Fearlessly Facing a Hostile Media

Any half-awake, semi-literate follower of the coverage so far of Campaign 2008 offered by either the mainstream media or the blogosphere is aware the media is still controlled by the good old boys network in America.

Nevertheless, I was surprised yesterday to read a casual comment by Kos himself in a post on his leading left of center blog, The Daily Kos, confirming the obvious: one of Hillary Clinton’s challenges in her run for the Democratic nomination is a “hostile media.” (If you need further verification of the media's abusive treatment of Clinton, check out a recent item on Media Matters.)

From screaming negative headlines exaggerating poll results in Iowa favoring Obama by one or two points and either tucking news of a Clinton lead away in an obscure corner or not reporting it at all to skewed coverage of a debate by the Democratic candidates, it’s hard to find clear, objective, and honest coverage of campaign 2008 anywhere in the online media, including the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

The reader comments following a typically biased article from supporters of front-runner Clinton’s rivals is scary. This is especially true at the Huffington Post where within the past several days, Obama supporters have used every obscenity in their apparently limited vocabularies to accuse the Clinton camp of everything from staging the hostage crisis in New Hampshire to get favorable publicity and perpetrating the YouTube video titled Obama Obollywood. (You can see the video from this site by clicking on Obama’s image from the YouTube icon in the sidebar to the right of this post.)

“Good old boys” has always been something of a misnomer for a power structure that blocks advancement of talented, capable women. Sad to say, the boys have always found allies among those women who can’t tolerate sharing the limelight or power with a successful sister who shows signs of breaking through yet another major glass ceiling. Particularly disappointing have been the personal attacks on Hillary Clinton by Maureen Dowd and Arianna Huffington.

Lately, I’ve been reading Huffington’s book, On Becoming Fearless, that suggests at least a modicum of awareness on her part of the obstacles to success American women continue to face: “Our presence in powerful positions, on corporate boards, and as heads of our own businesses continues to grow. Fortune magazine reports that as of 2005, roughly half of all management and professional jobs were filled by women. In the last ten years, the number of Fortune 500 companies with at least one quarter of their boards filled with women directors went from eleven to sixty-four. And women now own 48 percent of small business.

“That’s all going in the right direction, but women are still not even close to parity, especially in pay. The compensation-package half-empty view looks like this: According to catalyst, a non-profit research group, women still account for just under 15 percent of Fortune 500 board members. And for the past ten years, the rate has been increasing only 0.5 percent a year. This means we won’t hit the 50 percent mark until 2076 – a nice tri-centennial present for America, but still, should it take three hundred years?”

Obviously, Huffington talks the talk on behalf of women’s rights, but don’t get me wrong: I don’t expect her, Maureen Dowd, or any other representative of the American media, male or female, to support Hillary Clinton in news coverage or opinion pieces because she’s a woman. I do, however, demand fair and equal coverage of Clinton’s undeniably fearless front-running bid for the presidency.

Snowstorms and Brass Angel Candleholders

The brass angels holding their tall candles aloft are standing vigil in my entryway these days. The angels were a gift from my daughter Jean more than 20 years ago, and I’ve kept them close at hand ever since. As you can see in the above photo, one angel is taller than the other, reminding me of a mother and daughter.

Ever since I received the brass angels, they’ve appeared from time to time in my dreams, sometimes floating in mid-air in the living room and occasionally standing above the foot of my bed watching over me.

The angels were an appropriate gift from Jean who worried about me because I seldom paid attention to weather reports and was frequently oblivious to tornado alerts and warnings of other potentially catastrophic conditions.

In the early 90s, I left Minnesota to sojourn briefly in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains in western Pennsylvania. When I picked up the phone that Friday evening, Jean said, “Mom, do you know what’s coming your way?”

“It’s supposed to snow, isn’t it?”

“Put the phone down, Mom, and go out in the kitchen and check your food supply. Then come back and tell me what you have on hand.”

“I have some oranges, carrots, a loaf of bread and some coffee,” I reported.

Back in St. Paul, Jean had been listening to the national weather news: the blizzard of the century was headed toward the hamlet where I lived. Following my daughter’s advice, I rushed out to stock up with groceries and other supplies.

