Interesting exchange on Hannity & Colmes last night. And by "interesting", I mean insipid. Evidently, when the Joe the Plumber was Joe the Child, his parents went on welfare a couple of times. And you know what that makes him? A hypocrite for opposing redistribution of wealth! At least that's what a bunch of lefty bloggers are saying.
Although this line of attack is unfair for several reasons, let's just focus on the main one. It's the notion that if the government takes one penny of tax money and gives it to the most destitute person in America, that's wealth redistribution; and anyone who calls himself a free-market capitalist must oppose that use of taxpayer funds or accept the label of "hypocrite." Sorry, but real life is a tad more complicated than that.
I don't know anyone who thinks there shouldn't be any taxpayer-subsidized social safety net for the truly needy. Similarly, I doubt anyone is so much of a free-market capitalist that they oppose any government regulation of business. It's always a question of limiting the role of government to that which is necessary, efficient, and avoids undesired consequences.
I would describe the "conservative" position on welfare as follows: (a) it should exist; (b) it should only be available to the truly needy; (c) it should be administered in a way that avoids fraud and waste; and (d) it should be designed so as to not encourage or permit able-bodied people to use it as an alternative to work. I'm not sure about Joe the Child, but I'm confident Joe the Plumber would agree with all of that.
Now let's talk about what Barack Obama's socialist adherents believe. They want to have the government take a significant chunk of the income of high earners and give it to people in the middle and lower classes in order to make incomes less disparate across the board. Obama himself has sought to justify increasing the capital gains tax rate, a policy he acknowledges tends to reduce overall tax revenues, on grounds of "fairness."
It's one thing to tax people in order to pay for necessary government services and operations. It's quite another to tax people simply to make them less wealthy in relation to others. Unfortunately, in the drive to label yet another political opponent a "hypocrite," the left would have us all ignore that distinction.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Obama's first mistake?
Expectations for Obama's greatness are so high in some quarters that at times it seemed he was leading a cult rather than a political campaign. Obama did nothing to tamp down his supporters' expectations before the election, a decision I assumed he would revisit after.
Then I started to hear a lot of talk yesterday about how the president-elect is trying to assemble an "all-star" cabinet. Putting aside the question of whether a has-been like John Kerry constitutes a "star," is this really the kind of theme Obama ought to be sounding? I would think he would be better served by announcing he's looking for "hard workers who have the patience and stamina to handle the day-to-day work needed to build success over time." Hire John Kerry if you must, but don't raise expectations any higher than they already are.
Then I started to hear a lot of talk yesterday about how the president-elect is trying to assemble an "all-star" cabinet. Putting aside the question of whether a has-been like John Kerry constitutes a "star," is this really the kind of theme Obama ought to be sounding? I would think he would be better served by announcing he's looking for "hard workers who have the patience and stamina to handle the day-to-day work needed to build success over time." Hire John Kerry if you must, but don't raise expectations any higher than they already are.
Remembrances of elections past
Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, commentators (myself included) sought to liken the current election to some prior quadrennial contest. The assumption seems to be that we've exhausted our supply of unique elections and are now simply recycling the old ones.
Now that the election of 2008 has passed, we should be able to state with some degree of confidence which previous postwar election it most closely resembles.
Unfortunately for McCain, it wasn't 1948. Although the polls were wildly inconsistent in measuring the extent of Obama's lead, the RCP average of the polls mirrored the final outcome fairly closely. (We should know by now a candidate's in trouble the minute they start talking about 1948.)
We can also toss out the various elections in which a contented public returned an incumbent president to office by an impressive margin. This takes care of Eisenhower's win in '56, LBJ's in '64, Nixon's in '72, Reagan's in '84, and Clinton's in '96. To this list we can add W's reelection in 2004 (although it was close and hotly contested) and his father's defeat of Michael Dukakis in '88 (which was tantamount to a reelection of Ronald Reagan for a third term).
Bush v. Gore also fails to make the first cut. The 2000 election is mainly remembered for "hanging chads" and inaugurating the meme of a "50-50" electorate divided into red and blue states. Apart from the tattered remnants of the red-blue divide, it's hard to see anything in the election of 2008 that's reminiscent of 2000.
