No, he could not.
Think about what happened to Obama and Hillary last month.
Obama's minister resurfaced in a big way, derailing his campaign for most of the month. And it's not over yet.
Then Hillary got caught in a clear, calculated, obvious lie regarding being 'under sniper fire' and 'running for the vehicles' on the tarmac in Bosnia. Too bad video existed depicting her slowly exiting the plane, stopping to accept flowers from a local girl, and then lazily reviewing the US troops gathered for the occasion.
As the Wall Street Journal's Danieal Henninger noted several weeks ago, now the existence of YouTube and cable news channels assures that gaffes like these never die. They are hung, suspended electronically on the internet, for all time.
Bloggers like me write about them. Others link to the videos or the news stories. It never ends.
In this environment, how would Slick Willie ever have successfully scuttled the Jennifer Flowers story for the duration of the campaign? Or the several other bimbos from his past? The woman who alleged he raped her while he was Governor in Arkansas?
Or Hillary's improbably cattle futures profits with "Red" Bone, her broker? And the budding Whitewater scandals?
If he had managed to make it to the Oval Office, scandals like Vince Foster's suicide/murder, Travelgate and the infamous Hillary Healthcare Task Force would have lived on to dog him as he suffered impeachment during his second election campaign.
Truly, modern communications have changed Presidential campaigns drastically, and forever. Candidates like both Clintons, and, evidently, Obama, who depend upon fresh media news cycles to hide their most recent scandal or major embarrassing incident or relationship, are out of luck.
On the internet, in the hands of unpaid, but not uninterested bloggers, fact-checkers and self-appointed critics, these stories never go away. Ever.
Welcome to 2008's gift to the ever-changing world of US Presidential election campaigns.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
On The Effects Of Direct Election of Senators
A few months ago, I accidentally happened onto this topic in a discussion with a friend of mine. I was reflecting on why it seems the norm that US Senators are, for the most part, inactive windbags. They rarely are capable of solo actions, but spend a lot of time talking, per the chamber's rather fusty old rules.
The other day, I finally remembered that I wanted to research how and why Senators became directly elected. And precisely how they were indirectly elected prior to the 17th amendment.
If you go to this page on the Senate website, you can read about how Senators were originally elected, per the Founding Fathers' intentions.
As the page notes,
"They decided that state legislatures should select senators, without any involvement by the House of Representatives. The state legislatures, they argued, would provide the necessary "filtration" to produce better senators—the elect of the elected. The framers hoped that this arrangement would give state political leaders a sense of participation, calming their fears about the dangers of a strong centralized government. The advantage of this plan, they believed, was that all laws would be passed by a "dual constituency" composed of a body elected directly by the people (or at least the white males entitled to vote) and one chosen by the elected legislators of individual states.
After several decades, as service in the Senate became more highly prized and political parties gained wider influence in directing state legislative operations, this system of indirect election began to break down. When separate parties controlled a legislature's two houses, deadlocks frequently deprived states of their full Senate representation.
A plan for direct popular election lingered for decades. Finally, a campaign to make governmental institutions more responsive to the people propelled the measure to ratification in 1913 as the Constitution's Seventeenth Amendment. "
Just reflecting on the original mechanism for Senate election, it's easy to see how differently Senators prior to 1913 would behave, as opposed to modern Senators. Senators chosen by their state's political party leaders would almost of necessity be committed to the welfare of their state over their own career. Because they didn't really 'run' for the office, fund-raising, politicking as it is currently understood, and the appeal to voters' baser motivations probably didn't occur as they do today.
I can imagine Senators of that day truly behaving as the Constitution's architects intended, worrying less about their seat than carefully addressing major issues to the benefit of the country and their state.
For another opinion on the direct election via the 17th Amendment you can read this webpage,
from which this passage is taken,
"The Seventeenth Amendment has dramatically reshaped the structure of the Senate.... The indirect election of Senators under the original constitution was designed to give Senators a degree of quality and independence from politics that is absent today.... to my mind this increased politicization of the Senate tends to make the Senate less, rather than more, equipped to responsibly and competently carry out the advice and consent powers given to it under the Constitution.
I think it is an open question as to whether the Framers would have entrusted the advice and consent power to the Senate in the same manner had they known that eventually Senators would be elected directly by the people in partisan elections, and as a result, the nature and tenor of the confirmation process would deviate so dramatically from what was originally anticipated.
I would say the same thing about Senate trial on Impeachment. When the Framers entrusted to the Senate the power to conduct trials regarding impeachment, they anticipated that the indirect election of Senators by state legislatures would tend to elevate to the Senate individuals largely independent of political pressures and selected based on their distinction, rather than politics. One can see how with that anticipation the Framers could imagine the Senate sitting as a sort of jury weighing the evidence on the impeachment of a public official.... The performance of the Senate during the Clinton impeachment showed the way in which impeachment is now an extension of politics, rather than the Senate sitting as a sort of sober jury, relatively independent of political pressures."
I agree with this writer. Three of this year's Presidential contenders, Obama, Hillary and Edwards, would probably never have even become Senators under the indirect election process. Much of today's partisan bitterness, which seems to have begun to gain ground in the 1970s, would probably be absent.
It may sound odd, but I believe we'd be taking a big step forward if we repealed the 17th amendment and returned to party appointment/election, via the state legislatures, of US Senators.
The other day, I finally remembered that I wanted to research how and why Senators became directly elected. And precisely how they were indirectly elected prior to the 17th amendment.
If you go to this page on the Senate website, you can read about how Senators were originally elected, per the Founding Fathers' intentions.
As the page notes,
"They decided that state legislatures should select senators, without any involvement by the House of Representatives. The state legislatures, they argued, would provide the necessary "filtration" to produce better senators—the elect of the elected. The framers hoped that this arrangement would give state political leaders a sense of participation, calming their fears about the dangers of a strong centralized government. The advantage of this plan, they believed, was that all laws would be passed by a "dual constituency" composed of a body elected directly by the people (or at least the white males entitled to vote) and one chosen by the elected legislators of individual states.