By morning, the snow had drifted as high as the roof of my back porch, and my driveway wasn’t plowed until the following Tuesday. It was probably my imagination, but when I glanced at the brass angels on my way out that afternoon, I could have sworn the little one winked at me.

Regardless, I’d learned my lesson. By the time the snow started falling in St. Paul last Saturday morning, I had a good supply of groceries and a couple of library books to read in case I couldn’t get out for a day or two.

I got to church and back on Sunday without mishap and made a run to the supermarket to restock before the second major snowfall of the season struck yesterday.

Dodging snowstorms this first week in December has lured me away from the ups and downs of Campaign 2008 and other compelling current events to holiday preparations. My son and his wife will be here on Sunday afternoon to bake Christmas cookies and once I get this posted, I plan to do a little cleaning – very little - and decorate my apartment.

Despite our fondest hopes, my daughter Jean may not be here in person this weekend, but we hold her always in our hearts, and the treasured gift of the brass angel candleholders continuously assures us of her presence in our lives.

Clinton Reclaims Lead in Iowa

After all of the media uproar and the premature celebration of the extreme left on behalf of Barack Obama’s short-lived three or four point lead in Iowa, you’d think Clinton would at least get front-page coverage for the recent AP-Pew telephone poll results showing her now five points ahead.

The coverage of her success is much more muted than that of Obama, the darling of the extreme left – no screaming headlines for Clinton on the front page of the Huffington Post. But here’s the score from the new AP-Pew poll for Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina:

Iowa:
Clinton 31
Obama…26
Edwards 19

New Hampshire
Clinton 38
Obama 19
Edwards 15

South Carolina
Clinton 45
Obama 18
Edwards 10

I believe that means Clinton leads Obama in 49 of the 50 states. Evidently, he's still ahead in Illinois.

So how many people do I have to kill to win this game?

Bob Herbert began his op-ed column in the NY Times today by wondering if children should be allowed to watch the Republican presidential debates. Herbert continues:

“There’s so much talk of violence and mayhem as the solution to our ills. The candidates seem so eager to flex their muscles and engage the nation in conflict: Let’s continue the war in Iraq. Let’s show them what we’re made of in Iran. Let’s round up those immigrants and ship ’em back where they came from.

“It’s like watching adolescent boys playing the ultimate video game, with no regard for the consequences. Rudy, the crime-fighter and terror maven, says he’s tougher than Mitt, who actually had illegals working on his property. Mitt begs to differ and says he’d like to double the size of the Guantánamo prison.”

Titled Rambo and the G.O.P., Herbert’s piece reminded me of a column I wrote (see below) on a related topic published in my community newspaper about two years ago:

So how many people do I have to kill to win this game?

A shadow now hovers over a joy I’ve often experienced on weekday mornings. I like to sit at my kitchen table and watch the neighborhood kids tumble down the hillside just beyond my window. The minute the school bus pulls in, they brush themselves off and scramble for its open door.

The shadow first appeared a couple of weeks ago following an online chat with my friend, David. We were just a couple of parents that afternoon sharing our concerns about a perceived up-tick in violence in our culture in recent years. My own two children are mature adults, but David and his wife still have a teenage son at home.

When my kids were young, parents worried about whether or not toy guns were appropriate playthings. We also complained to TV networks about the negative stereotypes and violence in children’s cartoons.

“Lately,” I said, “I’ve been shocked by the video games I’ve glimpsed on television.”

David replied, “It seems the primary goal in some of these games — so popular with today’s teens — is to kill as many people as you can as quickly as possible. It’s as if killing is okay as long as it’s not real people.

“One day someone’s going to think: ‘We’re not killing real people. We're just pushing a button, and some vaguely people-like beings on the other side of the globe disappear.”’

I’m reminded of the frequent recurrence of the word “kill” in the daily news, usually heard in reference to alleged terrorists or insurgents, as in: “We’ll hunt them down and kill them.”

It’s also been unnerving to hear U.S. officials debate on prime time TV what degree of pain we should allow our interrogators to inflict on enemy combatants — short of torture.

