As part of my ongoing mission to highlight voter gullibility, today I intend to address several of the virulent cyber-smears currently circulating online about Barack Obama.
I’m referring not to the old lies - that he’s supposedly a Muslim (he’s not); and that he supposedly refuses to put his hand on his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance (he does what we all do) - but, rather, to a pair of fresher lies.
It’s fascinating that some of the same voters who refuse to believe what they read in mainstream newspapers will nevertheless willingly swallow the toxic sludge that arrives as email. Over the past few days, these credulous souls have been urgently sharing these missives with me, demanding to know why “the media” has refused to print or broadcast these dire “facts” about Obama.
My response: Because these emails are lies. Easily refutable lies. Indeed, any citizen with an ounce of sense can dispel these lies by doing minimal research with a few clicks of the mouse.
Read the details yourself.
I’ve received very few real, scandalous anti-McCain emails. In fact, what I’ve usually received are emails opposing his policies. But the emails circulated about Obama are often way out there. Angry, screaming emails. And, as Polman notes, they’re emails that don’t hold up to scrutiny. But they’re often sent to people who the senders assume don’t care about scrutiny since much of our politics is now about reaffirming blatant or latent beliefs (and to hell with facts). Give someone (another) reason to vote against someone they are perceived as being inclined to vote against. And make it sound like the Republic will fall if he/she is elected.
Polman concludes:
I have no doubt that most of the prospective voters who oppose Obama do so for defensible reasons (the belief that he is too inexperienced, or too liberal, or simply that John McCain is more attractive as a candidate). But if this turns out to be a close election, the gullible and the credulous might wind up as a swing vote, and it would not be one of democracy’s finest hours if the choice of a president hinges in part on the indefensible persuasiveness of viral lies.
But such is human nature; refuting untruths has always been a challenge. As Mark Twain wrote more than a century ago, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
So now you’ve read blog posts about the controversy surrounding Democratic presumptive Presidential party nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s speech in Germany.
Was it cravenly political? A campaign document? Was it reminiscent of JFK’s or Ronald Reagan’s speeches from Berlin, or was it clearly anchored in a different time and generation? Did you hear or read about it on talk shows (left and right) with their predictable-before-you-tune-in spin on it? Or from news reports with journalistic cliche phrases? Or from some weblogs that may be out to hype or undermine one party’s candidate no matter what the event?
No matter…why not just watch it yourself…and make your own decision:
NOTE: While on this 8 week, massive car trip into America’s heartland I am struck by three things, which I’ll elaborate on later: (1) The clear, cancerous and steady death of the once great American newspaper, (2) the lack of bumper stickers for both Obama and McCain, but McCain in particular, (3) the number of people I meet who proudly say they don’t get their political news from biased newspapers anymore — but from talk-radio and from talking-head cable political shows`which they say keeps them well-informed.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what about a political poster? Its charm, brilliance –or its insidiousness and crassness — depends on the political eye of the beholder.
Today, the international media’s eyes will be on Democratic presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama who will speak in Berlin to what is expected to be a huge crowd. His speech has been prefaced by what some consider a “snub” aimed at Republican presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain by the nation’s Prime Minister:
The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has praised Barack Obama’s political and physical strength as “Obamania” reached the highest levels of state on the eve of the Democratic presidential contender’s feverishly anticipated visit to Berlin today.
In a remark that could be interpreted as casting aspersions on his 71-year-old Republican rival John McCain, Ms Merkel told reporters: “I would say that he is well-equipped – physically, mentally and politically.”
One side issue — in a campaign now unfolding of partisan-fought side issues — is whether the poster above printed in German is inspiring or creepy. And, in the nature of political politics, the interpretation sometimes rests on partisan bias or an intent to find something to cast in the worst possible light (a light that probably would be interpreted a tad differently if it was referring to the candidate backed by the person doing the blasting). Witness some reaction to the brilliant/scary (pick a term that fits your political bias) Obama poster:
It’s almost a convention of politics that when a politician says he was misquoted, but doesn’t detail the misquote or offer an alternative, he’s really saying he wishes he hadn’t said what he did, or that he needs to issue a pro-forma denial to please someone.
