« September 6, 2009 - September 12, 2009 | Home | September 20, 2009 - September 26, 2009 »

Week of September 13, 2009 - September 19, 2009

Carter's Little Liver Pill


Jimmy Carter told Brian Williams that much of the hardcore dissent against President Obama was race-based. This sentiment was not uncommon in the African-American community. No one seemed to recall armed protesters arriving at Clinton or GW Bush meetings. One expects much fury on both sides of the issue to be heard in the MSM today.

I generally don't watch "Morning Joe" because  I don't learn anything new. But today, following Carter's comments, I was ready to be entertained. I wasn't disappointed. Joe Scarborough's panel consisted of by Mika B, Maria Batiromo, Mike Barnacle and Jonathan Capehart. What I have come to expect from "Morning Joe" is a detailed rationale of how crazy lefties had screwed something up. The segment I saw followed the expected pattern.

Joe told of being from the South and having been on an elevator when someone made a racist comment, all heads, presumably White, turned towards the offender in disgust. According to Scarborough, Carter lives in a bubble and does not know the modern South. I should point out that Carter did say that the racism was not just in the South, but throughout the country.

Mika B chimed in that Carter's comments turned back the clock on race relations and that discussion of race had no place in the political dissent that we were witnessing. It is amazing how fast the post-racial clock can go in reverse because one person's statement. The timing mechanism on the race clock must be pretty weak.

Maria Batiromo was visibly upset.. The financial reporter almost yelled while stating, "It's obvious that you can disagree with the President and not be racist. This is ridiculous". Capehart could borrow some of Bartiromo's passion.

Barnacle put on his sad face and said, "Am I the only one who is depressed that we are discussing race?"

Patrick J Buchanan's name came up during the discussion, reminding me of his "Thank Whitey column, his apology for Hitler's going to war, and the grief he feels because Robert E Lee is not as revered as MLK Jr. I'm supposed to take  show that employs Buchanan as a guidepost for disccusns on race. sorry for the sidestep, but I truly don't see how Buchanan remains employed by MSM.

Capehart, the only African-American on the panel used the calm indoor voice of a reporter and briefly noted that Carter was talking about a small vocal group of Obama protesters. Capehart then moved on to discuss how the politics of the issue would play out for President Obama. None of the passion shown by fellow MSM denizen Maria Bartiromo was present.

This segment confirmed my impression of how MSM is rigged against serious discussion of race. One, there was a lone black voice against four White  voices. Two, Capehart is a reporter who appears dedicated to seeing both sides of an issue. Scarborough, Mika B, Bartiromo and Barnacle have no problem giving you their opinion.

Black reporters insist on being reporters and are reluctant to give personal opinions. Placing black reporters in a situation where personal opinions are being requested, means that the viewpoint of members of the African-American community are not going to be heard. Thus, a number of black viewers are going to lose any sense of connection to parts of MSM..

I went from Scarborough to listening to "The Tom Joyner Morning Show" on radio. Joyner serves a largely African-American audience.In the segment I heard, there was a brief mention of Carter's observation followed by a comment by a co-host, "I'm glad Cater finally put that out there."  No more needed to be said during the town halls there had been discussion of just how outrageous some of the behavior had been, including the destruction of  a Rosa Parks sign being held up by  an African-American women. A White male at the town hall came over and snatched the sign from her hands, when the woman responded, she was escorted out of the meeting. The initial video of the episode just showed an upset black female being led from the audience. "Why are black people so angry all the time?", the camera appeared to be asking.

The MSM simply does not have enough on air minority voices to really let the country know how other ethnic groups feel about a given issue. It is not the job of black reporters to relate opinion, doing so would  give rise to charges of bias. Reporters like Bartiromo do not face that type of pressure. In the case of the woman with the Rosa Parks sign, the images were selected to reflect a story the news producer had in mind. The producer felt no need to delve into the facts of the case. The audience as a whole is not given the full story and African-American opinion in particular is stifled.

The image of the Black woman being escorted out of the town hall did not tell the full story. The images coming out of the Obama protesters may not be telling the full story, but the solution is to actually ask  why they bring a weapon to an Obama meeting, but didn't to Clinton or Bush? Carter just said what many are already thinking about protest on the Right,

Let the media actually talk to black people and the protesters.


The Other 912 Rally at the National Mall


Sep 14 2009, 12:09 pm by Max Fisher from tHe Atlantic Magazine


I'm just going to post this i it's entirety

The Other 9/12 Rally

Just how many people attended Saturday's 9/12 tea-party protest? Estimates by conservatives range from the hundreds of thousands to the millions -- numbers they say indicate a growing anti-Obama grassroots movement. Unsurprisingly, liberal pundits are pushing back, saying protesters came out in the tens of thousands. So far, the debate is hinging on photos of the rally, which appear to show the National Mall packed from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, 16 blocks away. A National Park Service map pegged to the 2008 inauguration appears to show that the Mall holds about a million people. Bloggers have overlaid the map with photos from Saturday. Case closed, right? Not so, as there's an important detail both conservatives and liberals are ignoring.

What no one has noted is that two-thirds of the National Mall was filled by an entirely separate event on Saturday that had nothing to do with protesting the president. September 12 just happened to be the 24th-annual Black Family Reunion, which ran from 7th Street all the way to the Washington Monument. I spent several hours on the Mall on Saturday, and there's no question that protesters numbered at least in the tens of thousands, but they were isolated to only a fraction of the area they're credited with having filled. The Black Family Reunion, a peaceful and friendly event designed around "healing and uplifting black families," featured mild-mannered African American families meandering through a series of promotional tables and large white tents scattered across the Mall. One crowd gathered across from the Washington Monument, not to protest health-care reform but to enjoy a Christian-themed R&B concert, where volunteers handed out free water bottles and bananas.

Not even the most biased observer could have mistaken these people for anti-Obama protesters. So why did so many pundits conflate the cheery Black Family Reunion with the angry tea-party protesters? The answer, I think, is that they either weren't there or didn't bother to leave the protest's zenith on the Capitol steps. It's an institutional hazard of covering protests that reporters seek out the center of the action and don't budge, giving them great anecdotes from individual attendees but little sense of the event's overall scope. Similarly, it's easy for bloggers to just read after-action reports or browse a few photos before drawing conclusions. But these are both risky strategies for covering big events, and it's easy to see why people are so confused about Saturday's attendance figures.

Also see 1849's blog

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/1849/2009/09/how-many-people-where-on-the-n.php?ref=reccafe


« September 6, 2009 - September 12, 2009 | Home | September 20, 2009 - September 26, 2009 »

rmrd0000

user-pic

Following:
Followers: 4

Posts
Comments & Recommends


Favorites

All Reader Posts
How to use myTPM

Advertise Liberally
Share
Close Social Web Email

"To" Email Address

Your Name

Your Email Address