Democracy Alive and Kicking in America

[chequita guevara]

In praise of making a stink
Last week was enough to make you believe that the voice of the people can make a difference.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Arianna Huffington



Dec. 20, 2002 | The battle between the public interest and the special interests can be a demoralizing one. It sometimes seems like every dispatch from the front brings bad news. A judge appointed by President Bush rules that **** Cheney can keep all the secrets he wants. Major GOP donor Eli Lilly gets a legislative gift worth billions anonymously slipped into the Homeland Security Bill at the last minute. The president's pick to take over the Treasury is CEO of a company that, despite close to a billion dollars in profits, paid not a penny in federal taxes in three of the last four years.

It's enough to make a decent citizen throw up his hands -- and his lunch -- and accept the cynical notion that nothing any of us says or does can make a difference anymore.

Then along comes a week like the last one. And you think, maybe there is a Santa Claus.

Bam, Kissinger resigns! Boom, Cardinal Law quits! Chomp, Trent Lott goes from smug Senate majority leader to bloody political chum floating in a tank of hungry sharks! Whoosh, President Bush stuns the crowd by supporting an extension of unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, and also reverses course by boosting the budget of the Securities and Exchange Commission!

Score five for the power of the people. It's the sort of week that happens rarely enough that we should take note of what might have caused it. And if the events do have something in common, it's this: None of these things would have happened if it weren't for the torrent of public outrage, protest, and criticism directed at each of those targets.

Take the Kissinger appointment. Almost from the moment it was announced, the president's bewildering choice of Henry the K to head the 9/11 commission stuck in the craw of most sentient Americans -- with the exception of those who subscribe to the notion that it takes a thief to catch a thief. Why select the most incorrigible obfuscator of the 20th century to get to the bottom of the horrors of Sept. 11? All across the country, people shook their heads -- and their fists -- and wondered: What could the White House have been thinking?

The most charitable answer (hey, it's Christmas) is not very much. The White House had been so cavalier about its choice -- and so smug about its own popularity -- that it hadn't even bothered to do the customary vetting of Kissinger's tangled web of conflicted interests.

Thankfully, the American people -- led by a chorus of media pundits -- were far more diligent and demanded the obvious: That Kissinger come clean about his super-secret client list or step down. He chose the latter, preferring to give up on his promise to "go where the facts lead us" rather than give up his wildly lucrative consulting gig. Thank you for your public service, Henry.

And it's a good thing the people were on Kissinger's case, because the "loyal opposition" certainly wasn't. No one in the Democratic leadership had the guts to call for his ouster -- or even demand the release of his radioactive client list. I guess they were all too consumed with watching each of the 158 TV appearances Al Gore made in recent weeks, trying to figure out if they were gonna have to shove ol' Al out of the way on their 2004 runs for the White House.

If the Democrats dropped the ball on Kissinger, it was the mainstream media that were asleep at the wheel on the Lott story. No fewer than a dozen reporters were present when Lott waxed nostalgic about Jim Crow at Strom Thurmond's birthday bash, but only one, ABC News producer Ed O'Keefe, thought it newsworthy. His bosses didn't share his enthusiasm however, and, after running the story on a 4:30 a.m. broadcast, didn't use it on either "Good Morning America" or "World News Tonight." The rest of the major media outlets also initially reacted with a collective shrug.

Thank God for the Internet. It was in cyberspace that scores of bloggers -- including Josh Marshall of talkingpointsmemo.com, Glenn Reynolds of instapundit.com, Mickey Klaus of klausfiles.com, and Andrew Sullivan of andrewsullivan.com -- continued hammering away at the story, and eventually succeeded in moving it out of the shadows into the political spotlight.

It's important to note that these cyber-pundits -- the vast majority of whom are unpaid amateurs -- didn't just rail against the repulsiveness of Lott's comments and the lameness of his subsequent kinda-sorta apologies. They also were instrumental in helping connect the dots of the majority leader's long history of racist stances, including his college-era fight to keep blacks out of his University of Mississippi fraternity, his resistance to honoring the memories of slain civil rights heroes Martin Luther King and Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, his ringing support of Confederate icon Jefferson Davis, and his too-cozy-for-comfort relationship with the racist Council of Conservative Citizens. The blizzard of damning information left little doubt that Lott's comments had not been, as he first claimed, merely "a poor choice of words." Politicians talk a lot about their words being "taken out of context." Well, Lott is in trouble because his words were actually put in context.

