Tibet and Palestine

Source: CounterPunch

“Not You! You!!!”

Tibet and Palestine

By URI AVNERY

“Hey! Take your hands off me! Not you! You!!!”–the voice of a young woman in the darkened cinema, an old joke.

“Hey! Take your hands off Tibet!” the international chorus is crying out, “But not from Chechnya! Not from the Basque homeland! And certainly not from Palestine!” And that is not a joke.

* * *LIKE EVERYBODY else, I support the right of the Tibetan people to independence, or at least autonomy. Like everybody else, I condemn the actions of the Chinese government there. But unlike everybody else, I am not ready to join in the demonstrations.

Why? Because I have an uneasy feeling that somebody is washing my brain, that what is going on is an exercise in hypocrisy.

I don’t mind a bit of manipulation. After all, it is not by accident that the riots started in Tibet on the eve of the Olympic Games in Beijing. That’s alright. A people fighting for their freedom have the right to use any opportunity that presents itself to further their struggle.

I support the Tibetans in spite of it being obvious that the Americans are exploiting the struggle for their own purposes. Clearly, the CIA has planned and organized the riots, and the American media are leading the world-wide campaign. It is a part of the hidden struggle between the US, the reigning super-power, and China, the rising super-power – a new version of the “Great Game” that was played in central Asia in the 19th century by the British Empire and Russia. Tibet is a token in this game.

I am even ready to ignore the fact that the gentle Tibetans have carried out a murderous pogrom against innocent Chinese, killing women and men and burning homes and shops. Such detestable excesses do happen during a liberation struggle.

No, what is really bugging me is the hypocrisy of the world media. They storm and thunder about Tibet. In thousands of editorials and talk-shows they heap curses and invective on the evil China. It seems as if the Tibetans are the only people on earth whose right to independence is being denied by brutal force, that if only Beijing would take its dirty hands off the saffron-robed monks, everything would be alright in this, the best of all possible worlds.

* * *THERE IS no doubt that the Tibetan people are entitled to rule their own country, to nurture their unique culture, to promote their religious institutions and to prevent foreign settlers from submerging them.

But are not the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria entitled to the same? The inhabitants of Western Sahara, whose territory is occupied by Morocco? The Basques in Spain? The Corsicans off the coast of France? And the list is long.

Why do the world’s media adopt one independence struggle, but often cynically ignore another independence struggle? What makes the blood of one Tibetan redder than the blood of a thousand Africans in East Congo?

Again and again I try to find a satisfactory answer to this enigma. In vain.

Immanuel Kant demanded of us: “Act as if the principle by which you act were about to be turned into a universal law of nature.” (Being a German philosopher, he expressed it in much more convoluted language.) Does the attitude towards the Tibetan problem conform to this rule? Does it reflect our attitude towards the struggle for independence of all other oppressed peoples?

Not at all.

* * *WHAT, THEN, causes the international media to discriminate between the various liberation struggles that are going on throughout the world?

Here are some of the relevant considerations:

- Do the people seeking independence have an especially exotic culture?

- Are they an attractive people, i.e. “sexy” in the view of the media?

- Is the struggle headed by a charismatic personality who is liked by the media?

- It the oppressing government disliked by the media?

- Does the oppressing government belong to the pro-American camp? This is an important factor, since the United States dominates a large part of the international media, and its news agencies and TV networks largely define the agenda and the terminology of the news coverage.

- Are economic interests involved in the conflict?

- Does the oppressed people have gifted spokespersons, who are able to attract attention and manipulate the media?

* * *FROM THESE points of view, there is nobody like the Tibetans. They enjoy ideal conditions.

Fringed by the Himalayas, they are located in one of the most beautiful landscapes on earth. For centuries, just to get there was an adventure. Their unique religion arouses curiosity and sympathy. Its non-violence is very attractive and elastic enough to cover even the ugliest atrocities, like the recent pogrom. The exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, is a romantic figure, a media rock-star. The Chinese regime is hated by many – by capitalists because it is a Communist dictatorship, by Communists because it has become capitalist. It promotes a crass and ugly materialism, the very opposite of the spiritual Buddhist monks, who spend their time in prayer and meditation.

When China builds a railway to the Tibetan capital over a thousand inhospitable kilometers, the West does not admire the engineering feat, but sees (quite rightly) an iron monster that brings hundreds of thousands of Han-Chinese settlers to the occupied territory.

And of course, China is a rising power, whose economic success threatens America’s hegemony in the world. A large part of the ailing American economy already belongs directly or indirectly to China. The huge American Empire is sinking hopelessly into debt, and China may soon be the biggest lender. American manufacturing industry is moving to China, taking millions of jobs with it.

Compared to these factors, what have the Basques, for example, to offer? Like the Tibetans, they inhabit a contiguous territory, most of it in Spain, some of it in France. They, too, are an ancient people with their own language and culture. But these are not exotic and do not attract special notice. No prayer wheels. No robed monks.

The Basques do not have a romantic leader, like Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama. The Spanish state, which arose from the ruins of Franco’s detested dictatorship, enjoys great popularity around the world. Spain belongs to the European Union, which is more or less in the American camp, sometimes more, sometimes less.

The armed struggle of the Basque underground is abhorred by many and is considered “terrorism”, especially after Spain has accorded the Basques a far-reaching autonomy. In these circumstances, the Basques have no chance at all of gaining world support for independence.

The Chechnyans should have been in a better position. They, too, are a separate people, who have for a long time been oppressed by the Czars of the Russian Empire, including Stalin and Putin. But alas, they are Muslims – and in the Western world, Islamophobia now occupies the place that had for centuries been reserved for anti-Semitism. Islam has turned into a synonym for terrorism, it is seen as a religion of blood and murder. Soon it will be revealed that Muslims slaughter Christian children and use their blood for baking Pitta. (In reality it is, of course, the religion of dozens of vastly different peoples, from Indonesia to Morocco and from Kosova to Zanzibar.

The US does not fear Moscow as it fears Beijing. Unlike China, Russia does not look like a country that could dominate the 21st century. The West has no interest in renewing the Cold War, as it has in renewing the Crusades against Islam. The poor Chechnyans, who have no charismatic leader or outstanding spokespersons, have been banished from the headlines. For all the world cares, Putin can hit them as much as he wants, kill thousands and obliterate whole towns.

That does not prevent Putin from supporting the demands of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for separation from Georgia, a country which infuriates Russia.

* * *IF IMMANUEL KANT knew what’s going on in Kosova, he would be scratching his head.

The province demanded its independence from Serbia, and I, for one, supported that with all my heart. This is a separate people, with a different culture (Albanian) and its own religion (Islam). After the popular Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, tried to drive them out of their country, the world rose and provided moral and material support for their struggle for independence.

The Albanian Kosovars make up 90% of the citizens of the new state, which has a population of two million. The other 10% are Serbs, who want no part of the new Kosova. They want the areas they live in to be annexed to Serbia. According to Kant’s maxim, are they entitled to this?

I would propose a pragmatic moral principle: Every population that inhabits a defined territory and has a clear national character is entitled to independence. A state that wants to keep such a population must see to it that they feel comfortable, that they receive their full rights, enjoy equality and have an autonomy that satisfies their aspirations. In short: that they have no reason to desire separation.

