In Media Matters, newsperson Cooper Anderson praises presidential candidate Mike Huckabee for giving a nonresponsive answer to a question that goes to the very raison d'etre (Reason for being) of his candidacy. Huckabee's justification for running is that he's a devout Christian. The question asked was how Jesus would feel about the fact that, as Governor of Arkansas, Huckabee approved quite a number of executions, a practice which is approved of in the Old Testament, but a practice that Jesus came down firmly in opposition to. Huckabee gave an answer which completely avoided this central problem.
The left blogosphere exists precisely because of events like this. Anderson praised Huckabee's non-answer. Anderson made the presumption that Huckabee is a devout Christian and that the death penalty question is just some silly complication that shouldn't prevent people from seeing Huckabee in the same fashion. But why should anybody get a free pass on questions of faith, especially when their alleged faith is so central to their presidential candidacy? Shouldn't a newsperson insist that Huckabee justify how his alleged faith is consistent with his worldly actions?
Now, one can be excessively skeptical of someone's faith. Witness the recent page one WaPo article questioning whether presidential candidate Barack Obama is "truly" a Christian or is, in fact, a Muslim. Problem with this question is that Obama has not performed any public actions or taken any public positions that one could argue are more Muslim-inspired than they are Christian-inspired. The Muslim world does not have any equivalent to the Soviet Union's Comintern (1919-1943, initiated to try and consolidate all the Communist movements and to bring down Capitalism), they are nowhere near as centralized as the Communist movements were and do not appear to have any designs on countries outside their borders. One could perhaps argue that a Muslim might oppose Israel, but the Israeli paper Haaretz has been unequivocal about that. "Obama supports Israel. Period." So even if Obama were a Muslim, it's not at all clear what that would mean. Fortunately, the WaPo has quite justifiably taken lots and lots of criticism over this article.
Another event which has also resulted in lots of criticism for the traditional media has been Time Magazine's Joe Klein (Author of Primary Colors) opining ignorantly on FISA. From immediately after publication of Klein's article on 21 Nov to 30 Nov, when The Center for Citizen Media published another piece on the controversy, lawyer and blogger Glenn Greenwald hammered away at Klein's failure to read the original bill as opposed to just listening to GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra and rushing off to scribble his story, stopping just long enough to put in a quick "Democrats disagree" without indicating the substantive nature of the Democratic disagreement or that disagreement was not confined to Democrats. Klein's quote is:
"Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee's bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that — Limbaugh is salivating — House Republicans believe would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only. (Democrats dispute this interpretation.) In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid."
Never identified was the "bipartisan effort" that was quashed. At no point since the original FISA bill was composed in the late 1970s have foreigners been covered under its protections. Yes Republicans could advertise that the Democratic FISA bill would "give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans," but, and this is an important point, ONLY if the Republicans were LYING!!! Was "Limbaugh...salivating"? I'm sure he was, because he knew he had a idiot like Klein covering for him. As Harper's Scott Horton points out (In a piece that's a very good summary of the whole dispute)
"Not only was the substance of this description factually inaccurate in almost every respect, it was the very core of the piece. Moreover, what Time ran was a shameless mouthing of talking points that had been circulating on Capitol Hill by Republican spinmeisters through the prior week."
Eventually, as Wired's Ryan Singel points out, Time put out two corrections, neither of which truly addressed the central fallacy, the ludicrous charge that Democrats were trying to grant new rights to foreigners.
Why does the left blogosphere exist? Because our media is broken. Because our traditional media figures are incapable of doing their jobs. Because they've lost their way and have become lazy and inattentive and search for shortcuts where they can pop off their opinions without being truly responsible for those opinions.
PN3(Ret), USN, 1991-2001. Done a number of clerical-type jobs. Computer "power user," my desktop is a Windows machine, but my laptop is an Ubuntu Linux.
