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Plagiarism At The White House »

Are Bloggers Twisting Obama’s Words?

Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief in Media, Politics.
Mar 22nd, 2008 | Comments

Add New York Daily News columnist Errol Louis to those who see bloggers as over-caffeinated writers who seemingly look for ways to aggressively promote their favorite candidate and rip apart the candidate they oppose:

There’s a new anti-Obama storyline whipping through cyberspace at the speed of stupid.

Put simply, some Internet nitwits say Obama’s comment that his white grandmother – who made racist remarks and was fearful of blacks – was a “typical white person” just proves he can’t stop alienating white voters.

Never mind that Obama’s point, made casually Thursday on a Philadelphia radio show, was to emphasize the important truth that whites, including his elderly grandmother, are slowly winning the fight to purge their hearts of poisonous prejudices.

That message was swiftly discarded as a gaggle of bloggers and correspondents – whose collective contribution to an honest national dialogue about race has been nil – pounced.

He gives specific examples in his piece to bolster his argument.

Part of what he notices is how blogging is still struggling to find its own identity — and right now due to polarization over the 2008 Presidential race many blogs are at their most passionate best/worst. Because many blogs are closely-aligned to specific candidates, you can see some patterns.

Blogging originally had the potential to create a sea of “citizen journalists” but, in most but not all instances, blogs have evolved into citizen op-ed writers. A good number of blogs are openly fighting the political campaign for their preferred candidates using the same style as political campaigns where an assertion is taken, jumped on and only the part most damaging to the candidate is discussed (or ranted about). You can see this at times on the left, right and…yes…the center.

It may vary, depending on the unstated purpose of the blog. Is it to provide information? Look, analyze and discuss? Or is it to help a candidate win? If it’s the latter, then reading it often becomes akin to watching a campaign spokesman spin on TV.

TIP: Speaking of political advocate bloggers, one of the best, least name-calling pro-Clinton bloggers is Big Tent Democrat at Talk Left. Read his latest.

  • elrod
    Most telling is how Chris Wallace berated Fox and Friends for pushing this stuff. This is so transparently stupid and proves a point I've been making all along about Wright. Most people really aren't bothered by Wright. But people who have other reasons for disliking Obama have latched on to Wright as an excuse for their dislike of Obama. In other words, no potential Obama voter would be troubled by the "typical white person" line.
  • Marlowecan
    I must second Joe's tip here.
    Though I am not a Democrat, I was impressed by Big Tent Democrat - during the whole NYT smear of McCain's lobbyist connection by its teasing implication of an extramarital affair...when Big Tent Democrat was ahead of the liberal pack in calling the Times out. As BTD said, one can't - unless one is mindlessly partisan - cheer politically-motivated MSM hits on the other side, and yet cry outrage and sympathy when one's own side is smeared.

    Perhaps the Wallace thing is the same sort of deal. I doubt Wallace is a Democrat, but "All Wright All the Time" does cause eyes to glaze over.

    The "typical white person" gaffe was a gaffe. Now that Obama is doing more media, he will make more of these things. Every candidate does. McCain does more media than either Obama or Clinton. More gaffes. When the media like you, they often overlook gaffes. But this is an election year, and the media need meat, so McCain will probably cut back.

    Of course, then there is Bill Clinton. Are his comments really gaffes?
  • domajot
    "Of course, then there is Bill Clinton. Are his comments really gaffes?"
    ---is a more subtle, and thus more insidious, way of doing word twisting and reality bending.

    Except for a few outposts , true news analysis, the kindJoe refers to in the post, is pretty much dead. Every insinuation or accusation can pass for analysis these days, and the analysis itself then becomes the news story, while the original event or words being analyzed.fade away to non-existence.

    If negative political ads erode rational thought, this trend in blogs is a thousand times more poisonous. At least ads can be seen for what they are, but blogs wear an unearned mantle of autheticity;. because these are citizens speaking, not the mistrusted media. Plus, they sound so auuthoritative.: Clinton did/said this because of this. There is not even a hint to suggest that this is an opinion, not journalistic reporting.