That leaves six possible candidates for the election most similar to 2008: Ike v. Stevenson in 1952, Kennedy v. Nixon in 1960, Nixon v. Humphrey and Wallace in 1968, Carter v. Ford in 1976, Reagan v. Carter in 1980, and Clinton v. Bush and Perot in 1992.
Of these, I'm first going to toss out 1960. Although Democrats like to compare Obama to JFK (and, more tellingly, Michelle Obama to Jackie Kennedy), there's no obvious similarity between the actual elections. Americans were reasonably content throughout the Eisenhower years and in 1960 merely had to decide which young Cold Warrior -- the handsome and athletic Kennedy or the pale and lip-sweating Nixon -- ought to succeed him. Shockingly, handsome and athletic won.
We should probably next eliminate 1952. Although that election to succeed an unpopular incumbent pitted an articulate and intellectual politician from Illinois against an aging war hero admired by Republicans and Democrats alike, it ended with a win for the war hero. Sorry, Mac!
The next election to get the boot has to be 1992. Although Clinton, like Obama, was a young newcomer who capitalized on economic worries to defeat the party which had long held the White House, Perot's decisive spoiler role in '92 strains any further comparisons to 2008.
The election of 1968 offers some plausible parallels to 2008, but they don't really hold up under close inspection. These may qualify as troubled times for the U.S., but we're not experiencing assassinations and street riots as was the case 40 years ago. While discontent over the war in Vietnam dominated the election in 1968, the war in Iraq had become virtually a second-tier issue by Election Day 2008. Nixon's perceived role as the tough-minded leader who would restore a sense of order to nation that was falling apart at the seams finds no parallel in Obama's soft-focus hope-a-palooza campaign. Furthermore, Nixon by 1968 was anything but a newcomer on the American political horizon. Finally, any comparisons to 1968 forces us to disregard the third-party candidacy of George Wallace, which garnered 46 electoral votes.
This leaves the two Carter elections, 1976 and 1980. Like others, I've written before about the parallels between this year and 1980. Where I think the comparison falls short is that Reagan was promising not just change, but a very specific kind of change. He sought a mandate to dismantle the big government policies of the past and project strength abroad. Obama's ambitions are far less clear. While there is every reason to suspect he is a man of the left, it's not at all clear that's the reason America is sending him to the White House. To the contrary, his primary appeal derives from his youth and style, and the perceived significance of his racial background. To a large extent, Obama downplayed his liberal philosophical orientation during the general election in order to project an image of moderation and an openness to opposing viewpoints.
The key in all this is the fact that while Reagan represented a political movement, Obama embodies a cultural phenomenon. There is simply no Obama analogue to the terms "Reagan Republican" or "Reagan Democrat." That is not to say Obama name will never be associated with a particular governing philosophy, only that such a philosophy wasn't the focus of his campaign.
That leaves 1976 as my choice for the election most similar to 2008. Both years' campaigns saw the emergence of appealing Democratic candidates who were newcomers to the national stage. Both campaigns featured well-known Republicans who were liked and admired by Americans across the political spectrum. Both of these Republicans, however, were hobbled -- mostly unfairly --by their connections to the grossly unpopular GOP president who had won the previous two elections. Their Democratic nominees, by contrast, were uniquely poised to offer voters the promise of a new era in Washington, free from the taint of the embattled prior incumbent. The promise of change outweighed concerns over the Democratic challenger's relative lack of experience and vaguely-defined political philosophy. The Republican candidates, moreover, were not well-positioned to present an ideological alternative to the Democrats due to their own poorly-defined political philosophies. In the end, despite giving the Democrat an unexpectedly tough run for his money, neither Ford nor McCain was able to stem the tide of change that fate had beckoned.
The parallels between this year and 1976 naturally invite the speculation that Republicans will reclaim the White House in 2012. I hope that happens, but not if it means reliving the Carter years. Good luck, Mr. President.
Now that the election of 2008 has passed, we should be able to state with some degree of confidence which previous postwar election it most closely resembles.
Unfortunately for McCain, it wasn't 1948. Although the polls were wildly inconsistent in measuring the extent of Obama's lead, the RCP average of the polls mirrored the final outcome fairly closely. (We should know by now a candidate's in trouble the minute they start talking about 1948.)
