Change.gov or Ministry of Truth?

Winston Smith has entered the building.  Just as many had feared, in the response to the first real scandal in the history of the Office of the President-elect, the agents of Obama's Ministry of Truth have been activated.  Of  course, there is little precedent for comparison.  Our government never even had an Office of the President-elect before now.

In the wake of the Blagojevich arrest and subsequent political chaos, the web has been cleansed of some damaging material efficiently and effectively.  It shows us the fleeting nature of truth in a digital world.  It also presents the best case for bailing out our nation's failing newspapers.  Despite liberal tendencies, the relative permanence of paper information serves as an archive that can not be subjectively white-washed when expediency dictates necessity.

Most of us bloggers consider ourselves to be the town criers of the Digital Age.  Maybe - if we're really good - we can evoke reactions from our readers similar to those of Nellie Bly or Upton Sinclair, dragging nare-do-wells into the light of day for the public to exact justice.  Or, maybe, if we haven't achieved the critical mass of a mega-blog like HotAir.com or MichelleMalkin.com, what we write only lives until it crosses the line from opinion that someone doesn't like to become substance that could be damaging to someone. 

Servers can be compromised, systems hacked and archives deleted.  In this sense, most blogs are no more reliable for our society than the ancient oral tradition.  (No, former President Clinton, not your cue.) 

A culture of moral determinism is now poised to hold court now that the capital of our nation's political spirit has moved from Washington, D.C. to Chicago, Illinois.  Finding a way to give our political conversations permanence is not a pursuit that can be left to hobbyists; it is an imperative of survival.

The handing over of power to a Chicago cabal was an enormous mistake made by the American people who know not what they have done.  But it is a mistake that must be respected because it is, after all, our system.  So, too, must the cabal respect the laws they will soon be bound to uphold. 

Perhaps it is not voluntary as idealized by philosopher John Locke, but in the absence of the social contract he describes, in which we submit to the rule of law - not to be altered based on our temporary needs or wants - only anarchy exists.  The erosion of any sense that a record exists of someone's actions, or that common sense should guide our judgments about the actions taken by our elected representatives, intensifies the chaos currently in crescendo.

The blog community is the Fifth Estate, checking the Fourth Estate, which watches over the government for the protection of the people.  When the media steps out of line, it is the blogs that sound the alarm; the media, on occasion, return the favor.  In the coming years, bloggers will need to find more creative ways of preserving their communal record, arriving at some forms of consensus and establishing measures to gain credibility with the public.

Our country can survive anything, as long as the free flow of opinion and information exists.  This latest dark episode in our political history shows us that blogs serve a valuable role and they should ensure their ability to do so eternally, for the preservation of our free republic.

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Technorati Tags: bloggers,Rod Blagojevich,media bias,Winston Smith,John Locke

Illinois Governor's Arrest Gives Us Another Fine Example of CNN Balance

I don't even have a comment about the CNN.com story's content.  Any time a sitting governor is taken into federal custody on suspicion of bribery there is something serious going on.

What I want to know is, why did I have to go to other sources to confirm that Governor Rod Blagojevich is a Democrat?  Nowhere in the story is it stated that Blagojevich is, in fact, a Democrat.

Contrast with a story appearing on CNN.com following Ted Steven's conviction on corruption charges names him as a Republican in the second paragraph:

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens vowed to fight his Monday conviction on federal corruption charges, a verdict he attributed to "repeated instances of prosecutorial misconduct."

"I will fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have," the 84-year-old Stevens, the Senate's longest-serving Republican, said in a written statement after the jury came back Monday afternoon. "I am innocent."

How much reporting do you think the Atlanta news giant will give to the relationship between Blagojevich and President-elect Obama considering this subtle attempt to de-politicize a criminally-charged Dem?

UPDATE: Another blogger noticed this omission, as well as the shocking omission among other news carriers, although I didn't know it at the time I was writing my post.