Articles usually cross-posted at
http://www.prawnblog.blogspot.com
The left blogsphere exists, but it is not enough. You have to get out of the blogsphere and talk to real people, even main stream Democrats and try to convince them of our progressive positions and candidates. Otherwise, we are just pissing in the wind. Don't just blog, organize. So much blogging is just whining and preaching to the choir.
by
Trainer12 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 41 comments)
on Sunday, December 2, 2007 at 9:44:10 AM
Education, debate, conversation. We must take responsibility to educate the television-tainted dunderheads out there. Simple minds create simple non-solutions to complicated problems and there is so much ignorant kneejerkism out there that most of the nation is in dire need of a knee transplant.
What some of these folk see as "fact" are merely oft repeated lies. It's time to throw a monkey wrench in the lie machine.
by
M. Davis (37 articles, 1 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 131 comments)
on Sunday, December 2, 2007 at 12:05:59 PM
It would great for all of us in this country if the media was free from bias. Until it is blogging, left and right, is the only thing that has a chance of keeping them honest.
Look at the recent Harvard study about media bias. It is incredible.
The media is pretty much in bed with the people they report on. They report things favorably for two reasons: they are ideologically in sync with the person they are reporting on or two they want to curry favor with that person in order to get more access or favorable access when stories are breaking. It is a two way street to a degree. John McCain is a good example. He is nothing but a media wh*re. Can you name one leading Republican who has been on the Sunday talk shows more than McCain over the years? He gets face time because he is willing to bad mouth Republicans in general and Bush in particular and that is what the producers of the shows want. He trades face time for back stabbing.
The Clintons recently threatened media outlets in order to gain favorable coverage. Threatened. As in dictatorships in third world countries threatened. Not physically of course, but with lack of access to the candidate. Lack of access, as if they had any anyways, is not what a reporter wants to hear and have to explain to his editor.
The blogs worked Dan Rather over pretty good. The other news outlets were forced by the blogs to cover the forged documents story. They couldn't bury it on page 17. Otherwise Rather would have made his smear and the media would have parrotted it and that would have been the story. But the story became the story because of blogs. Bad news for Dan. Good for all blogs. It showed what blogs are capable of.
We need progressive blogs and conservative blogs. We need for them to be honest and not shrill, one-note mouthpieces for their parties. We need for them to keep their parties honest and telling the truth as well as the other party. If we, the little guys, have places we can go a read opinions and facts and make up our own mind who is right and wrong we will be a better country instead of a bunch of left-wing or right-wing believe everything nutballs.
Both parties have some candidates who would make good presidents. Hopefully the blogs on both sides will give us good information about these people so we can make up our own minds. We won't get good information from the media. They have already made up their minds. You can see it everyday with how they report things. The HRC reaction hostage reporting was pandering in the worst way - she was presidential? Hardly. The media also pimps Huckabee Give me a break. The man is a second rate governor from a beautiful but rural state who has done some highly unethical things in Arkansas. Guilliani is not a social conservative and is totally unethical. McCain, I am sorry, went against his party main line with his amnesty bill that he still doesn't admit was an amnesty bill. The media will print this every day about Romney if he is nominated: He is a Mormon. CBS asked him 8 mormon related questions in one interview. The media does not want Romney to get the nomination. They know that he will beat HRC on ethics alone. HRC should actually be in jail and would be if she hadn't been living in Washington DC - the special prosecuctor did not indict her because he knew he could never convince a DC jury that she was guilty. Don't get me started on Edwards. He gets little favorable media coverage anyway. The media wants HRC because she is The First Woman and Bill will be The First First Husband. Obama is, unfortunately, inexperienced and the media wants HRC so he is toast unless the 50% of the party who doesn't like Clinton makes their voice heard. If he stays clean and goes and runs for governor he could be a great president someday. Not now. The man isn't even qualified to run a Wal-Mart right now. Bill Richardson is probably the best qualified individual in either party but he won't get the nomination because the media wants HRC.
by
Mad Jayhawk (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 197 comments)
on Sunday, December 2, 2007 at 8:13:59 PM
