches zero."I dabbled in politics in the late 1960s and 1970s, more out of guilt than anything. Guilt for being rich and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something, or get punched in the face to prove I'm one of the people. I was doing it against my instincts."Fascinating though, that the 1960s and '70s, a period that was rife with poseurs such as Lennon, is still influencing us to this day. You can see it in music, in the form of ersatz nostalgia acts such as Lenny Kravitz and Sheryl Crow, who dress in period costume (sort of the tie-dyed equivalent of greasers like Sha Na Na in leather jackets and D.A.s in 1975, or a big band that same year still playing in tan dinner jackets and bow ties). Or much more dangerously, in a politics that still takes it rhetoric from a period now four decades in the past, whether it's John Kerry in 2004, or Rev. Wright in 2008.But then, when starting from zero, one is always tempted to stay trapped in Year One.
Chicago Sun-Times: "Boeing as amoral as firms that aided Hitler."
John Glenn and Harry Reid could not be reached for comment.
Thank God for the American public that the journalists they rely upon to help them make informed decisions are a hard-bitten cynical lot, having seen it all a hundred times, never falling for the latest huckster trying to sell them a bill of goods, instead of those naive, easily fooled bloggers...
Update: Fortunately, not all in Big Media are as dewey-eyed as the Gray Lady's unseasoned young naifs.
At least until the tail end of the first decade of the 21st century, World War II always seemed like pretty settled history to me; but it's obvious that the Second World War--particularly the conduct of the Allies--is being reframed by a surprising number of groups. As Victor Davis Hanson wrote last month:
Questioning the past is a good thing, but rewriting it contrary to facts is quite another. In the latest round of revisionism about the Second World War, the awful British and naive Americans, not the poor Germans, have ended up as the real culprits.That's the theme of a new mini-series written by moderate historian Niall Ferguson, but aired on the otherwise typically liberal PBS, as Adam Buckman notes in an article whose subtitle says it all: "PBS Show To Argue Allies As Bad As Nazis":Take the new book by conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan, Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. Buchanan argues that, had the imperialist Winston Churchill not pushed poor Hitler into a corner, he would have never invaded Poland in 1939, which triggered an unnecessary Allied response.
Maybe then the subsequent world war, and its 50 million dead, could have been avoided. Taking that faulty argument to its logical end, I suppose today a united West might live in peace with a reformed (and victorious) Nazi Third Reich.
On the Left, novelist Nicholson Bakers nonfiction title, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, builds the case that the Allied bombing of German cities was tantamount to a war crime.
Apparently there was no need to, in blanket fashion, attack German urban centers and the industry, transportation, and communications concentrated within them. From Bakers comfortable vantage point, either the war was amoral or unnecessary or there must have been more humane ways to stop the flow of fuel, crews, and equipment for the Waffen SS divisions that invaded Europe and Russia.
In the luxury of some 60 years of postwar peace and affluence and perhaps in anger over the current Iraq war Buchanan and Baker and other revisionists engage in a common sort of Western second-guessing. The result is that they always demand liberal democracies be not just better and smarter than their adversaries, but almost superhuman in their perfection.
MEMBERS of the Greatest Generation - especially those with weak hearts - might want to steer clear of an upcoming PBS documentary that suggests the Allied victory in World War II was "tainted" and questions whether it can even be called a victory.I think Austin Bay once quipped to me (and possibly wrote about the theme in a column as well) that you could make a pretty good case that the First World War didn't actually conclude until 1991, (and arguably, not even then) so that's not an unreasonable point, though as Buckman notes:Moreover, the documentary, titled "The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century," asserts that the war could only be won by forming an unholy alliance with a dictator - Joseph Stalin, who was as brutal as the one they were fighting, Adolf Hitler - and by adopting the same "pitiless" and "remorseless" tactics practiced by the enemy.
The three-part documentary is a companion to the best-selling book, "The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West" by Harvard and Oxford historian Niall Ferguson. The one-hour Part One of the documentary premieres Monday night at 10 on Ch. 13. The other two parts air the following two Mondays. World War II is the focus of Part Two.
His thesis: Instead of looking at the 20th century as having been disrupted by two world wars with periods of relative peace before, between and after them, it is more appropriate to view much of the history of the century as a continuous bloody conflict that was interrupted occasionally for a few short, exhausted catnaps of relative calm.
It is an illuminating viewpoint, and Ferguson does an effective job tying all of the century's mass deportations, enslavements, ethnic cleansings and genocides together so that you can't help being won over to his view that the violence of the 20th century was virtually never-ending.
But it is Ferguson's revisionist view of the tactics applied by the Allies in World War II that is likely to raise the hackles of those who have always believed in the "necessity" of bombing German and Japanese civilians, culminating in the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to end a war we did not start.Sort of a Liberal Fascism, to coin a phrase originally spoken, favorably, three quarters of a century ago by the same author also who inspired the title of Ferguson's miniseries, which Dorothy Rabinowitz reviews, and in an essay titled "Forget the Good War", adds:"I think it's very hard for those who have imbibed the idea of a 'great generation' that what the Allies did to defeat the Axis was in some measure to adopt totalitarian tactics," Ferguson says in a Q&A on PBS's Web site.
Russian troops had liberated Auschwitz, yes, but we're reminded that Stalin had imprisoned and murdered millions. Does this mean the liberation of Auschwitz was nothing? A good question with no answer. Mr. Ferguson is content to have delivered another in his long stream of accusatory ironies and contradictions, all in support of the claim that the morally tainted Allied armies should not be credited as liberators.Meanwhile, regarding Pat Buchanan's new book, at Pajamas HQ, Sheryl Longin writes:The Americans and British had adopted the totalitarian techniques of their foes, Mr. Ferguson contends in a series of arguments ranging from the strange to the simply inflated. Japanese combatants kept fighting to the very end, he explains, because they feared the cruelty of their American captors. Undoubtedly some American troops were guilty of killing Japanese prisoners. In this film's version of events, the slaughter was wholesale. By way of support Mr. Ferguson summons testimony from Charles Lindbergh -- pro-Nazi icon of American isolationists. He proceeds to reminds us that Lindbergh had complained, in the 1940s, that Americans thought nothing of killing Japanese prisoners. Noteworthy to be sure -- the first and last time, perhaps, that the world was privileged to hear Lindbergh express outrage over the commission of atrocities.
The catalog of Mr. Ferguson's stranger arguments is too long to go into, but here's a hint -- don't miss the part about Kursk, the greatest of all tank battles. Here the U.S. seems to stand accused of providing material help that made it possible for the Russians to prevail. Were the Germans supposed to win? Mr. Ferguson doesn't say, but the question hangs in the air -- for good reason.
The left is currently the home of some of the worst forms of cultural relativism, but let us not forget that the right houses its own equally dangerous revisionist historians who attempt to use their false history to influence current events. Now is not a time when America can afford to be fuzzy with the truth. Facts are facts. Ideology blinds people. We forget that at our own peril.But in the afterward of Liberal Fascism, titled, "The Tempting Of Conservatism", which documented several examples of how the modern right is also susceptible to fascism, Jonah Goldberg wrote:
In the 1990s liberal anger about Buchanans right-wing fascism reached a fever pitch. As Molly Ivins wrote in response to Buchanans 1992 Republican National Convention speech: It probably sounded better in the original German. The irony here is that Buchanan was actually moving to the left. For years Buchanans opponents called him a crypto-Nazi for his defense of Ronald Reagan and the GOP. In reality, the only thing that kept his fascist instincts in check was his loyalty to the GOP and the conservative movement. After Reagan and the Cold War, Buchanan abandoned both in a leftward search for his true principles.And Buchanan's magazine, despite its American Conservative sobriquet, is pretty darn cozy with the far fringes of the American left, and it appears that World War II is yet another issue where Pat and the far left, both then and now are remarkably simpatico.Buchanan calls himself a paleoconservative, but in truth hes a neo-progressive. During the 2000 election he denounced free marketeers and flat taxers, saying that they spent too much time with the boys down at the yacht basin. He came out in favor of capping executive pay, in support of higher unemployment benefits, and against any kind of free-market Medicare reform and backed a Third Way approach to government activism. Buchanans neo-Progressivism has even caused the onetime Reagan aide to rail against the social Darwinism of the free market.
Could Hollywood beckon next?
Update: Did Pat cook the books? "Busted!... Nazi Sympathizer Pat Buchanan Accused of Plagiarism, Hacked Quotes & Wrong Dates."
It's official--everything does indeed cause global warming. But before we ban flat panel TVs and monitors, we might want to ask this fan of conspicuous digital consumption what he thinks about the idea:
Claudia Rossett sifts through the Memory Hole and recovers a classic headline from the prehistoric Walter Duranty era of the New York Times. Of course, it's not like things have changed all that much in the Pinch Sulzberger era...
"Behold, per Blake Dvorak, one of the first documented cases of McCain Derangement Syndrome."
Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy journalism, having a good solid b.s. detector in your hand is often useful:
If only AP was as skeptical of the L.A. Times as it is of the Bush Administration ...it wouldn't have left this uncommented upon:So the paper's content, like its popularity, isn't shrinking, it's merely becoming more selective."The number one reason that people cancel the L.A. Times is, they tell us, they don't have enough time to read the paper that we give them every day," Stanton said. "We're going to be more picky about the stories we choose to write long and a lot more picky about the ones we write shorter."
P.J. Gladnick flashes back to 1968 and Apocalypse Then:
Today is the official publication date of The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment by Paul and Anne Ehrlich. The release of this book was timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the publication of Paul Ehrlich's once exceedingly popular "The Population Bomb" in 1968. If you expect to see much about either of these books in the mainstream media, you are in for a big disappointment. The MSM is avoiding the whole subject of Paul Ehrlich and his apocalyptic "The Population Bomb" like the plague nowadays. The reason is probably because it might draw embarrassing attention to the fact that apocalyptic visions, despite their popularity at one time such as the current global warming alarmism, are usually proven to be flat out wrong. Such was the case with Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" which the Intercollegiate Studies Institute ranked as one of the 50 Worst Books of the 20th century due to its many errors.Gladnick quotes from a Brothers Judd review of Ehrlich's book that's also well worth your time.
It's yet another not-so-final countdown!
Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters asks, "Can a publisher, editor, and owner of magazines be any more biased than proudly admitting on national television that he's contributed to Barack Obama's campaign?"
While you ponder, consider that on Sunday, the publisher and editor of Rolling Stone -- who just so happens to also own Men's Journal and Us Weekly -- told CNN's Howard Kurtz that he's given money to the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee.Noel seems suprised, but given the far left worldview of Wenner, reflected in his flagship publication since its inception, who couldn't see that one coming? But I actually think Wenner's admission is a very positive one. As I've written before, I'd much rather journalists--and their publishers--come clean on their biases than fall back on the mid-20th century model of feigned objectivity. At least it allows consumers to make an informed decision rather than have to guess at the worldview of a media source.In fact, Jann Wenner did so without batting an eye in an interview aired on "Reliable Sources".
Back in December, I mentioned Alycia Lane, a Philadelphia-area TV news anchorbabe who was fired after an altercation with a Manhattan police woman:
As Dan Riehl wrote in October when the story of Dallas-area TV journalist Rebecca Aguilar confronting an innocent elderly man on-camera broke, "Leave it to a real journalist to go over the top."While that story sounds trashy enough as it is, it only gets weirder from there:Here's yet another example of a professional TV journalist acting professionally in the most professional manner possible:
Alycia Lane, the evening news anchor on CBS affiliate KYW-TV in Philadelphia, was arrested on early Sunday morning in Manhattan after an altercation with a female police officer, according to the New York Times. Lane and her boyfriend Chris Booker, and another unidentified couple were reportedly traveling in a taxi through Manhattan and became upset over a slow vehicle blocking their way. Philly.com reports Lane confronted the passengers of the slow vehicle, which happened to be a group of police officers in plainclothes.According to Wikipedia, KYW-TV's slogan is "We Are Moving Ahead"--by punching the daylights out of anyone that gets in our way!When one of the officers asked Lane, who was taking photos with her iPhone, to step back, the news anchor reportedly began verbally assaulting the officer. According to Philadelphia Weekly, Lane screamed at the officer, saying "I don't give a f*ck who you are, I am a reporter you f*cking dyke." Lane then punched the female officer in the face, according to the Associated Press, resulting in several lacerations and swelling. The officer was treated at a local hospital and released.
CBS3 yesterday released anchorman Larry Mendte from his contract 31/2 weeks after FBI agents seized his home computer amid allegations that he illegally broke into former coanchor Alycia Lane's e-mail.You stay classy, big media!Sources said an internal investigation at CBS3 disclosed that software that secretly captures keystrokes - including passwords - had been installed on a station computer.
Mendte's firing came nearly six months after CBS3 fired Lane, following her arrest in New York for allegedly hitting a cop.
What began as a series of gossip-page scandals embarrassing Lane has morphed into a federal criminal investigation and a sexual-discrimination lawsuit.
The FBI is looking into whether Mendte illegally accessed Lane's e-mails and leaked information from them to the media, including an angry message from a wife upset that Lane sent bikini photos to her husband.
Six months ago, when Lane was fired, Mendte represented a strong public face for the station. But on Thursday, Lane filed a lawsuit in which she said Mendte worked to discredit her behind the scenes and that CBS3 defamed her as she was fired from her $800,000-a-year job.
Now, Mendte, who had about a year left on his contract, has been fired from his $700,000-a-year job.
Mendte's lawyer, Michael Schwartz, said Mendte was notified of the station's decision before it was made public. Schwartz declined to talk about the investigation or specifics about Mendte's career, except to say: "We continue to work with the federal authorities and expect a prompt resolution of this matter. I fully expect that Larry will resume his broadcasting career."
CBS3 said the claims in Lane's suit had no merit.
As of yesterday, Mendte, 51, had not been charged with any crime.
It is illegal under federal law to read another person's e-mails without permission. However, people charged with such a crime are rarely sentenced to prison, unless the crime includes significant economic or physical harm.
The Mendte case broke publicly late last month, when FBI agents armed with a search warrant arrived at the Chestnut Hill home he shares with his wife, Fox29 anchor Dawn Stensland. Mendte went to work the next day, but left abruptly.
Stensland is not suspected of any wrongdoing, sources said.
In a statement read during the 6 p.m. news yesterday, CBS3 anchor Susan Barnett said that Mendte was "released" effective immediately and that he was under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Patty Hartman, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan, said she could neither confirm nor deny the existence of a Mendte investigation.
Mendte's image and bio were removed yesterday from the station's Web site, which also carried a brief statement about his termination.
The station said the decision to let Mendte go was based on an independent investigation conducted by CBS.
(Hat tip: My mom, one of the great connoisseurs of Philadelphia television news, who told Nina and I that Mendte was fired "after he was caught going into someone else's Internet!" Hey, everyone's entitled to their own private series of tubes...)
Now that they have Jon Stewart's official permission to make sport of The Man Who Would Be King, readers of NRO's Media Blog have some fun captioning this week's messianic Obama photo on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Click here for some earlier thoughts on Obama And The Age Of Outrageous Credulity.
Rich Lowry writes, "I've been thinking lately that Bill Kristol should take a leave of absence for a couple of months and go help out on the McCain campaign":
McCain has been nothing if not energetic (giving a majorish speech almost every day). He has scored day-to-day tactical victories over Obama, as this Washington Post story noted. But the sum is less than the parts. Worse, McCain's political persona seems to be getting lost.I'm not sure if Bill Kristol is the guy, but there's a lot of truth there. Obama had a mistake-filled week last week culminating most visibly with his faux-presidential seal, a huge touch of high camp, which though dropped, will be the gift that keeps on giving via Photoshop and YouTube. It's gotten to the point where even the media can't downplay all of Obama's gaffes, no matter how reverentially they treat him. And yet McCain doesn't seem at all poised to pounce his opponent's numerous unforced errors.Take energy. There was another McCain conference call on it today. It was painful to listen to Sen. Lindsey Graham pound Obama for saying "no" to every energy proposal, then have to explain (kind of half-heartedly, I thought) why McCain says "no" to drilling on ANWR. If McCain was going to semi-flip on drilling, he probably should have gone all the way and done it in a big way (e.g., hold some sort of conference on energy, or spend a week touring ANWR and off-shore drilling platforms). Then, there was the matter of the contradiction between his new somewhat pro-drilling stance and his continued high-profile advocacy on global warming. I think if McCain could get his own house in order on this issue, he would really do serious damage to Obama.
But there's a sense you never know where McCain is going to be on any given day. Is he zigging toward the center, or zagging right? And on top of this, the campaign feels so defensiveall about not being Bush and not being Obama.
All of this is diminishing McCain, who is a serious, impressive guy for all his flaws. With every clever tactic and worthy small-bore proposalwhether its off-shore drilling or the battery prizeMcCain loses a tiny bit more of his stature and his sense of who he is. He needs to be bigger than Obama to win the election, and he needs his political personaas a patriotic fighter determined to fix Washington and win the warto come out clearly and unmistakably.
I think some new bloodfocused just on the big picturewould help the McCain team. My candidate would be Kristol. He obviously has a keen political mind; he's a McCain guy going way back (and as far as I know has a good relationship with McCain's key people); and he's a conservative who understands the need to move beyond the Bush administration without being panicked by every Bush association.
Anyway, that's my suggestion. Maybe someone else would make more sense. Or maybe this big-picture focus can be generated by folks already there. But here's hoping we see it one way or the other...
We've previously linked to responses from James Lileks and James Pethokoukis, but found via Tim Blair, this is the perfect rebuttal to AP's Doomsday rhetoric:
I quoted James Lileks' take on AP's feverish doomsday piece yesterday, and James Pethokoukis describes AP's screed thusly:
"I know you're just a reporter, but you used to be a person, right?" is a quote from the film Deep Impact and immediately came to mind after I read this article from the Associated Press. (It actually took two people to write it.) The "article" made me weep for my chosen profession. The absolutely disgraceful lead:As Andy McCarthy writes:Is everything spinning out of control? Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism. Horatio Alger, twist in your grave. The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.I dunno, maybe contributing to our low national morale are media that 1) compare a weak economyalthough one that has yet to suffer even a single negative quarterto the disastrous economies of the 1930s and 1970s; 2) forget to mention that the average person buying a home in, say, January 2000, is still sitting on a 66 percent gain; 3) ignore the economy's sky-high productivity, which helps make it the most competitive in the world; 4) ignore a global economic boom that is pushing up gas prices but also raising hundreds of millions of people out of poverty; and 5) for the heck of it, perpetuate the myth that college is unaffordable. (Oh, and since the authors of the article brought it up, it sure looks to this Soviet politics major that Iraq is turning into a situation for al Qaeda that is exactly the reverse of Afghanistan in the 1980s: Militants take on superpower. Get annihilated along with their global brand.)America's "can-do" attitude? We are coming off a record year for initial public offerings. I mean, I could go on and on here. I don't know anyone who is giving up, other than the AP.
Rush talked about that article this afternoon and made the excellent observation that the AP could have just said "Vote Obama" it would have saved them several hundred words and spared the rest of us a lot of wasted time!But at least it's giving the Blogosphere a chance to expose the can't-do spirit that seems to permeate AP.
At least until the bill arrives.
Meanwhile, as the AP tells the nation as a whole, "Yes We Can't!", the media as a whole have gone equally silent reporting on another nation's progress.
As Ed Morrissey notes:
Al Sharpton may get another chance to distract everyone from the massive IRS investigation into his personal and professional finances by seizing on another Don Imus eruption.And this time around, if Imus is ousted, no one can blame this on anti-Hillary forces engaged in battlefield prep.
I had meaning to comment on that ridiculous AP doomsday story that Drudge linked to recently, but there's no way I can top the fine demolition that James Lileks performs:
EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL.Remember when AP helped its readers make sense of the news, instead of describing life as one long unfathomable horror? Of course, that was when AP was actually in business to report, instead of "changing the world", or these days, sending dunning notices to bloggers.Thats the headline. First line:
Is everything spinning out of control?No. But they go on:Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.Previous generations rolled up their sleeves and swam out there and saved those polar bears. As for abysmal home values, it depends where you are; Ill admit that people who sank everything in Miami condo markets are finding their psyches chipped and dinged, but A) lower home prices mean people who want to buy one but couldnt afford it now are sitting better B) the authors can take heart in this story about San Francisco being unaffordable for the middle class. Thank God! Theres hope!Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.
The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.Cue the obligatory heartland cant-do fella with busted bootstraps:
"It is pretty scary," said Charles Truxal, 64, a retired corporate manager in Rochester, Minn. "People are thinking things are going to get better, and they haven't been. And then you go hide in your basement because tornadoes are coming through. If you think about things, you have very little power to make it change.Rochester has had zero tornados this year, if I recall correctly. Even if they do get one, it probably won't be as bad as the 1883 example, which was bad enough to have its own wikipedia page. But again: what has happened to America that your optimism is insufficient to turn away rotating clouds? In the old days, by jiminey-crackers, wed hold up pictures of Roosevelt and the twisters would just melt away.The guys 64 years old, and he hasnt figured out that some things get better, some things get worse, some things stay the same, and some things to which no ones paying attention will shape the news much more than the panic du jour in the news today? Hes 64, and cant figure out that grown men dont say scary unless describing how they felt about the Wolfman when they were nine?
