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The Media, The Right and 1988: Endless Deja Vu
A large bulk of the political and pundit class are forever stuck in 1972, reflexively viewing every political conflict through its myopic prism (any war-opponent-candidate = George McGovern = loser). But as a New York Times article by Robin Toner this morning illustrates, the far more relevant precedent for this year's election is 1988. Toner quotes something I wrote after Barack Obama's Philadelphia race speech to define the critical question:
Sometimes, as Senator Barack Obama seemed to argue earlier this year, a flag pin is just a flag pin. But it can never be that simple for anyone with direct experience of the 1988 presidential campaign. That year, the Republicans used the symbols of nationhood (notably, whether schoolchildren should be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance) to bludgeon the Democrats, challenge their patriotism and utterly redefine their nominee, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts.
The memory of that campaign -- reinforced, for many, by the attacks on Senator John Kerry's Vietnam war record in the 2004 election -- haunts Democrats of a certain generation. . . .
Mr. Obama, of Illinois, has promised a different politics, one that rises above the fray and the distractions of wedge issues. As Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for Salon, recently put it, "The entire Obama campaign is predicated on the belief that it is no longer 1988."
But is that true?
That is the central question in 2008. For exactly that reason, I devote a substantial portion of Great American Hypocrites to analyzing the twisted, petty personality-based themes that dominated that election -- and that led to the victory of an extremely unpopular and distrusted political figure: George Bush the First -- because that is when the GOP pioneered the manipulative playbook that they have been using ever since to destroy the "character" and personality of Democratic candidates. And the circumstances that prevailed in the 1988 election make it an almost perfect parallel to this year's election. Just as is true now, Americans heading into the 1988 election had endured almost two full terms of Republican rule under a President who -- contrary to the Myth of the Canonized Ronald Reagan -- they had come to distrust and disapprove of. That's why 1987 and early 1988 polls continuously showed George Bush the First running far behind prospective Democratic challengers -- because the GOP brand, like now, was profoundly discredited among the citizenry (though to a lesser extent than it is now). From a March 3, 1987 NYT article by then-reporter E.J. Dionne:
President Reagan's approval rating has plunged to its lowest level in more than four years, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. The survey, taken Saturday and Sunday after the release of the report of a Presidential commission on the Iran arms deal, found that 42 percent of those surveyed approved of the way Mr. Reagan was handling his job and 46 percent disapproved.
It was his lowest rating since January 1983, when 41 percent approved of his performance. . . . About half the 1,174 adults interviewed by telephone said Mr. Reagan was lying about key aspects of the Iran arms affair. Only a quarter said he was in charge of what went on in his Administration, down significantly from earlier surveys. . . .
Vice President Bush has also suffered a significant drop in his popularity. This time 32 percent of those surveyed said they had a favorable opinion of him and 19 percent a negative view; in January 43 percent were favorable and 23 percent unfavorable. . . .
Still, the erosion has clearly hurt Mr. Bush politically. Asked how they would vote if the 1988 election were held now, 47 percent of registered voters said they would back former Senator Gary Hart, the Democrat with the most support in surveys of his party, and only 34 percent chose Mr. Bush. . . .
But almost every other measure in the survey indicated a deep erosion in Mr. Reagan's popularity.
Approval of Mr. Reagan's handling of foreign policy was at the lowest level of his Presidency: only 29 percent of those surveyed approved; 58 percent disapproved.
And, in a response that was tougher on Mr. Reagan than the commission was, a majority of those surveyed said they did not believe Mr. Reagan's statement that he forgot when he approved the arms sales to Iran. They were asked: "Ronald Reagan has said he does not remember when he approved the arms sales to Iran. Do you think he really does not remember, or is he lying about that?" Thirty-five percent said they believed Mr. Reagan; 51 percent said he was lying. . . .
Half those surveyed thought the affair was at least as serious as Watergate, and about as many said it was of "great importance" to the country, as against a third who thought it had some importance and a sixth who thought it was of little importance.
For those reasons, just as is true now, the GOP operatives running Bush the First's campaign -- Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes -- realized that they could never win the election if Americas voted on the basis of substance, policy positions and issues. They thus resolved to shift the playing field away from issues to manipulative, adolescent questions of patriotism, manliness, and personal likability. Hence: Dukakis is an effete elitist who doesn't believe in the Pledge of Allegiance; he looks dorky bowling wearing a helmet; he proved he wasn't a man when he failed to show primal rage when asked in a debate about his wife being hypothetically raped, etc. etc. With the help of a media enthralled to such shallow, easy-to-chatter-about attacks, they succeeded in electing a highly unpopular figure from a scandal-plagued, discredited party. And Republicans, with their media partners, have been using that depraved playbook ever since, and will continue to do so this year. For the 1988 election, Reagan's severe economic mismanagement, his disastrous foreign policy filled with savage covert wars, and widespread perceptions that top Reagan officials had blatantly lied about breaking the law were all just disappeared. Actual issues played virtually no role in George Bush the First's 40-state triumph.
* * * *
In exactly the same way, John McCain's only hope for winning is to ensure a similar disappearance of the issues which Americans continuously say are most important to them -- namely, the disastrous Bush/Cheney economic policies and the need to extricate ourselves from the Iraq War. If the actual concerns of American voters are allowed to determine the election outcome -- as they did in 2006 -- the GOP has no chance. Thus, the only prospect for a McCain victory is to have the media flood the country with the types of childish, gossipy trash that has predominated thus far -- lapel pins and Pledge of Allegiance symbolism and endless fixations on pastor sermons. That is what makes all the dark plagues which our political and media class have enabled -- those images of dead Iraqi children and foreclosure signs and crushing collective debt and collapsed American credibility and a truly lawless government -- blissfully disappear.
The GOP's hope that the media will do its part to continue to degrade our political discourse this way is understandable. It is, after all, Matt Drudge who rules their world. A lowly, Rush-Limbaugh-created, right-wing gossip-monger is the Walter Cronkite of their era.
