What’s news? When I first read of the arrest and roughing up of Amy Goodman and a news team from Democracy Now as they attempted to cover protests outside the RNC in St. Paul, there had been “a virtual news blackout” about these events. And to this day, the mainstream media outlets seem to be ignoring the story. As protesters and journalists were arrested and brutalized outside the DNC in Denver, not much was made of it outside ABC News. YouTube features several videos about both sets of occurrences here and here. Perhaps one reason why such things aren’t news is that they are becoming routine in this country, as Tim Burke explained in a good piece a couple of days ago.
You make a pitch to have the RNC or DNC come to town, or for the WTO to meet in your city, or anything with a similar possibility to attract protest. Not only do you budget for additional security, you budget the cost of the legal judgments you’re almost certain to lose from permitting law enforcement to illegally confiscate property, harass protesters, bend the terms of warrants or ignore them altogether, and carrying out false arrests.
But that shouldn’t stop anybody from supporting the Free Press effort to have charges dropped against Goodman and the other journalists. You can do that here.
Then there was last night, when the tag team of Romney, Huckaby, Giuliani, and Palin showed us forcefully that we can expect the same mixture of lies, ad hominem atacks, and wedge politics from the Republicans this year that we’ve grown accustomed to since the days of Richard Nixon. Why should they change. It’s been a winning formula for them. And they have another pointy-headed intellectual and an unpopular Democratic congress to run against. Indeed, the only surprise in the first couple of days of Republican Schlock and Awe (for me) was the extent to which Joe Lieberman was willing to lend himself to the lies and ad hominem; though perhaps I was a bit surprised that the TV pundits took it as seriously as they did. Early this morning the folks at MSNBC were falling all over themselves praising Sarah Palin, claiming that she will be the first female president, etc. She was good, but she wasn’t that good. And there’s a deeper issue, as Frank Rich pointed out in last Sunday’s column.
Indeed, the disconnect between the reality of this campaign and how it is perceived and presented by the mainstream media is now a major part of the year’s story. The press dysfunction is itself a window into the unstable dynamics of Election 2008.
Part of the difficulty has got to be that the twnty-four hour news cycle, so new just a few short years ago, is now a thing of the past. So much happens in today’s mediascape, and happens so fast, that significances elude us. The Clinton/Obama duel is now forgotten in the unfolding stardom of Sarah Palin. But Republicans might realize, as they gloat over the skewering of Barack, that Sarah Palin’s star will likely wane pretty fast. Many are now comparing Obama unfavorably with her, but the shots at the Democratic nominee are as cheap and sleazy as Lieberman’s lies about Obama’s record in the senate and Giuliani’s sneering references to community organizing. They’ll have about as much shelf-life as Hillary Clinton’s “No way, no how, no McCain.”
And before anybody gets carried away with the fresh face of Sarah Palin, it might be well to reflect that she carries a good deal of political baggage. Yesterday’s New York Times carried a pretty good summary of what has come to light at the moment about her political past. I doubt seriously that these stories will be the end of it. Palin is competitive, pragmatic, and apparently quite ruthless. Nor is she above using her religion to make political capital. as she did before an Assembly of God audience back in June, saying in a speech quoted by The Huffington Post, “I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.” And, in spite of the fact that Palin constantly alludes to this $40 billion pipeline as an accomplishment of her governorship, it isn’t a $40 billion pipeline, it isn’t built, and there’s no plan on anybody’s books to build it. It’s pie in the northern lights.
Rick Davis has said that this election isn’t going to be about issues. In the last couple of days we’ve seen pretty much what the Republicans want the election to be about. Obama may lose the presidency to these charlatans. I used to think John McCain was better than his party. It’s hard to think that any more. He clearly intends to wage a relentlessly negative campaign. But Obama is tough, and a little ruthless, himself. Nobody should forget the campaign he’s run for better than a year now. He’s not the nominee of half the Democratic Party. That’s pie in the sky over Fred Thompson’s Tennesee. And I’m thinking, even though I can imagine a different scenario, that Hillary Clinton believes her own words and will work hard to help her party and her policies win in November.
Good stuff. Palin is one of the most frightening politicians on the national scenes in decades. She lies about earmarks and has pursued them both as Mayor and as Governor. She, like GWB, presumes to carry out God’swishes, her record, as presented by McCain, is a fraud—e.g., Alaska has neither sales tax nor income tax, so how is it she had managed to “lower taxes.” In sum, this woman who makes Limbaugh’s heart beat faster is a major and incompetent fraud that McCain raked in to encourage the lunatic fringe.
If your heart is beating faster, you may be a lunatic!