Saturday, June 14, 2008

Socks on the floor

The Russert Effect

I agree with John Cole, though perhaps not in the way he says.

Yes, Tim Russert was a major figure in the news and yes all the news people miss him (even those who didn't like everything he did). He was big enough that it was inevitable that there would be hours of news coverage of his death.

But the fact that he was big enough that his death warrants hours of news coverage is a perfect illustration of the "news figure as media star" problem. No news figure should be big enough that such coverage is justified. Anyone that big cannot report on the news without impacting the news by the very act of them focusing on it (call it the Observer Effect of journalism). Russert's involvement in the Plame Affair is a perfect example. He became part of the story because he was to big.

Anyone who is news cannot be an impartial reporter of news.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Tell a story

Some good advice here.

The Fight The Smears website is a good start at applying sunshine to the garbage floating out there, but countering a smear with facts often solidifies the "story" behind the smears in the minds of the reader even if they read facts that counter it. The "story" in this case is that Obama is someone that the American people just can't trust to be president.

The advice here is that countering the larger story requires a more compelling story to drive it out. And the suggested counter-story is to answer the question who stands to benefit by spreading smears about Obama.

The author of this post provides a sample counter email to spread in response to the smears, but a commenter provides an even better sample that we all might want to rejigger for our own purposes.

The question is this: who is using good honest Americans to spread lies about Barack Obama? Who is so afraid of Obama that they're attacking him with the vicious online smears?

You've got to think like a detective. Who benefits? Who benefits from spreading anonymous messages filled with lies, trusting that we'll blindly distribute them to our friends?

Let's run down a list of culprits:

Barack Obama wants Big Oil Companies who make $35 billion in pure profit every few months to pay their fair share.

Barack Obama intends to bring our troops home--to invest in America not just Iraq--even though Haliburton makes tens of billions on the war.

Barack Obama plans to lower taxes for ordinary Americans earning $75,000 and less ... but raise taxes for rich folks making more than $800,000 a year.

Barack Obama plans to insure all American children, even if the big health insurance companies don't think they make a big enough profit helping injured kids.

Why are anonymous cowards lying about Barack Obama? Not just because they hate him, and hate the change he represents. No, because they're scared, they're threatened.

Because when you stick your neck out for the little guy like Obama does, the Big Guys try to chop off your head.

So the next time you get a lying smear email about Obama, don't wonder if the smears are true. You know they're not.

Instead, wonder: who's behind all the smears? And why are they working so hard to bring down a man who wants to change things for the better?

Habeas for all or habeas for none

I'd like to make one point about yesterday's ruling by the Supreme Court on habeas corpus. A lot of media outlets are reporting this with headlines along the lines of "Supreme Court upholds habeas rights for detainees."

This is wrong.

Yes, the immediate beneficiaries of this decision are the detainees in Gitmo and yes, it was those detainees who brought the case in the first place. But habeas is a right of everyone that is not divisible. That means it is not a right you can selectively grant to some people but not to others. That, I believe, was the essence of the majority opinion.

If the government is allowed to say these people over here have habeas rights while those people over there do not that means that government is putting itself in the position of being the ultimate arbiter of habeas rights. The Court apparently rejected that notion (especially since it was The Court that traditionaly is the ultimate arbiter on this question). If The Court were to have ruled the other way that would have effectively destroyed habeas for everyone. If habeas rights can be selectively applied then any time you try to exercise them you have to first convince a government bureaucrat that you have the right in the first place.

Put simply, habeas is a right that must exist for everyone if it is to exist for anyone. So yesterday's decision did not uphold habeas rights for the detainees. It upheld the habeas rights for me, for you, for your cousin Rory and for that nutball down the street who likes to walk around with "Jesus Saves" sandwich boards.

Everyone or None. Those were the only choices.

Thank God they made the right choice.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Two Chicks Chatting

Gennifer and Paula together at last. Hard to believe but, apparently, this is not a joke.

Ever dream of falling blocks?

The Tetris Effect (sounds like a good name for a band)

I can remember sleepless nights when I first started playing that game. I gave it up for my sanity. Haven't played it much since.

