Into My Own: Media

Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts

Monday, March 17, 2008

Yet Another Media Double Standard

As was reported last week, John McCain's supporter and "spiritual advisor", Ohio's Rod Parsley, has a history of language that is far more incendiary than what Obama's pastor has said. But which receives wall to wall media coverage? Why the one that scares white people half to death.

But David Corn ran into a stonewall when he attempted to get some "straight talk" from the McCain camp about Parsley.

Yesterday, I posted a piece at MotherJones.com that disclosed that a megachurch pastor whom John McCain has hailed as a "spiritual guide" has called for the destruction of the "false religion" of Islam. This fundamentalist televangelist, Rod Parsley, who is an important political ally of McCain in the all-important state of Ohio, means this quite literally. In a 2005 book, he writes that there is a "war between Islam and Christian civilization" and notes, "The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed."

Being a responsible reporter, I called both Parsley and the McCain campaign's communications director, Jill Hazelbaker, before posting the story. I had to leave a message for Parsley and didn't hear back from him. And I never got through to Hazelbaker, but I spoke to another communications aide at the campaign. I explained why I was calling: I was about to publish an article noting that a prominent McCain supporter, with whom McCain had campaigned in Ohio last month, advocates a holy war with the aim of eradicating Islam. "Oh," she said. Can I read you some of Parsley's quotes? I asked. Go ahead, she said reluctantly. I got through three sentences, and she said, "That's enough."

"There's a lot more," I told her. I hadn't gotten to the portions where Parsley calls Allah a "demon." I don't need any more, she said, and she asked, "Can you give me a few minutes to get a response?" Sure, I replied. She promised to call me within 15 to 20 minutes.

Twenty minutes went by. Nothing. I called after half an hour passed. This staffer, I was told, could not be reached. Another fifteen minutes. Nothing. I called again. Once more, I was told that this staffer could not come to the telephone. Hazelbaker, too, was unavailable. Yet another fifteen minutes--and another call from me to the McCain press office. I was now informed that the staffer who had promised a response was in a meeting. Would this meeting be over soon? I asked. We don't know, said the person on the phone. Can I get a message to her now? No, she's in a meeting. Can you find out if this meeting will last hours or minutes? No, I cannot. Is Jill Hazelbaker available? No.

I got the picture. Stonewall. No straight talk.

Corn goes on to suggest that maybe reporters covering the Straight Talker himself should press him every day for an answer. Go read Corn's entire piece.

Meanwhile, John Amato says Fox News has been curiously silent on the matter of Parsley. Strange.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Tutorial for Bill Cunningham

As a former teacher I have a lot of experience explaining things patiently to people who are ignorant. Most of the time those people could be excused for their ignorance because they are 14 years old.

But even the 14 year olds I know wouldn't be so clueless as to not understand what's wrong with what Bill Cunningham did in Cincinnati.

So using all of the patience I honed in 13 years in the classroom, I'm going to explain it to him, since he continually expresses his disbelief that anyone would have a problem with his repetition of Barack Obama's middle name.

So here goes. Here, Mr. Cunningham, is wrong with what you said.

You say that it's just his middle name. That's it's no different than Hillary Rodham Clinton or Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But you see Willie, it is different. It's a lot different.

When Barack Obama's father named him, he was very proud of the name, as you've pointed out. It is, after all, a great name, reminiscent perhaps of King Hussein of Jordan.

But something happened in the intervening years, since 1961 when Obama was named, that his father could never have anticipated. A great tyrant by the name of Saddam Hussein emerged in Iraq and was in fact supported by the United States. That is, until he invaded Iraq after misreading the public statements of the father of our current president.

So the name "Hussein" has connotations. And it's not so much that they are Muslim connotations, although that's part of it. They have connotations of being attached to our enemy in Iraq, the purported reason we went to war. And so there is an attempt on the part of those who use his full name to associate Obama with Saddam and with our enemies in general.

You see, "Delano" doesn't do that. Neither does "Rodham", or "Jefferson", or "Sidney", McCain's middle name. And you're right when you say, "if someone thinks his name is racist, then that's their problem, not mine." You're right, because the connotation only works if the listener isn't thinking about it very deeply, and is prone to making false associations based on the connotations words might carry. Anyone can see that.

But you depend on that. You depend on your listener to associate Obama with "Hussein", you depend on the worst parts of the human psyche in order for your smear to work. And that's why people call you racist when you say it.

So let's not have any more juvenile pretending you didn't know what was wrong with what you said. Just be a man. You were making a smear, and you know it. You want McCain to be a stand up guy, but you won't be one yourself.

Fluffing Obama's Pillow

I guess the media is now taking its narratives from Saturday Night Live.

If you missed it, the weekend comedy show satirized the media treatment of Obama in a sketch where reporters asked Obama during a debate if he needed anything, are you sure, and do you pillows need to be fluffed. Hillary followed up on the line in her debate last night.

Well Obama better get ready to have his pillows fluffed.

After Bill Cunningham's attack yesterday made national headlines, as did McCain's phoney apology, Obama has been subjected to a continuous news loop of the attack being replayed over and over again. All while McCain gets to keep his good name and is praised for repudiating the attack from Cunningham. With McCain's FEC troubles, it's a good thing CNN is giving him all this free advertising.

Meanwhile CNN asks, Has the media been too soft on Obama?

