Like every other institution, the Washington and political
press corps operate with a good number of biases and
predilections.
Best of the Web Today - February 10, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
You Don't Say--I
From ABC News's blog, "The Note":
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Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.
They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are "conservative positions."
They include a belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems; that more taxes on corporations and the wealthy are good ways to cut the deficit and raise money for social spending and don't have a negative affect on economic growth; and that emotional examples of suffering (provided by unions or consumer groups) are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories.
More systematically, the press believes that fluid narratives in coverage are better than static storylines; that new things are more interesting than old things; that close races are preferable to loose ones; and that incumbents are destined for dethroning, somehow.
The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the Iraq war--in any of its WMD, imminent threat, or evil-doer formulations. It does not understand how educated, sensible people could possibly be wary of multilateral institutions or friendly, sophisticated European allies.
It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the economy by stimulating summer spending.
It remains fixated on the unemployment rate.
It believes President Bush is "walking a fine line" with regards to the gay marriage issue, choosing between "tolerance" and his "right-wing base."
It still has a hard time understanding how, despite the drumbeat of conservative grass-top complaints about overspending and deficits, President Bush's base remains extremely and loyally devoted to him--and it looks for every opportunity to find cracks in that base.
Of course, the swirling Joe Wilson and National Guard stories play right to the press's scandal bias--not to mention the bias towards process stories (grand juries produce ENDLESS process!).
The worldview of the dominant media can be seen in every
frame of video and every print word choice that is
currently being produced about the presidential race.
While this is all obvious, it's a pleasant surprise to
find it acknowledged so forthrightly by one of the major
TV networks. The times may be changing. Of course, you
just know the left-wing "media critics" will jump on this
as evidence that the media are actually biased in favor of
conservatives.
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Kerry: Don't Gore Me
John Kerry is expected to win today's Tennessee and Virginia primaries. If he does, this should remove all doubt that the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, is the Democratic nominee. But the Chicago Tribune reports from Memphis that Tennessee Democrats are worried that he has been "telegraphing his intention to steer his [general election] campaign away from Southern states," and that "those worries intensified when Kerry declined to appear at a weekend 'Presidential Primary Celebration' in Nashville with the other two leading candidates."
Kerry did show up for a rally last night in downtown Memphis, and we can't help but think there isn't a perfectly sensible explanation for his avoiding the Sunday "celebration": He wants to stay the heck away from Al Gore, who delivered a much-publicized speech at the event.
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Since losing the presidential election of 2000, Gore has undergone a metamorphosis. Once a moderate Democratic Leadership Council type (albeit always a bit of a nut on "environmental" issues), Gore has become a full-fledged member of the Angry Left. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Gore's rage springs far less from ideology or even partisanship than from personal bitterness over losing. And why should John Kerry, who is after all a serious candidate for president, want to involve himself in Gore's little psychodrama?
The New York Times reports that Gore delivered what the paper very generously calls "a withering critique of the Bush administration." It was more like a tantrum, in which Gore even--ho-hum--questioned the president's patriotism:
"He betrayed this country!" Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. "He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."
It's probably a waste of time to address the substance of Gore's "critique," but it does seem worth noting that regime change in Iraq was "preordained" not by President Bush but by President Clinton and Congress, which made it official U.S. policy in 1998.
To appreciate just how unhinged Gore has become, you have
to hear the speech and directly experience its frenzied
tone. For some reason, the Tennessee Democratic Party,
which organized the "celebration," has proudly posted a
135-second audio clip of Gore (in WAV format). The man is
out of control; he sounds like Howard Dean on steroids.
The 12th Man, a blogger who identifies himself only
as "Alex," has posted a hilarious 42-second MP3 clip of
Gore's rant, with the crowd's applause segueing into
Howard Dean's infamous Iowa scream.
