Michele Bachmann’s Handfull of Subpoenas
Michelle Bachmann recently advanced the idea that the new congress needs to go to Washington with a hand full of subpoenas to fully uncover and punish the criminal behavior of the Obama Administration. Why does she want to do this? Why does the Chairwoman of the Republican Tea Party Caucus think this is a good idea?
During President Clinton’s second term the GOP’s extreme partisanship led to impeachment proceedings and severely hampered the effectiveness of our government and its Chief Executive. This distraction may have made some political hay for Republicans but crippled our Chief Executive’s ability to focus on and deal with the growing terror threat Al-Qaeda was preparing to launch against our country. The GOP’s actions provided support, aid, cover and comfort to the terrorists and heightened our country’s vulnerability to attack. Perhaps we should investigate their activities and motives for effectively becoming a Fifth Column for the Evil Doers?
Earlier in the year, Ms. Bachmann’s suggested to Chris Matthews that we should investigate the UnAmerican activities of congress and senate members to root out and expose those who hate America and are actively working for its destruction. I’m not so sure about this; it may lead to the mass imprisonment of the Republicans who obstructed President Clinton’s ability to perform his duties as Commander and Chief. With the GOP gone it would be impossible to form a consensus to effectively govern the nation so I’m kinda lukewarm on this one. After all President Obama and the ruling democrats rely on the good will of the loyal opposition GOP party to show the country that democracy works and that we can all get along.
But because I don’t think Ms. Bachmann’s idea is a good one doesn’t make it bad. After all I’m coming from a pretty partisan place myself. So in the spirit of consensus building I’m trying to understand why she would propose such a thing. Though its a dangerous and scary place to visit, I have tried to get inside Ms. Bachmann’s mind to understand her reasoning why she thinks the congress should spend the next session investigating members for crimes against the republic.
I have comprised a list of 13 reasons as to why Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party may think this is a good idea for the country. Please feel free to add your own.
1. Because its fun to shut the Federal Government down (ask Newt Gingrich)
2. It will heighten partisanship to levels yet unseen
3. Obstructionism is their preferred style of governance
4. Dissent is dangerous to a democracy
(America is long over due for another round of McCarthyism)
5. Enemy combatants sitting in congress must be imprisoned
6. It will demonstrate reactionary street cred
7. Sean Hannity thinks its a good idea
8. Rush Limbaugh thinks its a great idea
9. Glenn Beck tearfully pleads to show no quarter to “Wilsonian Reprobates”
10. Compromise/consensus forming is for sissies
11. Its how Michele Bachmann Mans Up and shows her pair
12. It plays well on Talk Radio and to the rabid dogs in the TP howling for fresh meat
13. 2012 GOP can say we did our best under trying circumstances now give us the White House and Senate. We’ll finish the job. Rove calls it the Coup de Grace campaign. A final silver bullet to the head of the democrats, democratic consensus and Federalism paid and financed by serious 527 money.
You Tube Video: Edvard Grieg, In the Hall of the Mountain King
Risk: consensus, governance, democracy
The Forth Estate Crosses Over
There is this program that runs on the WE Cable Network. It’s called Crossing Over with Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards is a psychic medium. He stands in front of a live gathering of 75 people and tunes into psychic vibes emanating through the audience. The vibes are messages from deceased loved ones who have crossed over the Acheron. The dead are keen to communicate warnings, good wishes and assurances to assist living loved ones on how to navigate the tricky vicissitudes of life. During the show, Jonathan walks about the room picking up on celestial chatter and begins to relay and interpret a soliloquy of the dead like a macabre game of supernatural telephone. Jonathan Edwards asks his audience to suspend all disbelief as he bestrides the nexus of the metaphysical spirit world and the pedestrian reality that most earthlings inhabit.
The most common messages the dead channel through Jonathan seek to absolve the anxiety and guilt of the tormented living. Crossing Over is popular because it offers its audience an absolution, confirms personal cosmology and rationalizes the pursuit of desires by affirming the consequences of decisions as a self fulfilling prophecy. It safely places its audience in a self validating cosmic echo chamber. Its an ongoing morality tale with only happy endings and unfortunately only a tenuous connection to authenticity and objective truth.
