Still Fools for Scandal
| Sun Dec. 14, 2008 9:15 AM PST
STILL FOOLS FOR SCANDAL....Peter Baker writes today that Barack Obama and his team have learned a lesson from the scandal-driven "moral jihad" of the Clinton presidency:
Even though Mr. Obama had no known personal involvement, the Clinton veterans understood that was only part of the issue. They had Mr. Obama publicly declare he had never spoken with Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich about the Senate appointment. They imposed a cone of silence on colleagues so they would not make a remark that could come back to haunt them. And they ordered an internal inquiry to document any contacts with the governor's advisers.
Republicans were ready to pounce, rushing out statements linking Mr. Obama to Mr. Blagojevich within an hour or so after the governor's arrest was reported. They too knew the script and that any opening must be exploited. Politics in this hyperpartisan age, after all, is the ultimate contact sport.
All well and good, but it's a little odd that Baker leaves out the role of the press in all this. I'll let Bob Somerby do the heavy lifting here, but I've lost count of the number of op-eds and TV talking head segments over the past week that have started out with something like this: "There's no evidence that Barack Obama was involved in Rod Blagojevich's pay-to-play scheme — in fact just the opposite — but...." After the "but," we get a couple thousand words with some take or another on why this is casting a "lengthening shadow" over Obama even though there's precisely zero evidence that he had even a tangential involvement in the whole thing.
Look, I get it: it was kind of a slow news week, reporters are tired of Obama the Savior stories, the Blagojevich scandal is theatrically sexy, and everyone is desperately trying to find a way to turn it from a local story to a national one. But there's no there there. Maybe Republicans still haven't learned their lesson from the 90s, but that's no reason the press has to follow them over a cliff once again. Cool it, folks.
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Comments
A slow newsweek? We have the Poznan climate talks. We have the Republican Senate scuttling the auto bailout, apparently as part of a plan to stick it to the unions. We have the biggest fraud in world history the $50B ponzi scheme on wall street. A lot of really important issues that effect our futures are being thrashed out, but all the press can do is chase dirty laundry.
Maybe Republicans still haven't learned their lesson from the 90s, but that's no reason the press has to follow them over a cliff once again.
What lesson is that? The one where they learned that by manufacturing enough bogus "scandal" you can weaken a popular Democratic president and ultimately take back the presidency?
Submitted by eb (not verified) on Sun Dec. 14, 2008 9:40 AM PST.
Oh my goodness, we didn't realize that we've been working for the Republicans for the past three decades or so. Now that you've enlightened us we're like, sorry, oh so sorry, so very very sorry, we'll never do that again! And thanks for making us see the light.
Sincere Regards,
The Press
"All well and good"
No, neither well nor good. This is pernicious behavior and should be labeled as such. America is in a major financial crisis, with dramatic increases in unemployment and home forclosures. This is no time for partisan game-playing.
Maybe Republicans still haven't learned their lesson from the 90s,
With all due respects, Kevin, as I recall during the 90's the Republicans first took over Congress and then, with a guy "you'd like to have a beer with," took over the White House.
All objective evidence suggests that it is you, and not they, who has failed to learn the evidence of the 90's.
The long shadow of James Stewart and Whitewater, of Jeff Gerth and Wen Ho Lee, of Judy "Queen of All Iraq" Miller, of a dozen other reputations made on the back of ginned-up scandals, will be there for a generation, or until sea-level changes drown the last house on the Vineyard owned by the last celebrity journamalist.
Maybe Republicans still haven't learned their lesson from the 90s, but that's no reason the press has to follow them over a cliff once again.
I think we should spot Kevin a mulligan on this unfortunate bit of phrasing. But the bigTom's point remains - it wasn't a slow news week at all. The media just seized on an easy-to-write story. Fitzgerald and his crack team did all the hard work and sent it to the media in one big file. Combing through that is a lot easier than trying to track down, say, wages at various final assembly plants.
Submitted by Alan in Elk Grove (not verified) on Sun Dec. 14, 2008 1:02 PM PST.
When the media go about repeating unfounded accusations and rumors, it is only logical for the media to be perceived as idealogical tabloids. When facts are revealed, that's reporting. When supposition is inserted, that's editorializing or worse, fabrication. Organizational and institutional credibility is what's at stake here...