The Iraqi Prime Minister’s vague denial seems to fall in that category. The fact that it arrived to the American press via CENTCOM, seems to support that. It came, as Mike Allen notes, 18 hours later, and at 1:30 a.m. Eastern, a little late for Sunday papers; his staff also seems, Spiegel reports, not to have contested Iraqi reporting of the quote, even in the “government-affiliated” Iraqi press.
More broadly, Maliki’s words illustrate a political reality: Foreign players have a real influence on American politics, and they know it.
And, indeed:
1. As Smith concludes, it’s likely Maliki knew he was playing American domestic politics.
2. American politics increasingly relies on a series of legalistic on-the-record responses that anyone but a can of peas sitting on a shelf at Vons Supermarket on Adams Avenue in San Diego knows are baloney.
3. Just as night follows day and as money follows Hanna Montana concerts, everyone KNEW that the Bush administration would not let Malki’s statement stand and that there would be some kind of a retraction. In political terms (damage to the GOP) and foreign policy terms (the United States’ relationship to Iraq and its present government) it could not stand. You went to bed knowing that there would be a story soon about the interview “finessing” the comments..
4. But if you read partisan blogs, the statement about being misquoted is now being trumpeted as fact. And it’s likely many of those who’ll assert it as fact in print and broadcast know it’s proforma intergovernmental CYA — but it gives them a legalistic debating point. “See? Maliki SAID it was a lousy translation!”
5. The DELAY is the key.
6. The fact it did not come from Maliki himself within hours of the sensational story hitting the wires and Internet is another key to what happened.
7. Der Spiegel has been around for many years and translated many articles of interviews of foreign leaders. So in this instance they just happened to have a poor translator…just as it just happened that it took almost a day before Maliki responded…through a spokesman?
Although his overseas trip in many ways resembles a political minefield, you can already see how Democratic presumptive Presidential nominee Barack Obama’s overseas trip can earn him political dividends in a news cycle containing stories about him sounding the alarm on the increasingly difficult situation in Afghanistan.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says the situation in Afghanistan “precarious” and “urgent.”
In an interview broadcast Sunday during his first trip to Afghanistan, Obama said the U.S. needs to start planning now to send in more troops. He has called for an additional one to two brigades — or about 7,000 troops — to be sent to Afghanistan to help counter a resurgent Taliban and quell rising violence.
Obama told CBS News that Afghanistan has to be the central focus in the fight against terrorists.
He said the Bush administration allowed itself to be distracted by a “war of choice” but now is the time to correct the mistake.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama met here Sunday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, capping the end of a two-day tour of Afghanistan as casualties continued to mount from violence in the war-torn country.
Obama joined Karzai for a “working lunch,” marking the first meeting for the Afghan president and the presumptive Democratic nominee. Obama’s colleagues in the congressional delegation visiting Afghanistan, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), were also at the lunch, said Humayun Hamidzada, Karzai’s chief spokesman. Hamidzada said the nearly two-hour meeting, which was also attended by the heads of Afghanistan’s ministries of defense, foreign affairs and Karzai’s national security adviser, was “positive” and “friendly.”
The politicians discussed a range of topics that included education, health care and the state of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police force.
The significance?
1. It allows Obama to point out the very real crisis for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
2. He’s sounding the alarm louder and more frequently than political rival Republican Senator John McCain on this issue so far. This means, as more stories about the situation emerge, they will be embedded in the minds of some voters with Obama’s warnings.
3. He’s burnishing his foreign policy creds — even though a short visit overseas does not exactly qualify as a lifetime in foreign policy knowledge or expertise. In terms of imagery, it negates some of what McCain is saying about him. Unless he politically stubs his toe, stories such as this and images on TV will make him imaginable in the eyes of many voters as a Commande- in-Chief.