The state of the news media industry is very much like Crossing Over. The Forth Estate once thought of as an objective arbiter, information dispersant and truth seeking medium it is now chosen and consumed as a branded version of reality.
The devastating earthquake that buried Haitians in heaps of rubble unleashed global battalions of news teams to cover the event. Many of the news crews from large established networks beat first responders to the scene. In some cases the arrival of news teams actually held up the arrival of rescue teams and supplies because the airfield and crowed airspace could not accommodate all the traffic. The news teams were forced to hole up at the airport because blocked roads prohibited them from going anywhere. I recall Robin Roberts and the GMA News team dodging fork lifts and supply trucks left with nothing more to do then to urgently interview themselves. Correspondents were reduced to ghoulishly opining about the tragedy while eagerly mugging for the cameras with contorted faces to portray the human tragedy unfolding beyond the range of their cameras.
GMA’s presence added nothing and in fact inhibited rescue efforts. I thought of all the drinkable water these crews consumed could have been used to quench the thirst of Haitians dying from dehydration. Thankfully the GMA News team soon left after spending a self indulgent weekend at the airport. Their moral outrage registered and attempt at ratings grab accomplished. Their contribution to shedding light on the scope of this tragedy and placing it in a larger context of its meaning to the global community of nations was lost in deference to the tragedy’s emotional impact on GMA reporters. For GMA the subjective condition of the emotional distress of their media stars had become the story. Their viewers must have figured that if GMA’s News celebrities were hurting this story must be big.
CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta was an example of how a newsman became part of the story in a positive way. I recall with great admiration watching a camera crew following Dr. Gupta as he walked amidst the rubble of Port-Au-Prince. He learned of the location of a hospital and went to investigate how it was delivering services to the injured. Upon his arrival Dr. Gupta discovered the make shift hospital was little more then injured people being placed in the hallway of a building. The dead were being stacked outside by a wall surrounding the compound. The hospital had no doctors, nurses, beds or supplies. The facility lacked water to clean wounds or salve thirst. What the hospital did have was a constant stream of wounded arriving in greater numbers desperate for any type of care. The scale of the quake, the massive amounts of injured victims and the overwhelmed capacity of the hospitals ability to respond was reported in stark clarity.
Dr. Gupta was overwhelmed by parents cradling their broken children. Dr. Gupta a licensed medical doctor took off his correspondent hat and put on his stethoscope. He honored his Hippocratic Oath and started treating babies and the wounded with whatever he could cobble together. Dr. Gupta was no longer a journalist but was now a doctor. He asked that the cameras stop rolling so he could perform his duties as a doctor. I’ll never forget the look on Dr. Gupta’s face. It spoke volumes about the desperate conditions he was confronting and the firm resolve that he would perform his duties as a trained physician under trying almost impossible circumstances.
We could understand Dr. Gupta’s crossover from journalist to doctor. It was proper and correct response as a human being but as a journalist all objectivity had been lost and in many respects Dr. Gupta had become the story in a constellation of a million stories emanating from the epicenter of one of the great human tragedies of the past century. This is a departure from the norm of real time documentary reportage. I can’t tell you how many documentaries I came away from cursing the producers and cameramen for doing nothing to prevent the baby wildebeest from being consumed by the lion pack or for failing to offer a family of refugees in Darfur a bottle of water or a ride on their jeep to escape the marauding Janjaweed.
News Corps, network media division Fox News belies the myth of the monolithic liberal mainstream media and its claim of balance in its marketing handle. Fox News may offer a fair presentment of the news to its conservative viewership but its claim of balance that suggests the inclusion of a liberal perspective in their news product is specious.
Fox News really came of age following 9/11 and the growing conservative drift of the nation. Its useless to posit weather Fox News created the conservative drift or developed programming to market to this political demographic; but the political inclinations of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch have always been decidedly conservative. At its founding in 1996, Fox News started differentiating itself from the liberal mainstream media by supporting the Republican impeachment drive of President Clinton, effectively setting the stage for its partisan approach to reporting the news. In many respects its unabashed partisanship was a game changer in how news and information was being packaged, positioned and delivered in the emerging narrow casting market paradigm. Its sentiment not very different from the golden days of yellow journalism practiced by William Randolph Hearst.
