Dog Bites Journalist
In the face of polls and horse-race maneuvering, we can try to keep from getting sucked in by it all. We should examine a candidate’s public record and full life as opposed to his or her campaign performance.
This stunningly banal declaration occurs in (a) a fifth-grade civics lesson (if there are any such anymore), (b) the confession of a minor pundit in a minor banana republic, (c) a still-clueless-after-all-these-years mea culpa by one of the most influential journohonchos of recent years, just published on the op-ed page of the NYT.
The answer, of course, is (c). The author of this little masterpiece of the elementary is Mark Halperin, now an eminence at Time, formerly guru of ABC's self-congratulatory "The Note."
As Robert Farley points out, Halperin still can't conclude the obvious without equating Bill Clinton's and George W. Bush's "disastrous" administrations, and the degree of gullibility displayed by campaign journalism with respect to the two.
I look forward to a forthcoming NYT op-ed on the pundits' absurd habit of equating the peccadilloes of a legitimately elected president with the systematic ignorance, provincialism, stupidity and mendacity of another.
P. S. Here's Glenn Greenwald's splendid evergreen of a year ago on the spectacle of Halperin debasing himself before Hugh Hewitt on the subject of MSM's notorious liberal bias.
One of the problems with the Press' discussion of the "scandals" of the Clinton era is that there were none. The Lewinsky affair was stupid and arrogant on the part of Bill Clinton but Hillary didn't do anything wrong and it was hardly a matter of state.
From Whtewater, to Vince Foster, to the FBI files were all figaments of the Arkansas Project and the Media. Even the Clinton connection to the Chinese is far eclipsed by the Bush connection to the Saudis.
If the Republicans are threatened to again try to tie a Democratic President's hands, in a treasonous way, the Press and fellow Democrats better do a much better job of telling the truth.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
November 25, 2007 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Daniel, exactly.
Let me give you a metaphor for the Clinton "scandals" as I saw them.
I live across the Delaware River from New Jersey. From 1995 to the end of 2000 I heard what sounded like a war going on across the Delaware in New Jersey. All the sounds were there; tanks on the move, artillery, rockets, automatic weapons, dog fights and bombings, men hollering, the noise at times was deafening; from the time I woke up till the time I went to bed, on and on it went.
One day early in 2001 I decided to hire a helicopter to fly me over the battlefield so I could see the combatants and who was winning. Off we went, flying across the Delaware River to New Jersey and the site of the war. Pretty soon we got over the battlefield and as I looked down I saw rolling hills, farmland, orchards, small towns.....no soldiers hollering, no armor, no artillery, no rockets, no war planes in the sky....there was nothing but a lot of noise.
And that just about sums up the Clinton "scandals".
By the way, to me, a "scandal" is when someone is found guilty or pleads to a crime, the word has substance...or should have.
November 25, 2007 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
deleted, wrong place.
November 25, 2007 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
These press/media mea culpas are annoying for two reasons: they are years late and they do not represent or produce any change in behavior.
Another thing.
There is a reason that fact-free narratives like "the scandal-plagued Clinton administration" or "Al Gore was a liar who didn't know who he was" or "the liberal policies of the 60s were failures" or "the hippies and the liberal media robbed America of victory in Viet Nam" gain and continue to have currency: no one outside of academia or, more recently, the left blogosphere, provides any counter-narrative.
November 25, 2007 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
James,
when you have a Republican leaning main stream media what can you expect. Even with all the factual corruption in the Republican party can you imagine someone like Russert saying about the Republicans what is said about the Democrats, as you so accurately reminded us?
By the way, one would never know there was a Republican party in Alaska, let alone one rife with corruption, if the public relied on the MSM to report it.
November 25, 2007 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
OT, but since you mention south Jersey (I was born in Newark), there is a persistent rumor that when Dan Quayle was asked about Roe vs. Wade, he said it was a good history lesson to hear about Washington's two alternatives to crossing the Delaware.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 25, 2007 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would suggest that what is true of the relationship of the Halperins in the MSM and the hardcore (Hannity, FOX etc) rightwing -- ie that of asskissers to asskissees, is reproduced along the political spectrum. Of course, those with ambitions in the liberal sphere can sometimes see quite plainly the abject weaknesses of figures -- who are bureaucratic politicians playing to powerful ears at least as much as they are journalists -- like Halperin, but fail to note that the problem doesn't end there.
US culture is one of 'debit on the left, credit on the right': the further right any view is (up to a point at least, which endpoint a coalition of 4 RW justices on the current Supremes embody) the more generously it is treated. Journalists, but also ordinary citizens, understand this cultural privilegedness and act and express accordingly.