After several decades, as service in the Senate became more highly prized and political parties gained wider influence in directing state legislative operations, this system of indirect election began to break down. When separate parties controlled a legislature's two houses, deadlocks frequently deprived states of their full Senate representation.
A plan for direct popular election lingered for decades. Finally, a campaign to make governmental institutions more responsive to the people propelled the measure to ratification in 1913 as the Constitution's Seventeenth Amendment. "
Just reflecting on the original mechanism for Senate election, it's easy to see how differently Senators prior to 1913 would behave, as opposed to modern Senators. Senators chosen by their state's political party leaders would almost of necessity be committed to the welfare of their state over their own career. Because they didn't really 'run' for the office, fund-raising, politicking as it is currently understood, and the appeal to voters' baser motivations probably didn't occur as they do today.
I can imagine Senators of that day truly behaving as the Constitution's architects intended, worrying less about their seat than carefully addressing major issues to the benefit of the country and their state.
For another opinion on the direct election via the 17th Amendment you can read this webpage,
from which this passage is taken,
"The Seventeenth Amendment has dramatically reshaped the structure of the Senate.... The indirect election of Senators under the original constitution was designed to give Senators a degree of quality and independence from politics that is absent today.... to my mind this increased politicization of the Senate tends to make the Senate less, rather than more, equipped to responsibly and competently carry out the advice and consent powers given to it under the Constitution.
I think it is an open question as to whether the Framers would have entrusted the advice and consent power to the Senate in the same manner had they known that eventually Senators would be elected directly by the people in partisan elections, and as a result, the nature and tenor of the confirmation process would deviate so dramatically from what was originally anticipated.
I would say the same thing about Senate trial on Impeachment. When the Framers entrusted to the Senate the power to conduct trials regarding impeachment, they anticipated that the indirect election of Senators by state legislatures would tend to elevate to the Senate individuals largely independent of political pressures and selected based on their distinction, rather than politics. One can see how with that anticipation the Framers could imagine the Senate sitting as a sort of jury weighing the evidence on the impeachment of a public official.... The performance of the Senate during the Clinton impeachment showed the way in which impeachment is now an extension of politics, rather than the Senate sitting as a sort of sober jury, relatively independent of political pressures."
I agree with this writer. Three of this year's Presidential contenders, Obama, Hillary and Edwards, would probably never have even become Senators under the indirect election process. Much of today's partisan bitterness, which seems to have begun to gain ground in the 1970s, would probably be absent.
It may sound odd, but I believe we'd be taking a big step forward if we repealed the 17th amendment and returned to party appointment/election, via the state legislatures, of US Senators.
More Wrong Economic Thinking By Liberal Democrats About US Incomes Inequality- Myth #2a
In the past few months, I have written three pieces on economic myths. Two of them are relevant to today's post appeared here and here. Those two posts discuss, respectively, US income inequality myths, and US income mobility.
On March 10th of this year, Brad Schiller, a professor of economics at American University, wrote the editorial "The Inequality Myth," published in the Wall Street Journal.
The occasion was the publication of the annual release of census date on US incomes. As usual, the initial headlines focused on simplistic and misleading 'findings,' as Schiller wrote,
"Two observations grabbed the headlines. First, the data indicate that the top-earning 20% of households get half of all the income generated in the country, while the lowest-earning 20% of households get a meager 3.4%. That disparity has widened over time: In 1970, their respective shares were 43.3% and 4.1%. These income-share numbers buttress the popular notion that the "rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer."
The second observation in the Census reports relates to the well-being of the middle class. The median household income in 2006 was $48,201, just a trifle ahead of its 1998 level ($48,034). That seems to confirm middle-class stagnation."
So far, so good for liberal politicians, especially those running for President, right? But Schiller then notes,
"While there is some substance to these fears of widening inequality and middle-class stagnation, the situation is not nearly as clear-cut. Demographic changes in the size and composition of U.S. households have distorted the statistics in important ways."
Schiller deals with the first 'finding' as follows,
"First, we can easily dismiss the notion that the poor are getting poorer. All the Census Bureau tells us is that the share of the pie consumed by the poor has been shrinking (to 3.4% in 2006 from 4.1% in 1970). But the "pie" has grown enormously. This year's real GDP of $14 trillion is three times that of 1970. So the absolute size of the slice received by the bottom 20% has increased to $476 billion from $181 billion. Allowing for population growth shows that the average income of people at the bottom of the income distribution has risen 36%.
They're not rich, but they're certainly not poorer. In reality, economic growth has raised incomes across the board."
So politicians critical of current US economic health only focus on the raw percentages of incomes by quintile, and pronounce the economy 'less equal.' But Schiller clearly demonstrates that this is simply not so. That, in fact, the economic growth of the US economy has lifted the lowest quintile's average income 36%.
Then Schiller turns to the second issues, household composition. He wrote,
"The "typical" household, however, keeps changing. Since 1970 there has been a dramatic rise in divorced, never-married and single-person households. Back in 1970, the married Ozzie and Harriet family was the norm: 71% of all U.S. households were two-parent families. Now the ratio is only 51%. In the process of this social revolution, the average household size has shrunk to 2.57 persons from 3.14 -- a drop of 18%. The meaning? Even a "stagnant" average household income implies a higher standard of living for the average household member.
Last year, the Census Bureau published a new set of income statistics that adjusted for changing household size and composition. In a single year (2006), this "equivalence-adjusted" computation increased the income share of the poor by 8% and reduced the standard measure of inequality (Gini coefficient) by 4%. Such "equivalency" adjustments would mute unadjusted inequality trends even more.