It is amusing, really after sticking peoples heads in the muck every day for years, promoting every faddish scare, fluffing the pillow beneath every yuppie worry, swapping the straight-forward adult approach to news with presenters who emote the copy with the sad face of a day-care worker telling the children that Barney is dead in short, after decades of presenting the world through the peculiar prism that finds in every day more evidence of our rot and our failures, they wonder why people are depressed. Hang the banner, guys: Mission Accomplished.
Of course, not everyone feels this way; Id guess that people who watch television news are more inclined to pessimism. But theres another side to this: the pessimism among some may not stem from some impotent feeling that one is a cork tossd in a sea of cruel destiny, that you cant do anything, that nothing will get better no, the pessimism may arise from the suspicion that theres something abroad in the land thats had a good hardy larf about Horatio Alger and all the other manifestations of individual initiative for 30 years. The cool kids and the clever set have always smirked at that sort of stuff. You can get them going if you make a speech about our ability to solve things, but youd better phrase it in the form of a government initiative, or brows furrow: well, then, how do you propose to do it?
The bottom of the page says Average rating: two out of five stars. Our confidence in the media to undermine our happiness is being chipped away, too. Were in worse shape than we thought.
Of course, one reason why wire services might be shaking down the Blogosphere is that they could use the money:
For newspapers, the news has swiftly gone from bad to worse. This year is taking shape as their worst on record, with a double-digit drop in advertising revenue, raising serious questions about the survival of some papers and the solvency of their parent companies.Sort of like a Red Queen's Race, you might say.Ad revenue, the primary source of newspaper income, began sliding two years ago, and as hiring freezes turned to buyouts and then to layoffs, the decline has only accelerated.
But then, as Michael Crichton wrote 15 years ago, the newspapers brought a lot of this upon themselves:
"[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality," he lectured. "Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's basically junk."Just read the AP story at the of the post. And the media is cranking out that junk during a period when they can least afford to, as a technological sea change is devouring them:
And as I said, fortunately, their own Jurassic Park awaits:
"Obama Moves to Reintroduce Himself to Voters", the Washington Post, notes, but check out the language of the opening paragraph:
In the opening weeks of the general-election campaign, Sen. Barack Obama has moved aggressively to shape his campaign and offered a clear road map for the kind of candidate he is likely to become in the months ahead: an ambitious gamer of the electoral map, a ruthless fundraiser and a scrupulous manager of his own biography in the face of persistent concerns about how he is perceived."Aggressive", "ambitious", "ruthless"--this sounds far more like the press at large is beginning to describe Obama using the David Brooks Machiavellian badass political samurai model, rather than the positive Hope! and Change! Yes We Can! new politics message that Obama began nationally with.
If the press continues to describe Obama in such terms, this could create a nifty opening for McCain to attack Obama on his cynicism and rote Chicago politics, much as Reagan deflated Carter in 1980 (who masked his own punitive opinions of America underneath a similar veneer of sunny optimism four years earlier) with his "Well, there you go again" line.
And on a related note, Lexington Green of the Chicago Boyz notes, "It is weird how so many who claim to like Obama hope he is lying. Three examples come to mind immediately". Read the rest.
Update: Jennifer Rubin observes Obama as he loses "His Teflon Sheen".
Will Kim Jong Il endorse Sen. Barack Obama? Yes he can!
Castro we knew about, and Qaddafi chimed in just the other day, but Kim Jong Il?Meanwhile, See Dubya also asks, "Come on, Osama, your turnyou know youve got one tape left in you"I wasnt expecting that.
Take me now, Lord. My life as a blogger is complete.
The Obamessiah must ask himself once again: Why do all these anti-American tyrants keep sum, endorsing my candidacy?
If he does, will Uncle Walter once again blame it on Karl Rove, as he did when Punxsutawney Osama emerged and saw his shadow during the last weekend of October in 2004?
"Politically correct is never a term one would apply to [Maureen] Dowds commentary", the New York Times ombudsperson Clark Hoyt writes. If you say so, though standard-issue East Coast establishment liberal boilerplate are all terms that readily come to mind.
In any case, as Hoyt's predecessor ombudsman wrote, "Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? Of course it is." And now it's time to pay the piper:
Over the course of the campaign, I received complaints that Times coverage of Clinton included too much emphasis on her appearance, too many stereotypical words that appeared to put her down and dismiss a womans potential for leadership and too many snide references to her as cold or unlikable. When I pressed for details, the subject often boiled down to Dowd.So please, all you sexist troglodytes, no giggling at the end of that last paragraph!Andrew Rosenthal, the editor of the editorial page, said it was unfair to hold a columnist accountable for perceptions of bias in news coverage. A columnist is supposed to present strong opinions, he said, and a thorough reading of Maureens work shows that she does that without regard to gender, partisanship or ideology.
Some complaints about Times news coverage seem justified. A Political Memo last fall analyzed the Clinton Cackle a laugh, it was suggested, that she used to fend off political attacks or tough media attention. Cackle? Thats what witches do in fairy tales. Times editors express regret about using the word, though they defend the examination of the laugh. The Times never did a similar dissection of the way Rudolph Giuliani burst into odd gales of laughter under tough questioning.
But other complaints seemed to reflect a shoot-the-messenger anger at The Times. A reader from San Francisco railed against a litany of offending words that she said the paper had used, but most of the slights were imagined. (I can assure you that the word skank was never printed in an article about Clinton.)
I asked my assistant, Michael McElroy, to run a database search for some key words that might indicate sexism in The Times shrill, strident, pantsuit and giggle, among them.
(Via Hot Air.)
Following up on our post featuring a strangely vegetating Lou Dobbs yesterday, here's Lou, then and now:
(From Eyeblast.TV.)
Or, All The President's Vegetables (Margaret Thatcher could relate to that one); in any case, Lou Dobbs sounds like he's warming up to be an extra on Mystery Condiment Theater 3000.
As John Hinderaker writes, "Dobbs has been a joke for quite a while now, but I think he's finally gone around the bend. Yesterday he urged that President Bush be impeached over salmonella in tomatoes." No, really!, as Dave Barry would say:
(Video found at Eyeblast.TV)
Update: "Lets ask the really important question: how can we impeach incompetent news anchors?"
More: Hot Air-lanche--welcome readers of Michelle, Allahpundit and Capt. Ed! Given Hot Air's multimedia theme, click here to check out my various recent videos.
Back in 2005, Howard Dean told the late Tim Russert, "I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy." As the above clip illustrates, Dean's got his work cut out for him, particularly in his own party and its media.
Over at NRO's Media Blog, Stephen Spruiell explores the New Yorker's recent profile of Keith Olbermann:
I find it amusing that magazines like the New Yorker are just now figuring out that Olbermann is a lunatic. Alternatively, maybe they just found it harder to ignore once Olby started attacking Hillary Clinton with the same frothing intensity he usually reserved for Republicans. Here's Phil Griffin, the senior vice-president in charge of MSNBC, telling Boyer what that was like from his perspective:Meanwhile, as Larry Elder notes, "If 'The Media' Dislike Hillary, How Do They Feel About Those ----- Republicans?"But, just as Obama must work to win Clinton supporters for the fall campaign, Phil Griffin has to repair a fractured audience base, a portion of which saw sexism in his networks Clinton coverage and vowed to boycott MSNBC. Griffin knows that some of that anger is aimed at his star anchor. It was, like, you meet a guy and you fall in love with him, and hes funny and hes clever and hes witty, and hes all these great things, Griffin said of the relationship between Olbermann and the Clinton supporters among his viewers. And then you commit yourself to him, and he turns out to be a jerk and difficult and brutal. And that is how the Hillary viewers see him. Its true. But I do think theyre going to come back. Theres nowhere else to go.The New Yorker piece leaves you with the distinct impression that Griffin isn't just talking about Hillary supporters here. Olbermann's show is the only program on MSNBC that doesn't routinely get slaughtered by Fox News and CNN. Where else is Griffin going to go?
Recently, I linked to Jack Shafer's article in Slate, declaring Advantage: Michael Crichton:
In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with a Wired magazine essay titled "Mediasaurus," in which he prophesied the death of the mass media--specifically the New York Times and the commercial networks. "Vanished, without a trace," he wrote.Ever since dreaming up the "Silicon Graffiti" series last year, I had wanted to do a segment on Alvin & Heidi Toffler's "Third Wave" thesis; particularly since I had taped their segment on C-Span's Booknotes program in 1995. As I attempt to illustrate in the above video, the clashing of a Second Wave, industrial-era institution like Big Media with the Blogosphere, a purely Third Wave phenomenon, is one of the reasons why Old Media are slowly going the way the dinosaurs (and this is but one of many death rattles).The mediasaurs had about a decade to live, he wrote, before technological advances--"artificial intelligence agents roaming the databases, downloading stuff I am interested in, and assembling for me a front page"--swept them under. Shedding no tears, Crichton wrote that the shoddy mass media deserved its deadly fate.
"[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality," he lectured. "Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's basically junk."
* * * As we pass his prediction's 15-year anniversary, I've got to declare advantage Crichton. Rot afflicts the newspaper industry, which is shedding staff, circulation, and revenues. It's gotten so bad in newspaperville that some people want Google to buy the Times and run it as a charity! Evening news viewership continues to evaporate, and while the mass media aren't going extinct tomorrow, Crichton's original observations about the media future now ring more true than false. Ask any journalist.
Fortunately, as I noted in an earlier segment, they've already built their own Jurassic Park!
(And speaking of earlier segments, click here for older editions of the show.)
Back in October of 2003, Howard Dean boldly went where no presidential candidate had gone before:
Dean declared himself a "metrosexual," the buzz phrase for straight men in touch with their feminine sides, as he touted his accomplishments in "equal justice" for gay and lesbian couples.Perhaps it means this:But then he waffled.
"I'm a square," Dean declared, after professing his metrosexuality to a Boulder breakfast audience with an anecdote about being called handsome by a gay man. "I like (rapper) Wyclef Jean and everybody thinks I'm very hip, but I am really a square, as my kids will tell you. I don't even get to watch television. I've heard the term (metrosexual), but I don't know what it means."
"In many ways, he really will be the first woman president," Megan Beyer of Virginia, a charter member of Women for Obama, told reporters. An op-ed essay in The New York Post headlined "Bam: Our 1st Woman Prez?" came to a similar conclusion, if a tad more snidely: "Those shots of Barack and Michelle sitting with Oprah on stools had the feel of a smart, all-women talk panel."No wonder Hillary's narrative never gained traction in the Democratic primaries!
(Incidentally, the author of the piece is feminist icon Susan Faludi. Was she a Hillary backer in the primaries? Because that's quite a poison pill she's dropped into Obama's lap if that "he really will be the first woman president" line she quotes goes viral in the general election.)
Or Fox, to be specific--Keith Olbermann trashes Fox's entire Monday morning coverage of Tim Russert's death, because of remarks made (quite accurately, from our perspective) by one guest, Andrew Breitbart:
The final segment included Breitbart as a guest. "He was the last of an old breed of journalists who came from the Democratic party who felt incumbent of them to be fair to both sides," he said of Russert, although acknowledging Russert was a liberal. Kilmeade and Breitbart discussed some possible options, and Breitbart called out Matthews and Olbermann by name for a "leftward lurch." Then, Breitbart described how Matthews brought up the Iraq war in his initial tribute to Russert, calling it "classless."This from a man whose entire Joe Pyne meets Howard Beale routine is built on whipping up a frenzy amongst a couple of hundred thousand hardcore lefties whose entire lives revolve around BDS. (And yet, sometimes even they see through Keith's shtick.)Fast forward to Countdown at 8:45pmET last night on MSNBC. Olbermann gave the "Worst Person in the World," award to Fox & Friends. He didn't mention what segment of Fox & Friends he is referring to, or quote any part of what was said, but he seems to take offense to the Breitbart interview.
"You want to do a segment dismissing the late Tim Russert as a member of the liberal media?" he said. "You want to continue to feed the delusions of your viewers that the failures of their lives are the fault of somebody else, like TV news, and not their own responsibility?"
Andrew of course, runs the great Breitbart.com news aggregation site, and its affiliated Breitbart.tv video aggregation site (and full disclosure, we've met and interviewed all of the players there on several occasions). Between his affiliations with Matt Drudge and the Huffington Post, he's building the successors to a very shopworn legacy media. As Michael Crichton noted 15 years ago:
The American media produce a product of very poor quality," he lectured. "Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's basically junk.Much more on that topic in a bit.
Meanwhile, this: "Brokaw says he sometimes feels that he has been cast in the role of hall monitor at NBC News; if so, his charges have kept him busy." Heh.
Remember when television news anchors weren't being compared to unruly high school brats? Yes, I can too, but it's a period of time increasingly in the rearview mirror.
No doubt, particularly given who the potential replacements are.
In the last couple of years, NBC has really been letting its bias show, and of course, MSNBC makes no secret of its tilt. The near-simultaneous exits from the nightly news (admittedly for very different reasons) by Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather marked the effective end of the networks' evening news shows as any sort of cultural force. Similarly, you could make a pretty good case that Russert's death signals the end of the MSM having even a veneer of objectivity, bringing that eighty year experiment to its logical conclusion.
Elsewhere, Jack Shafer explores the inevitable.
As I wrote last week at the tail end of a post on Hillary's swan song:
Meanwhile, Larry Johnson feverishly awaits The Doomsday Machine--I'm sure it's being assembled, deep underground in this long secluded vault.If you follow the links, it's obvious that Johnson is a man of the left, a Hillary campaign supporter, and as Michelle Malkin writes:
Many readers are wondering why I have not written a single word about the rumored Michelle Obama whitey video.And these days, neither is much of the MSM, which is attempting to claim that the origin of Johnson's smear against Michelle Obama is not Johnson, but the conservative Blogosphere.Simple: Larry Johnson, the main source of the rumors, is not, not, not to be trusted.
So who's going to be the first in the legacy media to walk that one back? ABC News, Bob Beckel, Time, AP, The Guardian or the Gray Lady?
Speaking of conspiracy junkies, here's one closer to home:
Asked what he thinks of McCain, Vidal calls him a disaster, then tells Deborah Solomon, Who started this rumor that he was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?All merely a part of the master plan by the "fascist government ...which controls the media."Solomon replies: Everyone knows he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. To which Vidal responds: Thats what he tells us.
(And yet somehow, as the above interview with Deborah Solomon of the New York Times illustrates, it keeps quoting and publishing him without reprisal. Go figure.)
Glenn Reynolds quotes Gregg Easterbrook:
Democratic attacks on Mr. McCain and Republican attacks on Mr. Obama both seek to punish impermissibly positive thoughts. At a time when there exists a sense of crisis over the economy, fuel prices and many other issues, this reinforces the odd, two realities of life in the United States today: The way we are, and the way we think we are. The way we are could use some work, but overall, is pretty good. The way we think we are is terrible, horrible, awful. Possibly worse.Well, yeah. Check out this recent doomsday riff from David Letterman, who, during the 1980s, despite the equally eeeeevil Reagan being in charge was far too cool and ironic to be this morose about life:
Guys talking about the President really can't do anything about the economy. I don't know if that's true or not, but let's give them that one, let's just say okay, the President can't do anything about the economy. Everything else has gone so lousy in the last eight years. I mean and I'm a guy who doesn't pay attention to much, as long as I got wresting and a TV dinner I'm fine but even I am perceiving now that things are horrible in ways they shouldn't be horrible. Now, we're not going to impeach the guy. Could we get our money back? Honest to God, what, I mean [audience applause], just at least something.Dave's clinging bitterness is enough to make you change the channel...And if it's to ABC, you're confronted with more doomsday, as James Lileks notes:
"Are we living in the last century of our civilization? Is it possible that all of our technology, knowledge and wealth cannot save us from ourselves? Could our society actually be heading towards collapse?I'm not sure how much of a role Stanley Kubrick's opus played in causing liberalism's turn towards nihilism, but the timing is certainly right; as I noted a couple of years ago in a post titled, "1969: The Shattering of the Modernist Dream"."According to many of the world's top scientists, the answer is yes, unless we take action now."
Theyre asking for readers to submit their own dystopian nightmares.
What is it with the pessimism of the overclass? If it wasnt for doom and gloom, they wouldnt have a reason to live. The latest example comes from ABC News, and suggests that this century may be the last one for civilization. Who says? Scientists! Ah, well, if its scientists, wed best pay heed. Or perhaps you disagree; the centurys still fresh and young. It still has that new century smell. Warrantys good for another few years, and besides, we havent dumped the trunk-junk accumulated in the previous century. Well figure something out. We always do.
But you dont get publicity by suggesting this century might be better than its predecessor, or by asking people to envision how cool the future might be. There are dozens of websites and Flickr sets devoted to retrofuturism, to the art of describing what things might be like. If you grew up in the 60s, youll remember all the paintings of space useful space full of gleaming silver ships. That all ended with 2001: A Space Odyssey which suggested that the future of space was long, dull, and lonely, punctuated with homicidal computers, trippy FX and enormous wise space-fetuses. Great film, but from then on, something seemed different about the future. Did we really want to live there?
So is there reason to be optimistic today? Of course. But just don't expect much help in that department from the media, at least until November. They've got the double-whammy of their own industry in dire straits, and an economy to keep talking down, at least until--somehow, miraculously--it begins to turn on a dime the day after the election. (Provided the appropriate audacity and hope and change occurs, of course.)
Tim Blair quotes British journalist Jonathan Foreman on his nation's industry:
British newspaper writing is famously more vigorous and readable than its American equivalent. But this comes at a price: theres a good chance that anything you read in a British newspaper isnt true.And that never happens in the US!
Seriously though, five years ago, Virginia Postrel pointed out the difference in various nations' journalistic practices:
Each national press corps seems to have its own pathology. For the American press, it's the giant campaign swing, as applicable in military campaigns as in electoral contests. First the front-runner can't lose. Then he's a total disaster. Ditto the U.S. military in Iraq. The audience, reporters seem to believe, will reward drama.In other words, before they built the museum and began to call it a day.The British press corps serves its market, in turn, by passing on every rumor someone tells a reporter in a bar. The result are lots of juicy stories, some of them true. As a former U.S. news editor told her editors after 9/11, when asked why her paper wasn't getting the great stories in the British press, "They're great stories. But they aren't true."
Then, of course, there are the Arab TV services, with their tabloid penchant for blood, guts, and heavy-handed emotion. They're reminiscent of the old-time U.S. press, when big-city journalism was a new industry.
Apparently of a heart attack at age 58. Details as they emerge at Hot Air.
Brent Bozell, whom Allahpundit notes in the link above is--understatement alert--no fan of the MSM writes:
Whenever Ive been asked to give examples of a fair, balanced and honest journalist Tim Russerts name was the first name that came to mind. This was a view shared by everyone and the ultimate testimony to his professionalism. As a moderator he was in a league of his own, always knowing when to speak and when to let his guests do the talking. As an individual he was an absolute class act, and always a gentleman. The world of journalism is vastly diminished today.A truly class act indeed, the likes of which are now in that much shorter supply at NBC and its affiliated cable networks.
Update: Statement from President Bush:
Laura and I are deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Tim Russert. Those of us who knew and worked with Tim, his many friends, and the millions of Americans who loyally followed his career on the air will all miss him.Russert frequently--and jovially--interviewed Rush Limbaugh, particularly at Thanksgiving, demonstrating himself to be one of the few in the MSM comfortable with those across the aisle.As the longest-serving host of the longest-running program in the history of television, he was an institution in both news and politics for more than two decades. Tim was a tough and hardworking newsman. He was always well-informed and thorough in his interviews. And he was as gregarious off the set as he was prepared on it.
Most important, Tim was a proud son and father, and Laura and I offer our deepest sympathies to his wife Maureen, his son Luke, and the entire Russert family. We will keep them in our prayers.
Update: Speaking of being comfortable with the other side, Russert even once all-too-briefly donned a Fox News blazer.
"However you feel about her politics, I feel that Sen. Clinton received some of the most unfair, hostile coverage I've ever seen."
--Katie Couric, an expert on the topic.
Tim Graham spots the Prince of Darkness on The O'Reilly Factor:
OReilly was amazed and mentioned how Novak recounts his early days in his memoir Prince of Darkness. But a bigger infatuation than with JFK?As I've written before, hopefully McCain saw this coming.Novak said "I believe it is. It is just such a feel-good atmosphere of my colleagues, my senior colleagues, people Ive known for years. And I get it from some of the young people, too. They just feel this is such a wonderful thing, in the first place to have an African-American candidate, nominee, but also one that makes them feel so wonderful."
OReilly conceded that Obama was tremendously charismatic and could have his own TV show, but the he also makes them feel wonderful because they hate Bush and hate conservatives.