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Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Rod Blagojevich,media bias,CNN,Ted Stevens

LA Times Media Commentator Says Fairness Doctrine Paranoia Is Baseless; Millions of Conservatives Breathe a Sigh of Relief

Rainey Demonstrates His Lack of Ability to Properly Use Search Engines

The "Fairness Doctrine" issue - the possible re-imposition of political balance requirements for radio broadcasters - is going to be a hot one for the next year.  Many eyes are trained on President-elect Obama with concerns about how far left his agenda will be, and the "Fairness Doctrine" is near the top of many conservative watch lists.   According to James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times, conservatives don't need to worry our pretty little heads about it one bit.

The sub-headline of the story reads:

Impose a mandate on broadcasters to balance their political views? That would be onerous indeed. But memo to Rush: Nobody's asking for that.

I know Rainey didn't write the headline of the sub-head.  Still, any readers not managing to make it past the bold print take away the notion that conservative talk radio hosts across the country are held in the grip of paranoid delusion.  But, in the commentary body, Rainey cites two senators - Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico) and Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) - as having publicly called for the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" to be reapplied. 

Of all people that I would ever expect to be referred to as "nobody", Chuck Schumer would be eternally absent from that list.

Rainey's contention, though, seems to be that the voices of two influential senators do not constitute the political will necessary to change the way the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) currently regulates broadcasters.  In support of his hypothesis that a lack of enthusiasm is present for such action, he offers the following:

If the left wing is gearing up for such a push, I had trouble detecting it. A search of the liberal Daily Kos website turned up almost no mentions of the Fairness Doctrine.

Mr. Rainey, you must always remember to turn the detection device on before using it.

Mr. Rainey should educate himself in two areas: how politics works in America and a knowledge of search engines. 

I donned my wet suit and went to Daily Kos for myself and found that Mr. Rainey is partially correct.  When I searched for the terms "fairness" and "doctrine" in "stories" - commentaries and postings by Daily Kos staff writers and contributors - I only find two results within the last two weeks.  This, however, is where the understanding of American politics comes in.  Movements always gain strength from vocal activists, sometimes known as people.  These are the kind of folks who hop on the computer and comment on blogs like the Daily Kos, they even write letters and make phone calls to elected officials.

So what happens when we search through "comments"?  During the past 2 weeks, those same search terms found 511 results.  When we search through "stories and diaries" - diaries are the personal blogs kept by Daily Kos users - we get 56 results.  Reminder: That's just in the past two weeks.  One one liberal web site.

When Mr. Rainey wrote of finding "almost no mentions" of the "Fairness Doctrine", I would have given him a bit of leeway to accept four, five, maybe even fifteen results, but 511?  That's a margin of error even exit pollsters wouldn't be comfortable with.

Furthermore, if Mr. Rainey actually did the work read the content of posts, he would have learned that there are examples of people who are actively advocating the return of the anti-free speech "Fairness Doctrine".

'shpilk' is one Daily Kos user who keeps a blog on the site.  In a diary post with the tag "Fairness Doctrine" attached - for context - they wrote on November 7:

We've got to find the Achilles Heel of the newspapers and local TV and radio stations that refuse to play fair, that give favorable borrowing terms to Republicans like they did with Reichert a few scant weeks before the election.

Another offering comes from 'lfurman97', who wrote on November 8th:

"Now the work begins. The first order of business will be to re-instate the "Fairness Doctrine" and reverse the policies that have proven so disastrous..."

Another Kos user, 'Troubadour', comments as follows to explain how President-elect Obama could begin moving the "Fairness Doctrine" into place.  (Be careful, it's Daily Kos so the language gets a little rough.  Cover the eyes of small children and refrain from reading aloud.)

Obama would give a speech on it.

He would explain that the airwaves belong to YOU, the American people - they are not the private property of the corporations to whom YOU the people grant conditional licenses to operate for the public good.  He could even quote directly from the text of those licenses, and perhaps Edward R. Murrow if he's feeling saucy.  And the wingnuts would be left with what?  Their usual - their dicks in their hands.