UPDATE: Wow, sorry to say that NPR just legitimized Cunningham by giving him an interview and a chance to say aw, shucks, I didn't mean anything by it. He did, however, say that he had a dinner last week with Portman, Deters, and DeWine during which the speech was discussed.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Don't Cry for Bill Cunningham, Victim Extraordinaire

(Updated below)
(Second Update below)

Bill Cunningham was asked today by the McCain camp to introduce McCain at a rally in Cincinnati's Over the Rhine district. His comments made national news when he repeatedly used Obama's middle name "Hussein" and said Obama in 2009 will have "just got back from a meeting with Ahmedinajad, has a meeting next week with Kim Jong Il, and then he's gonna saddle up next to Hezbollah." (my transcribing)

McCain pretended to be shocked, and apologized. But if John McCain bothered to do any research he would know that Cunningham engages in these kinds of personal attacks on a regular basis as a way to generate controversy that will create headlines for himself and WLW. On CNN McCain is being roundly lauded for apologizing and "taking responsibility." John King of CNN reported that McCain's staff had no idea that he would be headlining the event. In fact, the Enquirer reported it as follows:

Cunningham, a conservative Republican who also hosts a Sunday night syndicated radio show, said he was asked Monday “by a McCain operative” to introduce the Republican front-runner at Memorial Hall.

Of course, now McCain wants credit for repudiating the comments that his own campaign knew were coming. Meanwhile, Cunningham is feeling used, and now says that he repudiates McCain, and won't support him in the election. But McCain obviously staged this event very carefully. He waited until Cunningham was gone to enter the hall, and claimed not to have heard the remarks. Now the offensive remarks from Cunningham are making the regular news cycle, all while McCain is shown distancing himself from it. It's all very clever, and it's exactly how the GOP will use surrogates like Cunningham to attack Obama in the coming months while keeping their hands clean.

This is par for the course for Cunningham. He assails the character of Democrats (or other celebrities) and generates controversy, then cries on the air at how unfairly he's being treated, just as he's now crying that McCain had the nerve to repudiate his character assassination of Obama. But Cunningham is a classic shock jock--in fact he helped invent the genre--using the most outrageous language he can, as loudly as he can, seeking to create interest through innuendo and insult. He calls himself "The Great American" and wallows in shallow patriotism and sanctimonious self congratulation all while serving as the shrillest note of the GOP's mighty whirlizter.

I was listening to Cunningham's show in 2004 when he made remarks about John Kerry and the raping of little girls in Vietnam. I called the station but was placed on hold, and finally hung up when it was clear the producer had no intention of taking my call. Last summer Cunningham accused the Reds' Adam Dunn, a power hitting outfielder with poor defensive skills, of being drunk in the outfield after a misplayed ball cost the Reds a game. When the 6' 6" Dunn challenged Cunningham, he relented and became contrite, but the station played up the controversy for days, replaying over and over again the controversial statements that had caused the hard feelings. Likewise, now, WLW will replay Cunningham's remarks again and again until the primary and after, giving the "honorable" John McCain valuable free air time attacking his November opponent while pretending to be above the fray himself.

Cunningham roundly attacks the mainstream media for failing to report on Obama the way they've reported on Bush, but the irony is that WLW in Cincinnati is the mainstream media. It is one of the largest radio stations in the country, certainly one of the top 4 or 5 in the entire midwest, and easily the largest in Ohio in terms of audience, reach, and influence. WLW puts out hours and hours of unabashed right-wing cheerleading day after day, indulging in the most vicious political attacks like the one Cunningham engaged in today, and railing about taxes, Democrats, homosexuals, war protesters and so on. It's red-meat Republicanism in its most extreme form, 365 days a year.

And McCain didn't know what was coming? Puh-leaze.

Update: Here's how Rob Portman praised Cunningham (h/t Crooks and Liars):

Willie, you’re out of control again. So, what else is new? But we love him,” Portman said. “But I’ve got to tell you, Bill Cunningham lending his voice to this campaign is extremely important. He did it in 2000, he did it in 2004. It was crucial to victory then and it’s even more important this year with his bigger radio audience. So, Bill Cunningham, thank you for lending your voice.”

Second Update: As predicted, WLW is using the Cunningham/McCain spat as promotional, running the clip or news about the clip on a repeated basis. In an interesting twist, Cunningham is disputing McCain's assertion that they've never met, claiming on the air that he has dined with McCain on more than one occasion, and that Joe Deters and Mike DeWine were in attendance. Cunningham views himeself as part of the GOP mainstream, and won't tolerate being treated as a fringe member of the party.

AND SOMEONE needs to tell the Obama campaign to rethink their ad buy. After Cunningham was on the radio this morning repeating his smears, an Obama ad played during the break. What an outrage.

Here's how it was reported on CNN:

A supporter of John McCain, speaking at an official campaign event in Ohio attended by the Arizona senator, called Barack Obama a “hack, Chicago-style Daly politician,” and told the crowd “all is going to be right with the world when the great prophet from Chicago takes the stand, and the world leaders who want to kill us will simply be singing Kumbaya around the table of Barack Obama.”

“At some point in the near future the media, the stooges from the New York Times, CBS (The Clinton Broadcasting System), NBC (The Nobody But Clinton Network), The All Bill Clinton Channel (ABC), and the Clinton News Network at some point is going to peel the bark off Barack Hussein Obama,” said controversial conservative commentator Bill Cunningham, an Ohio native.

Mark Halperin and the Lowest Common Denominator

Mark Halperin's piece yesterday in Time is really incredible. He's legitimizing, or attempting to, gutter politics of the worst kind. Here's part of his list:

Things McCain can do when running against Obama that Clinton has been unable to do well or at all:

5. Make an issue of Obama’s acknowledged drug use.

6. Allow some supporters to risk being accused of using the race card when criticizing Obama.

11. Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama’s unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism.

Is he really suggesting that McCain should use racist attacks against Obama in an effort to defeat him? I wouldn't be surprised to see the Republicans do that of course... but to have a Time columnist suggestin it as a recommendation to the McCain campaign, and thus giving it an air of legitimacy, wow.

Hey, whatever works, right? Since the Republicans don't really have any ideas, they have to resort to racial politics. Sad.

Halperin should be suspended or fired. There's no place for this in our political discourse.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Siegelman Case on 60 Minutes Blocked in Alabama

Unfortunately I was called away during much of the 60 Minutes piece tonight on the case of Don Siegelman, but I was able to catch the interview of a former US Attorney who said without question that the prosecution relied on false information to secure a conviction, and that the prosecution knew it was false, suppressed that it was false, and put Siegelman in jail anyway.