Novak replied with some amusement: "And then the other interesting thing about the media is that they have dropped, Bill, they have dropped John McCain like an old girlfriend. I mean, I remember how much -- some of the very same people who really felt that he was something new, something different in the year 2000 when he ran against Bush. They have no use for him now. They say well, he is not the same guy. He is the same guy! He is exactly the same. Same person but it's a different circumstance. He is not running against Bush. He is running against Obama."
The Exurban League notes:
I want to prepare all conservatives for an ugly, but unavoidable fact. From here on out, every criticism you make about Obama will be called racist by someone, somewhere. It could be a politician, a reporter, or a commenter on a blog, but steel yourself for this all-too-convenient smear.As Glenn Reynolds recently noted, "I can think of no better reason to vote against Obama than the prospect of an administration where any criticism of the President is treated as racism."
But hey, this is just the legacy media trying to compensate for being so overtly sexist and anti-women. Just ask any Hillary voter.
Good Morning America's Chris Cuomo equates so-far non-existent recession with the Great Depression, sees rising suicides(!) on the horizon:
Elsewhere in the legacy media, Tom Brokaw talks David Letterman back from his own ledge:
DAVID LETTERMAN: Guys talking about the President really can't do anything about the economy. I don't know if that's true or not, but let's give them that one, let's just say okay, the President can't do anything about the economy. Everything else has gone so lousy in the last eight years. I mean and I'm a guy who doesn't pay attention to much, as long as I got wresting and a TV dinner I'm fine but even I am perceiving now that things are horrible in ways they shouldn't be horrible. Now, we're not going to impeach the guy. Could we get our money back? Honest to God, what, I mean [audience applause], just at least something.Meanwhile, even as "The Economy Is Better Than You Think", "Adam Smith's invisible hand coldly touches its next victim."TOM BROKAW: David, that's why we have elections and we're about to have an election and on January 20th he'll be out of office. In this book, I write about 1968. Let me remind you that forty years ago this year, Doctor King was killed, Bobby Kennedy was killed, we had the Chicago riots, 16,000 people were killed in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson decided not to run for re-election, the Kerner Commission said we are two societies one white, one black, separate and unequal we had urban riots and in the fall we had as cantankerous and as contentious and in many way as mentally violent an election as we've ever had with George Wallace who was part of it.
So, we've been through these difficult times before and the way you work your way out of them is you get the two parties to nominate their best candidates and then everybody re-enlists as citizens and say to themselves and their family and their friends: Hey, it's time for us to get involved. So that's how I feel about it.
And boy, is he in for a shock!
(Sorry, couldn't resist that last link.)
Betsy Newmark points readers towards Mark Hemmingway's column in NRO today:
Mark Hemingway dissects the latest effort by Newsweek to campaign for Obama in their totally unsourced Obama-friendly attempt to show that he shouldn't have any problem with Jewish voters. Newsweek thus continues their trend of pumping for Obama's campaign. If they can't put him on the cover, they'll slant stories inside. As I noted last week, they have put Obama on the cover more than any other subject in the past year. Jim Geraghty notes some more examples that are, as he puts it, allowing Newsweek to give Olbermann a run for his money. US News' James Pethokoukis ridicules their cover this week about how the recession is worse than we think.That's also the subtext of these TV network stars here and here.For another example, here's a story about the U.S. economy from the latest issue of Newsweek, "Why It's Worse Than You Think." Not a surprising piece, given that the magazine made its recession call back in February, though the economy has stubbornly refused to roll over.Newsweek is not bothered by such economic technicalities as the fact that we still aren't experiencing a recession according to the data. They'll just tell us we're in a recession and that we should be darned scared about it. Subtext: vote Democratic.
Jim Geraghty spots some more fun from the folks who put the Koran in the Can, and this is an unintentional riot as well:
"Obama's Official Blog is Boring. McCain's is Enjoyable. Why That's Bad News for the GOP."I dunno--I find the Indiana Jones-style archaeological explorations of the former pretty fascinating myself.
Olbermann ranting last night about President Bush? Try The Atlantic complaining about President Reagan in 1987:
"Nineteen eighty-seven is Year One of the post-Reagan era. The problem is, Ronald Reagan is still in office. The revolutionary regime has outlived the revolution. Reagan himself is a lame duck, his effectiveness depleted and his popularity squandered."As Noemie Emery did last year, Matt Lewis also reminds us that Big Media hated Reagan then as much as they hate President Bush today. And this was in era when they were the media: no Fox, no Web, no Drudge, no Blogosphere, and Rush was just setting up shop.
John McCain told NBC:
Sen. Obama says that I'm running for a Bush's third terms. It seems to me he's running for Jimmy Carter's second.I'm glad to hear McCain saying that, as it exploits the huge disparity between the media, who think the Anti-Israeli Carter was something of a Lightworker himself, and the American public, whom very narrowly elected Carter over Gerald Ford in the first presidential election after Watergate, and who then much more decisively sent the 39th resident to an early retirement four years later.
Update: Video found via Allapundit of Hot Air, who asks, "Think well be hearing more of it going forward?"
I think that's a rather reasonable assumption, yes indeed. Although maybe a closer comparison would be that the Lightworker is running not for Jimmy Carter's second term, but for George McGovern's first.
At Pajamas HQ, Hillary supporter Taylor Marsh performs one of the many postmortems sure to be published in the coming days on her candidate's efforts:
What if Fighting Hillary of the last few months had shown up on day one, replacing inevitable Hillary?Sucks, huh? But that's how Republican presidential candidates have been treated by the TV networks since at least the days of Nixon. Several of them have managed to rise above it since, but it stands out a lot more when the media turns on someone who was once one of their own before This Year's Model arrived in the showrooms.What if Robin Givhans cleavage column had never been written? Thats where it began for me. It was obvious that Hillary was about to get dissected on terms that her male counterparts were not. Happening simultaneously was the back and forth between Clinton and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman with the added gift of him being a former Cheney aide. When she dared to ask if theyd prepared a plan for redeployment, she got back a letter from Edelman stating premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda. Secretary Gates stepped in to do damage control, because a senator on the Armed Services Committee asking questions about redeployment plans, even if a woman, isnt exactly asking for a recipe.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, in an interview with Bill Moyers, called the anti-Clinton media out. There was the cackle coverage: Hens cackle. So do witches. Pimpgate. The Clinton nutcracker sold in CNBC stores in airports. With the only left-leaning prime time news show host Keith Olbermann reduced to becoming the quintessential anti-Edward R. Murrow and a parody of himself as he degenerated into an unhinged special comment screamer. The big blogs got caught up in it and piled on too. Even David Gregory, one of the finest reporters around, reduced himself to doing a piece on his MSNBC show after Obama clinched the nomination that focused on Clintons political obituary. The first viable female candidate for president, who got more votes than anyone in Democratic Party primary history, was dissected, eviscerated, and humiliated for political sport, then pronounced dead.
(Via Instapundit.com)
Update In his "Happy Warrior" column on the backpage of the May 30th National Review (subscription required, but will probably be availably soon for free on Mark's Website), Mark Steyn also notes:
As Lanny Davis conceded to Laura Ingraham re the medias Obama swoon, she now knows what it feels like to be a Republican.Meanwhile, Larry Johnson feverishly awaits The Doomsday Machine--I'm sure it's being assembled, deep underground in this long secluded vault.
As Greg Pollowitz writes, "Here's a great video from the plane of the Obama press corps questioning Obama's press guy on why Obama would ditch them for his super-secret meeting with HRC. It's like they all just found out Santa Claus doesn't really exist."
Obama knows he doesn't have to worry, of course. As long as your ideology is in sync with the MSM--and particularly if you're a "Lightworker"(!), "you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things", as Dan Rather, who knows a thing or two about the topic himself, once said in appreciation of America's 42nd president.
Back in February of 2007, as old media seemed to be peddling faster and faster to stay afloat and its tone seemed to quickly become even more hysteric than usual, I asked if the media's Red Queen's Race had begun--and indeed it had. In Slate, Jack Shafer writes that Michael Crichton--who knows a thing or two about dinosaurs facing extinction--predicted its death rattle 15 years ago:
In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with a Wired magazine essay titled "Mediasaurus," in which he prophesied the death of the mass mediaspecifically the New York Times and the commercial networks. "Vanished, without a trace," he wrote.Read the whole thing.The mediasaurs had about a decade to live, he wrote, before technological advances"artificial intelligence agents roaming the databases, downloading stuff I am interested in, and assembling for me a front page"swept them under. Shedding no tears, Crichton wrote that the shoddy mass media deserved its deadly fate.
"[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality," he lectured. "Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's basically junk."
* * * As we pass his prediction's 15-year anniversary, I've got to declare advantage Crichton. Rot afflicts the newspaper industry, which is shedding staff, circulation, and revenues. It's gotten so bad in newspaperville that some people want Google to buy the Times and run it as a charity! Evening news viewership continues to evaporate, and while the mass media aren't going extinct tomorrow, Crichton's original observations about the media future now ring more true than false. Ask any journalist.
Then, much like a visit to Westworld or Jurassic Park, let's hit the museum!
All newspapers redesign their mastheads from time to time, but with the Internet radically reshaping the consumption of news, the International Herald-Tribune (created when the New York Times purchased the late great NY Herald-Tribune) really knows where to focus their efforts:
Did you see the American flag in the old logo?Leave it to one of Pinch's papers to focus on the flag, reacting to it with the same vampire-like fashion as the City of Los Angeles airbrushing the cross out of the city seal.What American flag are you talking about? I asked her.
The American flag that was in the old logo do you think that without the flag the paper will be more accepted in places that hate us today?
WHAT????
(Now is the time for you, my dear reader, to scroll to the top of this post and see the old masthead and look at the details of the old logo, because I am 100 percent sure that you never paid any attention to, yes, the American flag!).
Look, I said to the reporter, This is getting worse: I didnt realize that there was an American flag there, so one minute, let me check
Oh yes, holy s***!
So, you are killing the logo for this reason?
Silence.
Well, as you can see, I said readers are blind to logos
But we are mentally sound enough to realize that your bosses are insane.
If they think that the American flag is the problem to their circulation crisis these guys must be fired.
On the spot.
And shame on them!
In a more benign version of an unnecessary old media update, Christian Toto notes that Jay Leno's days on the Tonight Show may be numbered:
It all goes back to a rushed business decision the Peacock network made four years ago to keep Conan OBrien in the fold. Contract talks with the red-headed comic, who seemed unlikely to last the week, let alone 14-plus years when he first replaced David Letterman, had hit a major snag.Whatever Jay's politics, like Carson, he's managed to craft a benign image that appeals perfectly to television's aging audience and the heartland in general. Much like the ground the TV networks lost to the Internet when the last generation of anchormen left the airwaves (Brokaw via retirement, Jennings via his untimely death, and Dan Rather via his own overarching stupidity), NBC's likely making a profound error by pushing out Leno.So the network suits threw him a Hail Mary you can take over The Tonight Show in five years if you stay with the NBC family. Heck, theres no way Leno will still be the king of that time slot by 2009, right.
Right?
Flash forward to 2008, and Leno remains the undisputed late night champ. The Tonight Show earns more than $100 million annually for NBC, according to press reports. The program regularly trumps rival David Lettermans The Late Show in the ratings with little sign of slipping.
The change is expected to happen mid-next year. OBrien will assume The Tonight Show hosting duties, former Saturday Night Live star Jimmy Fallon slips into OBriens Late Night slot and Leno gets to scratch his iconic chin while considering his next move.
Just to add to my recent video on which side of the aisle is more obsessed with conspiracy theories, reading this, it sounds like Dan Rather's take on how he was discovered trying to sell phony documents to his audience isn't all that far removed from Tim Blair's satiric look at RatherGate's birth.
Kathleen Parker has a sense of deja vu:
I was reading Jeffrey Toobins New Yorker profile of political spinmeister Roger Stone and thinking, hmmmmm. Where have I read this before? And then I remembered. Matt Labash wrote a very long profile of the very same Roger Stone for The Weekly Standard last November and a follow up in January of this year. I dug up the profile to check my memory and remembered why I remembered it. The profile was mentioned everywhere, including David Brookss year-end essay awards, mediabistro, and Romenesko. The similarities are striking, the most egregious of which is a device Labash uses throughout his piece. He repeatedly breaks up anecdotes with Stones Rules things like Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack, as well as White shirt + tan face = confidence.I think the New Yorker is counting on very few of its readers also reading the Weekly Standard, Particularly when its former editor has an on-air conversation like this one.Toobin does the exact same thing throughout his profile, even including the same mathematical equation and, like Labash, basing his conclusion on yet another rule. The cover art on The Weekly Standard is a photo of Roger Stone with his shirt off, showing his Nixon back tattoo. Whaddayaknow? In The New Yorkers print edition (not online), they run a photo of Stone with his shirt off, flashing his back tattoo.
Theres more, but I leave a side-by-side comparison to more industrious souls. Both pieces are long. But any casual reading of the two suggests that Toobin owed Labash at least a hat tip. Were all magpies, picking scraps from here and there to build our nests, but when you use someone elses rhetorical devices, some recognition is due. Its always possible Toobin didnt read the Labash piece, but that seems unlikely. And if he didnt, why not? Without using the P-word, we can reasonably infer Toobins Rule: If it hasnt appeared in the New Yorker, it hasnt appeared.
But it has. And it has appeared in better form.
(By the way: the Nixon tattoo is real?! Geez. I thought for sure it was a Photoshop for the cover.)
Richard Cohen, on MSNBC:
Well, I agree that race is a factor on both sides. But, but, but to feel a sense of solidarity with, with someone of your own race or ethnic group, or whatever it is, that's one thing I understand, especially when it's going to be an historic moment. But to vote against somebody...Cohen in the Washington Post:
I loathe above all the resurgence of racism -- or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought. I am stunned by the numbers of people who have come out to vote against Barack Obama because he is black. I am even more stunned that many of these people have no compunction about telling a pollster they voted on account of race -- one in five whites in Kentucky, for instance. Those voters didn't even know enough to lie, which is what, if you look at the numbers, others probably did in other states. Such honesty ought to be commendable. It is, instead, frightening.Evidently, one form of racism actually is acceptable to Cohen, on some level, based on his MSNBC remarks: if you're voting for someone based in some degree--possibly quite a large degree--upon his race, on some level, aren't you voting against the other candidate because of hers? That sounds quite a bit like Michael Pfleger's anti-Hillary rant, merely slowed down from 78 RPMs and 130 decibels, and tarted up in more acceptable terms.
Hey, maybe I've been too harsh on the Obama campaign--they have to have quite a well-developed sense of humor to actually send their communications director out to and say this with a straight face:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: In Philadelphia, just in April, Senator Obama said of Reverend Wright "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." Now he's cut all ties to Reverend Wright, and left his church. What is it a mistake to wait this long?Uh-huh. If it is, it would be the first non-political decision Obama has made in his adult life.ROBERT GIBBS: No, George. I think obviously what Barack Obama made in the past few days is a deeply personal, not a political decision.
Besides, I thought the personal was political.
After demagoguing General Petraeus in their own ads--complete with special bro pricing from the New York Times, "Dems Angry That McCain Uses Petraeus's Image In His Ads, Too."
Mickey Kaus asks, "Where does Obama get that 'hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year'--an alleged increase he blamed on 'people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up'?":
The latest FBI statistics I can find are from 2006, not last year. They show about a 14% increase from 2005, by my calculation. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center only claims:Meanwhile, Jennifer Rubin notes that "Obamas Electoral Problems Transcend Race", even as an MSNBC guest claims, "On the race issue, I wish Geraldine Ferraro would give it a rest. I don't think people were saying she was racist when she made her earlier remarks."According to hate crime statistics published annually by the FBI, anti-Latino hate crimes rose by almost 35% between 2003 and 2006, the latest year for which statistics are available.A 35% increase over four years is not "doubled last year." (Never mind why the SPLC may have picked 2003 as their base of comparison ).Am I missing some Obama data source? Or is this an overly overlooked incident of Obama pulling convenient facts out of the air? ...
Suppose John McCain had said the same thing! ... Er, actually, McCain probably will say the same thing. And he'll probably get a pass too. Who'd attack him for it? Obama? The Dobbs-deriding MSM? This is not an area where you can rely on the normal adversarial political process to yield the truth, because Obama, McCain and the MSM essentially agree on immigration.
Well, other than an MSNBC host; two guesses as to his name.
And speaking of Ferraro, Ed Morrissey writes:
Geraldine Ferraro has not gone away, quietly or otherwise, since becoming a focal point of the charges of racism and sexism in the Democratic primary campaign. Today, she writes about healing the divide in the party, but not before the Barack Obama campaign acknowledges the hurt feelings it caused women and make amends. Since Obamas advisers refuse to do so, Ferraro wants a study done to determine how much the two campaigns engaged in racism and sexism.You can hear more from Jennifer Rubin, Capt. Ed, and Tammy Bruce, on the subject of identity politics amongst the left, on this week's edition of PJM Political.
CNN helpfully airbrushes Obama's Memorial Day "fallen heroes and I see many of them in the audience today" gaffe for him.
Meanwhile, an equally-obliging MSNBC runs interference for Father Pfleger, much as CNN has done for Rev. Wright.
How many points would Newsweek's Evan Thomas say the media is worth to their candidate this time around?
Dan Rather* in 2001:
Bill O'Reilly: I want to ask you flat out, do you think President Clinton's an honest man?But that was then, this is now, and the President no longer has a D after his name: "CNNs Wolf Blitzer to McClellan: Is President Bush A Serial Liar?"Dan Rather: Yes, I think he's an honest man.
O'Reilly: Do you, really?
Rather: I do.
O'Reilly: Even though he lied to Jim Lehrer's face about the Lewinsky case? :
Rather: Who among us has not lied about . something?
O'Reilly: Well, I didn't lie to anybody's face on national television. I don't think you have, have you?
Rather: I don't think I ever have. I hope I never have. But, look, it's one thing
O'Reilly: How can you say he's an honest guy then?
Rather: Well, because I think he is. I think at core he's an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.
-Fox News's "The O'Reilly Factor," May 15, 2001
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Thomas Bartlett asks, "Did a 'dream team' of biblical scholars mislead millions?":
Marvin Meyer was eating breakfast when his cellphone buzzed. Meyer, a professor of religious studies at Chapman University, has a mostly gray beard and an athletic build left over from his basketball days. His friends call him "the Velvet Hammer" for his mild demeanor. He's a nice guy.As with The Da Vinci Code, It sounds like National Geographic attempted to not-so-boldly go into the same moral inversion that Kenneth Anger had already gone 30 years ago, only to have the rug pulled out from under them. As Orrin Judd writes, "When the marketing campaign comes first the translation is bound to be sketchy."The voice on the other end belonged to a representative of the National Geographic Society. They were working on a project and wanted his help.
"That's very interesting," he remembers saying. "What do you have in mind?"
"We can't tell you," was the reply.
That was not the answer he expected.
"Let me see if I understand this," Meyer said. "You'd like me to agree to do a project with you, but you won't tell me what that project is. Is that right?"
"Exactly."
He would have to sign a nondisclosure agreement first which, in the end, he agreed to do. Not long afterward, Meyer found himself locked in an office in Washington, with a desk, a pile of dictionaries and lexicons, and one of the most sought-after religious texts in recent history, the Gospel of Judas. For a week he worked almost nonstop on the 26-page text, translating the Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language written with Greek letters, into English. As he translated, a startling portrait of Judas Iscariot emerged. This was not the reviled traitor who betrayed Jesus with a kiss. This was the trusted disciple, the close confidant, the friend. This was a revelation.
When the Gospel of Judas was unveiled at a news conference in April 2006, it made headlines around the world with nearly all of those articles touting the new and improved Judas. "In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal," read the headline in The New York Times. The British paper The Guardian called it "a radical makeover for one of the worst reputations in history." A documentary that aired a few days later on National Geographic's cable channel also pushed the Judas-as-hero theme. The premiere attracted four million viewers, making it the second-highest-rated program in the channel's history, behind only a documentary on September 11.
* * * One of the seven million people who watched the National Geographic documentary was April D. DeConick. Admittedly, DeConick, a professor of biblical studies at Rice University, was not your average viewer. As a Coptologist, she had long been aware of the existence of the Gospel of Judas and was friends with several of those who had worked on the so-called dream team. It's fair to say she watched the documentary with special interest.
As soon as the show ended, she went to her computer and downloaded the English translation from the National Geographic Web site. Almost immediately she began to have concerns. From her reading, even in translation, it seemed obvious that Judas was not turning in Jesus as a friendly gesture, but rather sacrificing him to a demon god named Saklas. This alone would suggest, strongly, that Judas was not acting with Jesus' best interests in mind which would undercut the thesis of the National Geographic team. She turned to her husband, Wade, and said: "Oh no. Something is really wrong."