Naturally he would consult with legal experts first and have built up a substantial base of support for it, but that would just be icing on the cake.  Obama speeches are irresistible when they confront some deep truth and seek to exercise leadership.  My only advice to him: Keep making speeches from a standing position - don't do the desk thing.

This comment came after this one by 'methinsaw':

Although I think the Fairness Doctrine is a good idea, the wing-nuts will go crazy saying their first amendment rights are being taken away by the liberals.  That would be a salient argument for them to use to attract voters that might not understand the issue very well.

These are not the only citations I could find on the mother ship of all liberal chatter, I just don't have time to keep cutting, pasting and hyperlinking for the remainder of the day.  There are more liberal web sites, and plenty of blogs that are operated independent of a parent site.  Perform a Google blog search for yourself and get back to me with what you find.

Before Mr. Rainey dismissed conservative impulses to protect the first amendment something akin to staying mad at your wife because you dreamt she cheated on you, he should have taken the time to really acknowledge that there are people on the left who wish to silence conservative media voices.  Just saying it isn't so won't make the threat go away.

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Technorati Tags: Daily Kos,James Rainey,LA Times,Fairness Doctrine,media bias

Is The Mainstream Media Just As Smart As They Are Partisan? You Betcha.

I just watched CNN.com call South Carolina for McCain with 0% of precincts reporting but showing 47% McCain, 53% Obama.  Does this amount to a media-spun Get of The Vote effort in the potentially crucial states of Nevada and Colorado?  Obviously, there is no way to know for sure, but it would certainly make sense that if the media had any concerns that early exit polling calls in 2000 and 2004 actually decreased Democrat turnout, wouldn't it make sense to reverse the process and see if that reversed the reaction?

It's just a random thought.  I'm sure the madness will intensify as the night progresses.

LA Times: Providing Asylum For Democrat Politicians In Need

Handling of Obama/Khalidi Tape is Handbook for 'Swiss Banking' of Politically Radioactive Material 

As a student of journalism since junior high school, I was indoctrinated in the notion that the great reporters of the American press lived and breathed that thing called 'the story'.  When journalists such as Upton Sinclair and Nellie Bly received information it went into the story, not into the wall safe.  Maybe that's why the Los Angeles Times' refusal to release the infamous and enigmatic Khalidi video strikes me as so odd, even for that paper.

A reporter's right to keep their sources anonymous must be preserved and protected.  It is also not strictly unethical to allow a source to place conditions on how information is used, even though striking such a deal would seem counterproductive to gathering information.  On that score, the Los Angeles Times' refusal to release the controversial video has a sliver of ground on which to stand.  That ability to claim the right to keep the video from the public is, however, elective and not strictly required by law. 

The Times has not claimed that the agreement with the tape's source was contractual or in any way legally binding, but there is the possibility that the manner in which the tape was given to the paper was an orchestrated act intended to give all sides - Obama, the source and the Los Angeles Times - a way to avoid having to reveal the tape's contents to the public, contents which might give American voters a way to assemble a picture of Obama's worldview that does not flatter the candidate.

Since no illegal acts are alleged to have been captured on the video, and we must assume the tape was delivered to the newspaper legally, there is no legal method to pry the material from the Times' icy grip.  If the source gave the newspaper the only public copy of the video, it could conceivably be hidden away for as long as its owners, its custodians and the powerful person appearing on it wish to keep it away from our eyes.

The mystery unfolds further when consulting the article, written by Peter Wallsten and run in the print edition on April 10, 2008, for which the video was used as a reference.  Its main effect on the piece seems to have been to give the Wallsten a way to portray Obama as a cool-headed mediator of Middle Eastern tensions.  This passage appears nine paragraphs into the story:

One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology."

Obama adopted a different tone in his comments and called for finding common ground.

That doesn't seem so bad.  Why would the source want to keep that video away from the public?  In fact, with the Obama campaign fighting for their life to maintain the Democrat stranglehold on the Jewish vote in the battleground state of Florida, one would think that a video showing Obama standing up to be the voice of reason in a room full of Arabs would be campaign gold.  Axelrod would be setting up half hourly screenings at every senior center from Pensacola to Boca.