The Right knows it can rely on the establishment press to repeat endlessly whatever smears it spits out, knowing that journalists (a) find such chatter irresistible because of how cheap and easy and fun it is to disseminate and (b) have a built-in excuse for doing so: "tiny sideshows are what The Little People care about, and thus we oh-so-reluctantly must cover them." Thus, the last two months of news cycles have been dominated by precisely such chatter, to the exclusion of one huge political story after the next -- torture memos, suspension of the Fourth Amendment, domestic propaganda programs, endless bloodshed in Iraq, more threats towards Iran. And there is no end in sight to this conduct. Indeed, it is only getting worse.
Today's Washington Post front page thus features yet another long, trite article -- headlined: "Obama Faces Test in Asserting His Own Brand of Patriotism" -- that yet again recycles Obama's lapel choices, his questionable belief in the Pledge of Allegiance, the Weather Underground, etc. etc. etc. As always, the GOP's central strategy of transforming our national elections into small-minded, juvenile gossip fests has no better friend than our establishment press.
And it's all "justified" by the media the same way, time and again. Just as when the Post ran a repellent front-page article detailing "assertions that [Obama] is a Muslim or that he had received training in Islam in Indonesia" and "alleg[ations] that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a 'Muslim plant' in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran" -- and then "justified" it by claiming that it was newsworthy since they were "rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet" -- the Post today justifies its lengthy coverage of Obama's "questionable patriotism" on the ground that "cable and radio talk shows," "foes" and random voters were talking about it.
That's the same excuse ABC News' Charlie Gibson gave last week for his disgraceful fixation on non-issues during the Democratic debate, in a recent interview where he was criticized for his behavior by Arianna Huffington:
Well, if you're gonna get into the debate, -- I know we're taking it to task a lot about that. But all that went to the issue of whether Barack Obama is electable. That's an issue that's being much debated now.
That's the only job of the modern "journalist" as they see it: to repeat whatever trash is whispered in their ears by political operatives. If right-wing strategists or opposition campaigns are chattering about some lowly attack, they have no choice but to repeat it -- and not just repeat it, but repeat it endlessly, have it dominate their political "reporting." After all, as Gibson says: "That's an issue that's being much debated now." Of course, the only reason those sideshows are "being much debated now" is because Gibson and his friends never stop talking about them, but that's the endless self-referential loop that fuels their destruction of our political culture. * * * * *
Periodically, journalists will admit that they serve as vital instruments used by the Right to disseminate personality smears, and even claim to regret it, only to continue doing exactly that. During the 2004 election, the NYT's Adam Nagourney (along with Richard Stevenson) actually granted anonymity to a GOP operative in a front-page article to say that John Kerry "looks French" and that John Edwards is the "Breck Girl." With our country in the middle of a brutal, already unpopular war in the Middle East and burdened by an already distrusted President, those stupid slurs became the dominant themes of the 2004 election. Three years later -- following the media's tawdry "flood the zone" coverage of John Edwards' haircut (in which Nagoruney, like most of his colleagues, gleefully participated) -- Nagourney published a mea culpa of sorts for his 2004 article, stating the bleeding obvious:
In both instances [Kerry looks French and Edwards is the Breck Girl], we were attempting to flesh out for readers the White House's plans for discrediting prospective Democratic opponents. Both people quoted were at the senior levels of the Bush political operation. And in both cases -- as Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards could certainly attest by the end of 2004 election -- the Bush machine had followed through on the plan it laid out 18 months earlier to define the Democrats on Republican terms. Our story may have had the result of not only previewing what the Bush campaign intended to do, but, by introducing such memorably biting characterizations into the political dialogue, helping it.
What an epiphany. When the NYT prominently repeats anonymous, adolescent right-wing smears on its front pages, it not only "introduces" those smears but also "helps" them! But that's the modus operandi of our establishment press. That's what drove the media's fixation on deriding the nerdy, unmanly, unpatriotic Michael Dukakis in 1988, and that media/right-wing bond was solidified when they were fed one titillating tidbit after the next by the lowest sewers of the right-wing noise machine during the Clinton sex scandals -- which only the media and the Right, but not the country, cared about. It is this degraded media dynamic which the GOP is counting on to elect John McCain. The establishment media is more than geared up to play its role in amplifying those petty smears; by and large, it's all they do. And the central, and still unknowable, variable is whether the citizenry -- driven by the belief that our country is fundamentally off-track and that the GOP is responsible -- will be able to rise above the two-headed Right-wing/media monster and thereby refuse to elect as President a candidate who will continue policies that the vast majority of them hate.
UPDATE: It is true that, by the time Reagan left office, the nostalgia over his riding off into the sunset caused an end-of-the-presidency spike in his approval ratings (though still not as high as Bill Clinton's was when he left office). But unlike Clinton, who enjoyed sustained high approval ratings for the bulk of his second term (between 50-65%), Reagan's approval ratings were low by any measure (below 50% or just at that level) beginning in 1986, for virtually all of 1987, and well into 1988 -- until post-presidential nostalgia caused a substantial spike with just a few months to go in his second term. Under no metric can Ronald Reagan be considered a "popular President" during his the last two years in office, and there is much to support the opposite conclusion.
Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.
© Salon.com
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50 Comments so far
Show Allthey fall apart when you stand up to them
kelmer found the Repuks' achilles heel.
The Demos should begin to attack McCain on his WHITE so called clergy........Hagee, Falwell, Robertson.
McCain asked for Hagee's support......asked is the word.
Bill Moyer had a great lead in on his Friday night show tore the press and the GOP to pieces.....I sure it's on his website.
Let the DNC do the advs. like the one about nit-wit McCain's so called economy plans.
I not the greatest fan of C-Span, mostly because everyone time a person asked a great question they cut them off. Also I'm so sick of people calling up and saying thanks for C-Span.....it's BS. The cable industry was told to support this station for public service and the cable companies added the cost of upkeep to all cable bills.