She started the next day on her own translation of the Coptic transcription, also posted on the National Geographic Web site. That's when she came across what she considered a major, almost unbelievable error. It had to do with the translation of the word "daimon," which Jesus uses to address Judas. The National Geographic team translates this as "spirit," an unusual choice and inconsistent with translations of other early Christian texts, where it is usually rendered as "demon." In this passage, however, Jesus' calling Judas a demon would completely alter the meaning. "O 13th spirit, why do you try so hard?" becomes "O 13th demon, why do you try so hard?" A gentle inquiry turns into a vicious rebuke.
Then there's the number 13. The Gospel of Judas is thought to have been written by a sect of Gnostics known as Sethians, for whom the number 13 would indicate a realm ruled by the demon Ialdabaoth. Calling someone a demon from the 13th realm would not be a compliment. In another passage, the National Geographic translation says that Judas "would ascend to the holy generation." But DeConick says it's clear from the transcription that a negative has been left out and that Judas will not ascend to the holy generation (this error has been corrected in the second edition). DeConick also objected to a phrase that says Judas has been "set apart for the holy generation." She argues it should be translated "set apart from the holy generation" again, the opposite meaning.
As Ken Shepherd notes, the media has become increasingly lax on reporting on Obama's miscues precisely during the period when he began to gather momentum as the DNC's increasingly presumptive nominee:
Barack Obama's penchant for gaffes is hardly anything new, but as the Illinois Democrat has come closer and closer to becoming the official Democratic presidential nominee, it seems the mainstream media have become less and less likely to note his gaffes. A cursory Web search finds a few instances of the mainstream media picking up on Obama gaffes in 2007, when Sen. Clinton was well ahead of Obama in the polls and was widely expected to be marching towards coronation in Denver.Of course, this is far from the first time the MSM has collectively backed off on reporting on their candidate's gaffes once he became the nominee. As far as old media was concerned, Kerry was just another guy, to borrow one of Bill Parcells' favorite phrases, about someone who's a competent team player but no athletic superstar, until he locked up the nomination and became untouchable."Obama's gaffes start to pile up" read the headline for a March 28 Lynn Sweet column [in the Chicago Sun-Times]. March 28, 2007, that is.
Related: "Obama camp on Auschwitz: Sorry, he meant Ohrdruf".
More: And he meant it when he referenced Auschwitz (back then he referred to a grandfather, not an "uncle" as he did yesterday) previously in 2002, I'm sure.
"Media Coverage [Of Economy] Was More Upbeat at Start of the Great Depression"--Of course, that was right around the time that FDR was campaigning as a sort of Jurassic libertarian, which illustrates how radically narratives can change over time.
But then economic coverage is far from the only example of old media's having undergone a post-1960s hardening of the attitudes. As Orrin Judd recently wrote, "What Actually Remains Of Nixonland...is just a press corps that treats everyone like the enemy and, therefore, fails at the basics of its profession."
Dropping into a story you know nothing about and trying to make sense of the players (especially when they have no desire to talk to you because they sense a hatchet job in the works) is typically an old media recipe for disaster--and increasingly so in the age of the Blogosphere, where the subjects of the story can easily rip holes in the story's narrative. (Related thoughts here and here.)
Parachute photojournalism on the other hand, can often lead to spectacular results.
Today's gaffe by Obama is rather small potatoes (though the quick airbrush work immediately afterwards by his campaign staff is noteworthy), but since the media reports all gaffes made by Republicans, and few from Democrats (expect for those Democrats who are the current year's apostates), it seems fair game to point it out, particularly in an election year.
Much like 2004, the starboard side of the Blogosphere is once again doing the work that was expected of old media, even if they never were as objective or fair to both sides as we imagined they were.
Update: Hugh Hewitt adds:
It is difficult not to conclude that Senator Obama has developed his reputation as a powerful orator and skilled politician in a protected media environment and in races against candidates that were deeply flawed.Not to mention some rather unique turns of history.
The Sundries Shack adds, "After this campaign, I swear, I dont want to hear one more person crack wise about Dan Quayle ever again."
In the interim, an article idea for someone with some time and a flatbed scanner: Last year, Noemie Emery wrote a terrific Weekly Standard article that opened up the memory hole and reminded us that despite the grudging admiration of the Gipper upon his passing, how much the vast majority of elite journalists hated the Gipper in the last couple of years of his administration. Similarly, I'm hoping that someone will go through the op-eds of 1988, and upload to the Internet a sampling of the the gallons of ink spilled back then over how inexperienced Quayle was, simply to be veep, even though at the time he had more years in the House and Senate than Obama has today.
Related: What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the fermentations of the Obama!
Noel Sheppard writes:
It's Memorial Day, and the good folks at the New York Times thought it appropriate to not only attack the President's position on a new G.I. Bill, but also to despicably lambaste him for "[h]aving saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war," and "having squandered soldiers lives and failed them in so many ways."F. Scott Fitzgerald once write, "The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function". The Times certainly has the first half of Fitzgerald's equation down could, as James Taranto has noted on numerous occasions. But the jury's still out on the latter portion of Fitzgerald's theorem:On Memorial Day!
Thankfully, White House press secretary Dana Perino has already issued a written statement concerning this deplorable act by the Times on a sacred day when our nation commemorates its fallen heroes.
Nice sentiments on Memorial Day, dontcha think? Yet, the Times then stooped to misinformation to strengthen its point:That should have been an ongoing effort by the Bush White House since, if not day one, then certainly after 9/11.Mr. Bush and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.Strained recruiting to the breaking point? I guess the Times editorial board forgot about an Associated Press article on this very subject that was posted at the paper's website on May 13:They have seized on a prediction by the Congressional Budget Office that new, better benefits would decrease re-enlistments by 16 percent, which sounds ominous if you are trying as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain are to defend a never-ending war at a time when extended tours of duty have sapped morale and strained recruiting to the breaking point.
The Marine Corps far surpassed its recruiting goal last month, enlisting 2,233 people, which was 142 percent of its goal, the Pentagon said. The Army recruited 5,681 people, 101 percent of its goal. The Navy and Air Force also met their goals, 2,905 sailors and 2,435 airmen. A Defense Department spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said that if the Marine Corps continued its recruiting success, it could reach its goal of growing to 202,000 people by the end of 2009, more than a year early.Fortunately, the White House fired back. As Noel Sheppard noted:Curiously, this was the second time in one week the White House struck out at the press, with the first being Ed Gillespie's letter to NBC concerning the editing of Richard Engel's interview with the President. Makes one wonder why Bush and Company have waited until his final year in office to start pushing back when the media are out of line.
To be fair to the Times though, its writers might not have known it was Memorial Day, particularly since it's not a holiday worthy of celebration on on Google's splash page.
Unlike, say, Walter Gropius' 125th birthday.
"Somewhere, Dan Quayle scratches his head in bewilderment", Jammie Wearing Fool notes--and probably accurately, as Barack Obama hits Florida:
At four different points during the speech, Obama referred to the town as Sunshine, as opposed to Sunrise. Amazingly, the crowd of 16,000 played along and no one corrected him. Sunrise is a city in Broward County, possibly best known for its role in 2000 presidential election.JWF writes:
Good grief.And possibly John Kerry as well, who had his share of similar geographic gaffes in 2004.Let's face it, the media doesn't want to poke fun at him because they dread being called racist. [Sexist? They can apparently live with that.--Ed]
It is what it is, and what it is is a fawning press gives this guy a free pass.
Somewhere, Dan Quayle scratches his head in bewilderment.
Jon of the Exurban League reminds Olbermann fans, "How soon they forget":
Just one month ago, Olbermann referred to the assassination... of Hillary.And while one expects Night of the Long Knives-style rhetoric from Olbermann, who violates Godwin's Law with seeming impunity on a regular basis, he's not the only person in the media to have similar assassination porn fantasies regarding Hillary. As Mark Steyn writes, "The modern Democratic party is like Islam: You're either a believer or an apostate", and Hillary, like Joe Lieberman before her no longer This Year's Model, is now very much in the latter camp.On Olbermann's April 24, 2008, program, guest Howard Fineman was discussing the delegate math with Our Hero, stating, "some adults somewhere in the Democratic party to step in and stop this thing, like a referee in a fight that could go on for thirty rounds. Those are the super, super, super delegates who are going to have to decide this."
To which Olbermann replied, "Right. Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out."
Let's roll the tape.
Update: Along with a link to Hillary's earlier assassination fantasy in a March interview with Time, Matt Murphy (the one who's with the Judd Brothers, not the Blues Brothers) digs another classic Billary moment out of the memory hole: "considering that she has repeated the sentiment, it's amusing to recollect that her husband drew a direct connection between talk radio and the Oklahoma City bombings on less evidence than this."
I actually said to my wife over dinner that Hillary's finding out what it feels like to be a Republican presidential candidate: in the past, the media was quite happy to creatively interpret her gaffes--"What Hillary meant to say was this", but these days, with the media desperate for Hillary to bail from the race (see: Russert, Tim), there's no room for error, as Charles Johnson notes:
Hillary Clinton is finding out what its like to be a Republican tonight, as MSNBC and CNN and the Associated Press go for her jugular vein; she mentioned the assassination of Robert Kennedy as an example of how things can change in an elections late innings, and the left wing media are almost universally accusing her of insinuating that Barack Obama will be assassinated.Yes, nothing like getting lectured by Keith Olbermann on what you can or cannot say on public airways--on Keith's network, you can turn the phrase "pimped out" into quite a lucrative hosting gig.Welcome to the GOP, Hill!
UPDATE at 5/23/08 7:57:48 pm:
Keith Obermanns rant: You actually used THOSE WORDS in this America, Senator?! You cannot SAY THIS!!!
Howard Kurtz spots vile commenters on Michelle Malkin's blog responding to Ted Kennedy's recent brain tumor announcement--but fails to notice an even worse level of vitriol amongst the far left commenters on the blogs of his print employer, the Washington Post.
And it's not the first time Kurtz's partisan blindspot in this area has occurred.
More at Michelle's Hot Air Website.
Bill Clinton in 2006:
[Clinton] said Democrats of his generation tend to be naive about new media realities. There is an expectation among Democrats that establishment old media organizations are de facto allies and will rebut political accusations and serve as referees on new-media excesses.Of course, from Bill's point of view today, those allies sometimes align themselves with the wrong side of the occasional warring internecine struggle:
-"I think most of the press people are in Obama's demographic. ... There have been times when I thought I was literally lost in a fun house."Why, it's like a revolving door between the two camps. That's never happened before!
Bill at least has the knowledge that since the days of FDR, old media has been a de facto ally to liberals in power (with a few rogue outliers of course, from time to time). John McCain has little excuse if he didn't anticipate his former media allies turning on him once he became the GOP's nominee.
It's curious that Obama has declared comments about his spouse as part of the ever growing, all-inclusive list of off-limits criticisms, when he himself had no problem criticizing the overtly political rhetoric of another candidate's spouse not all that long ago.
Journalists have long used horse race analogies when writing about politics; apparently the New York Times feels that turnabout is fair play, as Kevin D. Williamson spots its horse racing blogger self-describing himself as an anti-Bush, pro-defeat leftist. Williamson writes:
Sure, you expect some scathing leftist commentary on the Times' business page, the food section, the arts coverage, the travel notes, baseball columns, local news, the special weekend sections, the colophon, and the classified advertising, but the horseracing blog? Is nothing sacred?Hey remember the good old days, long, long ago, when the Times' former ombudsman took flak for admitting the obvious? Now even the sportswriters there don't bother to hide their biases.
(Or maybe he's seeking employment elsewhere and wants to subtly get his resume out there.)
Ed Gillespie, counselor to the president emails Steve Capus, the president of NBC, to ask why President Bush's comments were selectively edited by NBC correspondent Richard Engel:
Mr. Capus, I'm sure you don't want people to conclude that there is really no distinction between the "news" as reported on NBC and the "opinion" as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines. I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network's viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don't hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.I think we can safely answer that one--Engel, by admitting publicly in 2006 that "War Should Be Illegal; I'm Basically A Pacifist", is keeping pace with the sea change throughout his industry (and his employer is far from immune, of course), which has finally eschewed the 80-year old "objectivity" model that hamstrung journalism throughout the 20th century. That's also the subtext that underlies this recent Howard Kurtz article, even if it's a topic that Kurtz himself is unusually reticent to tackle, for understandable reasons.Sincerely,
Ed Gillespie
Counselor to the President
Of course, that doesn't excuse the selective distortion of a quote, whether written or recorded. But then that's a pretty well established old media trend popularized by another institution that's increasingly happy to admit its own biases.
Newspapers are an industry that has done the most to spread fear of global warming, and have heavily donated to "green" causes. And now it's time for them to the pay the bill, or risk appearing even more hypocritical than they're currently thought of:
A prototypical publisher selling 250,000 newspapers on each of the 365 days of the year adds nearly 28,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, according to calculations well explain in a moment. Thats roughly equivalent to the CO2 spewed by almost 3,700 Ford Explorers being driven 10,000 miles apiece per year. (Disclosure: I own a 12-year-old Ford Explorer. Anyone want to buy it?)As the Insta-Man likes to say, I'll consider believing that there's a crisis when the people who complain the loudest start acting like there's a crisis.CO2 matters, because a dangerous buildup of the gas in the atmosphere caused by the growing consumption of fossil fuels and the decimation of our forests is causing the earth to warm to such dangerous and unprecedented levels that the health of the planet and its inhabitants are imperiled.
The problem for even the most environmentally sensitive print publisher is that every aspect of the business does uncontestable violence to the environment.
Besides, isn't it time that Pinch thinks of the polar bears!?
(H/T for Nelson Muntz.)
Found via Pajamas, which has thorough and regularly updated coverage of the West Virginia Democratic primary, Marie Cocco of the Washington Post writes, "As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it's time to take stock of what I will not miss":
I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't uttered a word of public outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.No, the darker stain is the hatred of the other, the opposite in general that flows through the identity politics of the left, from otherwise surprisingly "diverse" quarters.Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?
There are many reasons why Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.
Cocco's mantra is that she won't miss the sexism of the left, but that implies that such wounds are being put in the past. Why? Sides of the left that their media normally keeps well under wraps were exposed for all to see this year. In an ideal world the cliche that "sunlight is the best disinfectant" would be true, but these rifts aren't going away anytime soon.
Update: This portion of the latest essay by Camile Paglia dovetails remarkably well with the above rococo Cocco WaPo piece:
Hillary has certainly given a blast of artificial resuscitation to male-bashing paleo-feminism, which is back with a vengeance. The blogosphere is awash with accusations of "traitor" against women who have the temerity to vote for Obama. Gloria Steinem's anointed heir, Susan Faludi, weighed in with a recent New York Times op-ed about Hillary bizarrely arguing that a sports referee or umpire is "coded feminine" (huh?) and parallels the vintage American feminist as "prissy hall monitor" and "purse-lipped killjoy" -- a stereotype that Hillary the pugilist has broken. (Oh, really? When has Faludi ever endorsed pugilistic feminism before?)Probably wise--there's been so little of that in this election.With nice synchronicity, that same week Rebecca Walker, Steinem's goddaughter, was complaining about entrenched feminist "ideology" in the Sunday Times in London. The brand of feminism promoted by her mother, feminist icon Alice Walker, is in Rebecca's words "close to a cult": "I feel I had to de-programme myself in order to have independent thought." My own protest against the ideology problem in feminism has been going on, through word and deed, since the late 1960s. My latest salvo, "Feminism Past and Present: Ideology, Action, and Reform" (the keynote address of a conference on feminism at Harvard University in April) will appear in the Spring/Summer issue of Arion, to be published in print and on the Web in June.
Another point: Most of the media fell hook, line and sinker for the "Iron my shirt!" stunt at a Hillary campaign event in January in New Hampshire, where two scruffy male hecklers were clearly in collusion with her staff. (The signs -- including one suspiciously permitted on the stage itself -- were carefully positioned and lit, and Hillary had a pat prepared line to draw camera attention to them.) Those dorky guys, at least one with a link to a radio station, are far too young to have the slightest knowledge of an era when women ironed men's shirts -- or when shirts needed ironing at all! Businessmen's shirts go to the cleaners nowadays, and everyone else's gear is just tossed into the dryer. That hoax was designed to reawaken the atavistic resentments of older women voters -- and it worked.
[Watch a clip of the "Iron my shirt!" stunt, below] (Embedded in Paglia's post--Ed)
A perfect symbol of the empty rhetoric and slick manipulations of the Clinton campaign is its chairman, Terry McAuliffe, a wheeler-dealer businessman and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Despite our shared Syracuse background, I despise McAuliffe with every fiber of my being. On primary day in Pennsylvania last month, I voted for Obama in the suburbs and then dashed to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia to catch a train to New York (where I was to tape a TV interview with Sandra Bernhard for the In the Life gay channel).
There big as life right at the top of my departure stairs in the airy main lobby was Terry McAuliffe, dressed in a dark suit like a well-appointed undertaker and chatting away conspiratorially with two similarly dressed clones. A wave of aggression swept over me. From 10 feet away, I locked on to McAuliffe like the deranged ED-209 crime-fighting robot that shoots up a corporate boardroom in Paul Verhoeven's "RoboCop." Nouns like "scum" and "rot" and adjectives like "vile" and "corrupt" flashed through my mind, ready for ignition and firing. I struggled but uncharacteristically held my tongue. My cardinal principle of free speech was restrained by my subordinate principle of respect for shared public space. McAuliffe had as much right as I do to be free from harassment in a train station. But passersby missed what could have been a tasty little scene of 1960s-style street theater.
Last year, there were 409 tornadoes:
"So far some 730 tornadoes have touched down this year, more than double the number for all of last year."ABC's Bill Weir on yesterday's Good Morning America, who--of course--blames the "more than double" increase on global warming.
I doubt Cindy Crawford would argue with those calculations.
(Nor would this fellow, but for different reasons.)
Yet another Hillary supporter uttering quotes that would be right at home at the MRC--in this case, Hillary herself!
ABC News' Eloise Harper reports: An adoring group of more than 1,000 people greeted Sen. Hillary Clinton and her daughter today at a fundraiser in New York City. She thanked them for their support and later told the group that she is going to finish the nominating process.Hillary and her supporters are complaining that the media is in the tank for the candidate further to the left than she is. But hey, remember six years ago when her husband's former vice president was saying this?"I want you to know how grateful I am for your support and how much you have sustained me throughout this campaign," she said. "But it has been a joy. Now I know that may be hard to believe, but if you just take the advice that I give to my own mother, and that is: Just turn off the television."
And speaking of vice-presidents, at this rate, how long before Hillary or her supporters start calling the media--which kept their presidency alive in the 1990s--nattering nabobs of negativism?
From Clinton-aide Lanny Davis's interview with the Politico yesterday:
Davis said he told a producer several times before getting on-air that he wanted to offer a counterpoint to CNNs panel, which he thinks is too pro-Obama.How can Davis say that? Why, other than literally swooning over him, they're completely objective and neutral!
Just to follow on from my post from this morning, here's yet another article that would easily have fit in on Newsbusters, except that its chief source of quotes is a liberal who is complaining about the partisan nature of CNN's political coverage:
When Clinton supporter Lanny Davis appeared on CNN during primary night, shortly before 10 p.m., there was a peculiar exchange with host Anderson Cooper.According to a post found via Protein Wisdom and Hot Air, Martin is apparently quite a partisan for Reverend Wright, in any case.Cooper: Lanny, let me start off with you. We haven't heard from you tonight. Your take on Barack Obama's speech earlier?
Davis: You haven't heard from me tonight. And I'm not sure Im not sure you want to hear from me tonight but
Cooper: We heard from Paul Begala. This is your big chance.
Davis: Well, actually, I don't think we heard very much from Paul Begala. We did hear an awful
Cooper: All part of the conspiracy against Hillary Clinton, I suppose.During the Election Night broadcast, there was palpable tension between Davis and CNN reporters and panelists on camera and apparently, with producers off camera.
Looking back, Davis said by phone this afternoon, he considers it the worst experience I ever had on television.
What bothers Davis most is that CNN is the network with which hes had the longest relationship, where hes maintained close friendships through the years, and that he's always considered middle-of-the-road in its coverage. But in his opinion, CNN has not treated Hillary Clinton fairly in the 08 race.
Formerly special counsel to President Bill Clinton, Davis admits wholeheartedly to being a partisan and strongly supports Clinton against Obama.
So what happened on Tuesday night?
Davis, by his account, was invited to appear on the CNN panel in New York but declined because of a family commitment his sons baseball practice in Maryland. Instead, he opted to participate by remote from the networks D.C. studio.
He was instructed to arrive around 8:30 p.m., he said, in order to take over the pro-Clinton position once Paul Begala left. So Davis left the baseball practice early in order to arrive at the studio on time, but he didnt make it on air until almost 10 p.m.
A CNN spokesperson said that Davis was scheduled to go on-air at 9pm, but CNN didn't go to him or any commentator during Sen. Obama's speech in the 9pm hour, just as no commentators were on-air during Sen. Clinton's speech later the same night.
Davis said he told a producer several times before getting on-air that he wanted to offer a counterpoint to CNNs panel, which he thinks is too pro-Obama.
