“Black and Right”: Conservative Variation’s On High School
So much of politics can be described as an elaborate game of “I know you are, but what am I?” One side makes an attack, and the other side tries to mirror or echo it. For a prime example of this, look no further than yesterday’s attempt by conservative bloggers to turn a five-year-old Barack Obama speech into a campaign scandal, following the “47 percent” video that has inflicted huge damage on Mitt Romney’s campaign.
In 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama spoke to students at Hampton University, where he discussed the alienation felt by lower-income African Americans and others in inner cities. He critiqued the federal government for its poor response during Hurricane Katrina, while also emphasizing ways in which the black community could improve itself. For Obama, this was boilerplate. The thing that made it interesting—for the right’s purposes, at least—was the fact that Obama slipped into an African American accent during the speech. If you pay attention to politicians at all, you know this isn’t unusual. When George W. Bush talked to Southern Evangelicals, he dropped his “g’s” and added a little twang to his voice. Likewise, when Hillary Clinton spoke to black audiences during the 2008 primaries, she sometimes began to mimic a preacher’s cadence. It happens, and it usually becomes an occasion for good-natured ribbing.
For Matt Drudge, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity & Associates, however, Obama’s accent was evidence of his racial “divisiveness” and contempt for ordinary Americans. Here’s how Carlson saw the speech: “He’s saying: ‘They don’t like you’ because they are black. That is the theme of the speech from front to back, from beginning to end: ‘They don’t like you because of your skin color.’ And that is a shockingly— that’s a nasty thing to say. It’s a divisive thing to say. It’s a demagogic thing to say.”
Anyone who has watched or listened to the speech will tell you that this is the opposite of what Obama said. The dominant tone, in fact, sounded like this: “We can diminish poverty if we approach it in two ways: by taking mutual responsibility for each other as a society, and also by asking for some more individual responsibility to strengthen our families.”
To many on the right, it seems, there’s no way that a black person can talk to other black people without being “divisive.” It’s as if they’re angry at the fact that sometimes, African Americans say things to each other, for each other. If the political world is a variation on high school, then conservatives are the people asking—every day—”Why are the black kids all sitting together at lunch?”
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, October 3, 2012
“A One-Man Blooper Reel”: The Media Should Go Easy On Mitt Romney For Their Own Sake
“The media wants to beat up Mitt Romney,” Sean Hannity told his Fox News viewers this week, “which is driving me nuts.”
Me too, Sean. Much as I’d like to see Hannity driven nuts, I agree that we in the media have been far too rough on the Republican presidential nominee. In fact, I send this urgent appeal to my fellow members of the lamestream media: Please go easy on the guy — for our own sake.
First, Romney was pounded for his false and tone-deaf statements about the attacks on U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt; in a weak moment, I joined in the criticism.
Then Politico came out Sunday night with an article titled “Inside the campaign: How Mitt Romney stumbled,” discourteously detailing all sorts of infighting and missteps.
Worst of all was Monday, when my friend David Corn had the temerity to post on Mother Jones a surreptitiously recorded video of Romney dismissing nearly half the country as moochers.
At this rate, Romney will surely lose the election — and for journalism, this would be a tragedy.
At these times of declining revenue, we in the media need to stay true to our core interests. As the old saying goes, we should “vote the story.” And the better story in this election is clearly President Romney.
Romney’s hit parade — insulting the British, inviting Clint Eastwood to the Republican convention, flubbing Libya and now dismissing half the nation as parasites — may make good copy for the next seven weeks. But if we go easy on the man, we could have four years of gaffes instead of just seven more weeks. Admittedly, this may not be the best outcome for the country, or for the world. But in this race, there is no denying that one man will give us much better material.
President Obama has many talents, but he is not good copy. He speaks grammatically, in fully formed paragraphs. He has yet to produce a scandal of any magnitude. He is maddeningly on message, and his few gaffes — “you didn’t build that,” “the private sector is doing fine” — are inflammatory only out of context. If it weren’t for the occasional relief offered by Joe Biden, the Samaritans would have installed a suicide-prevention hotline in the White House press room by now.
Romney, by contrast, showed his potential for miscues in his first presidential run (see: varmints, hunting of), but he truly blossomed in the gaffe department this cycle, when he became a one-man blooper reel:
“Corporations are people, my friend.”
“I like being able to fire people.”
“I’m not concerned about the very poor.”
“Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs.”
“Ten thousand bucks? $10,000 bet?”
“I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners.”
“There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.”
“I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake; we can’t have illegals.”
