Fox News

What Can Presidents Do About Gas Prices?

Not a damn thing (and Republicans agree!). Even if Obama authorized companies, today, to drill anywhere they wanted to, market forces wouldn’t reflect the price drop (if any ever came) for months. Here’s a problem with democracy: voters expect leaders to change parts of the world over which they have no actual control, or somehow achieve directly contradictory goals. Should the President talk tough with Iran, and let you guys suffer high gas prices; or fold like Superman on laundry day, so you don’t have to dip into the vacation fund? Pick a side, we’re at war. The only thing Presidents can do is talk about the issue cleverly. Which, admittedly, Obama isn’t doing.

Hurricane Irene: a Cultural Threat to the United States

Thanks, FoxNation!

Fox News Acknowledges Global Warming to Extent Necessary to Scare You About Spiders

Fox News (and don’t click if you don’t like spiders):

Climate change may give America’s venomous brown recluse spiders a choice: Move to a more northern state or face dramatic losses in range and possible extinction, a new theoretical study suggests.

Currently, brown recluse spiders are found in the interior of roughly the southeastern quarter of the continental United States. Researcher Erin Saupe used two ecological models to predict the extent of the spider’s range in 2020, 2050 and 2080 given the effects of global warming.

But I thought global warming was a liberal myth? Assuming this was a one-time mistake on Fox’s part, what’s the conservative explanation for this story, then? Some guesses:

• Will of Creator Induces Brown Recluses to Move North, Say Baraminologists (CP/RW).
• Fleeing Socialism, Confused Spiders Migrate North.
• Spiders Migrate North to Avoid Influx of Illegal Immigrants, Suborned by Illegitimate President.

Fox Nation: Watch the Hands!

Original quote from President Obama:

I’m rooting for everybody to get rich. But I believe that we can’t ask everybody to sacrifice and then tell the wealthiest among us, well, you can just relax and go count your money, and don’t worry about it. We’re not going to ask anything of you.

Noble and uncontroversial. But the Fox News version?

“Obama: We Can’t Let the Rich ‘Relax and Count Their Money.”

Suddenly class warfare!

Framing the Individualist Argument

A close friend and comrade of mine says the age of the individual is upon us: technology allows increased exposure and personal expression, while sweeping away privacy barriers, the confluence of which, with the populace’s accelerating trend towards social libertarianism, makes individual uniqueness, and the protection of the values it entails, resonate stronger than ever.

Corporate forces seem to have noticed as much, and deployed the rhetoric to their great advantage in the last election. Arguments against the “socialism” of regulation, after all, collapse to arguments about the state’s meddling in private lives. But it’s not clear to me that the rhetoric of individualism ought to work against those who are, after all, seeking to increase the power of the individual against forces otherwise beyond their control, like health insurance companies, corporate soft money, and powerful investment banks. Since when is protecting Deutsche Bank and Blue Cross Blue Shield a “populist” cause?

We — Democrats, or whoever continues the work of protecting the individual against exploitation by big business — need to develop a vocabulary to make that case. Red-baiting has worked for the right, but the field remains open for a positive rhetoric exalting the individual and his independence, as procured and enforced by the government, from those forces that do not have his best interests at heart. It can be as simple as changing a word, like Fox News did with the public option “government option.” I welcome suggestions; we’re working on it here.

Politico: the Appearance of Marginalization

In its grand tradition of creating news stories ranging from the useless to the misleading, Politico’s lead story today concerns Obama’s strategy of “marginaliz[ing] critics.” This headline — by reporting as extraordinary an event that defines American politics — has the rare virtue of occupying both extremes simultaneously. Good for Politico!

The article targets the Obama Administration’s new approach to Fox News — openly criticize biased coverage where it occurs — as an example of the administration (unfairly?) marginalizing its critics. This new policy has been widely publicized and critiqued, and really, that’s probably a sign that it’s not working as well as it could. But let’s not pretend for a minute that marginalizing one’s opponents is a practice unique to Obama, now or in previous administrations. The practice of rhetorical marginalization is neither original nor unique to Obama, and his opponents have made far, far worse careers of it:

• Bush administration officials — especially Karl Rove — routinely branded opponents as “unpatriotic.”
• Fox News has made a habit of referring to Obama as a “socialist,” a “communist,” a “fascist,” a “racist,” and a “Nazi.” All of these attacks have been duplicated by other pundits, many of whom have also openly questioned Obama’s citizenship.
• Republicans generally question Democrats’ patriotism, and even their sense of belonging to America.

All of the above tactics are far, far worse than the administration’s attempts to delegitimize Fox News. They’re examples of a few pundits playing on the most basic fears of the American people, to distort, mischaracterize, and destroy ideological opponents. Obama’s tactics have the virtue of being substantially more polite, civilized, and — well — accurate.

Really, then, the story isn’t that Obama is “marginaliz[ing his] most powerful critics.” It’s that the administration is finally through letting itself be marginalized, and viciously slandered.

Improbable Victory: Revisiting Obama’s Nobel Prize

Update: on the heels of his Nobel win, Obama’s popularity is up to 56%, from 50%. Just another reminder that the whackjobs “upset” over Friday’s big news may talk big, but they don’t have the numbers to back it up.

I never thought I’d see the day — but O’Reilly gets it. As I said on Friday, whether or not Obama “deserved” the award, when the American President receives the Nobel Peace Prize, it helps us, as Americans, if not us, as Democrats or Republicans. So, a momentary note on perspective.

The conservative reaction to Obama’s receipt of the prize — shared by some liberals — is that Obama has done nothing to deserve the Prize. From the conservative perspective, Obama has weakened America abroad while ushering in a new era of socialism (the horror!). From the liberal perspective, Obama has made a lot of promises, and fulfilled few. In brief, from any American perspective, the Prize is questionable. If it was given on the merits, it’s premature; if intended as a “gift” of political capital (from Norway, with love), hopelessly misguided.

That judgment, however, assumes that we, as Americans, were the Award’s intended audience. I don’t think we were. It’s easy to forget the importance of the American image is abroad. But we are, remember, the world’s last remaining superpower, the unquestioned hegemon. Accordingly, President Obama’s decision to participate once more in the world America helped create is momentous. Simply put, unilateralism looks a lot different, and a lot more menacing, from the other side. From that perspective, Obama’s presence in office, and his efforts to engage the world once again, are worthy of reward. We’re all citizens of the world, and for once, the American President is saying as much. The Nobel Peace Prize recognizes this fundamental change of tone, first, but more importantly, reaffirms it to those with lingering suspicions worldwide. As O’Reilly said (shudder), it’s good for the world to hear “America” and “Peace” in the same sentence again.

Finally, a note on the substance of Obama’s “Peace.” I’ve heard from more than a few on my side of the aisle that, because we’re still in Afghanistan, Obama certainly doesn’t deserve the prize. It’s as if they expected War itself to die, just because a Democrat took the Oval Office.

That was never in the cards. Obama didn’t campaign on it, it’s not feasible, and it’s not even desirable. Human nature itself forecloses the possibility of an utter end to warfare and, as long as fundamentalist Islam remains a threat, the ball’s not really in our court. There is such a thing as a defensive war, and it’s important to fight those. Afghanistan’s a prime example. Until the country can be put on her feet, under better leadership, we can’t risk creating a power vacuum by leaving prematurely.

So, did Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? Well, that’s a matter of perspective. Is it good for the country? Unquestionably. If the Republican Party’s version of patriotism covered more than those parts of the country over which they exercise control (“Real America” — an ever-decreasing area), then maybe they could see that.

Glenn Beck as a Problem for the First Amendment, in the Process of Being Solved

Glenn Beck is down 46 sponsors, still bleeding, and he knows it. In the judgment of industry insiders who’ve “seen it all before,” the clock is ticking. We should be so fortunate. When the axe ultimately drops, though — yes, I’m going to say “when” — the cacaphonous cries of “censorship” from the right shall surely deafen us all. Pre-emptively, then, an explanation of why getting Glenn Beck off the air is probably a good idea.

First, strange-but-true: the modern, ultra-strong First Amendment is a relatively new invention. Until the early 1900s, no-one really took the guarantee of free speech all that seriously. The founding generation banned seditious libel (speaking against the state, so as to “bring it into hatred or contempt”), even though they never enforced it. During World War I, with the full backing of the U.S. Supreme Court, we prosecuted communists for being communists, and citizens for opposing the draft. And, as recently as World War II, communists could be prosecuted for urging the overthrow of the government, even if it wasn’t really going to happen. All such restrictions are unthinkable today, utterly destroyed by Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969). Protections for speech likely to incite violence are similarly broad, etc., etc.

All of this is to say that, although it didn’t at first, the modern First Amendment protects a broad swath of activity, even some truly loathsome acts, such as Nazi marches, and cross burnings (under some circumstances). Because of its breadth, the modern First Amendment is a challenge to the American people, that we use our discretion wisely, and for the greater good. The First Amendment presupposes that the best way to get to “truth” and “wisdom” in social and political discourse, the ultimate values in a democracy, is to let the contenders fight it out in the “free marketplace of ideas”; the truth will rise to the top. Thus the Constitution trusts Americans to make intelligent choices; bad speech exists, yes, but it ought to be answered wisely by other citizens, rather than censored, altered, prosecuted, or in any way chilled.