I also get the same effect when after some particular long programming sessions. Everything starts to look like a computer problem.

Follow the bouncing censor bars



"Toe Jam" by The BPA (ft David Byrne & Dizee Rascal)

(nsfw even though there really isn't any nudity)

It's a big ass table!


Actually, the concept of this seems pretty cool, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the snarkiness of this parody.

magical African-American friend

John Cole:

Last night on CNN, Campbell Brown was filling in for Anderson Cooper on AC360, and had a panel discussing the Jim Johnson bit. What follows actually happened- I am not making it up:

BROWN: Let me get your take on this. And by running a campaign that’s promoting higher ethics, a new kind of politics, does Obama and McCain, who has done this himself to a certain degree, do they set themselves up to be measured to a higher standard?

FARAI CHIDEYA, HOST, NPR’S NEWS & NOTES: I think this is a Americans really are looking for new kinds of leadership, whether it’s Republican, Democrat, independent. And they are holding politicians to incredibly high standards.

I also think that Senator Obama has a very specific issue going on.

Christopher John Farley of “TIME” magazine once wrote an essay about the magical African-American friend, which is the idea in movies often, that there’s this nice black man who’s my black friend, and he’s not like other black people. He’s so nice.

And I think that some people, some supporters have put Senator Obama in the magical African-American friend box. And therefore, for them there’s a double high standard, which is not only that he has to be squeaky clean as it relates to other politicians, but he has to be sort of this super-nice person. Politics is not always nice. We know that.

I think that Chideya (who is black by the way), in her awkward way, was trying to make an analogy to the same problem that Jackie Robinson had when he broke the baseball color barrier. When Robinson became the first black drafted into the major leagues, he had to be not just a good player but a GREAT player. If he messed up at all it would give ammunition to those who wanted to be proven right about blacks in baseball.

Fortunately, Robinson was a great player.

Obama has to be not just a good candidate/president. He has to be a GREAT candidate/president, otherwise critics will all say, "See, we told you so."

Put more simply, anyone who breaks a barrier will be subject to a higher standard of judgment. It's inevitable.

Chideya's point is valid. Just very poorly stated.

Tony Rezko is no Jim McDougal

I've been thinking for some time that there might be an attempt to turn Tony Rezko into Barack Obama's Jim McDougal. (For those who didn't follow the Whitewater scandal, Jim McDougal was the realtor and banker who, after being prosecuted, turned on Bill Clinton and essentially got the whole scandal started.) Ben Smith has a story that says that Tony Rezko is now claiming that federal prosecutors were trying to do just that.
Your Honor, the prosecutors have been overzealous in pursuing a crime that never happened. They are pressuring me to tell them the “wrong” things that I supposedly know about Governor Blagojevich and Senator Obama. I have never been party to any wrongodoing that involved the Govenror or the Senator. I will never fabricate lies about anyone else for selfish purposes.
If true then kudos to Rezko for resisting the pressure to falsely throw Obama under the bus in order to save himself.

Black black black black black black black

My favorite take (so far) on the baby mama crap:
It’s shit like this that makes this story on CNN, about whether Barack Obama should be considered black or biracial, an absolute hoot. Here’s a quick test on whether Obama should be considered fully black: Poof! Barack Obama has been magically transported to a KKK meeting in deepest, whitest Klanistan without his Secret Service detail. There’s a rope and a tree nearby. What happens to Obama? If you say, “why, Barack Obama walks out of there alive, of course” then sure, he’s biracial. Also, you’re a fucking idiot. To everybody who cares about Obama’s racial identity, either positively or negatively, the man is black man, married to a black woman, who has black children. Black black black black black black black.
Sounds like a rant worthy of Lewis Black (heh!)

Outrage at the outrage

If you check the memeorandum thread on the "Obama's baby mama" controversy and read the right-wing bloggers' response to it, you will find a common thread. They almost all universally say that the outrage is overblown and that it just indicates that "lefties" are to sensitive or deranged. But there's another message that comes through in these comments: the thing they are really upset about is the fact that "lefties" aren't letting "righties" get away with it anymore.