Scott Horton has almost singlehandedly broken this story wide open, and he has the video captured and analyzes the piece in detail. His post is a must read. As he explains, the star witness for CBS was the co-chair of the McCain for President campaign--the co-chair who isn't currently facing indictment (That would be Rick Renzi):

But the show was dominated by one of 52 former attorneys general from 40 of the 50 states who have called for a Congressional probe of the conduct of the Siegelman case, former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods. He leveled a series of blistering accusations at the Bush Administration’s Justice Department. With the Alabama G.O.P. this evening issuing a near-hysterical statement in which it characterizes the CBS broadcast—before its transmission—as an anti-Republican attack piece it was notable that Woods, like the piece’s other star witness, is a Republican. Not just any Republican, either. Grant Woods is co-chair of the McCain for President leadership committee, and a lifelong friend and advisor to the presumptive 2008 G.O.P. presidential candidate. Woods is also godfather to one of the McCain children.

Furthermore, Horton reports that the episode of 60 Minutes was BLOCKED in northern Alabama by the CBS affiliate. Outrageous. Go read Scott's critical post.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Jerks Like John McCain

McCain, being interviewed by Dana Bash, just now on CNN: said he would have a campaign bus "for jerks like you."

Wolf asked Dana why he said that and she said, "that's just John McCain humor."

Jerks like John McCain find that funny, I guess.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Clinton letter to MSNBC

Whatever your feelings for Hillary Clinton, you have to respect her tough stance with MSNBC over the comments by David Shuster.

Mrs. Clinton said in her letter, to Steve Capus, the head of NBC, that she wanted to write personally to convey the “depth of my feeling” about Mr. Shuster’s comments.
“Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient,” she wrote.
She also said that Mr. Capus should look at “the pattern of behavior on your network that seems to repeatedly lead to this sort of degrading language.”

The reference was to comments last month by Chris Matthews, an MSNBC anchor, who had suggested Mrs. Clinton had succeeded politically because of sympathy toward her resulting from her husband’s infidelity.
Mr. Shuster apologized on air yesterday and he and network executives apologized to the Clinton family and the campaign.
But those apologies apparently did not assuage Mrs. Clinton, who rarely responds publicly to press coverage. She said in her letter that she understood she was a public figure and that her daughter was playing a public role. She also said she was accustomed to criticism, “certainly from MSNBC.”
“However,” she wrote, “I became Chelsea’s mother long before I ran for any office and I will always be a mom first and a public official second.” (emphasis mine)

The "pimping" comment isn't the worst thing that's been said on MSNBC or other networks, not even by a long shot. But the point Clinton and her campaign are making is an excellent one: Don't use debasing language about myself, my family, and women and expect to carry on business as usual. Inappropriate language will be addressed so that no one thinks that we think it's ok.

Good for Clinton. I'm not sure I'm ready to vote for her, but she's scored a lot of points with me on this, backing up what she has said all along, that she is the candidate best equipped to take on the GOP's smears.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Progressives' Silence Doomed Edwards

(Updated below)

I was deeply saddened to learn today of the death of the Edwards candidacy. A decent man who fought for the poor and the working class, Edwards deserved a better fate from the progressive establishment whose values he represented. The endorsements are rolling in, now, some for Obama, some for Clinton. But there is an appearance of safety about those endorsements, now, choosing as some are between the last two standing in this Democratic war of attrition.

You can't endorse a candidate when there's only one left, I suppose. But the endorsements coming now, even Kennedy's, when Edwards was all but an afterthought, all but dropped out, have the appearance of picking the odds on favorite rather than philosophical alignment. Everyone likes to pick a winner, but there's something cowardly about waiting until you can endorse the candidate you feel reasonably certain will win.

Where have the progressives been during this campaign?

I admire Edward Kennedy greatly, for his service, and for his years of advancing progressive causes. But the truth is that when there were two progressive candidates in the early stages of this race, Kucinich and Edwards, Kennedy remained silent, and waited to see who was a viable candidate before putting his opinion forward.

He's not alone. John Kerry waited until it was clear his former running mate had littel chance of winning before making an endorsement. Both of Massachusetts' safe senators chose to take the easy route, choosing one of the top two candidates late in the game rather than backing a dark horse progressive early in the campaign.

Al Gore, progressive champion. A hero of mine, for sure. No endorsement.

Maybe senators and politicians feel they can't be seen backing a loser, but what's to stop the progressive movement's top pundits and bloggers? You know--the ones who routinely criticize the Democratic party for their timidity, their refusal to take a stand? Their inability to police the blue dog Dems?

Well thanks to everyone who stayed on the sidelines up till now in this campaign, the two least progressive candidates are still alive.

The progressive voices on the Internet have steadfastly avoided endorsing a candidate.

Greenwald? No endorsement.

Kos? No edorsement.

Hamsher? No endorsement.

Digby? No endorsement.

Why? They want to be able to support the eventual nominee no matter who wins. Is that what they call keeping your powder dry? As much as I admire and respect each of these writers, they sure can't be neutral among the candidates. Why not say so? Why not stand up and be counted?

As a result, I'll repeat: we are left with arguably the two least progressive candidates in the race, the two promoted by the msm because of the great storyline their battle provides. The liberal blogosphere in its silence provided no counterpoint to this narrative.

My friend Cliff Schecter, without officially endorsing a candidate, managed to state unequivocally that Chris Dodd and John Edwards were the candidates he preferred in the early going. He stood up for the progressive movement without knowing who would eventually win. And now that both are out, I fully expect Cliff to support the eventual Democratic nominee. We all know that Clinton and Obama will be far superior to anyone the GOP has to offer.

My governor, Ted Strickland, made an endorsement I didn't agree with, but at least it was early, and decisive. (He endorsed Clinton.) My friends in Ohio, the great bloggers at the Chief Source, have advocated for Obama from the very beginning. I prefer Edwards, of course, but their many readers in Akron and Ohio never doubted where they stood. And I am sure that whoever the Dem nominee is, Clinton or Obama, he or she will have the full support of many who may have intitially backed their rival. That's politics.