Not long after my e-mail exchange with David, something as horrific as the images from Abu Ghraib appeared on my television screen: the surveillance video from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

The teenagers filmed in the act of brutally beating a homeless man have since been taken into custody. The two young males have also been charged with murdering another homeless man and are suspected of beating a third.

The National Coalition for the Homeless reported 105 similar attacks in 2004, including 25 deaths. The majority of attackers were young men between the ages of 16 and 25.

Then from Chaska, Minn. came word of Nancy Everson’s murder. Her son Grant, 20, and three male friends — two 20-year-olds and a 17-year-old — allegedly plotted to kill both of Grant’s parents for his inheritance.

Now in custody, the 20-year-olds are charged with murder and attempted murder. The 17-year-old is charged with aiding an offender.

I’ve no idea whether any of the young men in the above news accounts ever played “Grand Theft Auto” or “Mortal Kombat.” But curiosity prompted me the other day to Google video games and violence.

A Brigham Young University NewsNet article confirmed that games depicting shooting, violence and drug usage have been among the best-selling. The article noted: “One example of a game with high levels of graphic violence and gore is ‘Carmageddon,’ a game released several years ago in which players run down pedestrians and crash into other cars. If all levels are completed, one researcher estimated, the player would have killed nearly 33,000 people.”

A news release from the American Psychological Association (APA) cited research indicating “exposure to violence in video games increases aggressive thoughts, aggressive behavior, and angry feelings among youth.”

The APA’s resolution recommends all violence be reduced in video games and interactive media marketed to children and youth.

I’m one parent who wouldn’t await further word.

As it is, the shadow still lingers over the nearby hillside well after my neighborhood kids have boarded the school bus.

Placing my coffee cup in the dishwasher, I wonder how long it will be before these youngsters are lured from the innocent play of childhood by darker thrills — those that come from the power to deal out death on an animated screen.

Footnote:Since I wrote the preceding column, violence in our culture has increased even more and as Bob Herbert points out, it might be a good idea in today's world to shield the children from Republican debates.

On Universal Health Care, Obama Gives Aid and Comfort to the Enemies of Reform

As a former employee of one of the world’s largest insurance companies, I recall sitting in on workplace sessions in which management gave us talking points opposing the latest government-sponsored health insurance program to present to our state legislators. And of course, we were warned of the perils of socialized medicine. As I recall, we were even shown a film negatively portraying medical care under the Canadian system.

Later on, I began receiving notices of regular incremental increases in the cost to employees of our group health insurance at that same company. It’s my understanding that costs for both employees and retirees who opted to continue their group health insurance there have continued to rise.

That’s just one reason why health care coverage has become a major issue among Democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential campaign. In today’s NY Times, Paul Krugman describes how the left wing’s preferred candidate, Barrack Obama, has been resorting to right-wing rhetoric, akin to that of the corporate world, to promote his health care plan over those offered by Hillary Clinton and John Edwards:

“From the beginning,” Krugman says, “advocates of universal health care were troubled by the incompleteness of Barack Obama’s plan, which unlike those of his Democratic rivals wouldn’t cover everyone. But they were willing to cut Mr. Obama slack on the issue, assuming that in the end he would do the right thing.”

Krugman continues:

“Now, however, Mr. Obama is claiming that his plan’s weakness is actually a strength. What’s more, he’s doing the same thing in the health care debate he did when claiming that Social Security faces a “crisis” — attacking his rivals by echoing right-wing talking points.”

Krugman summarizes:

“What seems to have happened is that Mr. Obama’s caution, his reluctance to stake out a clearly partisan position, led him to propose a relatively weak, incomplete health care plan. Although he declared, in his speech announcing the plan, that “my plan begins by covering every American,” it didn’t — and he shied away from doing what was necessary to make his claim true.

“Now, in the effort to defend his plan’s weakness, he’s attacking his Democratic opponents from the right — and in so doing giving aid and comfort to the enemies of reform.”

That’s all we need this time around when true progressives in America have the opportunity to take back the White House and our country from the agenda of the radical right wing.