It was a most democratic uprising -- and showed the power of the Internet when it is truly free of the dependence on access, and the need to play nice with the powers that be.

The one upside to the fact that we no longer have any real leaders, only ersatz ones slavishly addicted to following public opinion, is that, at the end of the day, public outrage really matters.

Witness the presidential flip-flops on unemployment benefits and funding the SEC. Karl Rove's legendary political antennae were obviously getting the message loud and clear: cutting off benefits to laid-off workers in the middle of the holiday season was making Bush look like Scrooge and backing off on enforcing new corporate responsibility laws was making him look like a corporate stooge. Why else would the president suddenly get religion on issues he's been dodging for months? He even went so far as to declare that extending the benefits should be the "first order of business" for the new Congress. Damn, that must have been one ticked-off focus group!

Paradoxically, in these days of instant communications and 24-hour news channels it's getting easier to ignore information we might otherwise pay attention to. And constant revelations of political corruption have left us numb and a little outrage-weary. It now takes an alert team of media first responders to get, grab, and hold our attention.

These latest victories of vox populi remind us that, by standing up and voicing our dissent, we can still make a difference -- at least for a week.

[Odin]

The Media is ran by corporations, you know who they root for. (Bushy Wushy) Thank hevans for NPR and the BCC, they are lessed biased.

[Zkribbler]

Right Odin. This morning on one of the Fox (voice of the Republican Party) news channels, the four panels uniformily criticized Time Magazine for naming the three women whisteblowers as Person of the Year instead of Bush.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Odin
The Media is ran by corporations, you know who they root for. (Bushy Wushy) Thank hevans for NPR and the BCC, they are lessed biased.

That's a leftist myth. People in the media are likely to have significantly more liberal views then the general population. I'd share with you the statistics, but my poli sci book is back at my dorm.

"Right Odin. This morning on one of the Fox (voice of the Republican Party) news channels, the four panels uniformily criticized Time Magazine for naming the three women whisteblowers as Person of the Year instead of Bush."

That's Fox News, if you were to check out the New York Times or another news channel you'd perhaps fine less disagreement. Even still though it's kind of silly to say someone impacted the news more then GWB last year. Although the claim that POTY is the person who effects the news most for good or for ill lost a lot of credibility when Guilani won in 2001.

[chequita guevara]

BD, just because reporters are more likely to identify themselves as Democrats doesn't mean the media is more likely to be slanted towards liberalism. Corporations and their lawyers keep a close watch on what goes out. Furthermore, news sources and talking heads are far more likely to be from right-wing organizations. Any influence liberals have in the media is overwhelmed by other factors.

By and large, the media is pro-status quo and genuflects to those in power. They only go after wounded corporations, such as Enron, and wounded politicians, like Clinton or the unfortunate Congressman from California who got smeered as being implicated in a murder (which has subsequently been linked to someone else). They are afraid to offend corporations for fear of lawsuits and afraid to offend the government for fear of losing access.

[Dis]

CNN is liberal. 'nuff said.

[Jon Miller]

the media is liberal and probusiness

those are not opposite interests (look at the democratic party for one)

Jon Miller

[Shi Huangdi]

If you have liberal views, it's only natural the reporting is going to turn out liberal. Check out the editorial page of the Washington Post or the New York Times if you doubt the strong presence of liberalism in the media.

As for the TV media, you can find plenty of liberal views on their. ABC once aired an entire special by John Stossel on why we need more seperation of church and state. Time Magazine, which is affiliated with CNN, was hostile to Bush during his election campaign- I specifically remember they had an article once suggesting Bush would be an environmental disaster. The media gave especially favorable coverage to the Million Mom March. Typically the media tends to have a strong left of center viewpoint. Although to your credit they definitely are not as sympathetic to far left types like yourself.

[Shi Huangdi]

Here is an example of a piece critical of US policy. A similar piece appeared in the Washington Post today:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/850684.asp?0cv=CA01

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
ABC once aired an entire special by John Stossel on why we need more seperation of church and state.