Liberals and progressives have criticized News Corp for its lack of objectivity and balance. Many believe it to be the official party organ of the Republican Party and its compromised coverage is more akin to propaganda then news. I believe this to be true as well. Fox News has countered that it provides both news and opinion. Fox News employs many of the leading conservative voices. Karl Rove, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee are senior GOP members on the payroll of Fox News. They regularly appear on shows hosted by Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity who are conservative celebrities in their own right. The trick is discerning what is news and what constitutes opinion and editorial content. The line that demarcates them is increasingly a fine one. Even the innocuous news blurbs scrolling along the bottom of the TV screen seep in partisanship. Some may report objective facts like the closing level of the Dow or the latest sports score. These little factoids appear alongside pieces that consistently reinforce the conservative credo of the network. Its also a practice for commentators like Karl Rove to opine on stories covered on news segments. The pundits impassioned analysis of the story leaves the listener little room to doubt the interpretation as a validation of the viewers conservative political sentiments and ideological disposition. The ability to distinguish fact from opinion becomes increasingly lost in these clouds of obfuscation.
As the model of creating, packaging and marketing partisan news the advent of Glenn Beck as a political entertainer is symptomatic of the maturation of the industry. Glenn Beck’s show is more of a political reeducation camp that tries to provide low information voters and political neophytes with a more robust framework to understand the history and philosophy of conservatism. Beck extends the Fox News portfolio of infotainment products.
Beck’s role in encouraging the formation of the Tea Party expands the footprint of News Corp. Some may consider this crosses the line into political activism but I believe it to be a highly developed form of call and response direct marketing. Beck’s incessant rants about the imminent collapse of American democracy, the downfall of free market capitalism and the advocacy of the purchase of gold to hedge against these terrible prospects has attracted the sponsorship of gold marketers and other fear merchants living large and minting major coin in the time of terror.
Fox is not alone in this sin. CNBC profited from the pre-crash market run-up and had a vested interest in fueling market speculation and excess. The business channel owned and operated by NBC took some heat on this issue in the wake of the market meltdown. During the market run-ups and the creation of the numerous market bubbles CNBC was taken to task for its roll as a biased shill in creating a risk averse mania that fed into the speculative orgy. The encouragement of reckless behavior would cost investors and Main Street citizens a good portion of their retirement savings. Jon Stewart took on CNBC celebrity Jim Cramer for his role in stoking unhealthy speculation. The claim of caveat emptor is not a sufficient disclaimer to absolve CNBC of this perceived wrong doing. Information and data is the fuel that powers the capital market engine and viewers perceived CNBC to be a critical channel for this type of decision support data and analysis. As animated red bulls flashed across the TV screen screaming “buy buy buy” the speculative urge feeding the demon greed of Cramer’s viewers jumped at the prospect to secure easy profits and pushed the execute button to route a flood of orders to E-Trade.
Media outlets were not alone in profiting from the conflict of interest in their business model. The rating agencies Moody’s, Standard and Poors and other issuers of financial health assessments were roundly criticized for a business model that accepted fees from companies to determine their investment ratings investors use to judge safety and soundness of the companies securities. Investment banking institutions like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley ran into trouble for trading securities that they advised their clients to hold in investment portfolios. Large commercial banks have also been called on the carpet for the inherent conflict of interest in their mortgage lending business that integrated mortgage underwriters, originators, servicers, securitizers and investors under a single roof.
Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission has given corporations a megaphone to direct enormous amounts of capital and influence on Americas political culture. The exponential growth of the political industrial complex places media companies on the cusp of an emerging market. News Corp occupies a well defined franchise in the vortex of this growth industry. News Corp will be the predominant media channel attracting politically sponsored advertising from 527 corporations to advocate issues central to the conservative agenda. The market for political theater is strong and growing and News Corp has one of the hottest theatrical properties in celebrities like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.
If Fox News bends and packages information with selected editing in support of political narrative; Andrew “NAACP” Breitbart and James “ACORN” O’Keefe edits news to create a false narrative to affirm ideology. The omnipresent multi-channel digital world and the need for consistent real time affirmation justifies entrapment and libel as fair game in the political narrative. The specious political ethics of radical entitlement, means justify ends, medium is the message and relativistic ethics is the next step of an ideologically mature ,technologically enabled infotainment industry. The self affirming echo chamber that verifies fact and swears to any truth is blessed with selective amnesia and a self correcting mechanism of a highly refined subjective fact checker informed by extreme prejudice.