Immigration: Debunking the Racist, the Ignorant, and the False

The headline in today’s Washington Post reads: In Debate, Romney and Giuliani Clash on Immigration Issues. Staff writers Michael D. Shear and Dan Balz began their coverage of the Republican candidates’ CNN/YouTube debate with a blow-by blow account of Romney’s and Giuliani’s sorry attempts to out-tough one another last night on the immigration issue:

“Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani immediately set the tone for the combative event, using the first question to continue a weeks-long feud they have waged on the campaign trail. Each accused the other of ignoring laws against illegal immigration and distorting one another's record on the issue.

“Giuliani accused Romney of having a "sanctuary mansion" by employing illegal immigrants as lawn workers and of being "holier than thou" on the issue. Romney accused Giuliani of ignoring the laws and of welcoming illegal immigrants to New York. "That's the wrong attitude," Romney charged in a lengthy, heated exchange.”

Their “heated exchange” ignited a few sparks in the numerous comments from readers that followed. For example, one reader first linked to http://goupstate.us/index.php/lanefiller/2007/11/14/the_illegal_immigrant_next_door before beginning his rant:

“This link is to a column that presents the same bleeding heart position that we always hear. "Illegals are people too" is the point of the article and for America to welcome them in droves signifies some kind of moral progress on our part. Well, that's bullsh!t. Plenty of people in this world are born in indesireable countries into undesireable cultures with few opportunities. Why don't we just have them all come over? Forget about the actual Americans that pay taxes and whose ancestors built this country. After all, "immigrants built this country too;" another favorite platitude of the bleeding hearts. We are not displaying our morals by welcoming millions illegals from the Third World and letting them engulf our resources, infrastructure, and culture. We are displaying our unbelievable stupidity because if we don't stop it soon, America will cease to exist as we know it. It will just be a Balkanized mess overrun by Third-World uneducated dregs. But I suppose that racist of me to say, right?”

The above statements are not only racist, but also ignorant and completely false. Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights has published a well-documented fact sheet on immigration and the economy that debunks such popular myths about our nation’s immigrant population (for the complete fact sheet and its sources, go here):

Our Immigration System Is Incompatible With Our Economy

“Research shows that the economy readily absorbs these new additions {undocumented persons}, yet they remain without immigration status.”

Immigrants Pay Taxes and Contribute to Social Security

“Immigrants stimulate the U.S. economy by paying sales, property, and income taxes…undocumented workers who do not have a Social Security Number are able to file income taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)…A study in 2005 found that undocumented immigrants pay $6-7 billion in Social Security taxes that they will never able to claim. Another recent study indicates that a reduction in legal immigration would devastate the Social Security System, into which new legal immigrants will contribute over $611 billion over the next 75 years.”

Immigrants Do Not Take Jobs Away From U.S. Workers

“Immigrants make unique contributions to the U.S. economy by creating new jobs through entrepreneurship, filling jobs for which there are no qualified U.S. workers, and taking positions that would otherwise be shipped overseas or replaced with computers. …A letter written in June 2006 signed by over 500 top economists reads ‘The American economy can create as many jobs as there are workers willing to work so long as labor markets remain free, flexible and open to all workers on an equal basis.”’

Immigration’s Effects on Wages Are Minimal

“On average, immigration raises U.S.-born workers’ wages slightly.”

Undocumented Immigrants Are Not Eligible For Public Benefits

“Immigrants are largely excluded from receiving public assistance…The only service for which temporary and undocumented immigrants are eligible is emergency medical care…Providing such assistance regardless of immigration status upholds the American value of protecting life and preventing unnecessary pain and suffering.”

Providing Education to All Children Benefits Society

“ A Supreme Court decision in 1982, Plyler v. Doe, held that governments must provide the same free public education to undocumented children as they provide to other children. This decision was based on the desire to prevent a permanent underclass and to avoid punishing children for actions of their parents. …parents of undocumented children pay taxes that support the educational system and the community, just as other parents do.

Immigration Keeps the U.S. Competitive in a Global Economy

“Low-skilled immigrants complement the skills of the current labor force and are preventing negative growth rates in aging communities. High-skilled immigrants account for about half of the Ph.D. engineers, life scientists, physical scientists, and math and compute scientists in the U.S. Forty-four of the first one hundred Nobel prizes awarded to American researchers went to immigrants or their children. With immigration comes motivation and innovation – it fuels our nation!”