Making US THE CITIZENS THAT PURCHASE CABLE THE OWNER OF C-SPAN....and in that case should leave our questions alone and just once answer the one about the Israel Spy story, which I have watch them cut the person off three or four times in the last few weeks.
Watching CSPAN which John and Joan Q Public call in I get a much different story. They don't seem to be going for the crap. Like the fed gas tax BS. Everyone that called in during the 1/2 hour the question was up felt it was stupid.
As usual, Greenwald is utterly on target in his depiction of the fusion between the corporate press, right-wing propaganda, and Beltway politics.
Unfortunately, there is one lamentable question that stands above this careful analysis of the modus operandi of Beltway propaganda: is there any hope for American democracy other than to crash and burn?
Is the American public now so 'dumbed down' and infantilized by corporate consumerism & TV trash culture, that they are incapable of making the simplest logical connections in a political context? Have Americans been reduced to a mass of mewling, hysterical, petty-minded pabulum eaters?
Is the notion of Jeffersonian democracy as extinct as the wooly mammoth—and is it going to be 'bread and circuses' for the waning days of the American Empire?
Well, the ammo is there against John McCain. Saying he gave away secrets and was constantly on Vietcong radio.
Obama(or one of his military surrogates): "We thank John McCain for his service, however, questions remain about his time as a POW. There were others held as prisoners who did not appear on Vietcog radio. Why did he?"
But if the Democrats did attack McCain the howls of protest from both the republicans and the media would be deafening.
You could also go after Republicans for their gay sex scandals.
You could go after them for attacking the little guy(but because the Democrats do the same its a bit difficult for them to really get fired up about it)
I think it could still be done-as in shape the story against the media's best/worst intentions-the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and republicans are typical bullies. they fall apart when you stand up to them.
You need audacity as well as audacity of hope.
People should refer to Rush Limbaugh as the recovering drug addict Rush Limbaugh, or Mccain as the VietCong Radio voice.
The Dukakis campaign was a joke. The US wasnt ready to elect someone of Greek heritage. Obama doesnt have a good chance either but after Bush anything is possible.
Indeed. I distinctly recall the corporate media proto-infotainwhores of that era (c. 1988) solemly declaiming "It goes to character!" to rationalize their pursuit of any sensational, superficial, and irrelevant personal issue they saw fit to cover.
That phrase was like a master key to Pandora's Box, and the corporate media did not hesitate to fling it open-- and wrench off the lid for good measure. Anything that could be said to "go to character" was fair game-- and what doesn't "go to character", if one cares to frame an issue on such terms?
Moreover, regardless of the usual pious window-dressing of Journalistic Ethics and Standards-- a subset of the now-hoary Rhetoric of Excellence that makes such a splendid and convenient whited sepulchre in which to conceal inner rot and corruption-- there was no practical need to explore and probe alleged "character" issues in a rigorous, systematic, and even-handed manner.
That is, it isn't as if the corporate media's alleged objective and altruistic revelations of candidate "character" arose from some profound, post-Nixonian media reform which demanded that all public figures, especially candidates for high office, be newly scrutinized so that We the People could be presented with a clear and comprehensive view of the candidates. Rather, this ostensibly high-minded and noble mission to delve into character issues was-- is-- a pretext to jazz up the horse-race of Amerikan politics, comparable to shrewdly tossing handfuls of ball-bearings onto a race course to make the spectacle more dramatic and exciting.
What's more newsworthy than a candidate stumbling, perhaps fatally, during the home stretch? Or perhaps smashing into each other, ratcheting up the play-by-play with frantic analysis of the collisions, and the strategy of the jockeys in coping with this ever-complicated obstacle course!
The "character" canard fatally eviscerates the intelligent political discourse necessary and sufficient to operate our republican democracy as created by the Founders. But it's a small price to pay for putting asses in the seats.
What about Keith Olbermann?
Greenwald's a smart guy, but why is he propagating the myth that there's a distinction between the Right and the corporate MSM? There is no distinction. The Right doesn't feed issues to the MSM. The Right IS the MSM. The idea that they serve the public or give their readers what the readers want is just another popular illusion. The MSM serves its own political agenda and gives its readers what the MSM wants. Of course they're running a smear campaign against Obama; as conservative as Obama is, he's not as conservative as the other candidates, and that's enough to get a big bullseye on his forehead. Nothing's going to change until Americans figure that out, which will probably never happen.
this election will be different from 1988...this time MANY MORE american voters see EXACTLY what's going on ....this time more americans won't be DUMBED DOWN...more people are actually turning out the vote and paying attention to the issues....THE ECONOMY AND THE WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN are the most important issues...when people's pocket books are hurting it takes something MAJOR to really divert their attention
It's also 1952 and 1956, with Barack Obama as Adlai Stevenson and Citizen McCain as Eisenhower. Obama, the intellectual from the "effete corps of impudent snobs", as the late and totally unlamented thief, liar and swindler, Spiro Agnew, called them, versus the 110% American War Hero. Guess who'll win. McCain will run on a platform of fear mongering and the greasy and totally phony patriotism that is the stock in trade of the GOP. The Democrats had a candidate, John Edwards, who could have walked over McCain. It says something about registered Democrats that they refused to give him the nomination. Neither Obama nor Clinton can win for all the obvious reasons. So prepare yourselves for another 4 years of bullshit and despair, death and decline. My bulldog, Luigi, has more common sense than the American people.
"Is the American public now so 'dumbed down' and infantilized by corporate consumerism & TV trash culture, that they are incapable of making the simplest logical connections in a political context? Have Americans been reduced to a mass of mewling, hysterical, petty-minded pabulum eaters?"
YES!!!!!!
Caught a glimpse of Fox News today at the gym - Chris Matthews, poor excuse for a journalist was interviewing Howard Dean and accusing the DNC of taking McCain's 100 years in Iraq and other comments out of context. Now they are trying to suggest that McCain's comments had deeper meaning. How ironic that Fox should accuse anyone of taking anything out of context. Maybe they have exclusive rights to that tactic.