But I don't think they represented the best the Dems had to offer. It's too bad that so many in positions of leadership, whether an elected position or a position of leadership created by the thousands and thousands of readers who, like me, flock to their sites every day. You can't blast the Democratic Congress for failing to exert leadership, for failing to take a stand, when you aren't willing to do so yourself.

It seems to me that there are a lot of progressives out there who could have stood up and been counted for the candidates they believed in, whether Kucinich, Dodd, or Edwards. Maybe some preferred Obama or Clinton. That's fine too. But make your preference known when it matters. Not after the dust settles.

Maybe next time the progressive movement will line up behind a candidate in the early going. If they stand on the sidelines again, the progressive voices of people like Dodd, Kucinich, and Edwards will be ignored by the corporate media that picks the winners.

UPDATE: Bob Cesca says it's time for progressives to unite around a candidate. Actually, Bob, that time was months ago. But great minds and all that.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Lies from CNN:Bush's legacy isn't "mixed"

CNN posts a story today entitled: "With one year to go, Bush's legacy is a mixed bag": But there's nothing mixed about Bush's legacy. It's all disaster.

I challenge any reader to name a single success from the Bush presidency. There isn't one.

The bad news for Bush is that other than the Medicare prescription drug program he signed into law early in his presidency, his domestic legacy is thin. Even his signature education reform law, No Child Left Behind, is under fire with some conservatives and struggling to be reauthorized.

First of all, the Medicare bill he signed cost millions more than legislators were told. It's common knowledge that the administration lied about the costs of the program and then passed the bill in the dead of night. If that's Bush lone success, that's a pretty sorry story.

NCLB has had a huge impact on schools, but the results are far from clear. The funding that was promised when the bill was signed into law hasn't been realized, so the support for struggling schools hasn't been there. In effect, it's been nothing more than a means to punish schools with high poverty and low parental involvement. The bottom line is that NEITHER of the domestic laws cited above is a clear achievement, a program that accomplished what it was promised at the price that was promised.

CNN calls the results in Iraq and Afghanistan "mixed" also. They're not. They're complete disasters.

Secondly, there's a very mixed picture emerging from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For Bush, 2007 may be a turning point in which his "surge" policy helped improve security on the ground in Baghdad.

But the other goal of sending an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq was to give the Iraqi government breathing space for political reconciliation, an area in which little progress has been achieved.

While the president touted some modest success by the Iraqi government, he acknowledged there needs to be a lot more movement. "Are we satisfied with the progress in Baghdad? No," he said. "But to say nothing's happening is just simply not the case."

So nearly five years after entering Iraq, we've finally seen a reduction--but not an elimination--in violence. That's "mixed"? To me, that's unmitigated failure.

Why CNN feels like they have to soft-peddle Bush's failures is beyond me. Every presidency leaves a mixed legacy of success and disappointment... not this one. It's been all failure. Nothing has worked. Anyone who thinks it's mixed is deluded or blind.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Lay Off Jamie Lynn Spears and Jennifer Love Hewitt, Already

I never cease to be disappointed in our talk show culture and in the entertainment reporting (using the term loosely) that indulges in sick fantasies and shameful delight in the sufferings of the American celebrity caste. When the schadenfreude descends on the backs of spoiled, indulgent, and irresponsible brats of Hollywood like Lindsay Lohan or Robert Downey, Jr., it's hard to work up much of a sense of empathetic pity, even if one acknowledges that addiction is a disease, and that these poor young people are in the grip of something much bigger than themselves, and much more than they probably bargained for the first time they binge drank or snorted coke. But when the victim of the celebrity gossip death cult has done nothing more than fail to conform to the sick, anorexic standards of beauty that pervade Western culture, or when the victim is a kid in the public eye who made a tragic and life-altering but common mistake, it really exposes the worst, most envious and petty elements of our misogynistic media.

I walked through a check out line recently and saw the magazine cover that was the culmination of a weeks' worth of printed consternation and hand wringing: Is Jennifer Love Hewitt fat? Of course there's no way to judge the damage done to young women everywhere by posing these assinine questions. The photos of Love-Hewitt that made news--google them if you must--depict a young woman that any rational person would consider thin, attractive, and healthy. Suddenly thin women all over America were being told endlessly that they were fat. And what message is sent to the millions of men and women who really are overweight? Not only are you also fat, but regardless of how much weight you lose through healthy diet and exercise, you will still be "fat" as long as you are larger than Love-Hewitt's self-reported size 2, as long as you can strike an awkward pose in a bikini, as long as your skin doesn't hang from your collarbones like a wet blouse on a wire hanger. By the standards of People and Us only a few of us can ever escape being "fat". And yet the Hollywood waifs who take this seriously are also subjected to ridicule for their bulimia, while their bony portraits (more beach photography) become the staple for more speculation about the extremes of celebrity womanhood. There's really no right answer. If you are a woman, your body sucks, and you should hate it, hate yourself, starve, live in perpetual torment about how others view you.

But the gleeful hatefest going on this week in regard to the younger sister of Brittany Spears may be even worse. She is 16, and to put it euphemistically, has found herself in trouble. Right now, in high schools all across America, there are girls in the same situation. For years parents and educators have struggled with the solutions to the crisis of teen pregnancy, and the debate rages still about abstinence education and birth control, what's the best route for young couples dealing with this situation, how to deal with their teen hormones, and all that. We'll probably never solve the problem or end the debate. But I hope all sane people can agree that ridiculing teenagers who get pregnant is not the best way to deal with the problem. But anywhere on the radio dial today, you'll hear nothing but laughter and scorn for a sixteen year old girl who got knocked up. Jesus, that's a knee slapper.

