The War Against Gore....Continued

Interesting. Criticism of the media critic Bob Somerby. How many levels of meta criticism to we get before all possible meaning is lost?

That said, I agree that Somerby is often very interesting and could improve his impact by tightening his focus on stuff that matters today rather than his pet peeves from the past.

"Last week, Naomi Judd began telling voters that *no one has ever been trashed like Palin*."

She's making a comparison, *deliberately calling up the past*. Can't we take her up on her own terms -- and talk about whether anyone *has ever been trashed* like Palin? Or are we going to let them get away with rewriting history? Again?

Come on, Kevin, he anticipated this point already. The point is that people are able to claim Palin's treatment is unprecedented because no one talks about Gore.

Imagine the landscape if, every time someone accused the media of "liberal bias," people came back with the long, sordid tale of the media's treatment of Gore? Even now, eight years after the fact, it would probably resonate because it was so incredibly awful, and Gore has, through his own talents and still swimming against the "MSM" tide, risen so high in world esteem. But the only place you can find out about it -- this is another point Somerby makes -- is on his site. Democrats need to put together a coherent and forceful refutation of the notion that there is a "liberal media bias," and that argument ought to start with Clinton (both of them now) and Gore. But nobody wants to talk about it, even now when the conservatives and many media members are out wailing and rending their clothes over the shockingly unfair treatment of poor Sarah Palin. Somerby makes a strong case and you, frankly, do not.

And, by the by, the liberal internets have hardly covered themselves with glory over the past couple of years. Huffpo looks like the National Enquirer, Marshall's site has tried to emulate it so much that it's become unreadable, and then there was the Hillary lynch mob y'all formed during the primaries. Is it your position that there's something wrong with Somerby criticizing that stuff?

Somerby was the first blog I ever read and he is still at the top of my bookmarks.When he began posting on the media trashing of Gore, it was topical.The memes and mechanisms he highlighted are still with us today. That makes it topical now.Try this. there is a machine throwing baseballs at you. this machine is plugged into the wall.Would you rather deflect each ball coming at you for the rest of your life, or pull the plug and end it now.

Maybe that's not fair, but the world is what it is.

No. This is wrong. Flat wrong. The world is what we make of it. And I think that Bob's point -- the way I read it -- is that the GOP has spent 50 years actively making the world into "the way it is." They have spent millions of dollars, millions of hours, to drive home the (patently false) idea that the press has a liberal bias. Part of their tactic has been to treat as boring pedants those who point out the idiocy of this claim by reference to, you know, actual facts. ("Get over it!", etc.) As a result, people like La Judd can spew unrefuted b.s. because a large number of people have bought into the idea that being right about something is boring.

Now, as for Kevin's false comparison in theorizing about conservatives complaining about Nixon and Quayle's treatment . . . that's what they do all the time! (Well, with Nixon, anyway.) They do this despite the fact that there is no comparison. (Quayle? When was he the GOP candidate?)

You know what I think is boring? Listening to endless, endless sermonizing about how great Reagan was, how influential, etc. That's some boring right there. But, guess what!, conservatives don't care if I think it's boring! They're not talking to me. They're talking to history.

Bob's right. We should be talking to history, too. Every chance we get. Someone think it's boring? Screw 'em. Screw 'em. I'm playing for keeps.

How can you not read something you like?

Some here pretend to have "stopped reading" Somerby because of his constant defense of Gore, but the reality is that they are angry that Somerby is the type of liberal who will every once in a while defend the other side (Republicans) against unfair attacks from the left.

That is what pisses off the cultist wing of the party which believes Republicans are 100% evil 100% of the time and that Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum and co. are Gods who never get it wrong.

There is also the fact that before supporting Obama, Somerby's favorite candidate was Hillary Clinton, and the cultist wing of the party dislikes Hillary, although they will quickly deny it.

Kevin is right. Let's start to complain about today's media transgressions. Let's forget that today's media contains all the same people that we know are terrible and have known are terrible for years. So every time Adam Nagourney writes a POS mind-reader, we just CTRL-C CTRL-V some comment and then hive five each other in K-Drum's thread? Are we allowed to mention today's media screwups tomorrow? Or should we just focus on tomorrows?

There is an entire generation of journalists who have decided that narrative and plot are more important than fact and policy. Worse, these journalists are accountable to bloggers with Usenet level rhetorical skills, junior high level debate logic, and who are so partisan, any criticism of the home team earns instantaneous ostracism from the point-scoring crowd. I predict we'll go far with this system.

Bravo!