I call it the whore,MSM, media because of its ad hominem. For the most part, it serves the interests of the Plutocracy; since most of these wealthy,elite that own the media, are not fair at all and are mostly very,conservative haves, the people they employee know the parameters if they want to stay employed. My Sister is a newspaper publisher, so I have first hand knowledge of this and it is not anecdotal.
PS: FWIW, I don't mean to suggest that the media's use of time-honored Fourth Estate techniques for stirring up the shit, and keeping it stirred, is employed randomly and impartially. There are agendas within agendas at play, and those metaphorical ball-bearings on the race track are used selectively-- and aimed.
This is not inconsistent with Manufacturing Consent.
McCain seems to be pretty much brain-dead.Obama will beat him in a cake walk.
Agree with Mordechai S that John Edwards could have run over McCain, but don't agree that the voters were to blame in not giving him a chance. Not enough voters had a chance to weigh in, as the corporate media marginalized him in the earlier debates (after running Dennis Kucinech off earlier still). For what it was worth,I voted in the PA primary and wrote
in Edwards.
maddymama
Anyone who thinks the Democrats have an advantage this election is just doesn't get out in the real world enough. By the time the the Repug's attack machine and the MSM get done with Obama, his mother will have second thoughts about voting for him. The Dims have narrowed the nomination process down to the two candidates who don't have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning. It makes me wonder whether they really want to win, or if they're planning on enjoying the prospect of a Repug inheriting the depression we're heading in to. The only way McCain can lose this election is for the RNC to deliberately throw it, like they did in '92.
I'm not happy about it, folks, but get ready for at least 4 years of McCain. Nominating a candidate with either Obama's or Clinton's built-in negatives is no way to win an election.
It's time for Americans to drop the idealistic facade about politics. We need to cynically vote for the politicians who represent our best interests regardless of character. Who cares if they deserted the army, or sleep with their secretary? It's all about the "Me," baby. Bring jobs back to the U.S.? Check. Keep us out of foreign entanglements? I'm right behind ya, buddy. Save our Constitutional Freedoms? You can wear the black flag of anarchy on your lapel for all I care, as long as you're looking out for me and mine. These people are our employees, folks, and it's what they do for us, their employers, that matters, not how many hours they spend kneeling in some pew somewhere. We ain't electing Jesus here, people.
See...that's why I like CD's...
I thought the Article was good until I read the posts...and they were eeeeeven better!!!
[RichM May 4th, 2008 12:58 pm for example, kicks ass]
Of course "it goes to character" - the question is whose?
The candidates' or the so-called "journalists" and "opinion" pundits?
I have difficulty in accepting the notion that the American people are relatively helpless victims of media manipulation and have been rendered ineffective as a consequence of being "dumbed down". For instance, George W. is the most unpopular Prez ever, yet we're worried that a man who seems to embrace "Bush-speak", even if it's for cynical political reasons, may con the American people sufficiently to win the 2008 election. How does that happen? I don't think it's merely because of the corporate take over of the MSM, though that is a powerful reason. More importantly, from my point of view, the destruction of the voices of American labour, beginning with Reagan's firing of air traffic controllers early in his presidency, the fragmentation of the labour force due to "globalization" and "free trade" and NAFTA etc, leading to job losses, part-time employment, fewer union protected job and so forth, ad nauseum, and the divisiveness that working people have inflicted upon themselves due to issues of gender, race, immigrant workers etc. have made it difficult (impossible?) to organize people into effective mass movements with specific, democratic, humane goals in mind. The Haymarket Riots just couldn't happen now. A million humans marching on Washington to protest the Iraq war, as was the case during the Vietnam war? Not gonna happen. The forces of progress have spintered and been rendered ineffectual and I wish I knew how that was gonna change. People sitting alone in their living rooms making choices on the basis of what they see and hear in MSM has NEVER worked. I think we have a very good critique of MSM and strong voices countering it. However, what we do NOT have is a savvy bunch of people able to mobilize large numbers of people through the use of strong, existing,cohesive, Peoples' organizations. I sense there's a kind of solipsism involved with one group of media "voices" constantly (obsessively?) critiquing another (however rightly). Time to move on.
Used to be that the newsroom and the advertising department were separated by a 'chinese wall' (lots of them going down these days, in all walks of life... see the now-defunct 'chinese wall' between banking and stockbroking), and the press was sacrosanct to a great degree. Most editors of both printed and broadcast media tried to defend their turf and their staffs from the interference of the rich and the powerful and the connected and the advertisers, as much as possible.
Used to be that the under-paid reporters were cynical and adversarial of the people they covered, as Tom Jefferson intended, and were not 'pals of the powerful'. But this is the age of the new celebrity-gossip-name-dropping-style 'journalism'.
The 'Journalist-Actor' him/her self now plays a Major Role in the pipsqueak mountain-from-molehill stories, even a much greater role than does the very subject at hand, with the star-journalist being certainly far more famous than most of the people they even cover, INCLUDING the very candidates for President of the United States!
Witness the endless teevee 'face-time' of the anchors now, as against the off-screen anonymous voices of the old newsreels serving THE EXACT SAME PURPOSE! Nowadays, these anchors and reporters are screen-actor 'stars' not 'reporters'. And as all networks know, 'face-time' is cheap-time, that fills time between commercials at the lowest cost possible (no expensive 'journalistic inquiry' or 'on-site investigations' needed). The needs of the corporations and of the masters are thus met. But the needs of the public and of the nation are not; as per usual everywhere in these depraved days.
In both the local and national versions of the press today, the MSM 'product' is NOT the presumed one, the 'News'... it is in fact YOU. THEY SELL "YOU" TO THE CORPORATIONS and advertisers. You and millions like you, the viewer, the reader. All the between-the-commercials shit is just to entice you to sit there and take in the carefully psychologically-crafted corporate propaganda... of your masters.
