Republicans

Michael Steele Slits His Own Political Throat – Praises ACORN

Posted by on October 6, 2009 at 1:20 pm. 4 Comments :

The Party’s over. At least for the Chairman of the Republican Party.

If nothing else, Michael Steele has been a fountain of mirth for Democrats. He as given us a seemingly bottomless well of malaprops, policy flops, and Hip Hops. He has courageously embarked on what can only be described as a reckless course fraught with risk and a certain affection for being on the edge.

But today he has gone too far. He has extended beyond the edge and is floating in mid air like Wile E. Coyote of the old Road Runner cartoon, yet to realize that there is no terra firma beneath him. His fall is nonetheless imminent.

In the the audio below you can hear Steele stepping further out onto the limb than any Republican has ever dared to go. You will actually hear him praise ACORN and its current leader:

Now THAT’S entertainment! And he is proving himself to be quite a daredevil.

“I will say that the current head of the organization, she’s done a phenomenal job getting out in front of it. I applaud her. I take her at her word that she wants to work to make sure that the bad apples are thrown out. That the work that, I mean…Keep in mind that this organization has been around a long time.”

And he goes even further to praise, not just an individual, but after a brief disclaimer, he lauds the whole enterprise:

“Now I’m not a big fan of ACORN for a whole lot of reasons, because of my own feelings with some of their folks over the years. But I do respect the fact it has a history of working in the community and helping the poor.“

And if that isn’t enough, he then proceeds to express his desire that ACORN successfully navigates their current difficulties and resumes their community organizing:

“It’s going to be one of those issues that, hopefully, they can get rectified. But until they do, they’re going to have to live with the stigma of the bad acts because of the federal funds that they’ve taken, because of the corruption that individuals have been convicted on so far. So we’ll see how this plays out.”

Setting aside his false assertion that any individuals have been convicted, he is quite correct that “we’ll see how this plays out.” But can this play out in any way that preserves his position as head of the Party? Can the RNC tolerate a leader that praises ACORN and hopes for its redemption?

Remember, this is the same Michael Steele who lectured on the ideology of hats:

“I’m asking you to go out and ask your friends to wear our hat. The hat of an idea.”

This is the same Michael Steele who can’t see any boundaries:

“I don’t do ‘cutting-edge.’ That’s what Democrats are doing. We’re going beyond cutting-edge.”

This is the same Michael Steele who promised to deliver “change in a tea bag.”

This is the same Michael Steele who declared that apologies were a thing of the past:

“The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done.”

Indeed it is. It is over done. It is toast of the most burnt variety. Can Steele possibly survive this affront to everything the Republican Party (via their mouthpiece, Fox News) holds dear? Will any apology suffice, even if he were willing to issue one?

Ordinarily, Steele only apologizes to other Republicans. For instance the time he said that Rush Limbaugh’s antics were “incendiary” and “ugly/” After that mishap he had to beg Rush for forgiveness. But he also said that it wasn’t gaffe, it was all part of his master plan:

“So if I do something, there’s a reason for it. Even, it may look like a mistake, a gaffe. There is a rationale, there’s a logic behind it. […] I want to see what the landscape looks like. I want to see who yells the loudest. I wanted to know who says they’re with me but really isn’t.”

I’m not so sure that other Republicans are going to see Steele’s affection for ACORN as much of plan. And I wouldn’t bet on his enduring occupancy of the RNC chairmanship. This is a huge disappointment for me. I was hoping for a Palin/Steele ticket in 2012. There doesn’t seem to be much hope for that now. It appears there’s just one thing left to say: Buh Bye, Mikey.

NYT: David Brooks vs. The Wizard of Beck

Posted by on October 2, 2009 at 2:25 pm. 1 Comments :

It took long enough. The evidence has been there for years. Somehow it has been inadvertently missed or deliberately ignored by most of the Conventional Media. But the truth has a persistent habit of elbowing its way into the public consciousness.

Today’s New York Times published an editorial by conservative pundit David Brooks that breaks news that most observant analysts have known for months or years: The uber-rightist blowhards on Fox News and talk radio are phony commanders of a tiny, but rabid assortment of fringe-dwelling followers. And the more they are appeased, the farther they venture from reality.

Brooks: “It is a story of remarkable volume and utter weakness. It is the story of media mavens who claim to represent a hidden majority but who in fact represent a mere niche – even in the Republican Party. It is a story as old as “The Wizard of Oz,” of grand illusions and small men behind the curtain.”