If the Dems are smart, Slate's Chris Suellentrop suggests, they'll jettison the erstwhile veep:
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Gore is still popular with the Democratic base, but after this speech, the question for the party's nominee has to be, do you want this man to speak at the convention in Boston? Even if you like the sentiment behind this speech, if Gore delivers an address like this one in July, the historical analogy won't be to the Democrats of 1976 or to the Republicans of 1994. Instead, the comparison will be to the disastrous Republican convention of 1992. The angry white male is back. Do the Democrats really want him?
Suellentrop is alluding to Pat Buchanan's "religious war" speech. Yet it must be said that Buchanan's angry oration, unlike Gore's, expressed a coherent worldview. You can agree or disagree with Buchahan; with Gore, you can only shake your head in pity.
In addition, Buchanan seems to have some sense of irony about the whole enterprise. Although we don't recall it coming through in his convention speech, we do remember watching him give stump speeches during his presidential campaigns. While going on about "peasants with pitchforks" and other such nonsense, Buchanan would occasionally pause and smile. By the twinkle in his eye, you could tell that at some level Buchanan appreciated the absurdity of the scene.
The same is true to an even greater degree of Howard Dean, the Dems' former angry white man. Anytime a reporter asks him about some crazy rant or other, he'll say he was just having "fun." Longtime Dean watchers like columnist Mark Steyn and The American Spectator's R. Emmett Tyrrell are convinced that Dean's whole angry act is phony. <font size=4>Not so Gore's. This is a man filled with fury and indignation over the world's injustice--which is to say, the injustice that was done to him when the U.S. Supreme Court prevented him from stealing the 2000 election.
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The Associated Press reports that Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's former campaign manager, "pinned the campaign's downturn largely on former Vice President Al Gore's endorsement, which, he said, sparked a torrent of media scrutiny and attacks from rival candidates." We tend to think Dean deserves more of the blame than Gore for the fall of Dean. Still, Kerry is smart to have nothing to do with Gore.
Dean Man Walking
Howard Dean "suddenly revoked an earlier statement that he would drop his presidential bid" if he loses next week's Wisconsin primary, the Washington Post reports.
Which raises an interesting question: Who cares?
By the time Wisconsin rolls around, Dean will presumably have lost 16 nomination contests (including today's primaries in Tennessee and Virginia and Saturday's caucuses in Nevada and the District of Columbia). What's he waiting for, the Vermont primary on March 2? What if he loses that too?
Dean's lingering presence on the political stage calls to mind several recent precedents:
Gary Hart gave Walter Mondale a run for his money in 1984, then was the front-runner in 1988, dropped out over a sex scandal, re-entered the race and went nowhere.
Ross Perot ran as an independent in 1992, dropped out (Republicans were going to disrupt his daughter's wedding, you see), got back into the race, scored a respectable 19% of the vote and possibly handed the election to Bill Clinton--then made a totally pointless run in 1996.
Al Gore made two unsuccessful runs for president, then--well, see preceding item.
With Dean, it all happened so fast. A month ago he was the front-runner (hard to believe, but his famous scream was just three weeks ago yesterday). Now he's nobody. If Al Gore is a has-been, Howard Dean is a never-quite-was. But he would be better off today if he hadn't become an almost-is. Then he would be a novelty candidate and nothing more. Oh how he must long to have the dignity of an Al Sharpton or Dennis Kucinich.
What if They Held an Election and Nobody Came?
"Dean Implores Wisconsin to Ignore Polls"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 9
Now This Is Astute
"Possibility Must Become Reality for Edwards to Win"--headline, Charlotte Observer, Feb. 10
This Just In
"Kerry Blasts Bush Foreign Policy"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 9
Mr. Populist
Jake Tapper, now of ABC News, read the kick-me sign. Tapper reports that Kerry, who has been railing against "special interests," took "legislative action that benefited a campaign contributor: Predictive Networks, a Cambridge, Mass., tech firm co-founded by Paul Davis":
"It absolutely is a special interest," said Davis, a Democrat who generally likes Kerry. "Make no mistake about it--we were in that business to make money, not to perform any kind of social service." . . .