Even with more cynicism and apartness in the past, reporters made fewer ad-hominem attacks, which is ALL the MSM specializes in now. But the NEW business calculus of the corporate-ruling-class demands that the news division be just another profit-center, and that it not interfere with the privileges and plans of the real powers, powers that look down on reporters and journalists as illegitimate, unknowing, bothersome pests.
After all, the powers consider the press to be a dog which they feed, and dogs should not be allowed to bite the hand that feeds them!
So the big MSM has become like a small-time Gossipy community newspaper- owned by a bottom-line corporation and controlled by the advertisers, which are themselves other corporations, which are in turn served by the Corpo-Fascist Republican Party. And you don't diss your masters, you curs of the press!
Also by the way, the masters buy-off (bribe) the front-men, and the editors, and the publishers, with much gold from the masters' pile of loot. These press people, in turn, sell you out. Sell us all out. That's capitalism!
The Brian Williamses, Charlie Gibsons, Chris Matthewses, Tom Friedmans, Glenn Becks, Hannitys, Limbaughs, and so on ad nauseum, they all know on which side their bread is buttered. They have become one with the masters. And they unconsciously do the masters' bidding with nary a second thought about its rightness or wrongness, or question whether they themselves have become corrupted, because the current power system has rewarded them beyond their wildest dreams. Just like a power structure in another country at another time immensely rewarded another self-righteous, upstanding, patriotic, corporate-spinmeister, party-line, member-of-the-press flack named Joseph Goebbels. It seems that the members of the MSM press all have Stockholm Syndrome now.
So the power system that now rules this nation and this Earth, according to all the corporate MS media, it must be good and it must be wonderful and it must be preserved... mustn't it.
And those who threaten it even the teentsiest bit, like an Obama who is just the tiniest bit to the left, must be destroyed in any way possible. Especially with easy, simpleminded ad-hominem attacks. Just like a pack of wild baboons would attact an interloper who happened to wander into their tribe.
I watched Hillary Clinton this morning with the obnoxious George Stephanapoulous; he was horrible, but the studio audience asked mostly great questions, and HILLARY CLINTON answered each question substantively! She is the best of the 3 "viables" (i'll vote outside the one-party system), with the best ideas, AND she is the best positioned to refute and fight the republican attack machine - which is why superdelegates owe it to their party to nominate her. Obama has hardly any substantive ideas at all, it's all "hope" and "change", blah blah blah... race neutral? What planet does he live on?? An elitist one, where he thinks he just deserves things, despite his poor republican-lite ideas.
It's just possible the "little people" do, in fact, prefer the "tiny sideshows" to the big, scary, nearly unbelievable issues facing all 6 billion of us, including Americans.
"Iron Man" grossed more this weekend than all the Iraq "war" movies released since '01, including documentaries. "Idol" and fake wrestling - that's fake wrestling - continue to dominate TV ratings. The GTA vid game is expected to gross more than "Pirates of The Caribbean III," which did over $300K domestic.
Hardcover Non Fiction this week:
1. ARE YOU THERE, VODKA? IT'S ME, CHELSEA
2. ESCAPE
3. HOME
4. BEAUTIFUL BOY
5. MISTAKEN IDENTITY
See any issue books there?
Seriously, imagine if ya turned on the tube and all ya heard was dead soldiers and dead Iraqis and the President approved/still approves of torture and illegally spied and continues to illegally spy and more proof he loves torture (cause he said it outright) and more thousands of soldiers killing themselves and hundreds of thousands of Vets mistreated and economic collapse and skyrocketing prices for everything and rice rationing and illegal US bombing of Somalia and more dead soldiers and Wall Streeters stealing more billions without consequence and more torture revealed and even more proof the Earth is melting way faster than thought possible and oil running out and a global ethanol scam that's triggering food riots and massive national debt piling up and a prison system out of control and NYPD toting machine guns in subways and more supersized death and more supersized destruction of our Constitution and more supersized billions stolen and more and more and more...
Three, four days tops before the "little people" completely tune out and start focusing on shows with Deal and Dancing in the title...
I get so tired of the complaints - DO something about it! Our mainstream media is failing, so we need to leaflet, pamphleteer, and agitate to our neighbors, support alternative media, get others tuned in to them, work, organize - stop bitching & moaning, and become POWERFUL!! I do the best I can with no resources. I'm thinking how during world war II underground activists risked their lives with printing presses to end fascism - we have our fascism to end, let's DO IT!!
Glenn, is correct in his estimation, but one factor in 1988 compared to now is that unemployment was low and we were still enjoying a very good economy. Gas was affordable and not spiking. Bush won over Dukakis because times were good and alot of people felt things would continue, but as we saw what happened to Bush at the end of his first term.
Hey, Rich, you are right on! American people talk the talk but, in the main, they don't walk the walk.
If Americans could only see themselves as other people in the world do, they would be mortified. People the world over never thought that Americans could be so easily manipulated, that they lacked the courage to fight for their freedom and their democracy.
Bush should've been deposed four years ago, him and Cheney. The American political system should've been changed four years ago to stop another fool like Bush appearing and to greatly lessen the power of any President. Then the Congress and the Senate should've been cleaned out and the power of the corporations and all lobby groups destroyed!
But what 'should've' never happened. Perhaps it's too late now?
www.dangerouscreation.com
You guys are being too tough on all three candidates!
Obama in a cakewalk over McCain.....based on what. If anything the ibndicators say Obama...maybe.
A long time to go and Obama has time to staunch the bleeding. Or McCain could very well have an "Obama" moment of some kind himself. So could
Hillary.
Lord Trigo.... I agree with sleeping with secretarys or what someone does in an airport or if they like sheep for that matter, most of the stuff they enjoy kicking around, but character does matter. I'd rather take Bush back than a deserter. A deserter let his mates down, possibly got someone else to die in his place and be sure if it comes to you and yours or him....he'll pick him everytime.
