Byron York in the Washington Examiner: “But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.”
I realize York’s point is that Obama is more popular among African Americans than among whites. But overall popularity is based on averaging out those responses; the fact that Obama is more popular with one group doesn’t invalidate that.
I think this is more fumble-footed writing than a suggestion the black vote doesn’t count in the same way, but still, I’ve never heard anyone suggest that Bush (or Clinton’s) popularity was being unfairly skewed because different groups liked them to a different extent.
[Update: The Washington Independent goes into this in more depth.]
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Archive for the 'Journalism' Category
And then there’s the black people …
April 30th, 2009, 8:11 am by fshermanTom Friedman on why torture investigations are a bad idea
April 29th, 2009, 7:52 am by fsherman“Because justice taken to its logical end here would likely require bringing George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and other senior officials to trial, which would rip our country apart.”
OK, certainly it would generate a great deal of political sound and fury, smoke and mirrors, but “rip our country apart?” Because what, we love our kindly leaders so much that seeing them stand trial would break our widdle hearts? Particularly senior officials—is Friedman seriously suggesting that our nation will be riven in twain because Alberto Gonzales is in the dock?
Lord knows, we survived the Clinton impeachment hearings without the country falling into the abyss. Why is this different? Does Friedman think there are any circumstances under which important government officials should be tried for alleged crimes, or is this a blanket get-out-of-jail free card?
Newsweek editor John Meachan on torture prosecutions
April 28th, 2009, 11:28 am by fshermanMeacham in a recent column on how prosecuting administration officials would be a terrible, terrible mistake: “That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law; there could be instances in which such a prosecution is appropriate, but based on what we know, this is not such a case.”
As Glenn Greenwald says, the phrasing seems to imply that “above the law” is the normal state of things, that “there could be instances” where lawbreaking by the head of state should be punished, but certainly not in most cases.
Because, after all, torture isn’t a federal crime like sleeping with an intern, is it?
Another post by Greenwald details how the media repeatedly accepted CIA claims that prisoners were confessing after only a couple of minutes of waterboarding (as opposed to dozens or even hundreds of times, as we now know), so what was the fuss? Surely that’s worth it to save lives, right?
An apology to Ron Hart
April 23rd, 2009, 9:07 am by fshermanLord knows, I think he’s wrong about everything, but his arguments do have some basis on things that are actually happening in the real world.
Compare that to Carmen Reynolds, who provided The Log with a column on Wednesday that leads off by asking “did you know … the Soviet Union and China are advocating a Global Currency — the end of our dollar.”
No, they’re advocating a Global Reserve currency, letting the global markets revolve around something other than the dollar. Whether that’s a good or bad idea, it won’t force the United States to give up the dollar, any more than the use of the dollar as the reserve currency has eliminated the yen, the ruble or the euro.
So she doesn’t know it either, because it’s not true.
Reynolds then goes on to discuss European newspapers are “documenting” a One World Government and explains that global warming is a scheme by the “power elite” to achieve their desired objective of one-world government undermining America’s sovereignty and to establish new U.N. taxes and rules.” Which is not true either (I can’t speak as to European newspapers— “documenting” is such a vague phrase it could be anything).
And generally recycles several more cliches from the paranoid fringe of the right wing (including a rumor that a new bill is going to shut down all organic farming by forcing them to use fertilizers—check out snopes.com for details). I’m amazed she left out the UN’s secret fleet of big black helicopters and the Illuminati.
I’m embarrassed this column is in our paper. Reynolds calls herself a “researcher” but I can’t imagine where she does her research unless it’s through Internet urban legends.
Assorted stuff
April 21st, 2009, 1:39 pm by fshermanNot much time before I go, so a few quick notes:
Congressional Quarterly reporter Jeff Stein gives more information about Rep. Jane Harman’s alleged offer to get criminal charges against two members of AIPAC dropped in return for political support.
At Salon Glenn Greenwald points out that TV networks reporting on the Pulitzer Prize winners keep forgetting David Barstow, who got his Pulitzer for investigating the networks’ reliance on Pentagon stooges (my word, not his) for unbiased military analysis of the Iraq War.
And First Amendment Center discusses alleged FBI spying on Muslims since 9/11.
Glenn Beck in the New York Times
March 30th, 2009, 1:36 pm by fsherman“Mr. Beck says he believes every word he says on his TV show, and the radio show that he still hosts from 9 a.m. to noon each weekday.” according to the times, except later he says “I say on the air all time, ‘if you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.’ ”
So does he believe what he says? Or doesn’t he? Or is this simply an escape clause for anyone who calls him out, the equivalent of “Anti-semitic? Some of my best friends are Jewish.”?
