Ed Morrissey today devotes a Hot Air blog entry to an issue I almost felt driven to address early this morning: the manner in which the mainstream media (including The Wall Street Journal) have failed to make important distinctions between funding requests and the corrupt earmarking system members of Congress use to do each other and key constituents favors.
The level of federal spending requests have dropped under Palin’s administration both years, but quite obviously she still puts in requests for Congressional cash. The question that the WSJ never really answers is how those requests come to Congress. If they come in earmark form, then the McCain campaign has some explaining to do about its rhetoric the past three weeks. If not, then this is a non-story, and in fact shows Palin weaning Alaska off of Washington’s largesse.
Earmarks are not equivalent to all federal spending, as McCain himself notes. If these requests did not come in earmark form, then Congress has the opportunity to vote directly on spending the money in Alaska based on the legitimacy of the projects. Earmarks, on the other hand, get slipped into bills without such Congressional scrutiny and are almost impossible to remove regardless of the uselessness of the project.
Comparing Obama's earmarks to Palin's without making any distinction between the type of earmark conveys a very misleading impression. Obama spent his first two years in the Senate wallowing in the existing trough of secret earmarks. That is why Obama's earmarks were discovered through his own admission rather than via media exposure as in the case of Alaska's requests for federal funding.
Apparently the British Broadcasting Corporation is also confused!
The question is - are Iranian weapons only being brought across the border by smugglers for profit or are elements of the Iranian state also donating arms?
The Taleban commander and other sources in the south told me both routes were operating.
The British ambassador in Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, made the same allegation.
A St. Petersburg Times editorial this week by Adam C. Smith actually manages to provide a good perspective on the role of race in the upcoming presidential election.
The person who composed the headline ("Polls can mask racism, but ballots won't")appears to be the kind of idiot who doesn't bother to match the headline to the content, unfortunately. The headline suggests what the editorial does not.
"The fact that the race has been much tighter than that, even before the conventions and vice presidential picks, suggests that there's some kind of drag on the Obama candidacy," he said. "My suspicion is that it has to do with his race."
Or it could be Obama's lack of experience. Or that he's perceived as aloof or too liberal. Or that Republican John McCain, a national figure and respected war hero, has been largely immune from the taint on his party. No one can know with certainty how much race matters and probably no one ever will.
Smith notes that racism almost certainly plays a role in the election since some (not necessarily just whites) simply will not vote for a black. But that tendency may be wholly offset in the election by the racism of those (not necessarily just blacks) who will vote for Obama simply because he is black.
Good work by Smith. And may the racists perfectly cancel one another out so that the election is decided by those who consider the issues irrespective of the race of the candidates.
Robyn "Blumñata" Blumner, editorial columnist for The St. Petersburg Times (often called The SlantPetersburg Lies by a local radio personality) took this week's column to make herself a living example of her past exhortation that Democrats attack Republicans in order to get their own elected.
It doesn't seem to matter what the facts are or how directly they contradict the candidates' claims, the McCain-Palin campaign is sticking with its fantasy version.
You can't reverse the facts opposite the claims much better than Barack Obama's reversal on campaign finance reform. For some reason the Democrats get a pass on that one from Blumñata. Regardless of team Obama's failings, however, legitimate examples of falsehoods by the McCain campaign should interest citizens of good conscience.
Of course, the most obvious example is the leviathan pork-barrel $223-million bridge to nowhere that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin claims to have opposed. She has put this at the top of her resume for the job of Vice Maverick-in-Chief.
It doesn't seem to matter, as has now been reported endlessly, that when Palin ran for governor she endorsed the bridge project that would have connected a tiny island with few residents to the mainland city of Ketchikan. She only abandoned it when the project became politically radioactive. Then, as governor, Palin kept the hundreds of millions in taxpayer money, redirecting the cash for other transportation projects.
