It’s Her Place & She Won’t Let Obama Trash It

The editors of the New York Times have, as is their wont, again tasked Arts & Leisure reporter Alessandra Stanley to write about President Obama. She’s not very good at it, though, and has been eviscerated by bloggers (myself included) during her last two major endeavors to covering something that she simply does not have the aptitude to grasp: American politics.

The subject of Stanley’s assault was President Obama and his appearance on five Sunday news programs. Obama’s pitch was on health care, but Stanley’s primary area of coverage was the White House’s decision to not appear on Fox News. This bothered Stanley to no end and apparently, to her, signified that Obama had lost all control of his health care message and was blowing up in anger at Fox News. Where this is borne out by the President’s words on Sunday is never made clear, due entirely to the fact that Stanley is once again making shit up.

I don’t have much desire to go through and rebut the absurdity of all of Stanley’s piece. Doing so would likely require a five page long blog post. But to get a sense of how Stanley went after Obama, this paragraph is instructive. Prior to delving into her expose on the slight to Fox News, Stanley writes:

In each conversation, Mr. Obama proved what most people already know: he is a deft and appealing speaker who can stay on message. But there was nothing in those stagy interviews that shed light on whether his message would take hold.

On “stagy interviews”: Stanley believes that since all were conducted in the same room (which is normal) and all were on the same subject, healthcare, viz. Obama’s largest policy initiative, that they interviews were staged.  This is what the President does and frankly, it’s no different than the work of the original Full Ginsburg.

But more importantly, how in the world would the subject of any interview be able to reveal during the course of the interview the impact of their message on public opinion? Stanley is effectively complaining that Obama failed to predict specifically how public polling would shift as a result of his Sunday health care push while he was talking. To Stanley this is a shortcoming of Obama’s that fundamentally undercut the success of his media outreach. To the rest of the world, Obama merely obeyed the laws of space and time.

When Stanley turns her focus on the real story of Sunday — Obama’s choice to appear on Univision and not Fox News — she really turns on her charm. While recognizing that Fox News is a partisan Republican outlet (she calls it “the one outlet guaranteed to find fault”), she still insights that Obama was fundamentally flawed to not visit with them.

And that made his star turn look less like a media blitz than Medici vengeance — Fox did not broadcast Mr. Obama’s health care speech to Congress on Sept. 9, so Mr. Obama did not speak to “Fox News Sunday.”

I’m not quite sure what to do with the comparison between going on five but not a sixth Sunday talk shows and the sacking of Florence by an army that then uses mass murder as means of controlling the conquered city. Stanley has reached a level of absurdity so great that it resists mockery. It stands on its own in its idiocy; merely recognizing what is being said is sufficient for rejecting her assertion.

In the subsequent paragraph, Stanley returns to an authorial style she is much more familiar with: fiction.

That omission was not as tactical as it was telling: a rare sign of frustration, and payback, by a White House that prides itself on diplomacy and an even keel. Mr. Obama sought on Sunday to bring a little order and civility to a debate that grows ever more heated and shrill. But by boycotting, the White House seemed to be getting caught up in the kind of hostilities that increasingly divide Fox News Channel from its rivals.

Stanley doesn’t do it explicitly, but I can only assume that she thinks  that had Obama appeared on Fox, they would have treated him hostilely and brought up such subjects as ACORN, racism, and the NEA. This would have lead to Obama responding in a less than civil manner — though we’ve never seen the President do such a thing — and as a result, the “order” of the debate would have been diminished. But Stanley does an interesting thing: she claims the White House is guilty of exactly the same outcome by avoiding such a fight! Heads she wins, tails Obama loses!

It’s deeply disturbing that the editors of the Times have repeatedly chosen to rely on a reporter who has no knowledge or aptitude for political reporting to be a source of front-page content. There’s more to deal with in Stanley’s trite piece of speculative process reporting and I’m sure others will deal with it in greater deal. In the mean time, I think a Shorter summation of Stanley’s work is in order to save her from further Fisking on this blog.

Shorter Alessandra Stanley:

According to my friends at Fox News, Obama’s five show Sunday blitz was all about exacting revenge on “Dancing with the Stars.”

Update:

Just to get a better sense of the depth and breadth of the record of bad Alessandra Stanley pieces, both Gawker and NYTPicker have unique tags for documenting her errors and frequent corrections.

Repeating Debunked Smears

Senator Chris Dodd has taken a lot of heat over the last year plus about loans he received from Countrywide. After taking a lot of fire from the right over them, the Senate Ethics Committee investigated and cleared Dodd of any wrong doing. Dodd had the circumstances of the loan audited and has released hundreds of pages of documents. All point to the same thing: Dodd received no special treatment from Countrywide and there was absolutely no impropriety in connection to these loans.

Unfortunately Michael Moore doesn’t seem to follow the news and, as a result, has apparently attacked Dodd for the loans in his new documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story.” He’s even gone so far as to claim having “exclusive” information from an insider, Robert Feinberg, who fingers Dodd.  Sadly, Moore didn’t do his homework and the guy who he touts as providing real dirt on Dodd’s loans has already been debunked by David Fiderer of Huffington Post (here and here).

CTBlogger at My Left Nutmeg has a pretty comprehensive roundup of how, in the end, the charges against Dodd were assessed by the CT press and Senate Ethics Committee.  He points out:

Now, given the fact that movies take a long time to shoot, edit, print, and distribute, it could make sense to assume that Moore didn’t have access to this:

The Senator and his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, negotiated interest rates and terms widely available in the marketplace when they refinanced the two homes. That’s not special treatment.– Hartford Courant Editorial, July 31, 2009

Or this:

… [T]he ethics panel acknowledged that Mr. Dodd didn’t ask for preferential treatment or even get the best deal Countrywide had to offer.
…
The committee’s finding … should restore constituents’ faith as well. – Hartford Courant Editorial, August 9, 2009

Or this:

… [A]fter 18,000 pages of documents and a yearlong investigation, the Ethics committee is saying these “sweetheart” loans weren’t even all that sweet. – Politico, August 7, 2009

I could go on and on but I think you get the point.

I don’t know why Moore bought the bunk Feinberg is selling, but it’s a shame that he did. I like Moore’s work and think he’s been an important advocate for liberal issues over the last decade. But this is pretty absurd stuff, which has the potential of undercutting Dodd’s support among liberals in Connecticut and costing Democrats a Senate seat.  I have no clue how costing Dodd his job for something that he has been cleared of any impropriety of is helpful to Michael Moore’s goals. My guess is it isn’t at all and Moore just doesn’t understand the situation he’s wading into nor does he know how weak his sourcing is.

It’s just a shame that after Dodd was finally cleared by the Senate, the CT press, and the DC press, Moore has come out a movie that repeats charges that are factually untrue and politically damaging to one of the Senate’s best legislators. I haven’t seen Moore’s film yet and this aspect of it makes me much less likely to, but I have to imagine that some of Moore’s complaints against capitalism in the US are the sorts of things addressed by Dodd’s recent legislation on and regulation of credit card companies, student loans, debit card overdraft fees, and housing. That is, Moore’s charges are quixotic and counterproductive and, from what I can tell, he owes both Senator Chris Dodd and the viewers of his film an apology and a correction.

Fundamentally Confused

Over at Talking Points Memo, David Kurtz quotes a reader’s email on the outrage espoused by former Bush administration assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey at President Obama’s economic policies, comparing them to the fascist economic policies of Hitler and Peron. The reader’s email concludes:

I teach Latin American studies and have a pretty deep knowledge of right wing and left wing economic populists and I can tell you that were Ms. Ellen Sauerbrey my student that comment of hers would earn her an solid F. Not just because of her mistakes about Peron, or her utterly dangerous misunderstanding of Hitler, but for her obtuseness in confusing being a minority party with being under tyrannical oppression. [Emphasis added]

It’s that last part that is key. One of the dominant threads in the extreme Right’s narrative of the Obama administration is that he is creating a tyrannical, fascist government. That includes the following sub-narratives: he is destroying the Constitution; he is stealing the country from “us”; he is establishing a Nazi youth corps; he is marshaling an armed civilian army; and, of course, he is not legitimately President. Naturally none of these claims have any basis in reality, which begs the question, what the hell are the tea baggers on about?

Those that are most able to marshal coherent thought from the right surely recognize that this sort of outrage has utility in blocking President Obama’s agenda. But the answer that most comes to mind for the general tea bagger set, which it seems Sauerbrey is a part of,  is that they are confusing the consequences that stem from losing a democratic election with oppression. Elections have consequences. When the nation overwhelmingly elects a Democratic president with massive Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, it is only natural that these Democratic elected officials will produce some combination of liberal and centrist policies that you would not have seen under a Republican administration (see: everything the Bush administration did).

As I’ve said before, the inability of the tea baggers to accept President Obama likely stems in good measure from underlying racism and a fear of the Other. But it is nonetheless driven by a lack of acceptance of the 2008 election results. The result is a fundamental confusion of what it means to be the minority party, to be subject to the policy aspirations of the majority, in a democratic system of government. It’s not tyrannical oppression, it’s what happens when you have bad ideas that the rest of the country does not like nor wish to see enacted.

Just Awful

There’s really no other way to describe Time Magazine’s cover story on Glenn Beck than just awful. The writing itself is horrendous, as is the quality of the reporting. For example of the former, see this paragraph:

Our hot summer of political combat is turning toward an autumn of showdowns over some of the biggest public-policy initiatives in decades. The creamy notions of postpartisan cooperation — poured abundantly over Obama’s presidential campaign a year ago — have curdled into suspicion and feelings of helplessness. Trust is a toxic asset, sitting valueless on the national books. Good faith is trading at pennies on the dollar. The old American mind-set that Richard Hofstadter famously called “the paranoid style” — the sense that Masons or the railroads or the Pope or the guys in black helicopters are in league to destroy the country — is aflame again, fanned from both right and left. Between the liberal fantasies about Brownshirts at town halls and the conservative concoctions of brainwashed children goose-stepping to school, you’d think the Palm in Washington had been replaced with a Munich beer hall.

“The creamy notions of postpartisan cooperation…” Good God, are you kidding me? Ana Marie Cox of Time’s Swampland blog tweets:

I respect the right of Time’s copy editors to unionize but this wildcat strike (only explanation for the Beck story) is poorly timed.

Indeed, that would be a charitable explanation for this drivel – the editors are on strike.

But throughout the piece, written by David Von Drehle, there is a supreme unwillingness to challenge Glenn Beck, teabag conspiracy theories, or basic lies told in the Beck narrative. Jay Rosen points out this begins in the first paragraph, as Von Drehle does a “he said, she said, who can know?” citation of the crowds of the 9/12 protest in DC.  While Von Drehle presents Beck as a cultural curiosity who’s getting rich while harnessing outrage that he is fueling, there is no accountability for the Beck’s fundamentally dangerous line of work. There is no adjudication of, to use the paragraph quoted above, the fact that while there are teabaggers shouting so loud congressional town hall discussions are being shut down and some of those teabaggers are bringing fire arms to town halls, there is no plan to create a civilian military corps subservient to Obama. That is, as is so often the case with Beltway journalism, one side makes a valid claim, the other makes shit up, and Von Drehle is helpless to say who is right.

Time should be embarrassed publishing this crap, but my guess is they’ll take the extra sales from Beck sycophants and call it a day.

What Carter Said

It looks like former president Jimmy Carter has been reading Atrios:

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African American,” Carter told NBC in an interview. “I live in the South, and I’ve seen the South come a long way, and I’ve seen the rest of the country that shared the South’s attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans”

Continued Carter: “And that racism inclination still exists. . . . It’s an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply.”