" The Demos should begin to attack McCain on his WHITE so called clergy……..Hagee, Falwell, Robertson."
Hopefully they are too smart for that. The Rpublicans would rip apart flimsey arguments like that and then use it as a real excuse to counterattack and destroy.
Noticed that the Republicans haven't mentioned the Black Liberation Theology in any way yet? Why not do you think? Just nice guy's...right?
RichM (12:58pm), who wrote:
The hideousness of the US media is not a matter of the personality defects of individual journalists, repulsive & obnoxious as they are. Rather, it comes from the roots of the entire social structure — which ensures that for the most part, only conformist worms can become "journalists."
As usual, well said.
And Ostrogoth (1:23pm) wrote:
...the myth that there's a distinction between the Right and the corporate MSM? There is no distinction.
Absolutely! But those (eg, melmac (2:59pm)) who think the Demon-cratic party has a glimmer of a chance come November are living in a dream world. I hate to sound like some nihilistic, jaded, been-through-this-before cynic, but hesperia (4:31 pm) has a good point. Labor bosses colluded with corporate bosses and the labor movement self-destructed (and I say that as a dues-paying union member); socialists and anarchists and leftist-liberals and Maoists and Marxists and Trotskyites wouldn't be caught dead at the same table together; hell, Leninists and Marxists can't even agree! With just a few minor policy differences between them, Obama & Clinton act like they're from opposite poles, and their supporters are even worse. Meanwhile, as frank1569 (5:31 pm) points out, most Amerikans are glued to their TV sets tuned to fake wrestling or Faux News. Sorry, folks, but Americans have become stupid, selfish slobs (captured eloquently by Lord Trigo (3:36 pm), who I hope was writing with a bit o' tongue in cheek. If things were going swimmingly in Iraq do you really think most Amerikans would be against the war?
With the country teetering on collapse, people needed their local newspaper or TV news anchor to follow Kucinich and Edwards around in order to get people to vote for them? I mean, yeah, they were marginalized, almost as much by Air America (who, today, continues to ignore or ridicule McKinney and Nader) as by ABC and NPR/PBS, but with such important issues affecting our everyday lives, why is it more Americans can tell you what place their favorite ball team is in but can't point to their home state on a map, or tell you even the last names of their elected reps in Congress?
I have to agree with green_achers (3:32 pm): prepare for 4 or 8 years of McBush. Of course, I'm not convinced that we're NOT gonna be stuck with Bush-Cheney-Gates-Rice. Picture this: allow the elections, maybe Obama will even win, but then the (D) president-elect and a couple of thousand Amerikans die in a spectacular black-ops operation (made to look like the work of foreign/Arab terrorists), and the November elections become moot. Bush dusts off the "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive," with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, and declares martial law.
C'mon, Powerball! I feel the tug of distant shores!
RICH M & OSTROGORTH: Great posts.
DINGO: Good question.
LITTLE BROTHER: Your post gave the impression there WAS no aim; but the character issue has NOT been put on Bush, McCain or most Republicans... since the media operates from the standpoint that these are THEIR allies, they hardly put the character of these creeps into question. It's "presumed" they're already on the stamped and approved of "team." Everything radiates from that broken assumption. As George Lakoff and others have stated, the Democrats or better still, progressives, have to stop taking the defensive posture, allowing the Right to control the debate and HOW issues are framed.
Given the long list of laws violated, the state of the US economy, the rising travesty of untreated global warming (US setting dangerous precedent here in the form of massive dereliction of DUTY), the way the war is going, a PRO-active set of campaign initiatives that really called a spade a spade might help. Of course with media controlled by the right wing and its corporate patrons, OTHER ways to get the message out are vital. Perhaps it is time to stand on a street corner and pass out flyers?
Obama thinks infanticide is ok.
Obama thinks killing the weak and disabled is ok..aka euthanasia.
Is the Democratic choice really going to be someone who views human beings as easily discarded as trash????
Rich Griffen___I agree with you that Hillary has the best chance of defeating McCain as she is not senile as he seems to be and has political experience. Unless we attack Iran, and that could seal the deal for McCain, the election will be a tough battle and Hillary is much better prepared to handle it.
Clinton is more apt to deliver on the Democratic platform than Obama is as even if elected the Dem candidate has almost an impossible job ahead to turn the country around. Obama makes great speeches, but we need action, not just talk about unity and high-minded possibilities, as we are in serious trouble and have no time to waste getting started fixing this disaster.
Encourage everyone you know to boycott the corporate media: New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. The regime's main power domestically, is its ability to brainwash the majority of the population with its media.
Media: it's the advertising dollars. I wrote to FOX to fire O'Reilly about his comments to lynch a black woman (yes, it was Michelle Obama, but it does not matter which black woman). Now, if I had the signatures of several dozen, or hundred people, maybe the advertisors would take action.
It is also the FCC and the concentration of media ownership, but you all know that.
Just chalk up the loss of fair elections with intelligent discourse on issues as part of the cost of allowing corporate media consolidation.
FVHorn,
Good post (May 4 at 4:41 p.m.). And this was an interesting observation:
"And those who threaten it even the teentsiest bit, like an Obama who is just the tiniest bit to the left, must be destroyed in any way possible. Especially with easy, simpleminded ad-hominem attacks. Just like a pack of wild baboons would attact an interloper who happened to wander into their tribe."
That brings up a point not often made -- that even though Obama is only slightly to the left, and only possesses a modicum of integrity and concern for the masses, the oligarchy must defeat him at all costs because of the slippery slope of leftist ideology! That does in a way give me some hope that the oligarchy really does believe it has a tiger by the tail (the rest of us) and fears what would happen if it loosened its grip one iota.
As for Hillary, it is unclear whether the oligarchy has no fear of her because she is completely on the oligarchy's side (which she is), because she has been so traumatized by right-wing attacks she would easily submit (which she would), or because she could be so easily crushed (due to innumerable scandals, past and present, financial and personal, real and manufactured) in the general election (which she could be), or a combination of all three.