We can also toss out the various elections in which a contented public returned an incumbent president to office by an impressive margin. This takes care of Eisenhower's win in '56, LBJ's in '64, Nixon's in '72, Reagan's in '84, and Clinton's in '96. To this list we can add W's reelection in 2004 (although it was close and hotly contested) and his father's defeat of Michael Dukakis in '88 (which was tantamount to a reelection of Ronald Reagan for a third term).
Bush v. Gore also fails to make the first cut. The 2000 election is mainly remembered for "hanging chads" and inaugurating the meme of a "50-50" electorate divided into red and blue states. Apart from the tattered remnants of the red-blue divide, it's hard to see anything in the election of 2008 that's reminiscent of 2000.
That leaves six possible candidates for the election most similar to 2008: Ike v. Stevenson in 1952, Kennedy v. Nixon in 1960, Nixon v. Humphrey and Wallace in 1968, Carter v. Ford in 1976, Reagan v. Carter in 1980, and Clinton v. Bush and Perot in 1992.
Of these, I'm first going to toss out 1960. Although Democrats like to compare Obama to JFK (and, more tellingly, Michelle Obama to Jackie Kennedy), there's no obvious similarity between the actual elections. Americans were reasonably content throughout the Eisenhower years and in 1960 merely had to decide which young Cold Warrior -- the handsome and athletic Kennedy or the pale and lip-sweating Nixon -- ought to succeed him. Shockingly, handsome and athletic won.
We should probably next eliminate 1952. Although that election to succeed an unpopular incumbent pitted an articulate and intellectual politician from Illinois against an aging war hero admired by Republicans and Democrats alike, it ended with a win for the war hero. Sorry, Mac!
The next election to get the boot has to be 1992. Although Clinton, like Obama, was a young newcomer who capitalized on economic worries to defeat the party which had long held the White House, Perot's decisive spoiler role in '92 strains any further comparisons to 2008.
The election of 1968 offers some plausible parallels to 2008, but they don't really hold up under close inspection. These may qualify as troubled times for the U.S., but we're not experiencing assassinations and street riots as was the case 40 years ago. While discontent over the war in Vietnam dominated the election in 1968, the war in Iraq had become virtually a second-tier issue by Election Day 2008. Nixon's perceived role as the tough-minded leader who would restore a sense of order to nation that was falling apart at the seams finds no parallel in Obama's soft-focus hope-a-palooza campaign. Furthermore, Nixon by 1968 was anything but a newcomer on the American political horizon. Finally, any comparisons to 1968 forces us to disregard the third-party candidacy of George Wallace, which garnered 46 electoral votes.
This leaves the two Carter elections, 1976 and 1980. Like others, I've written before about the parallels between this year and 1980. Where I think the comparison falls short is that Reagan was promising not just change, but a very specific kind of change. He sought a mandate to dismantle the big government policies of the past and project strength abroad. Obama's ambitions are far less clear. While there is every reason to suspect he is a man of the left, it's not at all clear that's the reason America is sending him to the White House. To the contrary, his primary appeal derives from his youth and style, and the perceived significance of his racial background. To a large extent, Obama downplayed his liberal philosophical orientation during the general election in order to project an image of moderation and an openness to opposing viewpoints.
The key in all this is the fact that while Reagan represented a political movement, Obama embodies a cultural phenomenon. There is simply no Obama analogue to the terms "Reagan Republican" or "Reagan Democrat." That is not to say Obama name will never be associated with a particular governing philosophy, only that such a philosophy wasn't the focus of his campaign.
That leaves 1976 as my choice for the election most similar to 2008. Both years' campaigns saw the emergence of appealing Democratic candidates who were newcomers to the national stage. Both campaigns featured well-known Republicans who were liked and admired by Americans across the political spectrum. Both of these Republicans, however, were hobbled -- mostly unfairly --by their connections to the grossly unpopular GOP president who had won the previous two elections. Their Democratic nominees, by contrast, were uniquely poised to offer voters the promise of a new era in Washington, free from the taint of the embattled prior incumbent. The promise of change outweighed concerns over the Democratic challenger's relative lack of experience and vaguely-defined political philosophy. The Republican candidates, moreover, were not well-positioned to present an ideological alternative to the Democrats due to their own poorly-defined political philosophies. In the end, despite giving the Democrat an unexpectedly tough run for his money, neither Ford nor McCain was able to stem the tide of change that fate had beckoned.