It reflects no inconsistency for Palin to favor infrastructure to link Ketchikan to Gravina Island and its airport and ultimately kill the earmark version of the project, and Palin did voice opposition to the scope of the proposed solution from an early point in her service as governor. Palin did oppose the project, and as a result her statement is true. The lie here is from Blumner for portraying the truth as a lie. See my more detailed analysis of the bridge project and the GOP claims about it here.
We also know that Palin is queen of winning federal earmarks. As mayor of Wasilla, she hired a private lobbyist to help bring in $27-million in earmarks to her town of 7,000. As governor, she has made the largest per-capita federal earmark request in the nation, totalling nearly $750-million.
So when the McCain-Palin campaign runs on an end-to-earmarks message and seeks to tar Barack Obama with his earmark requests that are modest by comparison, it is once again resorting to those Lying Eyes.
It does not reflect any distortion of the truth by McCain/Palin if Palin sought earmarks while mayor of Wasilla or governor of Alaska unless the campaign portrays it otherwise. Somehow Blumner forgets to include any such thing in her column. Did her editor delete that paragraph?
But speaking of lying, note how easily Blumñata downplays Obama's earmarks as "modest by comparison." Blumnata apparently trusts the reader to think in terms of per capita spending, because Obama requested $740 million. That amount is hardly "modest" compared to $750 million over the same span of time. Could that be why Blumñata neglected to reveal the price tag on Obama's earmarks? More importantly, Obama's requests came from within the corrupt congressional system whereas Palin's came from outside.
Senator Barack Obama on Thursday released a list of $740 million in earmarked spending requests that he had made over the last three years, and his campaign challenged Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to do the same.
The list included $1 million for a hospital where Mr. Obama’s wife works, money for several projects linked to campaign donors and support for more than 200 towns, civic institutions and universities in Illinois. (The New York Times)
We're halfway through the column and so far Blumñata has nothing to back up her thesis.
Now let's talk about taxes. The campaign of John McCain has put out a series of scary campaign ads about Obama's tax plan. Newsweek has dubbed them a "pattern of deceit."
We now have a nugget of truth. Newsweek did make that claim about the McCain ads, and in fact the claim stemmed from the normally dependable Annenberg fact checkers (FactCheck.org). Newsweek accords them space from time to time. But is it an accurate claim? Popular analysis of the tax plans offered by the candidates tends to omit the trickle-down effects of higher corporate tax rates on the middle-income earners that Obama claims will get larger tax breaks under his tax plan. Further complicating the analysis, Obama has recently hedged on his intention to raise taxes on high income earners, acknowledging that the move would hurt the economy at an inopportune time. In addition, comparison of the tax plans tends to ignore Obama's spending proposals. Regardless of whether McCain's tax plan results in a larger deficit, Obama more than makes up for it with his proposed spending ($6.9 billion proposed by McCain, $287 billion by Obama, according to the National Taxpayers Union).
Apparently Blumñata used the same faulty reasoning that came from FactCheck.org, which analyzed a McCain ad suggesting "years of deficits" following Obama's prescription solely in terms of tax policy. But the ad copy printed along with the analysis plainly deals with Obama's spending proposals:
Crowd: Obama, Obama… Announcer: Take away the crowds, the chants. All that's left are costly words. Barack Obama and out of touch congressional leaders have expensive plans. Billions in government spending, years of deficits, no balanced budgets, and painful tax increases on working American families. They're ready to tax, ready to spend, but not ready to lead. (red emphasis added)
One day even Democrats (perhaps even Blumñata herself) will have to acknowledge that budgetary spending affects the deficit.
She has no more supposed examples of "Lying Eyes" from McCain. What she offered was bogus.
Where is the reporting on Barack Obama that corresponds to the critical media attention showered on Sarah Palin? Though acknowledged as a remarkably inexperienced presidential candidate, one sees little evidence that Obama's history has received the type of scrutiny Palin's has received. Details about Obama's Rezko assisted home acquisition, his cut-throat entry into politics and his associations with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn simply haven't been pushed akin to the tales spun around the Alaska governor.
What explains it?