Better late than never. The revelation that Brooks is boasting is simply the notion that it’s better to win at the ballot box than on the idiot box. Two months ago I wrote an article that illustrated just how contrary were the concepts of media and political success: As Fox News Goes Up, The GOP Goes Down. A month before that I published an article on how Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party. It explored in detail how the embrace of lunatics and their demented ravings, along with a misunderstanding of the television marketplace, was literally dragging the Republican Party down to some of its lowest historical depths:

Me: “The more the population at large associates Republican ideology with the agenda of Fox News, and the fringe operators residing there, the more the party will be perceived as out of touch, or even out of their minds.”

~~~

“Republicans are riding the coattails of Fox News as if it were representative of a booming conservative mandate in the electorate. They are embracing Fox’s most delusional eccentrics. This is leading to the promotion of similar eccentrics within the party. Which brings us the absurd spectacle of the network’s nuts interviewing the party’s pinheads.”

I could even go back to May of 2007 when I wrote The Cult Of Foxonality™ Part I, that argued that Fox viewers had become more attached to the network than to the Republican Party or conservatism.

So Brooks is joining a rather recent parade of pundits who are stepping back from the wacko contingent. Last month the American Enterprise Institute’s David Frum took a swipe at the “reckless defamation” practiced by Glenn Beck. Frum advised that it is beyond time that conservatives begin…

“…emancipating ourselves from leadership by the most stupid, the most cynical, and the most truthless.”

And Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs warned of…

“…further marginalization of the GOP unless people start behaving like adults instead of angry kids throwing tantrums and ranting about conspiracies and revolution.”

However, as Brooks appears to have attained enlightenment, he sadly slips back into pundit-speak that betrays his lack of insight. In lamenting the egotistical self-promotion of the ranting class, Brooks blames Democrats for their endurance:

“They still ride the airwaves claiming to speak for millions. They still confuse listeners with voters. And they are aided in this endeavor by their enablers. They are enabled by cynical Democrats, who love to claim that Rush Limbaugh controls the G.O.P.”

What Brooks fails to grasp is that Democrats aren’t enabling Limbaugh, Beck, et al. They are anchoring Republicans with the dead weight of these TV and radio clowns as a means to define an otherwise personality-less party. It isn’t an accident – it’s a strategy. Just as Brooks recognizes that the association of media nutcases with the party is harmful, he should figure out that that is precisely why Democrats are encouraging the association.

The most profound observation in the column was Brooks’ assertion that the problem for Republicans is that “They mistake media for reality.” That is undeniably true for the Party as well as for most of the media. In fact, it is an even bigger problem that the media mistakes itself for reality. And the consequences are devastating for both the practice of journalism and for democracy.


[Purchase FreakShow stickers at Crass Commerce]

Addendum: Neal Gabler has an outstanding editorial in the the Los Angeles Times that addresses these same issues: Politics as religion in America. Highly recommended.

The Cult Of Foxonality™ Part II

Posted by on September 4, 2009 at 4:59 pm. 10 Comments :

A little over two years ago I wrote an article titled, The Cult Of Foxonality™. It’s premise was that…

“Fox viewers appear to be more loyal to Fox than to Republicans or conservatism. This misdirected allegiance bestows a far more influential authority onto a media entity than ought ever to be considered. It suggests that the bombastic demagogues that Fox has shaped into celebrity anchors truly do weigh down their transfixed disciples.”

That piece employed an analysis of ratings and viewer habits at the time that confirmed that Fox News viewers were wedded to their cable hearth and would not be moved. Subsequent events reinforced the theory. For instance, prior to the election, a Rasmussen poll reported that nine out of ten Fox News viewers intended to vote for John McCain. That’s a higher percentage of McCain voters than amongst Republicans.

Recently, Fox News has been building on their ratings dominance. In an attempt to understand why Fox would be increasing their audience at a time when Republicans are reaching new lows, I revisited the cult hypothesis. No other model adequately explains the stark divergence of the fates of Fox News and the Republican Party.

Looking at the current cable news landscape, there is an obvious separation of the primary players. Fox News is far and away the leader. MSNBC is the spunky challenger that has recently overtaken the old master, CNN. It would be easy to assign labels that reflect the partisan programming philosophy of these networks. However, in truth, there is only one truly partisan network among them.

Fox News’ success is firmly rooted in its primetime lineup. With Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Greta Van Susteren all easily winning their time periods. Add to that Glenn Beck’s arrival that has put him in competition with perennial leader O’Reilly. But it doesn’t stop there.

Fox’s business anchor (and head of their business network) is Neil Cavuto, an aggressively conservative advocate for right-wing viewpoints. Fox’s Washington editor is the blatantly partisan Bill Sammon. The White House correspondent is the equally biased Major Garrett. The Fox morning program is an almost laughable cliche of wingnut dunces.

Compare that to MSNBC’s schedule that consists of only two reliable liberals. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. [Edit: Add Ed Schultz] Chris Matthews swings both ways and is close buddies with folks like Tom Delay and Rudy Giuliani. Their morning program is three hours hosted by the conservative Republican, former congressman, Joe Scarborough. (Can you imagine Fox News giving three daily hours of airtime to a liberal Democrat?) CNN has become devoid of any personality at all. Their leading figures are null types like Larry King and Anderson Cooper. Although Lou Dobbs does stand out a bit.