I was in my car tonight and heard a talk show host put in his place--on ESPN Radio, of all places. The host, whose name I don't care to remember, was interviewing Brian Finneran, the injured wide receiver of the Atlanta Falcons, and thought he would end the segment with some light banter about a pregnant teenager, because we all know that's the funniest goddamn thing in the world. And this asshole was promptly put in his place by Finneran, who said (and I'm paraphrasing), "Well, my girlfriend, now my wife, and I dealt with that same problem during our senior year in high school, and I'm not going to get on that bandwagon. It's a tough thing to go through, and if her mother wants to write a book about how to get through this, I think it would do a lot of good." My god, I thought, at least there is some humanity left in our world, and the host, clearly reminded that this is a real issue affecting millions of real people, got serious and completely changed the tone of his remarks.

Because sometimes we need to be reminded that it's not only Jennifer Love-Hewitt they are calling fat, it's our mothers, our wives, our sisters, and our daughters are calling names and making fun of, it's women everywhere, some of whom will internalize the messages they receive about their bodies, and it will make them sick, just as surely as the bird flu or nuclear waste will make them sick. And when they laugh and joke about young kids in trouble, they are ridiculing young kids everywhere who again, will internalize those messages and learn to hate themselves as a result of it. This kind of garbage is toxic waste, and it needs to stop being churned out by media corporations, and it needs to stop being trivialized by all of it who pass by it every day. I'm not calling for censorship, I'm just asking that people who get paid to write and talk about this nonsense stop and think for just a minute about what it all means. At the risk of being a humorless politically correct stick in the mud, it's not some big joke, and the things people say have real consequences.

So can we lay off Love-Hewitt and Jamie Lynn Spears, for crying out loud? And don't even get me started on "watching a woman grow old in the White House". My god.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Hating successful young professionals, part II

Matt Stoller of Open Left writes a post entitled, "Why does the New York Times Hate Wage Earners?" Well done, and to me the NTY piece is of the same kind as the 60 Minutes piece on Millenials that I wrote about last week.

Like the 60 Minutes piece, the NYT piece is full of angst about how lavishly young professionals are treated, and questioning whether they deserve it.

So law firms that pay their associates more, in benefits or wages, are 'raising questions about whether law firms are subsidizing a cushy lifestyle'. The article never bothers to note that law firm partners make an exceptional amount of money, or that most young law firm associates spend 80 hours a week on incredibly boring repetitive corporate work and have large student loans to pay back. It's all framed around whether young lawyers are getting too big for their britches, with no larger questions about the economics of the legal profession.

This isn't an example of the New York Times beating up on autoworkers, or janitors, or old people for taking too many Social Security benefits, but young upscale lawyers making good money. The pattern of beating up on the non-superrich, though is the same, and it's designed to make you shake your head and say 'man, those young'uns are getting spoiled out of their mind' instead of recognizing that services like child care, high wages, and decency towards employees are good things.

Both pieces miss the point that there is demand for these young professionals, otherwise the companies and firms that hire them wouldn't be working so hard not only to pay them, but to keep them happy. There seems to be a realization that young college grads want to be paid, but that it's not all about wages with them, but quality of life, and the quality of the kind of work they do and where they do it.

I say, good for them.

As I said before, it also belies the common fallacy that American high schools and colleges aren't producing graduates that can compete with the Chinese and Indian graduates. Some American school graduates seem to be doing pretty nicely.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Dear CNN: Please Stop Sucking

You know, one of the cool things about CNN is that if you link to their story, TONIGHT'S WINNER

like this one about tonight's debate, and you use the right key words, like DEMOCRATS, NEVADA, and DEBATE, you might just get the title of your blog post listed under the story, so if I play it right maybe someone will see the plea I've made in the title of this post.

Because it was bad enough that the first ten minutes of the debate when the most people are likely to be watching were spent allowing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to dominate the television screens. And that Dodd, Biden, and Kucinich were virtually ignored for the first half hour of the debate. And that the idiotic rules of the debate, which allowed anyone who was attacked to defend themselves, ensuring that the frontrunner would dominate the airtime, since no one is attacking Dennis Kucinich or Joe Biden.

But to make things worse, CNN had to take the best part of the debate and ruin it. I'm talking about the questions from the audience. Every time a question came for the audience, Suzanne Malveaux or Wolf Blitzer had to mangle the question to the point that its original form was barely recognizable. The questions from the audience were sincere and thoughtful. But the talking heads were so arrogant and full of themselves that they couldn't let the candidates just answer. Instead they turned to the stage and pretended the damned question had never been asked, and just went on with their own question. What is it about the professional punditry that causes them to think the public is utterly incapable of thinking for themselves? Or expressing themselves? Do they really think they need to interpret the audience's question before the candidates can answer?

And they have to end the debate with this? How condescending and trivial. I wish Hillary had said, "well gee, Wolf, I hope you'll ask Rudy Giuliani the same question about what he prefers when he's in drag."

Diamonds or pearls. More like pearls before swine.

But wait... then CNN convenes a panel consisting of people who once worked for Bill Clinton. And--surprise!--they concluded that Hillary Clinton won! Hey, good for her. But honestly, I'm not sure that the panel watched any more than the first ten minutes of the debate, because they are under the serious misconception that only three candidates were in the debate--Hillary, Barack, and John. In fact, someone should tell them that there were a few others, although it was hard to miss all of their huffing and puffing about not getting asked any questions. And one of those candidates, Joe Biden, gave the best performance by far. He was funny, engaging, and in command of the issues. But CNN's team must have missed him. Maybe they got up to get a Coke. Every. Time. Biden. Kucinich. Richardson. Or. Dodd. Spoke. Because the best political team on television (let me just clear my throat) seemed to have missed all of those guys.

It just never gets any better, does it?

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

McCain's big moment... planned?

It's pretty sad that McCain's big moment so far in his campaign comes from....

this?

Given the following...

Last week, Hillary Clinton's campaign was forced to admit that her aide had planted a question about global warming with a college student at a "town hall" in Newton, Iowa. When she was later asked about this apostasy, Clinton gave a verbal shrug. "In campaigns, things happen and you just go on," she told the Associated Press.