A closer look at household trends reveals that the percentage of one-person households has jumped to 27% from 17%. That's right: More than one out of four U.S. households now has only one occupant. Who are these people? Overwhelmingly, they are Generation Xers whose good jobs and high pay have permitted them to move out of their parental homes and establish their own residences. The rest are largely seniors who have enough savings and income to escape from their grandchildren and enjoy the serenity of an independent household. Both transitions are evidence of rising affluence, not increasing hardship. Yet this splintering of the extended family exerts strong downward statistical pressure on the average income of U.S. households. Had the Generation Xers and their affluent grandparents all stayed under the same roof the average household income would be higher, but most of us would be worse off."
Schiller again demonstrates how the simple results of the latest census data can be very misleading. Because household size has, on average, shrunk, income/person has risen within each household. That is, more households means a lower income/household, the basic census measure, while the actual income/person has risen, when household size is factored in.
Addressing income mobility, Schiller writes,
"The supposed decline of the poor and middle class is exaggerated even more by the dynamics of population growth. When people look at the "poor" in any two years, they think they're looking at the same people. That's rarely true, especially over longer periods of time."
This is, of course, the companion wrong economic thinking that liberal politicians such as Hillary and Obama and, most prominently, John Edwards spout. They look at supposed increase in income inequality, and then marry that with the supposition that the same people reside in the same income quintiles over time, and deduce that Americans are experiencing flat or falling incomes.
On this topic, Schiller points out,
"Since 1998, the U.S. population has increased by over 20 million. Nearly half of that growth has come from immigration, legal and illegal. Overwhelmingly, these immigrants enter at the lowest rungs on the income ladder. Statistically, this immigrant surge not only reduces the income of the "average" household, but also changes the occupants of the lowest income classes.
To understand what's happening here, envision a line of people queued up for March Madness tickets. Individuals move up the line as tickets are purchased. But new people keep coming. So the line never gets shorter, even though individuals are advancing.
Something similar happens with the distribution of income. People keep entering the distribution line from the bottom. Even though individuals are moving up the line, the middle of the line never seems to move. Hence, an unchanged -- or even receding -- median marker could co-exist with individual advancement. The people who were at the middle marker before have moved up the distribution line. This is the kind of income mobility that has long characterized U.S. income dynamics."
That last paragraph bears rereading. The median may remain static, but who is at the median changes quite a bit in America on an annual basis. Then Schiller delivers a mathematical coup de grace by noting,
"When you look at the really big picture, it's apparent that living standards are rising across the entire spectrum of incomes. Just since 2000, GDP has risen by 18% while the population has grown by 6%. So per capita incomes have clearly been rising. The growth of per capita income since 1980 or 1970 has simply been spectacular.
Some people would have you believe that all of this added income was funneled to the rich. But the math doesn't work out.
The increase in nominal GDP since 2000 amounts to over $4 trillion annually. If you assume that all that money went to the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households, that bonanza would come to a whopping $350,000 per household. Yet according to the Census Bureau, the top 10% of households has an average income of $200,000 or so. The implied bonanza is so absurd that the notion that only the rich have gained from the economic growth can be dismissed out of hand. Clearly, there is a lot of economic advancement across a broad swath of population. Dramatic changes in household composition, household size and immigration tend to obscure this reality."
Schiller concludes on this note,
"More Americans own homes and new cars today than ever before, despite slowdowns in both industries. Laptop computers, iPhones and flat-panel TVs are fast becoming necessities rather than luxury items.
The average American household is doing pretty well. The evident gap between income realities and political rhetoric may help explain why the "two Americas" theme, first asserted by John Edwards and since echoed by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, may ultimately fail to resonate with voters. On Election Day, voters may well turn to the candidate with the greater focus on a strong economy that increases everyone's income."
So, ask yourself this. If most Americans have actually moved up in incomes and quintiles over time, they don't actually experience what the headline conclusions that the Democratic candidates- Hillary, Obama and Edwards- claim to be largely true.
If only those actually experiencing an income effect that equates with the Democrats will vote for them, and those are shown to be rather few in number, by dint of Mr. Schiller's thorough and excellent analysis, does that not suggest that most people, even in, say, the third and second income quintiles, won't vote for those candidates? Because they maintain a view of US incomes (im)mobility and inequality that simply won't resonate as valid with most voters?
On March 10th of this year, Brad Schiller, a professor of economics at American University, wrote the editorial "The Inequality Myth," published in the Wall Street Journal.
The occasion was the publication of the annual release of census date on US incomes. As usual, the initial headlines focused on simplistic and misleading 'findings,' as Schiller wrote,
"Two observations grabbed the headlines. First, the data indicate that the top-earning 20% of households get half of all the income generated in the country, while the lowest-earning 20% of households get a meager 3.4%. That disparity has widened over time: In 1970, their respective shares were 43.3% and 4.1%. These income-share numbers buttress the popular notion that the "rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer."
The second observation in the Census reports relates to the well-being of the middle class. The median household income in 2006 was $48,201, just a trifle ahead of its 1998 level ($48,034). That seems to confirm middle-class stagnation."
So far, so good for liberal politicians, especially those running for President, right? But Schiller then notes,
"While there is some substance to these fears of widening inequality and middle-class stagnation, the situation is not nearly as clear-cut. Demographic changes in the size and composition of U.S. households have distorted the statistics in important ways."
Schiller deals with the first 'finding' as follows,
"First, we can easily dismiss the notion that the poor are getting poorer. All the Census Bureau tells us is that the share of the pie consumed by the poor has been shrinking (to 3.4% in 2006 from 4.1% in 1970). But the "pie" has grown enormously. This year's real GDP of $14 trillion is three times that of 1970. So the absolute size of the slice received by the bottom 20% has increased to $476 billion from $181 billion. Allowing for population growth shows that the average income of people at the bottom of the income distribution has risen 36%.
They're not rich, but they're certainly not poorer. In reality, economic growth has raised incomes across the board."
So politicians critical of current US economic health only focus on the raw percentages of incomes by quintile, and pronounce the economy 'less equal.' But Schiller clearly demonstrates that this is simply not so. That, in fact, the economic growth of the US economy has lifted the lowest quintile's average income 36%.