That applies to the French in Canada, the Scots in Britain, the Kurds in Turkey and elsewhere, the various ethnic groups in Africa, the indigenous peoples in Latin America, the Tamils in Sri Lanka and many others. Each has a right to choose between full equality, autonomy and independence.

* * *THIS LEADS us, of course, to the Palestinian issue.

In the competition for the sympathy of the world media, the Palestinians are unlucky. According to all the objective standards, they have a right to full independence, exactly like the Tibetans. They inhabit a defined territory, they are a specific nation, a clear border exists between them and Israel. One must really have a crooked mind to deny these facts.

But the Palestinians are suffering from several cruel strokes of fate: The people that oppress them claim for themselves the crown of ultimate victimhood. The whole world sympathizes with the Israelis because the Jews were the victims of the most horrific crime of the Western world. That creates a strange situation: the oppressor is more popular than the victim. Anyone who supports the Palestinians is automatically suspected of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

Also, the great majority of the Palestinians are Muslims (nobody pays attention to the Palestinian Christians). Since Islam arouses fear and abhorrence in the West, the Palestinian struggle has automatically become a part of that shapeless, sinister threat, “international terrorism”. And since the murders of Yasser Arafat and Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Palestinians have no particularly impressive leader – neither in Fatah nor in Hamas.

The world media are shedding tears for the Tibetan people, whose land is taken from them by Chinese settlers. Who cares about the Palestinians, whose land is taken from them by our settlers?

In the world-wide tumult about Tibet, the Israeli spokespersons compare themselves – strange as it sounds – to the poor Tibetans, not to the evil Chinese. Many think this quite logical.

If Kant were dug up tomorrow and asked about the Palestinians, he would probably answer: “Give them what you think should be given to everybody, and don’t wake me up again to ask silly questions.”

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is o a contributor to CounterPunch’s book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

Wilders’ Political Propaganda

Geert Wilders has kept his word. He has circulated his film Fitna before April 1 and has, as he puts it, been ‘properly’ restrained. The film, which nevertheless appeared unexpectedly on the Internet on Thursday, is indeed not as shocking as expected during the hyped-up prelude to the premiere.

So the film seems like an anticlimax. It goes no further than making suggestive comments: the suggestion that the Koran is the source of all the violence in the world; the suggestion that Islam is a threat to everyone’s freedom, like Hitler and Stalin. But in Fitna, the Koran is not destroyed and the bomb in the prophet’s turban, drawn by the Danish cartoonist, doesn’t quite explode.

Has Wilders been successful in giving an example of his political and artistic skills with Fitna? Certainly not when it comes to his artistic capacity. Wilders doesn’t have enough creative talent and is sloppy in his approach.

This might still prove a problem and he will probably have to explain himself before the courts. For example he used material from the Danish cartoonist without asking permission and wrongly said a photograph of a rapper was the murderer of film-maker Theo van Gogh. And he has dragged others along with him – proof of a stunning lack of responsibility. The Dutch public prosecution department is also looking into whether Fitna incites hatred in the legal sense.

Freedom of expression, one of the fundamental concepts of every democratic state, can cope with this amateurish attack. This confidence is confirmed by the muted reactions to the film to date. Earlier prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende had almost precipitated a sort of emergency by using the word ‘crisis’. But when the hour of reckoning arrived, the prime minister limited himself to a declaration in which he said the government ‘regretted’ the film.

Representatives from Islamic organisations used a similar tone. Some reacted completely laconically. The question now is whether Fitna will be seen in the same way in less articulate circles in the Netherlands and abroad. After all, action and reaction belong together. Governments and individual agitators could use the film as an excuse to get even for other things. But the calm way the film has been received up to now gives hope.

Both left and right-wing politicians have dismissed the film as old hat. They saw ‘nothing new’ in the footage. But such comments show a misunderstanding of Wilders’ political goal. He doesn’t want to bring new insights or promote dialogue. Fitna is just a weapon in his propaganda war. His politics stand or fall with the concept of the ’self-fulfilling prophecy’. In this sense Wilders hasn’t done himself or the citizens of the Netherlands a service. And that too must be said in public.

//spiegel online//

Americans’ war focus fades as media switch off

Only 28 percent know that nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have been killed

AMERICANS’ interest in the Iraq war is waning rapidly, fuelled by dwindling media attention to the conflict.

A survey shows that only 28% of the public is aware that nearly 4000 US personnel have died in Iraq over the past five years, while nearly half think the death tally is 3000 or fewer and 23% think it is higher.

The survey by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press found that public awareness of developments in the Iraq war has dropped steeply as the media pay less attention. In earlier surveys, about half of those asked about the death tally responded correctly.

Related Pew surveys have found that the number of news stories devoted to the war has declined sharply this year, along with professed public interest.

“Coverage of the war has been virtually absent,” Pew survey research director Scott Keeter said. It totalled about 1% of news coverage between February 17 and 23.

The Iraq-associated median for 2007, he said, was 15% of all news stories, with major spikes when President George Bush announced a “surge” in forces in January of that year and when General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, testified before Congress in September.

“We try not to make any causal statements about the relationship between the absence of news and what the public knows,” Mr Keeter said, “but there’s certainly a correlation between the two. People are not seeing news about fatalities, and there isn’t much in the news about the war, whether it be military action or even political discussion related to it.”

Although Iraq topped the list of the public’s most closely followed news stories in all but five weeks during the first half of 2007, according to Pew’s research, interest fell rapidly and Iraq has not held the top spot since October.

That corresponded with a sharp drop in the rate of US casualties in Iraq and increased news coverage of the presidential campaign.

In the last week in January, 36% of those surveyed said they were most closely following campaign news, while 14% expressed the most interest in the stockmarket and 12% in the death of actor Heath Ledger. Only 6% said they were most closely following coverage of Iraq.

In a continuing wave of violence against US forces, three soldiers were killed on Wednesday and two others were wounded in a rocket attack on a base near Nasiriyah in the south-east.

//the age//

Is Islam Really Stuck in the 12th Century on Women’s Rights?

Apparently, they’re a couple of decades behind the “liberal” West, and not so stuck after all.

By Joshua Holland

Before 9/11/01, the media relegated stories about women in Islamic societies to page B27, below the fold. Ever since 9/12/01, those same stories have screamed from the front pages in 100-point type. The shift in discourse coincided with the launch of Bush’s global “War on Terror,” when various hawks began using the plight of women in Islam to illustrate the supposed perfidy of our “enemies,” and to justify a series of military “interventions” — invasions — by Western powers.

In the United States, there’s now an almost universally held belief that most women in Islamic societies face wretched persecution and that Islam itself is wholly to blame. But there’s scant empirical evidence to support the claim — mostly, we’re treated to detailed reports of horrific abuses in theocratic states like Saudi Arabia and Iran, despite the fact that just six percent of the Muslim world live in those two countries. If you ask average Americans how they came to their beliefs about how badly women suffer in Islamic societies, most will reply that “everyone knows it.”