So here is the interesting part. Glenn Beck was on CNN just a few months ago with nowhere near the audience he has today on Fox. CNN’s Dobbs, and MSNBC’s Scarborough are as conservative as anyone on Fox, but they can’t duplicate those numbers. What this tells us is that cable news success has little to do with partisanship. If it did, Dobbs and Scarborough would be doing Fox-like business, and Beck would not have had to move to Fox to find an audience. But he did have to move. Because Fox viewers, despite their obvious idolization of him now, were not going to go to CNN to see him. And it wasn’t because they didn’t know who he was. He was already the third biggest star on talk radio.

Therefore, the key to the popularity of Fox is that it is Fox. Their viewers are not interested in programs that feature the same ideology if presented on other networks. CNN could hire Sarah Palin and she would flop. But not on Fox. In fact, I would wager that if Dobbs and/or Scarborough shifted to Fox, everyone would be astonished at their newfound popularity.

Fox is the home of the forlorn, conservative, tea bagging, town howler. They have found their happy place, and they have no intention of moving from it. It is what gives them solace in a time when liberals (or socialists/fascists) have taken over the House, the Senate, and even put a dark-skinned, Muslim, illegal alien in the White House. They need the camaraderie. They need the affirmation. They need the reassurance that the world isn’t crumbling beneath them (or in Beck’s case, that it is). They are even marketing the Fox Nation web site with the undisguised message of a promise of togetherness.

It’s just so sad. I think I’m gonna cry. But that would be Glenn Beck’s shtick.

As Fox News Goes Up, The GOP Goes Down

Posted by on August 10, 2009 at 4:04 pm. 7 Comments :

Last month I published an article on how Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party. It explored in detail how the embrace of lunatics and their demented ravings, along with a misunderstanding of the television marketplace, was literally dragging the Republican Party down to some of its lowest historical depths:

“The more the population at large associates Republican ideology with the agenda of Fox News, and the fringe operators residing there, the more the party will be perceived as out of touch, or even out of their minds.”

Now Gawker has affirmed my analysis with a chart showing the divergent prospects of Fox News and the Republican Party. I took the liberty of modifying their chart to spotlight the period following last November’s election (amongst other things, like the demise of the GOP logo).

It couldn’t be much clearer. The post-election fate of Fox News is diametrically opposed to that of the GOP. The disparity has increased sinced November and shows no signs of letting up. Gawker sums it up nicely saying…

“Fox News’ viewership is up 45% over the last year, and it’s easy to see why: The ascendancy of a charismatic black Democrat has driven frightened, paranoid, enraged, nativist zealots into the ideological embrace of an outlet that habitually reconfirms everything they already believe. Watching Glenn Beck’s spell-binding sermons on Barack Obama’s racism is comforting to people who believe that their way of life-namely, one in which fatherly white Christians protect us from danger both internal and external-is under attack. So they do it more frequently. Tuning into Hannity et.al. becomes a life-affirming political act.”

Nuff said.

Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party

Posted by on July 24, 2009 at 11:56 am. 38 Comments :

The case was made long ago that Fox News is a blight on the media map. It is bad for journalism. It is bad for Democracy. It is bad for America. A so-called “news” network that repeatedly misinforms, even deliberately disinforms, its audience is failing any test of public service embodied by an ethical press.

I, personally, have made the case for an embargo of Fox News by Democrats and progressives (see Starve the Beast: Part I, Part II, Part III), documenting via studied analysis that there is no affirmative value to appearing on Fox News – a network that has established itself as overtly hostile to the Democratic message and its messengers.

However, there is another side to this that has not been addressed previously. Republicans might be well advised to avoid Fox News as well. There is a case to be made that Fox News is demonstrably harmful to the Republican Party. In fact, it may be the worst thing to happen to Republicans in decades. That may seem counter-intuitive when discussing Fox News, the acknowledged public relations division of the Republican Party. Fox has populated its air with right-wing mouthpieces and brazenly partisan advocates for a conservative Republican agenda. They read GOP press releases on the air verbatim as if they were the product of original research. They provide a forum where Republican politicians and pundits can peddle their views unchallenged. So how is this harmful to Republicans?

If all we were witnessing was the emergence of a mainstream conservative network that aspired to advance Republican themes and policies, there would not be much of note here. Most of the conventional media was already center-right before there was a Fox News. But Fox has corralled a stable of the most disreputable, unqualified, extremist, lunatics ever assembled, and is presenting them as experts, analysts, and leaders. These third-rate icons of idiocy are marketed by Fox like any other gag gift (i.e. pet rocks, plastic vomit, Sarah Palin, etc.). So while most Americans have never heard of actual Republican party bosses like House Minority Leader John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, posers like Joe the Plumber and Carrie Prejean have become household names.