Then Schiller turns to the second issues, household composition. He wrote,
"The "typical" household, however, keeps changing. Since 1970 there has been a dramatic rise in divorced, never-married and single-person households. Back in 1970, the married Ozzie and Harriet family was the norm: 71% of all U.S. households were two-parent families. Now the ratio is only 51%. In the process of this social revolution, the average household size has shrunk to 2.57 persons from 3.14 -- a drop of 18%. The meaning? Even a "stagnant" average household income implies a higher standard of living for the average household member.
Last year, the Census Bureau published a new set of income statistics that adjusted for changing household size and composition. In a single year (2006), this "equivalence-adjusted" computation increased the income share of the poor by 8% and reduced the standard measure of inequality (Gini coefficient) by 4%. Such "equivalency" adjustments would mute unadjusted inequality trends even more.
A closer look at household trends reveals that the percentage of one-person households has jumped to 27% from 17%. That's right: More than one out of four U.S. households now has only one occupant. Who are these people? Overwhelmingly, they are Generation Xers whose good jobs and high pay have permitted them to move out of their parental homes and establish their own residences. The rest are largely seniors who have enough savings and income to escape from their grandchildren and enjoy the serenity of an independent household. Both transitions are evidence of rising affluence, not increasing hardship. Yet this splintering of the extended family exerts strong downward statistical pressure on the average income of U.S. households. Had the Generation Xers and their affluent grandparents all stayed under the same roof the average household income would be higher, but most of us would be worse off."
Schiller again demonstrates how the simple results of the latest census data can be very misleading. Because household size has, on average, shrunk, income/person has risen within each household. That is, more households means a lower income/household, the basic census measure, while the actual income/person has risen, when household size is factored in.
Addressing income mobility, Schiller writes,
"The supposed decline of the poor and middle class is exaggerated even more by the dynamics of population growth. When people look at the "poor" in any two years, they think they're looking at the same people. That's rarely true, especially over longer periods of time."
This is, of course, the companion wrong economic thinking that liberal politicians such as Hillary and Obama and, most prominently, John Edwards spout. They look at supposed increase in income inequality, and then marry that with the supposition that the same people reside in the same income quintiles over time, and deduce that Americans are experiencing flat or falling incomes.
On this topic, Schiller points out,
"Since 1998, the U.S. population has increased by over 20 million. Nearly half of that growth has come from immigration, legal and illegal. Overwhelmingly, these immigrants enter at the lowest rungs on the income ladder. Statistically, this immigrant surge not only reduces the income of the "average" household, but also changes the occupants of the lowest income classes.
To understand what's happening here, envision a line of people queued up for March Madness tickets. Individuals move up the line as tickets are purchased. But new people keep coming. So the line never gets shorter, even though individuals are advancing.
Something similar happens with the distribution of income. People keep entering the distribution line from the bottom. Even though individuals are moving up the line, the middle of the line never seems to move. Hence, an unchanged -- or even receding -- median marker could co-exist with individual advancement. The people who were at the middle marker before have moved up the distribution line. This is the kind of income mobility that has long characterized U.S. income dynamics."
That last paragraph bears rereading. The median may remain static, but who is at the median changes quite a bit in America on an annual basis. Then Schiller delivers a mathematical coup de grace by noting,
"When you look at the really big picture, it's apparent that living standards are rising across the entire spectrum of incomes. Just since 2000, GDP has risen by 18% while the population has grown by 6%. So per capita incomes have clearly been rising. The growth of per capita income since 1980 or 1970 has simply been spectacular.
Some people would have you believe that all of this added income was funneled to the rich. But the math doesn't work out.
The increase in nominal GDP since 2000 amounts to over $4 trillion annually. If you assume that all that money went to the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households, that bonanza would come to a whopping $350,000 per household. Yet according to the Census Bureau, the top 10% of households has an average income of $200,000 or so. The implied bonanza is so absurd that the notion that only the rich have gained from the economic growth can be dismissed out of hand. Clearly, there is a lot of economic advancement across a broad swath of population. Dramatic changes in household composition, household size and immigration tend to obscure this reality."
Schiller concludes on this note,
"More Americans own homes and new cars today than ever before, despite slowdowns in both industries. Laptop computers, iPhones and flat-panel TVs are fast becoming necessities rather than luxury items.
The average American household is doing pretty well. The evident gap between income realities and political rhetoric may help explain why the "two Americas" theme, first asserted by John Edwards and since echoed by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, may ultimately fail to resonate with voters. On Election Day, voters may well turn to the candidate with the greater focus on a strong economy that increases everyone's income."
So, ask yourself this. If most Americans have actually moved up in incomes and quintiles over time, they don't actually experience what the headline conclusions that the Democratic candidates- Hillary, Obama and Edwards- claim to be largely true.
If only those actually experiencing an income effect that equates with the Democrats will vote for them, and those are shown to be rather few in number, by dint of Mr. Schiller's thorough and excellent analysis, does that not suggest that most people, even in, say, the third and second income quintiles, won't vote for those candidates? Because they maintain a view of US incomes (im)mobility and inequality that simply won't resonate as valid with most voters?
Saturday, March 29, 2008
On Media Bias
Recently, I've had a running debate with a liberal Democrat friend of mine. This is one of those issues on which she and I will never see things similarly.
What astounds me is that she sees things so differently, and can't admit of even the smallest area of common ground. So, I guess I can't, either. That being said, to determine which, if either of us, is more off-track, one might turn to studies of media bias.
This started with the McCain NY Times smear of some months back. Now, it's Obama's minister's anti-white and -American palaver. My friend sees absolutely no issue whatsoever.
The other day, I received a call from a staff member on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program concerning my GE-related posts on the companion business blog to this political blog.
My friend promptly castigated Fox and O'Reilly for being conservatively-biased, while citing, generically, "Pew and Poynter" media studies showing no liberal bias in the mainstream media. She further asserted that Fox was held in low esteem, but declined to specify by whom.
