Why? Here’s my guess: The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.
But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture. [...]
The problem today unfortunately is that voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet.
Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.
What’s more, the news media cut candidates like Joe Biden out of the process even before they got started. Just to be clear: I’m not talking about my husband. I’m referring to other worthy Democratic contenders. Few people even had the chance to find out about Joe Biden’s health care plan before he was literally forced from the race by the news blackout that depressed his poll numbers, which in turn depressed his fund-raising.
And it’s not as if people didn’t want this information. In focus groups that I attended or followed after debates, Joe Biden would regularly be the object of praise and interest: “I want to know more about Senator Biden,” participants would say. [...]
Who is responsible for the veil of silence over Senator Biden? Or Senator Dodd? Or Gov. Tom Vilsack? Or Senator Sam Brownback on the Republican side?
The decision was probably made by the same people who decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate. Articles purporting to be news spent thousands upon thousands of words contemplating whether he would enter the race, to the point that before he even entered, he was running second in the national polls for the Republican nomination. Second place! And he had not done or said anything that would allow anyone to conclude he was a serious candidate. A major weekly news magazine put Mr. Thompson on its cover, asking — honestly! — whether the absence of a serious campaign and commitment to raising money or getting his policies out was itself a strategy.
...A report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals. [...]
News is different from other programming on television or other content in print. It is essential to an informed electorate. And an informed electorate is essential to freedom itself. But as long as corporations to which news gathering is not the primary source of income or expertise get to decide what information about the candidates “sells,” we are not functioning as well as we could if we had the engaged, skeptical press we deserve.
And the future of news is not bright. Indeed, we’ve heard that CBS may cut its news division, and media consolidation is leading to one-size-fits-all journalism. The state of political campaigning is no better: without a press to push them, candidates whose proposals are not workable avoid the tough questions. All of this leaves voters uncertain about what approach makes the most sense for them. Worse still, it gives us permission to ignore issues and concentrate on things that don’t matter. (Look, the press doesn’t even think there is a difference!) [...]
If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it. Not by screaming out our windows as in the movie “Network” but by talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. Do your job, so we can — as voters — do ours.
The New York Times has embedded video of Obama's press conference concerning Rev. Wright's appearances. They have chosen to include 27 min of it -- not just a soundbite or two. The video appears on the left side of this article.
If you haven't seen it and if you're interested in learning more about Obama as a person, you may want to spend the time. It does give a glimpse of a man speaking forthrightly about something that has pained, angered and confounded him. The measured response tells you something about the man.
Helen Thomas asked the hard questions. Dana Perino then illustrated why sane people think that the White House lies, openly and brazenly. But what this video is really about is how some in the US have lost their moral compass.
There is NO JUSTIFICATION for torture. None. Ever. And for those who approve it, remember it is likely that you are authorizing it for your loved ones... your sons, brothers, cousins. Why should any country refrain from doing to US citizens what the US feels free to do to citizens of other countries as well as its own?
The Republican party has developed a moral and ethical morass so great, it's inconceivable that they'll recover from it. It should be rejected so utterly, so thoroughly that it is destroyed. No one, even a "moderate" Republican, should think that it's okay to associate with people who are so morally bankrupt that they think it's okay to lie with impunity, to torture, to scorn the law and the treaties of the United States of America.
Oh please. Superdelegates as a category don't count for anything. That's a pretty silly thing to itemize as a positive -- though per DemConWatch, Obama has 234 and Clinton 256. That's a difference of 22 -- a difference which has shrunk dramatically since Jan. 13 per DemConWatch's Superdelegate History Tracker. (The chart is pretty cool if you like numbers and graphs.) And then there are the officially undeclared superdelegates who are known to favor Obama such as Rep. James Clyburn. I know it's not comforting to Hillary supporters to confront these numbers but they're real.
As for the popular vote, NO - she does NOT lead.
I've seen the twisted counting methods by which one arrives at a number that says she has more in the popular vote. Even 3rd and 4th graders know that something stinks when the methods leave out people who showed up to be counted in states with caucuses, and include a state in which one of the candidates didn't even appear on the ballot. But no problem -- go ahead and include that state counting the 238,168 uncommitted votes as Obama's as well as the people from the caucus states (see point #2 below). Guess what? She still doesn't lead in the popular vote. [Note that the figures at the top of RCP's chart do NOT include Michigan's uncommitted votes. Obama leads in 4 of 6 methods of summation without those votes. When those are added in, Clinton does not lead no matter how one adds up the figures.]
And last but not least, there's PocketNines' insight (h/t to Ben Smith) on the popular vote metric when applied to primaries. #2 is my particular favorite.