4. He played basketball with the troops…a game he’s good at. He learned to stay away from bowling alleys…
And press coverage of his trip in Afghanistan shows imagery-shaping in the making:
July 20th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
This question was raised by a reader in India who takes an avid interest in the American blogs/media. She marvels at the manner the media/blog pundits cling on to the statements issued by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Who is this chap? Do the pundits need to be reminded that Mr Maliki is the creation of the present Bush administration?
The reader then reminds that Mr Maliki would become as irrelevant in a few months time as his mentor and master George W. Bush. Does it really matter whether Mr Maliki agrees with the proposed Barack Obama plan for withdrawal from Iraq or not? The reader wonders whether this approach of media/blogs is because of myopia, or ennui, or sheer laziness, or let-the-world-go-to-hell attitude. “Where are the fresh insights into complex issues?”
It also occurred to me that the pundits had already made up their minds that the White House “leaked” this news. No one is asking whether this could be an intentional leak. In any case aren’t there other issues to talk about? Do Mr Maliki’s routine flip-flops on this issue to be taken with such seriousness, and analysed so minutely, as if this was a new development or “Breaking News”? (See here..)
The reader adds: “So one is not sure whether the US presidential candidates’ views on important issues are being properly reported/reflected in the media/blogs. This hysterical approach has become typical of media/blogs trivializing important issues and then forgetting about them. The atmosphere thus created resembles that of a fish/vegetable market in an Asian or an African country.”
But then someone could say that at least those fish and vegetable-sellers are earning their bread by putting in hard work, and in an honest fashion!!! (The NYT opinion here…)
When I was a kid back in the Seventies, a favorite sarcastic phrase used to peers who were getting a bit too full of themselves and getting all entitled and snippy about playing fair was: ‘What do you think you are — some kind of P.C.?’ ‘P.C.’ stood for ‘Privileged Character.’
Dick Cheney is now officially our nation’s most privileged character.
It seems that Cheney Branch has thought up another innovative new privilege to protect itself from Congressional Oversight. As Isikoff and Hosenball remark at Newsweek, (and as my colleague has likewise noted),
The decision by the White House to refuse to honor the subpoena from Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for Cheney’s interview was hardly unexpected, given the administration’s history of fiercely protecting presidential prerogatives. (Newsweek)
But as the article remarks with wonderful restraint,
What was surprising to some legal scholars was the basis for shielding the FBI interview report. It was covered, Mukasey said, by what he called "the law-enforcement component of executive privilege." (Newsweek)
Let me see if I can interpret this. Reading between the lines, I would interpret it to mean that any legal scholars who know anything about executive privilege and who still believe in ‘rule of law’ are gobsmacked that Mukasey would have the gall to make this absolutely specious argument. (Newsweek)
But of course, any legal scholar who hasn’t spent the last seven+ years locked in an ivory tower with no internet access doubtless isn’t all that surprised that he did. Mukasey quickly learned the Bush administration’s foolproof strategy: if you’re the executive and refuse to account for yourself, who is really going to make you if you come up with some kind of color-of-law excuse to refuse? Even if the judiciary calls you out, you can always make up another one.
Or as Benen more succinctly puts it, ‘The Bush gang plays by its own rules — the ones they make up as they go along.’
Is it satire? Or the equivalent of an unintentional hit piece caricature that will be welcomed and exploited by his political enemies? Whatever: the bottom line is that the New Yorker, long the darling in liberal circles, is now under fire from the campaign of Democratic presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama and many liberals for a magazine cover that is a seeming medley of negative images about Obama and his wife Michelle.
The cartoon you see above — which will provide cable talk and screaming head political shows with hours of programming and a “high concept” visual that can be run over and over — has been soundly condemned by the Obama campaign and even by the McCain campaign (which most likely considers it a plus in terms of undermining Obama’s preferred imagery). The Politico reports:
The Obama campaign is condemning as “tasteless and offensive” a New Yorker magazine cover that depicts Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in a turban, fist-bumping his gun-slinging wife.