Of course, if there was other material on the video, material that was both relevant to campaign or character issues, and damaging to Obama, the Times would have its own reasons to suppress it lest readers and fellow journalists question the ethics of how the Wallsten article constructed. 

The question arises: Did the LA Times and the source of the tape knowingly enter into an agreement that would give all parties to its hiding a plausible reason to deny the public access to its content?  There is no way to ever answer that question, but the very presence of the question in the minds of readers will very likely  have consequences for a newspaper already on the verge of collapse.

Right now, if the LA Times holds the only copy, there is no safer place to keep it away from the rest of the media and prevent it from damaging the Obama campaign in the final crucial days of this presidential election. 

Where are Liddy and the Plumbers when you need them?

After the Election, How Will We Work to 'Reform' the Media?

The New York Times has dropped even the pretense of applying a delicate coat of sophistication to their bias.  Perhaps this is just a strategy born of the Old Grey Lady's survival impulse, that by leaning hard to the left they might hijack the readership of the Village Voice and thus delay their hastening demise.

The picture accompanying this post was a teaser on the New York Times web edition's Politics main page at midday today.  It wasn't an extraordinary experience, finding an example of liberal bias.  No cause to bring in Mulder and Scully, but was it an accident that the photog was lined up perfectly for the shot that placed Senator McCain's head in the middle of the bold red 'X' that is is, in fact, the Florida state flag? 

Plausible deniability will be the order of the day if some of the bigger blogs notice this image and shake the Times for comment, but it is ultimately the photo editor who chose this one image out of hundreds available of the Republican candidate. 

Since the press has advocated the idea that Americans respond to - or even act on - subtle messages embedded within speech and images, we owe it to them to take a moment and consider the potential message being transmitted by the Times' photo. (It is uncredited, so I'm going to assume it belongs to the Times.)

If memory serves me, the bold red 'X' is used most frequently to label something in need of elimination. It is a shorthand, easy for our eye and mind to interpret and store without conscious thought. 

Is the Times sending out subliminal orders that McCain is to be "eliminated"?  Of course not, but this kind of sophomoric camera work used to be relegated to news blooper segments on The Tonight Show, not applied to the sober business of reporting from the campaign trail. 

Does this kind of juvenile antic really rise to a level worth spending a great deal of time talking about?  Were the Times' photographer to have carefully lined up Senator Obama so that his cranium was centered betwixt a red 'X', would the NAACP or the DNC have anything to say about it?  They would label it inflammatory and say that it might be sending a message that Obama should be targeted and eliminated.  My feeling is that such hypothetical charges would be fair and justified.

The media has truly abused its license in its coverage of this election.  We rely on the media for information and context, and we need it to be stripped as cleanly as possible of bias, or labeled appropriately in the case of commentary or opinion.  Our way of life breaks down without a free and responsible press.  This very fact is what makes reform such a challenging proposition.

One would have thought that reform would have been self-imposed, within media organizations, as the market of ideas began to heat up with the ascendancy of Fox News, talk radio and Internet blogging.  Instead, the traditional media have attacked those new media and the people who consult them for news and information.  The mainstream media are championing the cause of the candidate who is most likely to impose federal guidelines for how the media comment on news, much as the British loyalists of Revolutionary America courted the aristocracy in a vain attempt to gain favor with power as a means of protecting their own way of life.

Our system was built with an elegant attention to checks and balances, to prevent the government ascribing enough power to itself that it would cast aside the "negative liberties" Obama lamented in his 2001 interview on Chicago Public Radio.  All of the bodies of government were placed under the watchful guard of the press, who the government was specifically not allowed to tamper with.  This is as it should be, but then who stands vigilant over the press to ensure that it does not become drunk with its own power?

With the power to shape opinions, set norms, transmit values - all of that glorious sociological material that you should have been learning in your Communications 101 class - the press is only constrained by how much power the public feeds to them by either being an audience of buying advertisers products.  The question for us now is: Are the press acting responsibly, or are they abusing their power?