Fox News has descended into depths heretofore reserved for fringe characters. They are openly promoting the wackos who believe that President Obama is ineligible to hold office because he isn’t a U.S. citizen. They feature commentaries by secessionists and even those calling for an overthrow of the government and the Constitution. This explains how folks like Ralph Peters, a retired military officer who said that the Taliban captors of a U.S. Soldier would be saving us a lot of trouble and expense if they would just kill him, earn airtime on Fox. Peters previously told Fox News that he favors military strikes against media targets. This explains how Glenn Beck can agree with a guest that it would be a good thing if America were attacked again by Osama bin Laden. And don’t even get me started on Victoria Jackson, who has joined an ever-lengthening line of psycho-Chicken Littles who compare the President to Hitler.

Good Advice:
“If crazy ideologues have infiltrated the news business, we need to know about it.”
~ Bill O’Reilly, 7/16/09

The list of loonies extends to politicians like Michele Bachmann, entertainers like Ted Nugent, and of course, the talk show pundits like Rush Limbaugh, whose maniacal rantings are elevated by Fox into their version of political dialogue. It’s a dialogue that is consumed with ACORN conspiracies and Manchurian presidents. The problem is that by elevating bona fide nutcases, they are debasing honest and informed discourse. The mental cases are crowding out any reasonable voices that might exist amongst the more moderate Republicans (if there are any left). Fox appears to have made a tactical decision to permit the inmates full run of the asylum.

As a result, the Fox News audience is being dumbed down by a parade of paranoid know-nothings. This strategy appears to be successful for Fox in that it has attracted a loyal viewership that is eager to have their twisted preconceptions affirmed. The conflict-infused fare in which Fox specializes is a ratings juggernaut – just like any good fiction. However, this perceived popularity is having an inordinate impact on the GOP platform. By doubling down on crazy, Fox is driving the center of the Republican Party further down the rabid hole. They are reshaping the party into a more radicalized community of conspiracy nuts. So even as this helps Rupert Murdoch’s bottom line, it is making celebrities of political bottom-feeders. That can’t be good for the long-term prospects of the Republican Party.

With the Fox network unabashedly promoting the most ridiculous rumors, myths, and nightmares of the rightist fringe, moderate and independent Americans will grow ever more suspicious of the Fox/GOP agenda. Most Americans do not believe that Sonia Sotomayor is a racist; or that FEMA is constructing concentration camps; or that we are on a march toward socialism, communism, fascism, or whatever the right is peddling this week. Most Americans do not believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim, a reptilian alien, or the anti-Christ. In short, most Americans think that the loopy yarns spun by Fox News are fables told by madmen – and believed by even madder men and women who wallow in their doomsday utopia.

Fox News is fond of boasting about their ratings dominance. It is a daily occurrence and the structural core of their argument that they reflect the mood of America. The GOP has bought this argument in its entirety. So it is important to note here that success in the Nielsen ratings has no correlation to public opinion polling. The ratings only measure the program choices of Nielsen’s survey participants. That is a subset of the population at large, and not a particularly representative one. It is a sample focused on consumers, not voters. And its respondents are just those willing to have their TV viewing monitored 24 hours a day, which skews the sample in favor of people who aren’t creeped out by that. What’s more, viewing choices are not necessarily an endorsement of the opinions presented in the program. There are many reasons people choose to watch TV shows, the most frequent being its entertainment value. So any attempt to tie ratings to partisan politics is a foolish exercise that demonstrates a grievous misunderstanding of the business of television.

As for what constitutes success in the television marketplace, due to the broad diversification of available programming, it doesn’t take much to be heralded as a hit. A mere 3 share (3% of people watching TV) will land you in the top 10. For cable news the bar is set even lower. In fact, the top rated show on the top rated cable news network (The O’Reilly Factor) only gets about 3 million viewers. That’s less than 1% of the American population. It’s also less than World Wrestling Entertainment, SpongeBob SquarePants, and the CBS Evening News (the lowest rated broadcast network news program). By contrast, America’s Got Talent is seen by 12 million viewers – four times O’Reilly’s audience.

Numbers this low ought not to inspire much excitement from political operatives. Nevertheless, Republicans are riding the coattails of Fox News as if it were representative of a booming conservative mandate in the electorate. They are embracing Fox’s most delusional eccentrics. This is leading to the promotion of similar eccentrics within the party. Which brings us the absurd spectacle of the network’s nuts interviewing the party’s pinheads.

The inevitable result of this system of rewarding those farthest from reality is the creation of a constituency of crackpots. It is an endorsement of the philosophy brewed by the Tea Baggers that espouses racism, tyranny, and armed revolt. It is enabling a frightening corps of openly militant adversaries of democracy, free speech, and Constitutional rule. It is the sort of environment that produced the murders of Dr. George Tiller and Holocaust Museum guard Stephen Johns.

This is a textbook example of how the extreme rises to the top. It is also fundamentally contrary to the interests of the Republican Party. The more the population at large associates Republican ideology with the agenda of Fox News, and the fringe operators residing there, the more the party will be perceived as out of touch, or even out of their minds. It seems like such a waste after all of the effort and expense that Fox put into building a pseudo-journalistic enterprise with the goal of confounding viewers with false news-like theatrics.