    This does not bode well for the future. I wonder if future historians, writing about our times, will be susceptible to confusing analyses with actuality.

    PS TO MARLOWECAN: I cited your words as an example of how the twisting can sometimes begin, not as an accusation that that's what you have done.
  • PaulSilver
    I constantly scan news and commentary looking for balanced information and ingest those with a chronic bias in moderation so I can occasionally calibrate my point of view.
    A challenge for moderates is to make moderate media more compelling than inflammatory stuff.
  • Thanks for mentioning that Elrod - and those Fox folks have zero to do with blogs.
  • superdestroyer
    Senator Obama has the same habit and former President Clinton where is says something that is very vague and leaves him lots of outs. Why should he be upset that people can take one interpretation whereas his supporters take a very different interpretation.

    Senator Obama favors firing people who are misunderstood and when those who misunderstood are upset. Senator Obama has little room to complain about other nitpicking what he says.
  • domajot
    JMZ said: :"...those Fox folks have zero to do with blogs."

    I don't see it that way. Blogs feed off the media, and , increasingly, the media pay attention to blogs. The cross breeding enhances hate and divisiveness.










    .
  • Marlowecan
    "PS TO MARLOWECAN..." Thanks Domajot.

    Domajot said: "I don't see it that way. Blogs feed off the media, and , increasingly, the media pay attention to blogs. The cross breeding enhances hate and divisiveness."

    I must agree. Increasingly one sees blog points/arguments getting into mainstream media. (For example, Kristol's inaccuracy in the NYT about Obama at a Wright service, that circulated on blogs beforehand.) Certainly the Obama-Clinton viciousness is fuelled by blogs (maybe commenters more than bloggers?).

    But it is one thing to have obsessive bloggers go mad about something, and another to have a network reaching millions focus on something unremittingly. Perhaps Fox going overboard compensates for CBS-NBC News-NYT decisions to largely avoid the Wright business. But it is slightly mad.
  • Marlowecan
    Just to say on the topic: I rather suspect everyone sorta knows what Obama meant by "typical white person". It was an inelegant slip...and you could see him pause verbally just after, as if he knew he had made a boo-boo. But it was an innocuous point that got blown up.

    Still, that is politics. The media have always done this...exaggerating things to make politicians fit their meme...even on very slender basis.

    Look at Allen and the "macaa" saga. The Washington Post went demented on the story. As their ombudsperson noted, even the WaPo editors admitted it was sorta excessive when the story was featured in EVERY section of the paper, from News to Style to Sports over a period of months. It destroyed his career.

    It is wrong, but there it is.
  • domajot
    Paul,

    I agree that an individual can insulatie himself from the hysteria on blogs and in the meida. The larger worry is, though, that those applying judicious judgment of their own are being outnumbered by those who do not. do so and are taken over by a cult mentality.

    The herd can determine voting outcomes, when they are the majority.
    It's hard for rational thinkers to sway the public, because logic and calm analysis simply lack the appeal of scandal, hate and emotionalism.
    John Adams mistrusted the common man, and offensive as that may seem, I sometimes see his point. It's even worse, though, when the educated or sophisticated man becomes morally corrupt and can use his intelligence to persuade the common man.
  • Blogs and bloggers can be a part of stifling reason or a part of appealing to it. But there's one overwhelmingly powerful and positive thing hard wired into this citizen journalism and conventional print journalism as well. Reading engages the rational mind, while audio-visual content can mesmerize and bypass rational thought.

    I say hard-wired because, as Al Gore put it in Assault on Reason, those early humans who did not instantly key in on audio-visual input did not survive and are not our ancestors.
  • StockBoySF
    There's a difference between "gaffes" and just plain wrong statements made with false facts (such as McCain's repeated assertions that Iran supports al-Qaeda).

    We should treat each "gaffe" or false fact (or false arguments based on false facts) appropriately.
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