Voting 2008...

Because it only took Viking-Sensei three years (and the approaching end of Errant Story) to come up with a better name for "General Discussions"
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Graybeard
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Re: Voting 2008...

Post by Graybeard »

Sareth wrote:Sorry. Not that I'm a GW fan (I'm not *shudder*) But I do have a little issue with the idea that the previous presidents were respectable. Clinton was busy making a laughing stock of the White House in the eyes of a world that viewed our leader as a womanizing con man, GW the 1st waged a war that failed to do anything and managed to raise taxes enough even Democrats were asking WTF and managed to fail to get re-elected while running against a little known yutz from redneckville. Reagan was viewed by many as some trigger happy cowboy who was none to bright but had smart advisors. Prior to that we had Jimmy Carter (does ANYONE think he was a GOOD leader?) Before that we had Ford, who was never elected to the job and whose one notable deed was to pardon Nixon. Nixon... Yeah. Do I even need to bother? Lyndon B...
One of these things isn't like the others. (I think your analysis also underrates Bush Senior, but let's get back to that some other time.) Clinton's basic scuzziness was by no means unprecedented in the White House; even the canonized JFK had a distinct component of that in his character, and he wasn't the first president with it and Clinton won't be the last. However, it only became a national-well-being problem when the Republican-controlled Congress decided to use it as a tool to beat him and his fellow Democrats up with. And it didn't look like nearly the disgrace world-wide that it did to his detractors domestically, at least not until it began to cut into his effectiveness. There was a joke current around the mid-to-late 90s that makes this point:
Three diplomats, one French, one "African" (usually, no specific country was mentioned) and one Russian, are walking around the UN talking, and the subject of Monica Lewinsky comes up. The French diplomat says, "Zut alors! The big question here is, what is the big deal? Why do people notice this?" The African says, "No, the big question is, why did he not make her pregnant?" And the Russian says, "Nyet. You are both wrong. The big question is, why is she still alive?"

Obvious national stereotypes aside, there's a definite point to that joke, and it's one reason why I earlier opined that the presidential race isn't the only thing we should (must) be paying attention to: we must also drain the stinking swamp that is Congress. The Clinton Administration's policies certainly weren't above reproach, although I personally think he got more things right than wrong. But discussion of those policies, at least in terms more substantive than "you're a liberal, nyah nyah nyah," not only stopped in public, it also stopped in Congress -- which in fact kinda led the way in the decline in both civility and substantiveness. Until that can be fixed, and the body politic can get back to reasoned debate of the important stuff, it almost doesn't matter who's in the Oval Office. And it's going all but unremarked during this election season.
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Sareth
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Re: Voting 2008...

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SNRK... Excellent joke.

Yeah, you have a good point, Greybeard. You definitely have a point. You get down to brass tacks, while the president can veto laws (and even there, he can be over-ridden) he can't create a darned one. Given how much of our issues come from one crazy legal codex, you really do hit the nail on the head by mentioning congress and how much it's NOT being noticed...

Boss out of town: Ah... Sorry, my error. I totally misinterpreted your statement. Given that, I concede the point.
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Boss Out of Town
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Re: Voting 2008...

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The third component, and one about which the same complaints can be made, is the national media. The national news departments have, by their own admittance, long given up on the idea of sorting out "truth" from "lies" in our national discourse, and have little pretense of covering the news as a duty to inform rather than entertain--"what the people want to know."

This leaves them with the status of the announcer and referee at a pro-wrestling match. No matter how phony the action in front of them, their job is to pretend it is real.

Even worse, the primary news outlets have all become part of the national social elite in Washington and New York. Even supposedly "serious" jounalists like Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, Tim Russert, etc., have publically lamented that they cannot cover scandels, corruption, etc. properly, because the people involved are their friends and neighbors. It never occurs to them anymore that people like them are not supposed to have crooked politicians and corrupt political operatives as friends.

This might not matter if we had a distribution of interests among national news sources. Two generations and more ago, there were multiple news outlets in every city and the editors and reporters were a separate, competitive social class from the people they covered. Nowadays, the networks and major newspapers and news magazines are run by a small social clique of a few hundred people who work, live, and socialize together amid the wealthier circles of New York and Washington.
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Graybeard
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Re: Voting 2008...

Post by Graybeard »

Boss Out of Town wrote:The third component, and one about which the same complaints can be made, is the national media. The national news departments have, by their own admittance, long given up on the idea of sorting out "truth" from "lies" in our national discourse, and have little pretense of covering the news as a duty to inform rather than entertain--"what the people want to know."
Well analyzed, and let's never forget that the REAL purpose of newspaper "journalism" is not to inform OR to entertain: it's to sell newspapers. The same with other media.