Make no mistake, Fox News is still managed by hard core party patrons. And I’m not referring just to opinion-driven commentators like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity, although they are bad enough. No, I am talking about executives and editors like CEO, Roger Ailes, former Nixon and Bush media consultant. I’m talking about Washington Managing Editor and VP, Bill Sammon, an avid right-wing alum of the Washington “Moonie” Times. I’m talking about Business News Chief and VP, Neil Cavuto, antagonistic interrupter extraordinaire. And let us not forget the head hype-master, Rupert Murdoch, whose UK operations were just discovered to have been unlawfully wiretapping celebrities, politicians, and even members of the Royal Family. Augmenting that executive roster are the GOP regulars who are straight out of the just retired Republican White House: Karl Rove, Dana Perino, John Bolton, Dan Senor, and Linda Chavez. And then there are the Fox News clowns…er…“contributors” like Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, Fred Barnes, Charles Krauthammer, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Bernie Goldberg, Michele Malkin, and on and on. If nothing else, Fox is a full-employment program for rightist weasels (and they also operate the Conservative Book Promotion Club).

The mission of Fox News from its inception was to be more than just a voice of opposition to Democrats. It was to utterly crush the left end of the political spectrum leaving only a teetering right wing with no counter balance. Yet, despite the torrid embrace between Republicans and Fox News, it is apparent that Fox is the source of a sort of friendly fire that is decimating the GOP by exalting its most outlandish and unpopular players. And since Republicans have not been particularly popular anyway lately, the anchor being thrown to them by Fox can’t be all that helpful – – – Except to Democrats.

Brent Bozell To GOP: Set A Torch To That Big Tent

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 1:36 pm. NO Comments :

Brent Bozell, the president of the uber-conservative Media Research Center, has issued a bit of advice for the Republican Party that ought to make Democrats everywhere ecstatic.

“Incoming memo to the GOP: Set a torch to that big tent of yours. People are flocking from liberals’ failing policy and ideals.”

The impetus for this counsel is new polling from Gallup that says that Americans in recent years have become more conservative. Bozell’s knee-jerk reaction typifies the shallow and partisan analysis for which he is known.

The Gallup poll cited by Bozell does indeed show that 39% of Americans consider themselves more conservative than they did a few years ago. What Bozell fails to reveal is that a significant majority of those who say they have become more conservative were conservative to begin with.

Plus, it is mostly Republicans whose views have shifted more to the right. So what we are seeing is primarily a hardening of ideology by those who were already on the right side of the scale.

In addition, a prior Gallup poll showed that Republicans already reside in the smallest of tents, with 73% describing themselves as conservative and only 4% as liberal and 24% moderate. Democrats, on the other hand, breakdown to 38% liberal, 40% moderate and 22% conservative, a much more balanced community.

The obvious conclusion from the data in this poll is that there isn’t any advantage for officeholders or candidates to swing to the right. Even if the American people are sliding slightly rightward, that doesn’t mean that they will vote Republican. Just take a look at the results of last November’s election when Democrats took the White House and added seats in both chambers of congress. And contrary to Bozell’s contention that “people are flocking from liberals’ failing policy and ideals,” Gallup explicitly debunks that claim in their polling on specific issues.

Consequently, Bozell’s advice to the GOP to circle the wagons and become more exclusionary than ever can only help Democrats, who are presently viewed as more tolerant of diverse opinions. The public still blames Bush for the economy and Iraq; still prefers Obama’s approach to healthcare and immigration; and still has a 63% approval rating for the President.

So light up your torches, Republicans. Fan those embers of your party’s support. Feed the flaming rhetoric of your right flank. You are only going to burn down your own house.

Republicans Yearning For Fairness Doctrine At Healthcare Forum

Posted by on June 23, 2009 at 11:31 am. 2 Comments :

For at least the past six months, conservative pundits and politicians have fashioned their fear of the Fairness Doctrine into an obsession. Despite the fact that liberals and Democrats, including the President, have expressly stated that they do not favor the Doctrine’s reinstatement, Republicans continue to scamper like frightened ducklings in the shadow of an enemy that doesn’t exist.

How ironic then, that it is the Republican Party and their media mouthpieces who are now crying foul and demanding fair treatment. The object of their scorn is the upcoming ABC News broadcast of a healthcare themed town hall held in the White House. The cry has gone out from the right that this is nothing more than an infomercial for Obamacare and further evidence that the media is “in the tank” for Obama.

There is good reason to maintain a general skepticism with regard to how the press will cover any event, but common sense demands that assessments be made based on what actually occurs and not on imaginary prognostications. How these critics can claim that they know what is going take place before the forum is held, I don’t know. But that is exactly what they are doing.

Immediately after ABC announced the program, the Republican National Committee fired off an indignant letter complaining that they were…

“…deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC’s astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue”

However, there was no such decision made by ABC. To the contrary, they clearly stated that multiple views would be represented and that the President’s policy proposals would be challenged. The RNC’s position went even further saying that…