Remember Dybol ! Once again its not only who votes ,but who counts the votes. Whats the lastest on paper audits?
Glenn Greenwald has done his usual dead center targeting of the Right's strategy, but I would like to offer an additional bit of strategy that I have noticed. In the early part of the primary cycle, Obama was deliberately built up by the media precisely so that they could savage him during the current part of the cycle. It's a sad and cynical strategy, but it's usually very effective. The saddest part of all is that Obama doesn't see what is being done to him. He continues to patiently put up with interviews that are consumed with questions about Rev. Wright when he has the power, if only he would use it, to refuse the nonsense. But such is the fate of every decent man that enters this arena.
"Caught a glimpse of Fox News today at the gym - Chris Matthews, poor excuse for a journalist was interviewing Howard Dean and accusing the DNC of taking McCain's 100 years in Iraq and other comments out of context. Now they are trying to suggest that McCain's comments had deeper meaning. "
The DNC ad omitted these important words in what McCain said:
"as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."
So yes, the DNC ad lacks proper context and grossly so.
"but the character issue has NOT been put on Bush, McCain or most Republicans… since the media operates from the standpoint that these are THEIR allies, they hardly put the character of these creeps into question. It's "presumed" they're already on the stamped and approved of "team."
This is nionsense. Just look at the NYT editorial page the last several years, and that of many other big city papers.
Hillery is a republican, she was a member of young republicans in her youth, a 'goldwater republican' and probably only switched partys to please and further Bills career. NAFTA was probably HER idea!
SHE sides with John McSame as to being ready from day one. As to the gas tax sham.
When that phone rings at 3am, if she answers, I have to wonder with whom would we be at war with, she saber rattles with Iran better than George Bush. Enough of this same insanity. Whatever happened to deplomacy?
Don't give me support for the unborn while you flag-waveingly support a war of aggression. No flag is grand enough to cover the death of thousands of innocent people who did not attack us, or justify torture. I am a Christian, and I know the 6th commandent, Thou shelt not kill. I know what Jesus said.. "Love your enemys" "Turn the other cheek" Do good to those who hate you"
God gives us 'choice' and I Believe in a mothers right to choose in a sick persons right to die.
When it comes to choosing a President, I follow Jesus's advice.. Ye shall know them by their fruits... Peace is a fruit of Gods Spirit, not war. Love unites all people, understands all, judges none.
I do fear Bush declairing marschal law, but sooner or later Jesus will return to escort him to hell.
I'm voting for Obama.
Jakenewton..."as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."
So yes, the DNC ad lacks proper context and grossly so.
The point is what are we doing there, we have no right to their oil, or to occupy their land, to rule over them. This war will not end until every last American is gone from their land.
Why can't we make a car that runs on steam? The world should flock to our door. With the polar ice caps melting there should be plenty of water
"The point is what are we doing there"
That's a legitimate question. However, the point of the DNC ad was to make it look as though McCain thinks it's OK to just continue on in Iraq with the violence we see today for a hundred years. He was obviously refering to a peaceful occupation such as in Germany and Japan, yet the DNC dropped that part of the quote that I provided and juxtaposed the rest of it with violent imagery. It's a terrible ad.
I think all the average American understands is the name-calling, back-stabbing GOP/MSM. The GOP and MSM have done a marvelous job of Jerry Springerizing politics. That is all the average American can relate to.
You start bringing up the real issues (high crimes of BushCo, the economy, etc), the drool starts dribbling from their mouths.
Back during the 2004 elections, I got my hair cut at a local "men's" barber shop and the cute girl cutting my hair and I talked a little politics. She said she'd vote for Bush because he's already been President. I almost got up an left with one side of my head still long and shaggy. I explained to her that Bush never won the election and that he lied us into a very costly conflict in Iraq. She looked confused. I bet she could have told me who got kicked off American Idle the previous night, though.
"Bush never won the election "
There are, of course, differing opinions on that.
Opinions are not necessarily factual ... they are opinions.
When the Supreme Court ruled that the Florida recount had to be stopped, I'd have to say the Bush did not win the election.
The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both concluded that, had the recount been allowed to continue, Gore would have won Florida and thus the Presidency.
"When the Supreme Court ruled that the Florida recount had to be stopped, I'd have to say the Bush did not win the election."
Make your specific case that the Supreme Court ruled improperly.
"The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both concluded that, had the recount been allowed to continue, Gore would have won Florida and thus the Presidency."
Cite a source for this, and also describe exactly how they came to this conclusion, what studies they did, how they handled the issues of undecounts and overcounts vis a vis the butterfly ballots etc.
The public rarely enjoins the true issues or the politicians the reasons are clear. Special interests and "free enterprise" capitalism it is what this country has devised as worth living and dying for. The basis for the consumer ideology is energy and its association with an auto centered economy closes the circle. It uses the media to direct the public flow of the so-called truth and we have a perfect example of it in this political campaign. It is why Exxon Mobile is out of control and the public is given platitudes rather than help.
The media is out of control this election has shown us just how far it has gone to dumb-down the public. The recent move by ABC to remove candidates from the debates was outrageous. They are trying to determine the fate of the country and the world being mouthpiece for special interests and the government and to silence dissent.
Media censure is unheard, the FCC should rule for the public but like the EPA its teeth are continually drawn. The media has no right to exclude any politician who is running for office as happened recently with the ABC debate. The only exclusion under the rules used by ABC should apply to a candidate not sitting in public office. The license of ABC would be lifted if the rules were changed but the congress, with the exception of a few pushes for more media conglomeration supported by special interests. I hope that someone picks up on this thought. We have seen the obsession by FOX and CNN, particularly in the form of Wolf Blitzer, and the FOX rabid journalists constantly referring to the Rev. Wright controversy.