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that what is said in the blogosphere ever reaches the average voter. So whether Gore's trashing in 2000 is dwelt upon or not is an academic question.

As for Gore -- he continues to be trashed by the Rabid Right, big time, as the proponent of global warming theories. Conservative email chains are full of stories about Gore's personal energy consumption, the fuel he burns every time he flies to another environmental event, etc. And this got much worse after he got the Nobel. This criticism may not find its way to the MSM (though some of it does) -- but it still remains unanswered, in the time-honored Democratic tradition of ignoring cheap shots from the other side and focusing on what is important. Sometimes that works, sometimes not.

One thing to keep in mind is that there is no need to bring up Gore to make the idea that Palin's has been uniquely maligned sound insane.

Not one thing that has been said about Palin in the mainstream media even comes close to the level of sexism directed at Hillary Clinton by the press during this year's primary. In June, Palin said that Hillary's complaints about that coverage were not helpful to women, but now she and her supporters are being much more thin-skinned.

As far as I could see, the media spent virtually no time discussing her wardrobe until it was learned the RNC had spent more outfitting her for a 10-week campaign than most families make in 2-3 years. Even then, it has received less coverage than John Edwards' haircut.

Then lets not forget that the press still hasn't spent any meaningful time looking into her church or her associations with the AIP and its allies in the patriot, militia and white supremacy movements. This despite having spent weeks examining Obama's ties to Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko.

The one negative issue that has received extensive coverage is the 'troopergate' investigation, but this is a major ethics scandal unfolding in the middle of the campaign for godsakes. Even this has been covered in the most dry, factual manner possible. If Palin was a Democrat, then Drudge and Fox would ensure that we had weeks of headlines about "abuse of power", "criminal conduct" and tying this case into her family's travel expenses, her per-diem requests and her cronyism to make her look like the most corrupt politician since Boss Tweed.

I voted for Gore because I thought that he and Clinton had done a great job while in office and because he is a better "Kisser" that Bush! Bush only "Puckers up" for Big Oil!I have to admit that without the media, and a few election frauds, we may not have been subjected to two terms of totally incompetent political shenanigans but so be it! Now Gore has suffered greatly, He has a "Nobel" Prize and can look the media in the eye and say," You guys have done a great job, just look at what you have done to both the U.S. and the World!" So far, no big comeback from the media!

Shorter Karog: Tonight Jon Stewart said that he wasn't very smart in 2000.

I stopped reading him a long time ago. He shows no ability to distinguish between friend and foe -- if you don't rail loudly enough against what he does, you're one of THEM! And let's face it, he's just a terrible writer. I couldn't stand to read his prose anymore, it's just awful.

As Reagan showed, one of the most powerful sentiments in politics is "there they go again". That's the point of getting the history straight.

This is not to deny the natural primacy of current events. The way to bring up the past (bogus media coverage of Clinton, Gore, etc.) is in the context of current disputes as a way of framing them. You can simultaneously set the record straight and make your current criticism more effective.

Wow, kudos to the commenters. This Comments section (as of the 10/31/2008 10:20 AM at least!) has brightened my day.

Yes, there are folks out there who take what Somerby writes seriously, even though others keep wanting to tell us all to just "move along now" and "pay no attention".

Kevin, I know it must grate to be specifically mentioned by Somerby from time to time. And I really do give you credit for at least making some effort to acknowledge this criticism in public. Albeit, I do sense a certain level of "snark" in the tone of your response, as if though you want us to feel that Bob is just some "little guy" that you deign to read now and then.

Whatever. I love this "little guy" even if he's gotten under the skin of the blogosphere "elite".

In so many cases, he's filling the role of the conscience of us all. Yes, there are some of us left-wingers who don't want the book to end like "Animal Farm" with our side looking like the same set of pigs that are on the other side.

As other posters pointed out above Somerby does prick our consciences. He does take stands when he sees our side engaging in the same dumbing down, the same bad faith arguments, that have become the standard operating procedure of the Republicans.

Is he correct in assessing that the trend of endorsing a politics by trivia, attack and anything but actual issues works against the Democrats in the long run? It's not certain, but he makes a compelling argument. And his position certainly doesn't suffer from happening to represent what we can hopefully agree is still the "high ground", even if we decide that terrain is no longer suitable for mounting our defense.

I see Bob's role as invaluable. So many times I'm reading a rousing chorus cheering on some alleged liberal "victory" (e.g. Madden over Frum) only to watch and wonder why I'm not as compelled by it as the Crooks and Liars crowd, etc. Whatever complaints people may have about his prose style (fine by me), he's out there saying things that need to be said, and there's no one else quite like him on the left.