The right-wing noise machine has been used to years of near unobstructed propagation of their sewage. The left-wing blogs and democrats with guts are starting to call them on it. And fighting back is starting to produce results for the left. The right can't have that. So they have to make any criticism of their action seem deranged. Not because it is deranged but because it is effective.

They are afraid.

Q.E.D.



Question: Would FOX ever refer to Cindy McCain as "McCain's Baby Mama"?

Answer: Of course not. It would never occur to them. Why? Because McCain is white and that is a black term.

Conclusion: Racism.

Confronting Rumors

Conventional wisdom, in politics as well as most of life, is that confronting a scurrilous rumor is counter-productive. Doing so just gives a wider airing to the rumor. If a neighbor is whispering about you having an affair, confronting them about it will just spread the rumor to everyone in your neighborhood who hasn't already heard it.

Historically, I think this wisdom held true. But history changes. The internet has magnified the ability of a smear to propagate to the point where the calculus of the conventional wisdom no longer holds true. Viral emails will carry the rumor to all corners of the globe in ways that would have never happened in the age of back-fence gossip. The danger of further spread that comes from confrontation is comparatively minimal.

Both Al Gore and John Kerry suffered in their respective elections because they followed the conventional wisdom. They hoped that, by not confronting certain rumors, they would die a natural death. But the internet is like speed for this crap. Not confronting them seriously hampered their electoral chances.

It looks like Barack Obama is ready to try a different approach. Following in the likes of Snopes, the Obama campaign has set up a sight, Fight The Smears, specifically devoted to giving a full and complete airing of these internet rumors. This sight not only lists the full rumors, but it also links to the evidence that debunks them AND links to the history of the rumors so people can see, where possible, where and with whom they originated.

It probably won't end the rumors. But it should certainly help. If nothing else, it could make confronting the rumors such a common occurance that doing so has little chance of spreading them even further.

"Liberty and security can be reconciled"

Justice Anthony Kennedy saves America

These are the words of Anthony Kennedy in the majority opinion on today's habeas corpus decision:
The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law. The Framers decided that habeas corpus, a right of first importance, must be a part of that framework, a part of that law.
Amen.

5-4. One Vote. Too. Damn. Close.

Habeas Corpus Lives!

Supreme Court backs Guantanamo detainees (msnbc.com)

Some thoughts:
  • The Court didn't back the detainees. It backed Habeas Corpus. I know this is a difficult concept to grasp but just because a decision upholding a basic right results in a particular benefit to a particular defendant does not mean the decision was made for the benefit of said defendant. They were just the immediate beneficiaries of the decision. The ultimate beneficiaries are all of us who may some day have to rely on rights like Habeas Corpus in order to defend ourselves against unjust charges.
  • This was a 5-4 decision. That means Habeas Corpus survives today because of just one vote. That's to damn close!
  • Shame on all the members of Congress who voted for this. Shame especially on the Democrats who voted for it (note: Barack Obama voted against it). And even more shame to those who voted for it, knowing it was wrong, but making the calculation that it was politically necessary and besides, the Supreme Court would overturn it anyway (see above about the 5-4 decision).
  • Yeah!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

I'm Voting Republican

Power!

Balloon Juice
As gas prices continue to rise and then stabilize at a price that puts our casual use of gasoline financially out of reach for most Americans, I bet we will simply redefine what is considered “cool” when it comes to cars. I predict it will be gadgetry or the like in the interior, but in 20 years we will probably look back at the cars of the past few decades (60’s-present) in sort of a quizzical “WTF WERE WE THINKING?” kind of way.
You see something like this already today. My wife and I recently have gotten into rewatching old episodes of Starsky & Hutch. One of the centerpieces of that show was the car (a Ford Gran Torino) that was notably smaller than the landboats most everyone else was driving. Yet, by today's standards, that same car would be considered large.

Watching old TV shows and movies it is hard not to ask "WTF WERE WE THINKING" when you see most people driving cars with footprints larger than today's Hummers.