Blitzer's bias is clear. He is quick to use every possible negative he can against Obama from the Flag Pin to anything else he could get his mouth around. His support for Clinton has been clear and inappropriate, for CNN to call itself a "fair and balanced" news network. I quote Mr. Nichols: 
" The media pretense of being a fly on the wall has often been preposterous. In the real world of politics — where power brokers and manipulators proceed with the cynical axiom that perception is reality — the fly on the wall is the wall. The political press corps is not observing reality as much as redefining it while obstructing outlooks and constraining public perceptions."
As usual, few are able to see the stampede of the public sheep created by media. I support the change that Obama represents! He is intelligent and wants America once again to be looked upon as a great nation that it could still be and once was. The present "lack of experience" cry of Clinton is preposterous. Could anyone having been near the White house as long as Bush done as badly for the USA? There is experience! However, the discovery of a job approval rating for him at about 28% of the American people speaks volumes about experience. No one could have been as bad as the Bush team! There is experience!
A flight from entrenched American politics is necessary . . .it has ruined this country and made greed the single value of importance. The young people once again embrace hope as a result of the Obama campaign. The Hillary political group and entrenched politics have virtually destroyed America with its policies and exclusive power clubs. She has believed this form government is America.
Clinton recently morphed to the Obama populist message, it was called, "finding her voice" while at the beginning of her stump showing her Madeline Albright, bomb the children image. 
Can anyone truly think that change is unnecessary? I guess not since all the politicos have adopted his message including McCain? The mistakes that Obama may make as president cannot be greater than those of the past seven years. It is also necessary to give him a democratic congress to make certain that the programs that Americans want can be enacted.
Mr. Gore Vidal, has pointedly criticized mainstream media as one of the major problems, and what is wrong with the USA. The corporate media conglomerates control the message and that message is perversely distorted and panders to its advertising portfolio! Wolf Blitzer one of the glaring examples of this criticism and shows clearly those distorted ideas with his reporting, which is nothing more than partially factual opinion dictated by his bosses.
He is a person who has no right to shape public opinion far from being the "fly on the wall" he espouses to be. We must remember flies morph from maggots. He displays ignorance as a virtue for the entire world to see, an example of what is considered, by many in America to be news reporting. If Blitzer were billed as a CNN commentator, at least the public would not be hoodwinked to believe his reporting to be the truth, while it is lack of concern for accuracy, rectitude and fairness to be considered to be news rather than opinion.
You probably know all this but read on for fun!
The people of the USA have been so ill informed as to what a change would really do and mean to this country and the change in leadership that is necessary, they have forgotten that no one could be worse than George Bush . . . No one, not even a dogcatcher, at least the dog catcher has compassion for
Animals!
The future leaders, Obama or McCain, should discuss the problems America and the world faces. The problem of public ignorance of the issues caused by the media is serious. In the heat of elections the media panders to voter ignorance. The emphasis, as we see on nightly, so-called news, is constant repetition of candidate's miscues. The result of the media sensationalism becomes, the wrong problem and the wrong message at a crucial time in world history. The emphasis on having the politicians address a credible platform of ideas based on an American and global interaction in the world is critical.
There is not enough time left for civilization to focus on rubbish. The energy and environmental issues for example or food and health care are the problems the media should be focusing upon. But to use the Rev, Wright issue for one week, to try and hurt the candidacy of Obama is a travesty. The issues most pressing are once again avoided, those really important issues that must be put before the congress; the environment, continued funding of Iraq, energy issues, education, health care and so many others not dealt with, all impacting upon the economy, the failure of public dialog is outrageous!
The issue of this election will impact on the environment, economy and the future of the USA as no others. Still, if more than 50% of eligible voters cast their votes it will be a miracle, as a result of regressive US election laws and media obfuscation. It is compulsory for everyone to vote in Australia it should be so in the USA as well. Few of the candidates are really talking about the major points, even those who are the most erudite. The environment in association with the economy or health care and elections reform, to name some, are kept out of public dialog as a result of the nonsense punditry hours on end. The world looks at America and its "star struck reality" in wonder.
The political discussion rests on the complete lack of talking points in isolation, such as, Clinton's health package or the nonsense gasoline tax rebate and it's cost, rather than what is really at stake with energy issues, human survival. The candidates for the US presidency rarely talk about the complete interrelated package of the issues combined. Obama alludes to this deficiency in the media and public issues. When he asks for this to occur it lands on deaf ears because the media and special interests do not want this to occur.
The media reduces the public debate to its most simplistic level with pundits arguing about one inconsequential issue or another rather than the truly important issues of our time. The American people are kept from hearing and understanding the relationship of the entire package of issues, which a true leader must address and deal with for the very survival of America in the world within a global economy. The costs for the war would pay for every single need from health care to American infrastructure repair and education, as well as the alleviation of world hunger and energy research this is what is what is at stake.
The media deals with Rev. Wright and American Flag lapel pins instead.
The media keeps the public dumbed down for obvious reasons they represent the moneyed people. As a result the public becomes unable to talk about moving radically toward change and the related issues affecting their very life and the future. The issues of climate change, energy issues and the global economy not only American economy is the part of the mortgage crisis created by the "free market" system. All the other issues like people losing their homes as a result of Wall Street manipulation are tied to these fundamental problems. These is the first and major issue which affects all other issues and is completely related to the economic changes which must take place.
The media board rooms instruct their so-called journalists (news/opinion readers) to stay clear of those subjects that would attack advertising, consumption, tied together in the media collusion with special interests to maintain the consumer system killing the world. Media in collusion with government does not want the change that would result in the decline of their hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.
All environmental problems are in one way or another associated with the Western world's consumption based lifestyle led by the USA. These issues are affected by consumer advertising much of it coming from the millions spent on advertising of irrelevant product and campaign advertising. The media should be dealing with true American and global issues in this campaign affecting the very basis of the so-called American Dream, fast becoming the global nightmare. This is what the next president of the USA must address!