At one time I was hopeful, as were many pundits far more insightful than I, that this leg of the unholy trinity might have been about to change, owing to the Internet. Garbage journalism, it was hoped, might have a hard time surviving in the presence of a medium that allowed rapid dissemination of good hard facts. There actually seems to be some evidence of that occurring in some odd corners of the web; the presence of some excellent on-line sports journalism, for example (any other readers of Baseball Prospectus among us here?), is gradually forcing the main-stream, chewing-tobacco-and-platitudes "sportswriters" to adapt or be marginalized. But it isn't happening in political coverage, at least that I can see. On the contrary, in that arena, bad coverage is driving out good...
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Drannin
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Re: Voting 2008...

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I think one of the big problems with online journalism is the difficulty involved. I mean, there's tons of sports fans who can go out and report on what's happening, but getting access to the halls of power isn't something that's particularly easy to do. Online journalism is a great idea, and one that has the potential to change the way we receive information... but someone's got to do it first, and there don't seem to be many candidates in quite a few fields.

(Incidentally, how do you quote people in this setup...?)
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Boss Out of Town
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Re: Voting 2008...

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Drannin wrote:I think one of the big problems with online journalism is the difficulty involved. I mean, there's tons of sports fans who can go out and report on what's happening, but getting access to the halls of power isn't something that's particularly easy to do. Online journalism is a great idea, and one that has the potential to change the way we receive information... but someone's got to do it first, and there don't seem to be many candidates in quite a few fields.

(Incidentally, how do you quote people in this setup...?)
Well, there is the white "quote" button on the upper right of each message box . . . ;)

The big problem for real news media thus far, as near as I can tell, is institutional resistance and lack of a good business model. Josh Marshal's Talking Points Memo is an excellent, trustworthy source for info on political corruption the big media ignore or skip over lightly. Marshal figured out how to run the organization at a small profit and he runs it well, pushing the US attorney purge at the Justice Department until someone had to pay attention and clean out the stable. What can't be created on the Internet right now are large-scale news outlets that can make money like a TV station and pull in quarter-million to multi-million dollar incomes for every name on the screen or page. That's the big problem with the newspapers and TV networks. Those who are willing to turn in a steady 5% return on investment and pay respectable middle-class salaries can do well for themselves. Those that insist on yearly growth, 10% returns, and TV star salaries are destroying themselves and folding.

The ridiculous class bigotry mainstream journalists have against net reporting is a poison in the system all by itself. For the most part, they can't even respond rationally to getting scooped or criticized by the blogosphere. Network reporters and Newsweek columnists, the Washington Post or the New York Times, whenever a net source catches them doing some wrong or stupid, they respond with snippy comments and angry rants. They don't mind being publically denounced as liars and traitors by Republican presidents and right-wing senators and pundits. However, a little honest criticism from a liberal or moderate blog apparently makes them furious.

The big exception to this bit of class warfare is the Drudge Report, which isn't so much much about journalism as it is about vicious gossip. Drudge has about an 80% accuracy rate in his "scoops," real news and gossip alike, and has said he is quite content with that. It says a lot about the low state of ethical standards among journalists that many of them cheerfully admit that Drudge is their favorite website. Like Drudge, most of them are, by traditional standards, morally and intellectually shallow and emotionally juvenile.

And proud of it, I might add. I am not giving this as opinion. This is what most of the "boys on the bus" say about themselves when anyone asks. They aren't even morally self-aware enough to be embarrassed about it.
Last edited by Boss Out of Town on September 13th, 2008, 7:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Sareth
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Re: Voting 2008...

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*nods*

When I was in college the first time, I worked for the college newspaper (this would have been in the early 90s). Because of my interest, I was able to land the position of being the primary columnist in the politics section, which allowed me to have a press pass to political debates. This was an eye opening experience.

Now Idaho, where I was going to school, is probably the most conservative state around, based off who they vote for. So you would think that the media of the area would cater to that. I expected to see a bias in the media outlets that was quite pro-Republican. So I was very surprised when the debates I attended (it was an off cycle election year) and the news reports on those debates didn't mesh in a way that was nearly libelous towards the Republican candidates. For example, one candidate (Helen Chenowith, in case anyone cares) was asked in a debate, "What is your opinion on breaching four damns on the Columbia river in order to save salmon runs?" I don't remember her precise answer, but essentially she said that she was in favor of efforts to restore salmon runs as well as similar environmental efforts. However, careful consideration needed to be taken before any such decisions were made, because there was a risk that removing those damns could destroy large areas of farmland. She'd need to carefully consider the impact that this would have on Idaho's farming families. The news reports I read the next day? "Helen Chenowith oposed to efforts to restore salmon runs." WTF?

I found myself wondering, if that sort of thing was going on in a place where the papers had to slant things in a direction that was conservative, just what were the media doing in places that were more balanced?