Stossel is a raging libertarian, hardly an example of liberalism in the media.

[Dis]

I like when Stossel got his nose broken by saying wrestling is fake

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Stossel is a raging libertarian, hardly an example of liberalism in the media.

Right. But when they decided to give him his own hour to rant on about something, they chose to make at an issue he was liberal on. Even still, usually when he is on IIRC he rants about political correctness or some stupid obscure ordance some local government passed or such.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I think Jon hit is right. The media is at the same time liberal and pro-business (to a degree). The media also likes to take down corporations that are wounded.

When the reporters are so liberal, that ends up in the papers. Time Magazine, as Shi said, is very liberal, even if their parent company is conservative.

[DanS]

I refuse to read anything by Huffington. What a blow-hard.

[Odin]

Economy reports by liberals are ignored by the Media b/c it might hurt the company's investments.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DanS
I refuse to read anything by Huffington. What a blow-hard.

She was everyone's (the CA Rep party's) darling when her hubby tried to buy a Senate seat here. She didn't seem to have her reputation suffer too much until she started occasionally biting the proverbial hands that feed.

Besides, Dan, what political editorialist or talk show or news panel show isn't a blowhard?

[Zkribbler]

Aw come on: Look at the political shows on regularly on TV.

If there is one moderator: it's a conservative.
If there are two: the main one is conservative, the side kick is liberal.
If there's a panel: usually one's a liberal, the rest are all conservative.

This morning on Fox News, four panelist were all complaining because the whistleblowers were named as Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" and not George Bush (who was named in 2000). That doesn't sound like a liberal drumbeat to me.

About 90-95% of the radio talk show hosts are conservative.

So the liberals get one special and two newspapers and OMG they're controlling the media. Give me a friggin break

[monkspider]

Another great article
Che, you're on a roll.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Aw come on: Look at the political shows on regularly on TV.

If there is one moderator: it's a conservative.
If there are two: the main one is conservative, the side kick is liberal.
If there's a panel: usually one's a liberal, the rest are all conservative.

This morning on Fox News, four panelist were all complaining because the whistleblowers were named as Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" and not George Bush (who was named in 2000). That doesn't sound like a liberal drumbeat to me.

About 90-95% of the radio talk show hosts are conservative.

So the liberals get one special and two newspapers and OMG they're controlling the media. Give me a friggin break

Those two newspapers are extremely popular and are some of the best media around. I use the Washington Post as my primary news soruce (www.washingtonpost.com when at college). Those are just some example I pointed of how the media leans left. So far the only example you brought forth is 4 panelists on morning show on the Fox News Channel complaining about Time's POTY choice. (Thinking the choice is stupid is bipartisan by the way. When I went to time's website, they had a poll on whether you agreed with their choice. When I voted 91.5% of people said they disagreed.)

As for news talk shows, most people don't watch those, what is more important is the hard news. But what you say about them isn't true. Donahue is a liberal and he has a show on MSNBC. Chris Matthews of Hardball is a Democrat. On Capital Gang, there are two liberals and two conservatives, but the head guy, Mark Shields, is a leftie.

[Seeker]

"Chris Matthews of Hardball is a Democrat."

Really? But he seems so right wing about most things.

Must be my Canadian perspective, coming from a country that elects Svend Robinson to represent one of our larger cities...

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Seeker
"Chris Matthews of Hardball is a Democrat."

Really? But he seems so right wing about most things.

Must be my Canadian perspective, coming from a country that elects Svend Robinson to represent one of our larger cities...

I agree. When I watch Hardball, it doesn't seem like he's too far left

[Sava]

The American Media is only out for ratings. If it's not exciting and controversial, it won't get reported. They cater to their owners which are largely conservative. Radio Talk Shows are largely conservative. And when some news outlet is liberal, right-wingers always come out with this "BAH BAH the media's liberal" garbage.

All you have to do is look at who owns the media outlet. Public news sources are the only objective sources.

[Guynemer]

How did an Arianna Huffington rant turn into yet another tired "'the media is liberal!' 'the media is conservative!'" debate?

Love Arianna. Living proof that conservatives can push for pro-democracy reforms too.