Curious, I Googled "Pew trust report on media bias," and found this Pew-related article here. Among the findings are,
"KEY FINDINGS:
CMPA reported: “Majorities of all major groups in the population, including 70 percent of self-described liberals, now see a ‘fair amount’ or ‘great deal’ of bias in the news. In general, perceptions of bias rise along with levels of education and political participation.”
“Those who see a liberal tilt outnumber those who detect a conservative bias by more than a two to one margin. Forty-three percent describe the news media’s perspective on politics as liberal, compared to 33 percent who see it as a middle of the road, and 19 percent who find it to be conservative.”
“Even self-described liberals agree: 41 percent see the media as liberal, compared to only 22 percent who find the news to be conservative.”
On the specific topic of politics, the webpage noted this report,
"The People & The Press, 2000
During the election year, the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press frequently polled public attitudes about the media. In an October 15, 2000 report, the group found that most voters “generally believe the media has been fair to both major presidential candidates, but more say the press has been fair to Al Gore than to George W. Bush.” In fact, the vast majority of respondents (89%) agreed that reporters’ political views often or sometimes influenced the coverage.
KEY FINDINGS:
When asked, “How often do you think members of the news media let their own political preferences influence the way they report the news?” 57 percent said “often,” and another 32 percent said “sometimes.” Just 8 percent said “seldom,” and only one percent thought reporters’ preferences “never” influenced their coverage. "
Rather than continue to quote from the piece, you can go read it in its entirety. There is much, much more evidence, for example, from Gallup, detailing six consecutive years of generally-perceived liberal bias in the media.
Here's another web source which provides similar conclusions, though citing different sources, but also some of the same, such as Pew. In this piece, a study conducted precisely to unearth perceived bias finds liberals happy with mainstream news coverage, while conservatives are not, thus, the study concludes, sustaining the contention that mainstream news is liberally-biased.
Finally, this Pew study catalogs trends in declining trust in mainstream media by Americans, and the concomitant fracturing of liberals and conservatives in seeking different news sources, primarily, respectively, CNN and Fox among cable news options.
All of which confirms my initial suspicion that my liberal friend, who, by the way, is in media, turns a blind eye to the reality of liberal tilt in mainstream American media.
Sadly, it's pretty clear that she is not alone among her ilk. This explains the incredible gulf between, say, her and me on the recent Obama flap.
She sees it as a meaningless intrusion of politics into Obama's private life. I see it as firmly identifying his judgment in choice of advisers as fatally flawed.
What astounds me is that she sees things so differently, and can't admit of even the smallest area of common ground. So, I guess I can't, either. That being said, to determine which, if either of us, is more off-track, one might turn to studies of media bias.
This started with the McCain NY Times smear of some months back. Now, it's Obama's minister's anti-white and -American palaver. My friend sees absolutely no issue whatsoever.
The other day, I received a call from a staff member on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program concerning my GE-related posts on the companion business blog to this political blog.
My friend promptly castigated Fox and O'Reilly for being conservatively-biased, while citing, generically, "Pew and Poynter" media studies showing no liberal bias in the mainstream media. She further asserted that Fox was held in low esteem, but declined to specify by whom.
Curious, I Googled "Pew trust report on media bias," and found this Pew-related article here. Among the findings are,
"KEY FINDINGS:
CMPA reported: “Majorities of all major groups in the population, including 70 percent of self-described liberals, now see a ‘fair amount’ or ‘great deal’ of bias in the news. In general, perceptions of bias rise along with levels of education and political participation.”
“Those who see a liberal tilt outnumber those who detect a conservative bias by more than a two to one margin. Forty-three percent describe the news media’s perspective on politics as liberal, compared to 33 percent who see it as a middle of the road, and 19 percent who find it to be conservative.”
“Even self-described liberals agree: 41 percent see the media as liberal, compared to only 22 percent who find the news to be conservative.”
On the specific topic of politics, the webpage noted this report,
"The People & The Press, 2000
During the election year, the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press frequently polled public attitudes about the media. In an October 15, 2000 report, the group found that most voters “generally believe the media has been fair to both major presidential candidates, but more say the press has been fair to Al Gore than to George W. Bush.” In fact, the vast majority of respondents (89%) agreed that reporters’ political views often or sometimes influenced the coverage.
KEY FINDINGS:
When asked, “How often do you think members of the news media let their own political preferences influence the way they report the news?” 57 percent said “often,” and another 32 percent said “sometimes.” Just 8 percent said “seldom,” and only one percent thought reporters’ preferences “never” influenced their coverage. "
Rather than continue to quote from the piece, you can go read it in its entirety. There is much, much more evidence, for example, from Gallup, detailing six consecutive years of generally-perceived liberal bias in the media.
Here's another web source which provides similar conclusions, though citing different sources, but also some of the same, such as Pew. In this piece, a study conducted precisely to unearth perceived bias finds liberals happy with mainstream news coverage, while conservatives are not, thus, the study concludes, sustaining the contention that mainstream news is liberally-biased.
Finally, this Pew study catalogs trends in declining trust in mainstream media by Americans, and the concomitant fracturing of liberals and conservatives in seeking different news sources, primarily, respectively, CNN and Fox among cable news options.
All of which confirms my initial suspicion that my liberal friend, who, by the way, is in media, turns a blind eye to the reality of liberal tilt in mainstream American media.
Sadly, it's pretty clear that she is not alone among her ilk. This explains the incredible gulf between, say, her and me on the recent Obama flap.
She sees it as a meaningless intrusion of politics into Obama's private life. I see it as firmly identifying his judgment in choice of advisers as fatally flawed.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Naomi Riley On The Obama Religion Controversy
Naomi Schaefer Riley, a Wall Street Journal writer, penned an insightful column in yesterday's edition entitled "Obama, His Pastor and The Democrats' Religion Problem."
After reading her article, I wonder if Obama and his fellow Democrats will ever truly realize what mistake he has made this past week and twenty years.
Of Obama's choice of a church, Mr. Riley writes,
"For starters: If you join a church, it should have something to do with your faith. The consensus now seems to be that Sen. Obama doesn't really believe all of the hateful and crazy things that Pastor Wright has been saying over the years. As Mr. Obama recounts in his memoir, he went to meet Pastor Wright because he was advised that it would "help your [community organizing] if you had a church home. . . . It doesn't matter where really." So he became a member of the largest black church in the neighborhood, thereby furthering his activism and eventually getting the votes of Trinity's 8,000 congregants. Which is fine, but such an attachment is more utilitarian than religious, and sooner or later its true character will show. We have only to remember how ridiculous it seemed when Howard Dean, in 2004, admitted to leaving the Episcopal Church because his Vermont parish refused to allow a bike path on its grounds. Religious people tend to join or leave churches because of things like theology, prayer and sermons."
If that isn't sufficiently damning, how about this later passage in Ms. Riley's editorial,
"Much has been said, in an effort to excuse the toxic content of Pastor Wright's sermons, about the ways in which his speeches are part of the "black tradition." But most black churches are Baptist, Methodist or independent. They have religious doctrines with a long history. Trinity, on the other hand, belongs to the United Church of Christ, a mostly white denomination defined almost entirely by its social-justice agenda.
This is how the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's (white) general minister and president, recently defended Pastor Wright: "Many of us would prefer to avoid the stark and startling language Pastor Wright used in these clips. But what was his real crime? He is condemned for using a mild 'obscenity' in reference to the United States. This week we mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, a war conceived in deception and prosecuted in foolish arrogance. Nearly 4,000 cherished Americans have been killed, countless more wounded, and tens of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered. Where is the real obscenity here?" It's easy to see Mr. Obama's attraction to the UCC, and it doesn't have much to do with faith."
So we see that, for Obama, choice of church and 'religion' is probably not really at all similar to those choices for truly devout worshippers with a solely religious bent. He admits he chose his church for its size and political position, not really because he had a deep need for a religious experience and a home of kindred religious spirits.
At the end of her column, Ms. Riley writes,
"When Sen. Obama does get into the religious thicket, it doesn't turn out well. Here is his recent defense of his position against gay marriage but in favor of civil unions: "If people find that controversial, then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans." As a reporter for the Baptist Press noted: "Obama's quote may open him up to further criticism from evangelicals, because it's a common evangelical belief that all of Scripture is inspired by God and equally authoritative."
As it turns out, Sen. Obama wasn't doing all that well among religious voters even before the recent controversy. Mrs. Clinton won 57% of the votes cast by white evangelicals in the Ohio Democratic primary, compared with Mr. Obama's 35%. For Democrats, Hillary's Methodist Youth Fellowship should be looking better and better."
In effect, Obama is no more a 'new style' politician than anybody else. He uses religion flagrantly to gain votes and the acceptance of a political base on the South Side of Chicago.
To most Americans, particularly those with any sort of religious background, this smacks of expediency, cynicism and hypocrisy. Not to mention cheapening everyone else's religious choices by insisting, in his speech this week, that his experiences are just like theirs, and vice versa.
But they aren't. I have heard just this week of two people walking out of a church service, and the congregation, permanently, over a minister's sermon which they found repugnant. One involved criticizing America as justly deserving the 9/11 attacks, the other a tirade from the pulpit of an Episcopalian church against wealth, followed shortly by a plea for more donations to sustain the rector's cushy lifestyle.
Real religious Americans vote on church and minister views with their feet and donations. They don't sit silently, with their children, for ten to twenty years, condoning racist and anti-American hate speech.
Not only does Obama probably not now, or ever will, realize his sin of hypocrisy in attempting to use religion as a mere stepping stone to political power. The liberal mainstream media which supports him continues, with Obama, to try to explain his debacle as one of race, rather than one of judgment and expedient misuse of religion for political gain.
Despite the media's fawning over his speech, including Peggy Noonan's somewhat muddle piece in today's weekend Wall Street Journal edition, this whole affair is not, per se, about race in America.
It is simply about a black candidate using religion in an attempt to curry favor with his core base of racist-leaning voters in Illinois' largest city early in his political career. Having been identified with a racist minister, Obama won't throw away his ticket to his core political support. Instead, he is crying 'victim' over race.
Personally, I don't think Americans will elect a victim, nor a racist. No matter what Obama and his mainstream media acolytes believe and maintain to the voting public.
After reading her article, I wonder if Obama and his fellow Democrats will ever truly realize what mistake he has made this past week and twenty years.
Of Obama's choice of a church, Mr. Riley writes,
"For starters: If you join a church, it should have something to do with your faith. The consensus now seems to be that Sen. Obama doesn't really believe all of the hateful and crazy things that Pastor Wright has been saying over the years. As Mr. Obama recounts in his memoir, he went to meet Pastor Wright because he was advised that it would "help your [community organizing] if you had a church home. . . . It doesn't matter where really." So he became a member of the largest black church in the neighborhood, thereby furthering his activism and eventually getting the votes of Trinity's 8,000 congregants. Which is fine, but such an attachment is more utilitarian than religious, and sooner or later its true character will show. We have only to remember how ridiculous it seemed when Howard Dean, in 2004, admitted to leaving the Episcopal Church because his Vermont parish refused to allow a bike path on its grounds. Religious people tend to join or leave churches because of things like theology, prayer and sermons."
If that isn't sufficiently damning, how about this later passage in Ms. Riley's editorial,
"Much has been said, in an effort to excuse the toxic content of Pastor Wright's sermons, about the ways in which his speeches are part of the "black tradition." But most black churches are Baptist, Methodist or independent. They have religious doctrines with a long history. Trinity, on the other hand, belongs to the United Church of Christ, a mostly white denomination defined almost entirely by its social-justice agenda.