In addition, Romney frequently gives the media fresh opportunities to rerun the blooper reel with his attempts to explain the original mistakes. This goes back to his explanation for why he strapped his dog Seamus to the top of the family car: The dog “enjoyed himself” up there.
More recently, Romney offered this explanation for his claim that Obama was making America a less Christian nation. “I’m not familiar precisely with what I said, but I’ll stand by what I said, whatever it was,” he said.
Saying zany things and then standing by them: From a presidential nominee, this is newsworthy. From a president, it could be sensational.
Romney caused an international incident when he went to London and spoke of “disconcerting” signs that the Brits weren’t prepared to host the Olympics. Were he to do that as president, he could bring transatlantic relations back to War of 1812 levels — and that would be a big story.
At home, likewise, he has caused consternation with his remark that 47 percent of Americans “believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name it” and won’t “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” If he governed that way as president, he could stir up social unrest not seen in half a century — and that, too, would be quite a story.
Usually, reporters have little trouble recognizing our self-interest. For all of Newt Gingrich’s complaints about media bias during his primary candidacy, reporters fantasized about a Gingrich presidency.
We should do the same now as we consider prospects for a Romney presidency: gaffes in news conferences, diplomatic slights at state dinners or ham-handed attempts to placate conservatives in Congress. This is exactly the man our industry needs. Be gentle.
I’m from the mainstream media, and I approve this message.
By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 18, 2012
“A Tool Of Prophetic Vengeance”: George Zimmerman, Portrait Of A Contemptible Human Being
George Zimmerman is a contemptible human being.
In court, Zimmerman apologized to Trayvon Martin’s parents because their child ran into the bullet that he fired. Doubling down, Zimmerman, appearing on Fox News last night, had the unmitigated gall to offer up the following statement:
“My wife and I don’t have any children… I love my children even though they aren’t born yet, and I am sorry that they buried their child. I can’t imagine what it must feel like, and I pray for them daily.”
Zimmerman is possessed of a type of self-righteous narcissism and faux-empathy for those people whose lives he has ruined. In keeping with his belief that he was a tool of prophetic vengeance, Zimmerman also suggested that it was “god’s plan” that he killed Trayvon Martin.
I do not know who is worse: Is Zimmerman the true villain here, a killer, perhaps mentally unbalanced and a child molester, with a cop fetish priapism who played Dirty Harry because he couldn’t let one of “the blacks” get away again?
Or are those Right-wing reactionary conservatives like Sean Hannity who worship, coddle, and protect Zimmerman doing so because they wish that they were him, a trigger man, one who got to engage in the most dangerous game, hunting down and killing an innocent person of color for sport?
The role of George Zimmerman as an idol, victim, and martyr for the Right is both absurd and freakish.
Unfortunately, for many people who live in a society where political ideology and racial attitudes form a type of Gordian knot, they see justice for Trayvon Martin through a lens which views all people of color, and young blacks in particular, as perpetual suspects whose lives, citizenship, and safety are contingent and not absolute.
Criminality is a precondition of our existence for folks like George Zimmerman and his allies. This is especially true when black folks are confronted by White authority…and those who are overly identified with it.
In all, Zimmerman is likely surprised that he was arrested for the murder of Trayvon Martin. He intimately understands that black life is cheap in America. As such, what is the fuss over shooting dead a black teenager in the street? Zimmerman still does not have an answer to that question. Likewise, his supporters also do not have an answer to that question either.
This is the source of their love for Zimmerman, and sincere rage at his arrest and prosecution. If anything, the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman should have just been a minor inconvenience for all involved–except of course the victim, his family, and community. He is just a black anyway, so what’s the big deal? They die everyday in America and no one cares either way.
Consequently, how dare anyone suggest that legal and personal accountability should interfere with George Zimmerman’s fantasy play and rent-a-cop, amusement park, joyride of death.
By: Chauncey DeVega, Open Salon Blog, July 19, 2012
“Failing The Fundamental Test Of Journalism”: Watching Fox Makes You More Stupid
People who work at Fox News might like to think that they are only despised by real journalists because they are conservative and most journalists are liberal. Anyone who saw read the admiring obituaries of William F. Buckley, Jr in mainstream and liberal outlets would know that is nonsense. Journalists, both liberals and ones with no ideology in particular, are quite capable of respecting conservative pundits and reporters who deserve their respect.
But Fox does not. The reason is not because they hold a set of values that others may not share. And it is only partially because they claim to be “Fair and Balanced” when they are neither.