Jon Stewart use of satire and exaggeration to make a lager point of clarified and reified truth is old school stuff. In the Age of the Avatar, the real, the imagined, the intended and the manifested get confused in the digital clouds of form, delivery and content. The medium is the message, the network is the computer and Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity was a marketing event to stake a claim on the market of moderation. No doubt a highly educated discerning market segment with lots of disposable income. Its only downside its getting a little long in the tooth.
The Forth Estate is rapidly evolving due the dramatic changes in technology, market structure, business model and consumer consciousness. The role of the free press and the constitutional protections it enjoys in a democratic society is under siege and on the verge of bankruptcy. The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and LA Times are old media institutions struggling to stay financially solvent and culturally pertinent. Time will tell of their ability to evolve and create a sustainable business model that will be validated by a market economy. We have learned that truth, disclosure and transparency are not priceless assets but virtues that must support a sufficient p/e ratio to to survive in a capitalist economy.
The past few weeks we’ve had a few First Amendment martyrs. Rick Sanchez, Juan Williams and Keith Olbermann learned that the sword was more powerful then the pen. The more important lesson that managers could remove them on the whim of executive fiat if they failed to demonstrate restraint of pen and tongue. In actuality the removal of these gentlemen from the news desk was more of a business decision then a violation of their right of Free Speech.
As we enter the second decade of our two wars on terrorism even the embedded journalists rolling through the distressed hamlets of Iraq and Afghanistan are getting a bit war weary. Like a captive hostage the embeds could not help but to identify with their chauffeurs. The brave soldiers driving the Humvees’ were always in control of what the embeds saw, was responsible for their safety and quickly became the reporters best friend born of dependency, admiration and the comradeship that develops during war. Objective reportage was the first causality in this type of arrangement.
We need to take a cue from Jonathan Edwards. He is the real shaman of our time. Blessed with unique skills to help his audience to realize that self affirming connection is only possible by crossing over and taking suggestions from the well placed authorities residing in an unseen mysterious supernatural world.
You Tube Music Video: Tom Waits, Lie to Me
Risk: First Amendment, free speech
Juan Williams Gets A Raise
The dismissal of Juan Williams from his correspondent position at NPR is a watershed event. Conservative pundits will be screaming about First Amendment rights and the abuses of government controlled media. Mr. Williams was fired by NPR for violating guidelines on a statement he made as a paid commentator on Fox News “The O’Reilly Factor.” When asked about the racial profiling of Muslim’s Mr. Williams stated:
“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country,” Williams said Monday. “But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
At first glance it seems to be pretty innocuous stuff. Mr. Williams citing his unease at seeing a woman of the veil on an airplane is well within his First Amendment right to do so. The fact that I consider Mr. Williams fear to be based on a prejudice that prejudges someone based on appearances is beside the point. Its synonymous with police officers stopping motorists on interstate highways because of their race. The crime of driving while black should not be sufficient to infringe a persons right to privacy or impede their safe passage. Mr. Williams has the right to express those fears and prejudices and I will defend his right to do so.
Mr. Williams employer NPR also has a right to require that employees conform to certain guidelines that support the mission of a public news organization. NPR requires that its employees refrain from making public editorial pronouncements on public media outlets. It is understood that editorializing correspondents may injure or cause harm to the NPR brand as a trusted source of objective reporting. As such NPR is well within its right to protect its franchise by removing Mr. Williams from his position as a correspondent. Professional athletes and corporate executives all have clauses in their employment contracts that stipulate unbecoming conduct that hurts the company franchise is grounds for dismissal. NPR exercised that clause.
What is interesting about this event is the contrast of journalistic standards practiced by NPR and Fox. NPR receives some government funding and was originally chartered to assure that radio broadcast services would be available to the smaller rural markets ignored by commercial radio. Recently NPR programming consists of thoughtful up market features that has less mass appeal for profit oriented radio media outlets. Its news programing, All Things Considered and Morning Edition offered in depth reportage that is thoughtful, fair and balanced. It strives to be objective and for the most part is.
The contrast with Fox News is striking. Belying its marketing handle of “fair and balanced reporting”, Fox News is anything but fair or balanced. I find Fox News to be a consistent platform for the conservative movement and as such it’s reporting is hardly objective. Its commentators routinely express an opinion on the news that is editorial in nature. Fox News has built a profitable franchise on its editorial positions and its assemblage of commentators (Rove, Hannity, Beck, O’Reilly, Palin) that eagerly express the political bias of its corporate parent News Corp. Fox News correctness has been vindicated in the marketplace of ideas as its corporate sponsors and large viewer ship endorses its editorial positions.
The complex amalgam of the commercial viability of media channels, the branding of ideas, news as objective reportage, editorialism as a media commodity and the subtle distinction of opinion versus news are issues laying at the heart of Juan Williams dismissal from NRP. Though fired from NPR for expressing an opinion that NPR thought unfair and hurtful to Muslims, Fox News awarded Mr. Williams a $3 million contract to expand his presence with the fair and balanced network. Clearly the free market of ideas confirms that Mr. Williams prejudice and intolerance toward Muslims advances the commercial interests of Fox News.
Its alarming that the value of prejudice and intolerance is rising and that major corporate brands like News Corp find it so intrinsically linked to it he price of its stock as a publicly traded company. Truly a disturbing example of bankruptcy of the free market of ideas.
You Tube Music Video: Mott the Hoople, All The Young Dudes
Risk: free speech, commercial media, objective reporting, prejudice
American Evita
Is Sarah Palin the friendly and ever so lovely face of a new American Peronism? Is her resignation from office as Governor of Alaska the first step and necessary precondition of her coronation as titular head and leader of a new political party? Does it signal her desire to lead a movement that embraces the growing number of disaffected middle class Americans perplexed about their plunging standard of living and growing obsessively angered with insolvent and impotent government institutions inability to arrest the decline?
Everyday the institutions of government and constitutional law are being delegitimized by raucous Tea Partyers, abortion doctor assassins, family focus fanatics and political miscreants waving birth certificates screaming that they want their country back. We wrote about this back in October. Please allow me to quote from our McCain’s Know Nothings post of 10/11/08.
“Sarah Palin’s masterful use of the rhetoric of division and suspicion “who is Barack Obama?” has stoked the ugly side of America’s political angst. The lipstick wearing attack dog has done her job well. She has skillfully tapped into voter sentiment that is frightened about their economic security, fed up with the self serving lies of our political leaders and furious about their powerlessness to exercise control to stop the radical changes occurring in their lives. The stasis of Bush Republicanism is being washed away in a tsunami of world events that is accelerating the pace of change and cultural transformation. Palin promises to change our inability to arrest the changes that are overwhelming Americans. Sarah’s minions just want it to stop. They want it to go away. They want it to stay the way things always were. America is on top. God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. They will accept nothing less then our full entitlement to the birthright of our American Exceptionalism; and unlike Easu we will not sell it or be tricked out of it by a fast talking Jacob that goes by the name of Barack.”
Sarah, “the barracuda” has a whole mythology springing up about her even as her pronouncements concerning vigilant hockey momdom (daughters teen pregnancy), pit bull fighter to the end (resignation as governor), irascible maverick (support of bridge to nowhere), impeccable governance ethics (improper use of state government funds) all paint a very different portrait of the super girl from Alaska. Her identity as the all American girl, who worked, rose and battled an establishment with nothing more then moxie and good old values has captured the hearts, support and imaginations of “real American’s” willing to fight against those seeking to undermine the values and ideals of our uniquely God blessed land.
Palin’s timely resignation stole the limelight from the Michael Jackson funereal spectacle; a nonstop orgy of media affectation that refused to let MJ’s troubled soul depart in peace. Sarah’s announcement was a perfect foil and counterpoint to the ghoulish parade. Sarah’s photo op complete with overall fishing waders offered conclusive proof of how the still Governor of Alaska was working hard serving the needs of her constituents as her abandoned term of office was coming to a close. Sarah’s image of pulling in the nets bursting with sockeye could not have provided a more dramatic contrast to seeing MJ’s body bag being offloaded from a helicopter and placed into a ambulance for a trip to the Los Angeles morgue. It confirmed for her followers that Sarah’s way is filled with truth, light and a great catch as she stood beaming at the center of attention of a country obsessed with celebrity and a media that affirms their personal ethos du jour.