But I’ve seen no empirical data to suggest that an Islamic majority itself correlates with the subordination of women better than other co-variables like economic development, women’s ability to serve in government, a political culture that values the rule of law or access to higher education. In other words, you can use a comparison of women’s status in Saudi Arabia and Sweden to make an intellectually weak argument for Western superiority, but there’s little support for the notion that women living in “traditional” Islamic cultures enjoy a lower social status than those in orthodox Christian, Jewish or Hindu communities, to name a few examples. Think of the perfectly backwards Eastern Orthodox Church, the largest Christian communion in the world. Or consider the country where women may be brutalized more terribly than in any other, the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is 70 percent Christian and 10 percent Muslim. Or go to Utah, where tens of thousands of Mormon fundamentalists believe that women are literally the property of their fathers or husbands. Of course, Mormon fundamentalists are the exception that proves the endless benevolence and equality of the West, while whatever despicable caricature of justice perpetrated on a woman by the House of Saud is breathlessly recounted as emblematic of Islamic culture as a whole.

Comparing the “Muslim world” to the rest of the world poses an intellectual problem — how does one even look at the role of Islam in a society, specifically, rather than dozens of other variables that might influence women’s outcomes?

I’d expect, for example, the structure of a country’s economy to play a far greater role in determining women’s status than the religion of its people. There’s quite a bit of research showing that in service and manufacturing economies — those of wealthier states — women enjoy a great deal of personal freedom and autonomy, civil and political rights and access to higher education. That’s because of the high value of their labor outside the home, in the workforce. Women earning their own bread out in the working world demand, and require, full political rights and legal protections. In poorer economies, most of which have large agricultural sectors and many of which rely on extractive enterprises — oil, mining, etc. — women tend to suffer a much lower social status, because their labor is more valuable coerced and sequestered close to home. That’s a structural, rather than a “Clash of Civilizations” explanation of women’s varying outcomes in different countries. It’s the latter view that I find little evidence to support.

None of this is a defense of Islam, or women’s place within it — I have little love for religion, any religion, and certainly no desire to defend any religious rites or customs. It’s about our loose definitions of the problem and tendency to idealize the “liberal” West.

March 8 is International Women’s Day, and a new global opinion poll was released to mark the occasion. The results will no doubt come as a surprise to many …

According to a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 16 nations from around the world, there is a widespread consensus that it is important for “women to have full equality of rights,” and most say it is very important. This is true in Muslim countries as well as Western countries.

In nearly all countries, most people perceive that in their lifetime women have gained greater equality. Nonetheless, large majorities would like their government and the United Nations to take an active role in preventing discrimination.

Support for equal rights is robust in all Muslim countries. Large majorities say it is important in Iran (78%), Azerbaijan (85%), Egypt (90%), Indonesia (91%), Turkey (91%) and the Palestinian territories (93%).

That’s no surprise to me, but I wouldn’t have bought into the “Yellow Peril” or “Communist Menace” narratives of earlier generations either. The U.S. political class did not suddenly develop an abiding concern for women’s equality in a vacuum. Like the promotion of human rights during the Cold War, there is a geopolitical goal being served. The United States has been in a state of permanent war since the 1940s — when not in a “hot” (real) war, we are, as a society, still under a constant cloud of threat, and our political leaders are all too happy to advance that narrative as long as it plays well politically. But it’s not enough to simply be under some ill-defined “threat” from ordinary rivals — that would just be basic geopolitics — we’re in a permanent fight for our very existence from forces that are wholly pernicious and bent on nothing less than our total destruction.

That’s become a central aspect of American political culture. We had a seamless transition from World War II to Cold War to Drug War to War on Terror, and in every instance, the unadulterated evil of our opponents has been a consistent theme, as has been our ability to turn a blind eye to the same offenses when perpetrated by the United States or our allies.

And now our existential enemies are the spooky brown people of the Muslim world, with their frightening and alien habits and supposed tendency towards “Islamofascism.” The problem with that storyline is clear: the Western, predominantly Christian world has far more economic and political influence than the “Muslim world” — much of which escaped the yoke of colonialism just in the past 50-75 years — and, more significantly, it has hundreds of thousands of troops on the soil of several predominantly Muslim countries, whereas the reverse does not obtain. In other words, the “threat” of an Islamic takeover of the West is as realistic as the threat of my sweet grandmother beating the Hell out of Mike Tyson.

Enter the endless — and relatively recent — fascination with the plight of women in Islamic societies. The complete perfidy of Islam — its supposed backwardness, slavish fundamentalism, brutality against the weak and, especially, expansionist tendencies — is necessary for (and perfectly suited to) the global war-on-whatever narrative, and therefore, I suggest, worthy of special scrutiny.

Consider for a moment the “Islam is stuck in the 12th century” narrative so popular now in the mainstream discourse — a narrative for which women’s civic participation is deemed a vital benchmark. The problem isn’t that Islam is being described unfairly, the problem lies with the implication that the “West” made so much progress in the 13th century. The truth is that universal suffrage came to Iran in 1979, five years before women in Liechtenstein got the vote. It came to Bahrain in 2002, 12 years after the Swiss Supreme Court ordered the stubborn Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden to accept women’s suffrage. Portuguese women got the vote in 1976, Swiss women in 1971 — both in my lifetime — and in my baby-boomer mother’s lifetime, women in Italy, Belgium and Japan first got the franchise.

As far as women’s political participation goes, parts of the Muslim world — no, it’s not monolithic — are a few decades, not centuries, behind parts of the West. Is there evidence that the Islamic world is “stuck”? Not at all; in this young century, suffrage has been extended to women in Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Active women’s rights movements exist in every country on the planet; women were never given rights anywhere without a fight.

And when comparing apples and apples — among economically developed Western democracies — the United States has very little standing to criticize anyone else about the status of women. We rank 71st in the world in terms of the proportion of women serving in our legislature, with just 16 percent. That’s significantly worse not only than the European countries, it’s also a poorer showing than Sudan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.

According to the Wall Street Journal, women with similar experience and qualifications earn 16 percent less than their male counterparts worldwide; in the United States, the gender “earnings gap” is 22 percent. A study by researchers at the University of California found that women occupied only 11 percent of the seats on corporate boards in the oh-so-progressive state of California and held about one in 12 executive jobs. And, as I’ve written before, while the American economy has seen enormous benefits from large numbers of women entering the work force, our corporate culture has done far less than just about every other country — including supposedly “backward” states — to adapt to today’s work force:

According to Harvard’s Project on Global Working Families, the United States is one of only five countries out of 168 studied that doesn’t mandate some form of paid maternal leave. The only other advanced economy among those five was Australia’s, where women are guaranteed an entire year of unpaid leave. That puts the United States — the wealthiest nation on the planet — in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

So you may have come a long way, Western Baby, but you’re not there yet, or even close.

The bottom line here is that increasing women’s civic, political and economic participation is a good fight, and an incredibly significant one. Focusing primarily on the status of women in Islamic countries to rid ourselves of the stigma of our own inequalities or to justify Western hegemony over the rest of the world is not.

//alternet//

‘SNL’ skits raise doubts about neutrality

If “Saturday Night Live” aired on Sunday morning, it would be called “Mock the Press.”

Two recent political sketches on the show have focused solely on the media’s supposed consecration of presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and desecration of his rival Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), possibly to the chagrin of Campbell Brown but to the glee of Howard Wolfson.

Since it began, “SNL” has been on the front lines of political parody, lampooning a clumsy Gerald Ford and a “prudent” George H.W. Bush. But with Clinton using the recent skits as a rallying cry, some question the show’s comic neutrality. Others say there is no objectivity when it comes to satire.

“Hillary Clinton seems to be as delighted as a schoolgirl in a new party dress with what ‘Saturday Night Live’ has done,” said Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University.

The sketches in question opened the last two shows. They parody the Democratic presidential debates, with Fred Armisen — sporting the dusted-off ears used for Bush sketches — playing a perfectly pitched Obama and Amy Poehler as the cackling Clinton.

When Obama speaks, moderator Brown (played by Kristen Wiig) gets all verklempt, and Jorge Ramos (Will Forte) is identified as “Univision Anchor/Obama Stalker.” When Clinton speaks — well, she doesn’t really get the chance to.

In real life, Clinton — misquoting the first “SNL” debate sketch, but getting at the gist of it — said at the recent Cleveland debate, “And if anybody saw ‘Saturday Night Live,’ maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.” Clinton won the Ohio primary a week later.

Washington-based comedian Randolph Terrance, known on the circuit as “Randolph T,” scrutinized the opening skits.

“To me, everybody at ‘SNL’ is completely in the bag for Hillary Clinton,” Terrance said, but he added that he was not bothered at all by the bias, since “SNL,” like “The Daily Show,” does not pretend to be a serious news program.

“Unquestionably, ‘SNL’ has a liberal slant, and, as a group, the cast is probably more Democratic-leaning than not,” said Doug Hecox, author of the book “Star Spangled Banter.” He added that he saw the “SNL” cast as more “anti-establishment” than Hillary supporters.

Mark Katz is the principal of the Sound Bite Institute, a strategic communications firm, and former head joke writer for the Clinton administration. Katz said the debate sketches could represent a balancing act on the part of General Electric, the company that owns both NBC and MSNBC.

“In some ways, it may be a kind of mea culpa on behalf of the media in general,” explained Katz.

MSNBC and NBC could be “working both sides of the equation,” continued Katz, with the cable network being accused of being tough on Hillary and the prime-time network poking fun at those same accusations.

In a February article about the cable network’s treatment of Clinton, New York Times reporter Alessandra Stanley said “MSNBC has a vein of bratty, adolescent insensitivity, especially toward women, that keeps popping out.”

“I feel like it’s two hands working in tandem,” Katz said.

Jeff Weingrad, co-author of the “SNL” bible, “Saturday Night: A Backstage History of ‘Saturday Night Live,’” said he doubted the show was putting its “satirical might” behind one candidate over another.

“The fact is, quite often, the ‘they’ is really one or two people,” said Weingrad, referring to the notion that the show’s bits are representative of the entire cast’s political leanings.

But there could be other gag gears shifting when it comes to how “Saturday Night” chooses to play the senator from Illinois.

Katz said there was a strict comic rule during the last months of the Clinton White House — “joke about the smoke and not the fire.”

Some of that could be happening this year as well, with “SNL” preferring to skewer the perception of Obama as opposed to Obama himself.

Though he was understandably hesitant to make the comparison, Hecox allowed that the difficulties with lampooning Obama’s character could be along the same lines as those associated with clowning Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X in the 1960s. “Well-meaning social icons” are tough to laugh at, he said.

Add to that the fact that Obama is being played by eerie-look-alike Fred Armisen — who, according to the Internet Movie Database, is “of German, Japanese and Venezuelan descent” — and the debate sketches could take on another meaning.

Playing Obama with a furrowed brow and staccato speech, Armisen does an excellent job of mimicking the senator, but for some black comedians, that is far from the point.

“I expect Fred Armisen to do a good job. Why wouldn’t he?” Terrance said, before adding: “But come on. If Tim Meadows was there, it would have been Tim Meadows.”

Katz argued that “the racial framework” misses the point of the sketches, which thus far have centered on the Obama campaign as a “messianic phenomenon.”

“Obama is black the way Elvis was a truck driver,” said Katz. “It’s part of the narrative, but it’s hardly the point.”

Leighann Lord, a comedian based in New York, said her first reaction to Armisen’s Obama was laughter, “and then that other thought came in.”

“Yeah, he was good and he was funny, but did they even try” to find a black actor for the part?

What Lord found interesting were the sketches to come, particularly if Obama clinches not just the Democratic nomination but the presidency. What will we make fun of then?

“Toes will be stepped on, boundaries will be stretched, and you’re going to find the new edge of funny,” explained Lord, who called comedy “the town crier” on sensitive topics such as race and gender.

Like Terrance, Lord praised Armisen as Obama but said “it would have been nice” to have a black cast member play him. “But, again, that’s me dreaming,” said Lord. “You know? Saying, ‘Yes we can.’”

Still, the question of whether any of this matters at the end of an hour and a half, Lord said, “depends on the day of the week and how many drinks you’ve had.”

//politico//

[Video] Olbermann: Mr Bush, You Are A Fascist

Obama slams Bush after Bush misstates his foreign policy positions

Crooks and Liars reports:

On FNS, George Bush, knowing full well that the conservative base is cracking apart over McCain—had this to say about Barack Obama:

Bush: “I certainly don’t know what he believes in. The only foreign policy thing I remember he said was he’s going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad.”

Play Play

Nice going, Chris. Way to clarify Obama’s position. And you wonder why this country is so screwed up. He doesn’t even have the decency to get the only things “he really knows” about Obama correct. It didn’t take long for Obama to respond to Bush’s falsehoods.

“Of course President Bush would attack the one candidate in this race who opposed his disastrous war in Iraq from the start. But Barack Obama doesn’t need any foreign policy advice from the architect of the worst foreign policy decision in a generation,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

The Nation: Obama For President

Editors Say Democrat’s Ability To Forge Progressive Majority Makes Him The Best Choice

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As this year’s front-loaded primary calendar took shape, capped off with the February 5 Super-Mega-Duper Tuesday, many voters once again resigned themselves to watching from the sidelines as a few early states got the privilege of choosing the party’s nominee. Yet despite a schedule tailor-made to benefit the establishment candidate and confer an early victory, we are, somewhat miraculously, in the midst of the most contested primary race in 24 years. We are all Iowans now.This state of affairs is thanks almost entirely to the campaign of Barack Obama, who, because of his background and his relatively brief time in the national spotlight, is a truly improbable contender for the presidency. This magazine has been critical of the senator from Illinois for his closeness to Wall Street; his unwillingness to lay out an ambitious progressive agenda on health care, housing and other domestic policy issues; and for post partisan rhetoric that seems to ignore the manifest failure of conservatism over these past seven years. But as Christopher Hayes argued in our cover story last week, Obama has also exhibited a more humane and wise approach to foreign policy, opposing the Iraq War while Hillary Clinton voted for it, and has been a reliable progressive ally over the course of his career. While his rhetoric about “unity” can be troubling, it also embodies a savvy strategy to redefine the center of American politics and build a coalition by reaching out to independent and Republican voters disgruntled and disgusted with what the Bush era has wrought. Most important, we feel his candidacy, in its demonstrated investment in organizing and grassroots activism as well as his personal appeal, represents the best chance to forge a new progressive majority. For these reasons we support Obama for President.

Obama’s brand of grassroots politics should serve him well in the coming weeks. He has already galvanized a new class of supporters, delivered on the promise of turning out new voters and raised an astonishing amount of money from hundreds of thousands of small donors. In the February contests in caucus states, he can leverage his superior organizing, and in liberal primary states like Maryland and Wisconsin, he can leverage his progressive support in the wake of John Edwards’s exit. But the Obama coalition is relatively weak among Latino voters, as well as among the core Democratic constituencies of the elderly and the working class, who are most focused on bread-and-butter basics: making the economy work for the non-rich. As a moral and political imperative, he would do well to seize the mantle of equitable redistribution and broad economic security for those who live their lives on the precipice of bankruptcy and disaster.

While some will fret about the effect on the eventual nominee of a prolonged battle, the upwelling of small-d democratic enthusiasm in this primary — all those impassioned e-mails, phone calls, canvassing sessions and Facebook postings — has reaped real results: record turnout in the first four contests and on Super Tuesday. While the GOP appears to be on the verge of nominating old war (mongering) horse John McCain, Democrats will likely remain divided, and that’s quite all right. Primaries are more than just the means of choosing a nominee; they are an opportunity to weave together networks capable of pushing the country, inch by inch, in a new direction. There’s nothing quite like the novel experience of casting a meaningful vote to stoke the aspirations and energies of citizens of conscience. As we move toward November, we’ll need all the energy we can get.via//CBS News

Fox News is in for a very rough 2008

by Eric Boehlert

My guess is that Fox News guru Roger Ailes has been reaching for the Tums more often than usual early in the New Year, and there are lots of reasons for the hovering angst.

Let’s take an extended multiple choice quiz. Right now, which of the following topics is likely causing the discomfort inside Ailes’ Fox News empire?

A) CNN’s resurgence as the go-to cable destination for election coverage.
B) The incredible shrinking candidacy of Fox News’ favored son, Rudy Giuliani.
C) The still-standing candidacy of Fox News nemesis and well-funded, anti-war GOP candidate Rep. Ron Paul.
D) The Democratic candidates’ blanket refusal to debate on Fox News during the primary season.
E) Host Bill O’Reilly being so desperate for an interview from a Democratic contender that he had to schlep all the way to New Hampshire, where he shoved an aide to Sen. Barack Obama and then had to be calmed down by Secret Service agents.
F) Former Fox News architect and Ailes confidante Dan Cooper posting chapters from his a wildly unflattering tell-all book about his old boss. (“The best thing that ever happened to Roger Ailes was 9/11.”)
G) The fledgling Fox Business Network, whose anemic ratings are in danger of being surpassed by some large city public access channels.
H) Host John Gibson’s recent heartless attacks on actor Heath Ledger, just hours after the young actor was found dead.
I) Fox News reporter Major Garrett botching his “exclusive” that Paul Begala and James Carville were going to join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, and then refusing to correct the record.

I’d say it’s A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. (I doubt Gibson’s grave-dancing or Garrett’s whopper caused Ailes a moment’s concern.)

Bottom line is that Fox News is in for a very rough 2008. And the umbrella reason for that is quite simple: Eight years ago the all-news cable channel went all-in on the presidency of George Bush and became a broadcast partner with the White House. Proof of that was on display Sunday night, January 27, during Fox News’ prime-time, “Fighting to the Finish,” an “historic documentary” on the final year of Bush’s presidency. Filmed in HD and featuring “unprecedented access,” according to the Fox News press release, the show was pure propaganda. (I must have missed Fox News’ “Fighting to the Finish” special back in 2000, chronicling the conclusion of President Bill Clinton’s second term and his “extraordinarily consequential tenure.”)

The point is that Fox News years ago made an obvious decision to appeal almost exclusively to Republican viewers. The good news then for Fox News was that it succeeded. The bad news now for Fox News is that it succeeded.

Meaning, when the GOP catches a cold, everybody at Fox News gets sick. As blogger Logan Murphy put it at Crooks and Liars, “Watching FOXNews getting their comeuppance has been fun to watch. They made their bed, now they’re having to lie in it and it’s not too comfortable.”

The most obvious signs of Fox News’ downturn have been the cable ratings for the big primary and caucus votes this year, as well as the high-profile debates. With this election season generating unprecedented voter and viewer interest, Fox News’ rating bumps to date have remained underwhelming, to say the least.

For instance, on the night of the big New Hampshire primary, CNN, which habitually trails behind Fox News in the prime-time race, attracted nearly 250,000 more viewers than its top competitor, marking a changing-of-the-guard of sorts.

The turnaround was striking when you consider that in 2004, even with no Republicans running against Bush, Fox News was still able to draw 200,000 more viewers than CNN on the night of the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Yet in 2008, with a very competitive GOP field, CNN was the ratings winner from New Hampshire.

And just look at the ratings for January 19, which featured returns from the Nevada caucus coming in during the late afternoon, and then fresh returns from the South Carolina Republican primary being posted during prime time that night. In the past, Fox News would have absolutely owned that night of coverage, as conservative news junkies flocked to their home team — Fox News — to see the results. But no more. CNN grabbed nearly just as many prime-time viewers for the Republican South Carolina returns as did Fox News.

The problem for Fox News is that it’s the Democratic race that’s creating most of the excitement, yet Fox News has been forced to mostly watch the race from the sidelines. That’s because last winter, after Fox News tried to smear Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for purportedly attending a radical Muslim school as a child, liberal bloggers launched an initiative to get Democratic candidates to boycott a debate co-sponsored by Fox News and the Nevada Democratic Party. (The boycott, powered by Foxattacks.com, was later extended to any and all Fox News debates.)

The point of the online crusade was not to simply embarrass Fox News or rattle Nevada Democrats for being out of touch with the grassroots masses that distrusted and despised Fox News. The point, instead, was to begin chipping away, in a serious, consistent method, at Fox News’ reputation. To spell out that Fox News was nothing more than a Republican mouthpiece and that Democrats need not engage with the News Corp. giant.

The lack of Democratic debates for Fox News has meant a huge setback for the news organization from a ratings perspective. Just look at the grand slam CNN hit last week when, on January 21, it broadcast the much-talked-about Democratic debate from South Carolina. The CNN event not only creamed Fox News in the ratings, nearly tripling its audience that night, but the debate set a new cable news mark for the most viewers ever to watch a primary debate.

In fact, of the 10 most-watched debates this election season, Fox has aired just two, compared to CNN’s five. Of the 10 most-watched debates, six have featured Democrats; four Republicans.

CNN is virtually guaranteed another monster ratings win this week with a pair of high-profile debates staged in California — the Republicans on Wednesday night and Democrats on Thursday.

No wonder CNN’s so giddy these days. Here’s the spin CNN president Jonathan Klein put out following its New Hampshire ratings win: “There’s a freshness and exuberance to our coverage that the others just aren’t matching. … Fox almost seems downright despondent in their coverage.”

So I’m not the only one who feels like Fox News coverage, especially of the Republican field, often feels like a televised wake. Or maybe that’s just been Fox News’ collective, subconscious mourning of the Giuliani campaign.

After all, Sean Hannity serves as Fox News’ official ambassador to the Giuliani campaign; a campaign that Ailes and Fox News were hoping to ride back into the White House. Yet despite showering Giuliani with all kinds of laudatory coverage, both Hannity and Ailes have been powerless, as they’ve watched Giuliani’s rudderless campaign go nowhere for months.

Even an all-out Fox News marketing blitz to label Giuliani “America’s Mayor” never got traction. In fact, it ranked right up there with the launch of New Coke, in terms of branding success. (Watch this clip to see the Fox News absurdity up-close.)

In the meantime, the rise of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and especially Mike Huckabee, with his populist streak, has caused all sorts of consternation at Fox News. Even the conservative Weekly Standard took notice. The magazine recently wrote that “A lot of conservatives have problems with both Huckabee and McCain. Last night on Fox, for example, Sean Hannity could barely conceal his distaste for both pols.”

And don’t even mention Ron Paul’s name to the folks at Fox News, who have stepped outside their role as journalists to try to kneecap the anti-war GOP candidate. The most blatant slap came right before the New Hampshire primary, when Fox News refused to include Paul in a televised GOP debate, despite the fact that just days earlier Paul grabbed 10 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucus, nearly doubling the tally Giuliani posted.

Paul’s Republican supporters became so incensed by the snub that they literally chased Sean Hannity through the New Hampshire night chanting “Fox News sucks!” and captured the scene in a homemade clip that really has to be seen to be believed. (To recap New Hampshire for Fox News: Hannity was pursued by a Republican mob, O’Reilly got into a shoving match with an Obama aide, and CNN grabbed more viewers. Now that’s a week to remember!)

Oh, and we can’t forget the wildly hyped launch of the Fox Business Network, which, News Corp. execs bragged, would dethrone longtime cable business news champ CNBC. Of course, that might happen one day. But the early ratings for Fox Business Network have been unbelievably weak.

After two months on the air, Fox Business Network, available in 30 million homes, was attracting, on average, just 6,300 viewers on any given weekday, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was good for a nearly invisible .05 rating. (By comparison, CNBC during that period was attracting 265,000 viewers.)

Making matters worse for Ailes was the fact that on January 22, as fears mounted about a possible global financial crisis, CNBC posted its best ratings in seven years, attracting 401,000 viewers that day.

The hurdle for Fox Business Network has always been simple: Why would investors and day traders in search of reliable business information turn from CNBC over to the Fox brand, which is so well-known for passing along one-sided information? News Corp. always assumed Fox News would help launch the business channel. But Fox News is taken seriously by so few people, it may be hurting the business launch.

After all, Fox News continues to embarrass itself with a type of journalism that nobody else in the industry would dare call professional. And for proof of that look no further than Major Garrett, who is supposed to be one of the channel’s nonpartisan, serious journalists. He landed a recent scoop about how former advisers to Bill Clinton, Paul Begala and James Carville, were getting set to join Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Carville immediately shot the story down, telling Talking Points Memo’s Greg Sargent that very same day, “Fox was, is and will continue to be an asinine and ignorant network. I have not spoken to anyone in the Clinton campaign about this. I’m not getting back into domestic political consulting.”

Begala did Carville one better and directly emailed Garrett to deny the story — a story Garrett never bothered trying to check with Begala or Carville before it was broadcast. Garrett’s response to Begala’s blanket denial? Garrett told the Democratic operative that he would take his denial “under advisement.” [Emphasis added.]

Garrett then went back on the air and repeated the same story, and added the fact that Begala had been on a conference call the day before with Clinton advisers, which was also false. And no, despite his earlier email exchange with Begala, Garrett never bothered to try to confirm the conference call story with him before reporting it on Fox News.

On his Fox News blog, Garrett did acknowledge the Begala email and claimed he’d be updating the fast-moving story soon — which, he told readers, would likely be confirmed the next day when the Clinton campaign made the Begala/Carville announcement. But the next day when the story imploded, Garrett simply ignored the embarrassing gaffe.

Recounting the whole Kafka-esque charade at the Huffington Post, Begala wrote, “I’ve never had a more surrealistic day. If this is what one of Fox’s best and most respected reporters is doing, what are the hacks up to?”

They’re watching CNN capture the campaign ratings crown.

UPDATE: Fresh Nielsen numbers show Fox News’ ratings woes continued over the weekend. During Saturday night’s 8-10 p.m. ET coverage of the Democrats’ South Carolina primary results, Fox News not only got trounced by CNN among viewers 25-54, but lost to MSNBC as well.

via//Media Matters

The Better Ron Paul Does, The More He Will Be Ignored

The better Ron Paul does the less air time he gets, suggests Gambling911.com’s Jennifer Reynolds

MSNBC held a debate last night and did all they could to pretend Ron Paul was not there.  Ron Paul, the man who is moving up in the poles, the man who actually has support and money (his supporters sent him 1.8 million dollars this past Monday with an average of a fifty dollar donation), the man who knows more about economics than all the candidates on stage put together was ignored to such an extent it was shameful.  Here are the candidates, the  number of questions asked and the time they took to answer them:  Romney: 13 questions, 21:11 minutes; McCain 13 questions, 16:00 minutes; Giuliani (who so far has come in last in nearly every primary except for one fourth place finish – oh, and he is so broke his staff is working for free) 11 questions: 13:50 minutes; Huckabee was asked nine questions, 12:11 minutes and Ron Paul, the man who the media does not see only got 6 questions and was allowed a measly 6:31 minutes to respond.  This is what you call a fair debate?

In this debate they used a lovely little new segment where the candidates asked each other questions and what a surprise, no one wanted to hear Ron Paul tell America anything and so they ignored him completely.  Ron Paul however got to ask McCain a question about economics (McCain had just finished saying how well versed he was on the topic) and McCain was so lost all he could do was talk about advisers, and rattle off a list of names.  He was clueless, completely clueless.  So much for being well versed if you can’t even follow a question, let alone come up with an answer.  It was truly embarassing.

To make matters worse, after the debate was over they had a graphic on the screen over and over showing how the candidates were doing in the polls.  How is Paul doing you ask?  Sorry, cannot tell you that.  They had numbers for each of them except Ron Paul.  It is as if he does not exist at all.  Finally, the pundits weighed in and crowed over Romney, they were pleased with McCain, they liked Huckabee, they interviewed Giuliani right away and after pundit after pundit took the stage to spout off their opinions not one, not one single person mentioned Ron Paul.

So, what did Ron Paul tell the people of this country?  Well, I’ll tell you, because no one else will.  He said he would protect Social Security for those that are on it or nearing retirement age.  He said he would make Social Security benefits tax-free.  This is rather important to those that are living on a fixed income that get a 2% cost of living increase each year while the true cost of inflation rises around 10% (the discrepancy comes from the fact that the Consumer Price Index that supposedly measures inflation leaves out food, fuel and housing costs in its analysis).

Ron Paul also was the only man on the stage who has any viability with the American people.  According to the moderators, a new poll shows that 6 out of 10 Americans now think that going after Saddam Hussein and attacking Iraq was not worth the cost in lives and dollars.  Ron Paul is the only man on that stage who agreed with Americans and who has held this position the whole time.  He voted against the war, he explained that a large reason our dollar is crashing is because the Federal Reserve has to print the money to finance the war which brings down the value of the dollar, and we are spending one trillion dollars a year on our empire building with troops in over one hundred countries.  Folks – we are broke, Ron Paul knows why and how to fix it.