Place the journalistic and editorial decisions involved in two stories side by side and make a common sense judgment of whether the press is doing their job. 

In the case of Joe the Plumber, as the substance of a story begins to hurt Senator Obama, Joe, who questioned the candidate on the nature of the candidate's economic views has reporters investigating his past, digging for dirt.  His reputation is sullied; he is smeared.

In another case, a single reporter for a small-town newspaper claims to have heard someone yell, "Kill Him," at a McCain-Palin rally.  Although the reporter gives no description of the alleged hate speaker, no other witnesses have reported hearing the remark and Secret Service on the scene do not report hearing or seeing any such event, the story is reported as fact by a variety of willing media sources with the commentary added to imply that the McCain-Palin campaign is generating and tolerating a dangerous culture of hate and violence.

How do we communicate to the communicators that we want balanced reporting?  The answer is... competition and consolidation.  Maybe an editor or two who don't have Carter campaign buttons in their junk drawer.  It would be a start.  Since many papers are losing readers, I would think it might don on one or two to try something... different?  Who knows?  If it worked it might spread to other papers.  My guess is that's what they're afraid of, but I would think that unemployment would scare editors more than the distaste they might have for working alongside people with different points of view.

I am not saying that liberal voices in media are a cancer that needs to be excised.  America is a fabric of competing ideas, but the ideas must compete honestly in order for the system to properly function.  If the 'debate' consists only of contradiction, but does not contain elements of agreement, it fails miserably to arrive at conclusions and only serves to polarize supporters of propositions pro or con.

The media should, at least, be functioning as an impartial referee, sorting through the partisanship to keep both sides honest.  As they currently operate, the media is furthering the endemic apathy (verging on nihilistic compulsion) in the public-at-large.

Still, there are signs that the public wants something different.  The commencement of a purge in traditional print media begins with the rapid downgrading of New York Times bond issues, this in the same time that non-traditional media are thriving.  There will be advancements in how non-traditional media delivers its content that may make it far easier for "small" media to develop the kind of large circulation that big newspapers had at one time.  In the entrepreneurial period, there are always opportunities for new content and forms of presentation to emerge.  In that phase, the public can have its greatest impact on how news is reported.

The need for reform in our media is great. 

The results of a poll done by the Pew Research Center showed that 70% of respondents believed that the media favors Obama to win the upcoming election versus 9% who believe they favor McCain.  (You might be surprised to learn that only 8% feel that the media supports neither candidate, but that is actually the highest percentage since the first time the poll was taken during the 1992 election.)

When the election is over, and the ballots have been counted, vetted, and possibly recounted, a discussion of how consumers of media can effect reform will have to occupy some of our attention, regardless of who will occupy the White House next year.  The abuses of the media in this election have been committed in pursuit of vengeance against a party they don't like, but with reckless disregard to their ultimate duty in our society, the duty to provide for the "public enlightenment ... by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues." (That's excerpted from the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.  Context intact.)

The media has a conscience and they know in what instances they have fallen down on their responsibilities.  If they feign amnesia, remind them.  If they promise to do better, hold them to that promise.  Organize a letter-writing campaign to the editor of your least favorite newspaper, detailing stories in which context was tipped to favor one ideology over another.  Offer suggestions for creating balance.  Do anything except doing nothing.

Most importantly, don't take no for an answer and let them know that you want to take their newspaper every morning, but not until they take their job seriously.  We have serious - in some cases, deadly serious - issues to grapple with in the coming years and we need our media news system to be functioning at optimal levels to give us clear information so that we can make sound, informed decisions.

NYT: Please Be Advised that Voting May Be Hazardous to Your Life, and Your Child's

From the same newspaper that has reported eloquently and abundantly on the bogeyman of Republican use of fear politics, the Old Grey Lady raises her cane to deliver a double-whammy of paranoia to those readers still shackled to the carefully crafted words on her faded pages.