(But in the meantime ...) It is not merely the ingrained bias that would see the Democratic puffball Convention of 04 and the Repug hate-fest if that as equally "negative" (with some advantage to the Repugs, actually). The politics of anti-negativism is one that is, in the US context, invariably used by those to the right towards those to their left.
(It remains to be seen how much of an exception Obama -- who I have supported including with donations -- could turn out to be an exception to this rule. A parrallel exception was in the founding fathers' turning the traditionally rightwing organic metaphor/natural law political model on its head in their peculiar synthesis of a notion of 'natural' and 'inalienable' rights. Trying to use the frameworks of RW thinking to overcome the power of the right is an inherently risky excercise)
sorry about that digression ...
At any rate, authentic progressives, both at the hands of (invisibly but solidly) privileged creeps of ostensibly left leanings, and at the hands of liberals and liberal elite wannabes, suffer the same kind of problems as liberals do at the hands of their culturally hierarchical superiors of the Right. Figures like Noam Chomsky try to bring not just the Halperins, but the New York Times and the mainstream of liberalism to task, as do (somewhat) figures like Kucinich and Tom Hayden. For this, they are automatically marginalized and largely ignored, other than when being scoffed at as somehow insufficiently 'patriotic' for the mainstream of power, itself ironically apparently intent on destroying the US as a Constitutional republic.
In the election of 2000, when I supported Gore for president over Nader, I often noted (along with some really things Nader said that got my goat) that if I really DID 'hate America' the way those of the powers that pee suggest is true of the authentic left generically, I would be gung-ho for W Bush; it seemed painfully obvious that the difference between the two, fashionably downplayed by Leftists and others (like Bill Maher, after quietly abandoning his endorsement of Gore) at the time, was not trivial.
So here is a paradox -- the liberal mainstream IS decisively better (or less bad) in power at least in some ways (war, deficit, etc) than the Repug alternatives -- and possible hardcops -- but are still willing and avid practioners, sometimes of the very same sorts of dirty tricks and indifference to the oppression of authentic progressives. There is much reason for building a third party alternative SPECIFICALLY within those areas that have been gerrymandered to be solidly blue. It is a two track or multi-track strategy for authentic progressives, but one which I for one think makes sense.
Phew!
November 25, 2007 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
What this boils down to for me is accountability. We've heard this word used often in reference to politicans (although rarely applied) but we desperately need to start applying it to all aspects of America.
I watched all of 5 minutes of Face the Nation this morning before bile & rage forced me to turn the channel. I sat there watching as 4 'experts', each touting what were liberally called 'books', unflinchingly spouted countless lies and false claims regarding Iran, Iraq, al-Queda and more. Most of the rubbish they said has long been proven false. Yet there they were, repeating the lies and using them to support their position. When you build a house out of such rotten wood is it really very surprising when the thing collapses? Welcome to the world of posts - post 9-11, post Katrina, post Enron, post Iraq, post housing bubble, post torture, and at this rate soon post America. It all just turns your stomach, well it does for me at least.
The problem as I see it permiates nearly all corners of our society. The problem is lying. Insurance companies lie to people. The banks lie to people. The 'news' lies to people. Politicians lie to people, and people lie to one another. It's so common, so accepted & expected that people no longer believe the truth when it walks up & bites them in the @$$. Lying is so very common that the truth now seems the lie, it's insanity. We need to do more in battling lies. There needs to be a price paid. People, all people, need to be held accountable. I'm tired of the lies and the liars.
November 25, 2007 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
And think about this: An influential figure in today's august journalism thinks that in writing the above you are a liberal dupe.
Todd Gitlin
November 25, 2007 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
HAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA,
Howard, :-)
November 25, 2007 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
November 25, 2007 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
James E. Powell,
The mea culpas have in fact occured early on (remember "vandalgate"), but they most certainly do not implement any lessons among the punditocracy. It's like there is no discipline called history anymore.
November 26, 2007 5:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Clintons remain, to this day, accused of hypocrisy for never living up to the ridiculous nonsense those disgruntled Arkansas klansmen made up about them.
Meanwhile, Dan Rather was fired, on the say-so of a supposed typewriter expert-turned-blogger, for reporting the truth about W's missing Guard service.
Good for Halperin, for finally noticing the tip of the obvious iceberg. Maybe he's saving the phony equivalence for next week. Or next decade.
November 26, 2007 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink