Nice post, Turkana. But I don't think MSNBO will switch its allegiance, despite McCain positively referencing GE (that's General Electric, not election) on the stump. Obama has the money, and the money talks.
Posted by desert dawg at June 5, 2008 12:36 PMEvery post of yours devolves into Hillary martyrdom and Obama bashing.
You actually had a decent yarn until you got towards the end.
The CORPORATE media will be excessively tough on Obama and go easy on their buddy McCain? You don't say. What an earth-shaking revelation!
Posted by BMF at June 5, 2008 12:38 PMpossibly because some people continue to deny the obvious, bmf.
Posted by Turkana at June 5, 2008 12:40 PMI read Chandrakarian's book shortly after it came out. As you said, interesting, worthwhile, but nothing new. However, he revealed an interesting bias every time he referred to the "liberation" of Baghdad, or the "liberation" of Mosul. Made me want to throw the book across the room every time.
Posted by Shirin at June 5, 2008 01:08 PMSorry - Chandrasekaran - what was I thinking?
Posted by Shirin at June 5, 2008 01:10 PMWhat BMF said. The train came off the tracks.
But, since you raised the issue, a few brief words about Olbermann and Matthews.
Chris Matthews is a sexist scumbag. This has been true, and documented in the "shrillosphere," long before Hillary started her campaign and will be true long after she ends it. If you wanted to document his atrocities, you'd do well to search the archives of "shrillosphere" sites like "Great Orange Satan" aka Daily Kos. I've heard a lot more complaints about Matthews (and a lot more calls for media decentralization) on so-called pro-Obama blogs over the years than I have from Bill or Hillary Clinton. But somewere along the way, Hillary supporters decided that Obama and his supporters were responsible for Matthews.
As for Olbermann, it bears remembering that he was forced out/quit when he refused to engage in the media assault on the Clintons in the 90s:
When the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998, the show morphed into White House in Crisis. Olbermann became frustrated as his show was consumed by the Lewinsky story. In 1998, he stated that his work at MSNBC would "make me ashamed, make me depressed, make me cry."
I don't particularly care for Olbermann's style of stemwinding news delivery. And he has certainly been unfair and arguably sexist during the campaign.
BUT...I have never seen any evidence that either Clinton ever thanked or even acknowledged that Olbermann put his career and integrity on the line in defense of them. Nor have I seen any public support for arguably the most liberal news voice on television. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if part of Olbermann's anti-Hillary attitude is not personal, to some extent. If the Clintons pissed off the one friendly forum for a Democrat on TV News, that is their own damn fault.
Lastly, can you please stop with the unsubstantiated slurs on fellow Democrats? Olbermann has the favor of many liberals for a simple reason. He has covered the key issues of the day from a liberal perspective. It is simply insulting to suggest that his popularity in the liberal blogosphere is "mostly because he shares its loathing of Hillary Clinton." Brit Hume hates Hillary's guts. You don't see anyone at dKos doing cartwheels for him.
Posted by space at June 5, 2008 01:10 PMshirin,
agreed- i keep highlighting the word. given the overall scope and tenor of the book, that word does stand out rather starkly.
Posted by Turkana at June 5, 2008 01:13 PMTerrific post Turkana. I completely agree. I used to rush home to watch Olbermann only a year ago. No longer. I am an Obama supporter, but I really got sick of Olbermann and his special comments. Often he come across as a sanctimonious, pompous ass. I have a hunch--he is auditioning to be Obama's Press Secretary. I hope my candidate has better sense than to hire him.
Posted by Balmy at June 5, 2008 01:15 PMbrit hume has not spent nearly as much time ripping hillary as has olbermann, who did it almost nightly. sad but true.
Posted by Turkana at June 5, 2008 01:16 PMbalmy,
thanks for the comment- it's always wonderful to hear from reasonable obama supporters. i do believe the vast majority are, just not necessarily on the blogs.
Posted by Turkana at June 5, 2008 01:18 PMbrit hume has not spent nearly as much time ripping hillary as has olbermann, who did it almost nightly. sad but true.
This is a simply amazing statement. Hume has been attacking Democrats and the Clintons EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR YEARS. What are you smoking?
I don't get Clinton supporters. They foam at the mouth over Olbermann, but they give a pass to Murdoch and his crew. Do you watch Fox News? Have you ever read the NY Post?
I'm not puttinh Olbermann on pedestal, but for crying out loud, get a little perspective. Go watch Fox & Friends for 5 minutes and come back and talk to me about sexism.