Point Number 1: If the popular vote determined the nominee, no candidate would ever go to Iowa or New Hampshire. They'd spend all their time in big urban areas all over the country from the outset of the campaign, racking up raw numbers. What would be the point of even visiting New Hampshire if you could camp out in Brooklyn? Concrete Example: Barack Obama would not have spent only a day and a half in California before the Feb 5 primary. He would have never gone to Idaho. Duh.
Point Number 2: If the popular vote determined the nominee, no state in its right mind would ever hold a caucus, instantly disenfranchising itself. Concrete example: Minnesota-Missouri. Minnesota gets credit for 214K votes, and Missouri gets 822K votes, but they each get 72 delegates. Is Missouri's voice 4 times more important than Minnesota's?
Point Number 3: The arbitrary distinction between who gets to vote in these primaries is nothing like the general election, where everyone registered gets to vote. In the primaries, sometimes it's just Dems, sometimes Dems and Indies, sometimes anyone. Concrete example: Texas gets a million more votes than similar overall population New York (2.8M to 1.8M), even though New York is far more Democratic, simply due to this arbitrary restriction on who can vote (NY = closed, Texas = open).
Overall point: regardless of the fact that Obama will win the popular vote, it is completely illegitimate in this race. THIS IS NOT LIKE POPULAR VOTE IN THE GENERAL ELECTION.
I'd also like to point out Elizabeth Drew's thoughtful post which points out:
The torrent of speculation about the end game of the Democratic nomination contest is creating a false sense of suspense – and wasting a lot of time of the multitudes who are anxious to know how this contest is going to turn out.
Notwithstanding the plentiful commentary to the effect that the Pennsylvania primary must have shaken superdelegates planning to support Barack Obama, causing them to rethink their position, key Democrats on Capitol Hill are unbudged. ... Their reasons, ones they have held for months, have not changed – and by their very nature are unlikely to.
Essentially, they are three:
(a) Hillary Rodham Clinton is such a polarizing figure that everyone who ever considered voting Republican in November, and even many who never did, will go to the polls to vote against her, thus jeopardizing Democrats down the ticket – i.e., themselves, or, for party leaders, the sizeable majorities they hope to gain in the House and the Senate in November.
(b) To take the nomination away from Obama when he is leading in the elected delegate count would deeply alienate the black base of the Democratic Party, and, in the words of one leading Democrat, “The superdelegates are not going to switch their voter and jeopardize the future of the Democratic Party for generations.” Such a move, he said, would also disillusion the new, mostly young, voters who have entered into politics for the first time because of Obama, and lose the votes of independents who could make the critical difference in November.
(c) Because the black vote can make the decisive difference in numerous congressional districts, discarding Obama could cost the Democrats numerous seats.
One Democratic leader told me, “If we overrule the elected delegates there would be mayhem.” Hillary Rodham Clinton’s claim that she has, or will have, won the popular vote does not impress them – both because of her dubious math and because, as another key Democrat says firmly, “The rules are that it’s the delegates, period.” (These views are closely aligned with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s statement earlier this year that the superdelegates should not overrule the votes of the elected delegates.)
Hudson's point about the fallacy of choice being perpetuated by the chattering class and Jack 'N' Jill's highlight of a comment about how persons of color view the Clinton manipulations of the Democratic nomination process underscore the point Ms. Drew and Mr. Henninger both make. The next Democratic party nominee for president will be Barack Obama.
Sen. Clinton's only real choice is how to exit the race gracefully.
UPDATE: I bookmarked this NY Times article the other day but never got it posted. It basically makes the same points along with a little emphasis on Obama's broader appeal.
Yet for all of her primary night celebrations in the populous states, exit polling and independent political analysts offer evidence that Mr. Obama could do just as well as Mrs. Clinton among blocs of voters with whom he now runs behind. Obama advisers say he also appears well-positioned to win swing states and believe he would have a strong shot at winning traditional Republican states like Virginia.
According to surveys of Pennsylvania voters leaving the polls on Tuesday, Mr. Obama would draw majorities of support from lower-income voters and less-educated ones — just as Mrs. Clinton would against Mr. McCain, even though those voters have favored her over Mr. Obama in the primaries.
And national polls suggest Mr. Obama would also do slightly better among groups that have gravitated to Republican in the past, like men, the more affluent and independents, while she would do slightly better among women. [...]
But the Pennsylvania exit polls, conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for five television networks and The Associated Press, underscore a point that political analysts made on Wednesday: that state primary results do not necessarily translate into general election victories.
“I think it differs state to state, and I think either Democrat will have a good chance of appealing to many Democrats who didn’t vote for them the first time,” said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster not affiliated with either campaign. [...]
Mr. Hart, as well as Obama advisers, also say that Mr. Obama appears better poised than Mrs. Clinton to pick up states that Democrats struggle to carry, or rarely do, in a general election, like Colorado, Iowa, Missouri and Virginia, all of which he carried in the primaries. Obama advisers say their polling indicates he is more popular with independents, and far less divisive than Mrs. Clinton, in those states.
WSJ: The Democrats have a new magician. It's Obama.
Daniel Henninger at The Wall Street Journal pronounces the end of the Clinton campaign with this:
For modern Democrats, winning the White House always requires some sort of magic to get near 50%. For the Clintons, that bag is empty. The Democrats have a new magician. It's Obama.
He noted that:
No matter how many kicks the rest of us find in such famously fun primary states as Indiana and South Dakota, it's going to be McCain versus Obama in 2008.
I believe the cement set around the Clinton coffin last Friday. The Obama campaign announced it had received the support of former Sens. Sam Nunn of Georgia and David Boren of Oklahoma. [...]
The 2008 nomination was hers. There was no competition. She was a lock to run for the roses against the Republican nominee. Republicans must have had this conversation a hundred times back then: "It's Hillary. She's got it. Get over it."
Sam Nunn and David Boren by political temperament should be in her camp. Instead, they threw in with Obama, who calls his campaign "post-partisan," a ludicrous phrase. The blowback at ABC's debate makes clear that Obama is the left's man. So what did Messrs. Nunn and Boren see?
The biggest event was the Clinton Abandonment. In a campaign of surprises, none has been more breathtaking than the falling away of Clinton supporters, loyalists . . . and friends. Why?
Money. Barack Obama's mystical pull on people is nice, but nice in modern politics comes after money. Once Barack proved conclusively that he could raise big-time cash, the Clintons' strongest tie to their machine began to unravel. Today he's got $42 million banked. She's got a few million north of nothing.
But it's more than that. Barack Obama's Web-based fund-raising apparatus is, if one may say so, respectable. The Clintons' "donor base" has been something else.
Yes, that's been noted elsewhere. The 1996 John Huang-Lippo-China fund-raising scandal, Hillary's difficulty with Norman Hsu, the reliance on the Tan family, Bill's 60th birthday gala which has been notedbefore, her list of donors with legal difficulties and dubious backgrounds.
Amazing that the mainstream hasn't gotten around to doing their "vetting" on that point until now. Just waking up to the idea that Hillary really isn't fully vetted yet? Well, it seems the Wall Street Journal has finally gotten there.
There's more background in this youtube clip from ABC's 20/20 program and if you don't think this will come out in the general election mudslinging fest, you're sadly mistaken. The wingnut sites that I unfortunately viewed in the process of researching that particular story make it extremely clear that they can't wait for her to be the nominee. They feel they have so much dirt to unload on her.
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* I apologize for linking to WorldNetDaily but evidently no other media organization is following the various hearings and motions in this civil suit.
John Cole at Balloon Juice has such a deliciously wicked sense of snark.
In a post reflecting on the rice rationing at Sam's Club and Costco, and the arrival of the $100 fill-up at the gas pump, he writes:
For all the Canadian readers who are upset they don’t get to contribute to the Obama campaign, here is how you can help. We have six more months of Bush, and at this rate, what we need most from our allies are a stable currency and the willingness to send in the RCMP to help stop the food riots. Thanks in advance.
In an analysis of one of Bill Kristol's unfortunate assaults on the English language and the politically-conscious public, John summed it up with:
"I tried to get back into things this morning, and the first thing I read was Bill Kristol attempting to determine political world views by analyzing campaign Passover statements. Seriously. Up next, Red State attempts to figure out the candidate’s tax policy by examining past Hallmark Mother’s Day cards they have sent. [...]
Apparently Red State will not be examining Hallmark cards, as they are too busy sniffing out godless communists at google. In all seriousness, this Red State piece has to be considered an early frontrunner to sweep the 2008 Golden Wingnut Awards.
Why do white voters matter more than black voters?
Al Giordano at The Field has an excellent post up that I'm not going to attempt to excerpt. It must be read in its entirety. The maps are very interesting but just as important is the comment highlighted by Jack and Jill.
I wish the chattering classes would address this question.
Why, in all the MediaMathTM discussions we've seen on the talkinghead shows, do white voters matter more than black voters?