What she didn't say is that every candidate and every reporter expects a regular share of the questions asked in these events to come from people planted in the audience -- puppets, stooges or well-meaning volunteers, some who act overtly and some who sneak through covertly. This ever-growing practice has come squarely into focus because of Clinton's blunder in Newton, adding to her campaign's reputation for producing the most meticulously staged events in the field. But her misstep points to a larger issue: the widespread manipulation of the classic "town hall."

...and given the alacrity with which his campaign used the b-word thrown in with some good old-fashioned liberal media mythologizing (meanwhile, if you can believe it, Howie Kurtz said that the McCain campaign made a good point!!!) to raise campaign cash...

...and given the desperate situation in which the McCain campaign finds itself...

And finally, given McCain's refusal to disavow the remark while staying "above the fray" by saying he respects Senator Clinton...

... is it a stretch to believe that this entire thing was somehow, I don't know, PLANNED? Or am I just too suspicious?

By the way, here's Howie Kurtz's take on CNN's reporting. Go to about 2:49 in the video. "But his campaign has a point. That little incident was pretty badly hyped by Rick Sanchez." (my emphasis)

CBS's Hit Job on The Millenial Generation

Have you heard of the Millenials? They're the newest college grads out in the work force, but according to Morley Safer they're apparently 20 something spoiled rich kids who are driving executives all over the country to drink. Safer, whom I normally respect as a pretty fair journalist, does a hatchet job on an entire generation, accusing them of disloyalty, petulance, and general brattiness while living at home and mooching off their parents. Ah, but they're also devious, "tech savvy", and cunning opportunists whose goal, it seems, is to get the perfect job--how selfish of them!--and leave corporate America high and dry in her moment of need.

I'm not sure what's worse in all this, the dishonesty or the shallow thinking, the willful ignorance or the concious attempt to create new stereotypes. And at least, if you're going to create new stereotypes, at least make them interesting. Instead the 60 Minutes piece recycles stereotypes of previous generations and updates them for the new millenium. The only thing that's missing is the accusations of rampant drug use and wild sexual frenzy.

For example, you might think that previous generations have been accused of sponging off of mom and dad, but no, the millenials are the worst:

"There once was, if not shame, a little certain uneasiness about being seen to be living at home in your mid 20s, yes?" Safer asks Mary Crane.

"Not only is there no shame with it, but this is thought to be a very smart, wise, economic decision," Crane says.

"Well, that would suggest that they probably had pretty happy childhoods," Safer says.

"And who couldn't be happy when you're growing up in a world where there's no failure?" Crane points out.

Stop and appreciate the logical leap there for a minute... they live at home because they've never expereinced failure? Whereas failure makes you move out into your own place? I don't get it. But in the passage above, of course is the another old stereotype that is being updated to a new generation, the old canard that self esteem is just a crock, and that by rewarding kids for their effort you really are just creating a spoiled child who feels entitled and never really learns to do anything. The problem with this argument as it's applied here is that the entire piece seems to focus on just how successful this generation is, how in demand they are, and how they are naming their price. I'm not sure if that's true--I've seen 20 somethings looking for work--but if it is, it sort of suggests that however they were raised worked out ok, given that they're happy, self-assured, and successful.

But that seems to be exactly what makes some critics upset. These young people are just too damn good for their own good.

If this generation knows anything, it's that there are more jobs than young people to fill them.

"I believe that they actually think of themselves like merchandise on eBay. 'If you don't want me, Mr. Employer, I'll go sell myself down the street. I'll probably get more money. I'll definitely get a better experience. And by the way, they'll adore me. You only like me,'" Salzman says.

Well, if that's true--and I'm not saying it is, as this piece makes plenty of dubious assumptions--then by God more power to 'em. Name your price. If you can get away with it, so what? If they aren't as good as they think, they'll fall on their face, right? And according to the logic presented here, that failure would be the best thing in the world for them, and might even get them out of the house.

But man, these kids are lazy, as the Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Zaslow points out--and I think this must be the first time any generation has ever been accused of not working as hard as their parents (/snark/):

Well, except, when we were younger, you had a piano teacher who expected you to practice your piano and work hard at it, and the parents expected it. And now, the parents say, 'Have fun, learn the piano, practice a little bit.' So, there's not the expectations that they will achieve and work hard," Zaslow says. "It's not the same work ethic."

Not only that, they never had jobs as teenagers:

Today, fewer and fewer middle class kids hold summer jobs because mowing lawns does not get you into Harvard.

Actually, what fewer and fewer kids today do has nothing to do with the generation that's no longer kids, but let that go for a minute. (Does anyone edit this shit?!) Now, not that anyone cares about facts, but here are some good ones about teen employment historically. I've put in bold the part about the lazy-ass millenials, who would've been seniors maybe around the year 2000:

During the peak of summer employment rates in 1978, the seasonally-adjusted employment rate among teens was 49.1 percent, meaning that nearly one out of every two U.S. teens was employed. This year, the summer employment rate for teens was only 34.5 percent, making it the worst year in recent history for teens looking for summer work.

The Center for Labor Market Studies' report findings show that the summer job market for teens in 2007 was worse than the previous historic low (36.1 percent), which was reached in the summer of 2004.

As recently as 2000, 45 percent of teens were employed during the summer. However, when the country began experiencing a mild recession in 2001, the market for teen summer employment collapsed. Teen summer employment rates fell every year from 2001 through 2004. Despite minor increases during the summers of 2005 and 2006, summer employment rates fell sharply again this year, a trend which experts find troubling.

Zaslow knows who's to blame for it this laziness, too. I'm not making this up:

"You have got a guy like Mister Rogers, Fred Rogers on TV. He was telling his preschoolers, 'You're special. You're special.' And he meant well. But we, as parents, ran with it. And we said, 'You, Junior, are special, and you're special and you're special and you're special.' And for doing what? We didn't really explain that," Zaslow says.