The parallels between this year and 1976 naturally invite the speculation that Republicans will reclaim the White House in 2012. I hope that happens, but not if it means reliving the Carter years. Good luck, Mr. President.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Did I mention he's black?
My post earlier didn't list among the silver linings of Obama's election that it signifies a landmark in race relations. The omission wasn't intended to be pointed; I just don't share the astonishment that some people seem to feel about the election of a black president. There are a few reasons for this:
1. I've felt all along - certainly since I've been voting - that America was capable of electing a black president. I realize that many black people doubted this, so for them, this is a big deal. But I've never really thought of the country as being so racist that significant numbers of people wouldn't vote for a black candidate for that reason alone.
2. We've had blacks serve as secretary of state, as senator, and in other high-level leadership positions, and when has their race ever been an issue? Indeed, when is the last time any prominent, serious person objected to a black person holding high office in this country? The Truman Administration? Obviously the election of a black man would have seemed fantastic to everyone 50 years ago. But that was, well, 50 years ago. Now it comes as no shock at all, at least not to me.
3. In Obama's case, it was apparent throughout the campaign that his being black was more of an advantage than a disadvantage in attracting votes. It certainly helped against Hillary. I interpreted the "change" in Obama's slogan "change we can believe in" to refer to his race. Hillary also represented "change" (being a woman), but we couldn't believe in her, I interpreted Obama to be saying, because she's about as ethical as Nixon. In Obama, you were getting both "change" (i.e., a candidate who was not a white male), without the cognitive dissonance of voting for a Clinton out of a sense of civic virtue.
4. I would point out that Obama lost the white vote 55% to 44% according to exit poll data I've seen. Not that I'm proposing to move the goalposts or anything, but perhaps we should save the champagne for the day a black wins the majority of white votes -- or a woman wins a majority of male votes. Or not.
1. I've felt all along - certainly since I've been voting - that America was capable of electing a black president. I realize that many black people doubted this, so for them, this is a big deal. But I've never really thought of the country as being so racist that significant numbers of people wouldn't vote for a black candidate for that reason alone.
2. We've had blacks serve as secretary of state, as senator, and in other high-level leadership positions, and when has their race ever been an issue? Indeed, when is the last time any prominent, serious person objected to a black person holding high office in this country? The Truman Administration? Obviously the election of a black man would have seemed fantastic to everyone 50 years ago. But that was, well, 50 years ago. Now it comes as no shock at all, at least not to me.
3. In Obama's case, it was apparent throughout the campaign that his being black was more of an advantage than a disadvantage in attracting votes. It certainly helped against Hillary. I interpreted the "change" in Obama's slogan "change we can believe in" to refer to his race. Hillary also represented "change" (being a woman), but we couldn't believe in her, I interpreted Obama to be saying, because she's about as ethical as Nixon. In Obama, you were getting both "change" (i.e., a candidate who was not a white male), without the cognitive dissonance of voting for a Clinton out of a sense of civic virtue.
4. I would point out that Obama lost the white vote 55% to 44% according to exit poll data I've seen. Not that I'm proposing to move the goalposts or anything, but perhaps we should save the champagne for the day a black wins the majority of white votes -- or a woman wins a majority of male votes. Or not.
Looking on the bright side
OK, that happened.
Fortunately, there are some silver linings. Like these:
1. It looks like the Dems will be held to 56 seats in the Senate, and one of those is Lieberman. Assuming the GOP has 44 seats plus Joementum, they should be able to mount a filibuster on the big, important stuff, even allowing for a couple of defections.
2. Along the lines of what I wrote yesterday, Obama will be taking office without a socialist or even a strong liberal mandate. Based on the morning-after reaction throughout the country (at least as portrayed in the media), the main significance of his victory is that we have now elected the first "black" president. (Nevermind that we've also elected our 44th president of white ancestry.) If the decisive factor in Obama's election was his race, and not a program for wholesale liberal reform, then it's not at all clear that the country will support a leftist agenda.
My gut tells me the voters tended to ignore the Jeremiah-Wright-slash-Bill-Ayers-type revelations about Obama because they took him at his word that he was not, in fact, a wild-eyed leftist fanatic. Democratic leaders and the media certainly did their utmost to assure the public that Obama was a "safe," mainstream candidate, who was not even "the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate" as the National Journal had claimed. If that was the figurative deal he made with the American voters to get elected, he's going to have to honor it to some extent once he takes office.
3. I don't relish the thought of the Dems having control of the White House and both houses of Congress. On the other hand, I do sort of relish the thought that they will have all the responsibility.
4. Obama's election makes it highly unlikely Hillary will ever become president.
5. Gay marriage lost out in California and across the country. I'm opposed to gay marriage, but I'm even more opposed to the notion that a state constitution can be amended by judicial fiat. It's a usurpation of our democratic liberties regardless of the cause in whose name it is being done. If the people want to enshrine a right to gay marriage in their state or federal constitutions, let them go through the established amendment process. It's outrageous for judges to claim the right to create new constitutional rights from the bench.
6. Another silver lining, I have to admit, is the fact that John McCain wasn't elected. If he had been, I think it would have been another four years of continuous acrimony and recriminations from the left (so, yes, in that sense at least, "McSame"). This is especially true when you consider that the only way McCain was going to win was in a real squeaker. Therefore, we would have almost certainly had all manner of litigation, accusations of vote fraud, and possibly riots in the street.
It actually is somewhat hard to imagine McCain having a successful presidency under such circumstances. The left would have treated him as a fiend, and McCain would probably have tried to earn their good will by bending over backward to accommodate them. It would not have been an ideal time for the conservative movement.
7. Speaking of conservatives, we now have an opportunity to take a breather of sorts and regroup. The central issue facing the GOP is whether to try to lead the country toward authentically conservative principles or whether to go along with the larger historical trend in favor of ever-increasing government involvement in the economy. Conservatism has been described as a three-legged stool, consisting of (a) strong national defense/foreign policy, (b) social conservatism (including judicial appointments), and (c) economic conservatism as measured by low taxes, smaller government, less regulation, and free trade. The party is actually fairly consistent in regard to the first two legs, despite a number of prominent GOP leaders who are pro-choice. The problem has been in regard to spending, entitlements, and related issues like immigration. There's an inherent problem for Republicans in trying to champion economic conservatism. The Dems and the media tend to demagogue on these issues and portray the GOP as a bunch of fatcats and meanies. We need to find out if there are a sufficient number of Republican leaders willing to make a stand for economic conservatism. Simply advocating lower taxes is not enough. We need to challenge the entire welfare-state mentality that perceives it to be the government's primary responsibility to provide everyone (including illegal aliens!) with a comfortable middle-class lifestyle.
8. Finally, I'm glad to see the Republicans reacting to Obama's win in a calm and generally respectful manner. Conservatives have a lot of work to do to bounce back from where we are. We also have legitimate grievances -- against the media, for example -- and legitimate worries about what the next four years hold in store for the nation. Nevertheless, we can't change any of those things today, and no amount of kicking and screaming is going to help.
Fortunately, there are some silver linings. Like these:
1. It looks like the Dems will be held to 56 seats in the Senate, and one of those is Lieberman. Assuming the GOP has 44 seats plus Joementum, they should be able to mount a filibuster on the big, important stuff, even allowing for a couple of defections.
2. Along the lines of what I wrote yesterday, Obama will be taking office without a socialist or even a strong liberal mandate. Based on the morning-after reaction throughout the country (at least as portrayed in the media), the main significance of his victory is that we have now elected the first "black" president. (Nevermind that we've also elected our 44th president of white ancestry.) If the decisive factor in Obama's election was his race, and not a program for wholesale liberal reform, then it's not at all clear that the country will support a leftist agenda.
My gut tells me the voters tended to ignore the Jeremiah-Wright-slash-Bill-Ayers-type revelations about Obama because they took him at his word that he was not, in fact, a wild-eyed leftist fanatic. Democratic leaders and the media certainly did their utmost to assure the public that Obama was a "safe," mainstream candidate, who was not even "the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate" as the National Journal had claimed. If that was the figurative deal he made with the American voters to get elected, he's going to have to honor it to some extent once he takes office.
