I donated more money to his campaign than any other campaign I'd ever donated to
On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give him, maybe, an 8 so far. (If he'd quit discharging soldiers under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" I might move that up to a 9, even.)
On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give Michelle Obama a 10 so far
I've been interested in both the history and the modern working of the White House since I was in junior high school
I'm generally a fan of Brian Williams
I'm fascinated by the open access the White House gave NBC for 5 days to produce its two-night "news special" on the Obama White House
I didn't tune in for a hard-hitting expose or confrontation between the Executive branch and the Fourth Estate
...then why am I feeling so profoundly embarrassed by Brian Williams's fawning hagiography of the Obamas in this special? Are there still, somewhere in the mists, the faint fumes of ink from my diploma for a B.A. in journalism wafting somehow in my direction? I doubt it, but I'm still embarrassed for him, nonetheless.
McCain Shows How Lying Can Make Your "Larger Point"
F
rom Katie Couric's interviews with Obama and McCain on CBS this evening:
Obama: There is no doubt that our troops helped to reduce violence.
Less than two minutes later:
McCain: To deny that their sacrifice didn't make possible the success of the surge in Iraq I think does a great disservice to the young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.
Huh? He didn't say it -- in fact, he implied the opposite -- but Couric let McCain have the last word on that, regardless of whether it reflected the truth she'd just reported herself. But she was looking for a fight between the two, not any real examination of the issue.
For example, much as I want to like Katie Couric, she tends to ask dumb questions and makes dumb comments: "Senator McCain, you sound very frustrated with Senator Obama's perspective." Even he indicated that wasn't really relevant.
What actually is frustrating, Katie, is that you and everyone else are buying McCain's line that "the surge in troops has brought down violence in Iraq, therefore I have the better judgment." Violence has also declined in some places we don't even have troops. More importantly, this is basically saying, "See, we're making progress in fixing the problems we created," whereas Obama is saying, "Not only should those problems not have been created, your obsession on them has kept us from addressing even bigger problems that are becoming an even bigger threat."
But you don't get a real exploration of that in the binary world of media coverage -- he said, he said; who's right, who's wrong; answer the question, yes or no -- which, not coincidentally, the right-wing likes to frame everything in. And because this makes the media's job easier, it works.
Obama's right to keep the focus on "what is strategic." Because even if he does, the network news certainly isn't.
Stephen Colbert summed up the ridiculous way this is currently being discussed, in his interview Monday night with Sen. Jim Webb (who also made the point that, surge or no, fighting in Iraq wasn't and isn't in the strategic interests of the U.S., even though our military will do the job that's put to them and almost always have). Colbert argued, "I will grant you that perhaps it was a foreign policy disaster to go in, based on shoddy evidence. But now that the surge is working, it was worth it!" As usual, Colbert's character on Comedy Central shows just how stupid what passes for punditry is elsewhere on TV.
