Tag: Charles Krauthammer

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The Mainstream Media is Right

In today’s Washington Post– and all over the place, actually– several right wing pundits are weeping their little eyes out because the Mainstream Media is so biased that it gave overwhelmingly favorable coverage to Obama and overwhelmingly hostile coverage to McCain. McCain, in fact, stopped talking to the media early on in the general election campaign because he thought they were all “for Obama”.

Is it true?

And if it’s true, does it matter?

1. If it matters, how come Bush was able to win two elections without the slightest assistance from the MSM? How come McCain didn’t complain about bias when he was the media’s darling? And how dare the MSM disapprove of John Hagee anyway, or Gordon Liddy, or James Dobson, just because they are crypto-fascists?

The fact is that even if there was a conspiracy, it couldn’t work: the internet has made it impossible for anyone to effectively suppress news. If a story really was suppressed– that would become the story, as it often does, when you see even liberal columnists bemoan the alleged bias of the media. (They somberly note that more favorable stories have appeared about Obama than about McCain.)

But what if Obama is the better candidate?

In short, McCain says it’s snowing and Obama says it’s raining, the media is biased if they look outside. [With thanks to Campbell Brown, CNN Editor, in Time Magazine this week.]

2. What about Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, ABC, and all the other conservative outlets? I could almost buy the bias argument without choking if any of these whiners would actually think to mention that Fox News is at least as biased– and, more reasonably, actually far more biased– than CBS or the New York Times. We often accuse our enemies of the flaw we most recognize in ourselves.

3. If the MSM really unfairly ignored the William Ayers story, then Fox News would most certainly have uncovered any relevant facts. But Fox News and conservative columnists kept ranting about William Ayers without providing the slightest evidence of anything about the matter that was relevant to the election. What Fox News did do was give air time to some of the most poorly documented and scurrilous stories circulating among the fanatical fringes. Obviously, they can safely assume that most of their loyal readers and listeners don’t read very widely.

4. Nobody tied Sarah Palin to a chair and forced her to provide Katie Couric with inane answers to sensible questions. Nobody forced her to chat for six minutes with a bad imitator of French President Sarkozy. Nobody forced her to identify white rural citizens as “real” Americans.

5. Did the MSM largely ignore Biden’s gaffes? I don’t know of any gaffe by Biden that would have caused anyone to doubt his knowledge, abilities, or competence. Even his comment about Obama being tested by America’s enemies soon after taking office wasn’t even really all that controversial– does McCain really believe he won’t be?

6. Would you really go to Fox for actual news over the New York Times, Washington Post, or L.A. Times? Okay– the Wall Street Journal and Globe & Mail– conservative papers– provide a fair bit of real journalism. But then, you don’t hear their columnists ranting on and on about liberal bias. The most conservative columnists, like the most conservative politicians who never seem to actually serve in any wars (McCain is the exception), never actually seem to do any reporting– just opinions.

7. As even many conservative columnists agree, Obama ran an absolutely superb campaign, perhaps one of the best in recent history. He was supremely well-organized and efficient, and he raised enormous sums of money. He was consistent and prudent and unflappable. The MSM accurately reported. That’s not bias: that’s journalism.

8. The conservative press assumes that all Americans share their anguish that Obama doesn’t seem very eager to blow things up, bomb foreign cities, or spend trillions on obsolete, ineffective weapons systems. How dare he. They are even more astonished that any sane person would have the slightest concern for the environment at a time when Wall Street Investors actually have to bear some risk for their investments.

What is “bias”?

Everyone talks as if there is a common understanding of what “bias” looks like. Take the example of Obama’s alleged association with William Ayers. This issue puzzled me. I heard from conservative pundits that there was something nefarious afoot here and the MSM was not reporting it. All right, I thought. Let Fox News– biased the other way– report it. So I went to Fox News, and Charles Krauthammer, and George Will, and the others, and waited to be enlightened with information the MSM had ignored or concealed. What was that information? What new evidence of a covert relationship did they have? What shocking story did they have to tell?

Well, it turns out that the shocking story they had to tell was that the MSM didn’t find anything particular sinister about Obama’s relationship with Ayers. They met a few times and Ayers, who lives openly in Chicago and, in fact, was voted “citizen of the year” by the City of Chicago for his extensive work promoting educational programs. Here’s CNN’s take on the issue.