An American flag burns in their fireplace.
The New Yorker says it’s satire. It certainly will be candy for cable news.
The Obama campaign quickly condemned the rendering. Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”
The issue, which goes on sale Monday, includes a long piece by Ryan Lizza about Obama’s start in Chicago politics.
It’s clear from the New Yorker’s political grounding that it wasn’t meant a hit peace on Obama — but depicting his wife as a radical with a gun, a room in their house as a burning flag, a portrait of Osama bin Laden on their wall was bound to generate some buzz that will most likely not boost its subscription rate among its reader demographics. Or is it indicative of what some consider a reality: controversy, schmontroversy…if you get lots of ink and broadcast time, you hit the jackpot..
The larger issue is: when campaigns spend literally millions of dollars to create images and additional millions to scuttle negative images, a cartoon such as this meant as satire does have the possibility of perpetuating stereotypes.
Most political cartooning (we run lots of political cartoons here on TMV) latches on to conventional wisdom or stereotypes and exploits it. The problem here: in this cartoon the New Yorker depicted racial and religious stereotypes — and there is a real prospect (shall we say “certainty?”) that many who see the cover on cable telecasts or on news stands will never open one page of the magazine itself to read the piece that accompanies it.
This cover has quickly become very controversial. The Obama campaign has called it “tasteless and offensive.” Why did you run it?
Obviously I wouldn’t have run a cover just to get attention — I ran the cover because I thought it had something to say. What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama’s — both Obamas’ — past, and their politics. I can’t speak for anyone else’s interpretations, all I can say is that it combines a number of images that have been propagated, not by everyone on the right but by some, about Obama’s supposed “lack of patriotism” or his being “soft on terrorism” or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers. That somehow all this is going to come to the Oval Office.
Also:
Prior to greenlighting the cover, did you consider that it might be co-opted by Obama opponents as anti-Obama propaganda? If so, did that possibility give you pause?
It always occurs to you that things will be misinterpreted or taken out of context — that’s not unusual. But I think that’s the case of all political satire, whether it’s Art Spiegelman or Thomas Nast or Herb Block or Jon Stewart. I bet there are people who watch Stephen Colbert and think he’s a conservative commentator, or maybe they did at first….a lot of people when they first saw Colbert said, “What is this? ” What he was doing was turning things on [their] head.
The McCain campaign immediately e-mailed a similar statement from Tucker Bounds: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”
Of course, the McCain people must say that, despite some staff no doubt chuckling behind closed doors over their opponent’s new challenge. That’s the problem with satire. A lot of people won’t get the joke. Or won’t want to. And will use it for non-humorous purposes, which isn’t the New Yorker’s fault.
A problem is there’s no caption on the cover to ensure that everyone gets the ha-ha-we’ve-collected-almost-every-cliched-rumor-about-Obama-in-one-place-in-order-to–make-fun-of-them punchline.
So you’ll no doubt see this image making the internet rounds in coming months by people who don’t want to see the satire. And won’t include the magazine’s press release saying, ““On the cover of the July 21, 2008, issue of The New Yorker, in ‘The Politics of Fear,’ artist Barry Blitt satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign.”
And, indeed, it you look at the issues involved here you get this:
–The New York has a long record as a liberal magazine. It clearly was not meant as a hit cartoon.
–Political cartoons are run all the time in the United States and some are even more pointed than this one.
–This cartoon typifies all the stereotypes about race and falsities about Obama’s background that have emerged from the septic tank of furtive and non-furtive whispers and emails in recent months. This places this cartoon within a different context.
–It is not labeled as satire on the cover so anyone looking at the magazine — ignoring the old axiom that “assume” makes an “ass” of “u and me” — might assume that the piece inside deals with the aspects the cartoon shows.