It’s unfortunate that both Romney and Giuliani have flip-flopped on the immigration issue for political reasons since deciding to run for the presidency. It would be good if all candidates first did a little research and became familiar with the facts before taking similar right-wing positions. The lives of many U.S. residents - undocumented or otherwise - are at stake, as well as the values that have made America great.

The Significance of Likeability in the 2008 Campaign

Mark Shields’ likeability rating plummeted for this viewer with last Friday’s edition of the NewsHour. The affable given-to-stammering Shields is the liberal counterpart to the smooth-talking conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Judy Woodruff opened the Shields-Brooks weekly news analysis by asking what the latest Washington Post-ABC presidential poll in Iowa said about the contest — beginning with the Democrats.

Shields meandered his way to announcing the final poll results showing Obama in a statistical tie with Clinton before he moved into those “internals,” which, in Shields’ estimation, clearly indicate that Obama and Edwards are seen as more likeable than Clinton.

Our liberal guy pontificated as follows:

“And I think you can make the case, the Democrats lost two presidential elections to George W. Bush where their nominees, John Kerry and Al Gore, were both seen as more intelligent, knowledgeable, and in Al Gore's case, far more experienced than George W. Bush.

“But George W. Bush won, I believe, in both cases because he was seen as more steadfast in his beliefs and convictions, more honest, and more likeable. And I think Democrats, there's a certain sense among some that they've seen this movie before, where their candidate failing on the likeability, honesty, straightforward question becomes a problem.”

Brooks was quick to agree with Shields that the above should be a “significant worry” for Clinton.

Neither analyst — both displaying the smugness of male superiority — reminded viewers of the public’s current perception of George W. Bush, the latest polls showing Bush as perhaps the least trusted and most demonstrably incompetent president in our nation’s history.

And of course, neither of the NewsHour’s political gurus suggested it might be wise for the electorate this time around to consider a few weightier qualifications for the highest office in the land than this choice description of candidate Bush: “He’s a guy you could enjoy swilling a beer with from time to time.”

The deja vu was suffocating.

My inaugural post for Katalusis in late August was titled Charm versus Substance in which I reached back to the 2000 campaign to quote pollster John Zogby from a typical NewsHour transcript:

Zogby opined: “Well, I think basically if you go back to 1988, that's the classic example. Dukakis never really built up his likeability, therefore it was easy to knock him down. But America likes George W. Bush. They seem to like what they see. And at the same time, they don't like Al Gore very much.”

From the 2004 campaign, I grabbed this quote from a NewsHour transcript featuring Shields and Brooks:

Shields comments: “I’d add one more thing: George Bush’s likeability edge, which I think everybody acknowledges over John Kerry, and his congeniality and just his naturalness were bigger assets in 2000 than they are in 2004.”

In the same post, I noted that in 2004, the American electorate allowed charm to trump substance once again by electing Bush to a second term, but I added that according to the latest polls, charm had worn out its welcome in the White House.

Dan Balz of the Washington Post recently concurred in his post in The Trail last Wednesday titled What Happened to Liking the Candidate You Support? Balz noted that both Giuliani and Clinton, national frontrunners for their respective parties, scored lower than their rivals on likeability in the latest Washington Post-ABC poll. But Balz points out that in the same poll, both Giuliani and Clinton were seen as being the strongest leaders in their fields.

Balz has stumbled around a lot in covering this campaign, but he finally reaches the conclusion I’d reached earlier in interpreting Clinton’s lead: “In part, what voters may be reflecting is a reaction to what they have seen over the past eight years. Given Bush's low approval rating and the harsh assessments of the administration's competence in managing the war in Iraq and the Katrina aftermath, there's no doubt that voters are looking for more than likeability in their chief executive. "

Yeah. Qualities such as competence; responsibility to all the people, not just her or his base, gravitas, etc.

One can only hope that pundits such as Brooks and Shields will eventually catch up, as Balz evidently has, with the maturing of the American electorate.