Losing the argument



There will be much talk about this clip today but I'd like to focus on one thing. McCain tries to defend his "100 years in Iraq" comment by saying he was making a comparison to our forces in Germany and Japan. But, even if Obama were to concede the idea of a peaceful Iraq eventually becoming real (a HUGE concession), Obama would still win the argument. Why? Because there is just no desire on the part of the American people to sustain a peaceful force in Iraq for 100 years.

McCain's real delusion is not that we are winning in Iraq. It is that his vision for an American hegemony in the Middle East has any political weight.

Update: Andrew Sullivan gets to the heart of it:
... do Americans want a neo-empire in the Middle East? Do they want US troops permanently stationed in Iraq with up to 60 permanent bases? That's what the Bush administration wants to foist onto Iraq; and that's what McCain believes in. The viral video now buzzing on the Internets is not a gaffe, it's the truth. McCain would love to see US troops stationed peacefully in Iraq for the foreseeable future. To him it does not matter when they come home. What matters is that the casualty rate get low enough to persuade Americans they shouldn't care about another expansion of American empire. In fact, the entire debate about bringing them home is puzzling and frustrating to McCain. After all, why should we bring them home when being there for ever is the point?

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Because I am The Count!

This is wrong on so many levels, but I laughed my ass off.

Man Bites Dog

Steve Benen makes an interesting observation:
Just a few days ago, Paul Krugman had an interesting item on his blog on the media’s coverage of the presidential campaign as the dominant story shifts from a heated primary race to the general election. When the focus was on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, it was in the media’s interest to exaggerate differences between two candidates who agree on almost everything. With the focus shifting to Obama and John McCain, it should make the media’s job easier — there are, as Krugman noted, “stark differences on issues between the candidates.”

I assumed that Obama and McCain are so different — personally, ideologically, professionally, temperamentally — the media just can’t screw this up.

I stand corrected. The LA Times ran an editorial the other day, noting that we “might be surprised at the breadth of issues on which they largely agree.”

I wonder if this might be a manifestation of the "man bites dog" rule. A story that fits preconceptions ("dog bites man") doesn't raise any interest and a story that doesn't raise any interest is a story that is quickly forgotten (and doesn't help advance the writer's career). However, a story that doesn't fit preconceptions ("man bites dog") is interesting and an interesting story is one that people won't quickly forget (and will advance the writer's career).

A story about how two Democratic candidates agree is boring. A story about how they disagree is interesting. On the other hand, a story about how a Democrat and a Republican disagree is similarly boring. But a story about how they agree is similarly interesting.

The problem comes when we compare the coverage of the Dem vs. Dem race with the Dem vs. Repub race. When we do this it suddenly looks like Dems disagree with each other more than they disagree with their eventual Republican opponent.

Journalists who don't appreciate this dynamic do us no service with their reporting, even though they may not be intentionally trying to distort the picture of reality.

Fantastic news

AP (via Blue Oregon):
John Frohnmayer says he is dropping his bid for the U.S. Senate.

Frohnmayer had planned to run as the Independent Party's candidate in a three-way race against Republican Senator Gordon Smith and Democrat Jeff Merkley.

But Frohnmayer said Tuesday he has had a tough time rounding up campaign money and grass-roots support.

I met both Novick, Merkely and Frohnmayer in similar forums (small groups in a local pub) before the primary and I have to say that Frohnmayer impressed me the most. He just struck me as the most passionate of the three. If he had been running for the Democratic nomination I think he would have had a real shot at it.

Unfortunately, Frohnmayer bought into the bogus notion that the "partisan gridlock" in Washington was equally the fault of both Republicans and Democrats. That was my only and most severe criticism of him (and I told him this to his face). I just couldn't take seriously anyone who would take that idea serious.

However, Frohnmayer could have been a serious threat in the Fall as I think he was likely to take more from Jeff Merkely than Gordon Smith. That is why his dropping out is good news. Now we have a level playing field to take out Gordo.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Don't Trip! Don't Trip! Don't Trip!