This is how the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's (white) general minister and president, recently defended Pastor Wright: "Many of us would prefer to avoid the stark and startling language Pastor Wright used in these clips. But what was his real crime? He is condemned for using a mild 'obscenity' in reference to the United States. This week we mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, a war conceived in deception and prosecuted in foolish arrogance. Nearly 4,000 cherished Americans have been killed, countless more wounded, and tens of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered. Where is the real obscenity here?" It's easy to see Mr. Obama's attraction to the UCC, and it doesn't have much to do with faith."
So we see that, for Obama, choice of church and 'religion' is probably not really at all similar to those choices for truly devout worshippers with a solely religious bent. He admits he chose his church for its size and political position, not really because he had a deep need for a religious experience and a home of kindred religious spirits.
At the end of her column, Ms. Riley writes,
"When Sen. Obama does get into the religious thicket, it doesn't turn out well. Here is his recent defense of his position against gay marriage but in favor of civil unions: "If people find that controversial, then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans." As a reporter for the Baptist Press noted: "Obama's quote may open him up to further criticism from evangelicals, because it's a common evangelical belief that all of Scripture is inspired by God and equally authoritative."
As it turns out, Sen. Obama wasn't doing all that well among religious voters even before the recent controversy. Mrs. Clinton won 57% of the votes cast by white evangelicals in the Ohio Democratic primary, compared with Mr. Obama's 35%. For Democrats, Hillary's Methodist Youth Fellowship should be looking better and better."
In effect, Obama is no more a 'new style' politician than anybody else. He uses religion flagrantly to gain votes and the acceptance of a political base on the South Side of Chicago.
To most Americans, particularly those with any sort of religious background, this smacks of expediency, cynicism and hypocrisy. Not to mention cheapening everyone else's religious choices by insisting, in his speech this week, that his experiences are just like theirs, and vice versa.
But they aren't. I have heard just this week of two people walking out of a church service, and the congregation, permanently, over a minister's sermon which they found repugnant. One involved criticizing America as justly deserving the 9/11 attacks, the other a tirade from the pulpit of an Episcopalian church against wealth, followed shortly by a plea for more donations to sustain the rector's cushy lifestyle.
Real religious Americans vote on church and minister views with their feet and donations. They don't sit silently, with their children, for ten to twenty years, condoning racist and anti-American hate speech.
Not only does Obama probably not now, or ever will, realize his sin of hypocrisy in attempting to use religion as a mere stepping stone to political power. The liberal mainstream media which supports him continues, with Obama, to try to explain his debacle as one of race, rather than one of judgment and expedient misuse of religion for political gain.
Despite the media's fawning over his speech, including Peggy Noonan's somewhat muddle piece in today's weekend Wall Street Journal edition, this whole affair is not, per se, about race in America.
It is simply about a black candidate using religion in an attempt to curry favor with his core base of racist-leaning voters in Illinois' largest city early in his political career. Having been identified with a racist minister, Obama won't throw away his ticket to his core political support. Instead, he is crying 'victim' over race.
Personally, I don't think Americans will elect a victim, nor a racist. No matter what Obama and his mainstream media acolytes believe and maintain to the voting public.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Shelby Steele and Geraldine Ferraro on Obama's Dilemma
This week has seen some unbelievable developments in the US political sphere.
On Tuesday, Obama delivered a speech calculated to extinguish the fire which has ignited over his minister's now-very-public anti-white and anti-American statements. I wrote a post about the speech here.
Geraldine Ferraro, one-time Vice-Presidential candidate for the Democratic party, offered this view of Obama's actions and speech, on John Gibson's Fox News show, as seen here on YouTube.
On Tuesday, Obama delivered a speech calculated to extinguish the fire which has ignited over his minister's now-very-public anti-white and anti-American statements. I wrote a post about the speech here.
Geraldine Ferraro, one-time Vice-Presidential candidate for the Democratic party, offered this view of Obama's actions and speech, on John Gibson's Fox News show, as seen here on YouTube.
Shelby Steele wrote this editorial in the Wall Street Journal on the day of Obama's speech. In it, he opined,
"Geraldine Ferraro may have had sinister motives when she said that Barack Obama would not be "in his position" as a frontrunner but for his race. Possibly she was acting as Hillary Clinton's surrogate. Or maybe she was simply befuddled by this new reality -- in which blackness could constitute a political advantage.
But whatever her motives, she was right: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Barack Obama is, of course, a very talented politician with a first-rate political organization at his back. But it does not detract from his merit to say that his race is also a large part of his prominence. And it is undeniable that something extremely powerful in the body politic, a force quite apart from the man himself, has pulled Obama forward. This force is about race and nothing else."
But whatever her motives, she was right: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Barack Obama is, of course, a very talented politician with a first-rate political organization at his back. But it does not detract from his merit to say that his race is also a large part of his prominence. And it is undeniable that something extremely powerful in the body politic, a force quite apart from the man himself, has pulled Obama forward. This force is about race and nothing else."
Ferraro was and is being excoriated by the press and Democrats for her remarks, while Steele, a distinguished black historian now at the Hoover Institute, has received absolutely no reaction to his editorial of which I am aware.
In an attempt to fend off charges that he called his own grandmother a racist, Obama made these remarks later in the week on a radio talk show. The YouTube video has take the audio track and used it as the centerpiece of a very judgmental video, but the audio is, nonetheless, real.
I have heard this unedited comment by Obama about four times on Fox News in the last two days, and I believe he also said something to the effect that the reaction he attributes to his white grandmother is 'bred into' whites. I may be wrong on this, but I don't think so.
Never the less, as the video notes, he clearly stereotypes whites with the phrase "typical white person."
Does anyone believe that a white candidate for President of the US who used the phrase "typical black person" would still be in the running?
It's my guess that this entire issue has spun in a manner totally unforeseen and unwanted by Obama and many blacks unrelated to him. Just when race was fading as an issue for mainstream America, Obama has brought radical blacks like Jesse Jackson and Jeremiah Wright, whose positions depend upon continued exploitation of imagined racism in America, (back, in Jackson's case) into the limelight.