Regarding the panel's make-up, Davis said that he believes Gloria Borger, David Gergen, Donna Brazile and Carl Bernstein are all tougher on Clinton than on her rival. And he maintains that Roland Martin is definitely a partisan for Obama. (Martin has not official endorsed Obama and is not labeled as such on the network,)
More from Davis:
Regarding CNNs competitors, Davis said that MSNBC is shameless about their bias toward Obama, and Fox has been the fairest which is saying a lot coming from a self-described member of the Democratic Partys left wing.And that's the rub, isn't it? Like most in old media or who orbit closest to it, they don't object that it's partisan anymore--they're merely upset when it's stacked against their politician.Fox, no matter how much you might criticize an ideological bent, in this campaign, they have been religiously middle-of-the-road, point-counterpoint, Davis said.
And thats what Davis said he expects from CNN, the network where hes had the longest history, best friends, and most respect.
On Wednesday night, as I was mixing down the elements for this week's PJM Political (which you can listen to here--and yes, I did get far too silly writing the headline)--I listened to some of the audio from Rush Limbaugh, the first time I had done so in a while. As a result of Operation Chaos, he's clearly having more fun than he's had in quite some time and this essay in Slate by Jack Shafer is one of the many inadvertent byproducts of it:
My intention here is less to light a candle for the Clinton candidacywhich remains the long shot it was even after her Pennsylvania primary win in late Aprilthan to give Russert and company the hot foot for their dramatic exuberance.Russert of course, a former aid to Mario Cuomo, came to NBC via the revolving door between Democrats and old media (See also: Stephanopoulos, George; and Matthews, Chris). Jeff Jarvis and James Wolcott, who have each openly declared for Hillary, have also recently clung bitterly to similar opinions. I don't know if Shafer is a Hillary or an Obama man (perhaps he's a McCain backer, but I would tend to doubt it, based on where he's writing), but when the above could have been written for National Review Online, or Brent Bozell's Media Research Center, (including its subsidiary, Newsbusters), it's been fascinating to watch the center-left turn on their own mass media, as a result of this extended primary season.Whether covering politics, the stock market, or sports, television reporters live inside the moment, and the fundamental questions before them are always "who's winning, who's losing, and why" (which just happens to be the tag line of Slate's "Politics" department). If a TV reporter can peg a winner, he will. If no winners are in attendance, he'll identify a loser. If no winner or losers can be found, he'll drum up that somebody has "gained" momentum. The medium doesn't reward procrastinators or qualifiers.
Although TV reporters may expect thing X to happen while they're on the air, they plan for contingencies Y and Z. Before going on camera, they stuff their cheeks with a huge assortment of pithy insights so that, no matter what happens, they have something smart to mouth. The most excitable of the TV news chipmunks was usually Dan Rather, whose election night scripts"Bush is sweeping through the South like a big wheel through a cotton field"covered events that ultimately may have occurred only in parallel universes.
When Russert exclaimed the inevitability of Obama's nomination, it was an act of recall, not an act of cognition. At the moment he bestowed the nomination upon Obama, his network had yet to call Indiana for Clinton. Shuffling his mental notes and calculating the possibility of an Obama victory in Indiana, how could he resist speaking the words he had composed in his head two months ago?
Mark Hemmingway asks, "How bad are things in the newspaper industry? See prayingforpapers.com."
I know there are no atheists in fox holes and unemployment lines, but I wonder what these people would say about that site?
"The way the Japanese could tell they were losing WWII was that the great victories reported by their media were getting closer and closer to home. Our media problem is like a fun-house mirror version of this - the way we can tell we are winning is that our crushing defeats are happening less often and to different enemies."
Tim Graham looks at Tim Russert, spin-meister:
Drudge focused the World Wide Web on Tim Russert's arrogant "Arise, Sir Loin of Beef" declaration that the Democratic race is over and "no one's gonna dispute it." The first words out of Russert's mouth this morning on NBC were "I cannot find an objective Democrat who does not think this race is over."Compare Russert's firm, Kent Brockman-like The Race Is Over statement with the endless interjections and biases from a fellow MSM'er when he couldn't believe the race was over in 2000.Tim Russert is a Democrat, but not an "objective" one. This declaration is spin, not reality, especially when we know the Clinton Chutzpah Express can avoid the "reality" obstacles that cause every other political family to call it quits. I don't recall Russert telling the country that the Clinton presidency was "over" in 1998, and that only the Clintons didn't realize it, that "no one's gonna dispute it."
Regardless of where political reality lands, what people should see in that Drudge clip and the NBC clip this morning is Tim Russert asserting himself as President of the News. People should see that this is an intensely political press that calculates every word it says and every story it covers and every poll it commissions. Russert and his colleagues don't want to just observe. They want to run the country. They want to have the power to make and break presidents. They want to tell the people to follow their robotic orders and deeply drink of the "conventional wisdom" they manufacture. "Objective" is not an adjective to them; it is a noun. Their objective today is to clear the path and get the Democrats back in the White House.
One great thing about election years in the post-9/11 era: the MSM really isn't afraid to let it all hang out. As Kathryn-Jean Lopez noted last week:
CNN's "news" coverage on Sunday night went out of its way to be as unfair and unbalanced as possible. They aired Wright live. During the fiery speech, Wright plugged CNN "anchor and special correspondent" Soledad O'Brien and "long-term friend" CNN analyst Roland Martin. Both O'Brien and Martin appeared on-air after the event, discussing how funny and effective Wright was. As they explained to viewers how to understand Wright's infamous "God damn America" comment, evening anchor Rick Sanchez insisted viewers keep watching replay after replay and apology after apology for Wright. "I would imagine the people watching [on TV] would say, 'Wow, I didn't realize the guy had two masters degree and a Ph.D. I didn't realize he spoke five languages.'" And that changes "God damn America" for you, doesn't it? That appears to be CNN's hope. O'Brien continued raving about the speech, "It was very funny. It was hilarious at times." And in the morning, O'Brien was back, calling Sunday night a "homerun" for Wright.Which you can watch here. As I wrote shortly afterwards, the media will have to go into backwards-reverse-somersault Olympic-level fip-flops to go from gushing over Wright to tossing him under the bus.
And here you go! The CNN anchor who interviewed O'Brien for her "home run" moment last Monday, is today telling Obama that his network is a "Wright Free Zone".
In the tank? Just a tad.
Late Update: You can see both O'Brien's "home run" moment and CNN anchor John Roberts' subsequent "Wright-free zone" line starting at about 6:50 into this edition of our Silicon Graffiti video blog.
"1984 -- A user manual for lefties; a warning for the rest of us":
From New York magazine comes a piece titled, "About That Crush on Obama: If Barack is out of touch with America, then the media must be too."
As Orrin Judd writes, "Holy Master of the Obvious, Batman!"
When Saturday Night Live is more in touch with reality than you are, it might be time to get out of midtown Manhattan a bit more often. Maybe visit an Outback Steakhouse, and have some red meat in a Red State, if only for anthropological research purposes.
Update: Dean Barnett writes--and this isn't breaking news anymore, of course--that " the old media are dying":
One of the things that is killing them is their dual pretense of objectivity and neutrality. If Dan Rather was fairer or more objective than the Huffington Post, he had me fooled.Exactly.So what will rise from the ashes of the old media castles? What we'll likely have is a Wild West of information where news consumers will have to seek out truth on their own. This isn't unprecedented. After the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Tombstone's two newspapers gave starkly different accounts of the affair, one championing the Earps and the other the Clanton/McLaury faction.
Horace Greeley ran for president at the tail end of his career and invented Andrew Jackson's most famous quote at the start of it ("John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!"). Newsmen with an agenda are nothing new under the sun. And the market will reward those with a fidelity to the truth and punish those who demonstrate the opposite. Please see the pathetic Mr. Rather currently toiling away on something called HDNet for comforting evidence of that fact.
The prospect of not having a newspaper or news source of record may frighten some people since it would be new territory for the modern era. But far more frightening is a thankfully bygone era when a media powerhouse like Walter Cronkite could call the Vietnam War lost because he didnt understand what had happened with the Tet Offensive. Worse still, so impeccable was his credibility that the country would believe him.
Better to have a nation of citizens actively engaged in finding the truth than assuming they're getting the truth from what's in fact an unreliable source.
(Via Maggie's Farm.)
Jeff Jarvis spots an interesting stat:
Pew said that in 2007, 53 million Americans have used the Internet to publish their thoughts, respond to others, post pictures, share files and otherwise contribute to the explosion of content available online.More signposts on the road to 2014.Only 50 million Americans now buy daily newspapers.
The writers are starting to outnumber the readers.
And the readers are reading something else. Pew says that in 2006, 57 million Americans read blogs, more than read newspapers.
The Washington Post notes:
Somalia is a cautionary example for those who, like Barack Obama, favor rapidly withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq and managing any threat from al-Qaeda with an "over the horizon" strike force. Such forces indeed have the ability to target and kill leaders. They do nothing, however, to change the conditions under which al-Qaeda finds refuge and recruits. As Gen. David H. Petraeus is demonstrating in Iraq, successful counterterrorism requires providing security for the civilian population, economic reconstruction and the brokering of political accords in other words, nation-building. That's as true in Somalia as it is in Iraq.For another cautionary tale for those who favor withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, check out the above video. And speaking of Blair's Law, note the anchorman reporting on what his predecessor wrought in 1968, as it comes to pass seven years later.
Mark Steyn notes that with his speech this week on Reverend Wright, Senator Obama has revised and extended his remarks from his speech in Philadelphia. As Steyn notes, "great-speech-wise, its a bit like Churchill promising to fight them on the beaches and never surrender, and then surrendering a month and a half later, and on a beach he decided not to fight on":
The [Philadelphia] speech was designed to take a very specific problem the fact that Barack Obama, the Great Uniter, had sat in the pews of a neo-segregationist huckster for 20 years and generalize it into some grand meditation on race in America. Senator Obama looked America in the face and said: Who ya gonna believe? My rhetorical magic or your lyin eyes?Which may be why Michael Barone asks, "Is the bottom falling out for Barack Obama? Its too early to say that, but there are some disturbing signs."Thats an easy choice for the swooning bobbysoxers of the media. With less impressionable types, such as voters, Senator Obama is having a tougher time. The Philly speech is emblematic of his most pressing problem: the gap indeed, full-sized canyon thats opening up between the rhetorical magic and the reality. Thats the difference between a simulacrum and a genuinely great speech. The gaseous platitudes of hope and change and unity no longer seem to fit the choices of Obamas adult life. Oddly enough, the shrewdest appraisal of the Senators speechifying magic came from Jeremiah Wright himself. Hes a politician, said the Reverend. He says what he has to say as a politician He does what politicians do.
The notion that the Amazing Obama might be just another politician doing what politicians do seems to have affronted the senator more than any of the stuff about America being no different from al-Qaeda and the government inventing AIDs to kill black people. In his belated disowning of Wright, Obama said, What I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I'm about knows that that I am about trying to bridge gaps and that I see the the commonality in all people.
Funny how tinny and generic the sonorous uplift rings when its suddenly juxtaposed against something real and messy and human. As he chugged on, the senator couldnt find his groove and couldnt prevent himself from returning to pick at the same old bone: If what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then thats enough. Thats thats a show of disrespect to me.
And we cant have that, can we? In a shrewd analysis of Obamas peculiarly petty objections to Rev. Wright, Scott Johnson of the Powerline website remarked on the senators adolescent grandiosity. Theres always been a whiff of that. When he tells his doting fans, We are the change weve been waiting for, he means, of course, he is the change weve been waiting for.
Do you personally feel that the Reverend betrayed your husband? asked Meredith Vieira on The Today Show.
You know what I think, Meredith? replied Michelle Obama. Weve got to move forward. You know, this conversation doesnt help my kids.
Hang on. My kids? Youre supposed to say Its about the future of all our children, not Its about the future of my children whose parents happen to have a base salary of half a million bucks a year. But even this bungled clich nicely captures the campaigns self-absorption: Talking about Obamas pastor is a distraction from talking about Obamas kids.
The prime motivation of government is...to be in government. Making the country a 'better place' comes a distant second.Or as a Mr. E. Blair wrote 60 years ago:
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'By the way, for a real "Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia" experience, check out the backwards-reverse-somersault Olympic-level fip-flops that Obama-worshiping journalists such as CNN's Soledad O'Brien (no relation, presumably to the fellow quoted above) performed between Sunday night and Tuesday, when new orders came in from the Ministry of Yes We Can.
Related: May Day 2008: A Day Of Remembrance Of The Victims Of Communism.
(H/T: IP)
Hillary grows more and more glowy as Obama grows more and more wan.So now Hillary is General Jack D. Ripper? Last week she was Michael Corleone.Is she draining him of his precious bodily fluids?
Which ill-conceived boomer-nostalgic celluloid metaphor will Maureen choose next?
Far left Denver-based DJ Jay Marvin (put your sunglasses on before visiting his blood red colored Website--it's that blinding a shade) has his buffer blown when he hears MSNBC's David Shuster sitting in for leftwing talker Ed Schultz:
First, let me start this off by saying this has nothing to do with Ed Schultz. This applies only to the format of talk radio and corespondents as their [sic] called by media outlets.Certainly--I'd be happy to.Yesterday on the way home from the station I punched up Ed to see what he was talking about. I always do.
Ed wasn't there he was out sick. So someone else was sitting in. OK, this happens so why not? As I drove I thought I had heard this guy's voice before, I just couldn't put it together.
Then it hit me it was MSNBC's David Schuster.
Since when does a newsman host a political talk show? I was taught a newsman was a newsman someone who was supposed to remain neutral and objective at all times.
To me this was the same as the flame out Tucker Carlson being labeled a "political" corespondent by MSNBC on Hardball or George Stephanopoulos, ABC's Washington correspondent, taking the William Ayers question from right-wing fringe talk show host Shawn [sic] Hannity and then asking Barak [sic] Obama about it on national TV during the last debate.
What happened to the wall of separation between news and views? Is it something I imagined? Was I taught wrong?
Someone help me out here.
Standard & Poor's cuts the bond ratings of the New York Times:
Credit-ratings agency Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Tuesday cut its long-term rating on newspaper publisher The New York Times Co., as its advertising revenue continues to fall.In 2002, NYT stock was worth over $50 a share.S&P cut its corporate credit rating and senior unsecured debt rating to "BBB-" from "BBB."
"BBB-" is one notch above "junk bond" status. The ratings were removed from CreditWatch, but the outlook is negative, meaning another downgrade could occur.
"The rating downgrade reflects a worsening pace of decline in advertising revenue at the company's newspaper publications," said S&P credit analyst Emile Courtney in a statement.
Despite weakening ad revenue, The New York Times has a diversified and quickly growing online revenue base. S&P expects online revenue will begin to offset print revenue declines over the next few years.
Shares fell 35 cents to $19.96 during midday trading.
And I as mentioned in a recent video, just wait until 2014...
Jonah, mortarboarding at Gitmo is when detainees are made to put on a cap and gown and listen to back-to-back commencement addresses by alternating Clinton cabinet secretaries and PBS hosts. Most of them crack during Janet Reno.I'd say that by far, this is the definitive example of mortarboarding--with this a close second. But the competition is fierce, with numerous new potential contestants participating each spring.
See-Dubya writes:
Who to root against? One is an anti-semitic, state-subsidized, bloated, corrupt friend of despots and thugs and enemy of the West, and the otherIs exactly the same; both float prominently through the poisoned alphabet soup division of Blair's Law, as the UN is P.O.ed at the BBC.
Colby Cosh writes that Bill Clinton is suffering from an enormous case of what Alvin Toffler once dubbed Future Shock:
Readers will recall that Clinton's presidential campaigns took place in 1993 and 1997--the age of steam-engines and chaste courtship, when the public obtained the news of the realm by means of telegraph, tintype, and whispered rumours passed along by drunken stagecoach drivers. In that vanished time, no one ever dreamed that a candidate would have to account for fleeting images and haunting "sound bites" blown up beyond all reasonable significance by as-yet-unimagined mediums like "tele-vision". Indeed, little is known about the electoral methods of the period, but it is thought that chief magistrates were chosen by assemblies of eminent citizens who scrawled names on pieces of broken pottery that were then cast into giant ceremonial urns.Fortunately, there's a new museum that's perfect for both Bill, and the sclerotic medium of his all-too-fleeting glory days.At the preternaturally advanced age of 61, Mr. Clinton is clearly no longer capable of participating in the new, unrecognizable democratic cyberprocess. He is obviously better suited to be exhibited publicly, in humane fashion, as a geriatric wonder who, by God's grace, is still capable of gumming soft foods and forming the occasional coherent sentence.
(Via 5'F)
Ann Althouse has a great take on the New York Times' recent attempts to run interference for Barack Obama:
Come on. There is a serious question here about whether Obama is too left wing. We damned well get to talk about it. If you're going to push us back and call us racists for trying to address an overwhelmingly important political problem with a black candidate for President, then what you are essentially saying is that America is not ready for a black President. And that would be racist. Either we can talk about him vigorously or we can't. And if we can't, he shouldn't be President.Fortunately, Obama himself says that the criticism of Wright is fair game, particularly if longer than 30-second snippets of his fire-and-brimstone sermons are used to place his overtly political remarks into context. So I'd say Obama's approval outweighs the Times' tut-tutting, particularly given the previous established moralistic food chain created by the deciders at the Gray Lady regarding "absolute moral authority".
(Of course, 2004's Democratic candidate was even more hand-picked and coddled by the Times. Which may have accounted for, say, just to pick a number at random, 15 percent of his popularity back then.)
Update: More from Jim Geraghty, who reminds us that Rev. Wright will be playing extremely slow pitch softball at the National Press Club tomorrow.
Given how easy it now is to find previous Final Countdowns, just once, I'd love to see the next Final Countdown met with some skepticism from the press: Mr. Gore/Erlich/Danson/DiCaprio, etc., why should we believe you, when there have been so many earlier doomsday predictions that have never come to pass?
(H/T: TB)
Related: Via Small Dead Animals, Canada's Lorrie Goldstein opens up an even more recent memory hole:
Dear Globe and Mail and Toronto Star:Or as it's been dubbed in States, the Pelosi Premium.For 15 months, I've been saving your respective front pages from the glorious weekend of January 27-28, 2007, when you simultaneously declared your mutual jihads against man-made global warming.
I knew they'd come in handy some day and now, they have.
Indeed, it seems like only yesterday I awoke to my Saturday, January 27, 2007 Globe to be greeted by the hysterical, front-page headline "Welcome to the new climate," under a politically correct green masthead, declaring at the bottom: "We want action. We're ready for sacrifices."
Not to be outdone, the Star a day later had its own World War III, front-page headline, "State of denial: Do the skeptics of global warming have a hidden agenda?" -- in the finest traditions of "do you deny beating your wife?" journalism.
And now, here we are, just 15 months later and isn't it great you both have exactly what you wanted -- skyrocketing gasoline prices and about-to-skyrocket food prices -- since as we both know, hitting energy-hogging Canadians in their pocketbooks is the only way to make them reduce their evil greenhouse gas emissions hard and fast.
Howard Kurtz interviews military analyst and retired Army colonel, Ken Allard:
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Last year, you quit NBC and MSNBC...Allard left the networks in early 2007. Particularly in the case of MSNBC (and tacitly, with stunts such as this at NBC), the two affiliates of GE aren't exactly hiding their position on the ideological spectrum these days.COL. KEN ALLARD: That's correct.
KURTZ: ...after a ten-year relationship. You indicated you thought they were moving to the left.
ALLARD: I thought they really had moved very slowly to the left, and I also thought that when they had the chance to clarify to the fact that they were not moving to the left, they didn't do so.
Curiously though, as I've written previously, for such a savvy media critic, Howard never seems to notice these things.
With Al Sharpton threatening to "close this city down", Michelle Malkin asks, why is Al "still welcome in polite society?"
As I wrote just this past week, linking to my article on the topic from a few years ago in The New Partisan:
From politicians such as Al Sharpton, Robert Byrd and John Kerry to artists such as Michael Moore and Philip Johnson, it's amazing what you can get away with in your salad days as long as you emerge with the right politics afterwards.Michelle writes, "Some readers wonder why I continue to write about the Sharpton-MSM lovefest. Why? Because the enablers deserve to be held responsible and shamed publicly until they stop."
Since the modern MSM has not a molecule of shame in their collective nervous system, I'm not sure if that's possible. Besides, as Mark Steyn notes, it suffers from an enormous moral inversion:
In a scrupulously politically correct age, it's not offensive to organize a "Kill the police!" demo or to preach that the government invented Aids in order to perpetrate an African-American genocide. You can pull that stuff and still be part of respectable society, hanging out with presidential candidates and whatnot. What's grotesquely offensive is the chap who's insensitive enough to point out such statements and associations.Which is never more obvious in an election year, just as we saw in 2004, when it was the Swift Vets who were demonized by the media for pointing out John Kerry's 1970s-era anti-American demagoguery, not the man actually made those remarks.