–The cover will be run as an illustration on cable shows and most likely on some future blog posts (running it on a post such as this one about the controversy is illustrative and a necessity) written by people who don’t like Obama and/or feel he said or did something that they consider radical.
–It will most definitely appear in emails without any note about what it’s original intent was.
It also underscores a fact of American political life: demonization of candidates now doesn’t even have to be intentional.
If it’s thrown out there, it’s most likely someone will see something lying on the field that looks like a football and take it — and run with it.
Here’s a cross section of blog reaction:
July 14th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
Everything, it is said, is fair in love and war. Let’s admit it, we all are in love with “oil”. In the present long-drawn “war” we have allowed anything and everything to happen. In fact our “love” has turned into a naked “lust” for oil. And when “lust” takes hold of leaders and the public, they lose their sense of proportion and become virtually myopic (or blind) to the consequences of their actions.
So what can a Mc Cain or an Obama do under the circumstances? (Have a look here…) These thoughts occured to me when I recently went through a must-read book “Half Gone” by Jeremy Leggett. A powerful book that provides fascinating insight into the geology and politics of oil…and hope(?).
He writes: “Despite the defectors from the Empire of Oil, the growing dissent within it, little (has) changed. The Great Addiction remained…Barons of the Empire of Oil rode the planet in executive jets, more powerful than any president except perhaps the president of the Number One Nation State. But then he was one of them anyway.
“The most basic foundations of our assumptions of future economic wellbeing are rotten. Our society is in a state of collective denial that has no precendent in history, in terms of its scale and implications.
“Most US presidents since the Second World War have ordered military action of some sort in the Middle East. American leaders may dress their military entanglements east of Suez in the rhetroic of democracy building, but the long-running strategic theme is obvious. It was stated most clearly, paradoxically, by the most liberal of them.
“In 1980 Jimmy Carter declared access to the Persian Gulf a vital national interest to be proteced by ‘any means necessary, including military force.’ This the US has been doing ever since, clocking up a bill measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and counting. With such a strategy comes an increasingly disquieting descent into moral ambiguity, at least in the minds of something approaching half the country.
“The deeper the dependency on oil and oil money becomes, the worse the effects of the unforseen energy crisis will be when it hits, so the more America’s security is undermined, even as its government advances enhanced security as the rationale for the latest actions of the Pentagon’s global oil potection service.
The economy has now become a campaign issue almost as big as the two presumptive Presidential candidates’ flip flops. Here are some links to websites of varying viewpoints. Links do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice or its writers.
SO WHO WOULD OBAMA NOMINATE TO THE SUPREME COURT? Orin Kerr has a list…
YESTERDAY WAS THE DAY OF DUELING MCCAIN OBAMA ECONOMIC PLANS and partisans on both sides were shooting out helpful emails and infolinks (and some sent out recriminations to blogs that did not dare run their candidate’s ideas). So how did the candidates fare? MSNBC’s First Read reports:
The day after McCain and Obama spoke on the economy, the big papers — not surprisingly — have fact-checked their economic plans and budget numbers. And neither is passing the smell test.
McCain’s assertion that he will balance the budget after his first term is getting the most scrutiny. The reason: Accomplishing that feat is difficult, especially when fighting a war and advocating big tax cuts. “It would be very difficult to achieve in the best of circumstances, and even more difficult under the policies that Senator McCain has proposed,” Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition told the New York Times. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times adds up Obama’s spending proposals and notes that it’s unlikely he will be able to pay for them as he asserts.
Read it in its entirety.
It stands to reason that neither candidate is receiving hosannas. The economic mess is a tough nut to crack and both are hamstrung by some of their parties’ political constraints in offering solutions to dig the U.S. out of this mess (one that can’t be passed off by the Bush administration again as the “Clinton recession” as was done in the early 2000s…). Among other things, McCain has promised to clean up entitlement programs. McCain got one vote…
ANOTHER AREA WHERE THE CANDIDATES GREATLY DIFFER is Social Security.