“Today, the Republican National Committee requested an opportunity to add our Party’s views to those of the President’s to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented.”

How cute that the RNC now wants to ensure that all sides are presented, and that they believe the media has an obligation to provide this balance. That view has been parroted by everyone in the right-wing mediasphere. All of the usual suspects: Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Drudge, Hot Air, Human Events, and, of course, Fox News, have weighed in on this perceived violation of journalistic ethics. They have all agreed with the RNC’s demand that ABC provide equal time for their views and their spokespeople.

Setting aside for the moment that ABC has promised that there will be multiple views represented, why is this Republican demand not seen as an endorsement of the Fairness Doctrine? How do they reconcile their past abhorrence of fairness with their new found affinity for it?

The truth is, Republicans are only interested in fairness when they feel that they are the aggrieved party. They never mentioned it when Fox News presented infomercials for George Bush. It isn’t an issue when Dick Cheney gets wall-to-wall coverage to bash Obama. And it is wholly irrelevant in the context of the right’s domination of talk radio. But if a TV network should propose to question the President on one of the most important issues of the day, Republicans believe that the media should guarantee them a seat at the inquisitors table.

To illustrate the absurdity of their claims, try to imagine how Fox News would have handled this program. Would they have refused to come to the White House for such an event? Of course not. Any news enterprise would have jumped at this opportunity. Would they have invited Howard Dean to join their panel of reporters? Yeah, sure they would, and Hugo Chavez too. Would they have altered their programming plans to facilitate critics? Well, they never have before, so…..

The hypocrisy of Republicans pretending care about fairness is really only part of the story. In all likelihood, they are just attempting to work the refs. By complaining about bias they hope to influence ABC reporters to overcompensate by taking a harder line against the President’s policies. That’s a pretty good tactic that usually works, given the mushiness of the mainstream media. The RNC is also exploiting this issue to raise money, and have already sent out fund raising appeals tied to the ABC broadcast.

When this is all over, it will be interesting to see how the right-wing opponents of the Fairness Doctrine continue to justify their opposition. Scratch that. It won’t be the least bit interesting. They will just ignore this episode and act as if nothing has changed. That’s how hypocrites operate.

The Republican Advance Team For Terrorism

Posted by on May 25, 2009 at 12:13 pm. 3 Comments :

In the past week, Republican politicians and pundits have been striving mightily to invoke fear in the hearts of the American people. They have been blanketing the airwaves with assertions that President Obama’s policies on national security (Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, torture, etc.) will result in another 9/11. It is a persistent chorus from those who brought us the first 9/11, insisting that Obama is making the country less safe.

On the surface, these panicky critiques could be characterized as warnings to the administration to change course. However, the underlying purpose of this rhetoric is actually to set themselves up to blame Obama should the unthinkable occur. But, in effect, and by their own words, they seem to be up to something even worse. They seem to be signaling to Al Qaeda that now is the time to strike. Take note of what Dick Cheney said on this five years ago:

“Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness.”

That quote always made me wonder if Cheney was admitting that Al Qaeda perceived weakness in the Bush administration nine months after it had assumed power and, thus, took it as an invitation to attack. However, that would presume a greater degree of honesty and self-reflection than Cheney has ever been known to exhibit. No, he was doing the same thing then that he is doing now. Stoking fear that Democrats are leading us down a path of doom. This time, with Democrats actually in power, Cheney is accelerating the rhetoric, and is bringing along reinforcements to alert the terrorists that America is “less safe” and therefore vulnerable.

Cheney: “It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness and would make the American people less safe.”

Mitt Romney: “It’s the very kind of thinking that left America vulnerable to the attacks of Sept. 11th.”

Joe Scarborough (MSNBC): “I knew by the second day that America was less safe.

Laura Ingraham (Fox News): “I think you can make a pretty compelling case that we’re less safe today.”

John Boehner: “I think this is a pre-9/11 mentality, and I think it’ll make our nation less safe.”

Karl Rove: “They’re doing the wrong thing for our country, they’re doing the wrong thing for our men and women in uniform, and they’re making us less safe.

David Gregory (Meet the Press): But do you agree with the vice president when he says that the country is less safe under President Obama?
Newt Gingrich: Absolutely.

Speaking of Newt Gingrich, in 2002, he castigated Al Gore for making a speech that criticized George W. Bush. Gingrich said that it was “well outside the mark of an appropriate debate” for a former vice-president to allege that the current president is making the country less safe. Today, of course, Gingrich is heralding Cheney for doing just that.

The questions we need to ask are these: If you were a terrorist, what would you make of all of this talk? Would it embolden you? Would you view it as an invitation? What point are Republicans trying to make? If they really believe that America’s defenses are weakening, is there a strategic purpose to broadcasting that to our enemies?

The dueling speeches from Obama and Cheney last Thursday presented a stark contrast between the two approaches. Obama offered a strong, fact-based defense of his national security agenda. Cheney reiterated the same old innuendo and fear mongering for which he is so well known. McClatchy’s Washington bureau published a point-by-point article highlighting Cheney’s departure from reality.