Rather, it is because they fail the fundamental test of journalism: are you informing your audience? According to a new study by Farleigh Dickinson University, Fox viewers are the least knowledgeable of any outlet, and they are know even less about politics and current events than people who watch no news at all.
Respondents to the survey were able to answer correctly an average of 1.8 of 4 questions about international news and 1.6 out of 5 questions about domestic affairs. “Based on these results, people who don’t watch any news at all are expected to answer correctly on average 1.22 of the questions about domestic politics, just by guessing or relying on existing basic knowledge,” said Dan Cassino the poll’s analyst.
“The study concludes that media sources have a significant impact on the number of questions that people were able to answer correctly,” wrote Cassino and his colleagues. “The largest effect is that of Fox News: all else being equal, someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer just 1.04 domestic questions correctly — a figure which is significantly worse than if they had reported watching no media at all. On the other hand, if they listened only to NPR, they would be expected to answer 1.51 questions correctly.”
This should come as no surprise if you follow Fox. Consider some recent history. “Fox and Friends” host Steve Doocy invented a quotation from President Obama completely out of thin air. He falsely claimed that Obama had said he and Michelle were not born with silver spoons in their mouths “unlike some people,” in reference to Mitt Romney’s privileged upbringing. In fact, Obama did not say “unlike some people” and he has been using the silver spoon line for years. Several other news outlets repeated Doocy’s assertion as fact and Doocy initially avoided correcting the record after it was revealed he was wrong. Eventually he admitted that he “seemed to misquote” Obama, instead of stating that he did, in fact, misquote him. And he did not apologize for the error.
When Fox isn’t inventing smears against Obama, it uncritically regurgitates corporate funded lies about him. Consider a segment of Sean Hannity’s show from last week. He showed a TV commercial by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group founded and funded by the Koch brothers, that attacks President Obama’s record on investing in renewable energy. Hannity and Frank Luntz praised its effectiveness, with Luntz saying, “It was fact-based, not assertions. You see the facts come up on the screen. There’s specific numbers.”
The only problem is that the factual assertions are incorrect. The ad says, “80 percent of taxpayer dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign countries.” But the article it cites as a source clearly states only that the money went to foreign firms. The bulk of American tax dollars spent on the subsidies, according to Politifact, went to American subsidiaries of the firms.
The ad goes on to offer specific examples: “$1.2 billion to a solar company that’s building a plant in Mexico. Half a billion to a car company that moved American jobs to Finland. And $39 million to build traffic lights in China. President Obama wasted $16 billion on risky investments.” I won’t bore you with all the details of how each of these claims is untrue; each has been labeled false or mostly false by Politifact or Factcheck.org and you can go to Media Matters for the full rundown.
Hannity routinely takes Republican misinformation as the Gospel truth. To choose just one particularly embarrassing example, he let Herman Cain’s spokesman Mark Block declare absurdly, that a woman named Karen Kraushaar who accused Cain of sexual harassment was the mother of a Politico reporter named Josh Kraushaar. Hannity did not challenge either the veracity of this claim nor question why this “fact” would cast doubt on Politico’s thoroughly reported revelation that Cain has been repeatedly accused of sexual harassment. In fact, Josh Kraushaar had left Politico for National Journal over a year before the story even ran, and he is not related to Karen Kraushaar. It would have been easy for Hannity to check on these facts and correct Block’s assertion, but he did not. Here is what Josh wrote about it the next day:
Anybody with Internet access would, at the very least, been able to figure out that I haven’t worked for Politico since June 2010 — and have been working at National Journal since then. I even Tweeted the fact that I wasn’t related to Karen Kraushaar earlier that evening before Hannity’s show to clear up any potential confusion.
That didn’t stop Block. When I heard what Block had said on Hannity’s show, I immediately e-mailed him informing him of his mistake. I still haven’t heard back.
This laziness, partisan hackery and lack of regard for basic accuracy is what separates Fox News from outlets that merely have opinions. And it is doing their audience a disservice. This Fairleigh Dickinson study is not the first to find that Fox News viewers are the most ill informed of any news consumers. As November 22, 2011 Think Progress had found seven studies showing Fox News’ viewers to be the worst informed of all news consumers. In a post about a report that had just come out in the International Journal of Press/Politics, by communication scholar Lauren Feldman of American University and colleagues which found that “Fox News viewing manifests a significant, negative association with global warming acceptance,” Chris Mooney cited six previous studies with similar findings.
I identified 6 separate studies showing Fox News viewers to be the most misinformed, and in a right wing direction—studies on global warming, health care, health care a second time, the Ground Zero mosque, the Iraq war, and the 2010 election.