It has been an exciting, breathtaking, political season crammed with surprises and drama — and a seemingly infinite supply and variety of political reporting in both the “old” and “new” media. News consumers can become overwhelmed — and Dick Meyer has some sage advice.
Meyer previously worked on CBS web operations and did a popular centrist “Against The Grain” column. Now he has moved to NPR and is doing the column there (and it still runs on the CBS website). In his latest titled “Consuming The 2008 Campaign” he has some suggestions for political news readers. Here are some highlights:
Gratitude. Few intense partisans will like this: In this election, more than any I have covered, the voters have much to be grateful for.
I think independent and moderate voters — that is, about 75 percent of the electorate — understand this already. For hard partisans, it would be prudent and satisfying to suspend the shackles of party, ideology and pet passions for a moment and look at John McCain and Barack Obama as vying for an impossible job. I believe these are two good men who have both spent their adult lives in service to their communities and country. I don’t think either is greedy, power-hungry or trivial. I know that is corny, but that is my argument….
He says they are failing at using less spin, claptrap and phoniness than in past campaigns but “they are at least trying.” Meyer’s comment is an important one. It also flies against the grain of 21st century politics where the whole style seems to be to go after candidates, or groups or even writers that dare to advocate something different and try to discredit them and demonize them. People try to take out the SOURCE of the idea rather than debate the idea. But he is correct: unlike in some other years, independent voters are going to feel that no matter who wins the county has had a choice between two honorable individuals.
And then he offers two must-follow bits of advice for those following political news:
Was Hillary badly treated by America’s male dominated media elite? That debate is not only an American one. In fact, it’s apparently a debate that has been sanctioned by China’s Communist Party.
“Looking at how newspapers and TV networks commented on Hillary’s looks, her voice and her emotional life, we can see the kind of criticism and humiliation she has suffered. ‘Hating Hillary’ has even become a kind of national sport or entertainment. … The path of her struggle in seeking to make a breakthrough may not have met with the approval of all women. But in her own words, the 18 million voters who supported her have made “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.”
As newspapers cut 1,000 jobs last week, Americans are getting their sense of the world less and less through human eyes and ears than from TV cameras abetted by well-groomed mannequins gushing over an endless flow of images.
Talking heads on cable and bloggers online parse and pick away at what the cameras see but there are fewer and fewer reporters to find out what’s hidden by using such old-fashioned skills as observation, questioning and legwork.
Where is the tipping point at which “news” becomes all opinion all the time about “facts” supplied by self-interested sources?
Newspapers are drowning in red ink even as Americans depend more heavily on what they do but don’t pay for the information they get from them digitally and advertisers don’t cover the costs of allowing them to continue providing it.
In his hilarious post Monday noting that the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website auto-replaces the word “gay” with the word “homosexual” — which led to some blogger fun when a sprinter named Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials — Jazz asks:
Is the word “homosexual” somehow perceived to be more pejorative than “gay” these days?
The answer, Jazz, is YES! There is a linguistic battle going on. And in my circles it’s got a long and contentious lineage.
While, as gays and lesbians, we seek to expand ourselves and our relationships to become whole people and full participants in broad communities, the Religious Right seeks to reduce us to nothing more than a sex act.
It’s as if we reduced every heterosexual to that too explicit coupled moment we all wish we hadn’t been forced to watch taking place on the park bench or at the beach or in the movie theater or any place else in public! Only with the gay person, the Religious Right hopes to evoke that moment — to force us to witness it — with just that one little word…
H o m o S E X u a l
For that — or whatever reason — the Religious Right has fought to keep the word homosexual in use in newsrooms across the country. And I have been following their fight for decades. In February The Washington Times, pretty much the last big hold out, tossed ‘homosexual’ out and approved the use of the word ‘gay’ instead.