One of the reasons cited by Sarah for her resignation was that she was constantly under attack by the establishment. Sarah’s victimhood elicits empathy and a deep sense of identification from her countrymen. Middle America’s sense of victimization is quickly becoming its defining pathos. Home foreclosures, job losses, bankruptcies, community instability and spiraling taxes are combustible issues ripping apart the social fabric of America’s middle class. The crushing pain is being expressed in a growing chorus of cries that Sarah’s political antenna is accurately attuned to. In turn, Sarah’s minions understand and validate her victimization that they believe she will overcome and triumph if she remains true to real American values. Persecuted Christians exhausted from the prolonged war on Christmas feel her pain. Family value proponents that yearn for a constitutional amendment to define marriage so as to exclude civil rights for the LGBT community are down with Sarah. Uber patriots who are convinced that terrorist lurk in the quiet shadows just off Main Street remain willing to cede their civil rights. They also express a solid conviction to prosecute endless global wars as the only means to eradicate the terror threat staunchly stand with Sarah. Real American’s who live in a geography of anywhere USA that is not urban; or resides in an existential state of multicultural exclusion support Sarah. Those who are terrified by the hard edges of modernity and the difficult manageability of our complex society are arming themselves to the teeth to protect themselves from its ghostly specter take a cue from gun toting Sarah. And as Sarah’s supporters scream “drill baby drill” as a rallying cry to defend an expiring mode of life based upon the insatiable and unsustainable consumption of natural resources requiring the imperial projection of power and environmental degradation mindlessly shout “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah”.
Sarah, our self styled, self proclaimed maverick. American’s steep themselves in the mythology of the outside gunslinger taking on established power elites to effect change. But I sense an alarming correlation that is closer to Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” then Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”. Individualism counts and boldness wins out in the end in Sarah’s political morality fairy tale. But I see little in the actual trajectory of her career or her political pronouncements that suggest that she is an unconventional politician willing to lay it on the line to take principled stand against the power elite. Sarah’s principled stances are driven by political opportunism rather then courage.
Yes, Sarah is a perfect victim. White, hockey mom from the rural region. Liberal elite city slickers hate her for who she is. But as Sean Hannity is fond of saying, “let you hearts not be troubled” because as the world continues to hate America for it’s values Sarah remains on watch. She is a sentinel of our arsenal of democracy protecting the common folk, Joe six packers and wannabe plumbers. This woman who rose to heights in this male dominated world got great legs, sports a nice dew and is quick with a wink and a smile. She has seduced America and as national dissatisfaction grows with governmental institutions unable to address economic malaise and cultural deterioration, nationalistic sentiment and Sarah’s popularity will rise. Unlike our current President, Sarah is American to the bone. Palin’s physical place of birth may have been Idaho; but her resignation as governor may have born her again as a new political force to be reckoned with.
You Tube Music Video: Madonna, Don’t Cry for Me Argentina
Risk: politics, Peronism
Team Captian Quits in MidSeason!
The captain of Team Alaska has quit in mid season to the astonishment and dismay of many. At a press conference yesterday, the irascible Sarah “The Barracuda” Palin said she dished her last assist to the states inside big man Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell. Fans and teammates of Sarah the Barracuda are miffed wondering how the talented point guard and team captain could just walk away after driving to the hoop for the last time.
Elected by fans only two years ago, the Barracuda has had enough. The game got to her; pointed elbows, hard fouls, and a nagging slew of injuries, stresses and minor hurts led her to chuck in the towel. According to some, “The Barracuda never seemed to live up to her self proclaimed abilities as a high scoring tough team leader who could always be counted on to be a game changer. The Barracuda said she would always bring her A Game; now she just quit and took the ball home with her. What a loser.”
In last Novembers contest against the powerful Chicago Machine, the Barracuda was outscored and outclassed by a much more seasoned team. During the contest, the Barracuda at times seemed confused and way out of her depth. It was readily apparent to many that she was not ready for prime time big time. Though she did well well with Hockey Mom’s, plumbers and guys named Joe who drank six packs of beer; her gaffs and inexperience showed on the court. This started a reversal of the Barracuda’s fortunes that she never really recovered from and her season went into a tailspin.