For example, Beck recently discussed far-right allegations that FEMA is setting up concentration camps (a right-wing militia belief that goes back more than a decade) and asserted that he wasn’t able to disprove it (David Neiwert on Orcinus does a good job of that, however). When people point out that this is daft nonsense, Beck can simply assert that we shouldn’t take what he does as gospel, even if lots of his listeners do (hear that, Beck fans? He thinks you’re idiots). Much the same way Limbaugh positions himself as an “entertainer.”
Actually, yes they can
March 24th, 2009, 10:21 am by fshermanI don’t think journalists can stand behind freedom of speech every time someone objects to one of their columns,” Montana law school professor Kristen Juras says.
Juras has demanded the University of Montana drop “Bess Sex,” a sex advice column on the grounds that it’s unprofessional, and that the column’s focus should be on STDs and health, not the benefits of masturbation.
If it was just a matter of Juras criticizing Bess Sex, I’d agree with her: The First Amendment is no shield against people telling a journalist (or novelist, or musician or film-maker) that their work sucks.
But when it comes to yanking stuff off the newspaper pages—even a college newspaper—yes, journalists (and novelists and musicians and film-makers) can stand behind it. That’s why it’s there.
And here’s the real scary stuff
March 16th, 2009, 8:38 am by fshermanFrom cable talking-head Michael Savage: “The fact of the matter is that Obama may be getting ready to organize his own personal army not of brown shirts but of green shirts. … If Obama should appoint thousands, or more than thousands, of people to the environmental green czar to work for him, and then he deputizes them and then gives them guns, and then gives them federal powers over that of the local police, then you will know that we are repeating history in the United States of America.”
By the same logic, Michael Savage may be getting ready to build a death ray in his basement and using it to melt Washington to the ground. So what does that prove? If “may be” were horses, beggars would ride.
Cynicism is not insight
February 16th, 2009, 3:33 pm by fshermanPundit David Brooks on the withdrawal of Tom Daschle’s nomination and why it was a mistake: “What are we, a nation of virgins? Passing legislation is hard, especially on something as tricky as health care. There are very few people who have the human capital to do it, and now those people are being wasted because of some hyper-Swedish standards about who is pure enough to serve in public office. This is like firing General Grant in the middle of the Civil War because he was known to have a few drinks.
“Of course, Obama asked for all this with his cynical promise to ban lobbyists from his administration. There’s a word for lobbyists: experts. Some are sleazy and many are quite admirable, but the idea of trying to run Washington without them is absurd.”
In the first place, lobbyists are not “experts” in the sense that say, Albert Einstein was an expert on general relativity; they’re experts in the sense that a good computer salesman is an expert on computers. Which is to say, they may be able to recommend the best computer for your needs, but their goal is not to give you good, dispassionate advice, it’s to sell you a computer.
In the second place, removing Daschle is not like firing Grant because he drunk, it’s like firing Grant for cutting deals with war profiteers to take a share of the money when they overcharge the government.
In the third place, Grant was indispensible; Daschle isn’t.
As Glenn Greenwald points out, the Washington media establishment are freaking out at any suggestion Obama might actually change the status quo: That he’ll end the war in Iraq, ban torture, or put an end to business as usual (this is not, please note, a prediction that he’ll do any of these things). Obama proposes cutting out lobbyists and now acts on it; Brooks freaks out.
I’m not sure why Brooks thinks this makes Obama the cynic.
THIS is proof of bias?
February 11th, 2009, 8:01 am by fshermanFrom a USA Today column by Jonah Goldberg on how reporters are “swooning” over Obama: “There’ve been no standing ovations — yet — with Obama, but there’s no denying that many in the news media are clapping on the inside.”
Since I’m quite sure Goldberg is a telepath, I’d love to know how he knows what’s going on “inside” the White House press corps. The rest of his piece is dissected at Media Matters.
That the press are biased for Obama and giving him a free pass is going to be a running theme of Republican analysis, obviously. As I’ve noted before, it’s the closest they can come to a scandal (the media didn’t find anything so that proves they were in the tank! What is he hiding?) for now, and if they’re really lucky, it’ll “work the ref” and nudge the press into “proving” they’re unbiased by parroting Republican bilge.