On the other hand, the New York Daily News published a hilariously stupid column asserting that Cheney mopped the floor with Obama. The author, Michael Goodwin, praised Cheney’s use of what Goodwin called the “most compelling” fact: “no successful attacks on America since 9/11.” There were also no Bigfoot sightings or asteroid collisions, but I’m not sure that Bush gets credit for that either. And, of course, Goodwin concluded his tripe with the approved message of the day: Obama has “been warned his policies will make it more likely we will be hit again.”

This is the dominant theme of the Republican Party today. This is a party and a philosophy that has told us that our enemies hate us for our freedom and our principles. It’s a party whose actions then led to constraining our freedom and violating our principles via the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus, torture, etc. It is as if they concluded that, since the terrorists hate us for our freedom, all we have to do is to be less free and they won’t hate us anymore.

The thread that runs through the Republican messaging is that America is less safe under Obama’s leadership. They are hammering the point that he has made the nation weaker and more susceptible to attack. They are broadcasting this message to the world as they advocate for policies that the world detests. So I still have to ask: What on earth are they trying to do?

How does announcing to the terrorists that they believe our nation is becoming weaker make us safer? Do they even care? Are they just pasting a big bulls eye on America and hoping for an “I told you so” moment? I desperately hope that that’s not the case, but there aren’t many other plausible explanations.

Republicans Flub The Double Reverse Alinsky

Posted by on May 22, 2009 at 10:31 am. 7 Comments :

For degree of difficulty, I’ll give them a ten, but Republicans are far too incompetent to have risked the political Jujitsu required by their recent exercise.

Saul Alinsky was an activist and author who has been called the founder of modern community organizing. He is said to have been an early influence on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. His book, Rules For Radicals, outlined a program for effecting social change by building organizations that restored the balance of power from the elite to the people.

Early in last year’s presidential campaign, Republicans sought to exploit Clinton and Obama’s connection to Alinsky, implying that there was something frightful about his advocacy of empowering the poor and middle classes. More recently, his name has begun to reappear in a new, seemingly coordinated assault on the President, the press, and any stray progressive activist that might saunter along. The problem is that these conservatives swing so wide of the mark that they only succeed in making asses of themselves. Their approach is so pedestrian that not only do they fail to make their point, the point they make is often antithetical to what they intended. For example…

Jim Geraghty wrote an article for the National Review, The Alinsky Administration, that seeks to associate Obama with the first of Alinsky’s rules: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. But Geraghty’s limited comprehension distills the concept down to nothing more than the allegation that Obama is a politician who seeks to attain power. Shocking, isn’t it?

Geraghty: “As conservatives size up their new foe, they ought to remember: It’s not about liberalism. It’s about power. Obama will jettison anything that costs him power, and do anything that enhances it.”

In addition to missing Alinsky’s point entirely, Geraghty also contradicts the vast conservative confederation that has been hammering away at Obama precisely because of his intransigent liberalism. So while everyone else on the right is trying to convince us that Obama is taking us down the road to Socialism, Geraghty contends that the ideology is expendable in the pursuit of power.

Then Geraghty turns up on the Hannity show and invokes his version of Alinsky’s fifth rule: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. But in making his case, Geraghty has uncovered a heretofore unknown conspiracy that is under the direction of Obama:

Geraghty: “[H]e’s got everything from ‘The Daily Show’ to ‘The Colbert Report’ to, you know, liberal bloggers, entertainers, Bill Maher. He kind of outsources that aspect of the Alinsky operation.

It may come as a surprise to Jon Stewart et al, to learn that they are mere puppets of the White House Overlord. The administration’s army of comedians must keep a lot of Republicans up at night. And, Heaven knows, the President himself loves to laugh. Bill O’Reilly also picked up the ridicule angle and added NBC as an instrument of Obama’s plot:

O’Reilly: “Enter far-left philosopher Saul Alinsky […] Before he died, Alinsky wrote a book called ‘Rules for Radicals,’ and here is where the politics of ridicule was defined. According to Alinsky, in order to change America into a far-left bastion, traditional Americans must be marginalized.”

Of course, O’Reilly made up virtually all of that. Alinsky not only did not advocate for marginalizing “traditional Americans,” he was their biggest advocate. Then again, O’Reilly’s definition of a traditional American is a wealthy, white, Christian, corporatist, social Darwinian, who gets off on torture and loofahs. But my favorite part, personally, is where O’Reilly says, “Before he died, Alinsky wrote a book…” As opposed to the books he wrote after he died? Thanks for making that distinction, Bill.

If the Republicans are sensitive to being ridiculed, it is only because they make it so easy. However, their disingenuous sniveling is hard to take seriously when they are just as guilty of the practice as the left. O’Reilly has a daily feature on his show wherein he calls people pinheads. The RNC repeatedly cranked out campaign videos mocking Obama as a celebrity, a media darling, or “The One”. Glenn Beck has a recurring series on the “March to Socialism”. Rush Limbaugh devotes most of his daily three hour rant to nothing but ridiculing one Democrat or another. The Internet is awash with images of Obama as everything from a terrorist to a Messiah to Hitler.