Another little, rather overlooked trifle of an issue was brought up that night- the recognition that our Armed Forces are on their last legs and a draft may be imminent.  Ron Paul was the only man on the stage who will save our children from being forcefully removed from their homes, handed a gun and put in a bullet’s path.  Most of the men in the debate simply buried their head in the sand and pretended that none of that is true and that is how they are going to protect your children:  by putting their hands on their ears and saying LA LA LA LA LA LA.  Ron Paul, who warned about this upcoming draft a long time ago has the only real solution: end the war. If you end the war there can be no need for a draft.  Romney stated that although the military needs another 400,000 troops, he would just add 100,000 (out of thin air perhaps?) and ignored the need for any more.  (LA LA LA LA LA LA LA).  Romney also explained how he got a bunch of people to sign up for the military in his home state by promising them a full college scholarship if they made it back alive.  Sorry Mitt, the Army has been trying that for years even adding a twenty thousand dollar bonus for enlisting plus an additional nine thousand if they ship out in thirty days PLUS the college scholarship is not enough to get people to go to Iraq.  If he ever read the papers he would know that his suggestion has been tried and failed two years ago and that plan is not working.  (LA LA LA LA LA LA LA).

Stay tuned to hear the real news, not some biased form of who we have crowned, and my next article will focus on Ron Paul’s economic stimulus plan.  After all, it’s the economy dummy.

The fat cats must really be terrified of Paul and his plan to end their reign of stealing from the rest of us.  Next time, perhaps, they will just gray out the little pixels around Ron Paul so no will know he exists at all.  Folks, this is abominable treatment by the media.  If you think so too, please let them know.

via//Gambling911.com

Busted: New York Times revises own history on Iraq war

Paper later apologized for exaggerating Saddam threat

Senator Hillary Clinton earned the endorsement of the New York Times of her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in a Friday editorial. But in giving the New York lawmaker their nod, the Times’ editorial board appeared to be subtly revising its stance in the lead up to the Iraq War, painting the picture that it outright opposed the March 2003 invasion.

“We opposed President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and we disagree with Mrs. Clinton’s vote for the resolution on the use of force,” the Times’ editors write in Friday’s endorsement. But editorials published by the paper in 2002 and 2003 point to a much more ambivalent record on the movement towards the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, rather than the direct opposition the paper asserts in the endorsement.

The paper can point to a March 9, 2003 editorial as its strongest declaration against the Iraq War.

“If it comes down to a question of yes or no to invasion without broad international support, our answer is no,” the editorial board reasoned.

But after the editorial was published, the ambivalence of the Times’ editorial page toward the invasion of Iraq was visible on the day in a March 18, 2003 follow-up, as the “shock and awe” campaign was set to commence. The opinion piece seemed to say that the war was unnecessary, but also that it was legitimate at the same time.

First, it described President Bush’s actions as “a war waged without the compulsion of necessity.” Later, the editorial concluded by arguing that the real problem with the war was that Bush seemed to be intent on waging it unilaterally, not that it was being waged at all.

“The result is a war for a legitimate international goal against an execrable tyranny, but one fought almost alone,” the Times’ editors argued. “At a time when America most needs the world to see its actions in the best possible light, they will probably be seen in the worst.”

The position ultimately defined in the March 18 editorial grew out of a months of ambivalent argumentation that never quite arrived at taking a principled stance against the invasion of Iraq.

For instance, an Oct. 3, 2002 editorial prior to Congress’ authorization of the use of force called on Congress to thoroughly consider the consequences of war with Iraq, but did not appear to rule out the use of force as an option.

“At this point, there remains a possibility that Iraq can be disarmed by voluntary means,” they argued. “Congress must make clear its expectation that all diplomatic avenues be thoroughly explored. President Bush was right to declare Tuesday that ‘the military option is not the first choice.’”

In another pre-authorization editorial on Oct. 8, 2002, the Times criticized Democrats in Congress for failing to challenge Bush. However, the paper stopped short of encouraging them to vote against the resolution, declaring it all but inevitable.

“Given the cautionary mood of the country, it is puzzling that most members of Congress seem fearful of challenging the hawkish approach to Iraq,” the paper wrote, before adding in the next paragraph, “Congress is likely to grant the president the power to use force that he seeks. But that does not mean the debate should lack seriousness or tough questioning or that it should amount to a blank check.”

After Congress had given Bush authority to use force in Iraq, the Times still urged the White House to avoid war, but did not argue against war outright.

“The desirable alternative to war is to send U.N. arms investigators back into Iraq with no restrictions on their ability to search out and destroy Baghdad’s illegal weapons programs,” the paper urged in a Oct. 11, 2002 editorial. “It needs to be fully explored.”

Still, in making this case, it offered a menacing picture of Iraq and its potential to cause destruction in the Middle East.

“[I]f Iraq were to conclude that an American attack could no longer be prevented, Mr. Hussein ”probably would become much less constrained,’” the papers’ editors wrote. “Targets for such attacks could include Israeli cities, Saudi oil fields and concentrations of American troops in the region.”

And it was on this account, of exaggerating the danger posed by Saddam Hussein to the world, that the Times acknowledged in 2004.

“But we do fault ourselves for failing to deconstruct the W.M.D. issue with the kind of thoroughness we directed at the question of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, or even tax cuts in time of war,” they wrote in the July 16 editorial. “We did not listen carefully to the people who disagreed with us. Our certainty flowed from the fact that such an overwhelming majority of government officials, past and present, top intelligence officials and other experts were sure that the weapons were there. We had a groupthink of our own.”

In the end, the New York Times’ editorial board appeared determined in belief of the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein, agreeing with the president on March 17, 2003 that, “Mr. Bush is right to insist that the choice between war and peace has been in the hands of Saddam Hussein.”

And before the “No” editorial was published, they also made it clear that they did not oppose war with Iraq outright. What they opposed was a unilateral war.

“The threat of force, however, should not give way to the use of force until peaceful paths to Iraqi disarmament have been exhausted and the Security Council gives its assent to war,” they wrote on March 3, 2003, 17 days before the US invasion began.

via//Raw Story

Kucinich drops out

Dennis Kucinich is dropping out of the presidential campaign, telling Cleveland’s Plain Dealer he will formalize his announcement on Friday. It is far earlier than Kucinich dropped out in 2004.

The Ohio Congressman’s long shot campaign faced a particularly hard slog this cycle: He had anemic fundraising, scant grassroots support and an uphill battle with the mainstream media, which rarely covered his campaign and recently shut him out of televised debates. Soon he will receive a ritualistic, farewell media dis — the tasteless “Red X” that Time Magazine slashes across the face of every would-be president who drops out of the race:

A Time spokesperson defends the graphic as “a visual way of letting people know we [are] diving into primary season.” It’s also a visual reminder of what’s wrong with horse race campaign coverage.

But back to Dennis. Here’s what The Nation’s election editorial recently concluded about Kucinich’s candidacy:

In his stands on the issues, Dennis Kucinich comes closest to embodying the ideals of this magazine. He has been a forceful critic of the Bush Administration, opposing the Patriot Act and spearheading the motion to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. He is the only candidate to have voted against the Iraq War in 2003 and has voted against funding it ever since. Of all the serious candidates, only he and Governor Bill Richardson propose a full and immediate withdrawal from Iraq. And only Kucinich’s plan sets aside funds for reparations. Moreover, Kucinich has used his presidential campaigns to champion issues like cutting the military budget and abolishing nuclear weapons; universal, single-payer healthcare; campaign finance reform; same-sex marriage and an end to the death penalty and the war on drugs. A vote for him would be a principled one. But for reasons that have to do with the corrupting influence of money and media on national elections as well as with his campaign’s shortcomings–such as its failure to organize a grassroots base of donors and web activists–a democratic mass movement has not coalesced around Kucinich’s run for President.

via//Nation, The

Advertisers drop Michael Weiner-Savage over hate speech

At least four major firms have pulled advertising from Michael Savage’s nationally syndicated radio show following a campaign highlighting his inflammatory rhetoric. One other company, Geico insurance, is expected to follow suit.