One final thought. What would it take for a sort of collective left-wing blog-o-elite re-hash of the "silence of 1999-2000" to happen? If Somerby is wrong about it all, let's hear why.

This not worth obsessing over. But there is a point to make here: "Last week, Naomi Judd began telling voters that no one has ever been trashed like Palin."

The point is that many viewers will undoubtedly feel that Palin is receiving historically unfair criticism when they hear things like this. As a result, they'll sympathize with her. Maybe even a few indendent/undecideds will take the bait. And this is a message that has been trumpeted by some segments of the MSM, so undoubtedly it's had some effect. If the media was thorough and fair they'd point out that this is not new, that Gore and others received similar treatment in the past. And as a result, sympathy for Palin would be more historically appropriate. Of course, they won't really do that because it's not "now" so really that's up to bloggers, who have so much influence these day, right? That seems to be Bob's point.

So yeah, I think there is at least in theory something to be gained by working to ensure that Palin's criticism is put into historically objective perspective. But is constant griping by the liberal blogosphere (which might be the only conceivable way to accomplish that goal) really going to accomplish that goal? Or is it going to come off as a bunch of whiners instead?

Probably the latter. Just give it the treatment it deserves and get over it. I think the real point here is that because Palin is new and unknown and unvetted America had every right (and a dire need) to get up to speed on her fast, prior to the election. In depth probing by the media and others is how that happens. In 2000 we already knew Gore, so that same rationale didn't hold true. I think that's an important point that has been largely ignored.

I think the real issue with Sommerby harping on the Gore Wars is that he's been doing so a lot lately and has not, for the past couple of months, been making much topical commentary. But up until September or so of this year, his commentary was generally very topical, though he definitely has always had a tendency to throw the Gore Wars into the mix.

I'm very impressed with the quality of the comments here, and consider them an indication if not proof of Somerby's value.

I for one hope he never joins the media establishment. Somerby's a gadfly and he should remain a gadfly, for the good of the cause. His kind of perspective can only come from the outside.

There are many Kevin Drums, however excellent, in the blogosphere, but only one Somerby.

Long Live Somerby.

kevin, i love you like a brother (and i don't like it when somerby calls you names), but he's right: he brings up gore because the same mainstream writers are dishing the same tired crap about current democrats and no one calls them on it. you may not like his style, but someone needs to be saying what he says.

your pal,
blake

It's obvious this is your own version of a push poll: you only ask as a way of asserting your pre-existing view. First, you seemingly state that Somerby only talks about the media war against Gore, when in fact he uses it as an example and mostly always to make a point about current practices. And second, when the majority of your commenters disagree with your limn of him and your view of his relevance, you essentially repost the same question. You seem pretty closed minded on this topic. Interesting, even as 38 of your 40 commenters here (so far) seem to pretty strongly disagree with you. One wonders why you would not want to embrace a line of reasoning that would force you to call bullshit on a lot of the mainstream media. It's a long way from Calpundit, huh?

So to kick this dead horse to the curb, as George Bush once said in one of his most memorable quotes:

"Fool me once, shame on, uh, me; fool me twice...WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN!"

Except we will. Damn. Especially if Somerby quits reminding us. Because no one else does.

It's just lately that Somerby has totally concentrated on the Gore problem, and it makes sense- like a 12-step program, if you can't repent your past transgressions, you're not gonna get very far in your new life.

What's happening is that the same crap is- well-- still happening. These liberal celebrity journalists seem to get a fixation on their celebrity politicians, and they just go ga-ga.

It reminds me alot of what I witnessed myself years ago-- I went to a get together in L.A. once where Armani was supposed to show up, and there wasn't anybody more in celebrity-love with him than other famous celebrities. It's really important to them, and it might explain why they lose their minds: nobody is transfixed by celebrities more than other celebrities.

Must agree with the majority here -- Somerby's right. I'd add that he is only must-read of all liberal bloggers (possible exception: Greenwald). He pulls no punches.
Harping about Somerby's prose and snark is weak. Drum clearly doesn't consider Somerby to be one of the "kewl kids," only serving to make Somerby's point that for liberal writers like Drum, career interests are never far from consideration. Criticize, sure, but criticize politely seems to be their mantra, lest you be ousted from the cocktail party circuit.
Clearly Somerby doesn't at all care about any of that, which is part of the reason he is so much more effective than most in the liberal blogosphere.