The “bias” here is expressed as the conclusion drawn by responsible journalists that the Ayer’s story has no real significance or relevance to Obama’s candidacy. They worked together on two boards of charitable organizations that were clearly active promoting progressive social causes. They probably served together on a panel addressing juvenile justice issues. The odd thing is that one might reasonably argue that Obama’s association with this community activist has flattering implications. Think about it. Ayers was a radical in the 60’s, but he grew up, he matured, and learned to work within the “system”. He clearly is dedicated to working with disadvantaged youth in the City of the Chicago. How awful is it that Obama, a community organizer, would end up working with him on several worthy projects?

Now the pundits over at Fox News seem to perceive something dangerous in this activity. But that’s not because biased MSM reporters ignored important details. It’s because they don’t share the same extremist values of the conservative pundits who find the very idea of “progress” hysterically frightening because it applies to the lives of working Americans instead of the portfolios of investors.

So what the hell is going on here, with this “bias” argument? Is this all there is? Is this typical of the conservative arguments against Obama? Now I understand what they mean by “bias”.

It should surprise no one that at least some Republicans are immediately presenting the bullshit argument that somehow Obama didn’t really win a mandate. When Republicans win the election by concealing their real policies of shifting wealth from working people to investors, it’s because voters want them to govern. When Democrats win by campaigning on policies that benefit the middle classes–as Obama clearly did–, the voters were “deceived or misguided”. So John Boehner wants you to believe. That justifies the Republicans in Congress being as obstructionist as possible. Precisely the kind of politics the voters rejected by choosing Obama.

If Obama wanted to get his way more efficiently, he could just do what Bush did to get his way on Iraq: lie through his teeth.

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Liberal Culture

There’s a hole in daddy’s arm
where all the money goes
Jesus Christ died for nothing,
I suppose.

I wonder if hard core George Bush supporters ever watch Jon Stewart late at night and say to themselves, gosh, I wish we had one of those. Because as much as you’d like to believe that Ann Coulter is witty or that Bill O’Reilly is smart or that Sean Hannity is insightful, you just know they’re not, and you just know that Jon Stewart and George Clooney and, in this case, John Prine, are way smarter and way cooler and way more astute than any conservative writer or commentator except maybe Clint Eastwood.

And I think conservatives know it as much as anyone knows it. Why else would they even care what gets published in the New York Times or who says what on “60 Minutes” or who wins Oscars or Grammies? If the New York Times is really out of step with the majority of right-thinking Americans, then your worries are over, aren’t they, Charles Krauthammer?

Not exactly. There was a man who served on our church council in Chatham who never, ever voiced an opinion on the matter of women serving in church office. He just listened to all the arguments and then made up his mind that he wouldn’t listen to any of the arguments but just vote the way he felt about the issue, which was that it just wasn’t right for women to serve as Deacons. When I challenged him to explain why he believed what he did, he became annoyed and frustrated, and finally blurted out, “that’s just the way I feel”.

So even though Sam Stone is an amazing song that convinces you that there is something totally messed up with the war in Viet Nam– it’s probably not going to change your mind about Iraq or Iran or North Korea. Those people still need to be killed. And the more they think we want to kill them, the safer we’ll all be.

Free speech does not guarantee anyone the right to be heard but it does guarantee the right of the speaker to speak and not be silenced.”

Cal Thomas.

So it’s a good thing if Fox News, or the White House, or CNN, doesn’t actually allow anyone with a contrary opinion the opportunity to address any issues. You just go right on holding your contrary views in your own living room, where they can do the least damage. And a President who, according to Newsweek, doesn’t hear anything that contradicts his own views on the Iraq war or terrorism or global warming or free speech, shouldn’t worry about the fact that he isn’t exposed to any new ideas or possible solutions.

On John Prine’s brilliant Donald and Lydia.

Who do you want to invite to your party?

Conservative: Bill O’Reilly
Liberal: Jon Stewart
Conservative: Ann Coulter
Liberal: Hillary Clinton
Conservative: Clint Eastwood
Liberal: George Clooney
Conservative: Sonny Bono’s second wife
Liberal: Sonny Bono’s first wife.
Conservative: Ted Nugent
Liberal: Janet Reno
Conservative: Reese Witherspoon
Liberal: Keira Knightly

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Preemptive Injustice

Charles Krauthammer, in the Washington Post, is a little more transparent than most official government spokesmen when he declares that the U.S. would be foolish to wait for terrorists to actually commit any crimes before going after them.

It would be foolish to wait for a crime to be committed before punishing the offender.

The fact that he actually wrote such a statement is baffling to me, but it must be supposed that he knows or thinks he knows that such a statement would actually make sense to some people, if not the Bush Administration.