I believe three factors have resulted in the unprecedented political tilt of the would-be objective news media, with a fourth for honorable mention.
Political bias Don't bother arguing. Surveys consistently show that journalists have a leftward political tilt over the past two to three decades.
Democratic failure in the presidential elections This one certainly isn't my idea, though I don't recall whom to credit; I think Rush Limbaugh has at least talked about it. The press blames itself for allowing Gore and Kerry to lose. How could so many vote for Republicans? They must be crazy! Educate them, we will! Scuttle the Swift-boaters! Lead them just a little bit in the news with a touch (poke, shove, chokehold) of news analysis.
Fear The McCain/Palin ticket is ahead in the polls????? OMG! We have to do something!
Brought together at this juncture in time, these three factors put immense pressure on the media. The instances of biased reporting and abandonment of the objective model increase beyond the norm (remains to be seen by how much) because of the sense of desperation.
People are noticing the slant. One piece of evidence comes from my site statistics. The search terms "Politifact" and "biased" and the like are drawing an increasing trickle of visitors to this blog. I started critiquing some of PolitiFact's more ridiculous entries months ago when I failed to notice anybody else challenging their work.
As for the attacks on Palin, I have yet to see anything significant beyond what was obvious from the start: Palin is inexperienced. But since she's about as experienced as Obama, the rest of this media circus makes no sense minus the common media aim to set a presidential crown on Obama.
Oh, the fourth factor? Fox News. Fox unashamedly adapted the European model of journalism (that is, no pretense of objectivity) in favor of an ideological brand of news tailored to carve out an audience. The result? Great ratings, and an overwhelmingly jealous mainstream media where journalists probably feel a bit like they have to introduce just a little bit of bias simply as an antidote for Fox.
How they must cringe when they notice survey data that indicate that most people expect them to offer news coverage slanted toward Obama.
*** Oct 7, 2008: Corrected spelling of Bernadine Dohrn's last name
While I try to maintain the belief that mainstream journalists do not intentionally allow their political bias to direct their reporting, the recent behavior of the press threatens to sweep it away.
The latest?
Editor & Publisher will summarize, under the headline: "Media Confirms: Palin Exaggerated Trip to Iraq:"
The Boston Globe covered another today. It seems that Sarah Palin's visit to Iraq in 2007 consisted not of a trip inside a "battle zone" in Iraq, as claimed, but "a brief stop at a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait, the vice presidential candidate's campaign said yesterday, in the second official revision of her only trip outside North America," the Globe reports.
I've been trying to find the original exaggeration. The original statement appears to come from a campaign aide. The task is made more difficult by a "hole" in the reporting. The reporting contains references to Palin's exaggeration and her statements about a trip to Iraq--but without any quotation and no reference to time or place.
Even if the statement exists somewhere, the reporters shame themselves by failing to report it.
This the the closest so far:
Following her selection last month as John McCain's running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a "military outpost" inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin's foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone. (The Boston Globe)
From what I can tell, the campaign has not made an issue of a Palin trip to Iraq. The issue apparently came up while reporters sought the extent of Palin's travels and the aides provided erroneous details. The press responds with stories that imply that Palin lied. The Obama campaign takes its cue from the press and makes outright assertions (according to the press, anyway!):
WASHINGTON -The question of whether Sarah Palin has ever been to Iraq pushed Obama aides Saturday to accuse the McCain campaign of outright lies, distortions and distractions to the American people. (AP)
If the Obama campaign offers no examples of the McCain campaign playing (in even some minor way) the importance of a past trip to Iraq by Palin, then I'm inclined to think the Obama campaign is the one engaged in distraction.
As for the mainstream press ... just shameful. Really shameful.
I've mentioned at least once in earlier posts my participation at the Center For Inquiry's discussion forum. I've had quite a blast with a variety of discussions including arguments over the existence of god/God, the nature of science and politics.