I said several weeks back, in the midst of all the ADD (Anxious and Defeatest Democrat) worries that the long primary season would damage Obama's chances in the Fall, that I fully expected that once the primaries concluded the presumptive winner would see an almost overnight bump in the polls. This would put to rest one of the arguments the ADDs were using that McCain was polling even with Obama/Clinton.

Well, its nice to be vindicated



This thing is far from over. But people should stop looking for things that might go wrong.

(Imagine your a receiver who catches the ball at the opponents 20 yard line and then finds himself with a clear path to touchdown 80 yards away, its hard not to spend part of that long run thinking to yourself, "Don't Trip! Don't Trip! Don't Trip!")

No controversy?

One of the typical cover-our-ass techniques used by journalists to excuse their failure to test the assertions of the Bush administration in the lead up to war is for them to say, "We in the press tend to cover disputes, and so if Democratic senators had stood up to criticize these policies, we would have done our job better." (actual quote from Nick Kristof).

Putting aside the absurdity of journalists saying that they only go where the news already is, Paul Krugman makes the obvious counter-point:
... I’d like to question the premise. A majority of Democrats in the House voted against the authorization of force. It’s true that only 21 Democratic Senators voted against, but here’s a list of the “no” voters:

Sens. Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Byrd (D-WV), Conrad (D-ND), Corzine (D-NJ), Dayton (D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Graham (D-FL), Inouye (D-HI), Kennedy (D-MA), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI), Sarbanes (D-MD), Stabenow (D-MI), Wellstone (D-MN), Wyden (D-OR).

This doesn’t sound like an obscure group of backbenchers to me.

Nor to the rest of us Paul. There was plenty of controversy to cover in those months. But what little coverage it did receive were one day stories that were just more examples of journalists ass-covering. Even when they pressed Bush and company on this the best they got was "we don't listen to focus groups". Followed by no followups.

They're learning

Yesterday the right-wing blogosphere tried to launch a kerfuffle about supposed anti-Semitic comments posted on the comment boards of the Obama web site. This is known as nut-picking and John Aravosis (here) and Jed (here and here) both do a great job of destroying the argument.

What prompts this post is this comment by Ben Smith at the Politico:
The raised level of press and public sophistication on this is
striking: I think at this point, most people are willing to accept that
both candidates can't control everything that happens on their sites, a
source of major confusion in 2004, when MoveOn was accused of using
Nazi comparisons because a user of the site did.
I noticed that this smear attempt was getting a lot of play in the right wing-o-sphere. It was filling nearly half a page on Memeorandum. But today it has disappeared. In other words, they threw out the bait but no one bit. Not even FOX news (yet).

It may take a while to educate media folks about how the web works, but many of them can learn.

Update: It looks the counter-meme launched by John and Jed is starting to take off on memeorandum. It will be interesting to see if this gets more bites than the original meme.

Update x2: Maybe I was a bit premature on this. From Phoenix Woman of Firedoglake I learn that Ben Smith actually did take the bait, at least initially, before fully acknowledging it was questionable and making his above comment. PW also suggests that the original posting that launched this story may have been a rat-fuck plant. I can believe that. But I can also believe that there are nuts out there that shouldn't be used as exemplars of Obama supporters.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

A fair attack?



Before you say the above image is an unfair attack on John McCain, read this.

(btw, The Jed Report is quickly becoming one of my favorites blogs).

Hitting McCain both fairly and unfairly

I agree with Jed. The first seven minutes of this video (created by a Ron Paul supporter) is devastatingly brutal against John McCain. Unfortunately, it then goes off track with a couple minutes of really scurrilous rumors about McCain being a collaborator in Vietnam. Flush that stuff down the toilet. But keep the rest. It hurts and its effective because it is patently true.

Unity

Good suggestions on how to talk to non-supporters about Obama.

This campaign left several people with raw nerves. Learn how not to stomp on them. Learn not to rehash old battles. Learn to respect people's different choices. Even if you disagree with their assessment of the candidates, find common ground.

If nothing else, asking them to stop McCain and the Republicans in general will be a much more effective tactic than trying to convince them to become an Obamaphile.