The irony of Duncan Black’s writing style on the critiques, questions, and attacks on Obama lies in the confrontation of something that America is generally not comfortable to confront. It surely was a great triumph and step forward in race relations that we elected an African-American president last fall. But it was not the end of racism. It was not the end racial tension. It did not mark the end of hate.

Amidst everything surrounding Joe Wilson’s screetch against Obama, yesterday right wing blogs and talk shows were up in arms that somewhere in America, a fight had taken place on a school bus and a white child was beaten by a black child. That, somehow, became presumed to be racially based and President Obama’s fault. Brad at Sadly, No! takes apart an anecdote that underscores the fundamental racism driving the right’s* critique of Obama. Responding to Dan Riehl’s account of being on the same DC Metro car as a number of African-American youths following the 9/12 rally, Brad writes:

Again, let’s consider what Riehl has just told us. He prefaced his own 9/12 story by referring to it as “dangerous times.” But what did these “dangerous times” consist of? That’s right — a couple of black kids talking smack in the back of a subway car!

Not every Republican criticizing Obama is being driven out by racism. But it’s clear that a significant, vocal, and visible contingent of the American right is fueled by racist fears. These fears lead teabaggers to denounce Obama as simultaneously a Nazi, communist, fascist, socialist, Muslim Kenyan. The commonality these conflicting concepts all have is that they cast Obama as a dangerous Other.

What happens next is to be seen. But I can’t imagine any sober observe will look at this situation where a significant portion of the gun-toting right believes the President is an un-American Other who is out to destroy the country and think it is not perilously dangerous. There is a serious onus on Republican leadership and media figures to beat back the racism they are currently promoting with abandon, before something awful happens.

*At least the tea party segment of the right and those in the media and elected office who support them.

Gutierrez Rips Admin on Immigrants’ Health Care

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) was the first Latino Congressman to endorse President Obama in his  campaign. Now that the administration is looking amenable to assuaging the concerns of Joe “You Lie!” Wilson regarding access to health insurance for immigrants, Obama is at risk of losing support from Hispanic members of Congress. Gutierrez is pushing back hard against Obama and the fundamental misplacement of priorities when it comes to how available insurance will be for immigrants in any reform plan.

“What is the administration’s answer?” asked Gutierrez. “To give him exactly what he said from this hatred. Because now, the administration has told us that if we’re going to have reform of our health care system … all those that go to the private sector in order to get their health care, that they will verify them. They will verify Social Security; they will verify their status in the United States of America.”

“So, and remember, we’re not talking about government health care, we’re talking about everybody is going to be required to get health care insurance,” said Gutierrez. “And so as we go to this big store, right, where everybody is required. And this exchange, the health care exchange, where if you don’t have health care you are required to go purchase it. When you go and attempt to purchase it, what does the administration say? The administration says, ‘You will have to prove that you are legally in the United States and have a Social Security number and a right to that.'”

Yesterday Matt Yglesias had an important post that highlighted how wrong it is from a policy standpoint to have an immigration status check as part of the delivery of health care and health insurance. In short, because most immigrants tend to be younger members of the work force, they are healthier and thus require less care. As a result, their participation in the pool of the insured lowers the risk and thus lowers the cost of health insurance for everyone. In short, excluding immigrants from the health insurance exchange or barring the ability of undocumented immigrants to buy insurance at all is bad policy driven by spite and xenophobia, not any actual grounding in health care economics. It makes reform more expensive and puts a much greater risk on the system by driving people to use expensive emergency room care as their primary doctor. It’s reckless, stupid, and inhumane…and both the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress need to change their course.

Update:

I now see that the New York Times Prescription blog is reporting that Baucus, Conrad, and the White House all agree that undocumented immigrants should not be allowed to buy health insurance through the insurance exchange.  All presume that there will be some other way for them to buy insurance, but it’s not clear what would exist outside of the exchange.