Whammy number one: Polling places may become magnets for violence on the day of the election.

Whammy number two: Wait a second, doesn't your child's school serve as a polling place?

They're pulling out all of the stops, reaching into the deepest recesses of the bag of tricks for what can hypereuphemistically be called "election enhancements" for the Democrat cause.

The implication is made clear in the third paragraph of the piece (emphasis added):

“School districts across the country now spend millions of dollars each year on controlling access to buildings with locked doors and surveillance cameras to keep strangers out,” said Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, an advocacy group, in Cleveland. “In a post-Columbine, post-9/11 world, we shouldn’t be opening the doors at our schools on Election Day, and just hoping everything will be O.K.”

With no evidence indicated in the rest of the article that government law enforcement agencies were in any heightened state of readiness, or had indications of actual planned attacks, this kind of fear-mongering would seem to have only one purpose; to keep people from going to the polls and provide whatever candidate wished to embrace the paranoia a tool to assume a mantle of victimhood for their followers. (If you need a hint to solve the mystery of who might pick it up just do a web search for news items containing terms racial, violence and election to perform your own analysis.)

Then look up "Odinga".

The ability to vote without fear has been what has separated us from less civilized parts of the world where power is consolidated through the manipulation of basic instincts for survival.

Are we to become the "thugocracy" that Michael Barone feels is our future? If the populace responds to the New York Times obvious attempt to spread fear through false mirroring of popular opinion, maybe that is the path we are on.

God save America and her perpetual determination to coddle only one fear - the loss of her freedom - and confront all threats to our liberty.

Cross-posted at Sound Politics Public Blog.

Is the McCain Campaign Playing With Fire With New "Liar" Strategy?

Even if you believe only one of the candidates running for president, it is clear that at least one pair of pants is on fire.

"Liar! liar!" has been both the chorus and refrain from Senator Obama's camp running all the way back to his snatching of the nomination from the jaws of Hillary Clinton. As desperation set in, the McCain-Palin ticket has finally caught on that their straight talk rhetoric begs for straight walk follow-through. McCain has launched an attack against Obama's lies that is short on subtlety and will likely be the deciding skirmish in his campaign for the White House.

When Obama lies - and by that I mean that he denies certain facts, or chooses to play a hide-and-seek game on topics that do not present a strong image to the general public - John and Sarah will no longer avoid using the "L" word. After listening to Biden and Obama smear both of their records and then hold the distortions up for all to see as an example of "lying" on the part of Team Maverick, it's about time they took the gloves off.

I will disclose that I have previously written on the distastefulness of using this potentially slanderous verb - lie - in public discourse. It is the nuclear bomb of political campaigning because of the collateral damage it inflicts by polarizing the electorate and lowering the standards of political discourse.

The verb should only be entered into a campaign when it is clear that a candidate is stubbornly omitting or obfuscating in order to avoid taking any consequences for some action they have taken that the people need to know about. Each politician must make their own
Truman-esque decision and will be judged by the voters on whether the end justified the use of catastrophic rhetorical ordnance.

In my opinion, the preconditions to allow McCain to go on the attack, and not wait for the media to catch Obama in lies, have not only been met, but I believe that he is morally obligated to make these charges.

It's a double jeopardy strategy on McCain's part that will only work if McCain can activate that most valuable portion of the human character - common sense. When confronted with an accusation and uncertain facts, the average person tends to want to fill in the blanks to make some judgment of their own. We are all reporters at heart, and when something stinks we are compelled to find the cause.

So far, the public's ignorance of Obama's messy past and the full weight of his ambitions has not met the stink test, because the mainstream media has done a fantastic job of spraying him down with several cans of air freshener every day. At any moment in the news cycle, Obama and Axelrod can select from the pleasing scents of Katie Couric, Soledad O'Brien, Campbell Brown, and a host of other starry-eyed media cohorts to neutralize their unpleasant campaign aromas.

