On the Contrary

If you haven’t seen Alan Grayson’s interview of CNN please click on this video below .  Congressman Grayson is the newly elected (8 months ago) Democrat from Orlando Florida who finally took on the Republicans on health care and said what we were all thinking.  In this interview the “balanced” panel attacked Congressman Grayson for lowering the level of the debate by calling Republicans knuckle dragging Neanderthals and saying Republicans want sick people  just to die.  Now this is interesting as they had guest after guest reinforce the death panel lies, and they never challenged them for these outright lies.  So much for the liberal biased media.  Here is the video:

But Congressman Grayson stood his ground, and for the first time we Democrats saw a Democrat fight back.  What has happened in our discourse is that the Republicans have been making outrageous statements that these CNN morons cover and create an aura of truth around these statements by repeating them over and over again.  Remember “You Lie”.  It took them a whole day to point out that Congressman Joe Wilson was the liar.  So now their hypocrisy at accusing Congressman Grayson of lowering the level of discourse is almost laughable if it weren’t so tragic.  These people, CNN, Wolfe Blitzer, and his band of “balanced” jackals are the problem.

Gloria, “repeat every conventional wisdom without an original thought”, Borger asked why this wasn’t the same as the “You lie” shout out.  Gee Gloria, one was a personal insult to the President before the body and the President and a clear violation of house decorum rules.  The other was what Republicans have been doing (death panels, kill off seniors, etc.) since time began and is the meat and potatoes of the House and no violation of the rules.  Oh, and did I mention, what he said was true?  Duh!

The best defense Mr. Grayson’s gave of his comments were that they were true.  While the Republican sycophant on the panel argued that the Republicans really did have a plan for health care, tort reform and more competition, albeit no public plan, Congressman Grayson simply laughed at him and said that was no plan.  He said he was sorry but in his eight months in Congress all he had seen was the word NO.  What amazes me is that these buffoons who were interviewing him never asked why when the Republicans were in power and could have done all these things they didn’t legislate them.

What Congressman Grayson did in his little presentation to Congress was state the obvious.  No, if you ask Republicans, they don’t want to see anyone die, but their actions do just that so what is the difference?  Is the reality in their words or their actions?  And somewhere deep in their little empathetically challenged hearts, they believe that these people don’t really count because if they just worked hard and had discipline, this would not befall them.  The reality is that they dehumanize the rest of us because they believe at some level that we deserve our fates.

So thank you Congressman Grayson.  You made me as a Democrat proud.  If more of you would look these Republicans in the eye and call them what they are, the level of debate would be raised, not lowered.  They lowered to the gutter with untruths and lies that our media repeated over and over.  So they got away with it.  Now we are taking them on by telling them the truth about themselves.  The media is shocked, shocked, shocked, I tell you. Keep it up Alan. Maybe we will embolden a few more Democrats to come out fighting.  If we do, the level of debate will get raised not lowered as we no longer stand for these attacks.

Yesterday, I am sure you read where the Coast Guard was practicing Homeland Security on the Potomac, which they do routinely, and somehow CNN got it in their head that shots were fired, started reporting this, and then the FBI reacting to CNN reports, responded and shut down National (Ronald Reagan, Ugh) Airport.  All of this based upon quick draw reporting by CNN to be first with the news.  And it tells you all you want to know why we have such a nation of ill informed citizens.  The poor Coast Guard will now probably have to clear it with CNN before they train for the real thing.

Look at the Joe Wilson affair.  The media jumped all over the story, the apology, and the enshrining of Joe the idiot as a conservative hero, but initial reporting did not immediately point out that he was wrong, dead wrong.  If you want a simplified way to understand this we won’t pay for the  treatment of illegal aliens thing, the rules under the existing programs prohibit this, but everybody gets treated in an emergency room.  Asking for proof of citizenship before providing CPR is truly George Orwellian, but is what the conservatives want, yet they hate big government.  But I digress.  It was not made clear upfront that not only was George Wilson a rude SOB, but he was flagrantly lying.  So what you have left is he said, she said, and it is no wonder people are confused.

The coverage of Town Hall meetings are a variation of the same thing.  The media covered the uproar because it was good entertainment, but not the facts directly challenging these nitwits.  We see the same thing in the two political shills they bring on to discuss issues.  When the Republicans raise death panels or treatment for immigrants, the media stands on the side lines (except for David Schuster of MSNBC) and lets the food fight happen instead of pointing out what is known fact so the discussion is an honest one.  If we give too arguing parties equal footing even though one is crazier than a loon, you have unfairly lent more credibility to nonsense and abdicated your role as a journalist.  Again what we are left with, without the leveling influence of the moderator fact checking, is he said, she said, and the viewing public is confused.

In another episode, I took an hour off the other day to work out on the elliptical trainer and catch up on the news on TV.  It was non-stop coverage of the aircraft hijacking in Mexico where they knew nothing, and mindless conjecture became “news”.  Wolfe Blitzer of CNN asked one reporter from Mexico if this did not immediately remind one of 9/11.  9/11!  A group of Bolivians hijack a airliner from Cancun and he is thinking 9/11?  The reporter he asked had my reaction also, but politer.  The point is they knew nothing so they filled airtime with rumors and outright conjecture instead of saying, “the hijacking has ended and all are safe, we will return to this story when we have any facts.”  How many people, I wonder, listened to some of that conjecture which was flat out wrong, took it for fact since it was reported on TV, and that is what they believe about this incident?