Most everywhere else long ago accepted the use of ‘gay’ and/or ‘lesbian.’ In 2006 the AP updated its stylebook. Here is a history of LGBT-related Stylebook entries. Here the New York Times, Washington Post LGBT-Related Style Guidelines.
In 1982 I wrote a paper on the etymology of the word gay. I’ve excerpted a good bit of it again below…
Henry Farrell comments on a new paper he, Eric Lawrence, and John Sides just finished (available at SSRN — they’d like you to download from there if you’re signed up, pdf here if not):
First – blog readers seem to exhibit strong homophily. That is to say, they overwhelmingly choose blogs that are written by people who are roughly in accordance with their political views. Left wingers read left wing blogs, right wingers read right wing blogs, and very few people read both left wing and right wing blogs. Those few people who read both left wing and right wing blogs are considerably more likely to be left wing themselves; interpret this as you like. Furthermore, blog readers are politically very polarized. They tend to clump around either the ‘strong liberal’ or the ‘strong conservative’ pole; there aren’t many blog readers in the center. This contrasts with consumers of various TV news channels, as the figure below illustrates. All of this suggests that blog readership is unlikely to be associated with the kinds of deliberative exchange between different points of view that some political theorists would like to see.
Second – blog readers are much more likely than non blog readers to engage in politics (through voting, giving money to candidates etc). Not only that, but left wing blog readers are significantly more likely than right wing blog readers to participate in politics. You could interpret this as evidence of more general depression among conservatives etc, but our best guess is that this is in large part the result of the netroots effect. Having a strong political movement which is pushing readers to make donations etc is likely to have real consequences. Obviously, we would like to have more data before we could make a really good case that our guess is correct.
John Sides has more here. Henry talked with Cass Sunstein (who he called “pretty skeptical about the virtues of Internet communication”) on the topic back in March. As did Eugene Volokh in May. Until this study I thought Volokh won the day.
I still will want to watch things evolve moving forward… btw, be sure to read the comments on the post, too.
June 29th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
As a young journalist I was once reminded that a journalist could either be a watchdog or a lapdog, can’t be both. Journalism, like other professions, has undergone a visible “change” in the past three decades. There was a time when many considered it a vocation (a calling), but now it is being increasingly treated as a mere job in any other industry.
Shaun Mullen’s earlier post on TV personality Tim Russert evoked interesting comments in TMV. Who is a real journalist? Can he survive in the changed world and the present media industry/culture? I have to battle with these tough questions often during my lectures on media/journalism.
A friend in India, Sanjay Sethi, draws my attention to a piece by Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, who is a Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute. Hedges latest book is Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians.
To take the discussion further, let’s see what Hedges wrote: “The past week was a good one if you were a courtier. We were instructed by the high priests on television over the past few days to mourn a Sunday morning talk show host, who made $5 million a year…No journalist makes $5 million a year.
“No journalist has a comfortable, cozy relationship with the powerful. No journalist believes that acting as a conduit, or a stenographer, for the powerful is a primary part of his or her calling. Those in power fear and dislike real journalists. Ask Seymour Hersh and Amy Goodman how often Bush or Cheney has invited them to dinner at the White House or offered them an interview.
“All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, and it is the job of the journalist to do the hard, tedious reporting to shine a light on these lies. It is the job of courtiers, those on television playing the role of journalists, to feed off the scraps tossed to them by the powerful and never question the system…” More here…
In keeping with the changing times, who knows journalists may soon be known as media workers (belonging, as they do, to the second oldest profession in the world). This would be in line with the change in name in the oldest profession in the world — from prostitute to sex workers….
Glenn Greenwald has administered a swift and deadly kick to Olbermann’s credibility on the issue and to any lingering hope that Olbermann might recover sufficient detachment to be considered a reliable commenter on any issue relating to his Hero, Barack Obama.