See? The problem with the new generation of workers is that they are spoiled, they've never been told that they suck, they all won first prize at everything, and they never failed.

I wonder if there are any people in their 20's out there who have been told that they suck, who failed, who didn't win everything they tried, and who failed more than a few times. My guess is there are.

If you can stand to watch it, the imagery of the clip does its level best to make the workplace look like a playground or a college dorm. There is a parade of costumes at a shoe company, big cushy seats, and back rubs. And of course laptops everywhere.

I taught this generation, and I didn't recognize them from the 60 Minutes hit job. The recent grads I know are confident and ambitious, but to lump an entire group together is stupid. Sure, lots of them are experiencing failure, and some of them are petulant. But a lot of them are also doing great things, finding their way in the world, and even have their own apartments. On the few times when there is some honest discussion with members of this age group, they seemed pretty self assured. It's pretty difficult to hear this, and think some young people don't have their heads on straight:

"We're not going to settle. Because we saw our parents settle," Dorsey says. "And we have options. That we can keep hopping jobs. No longer is it bad to have four jobs on your resume in a year. Whereas for our parents or even Gen X, that was terrible. But that's the new reality for us. And we're going to keep adapting and switching and trying new things until we figure out what it is."

Is that such a bad thing? I mean, has corporate America shown such loyalty to its employees during the previous generations that young people have learned to stick it out with their bosses through thick and thin? I give these guys credit for understanding what many of our parents had to learn the hard way: that your employer can chew you up and spit you out, let you go at age 55 with no other options, pull your insurance coverage out from under you, or put all of your retirement into worthless Enron stock. Why shouldn't these young people look out for number one?

One last observation: I kept thinking as I was watching this that all I've heard for the last few years is that our educational system is subpar and we're losing out to India and China, where big corporations have to go to find engineers. Well it's funny, but Morley Safer seems to think corporate America is falling all over itself to hire these expensive spoiled brats right here in New York and LA. I recommend they go to New Delhi for some cheap, humble help that's already experienced failure and wasn't ruined by Mr. Rogers.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Real Men Don't Eat Quiche or Vote Hillary

Just now on Hardball. I have to admit, I wondered when this would start. The line of reasoning is, essentially, if you're a real man you won't vote for Hillary.

The subject Chris Matthews was discussing with his guests was, Will men vote for Hillary? The answer was no. Patrick Healy of the New York Times said, "men won't vote for her because she reminds them of something that sounds like witchy." I'm not making this up.

Do these guys think men in America are a bunch of chickenshits afraid of women? Do they think we're Mysogynist America? We're so afraid of women, according to Chris, that we say we're for Hillary because a woman is on the phone.

I'm not crazy about Hillary, but come on. I guess the media is going to resort to this juvenile sexist stereotypes to derail her candidacy. Our media elite at work.

Pardon me, I'm afraid my wife is going to beat the hell out of me with a frying pan if I don't get off the computer. She's stomping around with a kerchief tied around her head with a knot in the front, wiping her hands on the apron and picking up the rolling pin. She looks pissed. I better go. Don't tell anyone, but I'm voting Edwards. Oh, and if there are any women out there, I'M VOTING FOR HILLARY. But oh, god! My friends will think I'm gay if I do!

Don't hurt me.

UPDATE: They came back to this topic. Is there some inherent unlikability with American men that will prevent them from voting for Hillary? That's the big issue in this election.

Sure glad I watched Hardball tonight. I think it'll be another year before I watch it again.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Namecalling and character assassination

One of my regular readers and most frequent commenters, Paul, occasionally accuses me of engaging in name calling and in stereotyping of conservatives in ways that are not helpful to the debate.

Of course Paul's right about one thing: the name calling and nastiness that characterizes so much of our political discourse, both at the highest levels of government politics and the media, and between average citizens like Paul and I, isn't helpful, and doesn't lead to a greater understanding of our differences or our points of view. And I would agree with Paul about name calling and character assassination. I bring it up because it's a frequent criticism of the right--that left wing critics and bloggers engage in hateful and vile rhetoric. But there's name calling, and then there's descriptions of ideas and behaviors that, while not flattering, are nevertheless accurate.

A case in point. I recently wrote that the attacks on Gore and the Nobel Committee were self-centered and childish...
My point was that the critics of the Nobel Committee who gave the Peace Prize to Gore were suggesting that the award was given simply to snub George Bush and the Republican Party in the U. S., who have been almost universally hostile to the idea that global warming is something Americans ought to be worried about. Furthermore, the Committee's award a few years ago to Jimmy Carter was seen as further evidence that the Nobel Prize was given to hurt the Bush presidency. Certainly we can all agree (I would hope) that to make a charge that the award is simply given to help Democrats with electoral politics is not only silly, but reflects a world view that decisions are always made based on how they help or hurt American politics. That's what I mean by "egomaniacal"--the tendency to think that every event relates to oneself.

Now when I called those critics egomaniacal I don't think it was gratuitous name-calling, like I would call my chums in school an idiot or my dad a jerk when he grounded me in high school. I was describing particular behavior, and, I think my description was accurate. I would stand by it still.

What about when Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot"? A lot of people would like to equate the kind of argument we hear from the left with the name calling like Coulter's. But is Coulter really describing John Edwards when she calls him a "faggot"? Is there any reason to suggest that Edwards is really a homosexual? Of course not. It's a ridiculous and outrageous statement that should offend anyone who hears it.

My point isn't that whenever the left does it it's good, and when the right does it it's bad. But my point is that there is a difference between an description of one's ideas and behavior and pure schoolyard bullying. And frequently the right tries to deliberately equate the two. Limbaugh and O'Reilly regularly commit this logical error when they attack Media Matters. Any objective observer can tell pretty quickly that what Media Matters does is to present, with devastating detail and accuracy, exactly what Limbaugh and O'Reilly say, and why it was incorrect or repugnant. In return, Limbaugh and O'Reilly accuse Media Matters of "hate," and of "smears" (O'Reilly: MM are "the most vile, despicable human beings in the country"). It's a disingenuous and worse than that, it's a dodge. Instead of facing the heat for calling soldiers disloyal or phoney, for example, Limbaugh would rather accuse the left of hate and namecalling. It's easier than explaining what you've said or defending yourself.