As usual our lazy, shallow,and ultra-corporate(profit driven)"media pud-whackers", follow the path of least resistance to insure the maximum readership(tabloid junkies)instead of doing the REAL work of 4th Estate jornalism. What a surprise!
The difference this time may be that there are too many responsible and "informed" Americans to take the bait again. Just the fact that a majority of the electorate made an "intelligent" choice for the highest office in the world this time shows a new concern for the "realities" of an era where foolishness can no longer be tolerated.............or afforded!
The Big Bad Repukelicans can "huff & puff" all they want, but the masses are already too busy rebuilding the house that has been blown down to take them seriously.
THE MOST IMPORTANT NUMBER ON EARTH.........."350"!
Go to www.350.org to find out why. Do it for your grandchildren.
America is in a major financial crisis, with dramatic increases in unemployment and home forclosures. This is no time for partisan game-playing.
Posted by: Joel on 12/14/08
Aaah, I see you don't understand what the 'economic crisis' is all about. IT IS the partisan game playing.
Republicans are trying to put America on the verge of collapse, if not on the down-hill side of it, so Democrats will appear to be total failures. Nice of them, don't you think?
Trouble is they might actually keep pushing until it slides right on over.
Imagine a school bus loaded with unwary Americans, screaming, on a high mountain road balancing like a teeter-totter on the edge. One move this way or that and it might start sliding off. That's the precarious position they want for America.
"Merry Christmas suckers" -- Republicans
Submitted by Rick B (not verified) on Sun Dec. 14, 2008 4:47 PM PST.
One of the things I learned while raising a teenager was that every time there is a sentence with a "but" in it, they mean for you to ignore everything prior to the "but." The "but" cancels the prior stuff out.
The stuff prior to the "but" is thrown in as an excuse for the spin that follows because they know that the excuse stuff is what the listener expects to hear from an innocent party. The mere presence of the "but" shows that they know they are in fact guilty as sin and trying to skate on the responsibility for what they did with what they are saying.
The lesson my teenager taught me is that nothing said before the "but" is meant honestly. If they weren't guilty they wouldn't include the "but" weasel word. The political media operates at the level of a guilty teenager making excuses, and generally they are proud of the work they do.
Submitted by Rick B (not verified) on Sun Dec. 14, 2008 4:55 PM PST.
This is no time for partisan game-playing.
As Naomi Klein's excellent book makes clear, this is exactly the time for conservatives to practice partisan sniping. Their self-serving prescriptions would never be bought by the voters without the incentive of financial crisis, unemployment and home foreclosures to jack up fear of government.
Wondering why the media have not "learned" that frivolous stories are a bad thing is like asking why a longship full of Vikings have not "learned" that sacking towns and burning villages is a negative thing.
The fraction of reporters and news organizations who belong to the sub-culture of serious journalists is very small. The people you are wondering about don't know the difference between a "serious" and "frivolous" story. They were trained to create infotainment, not journalism. They wouldn't even understand what you are talking about.
Kevin,
This is getting to the point of willful ignorance. This is not about ratings or a lust for scandal or even a product of lazy reporting. This is, plain and simple, an attack on the Democtatic party and it's current leader. Republicans don't get this kind of treatment by the press. FULL STOP.
THIS is precisely why the the noise machine has been having kittens over the mere notion that the Fairness Doctrine might be reinstated.
THIS is how The Clinton name became poison on the left and how all the lies the were pandered in the 90's by GOP extremists are now conventional wisdom among progressives.
YOU sticking your head in the sand over this is HELPING the GOP to do it again.
Kevin, I can't believe that you missed the unbelievalbe a historical take of Peter Baker. And his un-believable fecklessness.
He wrote a whole "even-handed" lessons learned about the difficulties of impeachment - and starts out first by blaming the democrats for not doing something about that horrible Clinton. Completely ignoring 2 facts: It was just a blowjob - not something like, say, torture. And 2 the Democrats did propose a compromise - censure - which the GOP ignored.
And more grevioulsy Peter completely failed to mention the whole context of the Arkansas project, Scaife funding, and the Whitewater witch-hunt.
Patheticly stupid inside the Beltway piece.