For the most part (if my perception is accurate) I'm tolerated reasonably well over there for a person who holds an entire list of disagreements with the foundations of the whole enterprise. It might be said that I have little in common ideologically with most of the members unless we grant a common interest in getting closer to the truth through argumentation.
Some folks aren't much for hearing the other side, however. Here's how one fellow put it:
I (...) have had Bryan on ignore for a long time. I will take this opportunity to urge the administrator, et. al., to revoke Bryan’s privileges. His arguments are consistently disingenuous, and his presence detracts from this forum.
If the gentle reader wonders how the author could judge that my arguments are "consistently disingenuous" while also having me on ignore for a long time, rest assured you're not alone. Indeed, the manner in which the message performs its own reductio ad absurdum makes it almost elegant in an ironic sort of way.
The moderators could certainly ban me at any time, and it's also true that moderators have warned me about the content of my posts (a tale for a later time, perhaps) albeit with a dubious basis for doing so. Thus, I'll be interested to see if political tensions of various origins do result in banning.
As usual, I'll try to stay so far inside the posted rules that the moderators will effectively have to come up with a new rule in order to ban me based on the rules.
The CFI Forum is open to everyone willing to abide by the Forum’s rules. We welcome reasoned discussion, debate and disagreement, so long as this is done in an objective spirit of inquiry and does not become disruptive as described below in the sections on problem threads, posts and members. (read more rules)
Whoops! I'm on thin ice!
The decision to allow any member to post is entirely at the discretion of Forum Moderators, in their capacity as responsible stewards of Forum functioning.
The rule apparently renders nonsensical the statement that the CFI forum is open to everyone willing to abide by the rules, of course. I think they could dispense with that rule with a little rewrite of the former paragraph: The CFI Forum is not necessarily open to everyone willing to abide by the Forum's rules. We reserve the right to permit reasoned discussion, debate and disagreement, at our own discretion.
Simple, and it builds no potentially false expectations of adherence to non-subjective principle. CFI has my permission to adopt the rewrite into an updated version of their rules without attribution.
The "lipstick on a pig" thing has received ample print treatment, but with PolitiFact weighing in you get this post simply as a counterbalance.
While I think it's inarguable that Barack Obama's primary intent was to disparage McCain for sporting the change/reform mantle, PolitiFact's Angie Drobnic Holan takes it a step further than that and ends up on thin ice.
The background is on the mark:
“I love those hockey moms. You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”
The line drew cheerful applause and has echoed ever since, which seems to explain how Sen. Barack Obama found himself in the middle of an uproar when he uttered a time-worn phrase to denigrate Sen. John McCain’s proclaimed agenda for “change” in Washington.
This is a key point. Palin's pit bull/lipstick remark "has echoed ever since" and cannot be unknown to Democrats including Barack Obama.
"John McCain says he's about change, too," Obama said. "And so I guess his whole angle is, 'Watch out, George Bush! Except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics, we're really going to shake things up in Washington.'"
"That's not change," Obama said. "That's just calling something the same thing something different. But you know, you can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing."
Gasp! He just said lipstick! Did he just call Sarah Palin a pig??!!!
That’s the charge.
Yes, that's the charge. It is a plausible charge on its face given that Palin's line about lipstick "has resonated ever since," and it seems that the facetious "Gasp!" is intended to mock as reactionary those who make the connection.
But throughout the PolitiFact analysis, the reaction of Obama's audience is completely overlooked. Watch the video.
Obama delivers a somewhat unusual version of the "lipstick on a pig" metaphor. He states "You can put lipstick on a pig" and then pauses. The audience keys in to his statement and starts to react, then Obama finishes the line.
The audience reaction, judging from the sound and appearance, took cues from the fact that Palin's line about lipstick and pit bulls "has resonated ever since." Writer/researcher Angie Drobnic Holan tunes out that resonation for purposes of her analysis.
The ad has two big problems, as does the complaint of former Gov. Swift. First, in the full text of the remarks it’s clear that Obama isn’t talking about Sarah Palin. He’s talking about McCain’s argument that he represents change.