3. I don't relish the thought of the Dems having control of the White House and both houses of Congress. On the other hand, I do sort of relish the thought that they will have all the responsibility.
4. Obama's election makes it highly unlikely Hillary will ever become president.
5. Gay marriage lost out in California and across the country. I'm opposed to gay marriage, but I'm even more opposed to the notion that a state constitution can be amended by judicial fiat. It's a usurpation of our democratic liberties regardless of the cause in whose name it is being done. If the people want to enshrine a right to gay marriage in their state or federal constitutions, let them go through the established amendment process. It's outrageous for judges to claim the right to create new constitutional rights from the bench.
6. Another silver lining, I have to admit, is the fact that John McCain wasn't elected. If he had been, I think it would have been another four years of continuous acrimony and recriminations from the left (so, yes, in that sense at least, "McSame"). This is especially true when you consider that the only way McCain was going to win was in a real squeaker. Therefore, we would have almost certainly had all manner of litigation, accusations of vote fraud, and possibly riots in the street.
It actually is somewhat hard to imagine McCain having a successful presidency under such circumstances. The left would have treated him as a fiend, and McCain would probably have tried to earn their good will by bending over backward to accommodate them. It would not have been an ideal time for the conservative movement.
7. Speaking of conservatives, we now have an opportunity to take a breather of sorts and regroup. The central issue facing the GOP is whether to try to lead the country toward authentically conservative principles or whether to go along with the larger historical trend in favor of ever-increasing government involvement in the economy. Conservatism has been described as a three-legged stool, consisting of (a) strong national defense/foreign policy, (b) social conservatism (including judicial appointments), and (c) economic conservatism as measured by low taxes, smaller government, less regulation, and free trade. The party is actually fairly consistent in regard to the first two legs, despite a number of prominent GOP leaders who are pro-choice. The problem has been in regard to spending, entitlements, and related issues like immigration. There's an inherent problem for Republicans in trying to champion economic conservatism. The Dems and the media tend to demagogue on these issues and portray the GOP as a bunch of fatcats and meanies. We need to find out if there are a sufficient number of Republican leaders willing to make a stand for economic conservatism. Simply advocating lower taxes is not enough. We need to challenge the entire welfare-state mentality that perceives it to be the government's primary responsibility to provide everyone (including illegal aliens!) with a comfortable middle-class lifestyle.
8. Finally, I'm glad to see the Republicans reacting to Obama's win in a calm and generally respectful manner. Conservatives have a lot of work to do to bounce back from where we are. We also have legitimate grievances -- against the media, for example -- and legitimate worries about what the next four years hold in store for the nation. Nevertheless, we can't change any of those things today, and no amount of kicking and screaming is going to help.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Election Day Angst
Actually, I'm not nearly as anxious about today's election as I was in 2004. Kathryn Jean Lopez has an interesting post on the Corner that helps to explain the difference. Evidently, she wrote in 2004 that the election that year was so important, she would almost be willing to concede the 2008 race to the Democrats in order to win in 2004. I think I felt exactly the same way at the time.
In 2004, I felt the race was essentially a referendum on whether a U.S. president could take aggressive steps, up to and including waging war, in order to combat the Islamic extremism that was threatening to destroy, over time, Western civilization. John Kerry, in my mind, represented capitulation to the Islamofascist threat in its various forms, including the deferring of judgment in the matter to the pinstriped pantywaists that control the U.N.
This year, I don't feel that Americans are voting on the anything as monumental as all that. As a matter of fact, if Obama wins, it's not clear what the American people will have voted "for." I specifically don't think a majority of voters want socialism, even if that's what Obama has up his sleeve. While Obama's election would carry with it a raft of bad consequences for the country, I don't think it would tell us a great deal about the electorate beyond the obvious fact that Americans are very confused about the state of the economy and worried about the future.
Indeed, that's probably the best summary I could give of this election. People are confused, worried, and angry about the sense of crisis that's gripping the country. They don't really know who or what to blame. Obama is superficially a more attractive choice because he advocates "change." McCain is reassuring at some level, but it's never been clear exactly what he stands for. So it really does all boil down to "change" and "hope": roll the dice on "change" and "hope" we still have a country four years from now.