As Shelby Steele noted in his editorial, Obama doesn't really offer America much beyond a vote to assuage guilt over prior generations' involvement in slavery.
As a Caucasian American, I must say that I feel absolutely no guilt over prior generations' actions. What happened, happened. I cannot change it, and I did not partake in it.
If I, and many other millions of Americans feel likewise, and would prefer to vote for any minority on their qualifications, rather than their being a member of a minority, where does that leave Obama?
Nowhere.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Obama's Race Speech Fails
Having seen the speech and heard a day's worth of commentary on Obama's attempt to quell the mounting furor over his minister and spiritual adviser's well-publicized and documented racist and anti-American speech, I must conclude that he failed.
Sure, as I told the liberal son of a friend last night, Obama convinced his own party's left wing, and probably the slightly-left-of-center members, as well.
But, despite naming the fear, in hopes of conquering it, he almost certainly has lost the 'Reagan Democrats' of mid-America. They are the middle-class, sometimes blue-collar, often male voters who swing about the center of the American political spectrum.
Listening to the more balanced black commentators yesterday, including Fox News/NPR's Juan Williams, it was obvious that even they felt Obama erred grievously by failing to have left his church and minister years ago, upon hearing the latter's anti-white and anti-American statements.
A liberal friend of mine agreed with me that Obama has now lost the election by failing to explicitly and totally sever himself from the repugnant minister. But, in reality, she said, he lost when he continued to sit in the church's pews and silently accommodate and tolerate such speech. Interestingly, she asked,
'How, as a partly-white American, could he sit there in silence and have half of himself damned by this minister?'
As I recollected to my friend's son last night, Michael Dukakis' turning point came in a debate, when he failed to say he'd want the death penalty for the hypothetical rapist of his wife, should such a person be caught. Americans found his carefully-couched, legalistic reply to be unnatural and suspect.
In this campaign, I believe we are witnessing a similar moment for Obama. This is his Waterloo.
For what it's worth, his speech reflected the perspective of someone with whom, frankly, I seem to share very little in the way of views of our country.
Again, speaking with my friend's liberal son, I opined that while Obama is contending that race is a paramount issue in today's America, I simply don't agree. It's nowhere on a list of my top five or seven issues most in need of address in America today.
In fact, this young man with whom I spoke is, himself, the son of a multi-cultural couple, and speaks his mother's non-English language fluently. He attended a first-rate private high school, and one of the best Ivy universities. He surely is not the victim of racism in today's America.
What Obama construes as racism is, I believe, more a function of poverty stemming from America's uneven, locally-funded and controlled educational system. Confusing the two is a horrendous mistake.
By, among other things:
-comparing his minister to 'everyone else's' minister, rabbi, or priest in making statements with which he disagreed,
-using his own grandmother as a source of racial slurs,
-claiming that the race issue will be used by conservatives as they have used 'fear' tactics in other campaigns,
-claiming that the race issue leads to legitimate, wider debate of Obama's other favorite campaign topics,
I think Obama pointlessly and ineffectively made his speech a grab-bag of topics which both elevated the minister, rather than disowned him, and blurred the focus of his statements.
In the end, his explicit refusal to repudiate his relationship with the racist minister will assure that this issue has a life as long as Obama's candidacy.
Sure, as I told the liberal son of a friend last night, Obama convinced his own party's left wing, and probably the slightly-left-of-center members, as well.
But, despite naming the fear, in hopes of conquering it, he almost certainly has lost the 'Reagan Democrats' of mid-America. They are the middle-class, sometimes blue-collar, often male voters who swing about the center of the American political spectrum.
Listening to the more balanced black commentators yesterday, including Fox News/NPR's Juan Williams, it was obvious that even they felt Obama erred grievously by failing to have left his church and minister years ago, upon hearing the latter's anti-white and anti-American statements.
A liberal friend of mine agreed with me that Obama has now lost the election by failing to explicitly and totally sever himself from the repugnant minister. But, in reality, she said, he lost when he continued to sit in the church's pews and silently accommodate and tolerate such speech. Interestingly, she asked,
'How, as a partly-white American, could he sit there in silence and have half of himself damned by this minister?'
As I recollected to my friend's son last night, Michael Dukakis' turning point came in a debate, when he failed to say he'd want the death penalty for the hypothetical rapist of his wife, should such a person be caught. Americans found his carefully-couched, legalistic reply to be unnatural and suspect.
In this campaign, I believe we are witnessing a similar moment for Obama. This is his Waterloo.
For what it's worth, his speech reflected the perspective of someone with whom, frankly, I seem to share very little in the way of views of our country.
Again, speaking with my friend's liberal son, I opined that while Obama is contending that race is a paramount issue in today's America, I simply don't agree. It's nowhere on a list of my top five or seven issues most in need of address in America today.
In fact, this young man with whom I spoke is, himself, the son of a multi-cultural couple, and speaks his mother's non-English language fluently. He attended a first-rate private high school, and one of the best Ivy universities. He surely is not the victim of racism in today's America.
What Obama construes as racism is, I believe, more a function of poverty stemming from America's uneven, locally-funded and controlled educational system. Confusing the two is a horrendous mistake.
By, among other things:
-comparing his minister to 'everyone else's' minister, rabbi, or priest in making statements with which he disagreed,
-using his own grandmother as a source of racial slurs,
-claiming that the race issue will be used by conservatives as they have used 'fear' tactics in other campaigns,
-claiming that the race issue leads to legitimate, wider debate of Obama's other favorite campaign topics,
I think Obama pointlessly and ineffectively made his speech a grab-bag of topics which both elevated the minister, rather than disowned him, and blurred the focus of his statements.
In the end, his explicit refusal to repudiate his relationship with the racist minister will assure that this issue has a life as long as Obama's candidacy.
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