A great deal has been written about the right-wing's reaction to Graeme Frost or others who have been involved in the SCHIP debate. I don't have a lot to add to what others have written about those sordid episodes, but isn't kind of the same thing? When some on the right don't like what they are hearing, they don't engage the debate, but instead they attack personally those making a political statement they don't agree with. Instead of responding to the argument on its own merits, they attack (in this case) families as being opportunists and stooges.

This post isn't about Paul, although he inspired it. My point is simply that, paradoxically, the rush to label some discourse as "hateful" is in itself a barrier to discourse. It's often simply incorrect. Calling people out for what they say or making accurate descriptions of what they say is not hateful, it's not namecalling. But it is part of the debate and the free exchange of ideas. It shouldn't be lumped in with the hateful rhetoric of people like Ann Coulter. Not all argument that is forcefully stated is the hate rhetoric that OReilly claims it is.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

John Stewart Lampoons Chris Matthews

I wasn't going to post anymore today, but I couldn't resist this gem:

I saw this posted by Atrios and wow, is it fascinating on so many levels. Best line is when Stewart tells Matthews, who's there to plug his shitty book, "I'm not trashing your book, I'm trashing your philosophy of life."

To Matthews this appearance is a bust because Stewart refuses to kiss his ass and say what a great book it is. He clearly sees his book as a commodity like new toothpaste rather than a set of ideas one should be prepared to defend or actually believe in. He behaves as though any kind of honest dialogue about what one has written is off limits, as if he's offended that John Stewart would dare question the essential and self-evident brilliance of his thesis. How dare you, is Matthews' tone, criticize my book. As though Stewart has violated the law that says anyone who comes to plug a book gets a free pass on their stupid undergraduate ideas. (No offense to any undergraduates who might be out there.) It seems as though Matthews has come up with this clever little trope--"Life is a Campaign"--and just can't fathom that anyone would disagree with what to him is a universal truth. It gets so bad that Matthews actually pulls the book out of Stewart's hands. I thought he might cry.

It's also pretty clear that to Matthews, life really is all about getting and accumulating, winning and losing. It's all about selling yourself. I couldn't help but think back to Frank Luntz's book, because it too doesn't deal with what's right or honest, but what will trick people into accepting your agenda, whether it's good for them or not. When Stewart makes this argument, Matthews tells him that that book has already been written, it's the Bible.

Crazy stuff. Once again, Stewart reveals himself to be one of the best journalists working.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Ted Stevens busted in corruption sting, Hillary's not a lesbian

Of course the major media outlets are ignoring the story that Ted Stevens was the target of a sting operation focusing on political corruption.

But IF they were to cover it, it would be from the "both parties have ethical problems" angle.

This is a preemptive shot so that when that story DOES appear I can say I told you so.

There's no room for the Stevens story on the CNN, Wapo or NYT sites last I checked (at least not on the front page or the Washington/Politics front pages), but there IS this important story:

"Sen. Hillary Clinton's sexuality is not the most pressing issue on the presidential campaign trail, but it is likely to get a fair amount of attention on a lazy Friday in the nation’s capital." (my emphasis)

Yeah, it's a lazy day when a prominent Republican Senator is caught taking bribes and then inserting earmarks into appropriations bills. Cuz THAT isn't news. But Hillary and Lesbians is BIG news. Worthy of the front of the site.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Why is the Dispatch publishing this cartoon?

Thanks to Dave Harding, I spotted this cartoon depicting the Iranians as cockroaches. (Click on the link to see it.) The cartoon is Goebbel-esque in its propagandinst war-mongering. And I suppose the Dispatch has every right to beat the drums of war if they want to. And we have every right to speak out as well.

But what's really interesting--and disgusting--is the response Dave received from The Dispatch.

Here it is:

Thank you for writing to The Dispatch.

You apparently are responding to a call from the Council of American-Islamic relations to write to me and to cartoonist Michael Ramirez to complain about a cartoon about the Iraqi regime’s support of violent extremists and terrorists throughout the Middle East.

This is a pretty insulting opening. In other words, we don't take your letter seriously because you are too idiotic to write to us yourself. You have to copy from a pro-Iranian group, and who cares about them, because they're Iranian!

CAIR claims the cartoon demeans all Iranians as cockroaches. But since the drain cover depicted in the cartoon is clearly labeled with “Iran” and “extremism” it is clear that the cartoon refers only to those elements of the Iranian regime who support extremism. In other words, it doesn’t come close to labeling all Iranians as cockroaches.

We just show Iran as being a sewer with cockroaches coming out of it. Come on! We're clearly not saying that ALL of Iran is a sewer! I mean, there are some other things living in the sewer--in Iran--that aren't cockroaches, they just aren't depicted in the cartoon! What we meant was that inside the sewer are flowers and blue skies and lovely children running and playing.

To argue that the cartoon applies to only "parts" of Iranian society is an insult to the intelligence the Dispatch's readership. The intellectual dishonesty in this argument is really beneath the standard that ought to be set by a major American newspaper.

CAIR also likens the cartoon to Nazi propaganda. This is a remarkable display of intellectual gymnastics. Iranian President Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of the Jewish state and questions the Holocaust, while his regime tries to develop nuclear weapons. If CAIR is truly concerned about the promotion of Nazi ideas and the use of Nazi methods, it should direct its attention to Tehran.

Again, blatant intellectual dishonesty. The cartoon demonizes the Iranians in Nazi style. That doesn't mean that Ahmadinejad isn't a bigot also.

CAIR’s claims that its mission is to promote understanding of Islam and combat anti-Islamic information and anti-Islamic attitudes. That’s an honorable mission when it is directed at legitimate grievances.

Like this one.

In this case, CAIR has misrepresented this cartoo