The MSM once had a monopoly on the past. Today, with that control broken, they get quite cross with whomever points out a leftist's otherwise grandfathered radical chic past.
Update: Which may be why, as people abandon the MSM's top down control of information, we've entered "The 'Golden Age' of Web news".
Burt Prelutsky explores the political correctness which has so alienated newspapers (particularly Burt's local paper, the L.A. Times) from their readers, and notes:
In the old days, Hollywood was run by a bunch of tough cookies who kept one eye on the starlets and one eye on the bottom line. These days, it appears as if the movies are in the hands of bozos who think theres something tacky about making movies that actually turn a profit.Does that make Rupert Murdoch Irving Thalberg?Still, theres another group that makes these guys look like hard-headed businessmen. I refer to those people who own newspapers. The way they carry on, youd think their names were Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Gummo.
The wheels of progress grind exceedingly slowly at Newsweek, but eventually, the magazine grudgingly catches up with conservative thought: First this week, Eleanor Clift nods in tacit agreement with everything Republicans said about the Clintons in the 1990s.
Shortly thereafter, Michael Hirsh runs an article there titled, "How the South Won (This) Civil War". That was a theme that Michael Graham, a southerner currently transplanted to New England, described six(!) years ago, in a book with much less bitter tone (actually, it's quite a funny read) called Redneck Nation. Its subhead also notes..."How the South Really Won the War".
Update: Speaking of time warps, Glenn Reynolds flashes back to November of 2004 and notes, "Jeez, they used to at least wait until after they lost the election to start this talk."
Reuters reports that "A Saudi blogger detained without charge for more than four months after expressing pro-reform opinions has been released, a colleague said on Saturday":
Fouad Farhan was detained in early December after running an online campaign over 10 men arrested since February 2007 on suspicion of financing militant groups, but whose supporters say they are being punished for pro-democracy activity.Of course, for Reuters, one man's extended jail sentence is merely another man's visit to the Breakfast Club."I spoke to him and he's in good spirits. He said he was treated really well," said Ahmed al-Omran, who published the news on his website (https://www.saudijeans.org).
"It was surprising. After blocking his website, I thought his detention would go on longer. It's good news."
Saudi authorities blocked Farhan's website (https://www.alfarhan.org) earlier this month.
During the 1990s, conservatives believed that the Clintons were something out of The Godfather, with endless dark deals and bodies buried (Vince Foster, and even Ron Brown, depending upon how deep down the conspiratorial rabbit hole of the VRWC one went) to stay in power.
That was all tut-tutted by the left during the 1990s, but as I recently said, that was then and this is now. In the very liberal Newsweek, the even more liberal Eleanor Clift essentially says that they were right:
I'm beginning to think Hillary Clinton might pull this off and wrestle the nomination away from Barack Obama. If she does, a lot of folksincluding a huge chunk of the mediawill join Bill Richardson (a.k.a. Judas) in the Deep Freeze. If the Clintons get back into the White House, it will be retribution time, like the Corleone family consolidating power in "The Godfather," where the watchword is, "It's business, not personal."So if Obama runs, he'll be the second coming of Leonard Bernstein's salon, with radical chic terrorists and racist thugs such as William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and Reverend Wright. If Hillary wins, it will be the second coming of Don Corleone, according to Eleanor.
Not that anyone will be sleeping with the fishes with Hillary in the White House, but with the Clintons it's business and it's personal. Just think of all the scores to settle, the grievances to indulge.
Sounds like an exceptional reason to ride the Straight Talk Express, to me.
As I noted as soon as I saw it, that recent Time magazine global-warming as Iwo Jima cover is straight out of the "moral equivalent of war" playbook that as been a staple of the left since World War I that Jonah Goldberg described in Liberal Fascism. So it's not surprising that Jonah writes about that cover in his latest syndicated column:
Even if Walsh and his bosses at Time were merely trying to be descriptive of American attitudes, theyd still be flat-out wrong. If Americans saw environmentalism as the purest expression of patriotic sentiment like, say, buying Liberty Bonds during WWI Times declaration might be defensible. But Americans dont think any such thing.Just as "the moral equivalent of war" traces its roots to WWI, so too does the desire for an "objective" media, as Steve Boriss recently noted.The latest Gallup environmental survey shows that only 37 percent of Americans worry about global warming a great deal, a drop from 41 percent last year. Indeed, the share of Americans greatly concerned with climate change is about the same as it was a decade ago, which still sounds a bit high since the globe pretty much stopped getting warmer in 1998. Even among environmental concerns, climate change isnt priority No. 1 for most Americans.
The editors of Time surely know this, which explains their real motive: They want to persuade Americans otherwise. And they are honest about it. Richard Stengel, Times managing editor, who recently admitted that he doesnt much care about objective journalism, insists that there needs to be an effort along the lines of preparing for World War II to combat global warming and climate change.
As I've written before, journalism, but big and small, has definitely entered into its post-objective phase. Which is both long overdue and much more akin to a return to its pre-20th century roots than some sort of breakthrough development.
David Freddoso writes, "Republicans are jumping on Nancy Pelosi for getting the price of gasoline wrong by nearly a dollar in an interview":
I argue today that this is less significant than the fact that her promise to bring down gas prices was already a lie the moment she first uttered it. Pelosi isn't failing to do something about gasoline for lack of leadership or a plan, but because lower gas prices undercut a hugely important plank in the Democratic platform.Unlike Mrs. Pelosi, the more honest San Francisco Democrats will actually admit to that.Higher gas prices are an essential part of creating economic disincentives against carbon pollution that's the entire point of cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, and other proposed Global Warming fixes. In fact, today's high prices are already leading to greater conservation. Democratic complaints about gas prices are for election years that's all they ever were.
"After 30 years of railing for separation of church and state, Bill Moyers comes to the aid of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright."
Glad to see that there's one man of the cloth that Moyers is willing to support! Meanwhile, several names and Webpages mysteriously have begun to go missing on Obama's Website.
Perhaps the rapture has arrived there.
Related: "In adversity, bitter pundits cling to their Obamessiah."
Newsday's "TV Zone" believes that Katie Couric may land on her feet after bailing from CBS, and replace Larry King when King finally goes off into the sunset after hosting his talk show since about 30 seconds after Philo T. Farnsworth invented the medium in 1927. Replacing King would actually be a good move for Katie, I think, since cheerfully chatting it up with guests suits her talents and perky demeanor much more than hosting the evening news and the institutional gravitas that the latter gig (and its ever-shrinking elderly audience) demands.
And speaking of which, Troy Patterson, Slate's in-house TV critic, suggests that euthanasia is the Rather logical conclusion to the CBS news division, post-Katie:
I propose that it is time for CBS News to be put down, in the Old Yeller sense of the phrase. It's time to turn out the lights and just start airing Hollywood gossip at 6:30 p.m. The network could follow Schieffer's lead and simply dissolve the thing after the inauguration, maybe keeping 60 Minutes around, either as a commercial-free public service program (because what exec doesn't love a prestige-hogging loss leader?) or under the auspices of CBS' entertainment division (because why keep pretending?). The farewell would be handled with dignified pomptributes to Murrow and Severeid and so forth. And if Walter Cronkite is in good health, he could do the honors with a final sign off. I'm serious. That's how bad things are, and that's the way it is.And like Lenin's tomb, the mausoleum has already been built for the curious to view the remains.
If you enjoyed my "Atlas Mugged" article last year on the rise of both mass media in the 1920s, and its successor, new media in the late 1990s, and you enjoyed my recent video on the recently-opened "Newseum" in Washington DC, then don't miss John Podhoretz's exceptional article on "The News Mausoleum", which documents the rise and fall of 20th century mass media, and the opening of the granite tomb they've built for themselves in the first decade of the new millennium.
Rich Lowry writes, "Just Imagine":
Regarding that Time global warming cover, just imagine if the mainstream media were as exercised about the war on terror and as devoted to crusading to win it. How different would the political environment look?Freud called it displacement...
From Whoopi Goldberg, toiling away in the department of stopped clocks: "Well, whats the matter is the Democrats are an elitist group. Thats the truth."
Whoopi's last foray into politics was so elitist, it lost her a lucrative advertising gig.
Update: Tim Blair uncovers more elitism involving the Keystone State, as "Chelsea Clinton hits the gay bars in Philadelphia":
"I think Chelsea looks better in person and she's got the body and ass of life," said Christoper Murray after wrapping his arms around her and giving her a big hug.No word yet on what "the ass of life" means. Maybe CNN can help.
Robert Novak describes Obama losing his cool last week during his debate with Hillary:
Obama is trying to change the subject, but he lost his cool demeanor when ABC News questioners Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos returned to his San Francisco statement (among other difficult issues) in Wednesday's debate. In watching campaign debates dating back to Kennedy-Nixon in 1960, I never before had seen a candidate criticize the moderator or challenge his premises so often (on at least eight occasions). "Look, let me finish my point here, Charlie," said Obama, after Gibson had interrupted him following a 126-word answer.By and large, politicians already have enormous egos, but few have been deified by their supporters as a sort post-Christian Saint Walking The Earth the way Obama has, coupled with a rapture from the press so obvious even Saturday Night Live could spot it. Given such beatification, I'm surprised that Obama isn't even testier with those who fail to grasp his vision.The other unprecedented element was the deluge of abuse heaped on the two ABC moderators by reporters on the media, television critics and political writers. They object to prolonging what amounts to a debate on "What's wrong with Obama?" Exploring whether Barack Obama is a modified Thomas Frank does not depend on television talking heads or Hillary Clinton. Supporters of John McCain, seeking to reel back the Obama Republicans, will press the issue from now to November.
Related: "Where's Gloria Steinem?"
More: Waffles! They're not just for John Kerry anymore.
This just in: John McCain has a temper! Insert obvious inference here:
Update: McCain staffer rebuts: "As it happens, the piece is 99% fiction."
In his look at Old Media, far left scribe Eric Alterman goes from asking "What Liberal Media" (you know that one) to...What Media?
Philip Meyer, in his book The Vanishing Newspaper (2004), predicts that the final copy of the final newspaper will appear on somebodys doorstep one day in 2043. [Not 2014?--Ed] It may be unkind to point out that all these parlous trends coincide with the opening, this spring, of the $450-million Newseum, in Washington, D.C., but, more and more, what Bill Keller calls that lovable old-fashioned bundle of ink and cellulose is starting to feel like an artifact ready for display under glass.Hey, first you shock them...
(H/T: Alan D. Mutter, via Mark Steyn.)
If there was an Internet sixty years ago, typing the words "media", "rope", "gay" and "New York" into Google would have sent you here, reading about one of Alfred Hitchcock's most underrated movies. Typing those same words into Google these days brings you to this story:
CNN personality Richard Quest was busted in Central Park early yesterday with some drugs in his pocket, a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals, and a sex toy in his boot, law-enforcement sources said.His boot? Well that's one word to use, though I thought he was arrested in New York, not London...
Much more seriously, CNN has never met a repressive dictator that it hasn't admired, from Fidel Castro to Saddam Hussein, to Kim Jong-il to this latest incident involving communist China. And yet in America, Quest's Central Park quest ends with laughter all around. In most of the nations that CNN admires, it would lead to brutal prison sentences, death--or both.
Usually in the NFL, when a floundering head coach gets a late season vote of confidence from the team's owner, it means his demise hasn't been preempted, but merely delayed. The axe then almost invariably falls after the season ends, so that the transition to his successor will be less disruptive to the team, rather than, say, with three or four games in the season to go. Katie Couric just got her vote of confidence from above, which means that that clock may very well be ticking:
CBS Corp. Chairman Leslie Moonves paid a surprise visit to the CBS newsroom Friday to support embattled anchor Katie Couric.Of course, as Thomas Sowell noted in 2004 when Brokaw retired (and re-quoted in video form here):Moonves told CBS News employees that "there are no plans for a changetoday, tomorrow and into the future," according to a network executive who was there. The executive spoke on condition of anonymity because the comments were not made public.
That doesn't mean Couric's status won't be reviewed if ratings continue to lagbut that won't happen until after the election, the executive said.
Moonves and CBS News President Sean McManus both appeared at a meeting held at noon each Friday between Couric and "CBS Evening News" executive producer Rick Kaplan. The meeting is televised internally to network news bureaus worldwide.
Several recent news articles have suggested that CBS has decided to replace Couricwho is running a distant third behind NBC and ABC in the evening news ratingssometime after the election or inauguration of a new president.
Moonves and McManus wanted to rebut these articles to news employees, said a CBS News staffer who watched the meeting.
"They decided it was time that everybody was very clear where they stood and that they were not going to let news articles set anybody's agenda," Kaplan said. "They made it clear in everybody's mind that they were totally supportive of Katie and of CBS News."
McManus' pep talk was more pointed, as he expressed anger at news articles that talked about weakness at the news division, the CBS staffer said.
Kaplan said Couric should be given more time, noting that it took years for former anchors like Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings to top the ratings. He predicted Couricwhose broadcast narrowly missed a record low rating last weekwill be No. 1 someday.
During his long tenure as NBC News anchorman, Tom Brokaw took that program from last place among the big three broadcast networks to first place. But he had more viewers when he was in last place, more than 20 years ago, than he had in first place this year. That is because fewer people now watch NBC, ABC, or CBS News. Good!And CBS isn't doing much these days to restore credibility to their already badly damaged rep, it seems.
It might seem a bit self-flagellating for the editorial board of the New York Times to bemoan the collapse of Americans trust in the press over the last 30 years. But it seems that the medias fall from grace is undermining democracy.Because undermining democracy is a job best left to the professionals at the Times:
In his wonderful book, How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace), Harry Stein lays out the disturbing facts about "Pinch" Sulzberger. (Sulzberger's father was nicknamed "Punch," and the none too flattering nickname for Junior is "Pinch.")And he really hasn't.Pinch was a political activist in the Sixties, and was twice arrested in anti-Vietnam protests. One day, the elder Sulzberger asked his son what Pinch calls, "the dumbest question I've ever heard in my life." If an American soldier runs into a North Vietnamese soldier, which would you like to see get shot? Young Arthur answered, "I would want to see the American get shot. It's the other guy's country." Some Sixties activists have since thought better of their early enthusiasms. Pinch hasn't.
But hey, first you shock them, then they put you in a museum. And a new one awaits a very Gray Lady to retire to in her dotage.
(H/T: JWF)
Related: Can't argue with this:
"The workings of American newsrooms are some of the least transparent enterprises in the country, and it is easy to believe that the press has one set of standards for government, business, and other institutions, and entirely another for themselves," the Arizona senator said.Indeed."If you don't mind a little constructive criticism from someone who respects you, I think that is an impression the press should work on correcting," he said.
As Allahpundit notes, one hilarious result of last night's debate, is that the left has suddenly decided that George Stephanopoulos "is unacceptably partisan":
If nothing else good comes from all this, at least itll have opened a few eyes to left-wing media bias by putting Hillarys supporters temporarily, and bizarrely, in the position of Republicans. Why yes, Jeralyn, Keith Olbermann is the most shameless ridiculous hack on TV. If Hillary wins the nomination and he jumps back face-first into the tank for her, will that still be true?The all-is-forgiven tone that's inevitably coming between now and late August will be as amusing to watch as these examples of blatant hypocrisy have been.
Related: "Little Tyrants Upset Over Debate", but then all of these cries of "pull the bastards' license!" is leftover rhetoric from the 1920s and '30s, when terrestrial broadcast frequencies were thought to be scarce, and the government stepped in, creating the FCC to allocate them. Today, with 500 DirecTV channels, a couple of hundred satellite radio channels, 100 million blogs, and a babillion videos on YouTube and the like, we know that bandwidth is certainly not in short supply.
More: Here's an excerpt from Tim Robbins' beclowning speech at the NAB convention a couple of days ago:
"Just when we were close to a national news media providing a general consensus on what the truth is, he added, along comes the Internets [sic] that allows its users a choice on the kind of news it [sic] watches and the YouTube [sic]. My God, weve got to stop them.Close? Dude, in the early 1970s, your side controlled four television networks (the big three and PBS) and most big city newspapers, which by then were virtual information monopolies in their respective regions.
As I wrote earlier this week when Politico referred to the 2004 election being hijacked by "the right-wing freak show"--i.e. bloggers and the Swift Vets:
To be fair, there was certainly a neatness to the liberal conformity of the 1960s and 1970s, when three television networks and a handful of newspapers controlled the news. Breaking up those information monopolies would seam like a freak show to a particularly nostalgic mind, just as many senior citizens pine for the simplicity of an era built around Bell Telephone, three TV networks and three primary car manufacturers.Why does it seem like all self-styled progressives want to turn back the clock on progress?
Besides, at least they can relive those monolithic mass media glory days in their own museum!
NSFW Update: If you enjoy your schadenfreude with enormous slabs of cheesecake on the side, Doc Weasel's post on this topic may be worth it for the--thoroughly NSFW--photos alone.
As Jonah Goldberg has noted in several places in Liberal Fascism, and reiterated to Salon magazine:
What appealed to the Progressives about militarism was what William James calls this moral equivalent of war. It was that war brought out the best in society, as James put it, that it was the best tool then known for mobilization ... That is what is fascistic about militarism, its utility as a mechanism for galvanizing society to join together, to drop their partisan differences, to move beyond ideology and get with the program. And liberalism today is, strictly speaking, pretty pacifistic. They're not the ones who want to go to war all that much. But they're still deeply enamored with this concept of the moral equivalent of war, that we should unite around common purposes. Listen to the rhetoric of Barack Obama, it's all about unity, unity, unity, that we have to move beyond our particular differences and unite around common things, all of that kind of stuff. That remains at the heart of American liberalism, and that's what I'm getting at.See also, the cover of the latest edition of Time magazine, which takes Jimmy Carter's 1977 speech that explicitly equaled the reduction of foreign energy reliance with, as Carter said in his speech, "the moral equivalent of war", and puts the now-expected green spin on it. Sadly, it's probably not a belated April Fools' Edition.
(Note that Time probably doesn't call for this particular scheme, which would no doubt save quite a bit of power and resources.)
Update: "Imagine the designs that were rejected"!
Rock & Roll has a museum in Cleveland; and Jazz has a de facto museum in Manhattan's Lincoln Center. What does the traditional news industry opening a museum of its own in Washington DC say about its viability in the age of Blogs and the Web?
Complete with cameo appearances by Mick Jagger and Orson Welles, my latest Silicon Graffiti video is online, using old media's recently completed museum honoring--who else?--themselves as a launching point:
The video references the nifty EPIC 2014 multimedia presentation from 2004, which you can view in its entirety on its homepage, and more of my own videos can be found here.
(Bumped to top.)
In all genres of show business, there's an enormous amount of snobbery. For example, the theater world often looks down on movie performers, and the movie industry is awfully snobbish towards those who work in TV. So it's always nice to see one group of professional actors honoring a fellow actor who happens to work in a different medium.
Update: More from Scott Baker and Liz Stephans on Breitbart.tv's B-Cast Internet news show, including audio and video segments of the speech that Tim Robbins asked not to be published. Proving that once again that legacy journalists and the phrase "off the record" are almost always unrelated concepts.
Burt Prelutsky looks back to the period of his youth with a gimlet eye, which is much more than Dick Cavett could ever do:
I cant look at Petraeus his uniform ornamented like a Christmas tree with honors, medals and ribbons without thinking of the great Mort Sahl at the peak of his brilliance. He talked about meeting General Westmoreland in the Vietnam days. Mort, in a virtuoso display of his uncanny detailed knowledge and memory of such things, recited the lengthy list (Distinguished Service Medal, Croix de Guerre with Chevron, Bronze Star, Pacific Campaign and on and on), naming each of the half-acre of decorations, medals, ornaments, campaign ribbons and other fripperies festooning the generals sternum in gaudy display. Finishing the detailed list, Mort observed, Very impressive! Adding, If youre twelve.Cavett utters bromides from 40 years ago, from another war that the left abandoned midway through in an effort to score partisan points and gather insider power while genocide occurred thousands of miles away--and massively escalated, once the American left had their way and we abandoned our allies--and thinks it's witty?
Well, I guess it is--if you're twelve.
Update: The 1960s never end at Politico either, where two former Washington Post journalists declare the Swift Vets, who accurately reminded voters of John Kerry's 1970s radical chic past (part of which occurred very publicly on the Cavett show back then) as part of "the right-wing freak show". As John Hinderaker writes:
If there is a "freak show" on the fringes of American politics, it can be found on the Left, at fever swamps like the Daily Kos and Democratic Underground that specialize in conspiracy theories and hate. It's interesting, though, to find out how former mainstream reporters--Harris and VandeHei formerly wrote for the Washington Post--feel about those who have broken the liberal monopoly on the news.To be fair, there was certainly a neatness to the liberal conformity of the 1960s and 1970s, when three television networks and a handful of newspapers controlled the news. Breaking up those information monopolies would seam like a freak show to a particularly nostalgic mind, just as many senior citizens pine for the simplicity of an era built around Bell Telephone, three TV networks and three primary car manufacturers.