I note that he only offers two options: do nothing, or pre-emptive attacks. Among other things, it’s a dishonest statement. There is a large constituency out there for the idea of addressing the root causes of terrorism, like the disenfranchisement of entire ethnic groups, or economic oppression, or neo-colonialism. That would be a third option: address the root causes of terrorists. Krauthammer would probably scoff at such an idea. For one thing, it would require you to be empathetic to the needs of others. Real men don’t do that..

At the most obvious level, of course, the statement makes no sense at all. I feel silly doing this, but if Krauthammer is right that his statement will make sense to a lot of people, then I guess I need to convince myself as well, that I’m not crazy.

1. We don’t know who is going to actually commit a crime (a terrorist act) until the crime is committed. So if we decide that we will go out and arrest people who haven’t committed crimes yet because only a fool would wait until the crime was actually committed, we have indeed entered a brave new world of criminal justice. We are going to start busting people who we think might think about committing crimes in the future.

2. It does indeed sound foolish to wait until someone robs you or assaults you before you assault them. So go out and find the person who is going to do that awful thing to you and assault them first, to deter them. Does that make sense to you? If it does, the Bush administration may have a job for you in the State Department.

3. Okay, so that sounds absurd. What do we do? What we have always done. You try to ensure that people who commit crimes or acts of terrorism are punished. You try to root out the causes of crime and terrorism. Great Britain fought terrorism in Ireland with pretty well nothing but brute force for about 100 years. It was not until they made progress in negotiations with the IRA that the possibility of peace in Northern Ireland became a reality. They’re not there yet. It’s not smooth sailing. It’s hard work. You understand the temptation to just lock them all up. But brutality has been tried and it has failed to stop the terror. If the Catholics in Northern Ireland feel that they are exploited and oppressed by the Protestant majority, there will be two, maybe three replacements for every terrorist you lock up or kill.

You can never bring an end to terrorism with brute force alone, unless you are willing to countenance genocide. And even then, you’ll never get them all. The state of Israel is testimony to that.

4. You can’t possibly know for sure what anyone is going to do in the future, no matter what you think they are thinking or even planning today. For every murder committed, there must be hundreds of murders contemplated. For every member of Al Qaeda, there are dozens of young Moslems who decide that part of their passage into manhood is the experience of a few months at a military training camp in Afghanistan. Most of these men will never become terrorists, but we are now arresting and imprisoning young Moslem men who went to these camps before an act of Congress made them illegal. They are charged with being a member of a terrorist organization.

This is a hideous perversion of justice, but it is countenanced by most people today because of frenzied government warnings about imminent terrorist threats. We are frightened into acquiescence when most of us should know better.

5. This is a self-perpetuating contrivance to justify increasing government authoritarianism and militarism. By labeling Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil”, we strengthen the hand of the hard-line reactionaries within Iran and weaken the reform movement. We give credence to the mullahs’ belief that the West is out to get them, like we were in 1953 when we installed the Shah.

6. What is the difference between defending your country and terrorism? Who were the terrorists in Viet Nam? The Viet Cong, who were defending the results of the elections that brought socialists to power in the former French colony? Or the foreigners who entered their country with bombs and grenades and napalm and attempted to prop up a failing, corrupt government? Who were the terrorists in Nicaragua? The Sandinistas who eventually won the first free elections held after the fall of Somoza, or the Contras? Who had legitimacy? Who represented the will of the people?

7. Does Krauthammer sound familiar? A little like Henry Kissinger discussing the coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile? Thousands were tortured or murdered because of the CIA’s pre-emptive support of pro-American forces in the Chilean military. Would Krauthammer be in favor of renewed interventionism in Latin America? Do we need some more dictatorships in Brazil and Argentina to preemptively suppress terrorist movements?

Or would we, perchance, be better off supporting democracies in those countries– and preemptively preventing the kind of oppression that gives rise to terrorist movements in the first place.

When you can’t catch the burglar, simply arrest the paper-boy, so at least you can tell people you’ve done something about crime.

“When dealing with undeterrables (sic) (like al Qaeda) or undetectables (sic) (like an Iraq or an Iran passing WMDs to terrorists) there is no such thing as containment. There is no deterrence, no address for the retaliation. There are two options: do nothing and wait for the next attack, or get them before they acquire the capacity to get you. That is called preemption.” Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post

I know the “sic” is rude, but I can’t help it if the Washington Post decides that their columnists can just make up new words nowadays.