Posted by space at June 5, 2008 01:30 PMyes, space, we all know who and what hume is. but again- he does not attack clinton as consistently as does olbermann. democrats in general, of course. but not clinton every night, and not with an extended opening segment every night. with olbermann, it's personal. as if maybe he feels that his colleagues have been under attack. deal with it.
Posted by Turkana at June 5, 2008 01:33 PMLOL. I don't have to "deal with" anything.
Bill Clinton sold us out with the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Now there is one liberal talking head on TV news and the Clintons go and piss him off. Cry me a fucking river.
I completely agree with balmy. Olbermann is sanctimonious and often unwatchable. But you know what? That is small potatoes compared to the rest of our problems. I will take a sanctimonious anchor with a chip on his shoulder who covers Iraq, torture, FISA, corruption, Plamegate, etc., etc., etc. in the right way over some war-enabling, White House-fellating alternative who...may have been more fair to Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary. I have my priorities and I don't apologize for them.
Perhaps if Hillary had shown a commensurate level of interest in the above issues, Olbermann would feel differently about her. But that is not the world we live in.
Posted by space at June 5, 2008 01:46 PMTurkana, Chandrasekaran also presents the CPA (more correctly called AOA - American Occupation Authority) as some kind of deeply well-intentioned, but bumblingly incompetent enterprise, as if it would have been perfectly fine and OK had the people just known what they were doing. Give me a break! No doubt some of the people who got involved went into it with the best of intentions, but most of them, and especially those at the top, were no better than opportunists who were looking to advance themselves, or line their pockets, or both - or no doubt in some cases to have a nice little exotic adventure. I could have handled it if he had been neutral, but his bias was really quite clear, and his constant use of the term "liberation" was like pointing a flashing neon arrow at it.
Posted by Shirin at June 5, 2008 02:02 PMvery good, space- yes, hume is horrible. no one ever questioned that. but he is not as obsessed with hillary-hate as is olbermann. which was my point. guess what- neither one of them is your friend! and to suggest that the wonk's wonk clinton was not focused on issues, as if your obama was more so, and that olbermann's hillary-hate was based on that- riiiight.
Posted by Turkana at June 5, 2008 02:04 PMD.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.
Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.
In America folks...Link
Where's the reporting? This district votes 95% Democratic and still no reporting.
Posted by peter at June 5, 2008 02:56 PMTurkana, you're in Oregon???
"Last month her lung cancer, in remission for about two years, was back. After her oncologist prescribed a cancer drug that could slow the cancer growth and extend her life, Wagner was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn’t cover it.
It would cover comfort and care, including, if she chose, doctor-assisted suicide."
Nice that the company gave her the drugs she needed. Companies can do nice things.
Posted by peter at June 5, 2008 03:25 PMtoo bad she's the exception, peter. too bad the oregon health plan doesn't cover everything it should.
Posted by Turkana at June 5, 2008 03:36 PMWay back last year I fully expected the press to obsess on Hillary's gender and Barack's race and they didn't disappoint on either count. Meanwhile, my candidates of preference were either Dodd or Edwards because they were more progressive. When Edwards finally bowed out and I had to make a choice out of the two still standing, I considered for some time. The main reason I rejected Clinton was because she wouldn't make a real apology for her AUMF vote or admit it was wrong, as Edwards did. And there is video footage of her saying that if the AUMF is that important to you, she doesn't want your vote. Okeydokey. That settles that. Kyl-Lieberman didn't help, either. But I didn't need Olbermann or any bloggers to tell me how to interpret various of Hillary's actions. In the Steve Kroft 60 Minutes interview, for example, it wasn't so much the long pause before she answered, it was her qualification that Obama wasn't a Muslim "as far as I know." That was really the knife in the back approach as far as I was concerned. I could go on. Certainly Obama has his own ways of playing hardball, but he seems to have a bit more subtlety. So yeah, like everyone else, I start seeking out the blogs and the shows where people support my opinions. But don't put carts before horses.
And one more thing, Olbermann, for all his supposed sexism, has brought Rachel Maddow onto national TV as a political commentator. And she's very, very good.
Posted by Delia at June 5, 2008 03:39 PMyou had me until the 60 minutes bit, delia. that was just one of many inane and dishonest post-parsings from the hillary-haters. i'll let eric boehlert explain:
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200803110002?f=h_column
Posted by Turkana at June 5, 2008 03:44 PM"These people are not your friends" -- excellent theme.