From its headline on, this entire post by Ace on the Obamavania train wreck is well worth your time, but here's an excerpt to whet your appetite:
Video of Hillary playing the elitist card against Obama -- and successfully.As Betsy Newmark notes, Kirsten Powers hit the nail on the head: In a liberal world (including most big city newspapers, the big three TV networks and CNN), Obama's folk Marxism sounds "totally normal, and outside of that world I dont know that he appreciates how it sounds."Is there another person on the face of the earth Hillary could call an elitist without exploding in a fiery ball of spontaneous irony?
Incidentally, the press is focusing on "bitterness" because that's mostly what Hillary is focusing on.
They're ignoring the critique made by conservatives, Newt Gingrich, and John McCain.
So you tell me: Are they ignoring the real issue here because they simply are unwilling to credit a non-liberal as offering a legitimate take?
Or are they so isolated in the liberal cocoon they're not even aware that a critique exists apart from Hillary's?
What's more likely? And which is worse?
This is interesting: The "Katie's leaving CBS" story's exit date seems to have moved up a notch, from early next year, to possibly within "the next few weeks", according to this New York Times article. (Gee, the paper of Jayson and Duranty covering the home of Cronkite and Rather--there's a trust-inspiring combination, if there ever was one):
Though some people close to Ms. Couric, as well as some professional associates, said Thursday they believed that it was now likely she would not remain as anchor through the election, and might even leave in the next few weeks, that point was adamantly denied by the senior executives closest to the decision.Err, no. Or as Mark Steyn recently told Hugh Hewitt:Katie is absolutely going to continue as anchor until the inauguration and very possibly beyond that, one said.
The executives involved in the situation said that no discussions of Ms. Courics future had taken place since the February meeting. Yet the news that she and CBS were even considering an end to the first effort to have a woman as the primary anchor of a network news division surfaced in press reports in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere on Thursday, creating a situation that appeared to leave Ms. Couric vulnerable.
Shes not a definite lame duck, a senior executive who has been close to the situation said. Nothing is decided.
But after the great fanfare that accompanied her arrival at CBS (with a five-year contract at a salary of $15 million a year) and then a year and a half of disappointing ratings, even the hint that Ms. Couric might depart was hardly a development that CBS News needs.
The news division has been buffeted by a string of bad decisions and strange turns over the last several years, beginning with the firestorm over a report in 2004 on the weeknight edition of 60 Minutes about President Bushs National Guard service, and most recently including a near-revolt by staff members over the hiring of an executive producer on the Early Show which resulted in her firing and yet another reassessment for that program.
Lawrence K. Grossman, former president of NBC News and of PBS, said CBSs confirmation that it was discussing the possibility of replacing Ms. Couric was disconcerting and disruptive, and needed to be viewed in a broader context.
"It suggests the decline and fall of network news, which should come as no surprise, Mr. Grossman said.
MS: Well, I think the news division, theyre talking exactly the wrong thing. They want to outsource the news gathering to CNN so they can spend all their money on the next big glamorous front man who sucks up all the budget, and has fantastic hair, and a fantastic wardrobe. And the reality is that thats an antiquated, outmoded version of news. It was outmoded when Dan Rather did it, and nobody, that is never coming back. You cant find a new Walter Cronkite. Those days are over. And I think thisso I think until youve got content driving that news bulletin, until theres a reason to switch it onbecause right now, if youre interested in news, the last place youd go to it is the CBS Evening News.Newspapers already have their museum. And with Medium Cool having long since become Medium Sclerotic, it's high-time tubercular blue television news was entombed there as well.HH: Thats exactly right. If you want serious news or analysis, you dont go to the nightly newscasts, ever.
MS: No, no, thats actually the place for people who arent interested in news. And its pathetic in a time of war, and a time of great turbulence and great change, to switch on, and therell be the light item about the new fat pill, or whatever. I mean, its formulaic, its tired, its shallow, and its unwatchable.
"Three guys in a garage create YouTube, and we've got 800 people in Chicago who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground!"Sam Zell, owner of the Tribune Company, which publishes the Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The Baltimore Sun, and other Jurassic-era publications your grandmother still reads because the thought of turning on a computer makes her knees shake.
The NPR article on Zell also includes a subhead titled, "Journalists as 'Overhead'". Which illustrates that the author can't comprehend that unlike a government-subsidized operation, the owner can't force taxpayers to bail him out if readers aren't footing the bill:
"This is the first unit of Tribune that I've talked to that doesn't generate any revenue. So all of you are overhead," Zell said during the late February meeting with editors and reporters for the company's Washington bureau.No, reporting the news is a key function in a democratic society. But the medium in which consumers receive that news is subject to change, as other dinosaur media conglomerates are discovering the hard way.Most reporters and editors who cover the government don't consider themselves overhead they describe themselves as fulfilling a key role newspapers play in a democratic society.
And as that YouTube allusion from Zell highlights, news isn't exclusively a top-down business anymore.
Related: "Will there always be print newspapers? The editor of The Washington Post said he thought so, though others might think he's in denial:
In November 2007, former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw predicted the print edition of The Washington Post would probably be dead in 10 years. But Downie disagreed.Arthur C. Clarke could...41 years ago:I cant see that, Downie said. Obviously Im of an age where I cant see so far out into the future, but I cant see that.
Newspapers will, I think, receive their final body blow from these new communications techniques. I take a dim view of staggering home every Sunday with five pounds of wood pulp on my arm, when what I really want is information, not wastepaper. How I look forward to the day when I can press a button and get any type of news, editorials, book and theater reviews, etc., merely by dialing the right channel.Meanwhile, this rather less exploratory prediction from Downie is definitely a two-edged sword:Electronic mail delivery is another exciting prospect of the very near future. Letters, typed or written on special forms like wartime Vmail, will be automatically read and flashed from continent to continent and reproduced at receiving stations within a few minutes of transmission.
Mid-size market newspapers may be in trouble, according to Downie. The small community newspapers and the newspaper titans like the Post and The New York Times will in some part be immune to the evolution of media, as it makes it way in a digital age.Yes, it seems quite reasonable to assume that the Times will be immune to the evolution of news--that was one of the predictions made in this classic multimedia presentation beamed back from 2014.
Kate of Small Dead Animals compares the glories of the economy under Bill Clinton with the dank Hoovervilles of Dubya.
Yesterday I interviewed Jim Geraghty for this week's PJM Political show on XM Satellite Radio on the topic of the dramatically coarsening leftwing rhetoric. In the space of two months, we've gone from MSNBC's David Shuster referring to Chelsea's parents "pimping her out", to Randi Rhodes calling Hillary a F***ing Whore, to the Economist's modest proposal:
The Democrats are all too aware that their civil war could spell disaster. A cavalcade of senior Democrats, including senators Patrick Leahy and Chris Dodd, have advised Mrs Clinton to retire to her room with a glass of whisky and a loaded revolver.And now this combustible moment happens (which fortunately, for once this year, isn't aimed at Hillary) but too late to ask Geraghty about it.
And this is still the preseason, when typically only us wonks care about politics. Like the NFL, the general public won't really be focused on the presidential election until September--but unlike the NFL, fans in the bleachers won't be exempt from taking hits, which look to be bruising.
Earlier this week, we saw the reports in the New York Times that CBS was going to outsource their news to CNN. CBS denied the report, but hot on its heels is an article in the Wall Street Journal that they may outsource their anchorwoman. (Subscription may be required, though the full article seems to be readable, at least for now, if you go in via the Google News portal.)
In any case, it can't be much fun inside the halls of Black Rock, particularly when a certain pair of clickety stiletto heels is heard approaching, as the Journal notes:
After two years of record-low ratings, both CBS News executives and people close to Katie Couric say that the "CBS Evening News" anchor is likely to leave the network well before her contract expires in 2011 -- possibly soon after the presidential inauguration early next year.And speaking of Dan, his little-watched cable network has scored an audacious interview for an upcoming show. Courage. (Or Hope. Or Audacity. Or whatever the sign-off du jour from RatherLand is these days.)Ms. Couric isn't even halfway through her five-year contract with CBS, which began in June 2006 and pays an annual salary of around $15 million. But CBS executives are under pressure to cut costs and improve ratings for the broadcast, which trails rival newscasts on ABC and NBC by wide margins.
Her departure would cap a difficult episode for CBS, which brought Ms. Couric to the network with considerable fanfare in a bid to catapult "Evening News" back into first place. Excluding several weeks of her tenure, Ms. Couric never bested the ratings of interim anchor Bob Schieffer, who was named to host the broadcast temporarily after "Evening News" anchor Dan Rather left the newscast in the wake of a discredited report on George W. Bush's National Guard service.
Brent Bozell writes that PBS is a bit like Criswell--it wants to forecast the future (and making things up just as wildly), but with no accountability when reality fails to materialize as forecast:
Ted Turner was not only interviewed, but celebrated on PBS on April Fools Day. The prank was apparently on PBS. It was as if Turner had a subversive mission, to prove that PBS isnt just for smart people. True to form, Turner walked off a cliff of rhetorical excess on the Charlie Rose show, charging that global warming was going to grow so severe, that in a few decades, most of humanity would be extinct. We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten -- not ten, but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals.Why should old media, which never met a far left hustler it didn't like, be expected to start policing itself now?Charlie Rose should have been embarrassed, but wasnt. When Turner said during the show Its been a long time since anybody caught me saying something stupid, he should have administered a Breathalyzer test. Instead, at shows end, he delivered an hommage to Turners humanitarianism. Rose was still seated, but the tone sounded like he was bowing deeply to his guests expansive intellect. Youre a remarkable man, he declared.
The global warming disaster-movie pushers always try to intimidate their opponents by insisting the finest scientific minds are all on their side. But Ted Turner is not one of the finest scientific minds in America. All you have to do is express the politically correct opinion, and PBS will treat you as one of the worlds great sages.
PBS is a natural habitat for this kind of wild-eyed lunacy. The taxpayer-funded network has a well-worn reputation for providing gloomy and wholly inaccurate predictions from environmental extremists. In 1990, the PBS documentary series Race to Save the Planet featured another one of those lesser scientific minds, actress Meryl Streep: By the year 2000 -- that's less than 10 years away -- the earth's climate will be warmer than it's been in over 100,000 years. If we don't do something, there'll be enormous calamities in a very short time.
Doesnt everyone remember the massive human die-off of 2000? [Sure--it happened concurrently with the great leftwing migration to Canada and Europe that December...--Ed]
Al Gore went to Harvard with Erich Segal, the author of Love Story, so he knows that being in love with the planet Earth means never having to say youre sorry when your doomsday pitches are massively, dreadfully wrong. But shouldnt PBS and other media outlets be held accountable when doomsday predictions theyve facilitated from 15 or 20 years ago fail to materialize?
Update: The BBC holds itself accountable on its global warming stories, in its own, sadly not-so-unique fashion.
Jonah Goldberg goes F-Spotting:
I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Behold a new sport for readers. Send me your examples of people just using "fascist" to describe things they don't like. For example, Kevin Costner in Bull Durham: Quit trying to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring and besides that, theyre fascist. Throw some ground balls. Theyre more democratic.Here's an oldie-but-a-goodie from 1979 by music critic and veteran Bruce Springsteen hagiographer Dave Marsh in Rolling Stone magazine:
Whatever its claims, Queen isn't here just to entertain. This group has come to make it clear exactly who is superior and who is inferior. Its anthem, "We Will Rock You," is a marching order: you will not rock us, we will rock you. Indeed, Queen may be the first truly fascist rock band.As an audience member (and Queen was my first rock concert, as I recall, with Billy Squier opening), I would not have presumed to have rocked Queen. It seems reasonable to assume that when one plunked down money to see Queen, one presumed that they would be the core element of the experience which would be doing the rocking during the concert. How that made Freddie Mercury and company fascist, I cannot fathom, but like the man said...
Incidentally, in 1992, Rolling Stone magazine celebrated its 25th anniversary with a lavish party at the Four Seasons in Manhattan, a restaurant whose interior was designed by Philip Johnson.
As uttered by CNBC's David Faber, unknowingly echoing a point that Tom Wolfe made almost thirty years ago. Who says that the dinosaurs couldn't have spotted their own demise?
Jonathan C. Movroydis at The New Nixon Blog makes a great observation about the state of the legacy media:
Consistently, The Ancien Rgime of news media has been a target of the blogosphere for journalistic faux pas, to which the archetypal MSMer retorts: you guys comment on the news we report on.Unless Katie is writing her own in the field news segments, the idea that she's a "journalist" is of course silly--she's a newsreader, as the British correctly use the term, who is paid to add her inflections to copy written by a large staff of writers and producers (hey, somebody should make a video that references this sort of thing!), just as an actor is hired by a film company to put his or her inflections on dialogue written by others. And there's nothing wrong with that--except that in the past, America got a little crazy in how it lionized its more stentorian newsreaders of the past.As a student blogger who reports on the problem of radical jihad on my college campus, I am constantly amused on how behind the curve the main stream media really is. Rare are the Upton Sinclairs, the Edward Murrows, and even the Bob Woodwards who are able to discern from the competing narratives of their sources and excite their readers with real nitty gritty investigative journalism.
But perhaps more amusing was reading that CBS is considering using CNN for its clandestine reporting. John Hinderaker of Powerline points out the startling fact that CBS will fire its own reporters to keep the likes of erratic commentator Katie Couric despite increased demands for raw stories and hard news by the viewing public.
CBS questions the accuracy of the recent Times article--and who doesn't these days at Walter Duranty and Jayson Blair's favorite newspaper of "record"?. But if CBS actually did go ahead and outsource its actual reporting and news gathering operations to CNN, will this make Katie America's highest paid video blogger--albeit using a much more sclerotic legacy medium, rather than YouTube or Brightcove?
Or is she that already?
(Via Uncorrelated.)
About a week ago, I spotted an interesting contrast in the widely disparate tone of how two similar news stories were covered by their local TV stations:
Note the extremely positive style in which the local TV news station in Blue State generally "anti-War" Bobos In Paradise Santa Rosa, California reported the story of an elderly Army vet who defended himself against a robbery attempt. Then compare it how one now infamous ex-reporter in the generally more conservative area of Dallas reported the story of another elderly Army vet who defended himself against multiple robbery attempts.That's the subject of our latest Silicon Graffiti video podcast, complete with a quote from Glenn Reynolds, and a cameo appearance by Liz Stephans and Scott Baker of Breitbart.TV, via an excerpt from this clip.The contrasting styles indicate, among other things, the folly of the remaining pockets of the media who claim to be "objective", unbiased, and generally above the fray. The above videos also illustrate that tone, language and context are all key parts of crafting the news, whether it's for print, TV or radio, as well consideration of how the news will be received by the local audience. (Hence the additional outrage over former Dallas-area journalist Rebecca Aguilar's badgering tone.) And all of those elements are based on the skill and life experiences of the producer, editor and/or reporter, who brings together the writing, interviewing, and soundbites, whether they're printed quotes or A/V clips.
(More video blogging found here, incidentally.)
Late Update 1/15/09: After a large initial flurry of traffic and then months of quiet but study activity, this video had quite a checkered history in the waning months of 2008. You can read about the efforts to banish it from YouTube, here.
Tim Blair's aphorism defines "the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force."
In the Jurassic world of the dinosaur media, that definition exquisitely summarizes the proposal by CBS to outsource its news gathering operation to CNN, thus bringing together the news division which brought you the biggest trainwreck moment of 2004 (not to mention 1968!) with the news division that, prior to 2003, brought you long-running coverage of Iraq personally approved by Saddam Hussein and his apparatchiks.
(And note the story was broken by the New York Times, which isn't in the best of health in its dotage, either.)
Jonathan Leake, the science editor of the Times of London writes that the Internet "could soon be made obsolete":
The internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.I'd be happy--well, temporarily at least--with this speed Internet, which I wrote extensively about in 2000 through 2002 for various publications, let alone what the Times is describing.At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, the grid will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.
The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.
David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could revolutionise society. With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine, he said.
But they can't fool me. When Glasgow University's Prof. Britton says, "future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine", it's all just hegemonic code for digital-era sweatshops without end, as the other Times across the pond notes.
(Geez, hyperbole much, boys? Incidentally, the superfast Internet article was found via the pieceworkers slaving away inside the digital-era sweatshop housed on Maggie's Farm.)
Update: Ed Morrissey shouts from the hilltops, "Finally I belong to a victim class!"
Preach it, Brother Ed, preach it! Bloggers of the world unite--you have nothing to lose but your Sitemeter stats!
Charles Krauthammer writes that the battle on the left to be presidential nominee boils down to "The Fabulist Vs. the Saint":
As National Review's Byron York has pointed out, when Clinton supporter Lanny Davis said on CNN that it is "legitimate" for her to have remarked "that she personally would not put up with somebody who says that 9/11 are chickens who come home to roost" or the kind of "generic comments (Wright) made about white America," Anderson Cooper, the show's host and alleged moderator, interjected that since "we all know what the (Wright) comments were," he found it "amazing" and "funny" that Davis should "feel the need to repeat them over and over again."Krauthammer writes that the media are "back in the tank." But when are they not? The MSM is the same MSM it's been for at least the last 50 years, if not even longer. It's just a matter of which Democrat they've put their money on.Davis protested, "It's appropriate." Time magazine's Joe Klein promptly smacked Davis down with "Lanny, Lanny, you're spreading the -- you're spreading the poison right now," and then suggested that an "honorable person" would "stay away from this stuff."
Amazing. We've gone beyond moral equivalence to moral inversion. It is now dishonorable to even make note of Wright's bigotry and ask how any man -- let alone a man on the threshold of the presidency -- could associate himself for 20 years with the purveyor of such hate.
Watching such a display, you get a full appreciation of Hillary's challenge. The mainstream media are back in the tank. The "Saturday Night Live" skits parodying media obsequiousness toward Obama, followed closely by the revelation of the Wright tapes, temporarily forced the media to subject Obama to normal scrutiny. But after the "speech" and Tuzla, they have reverted to form as protectors of the myth of Obama.
The hagiographic treatment of a newly emerged Democratic leader is a recurring theme in American journalism. At the dawning of the age of Clinton 15 years ago, the cover of The New York Times Magazine featured a woman dressed entirely in white. The heading read: "Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Politics of Virtue."
Inside, under the title "Saint Hillary," the late Michael Kelly wrote a brilliantly detached, coolly ironic deconstruction of his celestial subject. Saint Obama awaits his Michael Kelly.
Tim Graham writes, "the folks at Barack Obama's church are telling the supposedly anti-Obama, anti-Jeremiah Wright news media to back off", attempting to connect Wright with Martin Luther King:
AP reporter Christopher Wills added that Otis Moss, Wright's replacement at Trinity, is still treating Wright as a prophet straight out of the Old Testament, even if the words he used sounded more like annoying 20th century socialist boilerplate:Is Wright a fiery, Marxist, racist preacher, or merely a fiery, Marxist, racist journalist?The Rev. Otis Moss III, who is replacing Wright when he retires June 1, defended Wright's comments."One of the roles of the prophets: Sometimes you offend. You afflict the comfortable but comfort the afflicted," Moss said.
And as far as attempting to tie Wright to MLK, Juan Williams is having none of it: "What would Jesus do? There is no question he would have left that church."
Charles Crawford comes to the Blogosphere with a pretty amazing C.V.; his bio notes that he recently retired from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office "after nearly three decades in the UK's Diplomatic Service, most of it spent serving in or dealing with communist and post-communist Europe." And in a recent post, he spots the BBC putting all of the pieces together in its "coverage" of Zimbabwe:
According to the BBC it has been 'plagued' (origin of said plagues not described) by the world's highest inflation, as well as acute food and fuel shortages.Sounds like the Beeb's "Powerfully Corrosive Internal Culture" hard at obfuscatory work, yet again.Newsflash: These phenomena are not caused by 'plagues'.
They are caused both in general and in Zimbabwe's case in particular by truly stunning and sustained Bad Government.
The BBC's use of the plague metaphor in this context somehow craftily shifts the responsibility for Zimbabwe's calamitous plight on to ... no-one?
Midway through a routine 1942 programmer shot on the backlot of Warner Brothers and certain to be immeasurably improved forthwith with that certain Touch Of Esther, Humphrey Bogart bitterly sighs, "I bet they're asleep in New York. I'd bet they're asleep all over America." Well, they've certainly been asleep in Hollywood since 9/11/01. As I wrote a while back, Hollywood essentially wrote this decade off, creatively. And the repercussions for such narcolepsy are mounting.
First up, Ryan Vlastelica of Market Hubs asks, "Are curtains coming down on movie theaters?"