Chuck Todd and Charlie Cook: The Game's Over, Hillary
Chuck Todd: 'Impossible for Obama to Lose His Lead'
Charlie Cook weighs in once again, noting that Hillary has won some battles but she has lost the war.
The good news for Hillary Rodham Clinton is that she’s winning a lot of battles. The bad news is that the war is pretty much lost. Sure, she won Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary by a strong 9 points in the face of being outspent on television ads by Barack Obama 2-to-1. She also won Ohio, Rhode Island, and at least the primary part of the bizarre “Texas two-step” primary-and-caucus combination on March 4. But today, she is 133 delegates behind Obama, 1,728 to 1,595, according to NBC News. At this point last week, she trailed by 136 delegates. Since then Clinton has scored a net gain of 10 delegates in Pennsylvania, according to NBC, but has lost a few more superdelegates, so she has made little headway. [...]
At the end of the day, the popular vote for the Democratic nomination means nothing. I doubt that having won the popular vote in the 2000 general election is of much solace to Al Gore. Many a football team gains more yards than its opponent in a game yet loses on that important technicality called points. [...]
But you can’t change how the game is played once it has begun. The Democrats have decided that the nominee will be determined by the number of delegates won, not by the popular vote, and that primaries held in direct violation of party rules (in this case, Florida’s and Michigan’s) don’t count. End of discussion.
WSJ Editor quits - Is Rupert involved in Syria story?
Larisa Alexandrovna exposes the WSJ report on what was at stake when Israel bombed Syria last year. It seems it's not all as the WSJ or the Bush admin is spinning. From Larisa's blog, at-Largely:
This may or may not be related to why the Wall Street Journal's top editor, Marcus Brauchli, quit yesterday, but it sure looks to be connected. The "this" that I am referring to is the propaganda piece published in the WSJ - now owned by propaganda magnate, R. Murdoch - today on what went down in Syria last year:
"North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor before Israel bombed the site last September, the Bush administration is set to tell Congress.
The new information could increase the position of hard-liners in Congress and the administration who have argued against a deal being negotiated to dismantle North Korea's nuclear-weapons program. The hard-liners say Pyongyang hasn't provided enough assurances it will dismantle its atomic arsenal in return for economic and diplomatic incentives.
Neither Israel nor the U.S. has made public information about the strike in Syria, though speculation has been widespread that the targeted site was a nascent nuclear reactor. Some Republicans have charged that the U.S. is playing down the matter to avoid hurting talks with North Korea.
Larisa quotes more of the WSJ assertions and then follows up with this:
The claims regarding a Syrian nuclear facility are patently false. How do I know? Because I was on the story for months. It is not true that North Korea is helping Syria build a nuclear reactor. What is true, however, is that Syria has a chemical weapons program - that for some reason no one seems much interested in. But I suppose for the Cheney mechanism to move forward, introducing a whole new type of WMD to the mix might confuse the propaganda.
"Israel did not strike a nuclear weapons facility in Syria on Sept. 6, instead striking a cache of North Korean missiles, current and former intelligence officials say.
American intelligence sources familiar with key events leading up to the Israeli air raid tell RAW STORY that what the Syrians actually had were North Korean No-Dong missiles, possibly located at a site in either the city of Musalmiya in the northern part of Syria or further south around the city of Hama.
While reports have alleged the US provided intelligence to Israel or that Israel shared their intelligence with the US, sources interviewed for this article believe that neither is accurate.
By most accounts of intelligence officials, both former and current, Israel and the US both were well aware of the activities of North Korea and Syria and their attempts to chemically weaponize the No-Dong missile (above right). It therefore remains unclear why an intricate story involving evidence of a Syrian nuclear weapons program and/or enriched uranium was put out to press organizations.
The North Korean missiles -- described as "legacy" by one source and "older generation" by another -- were not nuclear arms."
You want on the record sourcing kids? Here you go, from my same article:
"Vincent Cannistraro, Director of Intelligence Programs for the National Security Council under President Ronald Reagan and Chief of Operations at the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorism Center under President George H. W. Bush, said Sunday that what the Israelis hit was "absolutely not a nuclear weapons facility."
"Syria has a small nuclear research facility and has had it for several years," Cannistraro said. "It is not capable of enriching uranium to weapons capability levels. Some Israelis speculated that the Syrians had succeeded in doing just that, but according to the US intelligence experts that is simply not true."'
There's more good reporting from Larisa along with some well-informed speculation which I'd encourage you to read. Then I'd recommend taking some selected quotes from the articles she references and sending them to your congressional representative and senators today. Tell them not to be taken in by the testimony from the Bush admin spinners.
I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.