This brings to mind two observations made by other people about a quarter century ago:
1) In his retirement interview, Walter Cronkite expressed concern for the recent trend that news reporters had become celebrities, and that they now had more in common with the rich politicians and business types they reported on than the oridinary middle class. To my mind, his warning on this point was as accurate and as important as Eisenhower's warning about the Military-Industrial Complex.
2) Garry Trudeau, in a rare interview, observed that politicians and Hollywood celebrities, when they got together, tended to fawn over each other like groupies.
Put the two together. Today's "news reporters" are celebrities, and when they get together with politicians the two tend to fawn over each other.
Posted by Anonny at June 5, 2008 04:04 PMTurkana,
I didn't read any postings about the 60 Minutes interview. I just watched it. I was not a Hillary "hater". I thought a lot of people went way too far in their opinions of her. I just had chosen to support Obama. Rereading her exact language as Boehlert lays it out reminds me of what distressed me about it at the time. "I take him at his word." and "As far as I know." I was alone when I watched it. To my thinking that sort of language is a way of formally supporting someone while obliquely introducing an element of uncertainty -- that you don't know for sure that he's trustworthy on this point. Again, I'm not talking about pauses. I'm talking about the language itself. And these words -- before I made contact with anyone else about them -- caused my estimation of Hillary's character to drop tremendously.
Posted by Delia at June 5, 2008 04:28 PMdelia,
she only said that after being badgered eight times for an answer. the first answer- the one that took less than a second- was clearly her intent. as boehlert says, what was most interesting was that kroft kept pushing and pushing, even after she answered again and again, and even though it had nothing to do with the ostensible purpose of the interview. sorry, but only someone predisposed to dislike her could have interpreted it any way other than the way boehlert did.
Posted by Turkana at June 5, 2008 04:36 PMturkana,
Well, I think we're just about at a Rashomon situation in our evaluation of the 60 Minutes incident. I look at the clip and I see exactly what I said before, a statement that is conditional right from the start. I don't see Kroft so much badgering Clinton as trying to get a clarification on what he also perceived as the conditionality of her statement. Since the whole clip is about 22 seconds and they're both speaking in sentence fragments, it goes by awfully quickly for parsing.
But I also see that both you and I are interpreting the piece according to prior preconceptions, which may well include any number of things on both sides. Hence Rashomon.
At the very least this could be a case study of how two camps end up talking past each other.
Posted by Delia at June 5, 2008 05:58 PM"supposed sexism"?
Posted by at June 5, 2008 06:39 PMdelia,
i'll stick with boehlert.
Posted by Turkana at June 5, 2008 06:53 PMThis is a wonderful post -- both as a history of the campaign, and as a piece of argumentation. Allow me, however, to disagree with an aspect of your conclusion.
It's not the part about the media not being our friends. It's your optimism -- if that's the right word to use here -- about their turning their attention away from Hillary.
I think there are two different dramas going on here. Well, actually, there are two hundred, but I'll just focus on two of them. The first is the right-vs-left and/or GOP-vs-Dem ideological/political battle. Different outlets in the media will play their roles in that -- fueled by ego, bias, aspiration, fear, the whole kit and kaboodle. That drama will work its way through November, and will have a denoument in the election.
But there's another drama, and imo, it is by far the bigger deal, in a long-term sense. I'm talking about the rising wave of misogyny that Hillary's campaign has unleashed. That wave doesn't know from left or right. As Andrea Dworkin showed in 'Right-Wing Women,' misogyny isn't a matter of left-vs-right, however much we liberals may like to tell ourselves that it is. And, though I hope I'm wrong, it seems to me that that tide has just begun to rise.
In other words, I think Hillary will continue to be the focus of attention/hatred NO MATTER WHAT SHE DOES. And since ALL the emotional energy in this phase of American political history is within the Democratic Party -- the GOP being on life-support, as it is -- I think/fear that we've got a continuing spew of vile sexist rant ahead of us. This beast is hungry, and it isn't sated yet. Indeed, the inability of its worshippers among the Obamabots to stifle their vitriol, even after she has signaled her concession (not to mention, of course, the persistent adherence to all these deranged narratives of her monstrosity)... well, that says to me that we're in for a lot more nasty weather.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Posted by falstaff at June 5, 2008 07:24 PMI have to make this personal. As an architect, I used do do a lot of hospital design work; standard understanding was "don't get involved with the nurses".
Then I did schools and colleges - again, "don't get involved with the students, teachers, professors".
Lately I've been doing container terminals, and again, "don't get involved with the longshoremen".
Apparently, social life would have been much better as a journalist. Damn professionalism.