Hollywood is able, at the end of most Decembers, to proclaim the previous year its most successful ever. While true, at least on the surface, it masks a long-term problem: People just arent going to movies much anymore.Which is why Shawn Levy's "Film Criticism Death Watch" post on the Oregonian's blog shouldn't be at all surprising. Of course, when Levy writes, "the idea of fewer platforms for varied voices depresses me", he's discounting the notion that, thanks to the Blogosphere, film criticism is actually infinitely more democratic than ever, even as he's typing his thoughts into his newspaper's blog.Movie attendance levels occasionally rise from the previous year, but the general trend has been downward. The biggest movie-going year was way back in 1946, when enough tickets were sold for an astonishing 90 million people to go every week. Then television came in and stole the theaters audience, followed by competition in the form of video games, computers and a general lessening of audience amazement. Total 2007 attendance was down 8% from the year earlier, and the current years box office looks unlikely to top last year.
He's right that there probably won't be many more Pauline Kaels, individual critics whom Hollywood actually loses sleep over (or buy off with a meaningless back-office studio gig as Warren Beatty actually did to quiet Kael), but for those who want to get some outside assistance into the decision as to whether or not to plunk down $30 to $40 for tickets and concessions for a night at the movies, there are plenty of opinions available.
Some of which actually vary from the Official, Accepted Hollywood Party Line, as hard as that is to imagine.
Only a true satiric master can beat the nigh-impossible odds that Muggeridge's Law imposes, especially when one of the participants is the nutty grandparent in cable television's attic. (Alongside Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, Helen Thomas, Phil Donahue, and...hmmm: Whom The Gods Destroy, they first build lionizing PBS specials around.)
Add nutty Ted's latest mutterings to this one from a quarter of century ago, and it's yet another example of the Not So Final Countdown.
(Which is still probably better than this Final Countdown!)
Or at least I don't think it is, given Muggeridge's Law and everything, and the fact that Time did a similar story almost concurrently: "Anti-Emo Riots Break Out Across Mexico."
I bet this news makes Emo Girl even extra super sad. But then, what doesn't?
More seriously, there's an interesting Death of the Grown-Ups slant on this story: compare how soberly Time magazine covers a story like this with how its fellow newsweekly kept a safe healthy distance when reporting on another youth phenomenon over 40 years ago. That's something I touched upon regarding their coverage of another faddish story, here.
Let's see: original Depression: Dow Jones Industrial Average bottoms out at 40 as huge unemployed swatches of the country live in Dickensian hardship. Men in breadlines wear suits and ties, largely because they have no other clothes.
The 21st century New American Depression that England's Independent has stumbled across? The Dow closed today at 12,654.36, unemployment is at 4.8 percent, and Nike's stock is doing quite nicely as the firm makes a comfortable profit selling $150 basketball shoes to parents and their kids across the country who have the disposable income to afford them.
But why is a British newspaper trying to muscle in on territory that's traditionally exclusive terrain for American journalists during an election year? Shouldn't they be investigating a protracted economic malaise that's far closer to home?
There's an interesting dichotomy at work here: Note the extremely positive style in which the local TV news station in Blue State generally "anti-War" Bobos In Paradise Santa Rosa, California reported the story of an elderly Army vet who defended himself against a robbery attempt. Then compare it how one now infamous ex-reporter in the generally more conservative area of Dallas reported the story of another elderly Army vet who defended himself against multiple robbery attempts.
The contrasting styles indicate, among other things, the folly of the remaining pockets of the media who claim to be "objective", unbiased, and generally above the fray. The above videos also illustrate that tone, language and context are all key parts of crafting the news, whether it's for print, TV or radio, as well consideration of how the news will be received by the local audience. (Hence the additional outrage over former Dallas-area journalist Rebecca Aguilar's badgering tone.) And all of those elements are based on the skill and life experiences of the producer, editor and/or reporter, who brings together the writing, interviewing, and soundbites, whether they're printed quotes or A/V clips.
Byron York spots this amusing exchange on CNN:
On Laura Ingraham's program March 14, the day after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story broke, I said that Obama supporters "are going to try to suggest to TV producers that playing [video of Wright's statements] over and over is a racially inflammatory act."Contrast this attempt at a media blockcade of Rev. Wright's poison (as Joe Klein tacitly put it) with the approximately 100 times that the Washington Post repeated then Sen. George Allen's one-off "Macaca" gaffe in the fall of mid-term election year 2006, and the New York Times' literally daily front page coverage of Abu Ghraib during the middle of the previous year.Cut to yesterday, when Hillary Clinton was asked about Wright and said "He would not have been my pastor." You would have thought she had used a racial epithet. Andrew Sullivan quickly labeled Clinton's statement "a new low." And later, on CNN, when Clinton defender Lanny Davis called Clinton's remarks "legitimate" and described the statements by Rev. Wright that are the basis of the whole controversy, he was quickly called to task by host Anderson Cooper and fellow guest Joe Klein:
DAVIS: I think it's a legitimate way that she said it, which is that she personally would not put up with somebody who says that 9/11 are chickens who come home to roost, that Israel is a state-sponsored organization nation, and that there are generic comments made about AmericaAs far as I can tell, Davis had not described Wright's comments on the program, so I'm not sure why Cooper said "over and over again." But it appears that in some quarters it is not only inappropriate to play the video of Wright's "God damn America," "chickens coming home to roost" and "U.S. of KKK A" comments, it is inappropriate to describe them as well. I think we'll be seeing a lot more of that in the future.KLEIN: Lanny, you're doing it right now.
COOPER: Lanny, it is amazing. Lanny, it is amazing. I'm not taking sides here, but we all know what the comments were. It's funny that you feel the need to repeat them over and over again.
DAVIS: It's appropriate.
KLEIN: You know, Lanny, Lanny, you're spreading the you're spreading the poison right now.
Related: "Obama: It's All a Distraction"!
Update: Along with a link to this post (thanks!) Allahpundit has video of Klein's CNN appearance at Hot Air.
Glenn Reynolds links to a new study on academia's monoculture: "OLD LINE: Left-leaning faculty are a right-wing myth. New line: Faculty Are Liberal Who Cares?"
Isn't this pretty much the exact tone that many in Big Media have been taking since key media events during the first half of the decade beginning with 9/11, quickly followed by the rise of the Blogosphere, the publishing of former CBS insider Bernard Goldberg's books on bias, and the 2004 election? Or as I wrote last year:
Back in February of 2004, I wrote:I think it's a healthier trend for both institutions to at least admit their biases--since everyone, and every institution has them--than the former see-no-evil approach which dominated academia and the media for much of the 20th century.After decades of trying to claim impartiality, there have been several admissions lately by the media that they are indeed, biased.A theme I followed up shortly thereafter in a couple of interviews with Bernard Goldberg at Tech Central Station, and an article a few months ago for the New Individualist titled Atlas Mugged, which explored the push-pull interaction between old media and new. The trend away from an 80-year old definition of objectivity was also also spotted last year by James Taranto, who wrote:Something odd is afoot in America's elite media--increasingly, journalists are unabashed about admitting their liberal bias.Much like the New York Times coming clean in 2004, it has something of a "Gosh, who knew!" quality to it, but add this announcement to the list as well. And as Stephen Spruiell asks, how long before their parent network makes official what is otherwise remarkably obvious.
Let's be remarkably charitable, and assume that the Gray Lady feared that its hypersensitive, equally gray readership will get a collective case of the vapors if they printed an obscenity, no matter how newsworthy...
By the way, I think it's important to point out that the news pages of the New York Times have yet to report that Rev. Wright said "God damn America." According to a search of the Nexis database, Wright's words have appeared in the paper twice, first in Bill Kristol's column on March 17, and then in Maureen Dowd's column last Sunday, but never in the news pages. If the Times's news sections were your only source of news, you would never know that Rev. Wright had ever said those words....But it's far from the first time during a presidential year that opinion journalists were describing news details that the news department just never got around to.
Jonah Goldberg on the missing conversation:
Thank God for Barack Obama. Until his More Perfect Union speech last Tuesday, it seems it never occurred to anyone that America needed to talk about race."Because sometimes its easier to hold on to your own stereotypes and misconceptions"...Maybe thisll be the beginning of a conversation, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan proclaimed on Meet the Press. The Chicago Tribune reported that many voters, black and white, say they were moved by Obamas speech ... which they see as a long-awaited invitation to begin an honest, calm national dialogue about race. Newspaper editorial boards agree. In the words of the San Diego Union-Tribune: Prodding Americans to confront their racial differences is, by itself, an accomplishment of historical proportions.
Because so many agree on this brilliant new strategy to heal our national wounds, I can only assume that Im the one missing something. But when one luminary after another smacks his forehead like someone who forgot to have a V8 in epiphanic awe over the genius of Obamas call for a national conversation on race, all I can do is wonder: What on Earth are you people talking about?
Universities were moving to incorporate the issues Mr. Obama raised into classroom discussions and course work, the New York Times reported within 48 hours of the speech.
Oh, thank goodness Obama fired the starters pistol in the race to discuss race. Here Id been under the impression that every major university in the country already had boatloads of courses dedicated to race in America. Id even read somewhere that professors had incorporated racial themes into classes on everything from Shakespeare to the mating habits of snail darters. I also had some vague memory that these universities recruited black students and other racial minorities, on the grounds that interracial conversations on campus are as important as talking about math, science, and literature. A ghost of an image in my minds eye seemed to reveal African-American studies centers, banners for Black History Month, and copies of books like Race Matters and The Future of the Race lining shelves at college bookstores.
Were all the corporate diversity consultants and racial sensitivity seminars mere apparitions in a dream? Also disappearing down the memory hole, apparently, were the debates that followed Hurricane Katrina, Trent Lotts remarks about Strom Thurmond, the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, the publication of The Bell Curve, and O.J. Simpsons murder trial. Not to mention the ongoing national chatter about affirmative action, racial disparities in prison sentences and racial profiling by law enforcement.
And the thousands of hours of newscasts, television dramas, and movies remember films such as 2004s Oscar-winning Crash? dedicated to racial issues? Its as if they never existed.
John Stossel says that he's the lone libertarian on the big three networks' news programs. Which puts ABC one up on CBS, where one year before RatherGate hit the fan, Lesley Stahl couldn't name a single conservative at the Tiffany Network in an interview with Cal Thomas.
Speaking of RatherGate, last year, Roger Ailes said, "The greatest danger to journalism is a newsroom or a profession where everyone thinks alike. Because then one wrong turn can cause an entire news division to implode". Which may go far to explain a decade of scandals and convulsions most of the television and print news agencies have undergone since 9/11, since they lack the ideological diversity to properly cover the War On Terror and its myriad related facets.
Update: I don't think Leslie would be able to namecheck all that many conservatives in CBS's entertainment division if she ever has to give a follow-up interview.
David Weidner of Dow Jones' Market Watch writes, "The real Eliot was always there. We just averted our eyes." We, white man? Plenty of conservative and libertarian writers expressed their concerns about Spitzer's Giuliani versus Drexel Burnham with the Marshall stacks turned up to 11 approach. But in contrast, the liberal New York media were typically more than happy to roll over for someone like Spitzer, Weidner notes:
It's the editors and reporters who stepped out of their roles when it came to making Spitzer too good to be true. Big papers dutifully leaked embarrassing details about Spitzer's targets, generated by the attorney general's office, while protecting the source of the information. In most cases, reporters put careerism ahead of fairness or, at least, questioning the tactics of one of the state's leading law-enforcement officials.Doesn't this sound identical to the New York press's see-no-evil approach to Hillary Clinton, particularly when she first ran for the Senate in 2000?At the height of his power, Spitzer was in control, and instead of challenging him, the media was part of his machine.
One of the media's Folk Marxist tropes is a century-old line that's still trotted out to this day: "The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." (Gee, that's the very definition of objective and clinical, huh?) No wonder the press saw Spitzer as a kindred spirit.
Found via the above "Day By Day" cartoon, Plumb Bob Blog has bobbed and weaved unto quite a plumb meme:
The short version of the screeching inversion is that the most immature among us get to pretend that theyre moral paragons, while the most mature are treated as moral pariahs, simply because the immature screech louder and a lot more often. Thus, in a morally deteriorating society, evil gets tagged as good, and good, evil.Read the whole thing. The applications of the screeching inversion (and PBB's suggestions as to one of its popularizers in the 1960s is a pretty good one, in my opinion) are endless, but this endlessly screeched inversion is as good a recent example as any.
Speaking of double standards, Mark Steyn, via an assist from fellow New Englander Jules Crittenden catches this doozy at AP:
If you use Associated Press photographs to point out that AP pix from the Middle East seem awfully staged and that their local snappers seem to see themselves as court photographers to the new Caliphate, the AP legal department will shut you down.But then, AP is far from the only news agency vexed by photography issues.But, if the Associated Press goes to "Kristen"'s website, cut-and-pastes personal photographs of the happy hooker, and distributes them around the world without paying her a dime, well, that's "fair use".
In disputes of this kind, one would normally bet on the multinational megacorp with the big legal department. But it's pretty clear from her general philosophy that "Kristen" doesn't give away much for free, and certainly not "exotic photographs". And, given what one of my readers calls her "fully-funded mandate" from the Governor of New York, she presumably has the pockets to take AP to court. You go, girl! It's not often you get a case where there's someone in the room with a higher hourly rate than the lawyers.
Ace of Spades writes, "It looks like the opening shot in The Second Battle of Congressional Hearings [involving General Petraeus] has been fired. I think it will take a willing suspension of disbelief to trust much of what you read about it in the MSM."
Shades of the heavily politicized 9/11 Commission (which culminated in one of the rare moments when "a Clinton Admin official got in trouble for what he put into his pants", right around this time during the last presidential election year.
Meanwhile, Terry Trippany presents "The AP Style Guide on Defending Barack Obama", which isn't too far removed from the "Andrew Sullivan Style Guide on Defending Barack Obama", as Ed Morrissey writes:
The reaction of Obama supporters to Jeremiah Wright has certainly been instructive, especially those who had plenty to say about Mitt Romney and Mormonism last year. Todays example is Andrew Sullivan, who wondered whether Romney wore Mormon underwear and posted repeatedly about the polygamy that Romneys faith repudiated over a century earlier. Today, hes singing a different tune about Barack Obama, whose minister didnt make his racially inflammatory statements 100 years ago or even thirty years ago.Andrew Sullivan? Double Standards? I just can't see that, myself.
In addition to killing print newspapers, you're killing their ink-stained wretches' favorite watering holes, too!
Of course, it's also likely that the political correctness of the modern newspaper person isn't doing much for saloon keepers: today's journalist on a bender is much more likely to blow through a cube of Diet Pepsi than a fifth of Chivas.
Well, to the New York Times at least, but it's always fun to recreate one of the great screaming tabloid headlines of all time. The Bonfire of the Democrats, as Rich Lowry calls it, observing the ongoing circular firing squads as one liberal institution attacks another, continues.
(Via Steve "Shecky" Green, whose comedy stylings--backed up by a few of the rim shots and gong hits in my Acid drum loop collection--are now playing on this week's PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio and here.)
Rich Noyes writes:
My colleague Brent Baker has painstakingly documented how the big three broadcast networks have gone out of their way to avoid labeling scandal-scarred New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a Democrat.According to AFP, he moved to the right in less than a week!
Not exactly shocking news, of course, but check out who's reporting it:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anti-Semitism, including government-promoted hatred toward Jews and prejudice couched as criticism of Israel, has risen globally over the last decade, the State Department said on Thursday."Prejudice couched as criticism of Israel?" Adnan Hajj and Zakaria Zubeidi could not be reached to comment on these explosive allegations.
Kevin D. Williamson spots a classic line in The Grauniad:
Writing about David Mamet's rejection of "brain-dead liberalism" in the Guardian (commented on yesterday in Media Blog), columnist Michael Billington offers this groaner on Glenngary Glen Ross:Kevin's response on the moral certainty of almost everyone on the far left is well worth your time, but Billington's comments on Glenngary Glen Ross and its "moral ambiguity" read as hilarious to me. I've only seen the movie, not the play, but the movie was one of the least morally ambiguous--and most depressing--films I've ever watched. There's a reason why the cast referred to the movie as "Death of a F***in' Salesman": it has the absolute certainly that Arthur Miller had that capitalism is evil, and selling is the most evil profession of all. At least until it's time to sell that latest movie or play.Given his new-found conservatism, I doubt he could ever write a play riddled with such moral ambiguity.
Contrast Glenngary with Oliver Stone's Wall Street, a film written by an equally hard-line leftist, (at least prior to Mamet's intellectual awakening) which nonetheless dresses its contempt for the investment world in a slick, seductive surface. There's a reason why everyone I've met when I worked in the financial industry could recite big swatches of the film's dialogue (as could I), and why Gordon Gekko's horizontal striped shirts (designed by Alan Flusser) relaunched for a time amongst Wall Street executives a style long-dead since the 1930s.
In contrast, because Glengarry was a much less ambiguous film, it appeals much more only to true believers, a trait which Oliver Stone's post-Wall Street movies increasingly suffered from. Assuming Mamet ever works again after coming out of the other celluloid closet, I'll be very curious to see if and how the tone of his work shifts.
As Seton Motley writes, "Ronald Reagan often said, 'I did not leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me'":
For floundering and foundering New York Governor Eliot Spitzer -- a twist on the Gippers words. Spitzer didnt leave the Democratic Party: the Media just didnt see the need to mention the fact that Spitzer was -- at least until noon Wednesday -- one of the most powerful Democrats in the nation.We'll have much more on Client #9 on this week's edition of PJM Political, coming later today.On Monday afternoon, the Big Three Networks (NBC, ABC and CBS) and the Associated Press led the charge of the wall-to-wall coverage of the breaking news that Spitzer was involved with an interstate prostitution ring. And with near unanimity they failed to mention that Spitzer is a Democrat.
Update: "Newsweek Web Exclusive Mum on Detroit Mayor's Dem Affiliation." Name That Party--the party game that never ends!
Kimberley Strassel looks at Spitzer's Media Enablers:
Journalism has many functions, but perhaps the most important is keeping tabs on public officials. That duty is even more vital concerning government positions that are subject to few other checks and balances. Chief among those is the prosecutor, who can use his awesome state power to punish, even destroy, private citizens.Good thing they've learned from their mistakes in time to report on Barack Obama's candidacy.Yet from the start, the press corps acted as an adjunct of Spitzer power, rather than a skeptic of it.
William Wilson asks, "Network TV News: Evil or Incompetent?" I think we can put our money on the latter, to be honest:
It is the day before the Ohio and Texas primaries. A main issue in the debate between Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama revolves around which of the two would be stronger in dealing with foreign affairs. And yet, NBC treated the meat of the issue as if it was of no consequence.Huntley and Brinkley would be working for a suburban TV channel--or a blog--in today's Oprah-fied, Katie Couric-ish network environment.In all of 31 seconds, NBC gave stories about the threat by Venezuela a major oil exporter to launch a war against a neighboring country, the Russian election where stark authoritarianism is raising its head once again, the bombing of another nation by the United States, and near open warfare in Gaza. Thats right: 31 seconds to deal with four stories, any one of which could have devastating consequences for American citizens.
So how did NBC fill the rest of the time? They spent 4 minutes and 20 seconds on two stories that will warm my mothers heart. The first came down to eat a good breakfast. The second had one theme: get 8 hours of sleep a night.
Related: "Listen, we need to talk to every high-dollar hooker on the eastern seaboard, like yesterday. Get on it, people! Err, you know what I mean."
"A rented sports utility vehicle is apparently involved in the November shooting of Washington Redskins star Sean Taylor at his Miami home."
Last year, the Orlando Sentinel actually ran a headline that read "SUV crashes into store, perhaps in attempt to steal guns".
Having gotten a taste for larceny, clearly, the killer cars have moved on to even more heinous crimes.
As I've written before, the mass media of the latter half of the 20th century invariably went out of their way to pooh-pooh any claims of bias. (Dan Rather, naturally enough, was a past master at this technique.) But for an assortment of reasons, basically a confluence of alternative media such as blogs, talk radio and Fox News, mixed with a overdose of BDS from the media themselves, that all began to change after 9/11. Or as media professor Steve Boriss writes on his Future of News blog:
The problems began when those on the right started to complain about liberal media bias. They were labeled as angry, mean-spirited, paranoid kooks. Then, conservative talk radio and Fox News Channel emerged. Their audiences were labeled as misfits who were not only angry, but also too closed-minded to face the truth as presented by the objective mainstream media. Eventually, with help from Bernard Goldbergs book on bias, some very high profile Old Media failures (e.g. Dan Rathers forged documents), and the Internet, the idea that the mainstream media were biased became mainstream. Those on the right remained mad, while those on the left, who benefited from the center-left bias, understandably did not get quite so worked-up.But now, the public has gone beyond being mad at media bias. They are laughing hysterically. With the latest bias victim being one of the center-lefts own candidates, and the pro-Obama bias blatantly obvious to everyone, it is now getting difficult for anyone to take the mainstream media and its insistence on its own objectivity seriously anymore. The skit below on Saturday Night Live, a program we can assume has a young, liberal audience, is devastating. Old Media just lost its chance to restore its reputation for objectivity the firewall that we are told differentiates journalists from bloggers. Some unexpected people are now getting the last laugh.
(Complete SNL clip via Big Mouth Frog, which has exceptional taste in the online video they link to...)