I also asked if anyone was aware of any counterevidence, and none was forthcoming. There might very well be a survey out there showing that Fox viewers aren’t [emphasis in original] the most misinformed cable news consumers on some topic (presumably it would be a topic where Democrats have some sort of ideological blind spot), but I haven’t seen it. And I have looked.
In the last year, since Fox News fired Glenn Beck and has sought to line up behind more establishment Republican candidates such as Mitt Romney, the new conventional wisdom has been that Fox is tacking back to the center. As a purely strategic move within the Republican Party, that may be true. But, unfortunately, this has not been correlated with any improvement in the quality or independence of their journalism.
By: Ben Adler, The Nation, May 21, 2012
“Precisely Imprecise”: Romney Not Familiar With Questioning Obama’s Faith, But Stands By It
After the political world was consumed by yesterday’s New York Times’ report on the racist strategy memo for a Republican super PAC to “Defeat Barack Hussein Obama,” Mitt Romney was forced to “repudiate” it. But what of his own statement, back in February, invoking the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to Sean Hannity, after Hannity played a clip of President Obama talking about religious diversity in America?
Romney said: “I’m not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said whatever it was.” No, that wasn’t mistranscribed. He said that. If there’s ever been a perfect encapsulation of Romney as a candidate, there it is.
Here’s what Romney was referring to–or not remembering precisely or exactly. As reported by Politico yesterday, in February, during a Romney appearance on his show, Hannity played a clip of an Obama speech in which the president said, “Given the increasing diversity of America’s populations, the dangers of sectarianism are greater than ever. Whatever we once were we are no longer a Christian nation.” Obama was talking about religious pluralism, but Romney took it as a cue to question his patriotism, by invoking Wright. His answer to Hannity:
The other part of his quote is also an unusual thing, where he says that sectarianism (presents) a great threat. Look, he may not be much of a student of history but perhaps he doesn’t recall that from the very beginning, America had many different sects, many different religions, that part of our founding principle was that we would be a nation of religious tolerance. Also, without question, the legal code in this country is based upon Judeo-Christian values and teachings, Biblical teachings, and for the president not to understand that a wide array of religions and a conviction that Judeo-Christian philosophy is an integral part of our foundation is really an extraordinary thing. I think again that the president takes his philosophical leanings in this regard, not from those who are ardent believers in various faiths but instead from those who would like to see America (more secular. And I’m not sure which is worse, him listening to Reverend Wright or him saying that we … must be a less Christian nation.
That’s an even more florid pander to the Christian right than Romney’s Liberty University commencement speech last weekend. He’s not precisely familiar with it, but he stands by it, for sure.
The Romney camp is working hard at putting distance between the candidate and any race-baiting strategies that might be deployed by its allies. But of course Romney himself–even if he’s not precisely familiar with it now–is not above questioning the president’s patriotism, his commitment to Christianity, and the alleged anti-American-ness of Wright, and therefore Obama.
It’s true, of course, that Romney was feebly acknowledging religious pluralism; he has at one time argued that there is no religious test for the presidency. (I wonder if he’s familiar, precisely, exactly, or otherwise, with that today.) When Romney spoke to Hannity last February, it was on the heels of the presidential debate for which he had hired former Liberty University debate coach Brett O’Donnell, and in which he perfected parroting the religious right’s Christian nation ideology in an answer. Faced with a question from Hannity about Obama’s fealty to this Republican ideology, Romney seized the opportunity to invoke Wright.
In the Washington Post this morning, religion columnist Lisa Miller asserts that Obama and Romney have very different views of God, and that when Americans “pull the lever this November, you will not just be voting for president. You will be saying what you believe about God.” Miller goes on to present an embarrassingly simplistic dichotomy: Romney “stands for the individualistic version of American success; Obama for the collectivist.” One of these views (of God) favors slashing taxes and government; the other shared sacrifice and gay marriage.
These are not, though, two cleanly differentiated views of God that in fact inspire each candidate’s politics. (There aren’t even, of course, two cleanly differentiated views of God in American religious life. But that’s another matter.) The candidate’s politics are informed by party, and by ideology; God is added later to justify them. That’s why Romney, born into a minority faith, can feel perfectly comfortable, when put in a room with Sean Hannity, claiming that America was founded on a religion other than his own, but that the other guy, who actually shares the religion that Romney claims the nation was founded upon, is the one who is undermining the proclaimed official national religion by promoting religious pluralism.
By: Sarah Posner, Religion Dispatches, May 18, 2012
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