Predictive Networks' CEO, Devin Hosea, met with Kerry and his staff on July 25, 2000. One day later, Kerry introduced a bill that would have enabled companies like Predictive Networks to automatically be allowed to monitor what consumers are viewing--placing the onus on customers to "opt-out" of surveillance if they wanted. . . .
In February 2002, Hosea threw a fund-raiser for Kerry at a Boston restaurant, Locke-Ober. According to Davis, the implied quid pro quo--never stated by Kerry staffers but inferred by many at Predictive Networks--made some executives uncomfortable.
To be fair, Tapper notes that "no one contacted for this story has even remotely alleged that anyone affiliated with Kerry went so far as to imply a quid pro quo." Still, stories like this render ludicrous Kerry's efforts to paint himself as an innocent lamb, in contrast to those nasty special-interest Republicans.
Tapper, quoting Larry Noble of the Center for Responsive Politics, also debunks Kerry's boast that he doesn't take money from political actions committees:
All together, Hosea "bundled" more than $100,000 for Kerry. Bundling is the process through which an individual--usually a lobbyist or company CEO--collects many lawful individual campaign contributions and bundles them together, giving them en masse to a campaign for maximum impact.
"It's one thing to say you don't take PAC money, but again, when you accept bundled money, it is in a sense the same interest that's behind it--and often it's in much larger amounts," Noble said. "PAC money is limited to $5,000. The bundler can bundle together $100,000 to $200,000." So Kerry's claim to be free of special interest ties because PAC funds are verboten from his campaign "is symbolic more than it is practical," according to Noble.
It's too bad Kerry doesn't stand for anything other than "electability" and "beating President Bush." If he did, he wouldn't have to resort to empty slogans that make him look like a hypocrite when they're scrutinized.
Still Evil After All These Years--I
Columnist Amir Taheri points out that tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the mad mullahs to power in Iran. Taheri notes that Khomeini had the help of various useful idiots, to borrow Lenin's phrase:
Many who described themselves as liberals, democrats, social democrats and supporters of a constitutional monarchy, rallied to Khomeini.
Each must have known that Khomeini, or for that matter any mullah from any religion, is unlikely and unable to offer democracy. They all believed that they could use Khomeini as a bridge over which to walk to power. They underestimated Khomeini's intelligence. Having planned to double-cross him, they ended up being double-crossed by him.
Taheri calls Khomeini's various backers the "little Indians":
Twenty-five years after the victory of the Khomeinist revolution, only two "little Indians" remain standing. One represents the genuine Khomeinists who believe that theocracy is the best system not only for Iran but for all nations. . . .
The second group are the ersatz Khomeinists who suffer from split personality. They are fascinated by the West and would die to be accepted by it as "reformists" and/or "democrats." At the same time they are unable to cut their ties to Khomeinism. Outside Iran, they talk of democracy and pluralism. In Tehran they go on pilgrimage to Khomeini's tomb and light candles so that the Imam will save them from annihilation. These fake Khomeinists are the latest "little Indians" to be seen off by the revolution. The next general election, on Feb. 20, could seal their fate.
Once these double-fakers are out of the way Iran will be left with the last group of "little Indians," the hard-core, real McCoy Khomeinists. And then we can look forward to the day when they, too, will disappear.
And then there will be none.
Soon, we hope.
Still Evil After All These Years--II
During the debate over whether to liberate Iraq, one of the arguments opponents offered was that North Korea was worse. Why this would be an argument against liberating Iraq isn't quite clear, but it's certainly true that Pyongyang's communist regime is a strong contender for the world's most horrific. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby reports on the latest revelations:
"I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber. The parents, a son, and a daughter." The speaker is Kwon Hyuk, a former North Korean intelligence agent and a one-time administrator at Camp 22, the country's largest concentration camp. His testimony was heard on a television documentary that aired last week on the BBC. "The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save the kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing."
Like other communist officials, Kwon was not bothered by what he saw. "I felt that they throroughly [sic] deserved such a death. Because all of us were led to believe that all the bad things that were happening to North Korea were their fault. . . . Under the society and the regime I was in at the time, I only felt that they were the enemies. So I felt no sympathy or pity for them at all."