Ugh.
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Boss Out of Town
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Re: Voting 2008...

Post by Boss Out of Town »

Sareth wrote:*nods" . . . I found myself wondering, if that sort of thing was going on in a place where the papers had to slant things in a direction that was conservative, just what were the media doing in places that were more balanced? Ugh.
Here's a typical example from Media Matters, another excellent (truthful, rational, etc.) web news source:
Media Matters wrote:Old habits die hard

These are the three latest entries on the Los Angeles Times' "Top of the Ticket" blog:

"The Ticket's weekly national electoral map; McCain's bounce gains 2 states": Actually, The Ticket's national electoral map is Karl Rove's electoral map. Literally: "Here is the latest national electoral map constructed by Karl Rove & Co., which The Ticket publishes weekly as they become available."

"So, looks like it was Charlie Gibson's gaffe on Bush doctrine, not Sarah Palin's": Based on nothing more than the say-so of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, The Ticket leaps to Sarah Palin's defense, approvingly quotes Krauthammer's attacks on Gibson, and snidely concludes: Wonder if there'll be time to cover this story on 'World News' come Monday night." But even Krauthammer acknowledges "Palin didn't know" what the Bush doctrine is. The Ticket quotes that acknowledgment - but still asserts that Palin didn't commit a "gaffe" on the question. Bizarre.

"Oops, Obama ad mocks McCain's inability to send e-mail. Trouble is, he can't due to tortured fingers": The Ticket picks up on conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg's spin and runs with it. The Ticket doesn't mention that McCain told the New York Times earlier this year, "I use the Blackberry, but I don't e-mail, I've never felt the particular need to e-mail." If he can use the buttons on a Blackberry, it seems pretty safe to assume the Goldberg/Ticket line is just spin. (h/t John Cole, via Atrios)

So: a post in which The Ticket uncritically adopts as fact Jonah Goldberg's defense of John McCain, a post in which The Ticket uncritically adopts Charles Krauthammer's defense of Sarah Palin, and a post in which The Ticket adopts Karl Rove's electoral map as its own.

Now, would it surprise you to learn that all three entries were written by Los Angeles Times reporter Andrew Malcolm? Would it surprise you to learn that Malcolm used to be Laura Bush's press secretary?
All three of the sources listed, Rove, Krauthammer, and Goldberg, are doctrinaire Movement Conservatives who faithfully repeat whatever party line the administration is pushing, regardless of truth or plausibility.

Karl Rove, of course, generated the White House's daily talking points and a lot of policy before he was forced out by a scandal last year. He is the updated version of the old political machine managers like Mark Hanna and Boss Tweed. Like Tweed and Hanna, Rove is a political sociopath, viewing political discourse as warfare, policy as a system for accumulating wealth and influence, completely indifferent to concepts of truth and integrity. Unlike Tweed and Hanna, Rove has never had to keep in the background while more respectable party leaders gained the glory and power. He was--and still is, as far as I know--one of the most admired men in Washington. The national media community regards him as a genius and many reporters and pundits consider him a good friend.
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Re: Voting 2008...

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In a further rant on the total lunacy that is the news media in the United States, consider this: at this point, the most reliable, unbiased (well, at least politically) sources of any news about political topics are on Comedy Central. The 'fake' news show from 1998 has suddenly become a better source than CNN, the Central NEWS Network. If ever I needed a reason to cry this would be it - and Jon Stewart knows exactly how ridiculous this state of affairs is. To a lesser extent, the Colbert Report is in the same boat, although they tend to focus more on the comedy aspect than The Daily Show.

The fact that Jon Stewart now even looks more respectable on his broadcast than some of the major news anchors is beyond reproach.
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Drannin
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Re: Voting 2008...

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Tiamat wrote:In a further rant on the total lunacy that is the news media in the United States, consider this: at this point, the most reliable, unbiased (well, at least politically) sources of any news about political topics are on Comedy Central. The 'fake' news show from 1998 has suddenly become a better source than CNN, the Central NEWS Network. If ever I needed a reason to cry this would be it - and Jon Stewart knows exactly how ridiculous this state of affairs is. To a lesser extent, the Colbert Report is in the same boat, although they tend to focus more on the comedy aspect than The Daily Show.

The fact that Jon Stewart now even looks more respectable on his broadcast than some of the major news anchors is beyond reproach.
This is the same thing in Canada. For the last 15 years or so, the comedy news programs have been more informative, relevant, and, yes, entertaining than the mainstream media. All through high school, I was a fair bit more informed than my classmates because of the 'joke' news I watched on TV. Even then, I found this fact depressing.

These days, the 'joke' news shows have pretty much been retired, so now I don't know what's going on anymore. Sadly, this does not seem to impact my life very much.
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