Now that Obama has made his position on FISA crystal clear, Olbermann has apparently decided how he is going to spin the issue: by being as disingenuous as Obama man. When W was fighting for FISA, Olbermann called it "an ex post facto law, which would clear the phone giants from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with [Bush’s] illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass email."’ (Salon)
Now that Obama has changed his mind about telecom amnesty, so has Olbermann. Now people who disagree with him and his idol — including Obama supporters sufficiently candid to admit their disappointment — are ‘the far left’, silly pie in the sky idealists with impractical and impracticable notions about civil liberties and the constitution that Obama is bravely prepared to resist: Obama won’t cower to ‘the far left’, so called; no sir!
Note to presumptive Republican presidential nominee: get ready for incoming fire …..Internet fire, that is. The latest assault in the Internet political war comes in the form of a “Google bomb” launched your way….
June 20th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
A critical key for the future viability of blogging and the future viability of the msm, that most bloggers and quite a few in the msm already understand, is the strong symbiotic relationship developed, and which continues to develop rapidly and creatively, between certain of the msm and the blogosphere…
A symbiosis is wherein two or more hosts are nourished by and from one another, reciprocally, complementarily, so that all thrive even the more. And such is all around us to see. When I drove the Pan American hiway in the 1960s, I saw many jungle orchids which had symbiotic relationship with certain trees; each literally would die without one another.
Also, here, were you to come with me up past timberline in these rock and hard packed mountains, there is a process by which tiniest micro-organisms nibble away at the roots of the bristlecone pines for nourishment. But they do not destroy these trees that are often over 2000 years old. In their microphageous puncturing the roots of the trees, the micro-organisms literally make the roots more porous so the trees can take advantage of spare rainfall and the few nutrients that manage to make it past the hardpack.
Thus too, a symbiosis between the blogosphere journalists and the msm journalists is, in prototype form, a present paradigm and it is a rich one. There has long been a symbiosis between book authors, with quotes and multi paragraph quoting accepted as fair use practice when cited consistently and well. There is also a working symbiosis between msm and book authors and book publishers for nearly 200 years. There is no obstacle that I know of, when mutual benefits are brought in good will, that ought stand between such being worked out easily and amiably between msm and bloggers.
A parasitic relationship is another form altogether. That occurs when a life form attaches itself to the host, and thrives… while the host is depleted and dies. Where I grew up in the Great Lakes, for instance, the lamprey eel fastens itself to the sides of large fish, penetrating the skin… and over time, literally sucks the guts out of the fish, killing them.
Traveling in the south, I saw huge green kudzu vines, once thought to be the saving grace remedy for loss of topsoil back during the dust bowl droughts. Thus, kudzu was imported to the south and midwest, and planted by droves. It took over, growing outside its more meek native environment (Japan, for instance). It rose like Rodan over everything. It grew so quickly, people said they could hear the vines creaking overnight. The kudzu grew so tall and so widely, it canopied entire forests, keeping the trees and flora from the sunlight. Inside the bodacious green vine over everything… inside, all the trees and ferns had gone black and dead. That’s what a parasite does. Me first, me only, me forever.
The blogosphere cannot be halted from growing and developing, but it is not like kudzu. It is a natural force in its own right, that has gathered itself into existence for expedience and creative reasons, and that has laid road and infrastructure deep into the interior where there was none before.
Giving credit to this ‘young-ancient’ force doesnt depend on whether one agrees or not with every blog’s politics. The fact is, Read the rest of this entry »
June 20th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Since the 24/7 news cycle is no longer, and it’s now a minute to minute news cycle, matters of end-game negotiation or denouement that used to take months, sometimes seem to occur within moments too.
This is an update to an earlier story at TMV yesterday which ran Robert Cox’s understanding of the legal facts behind the contretemps between Associated Press and Drudge Retort. For those interested in process as much as content, the AP and the Drudge Retort have made peace. For now. The issues about who will represent bloggers as a huge worldwide group and how remains to have several solutions in place, and more, no doubt, to come.