What McCain must do over the course of the next week - and beginning in tonight's debate - is to hold up a big flashing red neon arrow pointing to the steaming pile that Obama has tried to keep the public from getting a deep whiff of. Even media voices who bathe each morning in Eau de Barack won't fight the public if the common sense wakes them up. Just ask Dan Rather.

It is obvious that McCain is prepared to make his case not only that Obama is lying, but that his cult-like following is beginning to take on some sinister characteristics.

In his speech this morning, McCain said, "I guess [Obama] believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed."

Whoever wrote McCain's speech was deliberately referencing (for those of us in the know) the infamous quote from Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's chief propagandist, who said, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." McCain is willing to risk inciting Armageddon in order to alert us to something much more dangerous than the loss of this election. He seeks to alert us to the abandonment of logic that has fueled the insomnia of many freedom-lovers and has seductively ensnared many Obama supporters in a fog of ignorant bliss.

Americans have always been proud of their individualism, their self-proclaimed immunity to nationalism and fascism. Those movements start when the masses begin to follow without question, to subordinate their own instincts and thoughts to the great good of "The Cause". If "The One" can't even submit himself to a mild vetting, he is not fit to lead. Whatever their final ballot choice may be, voters deserve answers.

Cross-posted at the Sound Politics Public Blog

Are Biden's Gaffes a Serious Issue or Just Petty Mistakes?

The University of Delaware should immediately be petitioned to invalidate any and all credits Senator Biden may have earned in courses dealing with United States history or economics.  They can offer a series of night courses as a way for the senator to hold on to his degrees.

Biden's latest gaffe comes during an interview with Couric, conducted aboard the campaign bus.  In an attempt to challenge the economic experience of the McCain/Palin ticket and capitalize on American's fears about economic recession/depression he had the following comments (full video clip below):

"Part of what a leader does is to instill confidence and to demonstrate that he or she knows what they're talking about and communicate to the people, 'If you listen to me and follow what I'm suggesting we can fix this.' 

When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed.  He said, "Look, here's what happened."'

Factless Gaffe #1 - The stock market crash occurred in 1929.  Americans did not have televisions in 1929.  Perhaps Biden has knowledge that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was secretly experimenting in his own basement with the invention of television broadcasting.  Even if the absurd were true, no one would have been watching.

Factless Gaffe #2 - FDR was the governor of New York in 1929 - not president - and was not in a position to address the nation as its leader.  It's true that FDR was described by those close to him as being arrogant, but assuming the role of national cheerleader was beyond the reach of even his ego.

After Biden had fallen from his horse to land in a pile of steaming historical inaccuracy, Couric appeared unaware that anything he had said was worthy of further questioning.  I don't remember Couric being that polite when interviewing Republicans.

The big question is whether Biden's gaffe (and the dozens of others in the past and to follow) matters or is it just opportunistic nitpicking to jump on Biden's mistake?  I don't want to be accused of making commentary that only rises to the level of splitting hairs.

Aside from the sublime irony of a stocking a sanctimonious lecture on being knowledgeable with factual errors, I guess it's just a question of how much arrogance and thick-headedness voters are willing to tolerate in their leaders.  I suggest that it matters a great deal.

Understanding history can give us a powerful tool by showing us the outcomes of human decisions taken within a specific environment and framed by specific events.  In our personal lives, we apply some version of historical hindsight every day.  It gives us a template from which to make good choices, but only if we are making choices based on all of the facts.

If facts aren't important to how Biden takes his lessons from history then we can assume that he will fail to be educated by the past.  How can we put faith in politicians who are comfortable making choices for the country based on half of the facts?

We can't expect our leaders to be perfect, but we must expect them to avail themselves of some basic facts to inform their decisions.  Or, let's not even leave it up to them.  The voters can just get our facts straight and not elect those who do not.

McCain's Speech Not Greek Oratory, But We're Not Greeks

If, this morning, we pay attention to much of the mainstream media, McCain's speech was a bust.