Allen/Vancouver
Posted by allen/Vancouver at June 5, 2008 08:58 PMEasy to lump people together as "Hillary haters", much tougher to discuss any nuance. The whole Hillary hater thing is exactly like the "America hater" tripe from the wing-nuts. My wife and I were %100 Hillary supporters. Obama didn't convince us not to be and KO didn't convince us not to be. Hillary convinced us not to be. It didn't happen all at once, it was a slow painful process.
The first thing that irritated me early on was her answer to the question in an interview, "Is Obama qualified to be president?" Her answer: "I don't really want to get into that". Stupid answer. First, the constitution, perhaps unfortunately, has a pretty low threshold for qualification. Second, her answer about any other dem candidate should have been, "Absolutely, he's qualified, but I think I would be better and here's why..." I was genuinely disappointed that she would say what she did.
As far as the 60 minutes thing, Josh posted the question on TPM asking what others thought.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/181025.php
I read the transcript, but didn't watch the video at the time. I wrote in saying that I didn't think there was anything wrong with what she said, feeling like the first part of her answer was the real thing and didn't feel the rest of answer, on paper, was a big deal.
Then a few days later I watched the video. Man, oh man, what a difference the video made. To me, it looked again like the first part was the real answer, but by the time she got to "AFAIK", she had had time to calculate and that that tag line was intended to plant yet more doubt.
I think that was the last straw for me. So go ahead, call me a Hillary hater. It's easy. Just know that I, and I suspect many other Obama supporters, aren't haters. I just got tired of seeing the calculations. If she runs again in the future, she will certainly have my support to begin with. I just hope she leaves the BS behind.
Posted by TRNC at June 6, 2008 12:31 AMDelia and Turkana,
I do not like Hillary, not so much because of her personality, character, etc., but because of her consistent record on things that matter most to me. I am also VERY sensitive about the whole Muslim issue. Having said that, I think the big hoo-ha about her answer regarding whether Obama is a Muslim or not is nonsense. I saw and still see nothing wrong in the way she answered.
Having said that, the only really correct answer is something like "No, he is not a Muslim, and why is that an issue? Are you suggesting that there is something wrong with being a Muslim?" But Hillary would never think to say that. After all, she is the one who responded to "concerns" expressed by her Jewish supporters by making a P.R. event out of returning Muslim contributions to her Senatorial campaign. And yes, that is one of the reasons I do not like her.
Posted by Shirin at June 6, 2008 10:29 AM"Hillary will continue to be the focus of attention/hatred NO MATTER WHAT SHE DOES."
Why do you assume that is all due to misogyny? Is there no possible reason - justified or unjustified - to dislike Hillary other than her gender?
Posted by Shirin at June 6, 2008 11:03 AM"Why do you assume that is all due to misogyny? Is there no possible reason - justified or unjustified - to dislike Hillary other than her gender?"
That's a strawman. You're misreading my point here. If you look at what I'm actually saying, you'll see that my point isn't whether people "like" or "dislike" Hillary, but the degree to which they obsess about her. It's that obsessiveness, that emotional imbalance, which has been all over the face of this campaign, and which requires explanation by anybody who claims to explain what has happened, and is still happening.
It's my view, as expressed here, that in searching for an adequate explanation for that intensity of hate -- not just "dislike," but dripping hatred -- that one must look deeper in the psyche than "issues." I hope I don't need to recount here the litany of vitriol of the most vicious, misogynist sort that has been spewed at Hillary -- including, as Katha Pollit notes (quoted today by Big Tent Democrat here: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/6/6/115435/1113), in the supposedly "progressive" blogosphere. My relatively simple point in the comment above was that I don't expect that to stop, even though Hillary has now dropped out of the race.
Posted by falstaff at June 6, 2008 11:20 AMTerrific message, Turkana, 'they are not your friends'.
Regarding this: "Clearly, she had been fascinated, from the start. Even though his job had been to lie to people like her and her colleagues! She sought him out. They had instant chemistry. They had dates in the park where they discussed their passion about the Middle East. How romantic. Except that she's a supposedly professional journalist and he's a professional liar whose passion about the Middle East included being a propagandist for an imperial military invasion and occupation."
It reminds of nothing so much as (my recollection of) Hawkeye Pierce's line from M*A*S*H about Frank Burns and Margaret "Hot Lips" Hoolihan: Whatever they see in each other, fortunately, they don't see it in anyone else.
Posted by bartcopfan at June 6, 2008 11:32 AMWhy do you assume that is all due to misogyny? Is there no possible reason - justified or unjustified - to dislike Hillary other than her gender?