In 2004, I felt the race was essentially a referendum on whether a U.S. president could take aggressive steps, up to and including waging war, in order to combat the Islamic extremism that was threatening to destroy, over time, Western civilization. John Kerry, in my mind, represented capitulation to the Islamofascist threat in its various forms, including the deferring of judgment in the matter to the pinstriped pantywaists that control the U.N.
This year, I don't feel that Americans are voting on the anything as monumental as all that. As a matter of fact, if Obama wins, it's not clear what the American people will have voted "for." I specifically don't think a majority of voters want socialism, even if that's what Obama has up his sleeve. While Obama's election would carry with it a raft of bad consequences for the country, I don't think it would tell us a great deal about the electorate beyond the obvious fact that Americans are very confused about the state of the economy and worried about the future.
Indeed, that's probably the best summary I could give of this election. People are confused, worried, and angry about the sense of crisis that's gripping the country. They don't really know who or what to blame. Obama is superficially a more attractive choice because he advocates "change." McCain is reassuring at some level, but it's never been clear exactly what he stands for. So it really does all boil down to "change" and "hope": roll the dice on "change" and "hope" we still have a country four years from now.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Obama's assist from the media
Assuming, as expected, Obama wins tomorrow's election, what will that tell us about America in 2008?
Mainly, it tells us that the mainstream media have shifted from being merely biased in its coverage to operating as de facto propaganda ministry for the Democratic Party. What I'll remember above all else from this campaign is the outright refusal of the media to report revelations about Obama that would have been daily, front-page news in any other year. The examples are so many, it would be depressing to recite them all. However, it's no exaggeration to say that the cost of Sarah Palin's wardrobe received more press attention than the fact that Barack Obama belonged to a Socialist fringe party in the 1990s.
When it was not simply ignoring negative stories about Obama, the media sought to defuse legitimate attacks on Obama -- and indeed turn them against McCain and the Republicans --through a highly propagandistic device known as the "fact check." At best, the "fact check" is a vehicle through which a news organization can examine a disputed, controversial issue and render a judgment as to which side (Obama's) was telling the truth and which side (McCain's) was being less than honest. At worst, the fact-checkers performed this function with respect to charges and allegations against Obama that were indisputably true. In that case, the "fact check" tended to conclude with the reporter's blessing of whatever spin the Obama campaign happened to put on the charge.
Here's an illustration of how a "fact check" tended to work in practice:
Mainly, it tells us that the mainstream media have shifted from being merely biased in its coverage to operating as de facto propaganda ministry for the Democratic Party. What I'll remember above all else from this campaign is the outright refusal of the media to report revelations about Obama that would have been daily, front-page news in any other year. The examples are so many, it would be depressing to recite them all. However, it's no exaggeration to say that the cost of Sarah Palin's wardrobe received more press attention than the fact that Barack Obama belonged to a Socialist fringe party in the 1990s.
When it was not simply ignoring negative stories about Obama, the media sought to defuse legitimate attacks on Obama -- and indeed turn them against McCain and the Republicans --through a highly propagandistic device known as the "fact check." At best, the "fact check" is a vehicle through which a news organization can examine a disputed, controversial issue and render a judgment as to which side (Obama's) was telling the truth and which side (McCain's) was being less than honest. At worst, the fact-checkers performed this function with respect to charges and allegations against Obama that were indisputably true. In that case, the "fact check" tended to conclude with the reporter's blessing of whatever spin the Obama campaign happened to put on the charge.
Here's an illustration of how a "fact check" tended to work in practice:
- THE CHARGE: While serving in the Illinois State Senate, Barack Obama kidnapped and murdered dozens of teenage girls. John McCain says he has videotapes to prove it, along with DNA tests and affidavits from a number of victims who managed to escape.
- THE FACTS: Obama's plan for kidnapping and murder specifically exempts girls ages 13-16. Furthermore, according to his website, the vast majority of American teenagers would not be kidnapped and murdered if Obama is elected.
- THE VERDICT: McCain's effort to play on Americans' fear of kidnapping and murder is misleading at best, and possibly racist. Fact Checker gives him 2 Pinocchios.
What we've seen from the media this year is the kind of change Goebbels could believe in.
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