Thursday, July 24, 2008

Be Careful of What You Wish For

Over the past few months conservatives and members of the GOP (Grumpy Old Party) all but dared Sen. Barack Obama to go to Iraq and Afghanistan, figuring any success that additional troops in Iraq have provided would make Obama look bad and his idea of pulling out troops seem questionable.

Instead Obama was photographed time and time again with foreign leaders, giving Obama the impression of being presidential. Add to that Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, was quoted as saying that he backed the senator’s plan to bring home all US combat troops within 16 months, and American TV viewers were treated to scenes of troops eager to meet with Obama, and Obama looking like a statesman while reviewing the mess in Afghanistan.

And all of this before Obama even got to Germany where 200,000 people came to hear him speak in Berlin. But Sen. John McCain had his own foreign "trip," eating lunch at a German sausage shop.

Somehow the idea of large crowds scare conservatives. Perhaps it destroys the myth that liberal policies are not popular and instead shows that conservatism is of limited appeal. Afterall the only way George Bush could have adoring crowds was to screen the crowds to limit the average American from attending. Nothing like being scared of your own people.

The key for Obama though will be turning the large crowds into large voter turnout. If people don't think the election will be close they might not vote.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

A Nation of Whiners?

Sen. John McCain has said economics isn't his strong suit, so it's not much of a surprise that he selected former Sen. Phil Gramm as his economic advisor. Gramm, also known as Foreclosure Phil, has been described as "a guy who helped screw up the global financial system," seems perfect as McCain's financial advisor.

Gramm's never been one to apologize for his economic failings and on Thursday he solidified his rank as a Republican when he said the United States had "become a nation of whiners." He later complained that he was referring to leaders not the public. Right, when Sen. John Kerry told a joke about Bush, the right wing nuts convinced the public he was talking about the troops so its hard to be sympathetic. Did Gramm and his staff defend Kerry for the nuts mischaracterization? I doubt it.

Perhaps they are whiners because they don't feel they are treated fairly by their employeers or the government. Gramm apparently has a different view of who should be whining. In an article in the Wall Street Journal Gramm said "I recently told Ed Whitacre [former CEO of AT&T, who retired with a $158 million pay package] he was probably the most exploited worker in American history."

Only $158 million? When is enough enough? Is there no line where people look at the good of the whole as opposed to the good of the few?

Economic cluelessness or carelessness is rampant in the Republican party and also in the McCain campaign. On Social Security McCain saidAmericans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that’s a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace, and it’s got to be fixed,” he said.

What the REAL disgrace is is that Social Security taxes are not all going to pay benefits, or being saved, but rather being used by the government to give the illusion that the deficit is lower than it is and allow the Bush Administration to avoid raising taxes to pay for the tax cuts they passes and the war in Iraq.

Now that's a economic disgrace.

Fox News Bullies

George Carlin spoke about the seven words you can't say on television. Apparently according to the New York Times the seven letters that the media avoid typing is Fox News.

According to the New York Times articles, Fox News people are such jerks that the media self censor themselves to avoid having to deal with Fox. As David Carr wrote in the Times article, "as crude as that sounds, it works. By blacklisting reporters it does not like, planting stories with friendlies at every turn, Fox News has been living a life beyond consequence for years. Honesty compels me to admit that I have choked a few times at the keyboard when Fox News has come up in a story and it was not absolutely critical to the matter at hand."

Perhaps the best example was when a New York Times reporter repeatedly tried to get a comment from Fox News on a ratings story but couldn't get his calls returned yet "in a neat trick, while they were ignoring his calls, they e-mailed his boss asking why they had not heard from him."

This harkens back to how "The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, the Times reported.

One can only assume all of this is part of conservatives efforts to skew the news. After all conservatives expect the media to be conservative and are upset when that doesn't work. Liberals expect coverage to be balanced and are upset when it isn't.

That is why Fox News is the media of choice for conservatives and NPR is the media of choice for liberals. By continual complaining about coverage, conservatives are able to bully the media into reporting their version of reality because it is no longer worth going after the facts. And once the media is bullied into submission, the new "reality" becomes accepted.

Perhaps rather than "We Report, You Decide," Fox News slogan should be "We distort, You're Deceived."