Unfortunately, the system doesn’t always work. The First Amendment, as a system to maximize both truth and liberty, suffers in its efforts towards the former from the same shortcomings that plague mankind as a whole. Namely, intelligent, transcendent truths don’t always sell: they’re boring, and painstakingly difficult to come by. Falsities, on the other hand, are often comforting, sometimes sexy and inflammatory, but always capable of mass-production. Ditto trivialities, which don’t hurt the free marketplace of ideas, but don’t really help either. In an economic market dominated by profit motive only, Falsity will almost always have a leg-up on Truth. And, to make matters worse, when the means of communication are in the hands of only a few, effective corrective measures are hard to come by.

You probably get where I’m headed: the cable news networks, with their focus on the exciting and inflammatory rather than the useful or the important, suck. Glenn Beck embodies that trend, carried to its logical extreme. His shows — yes, I’ve watched or listened to both — play on emotion, to the detriment of logic, and inflame rather than educate. We hear why X or Y is a “communist” or “Nazi” scheme, but not why, what those terms mean, or why, absent hyperbole, we should be concerned about them. It’s political vaudeville or prop comedy, and the books are worse. Whole swaths of the internet are dedicated to disproving the dozens of lies Beck manufactures on a daily basis, but to no effect: with cable networks in the hands of few truly disinterested parties, Beck’s detractors, and the truth, stand no chance against such well-promoted, frequently-aired charisma. Media centralization, careful marketing, and fear have together created a monster immune to “good speech.” Beck’s popularity, predicated on our coarser emotions, and intelligent America’s inability to counter him, have checkmated the First Amendment.

Until now. As I noted, because of Beck’s overreach in calling the first black President a “racist” who “hates white people” (YouTube), he’s lost forty-six advertisers, at last count. When this trend ultimately drives him off the air, it will not be because of government action or power, but a result of the free capital markets reflecting the sensibilities of a free people, finally fed up with malicious, inflammatory, potentially dangerous lies. When Glenn Beck falls, it will be because the First Amendment works; not because it failed. Now, if only it worked faster…

To Clear Channel, Sarah Palin is No Rush Limbaugh

Media giant Clear Channel Communications, home of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, etc., has been successfully debasing American political discourse for nearly thirty-seven years now. But apparently, even they have standards: the word is that Clear Channel passed on a Sarah Palin talk show, when the idea was tentatively floated to them:

While you might assume Palin would be a better fit for conservative radio than the less partisan world of syndicated broadcast TV, my sources say the country’s biggest radio conglomerate, Clear Channel, has already passed on her.

The main objection to Palin as radio talk-show host is that she would have to hold forth for three hours a day. While some of her recent remarks may indicate a talent for improvisation, anyone who’s listened to Rush Limbaugh or Thom Hartmann or Don Imus or Howard Stern or even Ryan Seacrest knows it’s the rare personality who can blab extemporaneously for 15 hours a week. And relying on callers to get you through won’t help, because as we’ve all experienced, callers-in are usually more embarrassing than compelling.

Inside Radio also gleefully points out the irony of these rumors, since Palin’s disdain for the media is clear. As she admonished reporters in her departure speech: “Quit making things up.”

They have a point: people like Limbaugh may contribute little of intellectual value to the American airwaves, but it’s the rare human being who can talk for three hours straight a day, without being repetitive, or uninteresting. I have to hand it to Limbaugh — the man can talk.

Admittedly, few of Clear Channel’s hosts even truly fill three hours of political talk, but they manage to make up for it in other ways. If you ever listen to Michael Savage — which I by no means advise — you’ll notice that about 1/3 or so of his show is comprised of campy stories from his childhood in New York. It’s not interesting to me, when I listen to his show to find out “how the other half lives,” but his fans eat it up. God only knows what Palin could use as “filler.” Although, as we all found out last week, she does seem oddly capable of accidentally improvising transcendentalist poetry. So, there’s always that.

Fox News Writes its Own Controversy

Expect to be hearing about this from the tattered remains of the PUMA-sphere — according to a poll by Fox News, 32% of Americans want Palin’s next job to be “homemaker,” with Democrats especially likely to pick that response.

Salon calls sexism, but while they might be right, they’re missing the culprit. The question isn’t why Americans responded to the homemaker choice, but why it was included in the first place. The poll gave only a few principal choices for the question,”What do you think is the best job for Sarah Palin now that she has resigned as governor of Alaska?,” with these results (from the raw data):

Click to enlarge.

Context is everything, and viewed against the other options, it’s clear that “homemaker” is the only real option for those that want Palin out of politics altogether. “College professor” is, let’s face it, implausible, and “Other” is always underselected. The fact that it ranks at all in this poll just proves how poorly the entire damn thing was drafted. A more honest poll might mix in popular private-sector political alternatives, like consulting, to break down exactly how the anti-Palin crowd, like yours truly, sees her,  as either a complete incompetent mess, or just someone who doesn’t belong in the spotlight, yet. But Fox wasn’t going for an accurate picture. They were trying to build a story.

The only question now is how quickly this poll gets to Glenn Beck. Maybe by next week Obama will be not just a racist, but a sexist, too!