Shirin is right. I used to encounter her on No Quarter before the site went insane. I always appreciate her viewpoint and reminder of the damage this country is doing by inserting itself into a place and a culture where it does not belong or understand.
But to Falstaff's issue of the vitriol: the explanation isn't all that difficult and it's commutative. I suppose by anti-Hillary sites, you're referring to Kos (which I rarely look at) or Sully. I don't know. But for pure unqualified hatred, take a look at the comments on hillaryis44, Taylor Marsh, or most insane of all, No Quarter, where Larry had to clamp down on death threats to Obama. The threads there are incredibly racist and believe him to be guilty of any number of undefined crimes.
What has actually happened is a process of polarization on both sides. The internets have certainly played more than their role in that process. This is the real problem. I pretty much think the media evened it out between disparaging Clinton and Obama, quite frankly. And as many have pointed out, their stated policy differences are not that great. But polarization feeds off itself, and doesn't need anything other than the other side in order to grow. You look at the rhetoric now. It's focused on the unreasonableness of the other side's followers. Obamabots. Hillbots. Sexism. Racism. "Your side is more evil than my side." The storm is now feeding off itself, and will continue to do so unless everyone can take a step back and do some deep breathing. or something.
Posted by Delia at June 6, 2008 03:07 PMOK, Falstaff, then is misogyny the only possible explanation for that emotionally imbalanced, obsessive hatred, or is it just possible that there could be other reasons, both justified and unjustified, other than, in addition to, and/or alongside sexism?
And do you agree with Obama supporters who insist that all the emotionally imbalanced, vitriolic hatred toward him is entirely due to racism, or could there be other reasons, both justified and unjustified? (And by the way, if you want to see an example of that obsessive, absolutely demented hatred, pay a visit to Larry Johnson over at No Quarter.)
Attributing it all to misogyny (or racism) is a cop out, and a way to avoid looking at the the reality in its entirety.
Posted by Shirin at June 6, 2008 09:55 PMDelia, I believe you are onto something regarding the polarization process. It becomes a self-perpetuating dynamic, and I do think that is a major factor.
Nice to see you here. Really a shame that Larry and Susan have lost their minds, and along with them, their integrity (assuming they had any to begin with, of course). No Quarter has become absolutely demented. And now, after excoriating me as a Republican enabler for insisting that I would vote for a third party candidate rather than either Hillary OR Obama, they have started supporting McCain now that Hillary is out of the picture. Inconsistent and irrational are the two nicest words I can think of.
Posted by Shirin at June 7, 2008 12:36 AMI know you all dont know me - I am not Judith#1 -I am an infrequent visitor mostly on Turkana or Eriposte's threads.
Delia - I think the !anonymous! internet is what has done the harm - people can write all manner of...um...stuff and not get caught out unless their boass catches them and fires them or some editor decides to publish their private info. If I had my own blog I would delelte most things I tink. :)
I agree with posters who have harsh words to say about the taylor marsh comments area which was insane and is now filtering out to other places now that Marsh has now backtracked to Obama support. As a Clinton supporter who has a lot of contempt for the Obama supporter's bahaviors I have seen, I still cant abide some of the lunacy I see on my own, um, side?
Having said that, only way I can think I would vote for Obama now is a unity ticket as BTD on Talkleft has been espouusing. McCain wont get my vote - but not all that interested it working if for Obama at this point.
just my opinion -
Posted by the young Judith at June 8, 2008 09:08 PMTurkana, you're one of the best of the bloggers. I love the Bangs and Astral Weeks by Van Morrison referrence, as I was a big fan of perhaps both back "in the day".
But also having lived through both Pres. Carter and Pres. Clinton, both conservative Southern Democrats, and how they seemed to lack the leadership to pull us of out of 40 years of Conservative Dominance since Nixon, you might consider that many of us Democrats, both small d or large D, were rooting for Obama and against Hilary wasn't "misogyny" but really a well-proven distaste for the dishonesty that the name "Clinton" entails.
Honestly, I see a lot of Bill Clinton in Obama and suspect he might just be another one. But don't accuse us of women-hating as that's not the case. Perhaps, Clinton-phobia is more like it. (I'll admit Clinton did some great things esp. raising taxes on the wealthy and consequently growing the economy...but he disowned that feature himself...and pretends he's now friends with rush limbaugh and all...) Hillary's frequent misstatements, overstatements, downright lies couldn't be ignored, and we said "here we go again!". Can you just acknowledge many Democrats had "Clinton-fatigue" and would have loved to have a woman president anyway...as long as it wasn't a Clinton?
Posted by at June 23, 2008 07:17 PM