So we have a nation of confused and ill informed people who then make irrational choices about their future and the reason is that our media is in the entertainment mode rather than the informing mode.  From fact checking whether there were really shots fired to pissing contests between partisan flacks and mindless conjecturing based on thin air, they have failed us as journalists.  Of course they accept no blame for any of it, much like those who don’t want to pay taxes and then are shocked, shocked, shocked, I tell you, when the infrastructure falls apart.  Marching on to oblivion.

I was out in the garage lifting weights and listening to CNN and what masquerades as news when Wolfe Blitzer announced that we would have a special report on whether tax cuts were effective stimulus.  I was excited.  Finally a rational discussion about this important topic.  What did we get?  The political reporter.  You can guess from this alone that this would be worthless.  I guess it was too hard to talk to economists.  Basically she said some (she didn’t say who except political flacks) say yes and some say no.  And this passes for news or information?  I almost hurt myself throwing my curl bar across the garage.  I will repair the hole in the sheet rock tomorrow.

Dr. Jeffery Sachs of Columbia University, and a respected economist, was on Rachel Maddow this evening and he pointed out that tax cuts are very ineffective in this kind of economy as the money is likely to be saved and these tax cuts were driven by our moderate Republicans in lieu of real stimulus spending.  He also noted that this package was way too small, but was reasonably sized if we don’t want to spend 10 years digging our way out of a deficit hole.  But then he noted that the spending needed to be focused on real stimulus and the “gang of three” had greatly reduce its effectiveness.  I stand by my earlier blog.

It would be really interesting if some of these political hacks who are spouting tax cut for everything would actually have to face grilling by a  panel of economists.  But then the truth would be out and where would the fun be in that Wolfe?  It is much more fun to continue the misinformation while the country burns.

We all know bias in the press when we see it don’t we?  I am not so sure.  Sometimes it is very subtle and unintended, yet powerful.  The biggest problem in spotting it is to be able to put aside your own biases, which in my case are powerful.  But in my professional life, I spend most of my time finding solutions to the needs of the government whose only criteria is that it will work (and sound better than anyone else’s solution).  So one would think I could push aside my biases and try to evaluate how the press is doing.  I think not well.

Now we could start with Fox Noise, but except for some bright spots on their staff, most are working off Republican/conservative talking points and there is little dissent about their biases.  Then there is Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and O’Rielly, but they don’t even pretend to not be totally biased and driving every interview to one point of view.  But what about the rest of them?  Okay I will give you that Keith Olbermann is obviously biased, as is Rachel Maddow, but is it the same as Fox Noise?  I don’t think so and here is why.  If you have two competing points of view do you give them equal time and consideration even though one point of view is more in question than the other?  If you do, you lend equal credence to both points of view and in fact you are biasing the argument in favor of the less accepted or credible point of view.  The classic example is a debate between evolution and intelligent design.  There is no scientific evidence ever found to deny evolution, and intelligent design has been debunked as religion numerous times.  Yet when we have a debate and both sides are given the same status, uneducated viewers would assume that there is good evidence on both sides.  See how this is biased toward intelligent design?

So what happens when this involves a political discussion?  The same thing.  When one political advocate states something that is known to be inaccurate and the moderator of this he said/she said shouting match does not push back on what are known incorrect statements, as in the above case, they level the playing field for the party who is spewing falsehoods.  That is pretty much what we have today on cable media news where the moderator is along for the ride.  The Republicans are very good at this game fanning out like storm troopers with their talking points, and so the bias has been in their favor in this medium.  The answer is not for the Democrats to adopt similar tactics, but for the moderator to act like a real journalist and push back against obvious falsehoods before the other side has to waste precious airtime debunking the claims (on the defensive) before making their own points.

There is a variation to that when the moderator pushes back on one side only and I saw Wolfe Biltzer do that in an interview between a Republican and Democratic strategist.  The Republican made a claim and Wolfe turned to the Democrat and said “what about that” and when the Democrat responded, he followed up with several tough questions.  Good follow up so what is the problem?  The problem is that he then throws out a whole another new question and never follows up the Democrat’s point with the Republican.  After watching about five minutes of this, whether Wolfe meant to be biased or not, by only attacking one side he was once again skewing the playing field in favor of the Republican.  As one commentator has observed we have defaulted to conservative  points of view over the last 20 years or so and this defaulting is biasing the discourse by making the progressive debunk conventional wisdom instead of treating it as an equal point of view.

So back to the question of whether Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann are as biased as most of Fox Noise.  Well they have a progressive point of view, but I have yet to be able to question any facts they have put forward, in contrast to many things I hear on Fox Noise.  Could it just be that these progressives are just presenting the truth and the conservatives are unable to garble their message so it must be biased?  Many have accused The Daily Show or The Colbert Report as being progressively biased, but aren’t they just really showing the hypocrisy of our political world and there is whole bunch more of it on the conservative side?

This election is about two very different ways of seeing government and policy.  There is massive data to show that conservative policies in most cases have failed miserably and we are living through the aftermath, yet our media still defaults to the conservative story line and makes progressives somehow go the extra mile to explain their views.  It allows all the misdirection about terrorists, socialists, and un-Americans instead of pushing these spurious claims aside and focusing on the issues.  It puts progressives at a disadvantage in almost every argument, but reality is creeping in and most people just know what we have been doing hasn’t worked.   Maybe facts or biased coverage doesn’t count anymore.  Maybe finally reality will be the great equalizer.