Soon Ok-lee, who spent seven years in another North Korean camp, described the use of prisoners as guinea pigs for biochemical weapons.
"An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy female prisoners," she testified. "One of the guards handed me a basket full of soaked cabbage, told me not to eat it, but to give it to the 50 women. I gave them out and heard a scream. . . . They were all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leaves started violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell. In less than 20 minutes, they were dead."
Are the people who didn't want to liberate Iraq now coming forward with proposals to liberate North Korea? Not that we've heard. A search of John Kerry's campaign Web site turns up little but documents in which he chides the Bush administration for not being more eager to "negotiate" with these vicious killers. Apparently North Korea was just an excuse to leave Saddam Hussein in power.
You Don't Say--II
"Social Security Costs Seen Raising U.S. Debt"--headline, MSNBC.com, Feb. 9
You Don't Say--III
"OPEC Aims to Keep Oil Prices High"--headline, Toronto Globe and Mail, Feb. 10
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Seeing Double
Our item yesterday on homosexual penguins noted reader John Relle's observation that Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan looks a lot like the Penguin, a villain from the "Batman" series. Some readers begged to differ. Martin Sarafian says the Penguin actually looks like Madeleine Albright, while Scott Helgeson thinks Levin looks like Bob Newhart in an elf suit.
We report, you decide. But has anyone ever seen any two of this quartet in the same place at once?
A Fruitcake for Desert
John Kerry, who for some bizarre reason has been suggesting that President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard makes the president less than patriotic, has equated service in the Guard with draft dodging or desertion: "I have always honored and I will always honor anybody who serves anywhere," the Cox News Service recently quoted Kerry as saying. "I've said since the day I came back from Vietnam that it was not an issue to me if somebody chose to go to Canada or to go to jail or to be a conscientious objector or to serve in the National Guard or elsewhere."
One wonders what Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam, would make of Jeremy Hinzman. The Toronto Globe and Mail reports Hizman is living in the Ontarian capital, having deserted the U.S. Army last month.
To be charitable, Hinzman, 25, sounds like a very confused young man. He tells the paper he joined the military in order to get a free education, having rejected college for fear that he would end up in debt, "starting a whole cycle of middle-class existence." Then he discovered that being in the military might involve killing people, and that's just so icky! Shortly before he was to be sent to Afghanistan, he applied for "conscientious objector" status. The Army turned thumbs down, and he ended up on kitchen patrol for eight months.
On Jan. 2, just as his unit was to go to Iraq, he fled to Canada, where he is asking for refugee status, which Canada is unlikely to grant.
The Globe and Mail's sympathetic profile is filled with whining from Hinzman and his 31-year-old wife, Nga Nguyen, about the indignities of military life. Hinzman: "The chants, that was disconcerting to me. I mean, you could play the game and yell it, but you could see that your fellow trainees were really getting into it . . . like they were totally losing their whole notion of self, turning into these little automatons. It was kind of frightening to me, but I pushed it to the back of my head. It was a pretty easy game to play."
As for poor Nga, she "felt isolated" at Fort Bragg:
She tried going to wives' meetings, but she didn't fit in. The other women were either patriotically proud of their husbands or afraid to voice dissent for fear of harming their husbands' careers. . . . On Sept. 11, she heard a news broadcast and knew immediately that life was going to change. The young couple suddenly found themselves amid frenetic patriotism they didn't share. They were horrified by the jetliner attacks but intellectually (Mr. Hinzman read the left-tilting Nation and Noam Chomsky) saw them as a consequence of U.S. foreign policy.
Well, patriotism isn't compulsory, and we can all be proud to live in a country that tolerates idiotic anti-American views like Hinzman's and Nguyen's. But what an incredible jerk this Hinzman is! It's one thing to have gone to Canada to escape the draft, but this guy volunteered to serve in the military, apparently mistaking it for some sort of welfare program.
As for Nga Nguyen, we can't help noticing that she has a Vietnamese name. One wonders how she became an American, and how she ended up hating her country so much. |