The campaign, launched recently by Brave New Films, generated thousands of calls urging advertisers on the Savage Nation show to sever financial ties to the widely popular (and frequently offensive) talk host.

In less than a week, four agreed to pull their ads from the show, including Union Bank of California (whose representative says they were advertisers on the Savage show by mistake and were glad to be taken off), Intuit, Chattem, ITT Technical Institute.

“We are thrilled at the amazing response of the true patriots all over the blogsphere who responded to our NOSAVAGE campaign,” Robert Greenwald, head of the film company, said in a statement. “People have called and emailed and the responsible sponsors have responded by pulling their ads and asking that their ads not be on this racist and hateful show.”

But group who has segments run on the show is raising eyebrows by refusing to distance itself from Savage. The USO, a non-profit that does work for U.S. armed forces, wrote Brave New Films complaining about being targeted and even hinting at a lawsuit. The organization’s lawyer Tony Bisceglie says it does not pay for the USO public service announcements that air on Savage’s show.

“As a tax exempt not-for-profit organization, regulated by the Attorney General’s Office of the state of California and the Internal Revenue Service, your organization may not engage in making false statements to solicit public support,” Bisceglie wrote to Brave New Films. “Therefore, please take the necessary steps to remove USO from your website entirely to avoid further action on our part.”

Bisceglie denied that the USO is considering legal action. But John Hanson, a spokesman for the USO, said the organization could ask for its PSAs to be taken off of Savage’s program, and wouldn’t. “Because then who is next?” he asked. “We provide no revenue for Michael Savage. We may improve his image. But we provide no revenue for him.”

The reasoning was not enough to impress officials at Brave New Films who called it a lost opportunity for the USO.

“Considering the USO’s role in the world,” said Leighton Woodhouse, a spokesperson for Brave New Films, “we would have expected them to be the first to distance themselves from someone who is deliberately fanning the flames of hatred between Muslims and non-Muslims; we were sorely disappointed.”

The campaign by Greenwald mirrors an earlier initiative taken on behalf of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. In both cases, Savage’s invective was used against him as fuel for advertisers to rescind their financial support. Highlights of the radio host’s statements include:

• To “save the United States,” lawmakers should institute “outright ban on Muslim immigration” and on “the construction of mosques.”
• “90 percent of the people on the Nobel Committee are into child pornography and molestation, according to the latest scientific studies.”
• The U.S. Senate is “more vicious and more histrionic than ever, specifically because women have been injected into” it.
• Adherents of Islam would do well to “take your religion and shove it up your behind” because “I’m sick of you.”

Brave New Film’s video on Savage can be viewed here:

Interestingly, while Brave New Films and CAIR have run identical campaigns against Savage, the radio host has only filed a lawsuit against CAIR. His claim: that his comments were taken out of context and illegally made available.

A call and email to Savage’s radio station was not returned.

According to an account in the New York Times, Savage broadcasts his show out of three “virtual safe houses” – whose location he will not reveal – and “is licensed to carry a pistol and does so,” out of fears for his life. His program reaches an estimated eight million listeners a week on nearly 400 stations.

via//Huffington Post

Some reporters should drop out of the campaign

The verdicts of Iowa and New Hampshire prompted a handful of the 2008 political players to depart from the presidential campaign trail.But far too many remain for our own good.

Along with the handful of presidential candidates who dropped out so far, voters might be better served if a hundred or so of my political-reporter and pundit colleagues dropped out as well – and were replaced by journalists whose beats are about national security, economics, environment and health care.

For our coverage has not been serving the public interest by providing the sort of information voters really need to know – especially in the last weeks when many voters make their decisions.Much of the blame goes to the editors who apparently are satisfied with the sort of poll-driven horse-race journalism that we have gotten in the final weeks.Political journalists are a unique breed within our craft. Their job (as assigned by their editors) is to cover contests in which the contestants debate a wide range of vital issues – subjects about which the journalists who cover them have no expertise. So when the candidates are proposing their detailed plans for the economy or the war or health care or global warming, the journalists who cover the candidates rarely ask informed, penetrating follow-up questions.

(Unless they are fed these questions by an opposing candidate’s issues specialists.) But occasionally, a news organization and its editors rise to the occasion and get it right. Which is what The New York Times did on Wednesday, Jan. 2, the day before the Iowa caucuses and six days before the New Hampshire primary. The Times had dispatched to the campaign trail Washington correspondent Michael R. Gordon, whose reputation has nothing to do with political journalism but who is a top Pentagon correspondent and co-author of a much-praised book on the Iraq war.

He interviewed former Sen. John Edwards about just how the North Carolina Democrat will fulfill his campaign promise to end the war in Iraq. His in-depth questions led Edwards to provide his most detailed explanation yet: He intends to withdraw within 10 months virtually all U.S. troops, including those who are training Iraqi forces and police.

And the newspaper had the good sense to play the news on its front page, right where we usually see those campaign horse-race stories.

But that, unfortunately, was the exception in a week in which America’s news media – such as the prime-time TV network news, the nonstop cable news and, of course, the front pages of virtually all U.S. newspapers – were dominated by stories covering every nit and nuance about Sen. Barack Obama’s surge in Iowa and New Hampshire, not the U.S. military’s surge in Iraq.

Indeed, on Tuesday, the day of the New Hampshire primary, The Washington Post’s lead editorial focused on the Democratic presidential candidates and the surge in Iraq. “Why do the Democratic candidates refuse to acknowledge progress in Iraq?” asked the sub-headline above the editorial. Perhaps the editors at the Post should have been asking each other why they had not sent their paper’s defense-policy experts out to the campaign trail to grill the candidates and inform the public about just that.

Actually, The Washington Post has done some fine campaign journalism this year – from national correspondent Michael Dobbs and his team of researchers, who produce a series titled, “The Fact Checker.” It regularly compares candidate statements with the truth – and reports to us when the candidates are lying, deceiving or exaggerating.

After Saturday night’s New Hampshire debates, “The Fact Checker” reported five short and direct stories. Among them:

• That Republican Mike Huckabee “was simply wrong” in saying he had supported President Bush’s Iraq war policy before Mitt Romney did – and that he supported the surge while Romney did not.

• That Romney made an assertion that was “untrue” in saying his campaign ad had never accused John McCain of favoring “amnesty” for illegal immigrants – his ad said just that.

• And that Hillary Clinton was “exaggerating her role in extending health-care benefits to National Guard members.”

The Washington Post played those little stories on page A6. Voters would be better served if every news outlet gave Page One or prime-time coverage to each of these stories. And who knows? Perhaps the candidates might stop – or at least curb – their lying, deceiving and exaggerating.

Perhaps even politicians can be paper-trained.

Martin Schram writes political analysis for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail him at martin.schram@gmail.com.

via//Sacramento Bee

VIDEO: Ron Paul Town Hall, 1/6/08

Republican Presidential candidate, Congressman Ron Paul held a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire this evening. Fox News did not invite Dr. Paul to participate in its presidential candidates forum tonight which led to the New Hampshire GOP dropping its sponsorship of the “debate” in protest.

Part 1

Part 2