The flood of references to Alinsky is threatening to drown out all other political discourse. It has been taken up by everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Michelle Bachmann to Karl Rove. When you hear Republicans condemn Democrats for some breach of civility, you can lay odds that they are doing the very same thing. Their capacity for projection is legendary. This is no less true with regard to their allegations concerning Alinsky’s rules. But their execution is atrocious. They are so bad, in fact, that they are even contradicted by their own side. Last year, John J. Pitney Jr., also writing for the National Review, penned a column entitled, “The Alinsky Ticket,” wherein he exposed the real perpetrators of this pinko scheme:

Pitney: “Radical activist Saul Alinsky has had quite a season, especially for somebody who has been dead for 36 years. The two Democratic finalists had Alinsky links […] But the candidates who have most effectively applied Alinsky principles are John McCain and Sarah Palin.”

Well, now the cat’s out of the bag. Pitney dropped the dime on the GOP. How can they assail Obama and the Democrats for a strategy that they are employing themselves? Actually, they can do it very easily. In fact, it is rule number one in Karl Rove’s Rules For Reactionaries: Conduct a campaign of dirty tricks, but accuse your opponents of doing it first.

Rightists are now trying to adapt that rule to Alinsky’s teachings, and to disparage Obama and the Democrats. Unfortunately, their ineptitude is so advanced that they can’t execute a successful program. All they are accomplishing is a reaffirmation of their own desperation and lameness. Nothing illustrates this better than the recent proposal by the RNC to rebrand Democrats as the Democrat Socialist Party [shakes head and sighs].

Watch for more hilarity as Republicans continue in their quest to complete the perfect Double Reverse Alinsky – no matter how many times, or how miserably, they fail.

Michael Steele: The Era Of Apologizing Is Over

Posted by on May 19, 2009 at 4:47 pm. 2 Comments :

In a dramatic announcement on the passing of an historical epoch, Republican National Committee Chairman, Michael Steele, has declared that the Era of Apology is over. That’s right, the Apologiac Age has come to a close, according to Steele:

“The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done. The time for trying to fix or focus on the past has ended. The era of Republican navel gazing is over. We have turned the corner on regret, recrimination, self-pity and self-doubt. Now is the hour to focus all of our energies on winning the future.”

While it is encouraging to hear that Republicans will cease to gaze at their navels, that doesn’t explain how their new tunnel blindness with regard to the past will help them to win the future. It also doesn’t advance the argument that the Apologiac Age is truly over.

One argument against Steele’s hypothesis is that experts have been unable to identify the beginning of the Era of Apology. Despite rigorous searches, no apologies have been uncovered for any of the most profound failures of the last administration:

  • Missing all of the warning signs prior to 9/11.
  • Waging a preemptive war of aggression based on weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist.
  • Permitting thousands to die in New Orleans due to incompetence and neglect.
  • Politicizing the Justice Department by hiring and firing attorneys based on partisan affiliation.
  • Diluting Constitutional rights through warrantless searches and the suspension of habeas corpus.
  • Violating domestic and international laws against torture.
  • Causing the collapse of the economy via deregulation, collusion with corporate cronies, and irresponsible spending and taxation policy.

The absence of any evidence that an Apologiac Age ever began inveighs heavily against the contention that it has now concluded. Conservative Apologiac theorists like Steele may seek to support their claim by pointing to the frequent apologies made by Republicans (including Steele) to Rush Limbaugh for having referred to him as an entertainer, or otherwise something less than the Republican Overlord. Or they may cite the apology made by Steele himself when, addressing the Wall Street bailout, he said we need to “own up, do the, ‘My bad,’ and move forward.” However, none of these apologies actually represent the Republican Party accepting responsibility for the tragedies it inflicted on this nation, and the world.

Moving forward was a primary theme in Steele’s Apologia speech. He seemed to be especially sensitive to the notion that Americans might linger too long on the failures of the GOP’s recent past. His message was simply to stop looking back. After all, he said, Ronald Reagan would never look back:

“Ronald Reagan always insisted that our party must move aggressively to seize the moment. He insisted that our party recognize the truth of the times and establish our first principles in both word and deed […] So in the best spirit of President Reagan, it’s time to saddle up and ride.”

Steele, it must be noted, had to look back over twenty years to come up with that advice from Reagan against looking back. For Steele, looking back twenty years is enlightening, but looking back at the the last eight years is just rehashing the irrelevant. And everyone knows that if you’re looking to the future, the most inspiring analogy is one that includes saddling up your horse.

Steele is intent on peddling his theory on the end of Apologia. He even borrows Barack Obama’s inspirational message of change. But Steele is quick to point out that his version of change “comes in a tea bag.” Historians, I am sure, will spend countless hours trying to figure out what that means. And this may be the underlying brilliance of Steele’s strategy. If no one knows what you’re talking about, they can’t make much of an attempt to dispute it.

Thus, the introduction of the end of the Era of Apology, an era that never began, should quite sufficiently confuse the people, the Party, and most importantly, the press. At least for another week or two.