• Roland Martin, CNN analyst, said last night that the speech was not constructed well in comparison to Governor Sarah Palin's three-act masterpiece and Senator Obama's acceptance speech.
• Andrea Martin, speaking on MSNBC this morning, said, "They got through it."
• Slate.com's Mickey Kaus (who actually gave a poor rating to Senator Obama's acceptance speech a week earlier) wrote a mile-long technical and style critique of McCain's address.

But I think TVWeek--publishing overnight ratings comparing Senator McCain's speech to Senator Obama's--may be far more telling in terms of gauging momentum and interest among the electorate.

Obama's speech grabbed a 4.3 rating/7 share, while McCain gathered together a 4.8 rating/7 share. For those who aren't media savvy, that means that of all television households in the nation, 4.3% were tuned in to Obama's speech and 4.8% were tuned in to listen to McCain's.

Additionally, TVWeek reports that Nielsen overnight ratings showed that once the network shifted to the speech after the conclusion of the Redskins-Giants game, the speech earned a 6.3 rating/10 share.

The 2% difference between Obama's 4.3% and the 6.3% through NBC translates to more than 2,000,000 viewing households. No wonder the attacks and rhetoric are being ratcheted up by the Obama camp and the Dem gang behind them.

This for a speech that the pundits are telling us was boring and lacked substance.

Maybe, just maybe, Americans tend to value character above grand oratory. After all, don't most of us instinctively equate a well-spoken politician with someone who is a skilled manipulator? Perhaps the American people have enough common sense to listen instead of watch. George Washington was barely audible when speaking to even a small group. Harry Truman was regarded as a terrible public speaker, by even those who regard him as one of our great presidents. Even John Kennedy, who we now listen to and marvel at his skill in reading a speech, was tethered to a thick, New England accent that much of he country was predisposed to dislike.

Americans are smarter than the media give them credit for, and they don't always care about the same things that the media thinks they should care about.

When McCain describes how his worldview was transformed during his capture, Americans are able to interpret that he is telling us exactly how he views the president's duty as being greater than one person's individual agenda.

When McCain explains that he "hates war", Americans are capable of realizing that he is telling us exactly how he will make decisions about the use of force in resolving foreign policy objectives.

When McCain tells us that he sees himself as a servant of the people, Americans instinctively understand that he means that he wants to lead the whole country, not just those who follow him.

When McCain says that he wants to overhaul the nation's unemployment system because it is outmoded and incapable of dealing with the challenges of a global economy, Americans do not sit and ponder what that means for them. When he expands on that proposal, stating that he wishes to use the community college system for retraining, and provide income gap coverage so that those in training can still work part-time to support their families, even the average American knows that McCain has his finger on the pulse of a dilemma that people face when hit by having their old-economy jobs eliminated.

Before I sat down to watch the speech last night, I felt that what McCain said was far more important than how he said it. What he said to me (and undecided voters will continue to process his speech over the following days and weeks) is that he knows where change need to occur and what steps he wants to take to affect real change. He informed us of his character and resolve as a way of assuring us that he will not waver from his pursuit of the country's best interest.

No, the speech would not grade well against Obama's if they were standing in a Public Speaking 101 classroom. It was heavy on pathos and ethos, light on logos, and at times clumsy in its delivery. But it was completely devoid of stagecraft, pretense, or disingenuousness. In the final analysis, I think that kind of straight talk--as opposed to smooth talk--is what America both wants and needs.

CNN.com's Tradition of Unbiased Journalism Continues

Well, well, well. Had I blogged earlier when my intuition told me that the mainstream media couldn't help but play tricks with the first real act of the RNC, in what will probably end up being our third "down-to-the-wire" election in a row. I could have been heralded as a prophet. It was only a matter of time before CNN.com pulled one of its tricks. Just as prime-time rolls in, the RNC, Sarah Palin, and John McCain come down off the front page to be replaced by news of a hurricane that is almost a week away from the US coastline. When I was surfing last week during the DNC, it was wall-to-wall Obama/Biden, even when Gustav was becoming a news story.

My journalism teachers always taught me that relevance and timeliness were two of the primary factors governing placement of a a story. I guess they were wrong.