Though the Barracuda quit on Team Alaska she is expected to join Team Fox. Team Fox would love to have the Barracuda on its team. Filled with many liberal media pundits like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove; Fox is looking for a conservative voice like the Barracuda to create a more fair and balanced presentation of its news, reportage and editorial offering.
You Tube Video: Harlem Globetrotters, Sweet Georgia Brown
McCain’s Know Nothings
It was painful to watch Mr. McCain’s last town meeting. An older women took the microphone to speak about her fear of an Obama Presidency. She said that she read that Mr. Obama was an Arab. Mr. McCain took the microphone back from the woman before she could complete her thought. I guess she feared that Michelle Obama would change the Lincoln Room wallpaper to Arabesque patterns to match the architecture of the Grand Mosque of Cordoba and that the Whirling Dervishes would perform at all future White House events.
McCain was forced to give a Marc Anthony soliloquy. “My friends, I must say that my opponent is an honorable man. And he really is an American, Sean Hannity checked his papers. Twice.” McCain’s supporters were miffed and looked on with unbelief as their candidate went on to explain that Obama was actually a family man with two kids and a wife. His supporters shouted “say it ain’t so John. Don’t believe the lies of the liberal media that paint Obama like a regular American. We know the real truth. He doesn’t even like hockey!”
All week we have seen McCain’s supporters express their exasperation because “That One” has a lead in the polls which many fear their candidate may not be able to surmount. With incredulous unbelief they can’t understand how the America of their understanding might elect a terrorist loving closeted Muslim whose deep hatred of America will compel him to quickly raise the White Flag of surrender and preside over the destruction of the Union. Low information voters rely on demagogues to confirm their prejudices and fears with a few well placed words. Cultivating low information voters by speaking down to them with hate speech will yield low returns. So as our country struggles to confront drastic challenges and problems McCain’s Know Nothings implore him to show more courage of his convictions and go negative in his next debate to save America from an Arab President.
Sarah Palin’s masterful use of the rhetoric of division and suspicion “who is Barack Obama?” has stoked the ugly side of America’s political angst. The lipstick wearing attack dog has done her job well. She has skillfully tapped into voter sentiment that is frightened about their economic security, fed up with the self serving lies of our political leaders and furious about their powerlessness to exercise control and stop the radical changes occurring in their lives. The stasis of Bush Republicanism is being washed away in a Tsunami of world events that is accelerating the pace of change and cultural transformation. Palin promises to change our inability to arrest the changes that are overwhelming Americans. Sarah’s minions just want it to stop. They want it to go away. They want it to stay the way things always were. America is on top. God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. They will accept nothing less then our full entitlement to the birthright of our American Exceptionalism. And unlike Easu we will not sell it or be tricked out of it by a fast talking Jacob that goes by the name of Barack.
There are parallels to this story in our short and modest history as a democratic republic. The Know Nothings were a pre-republican party political movement borne in the civic turmoil of New York City. They were Nativists that distrusted the ruling democrats and hated the swelling population of Irish immigrants that was flooding America just prior to and during the Civil War. They felt “the purity of their America” was being lost and diluted by the foreign influence of its new citizens. Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” character Butcher Bill Cutting yearns to protect an idea of America that shares many of the same concerns that Barracuda Sarah incants with her divisive rhetoric.
The release of the movie American Carol will certainly add to the informed dialog about the pressing issues of the day. To me it looks like a heap of pedestrian clichéd camp. Its purpose will serve to reinforce low information voters political prejudices and misconceptions. The few clips I have seen are anything but funny and its natural audience will liken it more to a chilling documentary then comedy. It will also provide comedic cover to derail attempts for a serious examination of issues which can now be disposed of with a dismissive can’t take a joke tagline.
One reaps what one sows. Spread seeds of obfuscation and one gets confusion. Spread seeds of distrust you’ll get suspicion and division. Spread anger you will reap conflict. Pander to ignorance and you shall cull stupidity.
American politics on the down low this October 11, 2008.
You Tube Video: Shift Happens
Music Video: The Charlatans – The Only One I Know
Risk: democracy, elections, civic participation, enlightenment, civil unrest