Good-bye "has resonated ever since."
It's fair to grant that Obama clearly had policy in mind as the primary object of his attack. It is naive, however, to think that Obama could not have had Palin in mind as a secondary target of the remark, given "has resonated ever since." We would have to believe that Obama would not have any inkling that using the "lipstick on a pig" line would not recall Palin's line from her RNC speech. Is Barack Obama a stupid man?
Second, “putting lipstick on a pig” is a popular put-down, especially among politicians. It generally means taking a bad or unattractive idea and trying to dress it up.
That's certainly true, but it does nothing to establish that Obama did not deliberately refer to Palin as a subtext. It serves as a red herring in terms of this issue. And red herrings constitute much of the remainder of her analysis.
We weren’t able to pin down the origins of this folksy expression, but we found tons of instances of people using it.
Save it. It's not relevant where nobody made a comment regarding lipstick that "resonated ever since." Regardless, Drobnic Holan regales us with several irrelevant examples.
After that she makes the Grand Pronouncement on behalf of PolitiFact:
It is simply impossible to view the complete remarks by Obama and conclude that he’s making a veiled and unsavory reference to Palin.
I suggest that dozens in Obama's audience would aver otherwise if compelled to testify under oath.
Her name never is used in the preceding sentence.
No need. "(R)esonated ever since." Remember?
We think it’s very clear that Obama was saying McCain’s effort to call himself the “candidate of change” is like putting lipstick on a pig, trying to dress up a bad idea to look better. Agree or disagree with Obama’s point, but his remark wasn’t the smear that McCain’s people have tried to make it.
The judgment appears to appeal to a false dilemma. If Obama is referring to McCain's policies then he can't be referring also to Palin. Angie Drobnic Holan provides nothing other than that implied fallacy in favor of the conclusion.
Chalk up another grand flub for the folks at PolitiFact.
***
As for my own judgment of Obama's intent, I now lean toward the view that Obama did intend for his audience to pick up on a reference to Palin. The evidence is simple: Palin's pit-bull line "has resonated ever since." Obama is taking a beating in the polls in the wake of Palinmania. Obama made an unusual pause in his delivery of a oft-used line. Obama's audience appeared to pick up on the line as a reference to Palin. Taking those things together, it is difficult to see how anyone could argue that Obama could not have been referring to Palin.
There will never be any definitive proof that Obama intended to catch Palin with the blast, however, unless he just comes out and admits it.
Update:
Since YouTube removed the originally embedded video, I've added a different embed.
It's also worth adding that Obama's speech doesn't just talk about "lipstick on a pig." It also trots out the fish wrapped in newspaper line. But not just any fish. Obama refers to an "old" fish that will stink after eight years. Now ask yourself: Is it important to say that the fish is old if we're looking at whether it will stink in eight years? The first was very probably an intentional veiled reference to Sarach Palin. The second was very probably an intentional veiled reference to John McCain.
Yes, the mainstream media are dominated by ideological leftists top to bottom. But I've always thought them eager to report fairly, on balance.
Yes, we have many indications that the mainstream press sustains a preference for Barack Obama in the upcoming election.
But the reporting on Sarah Palin is so far over the top as to virtually defy belief. The week's news provides some absolutely stunning examples of reporter ineptitude. I pointed out one where Newsweek reported a judge's order barring Palin from disparaging her sister's ex-husband in front of the couple's children as though the judge's order applied as well to the ex's supervisors.
Power Line and others point to Charlie Gibson's cluelessness in asking Governor Palin about a portion of one of her public prayers that he took out of context.
In the interview with Sarah Palin broadcast on ABC last night, Charles Gibson tried to trip her up in the following exchange:
GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, “Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.” Are we fighting a holy war?
PALIN: You know, I don’t know if that was my exact quote.
“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”
To borrow a Lincolnian formulation in honor of the Lincolnian formulation of Palin's prayer: the difference between what Palin actually said and what Gibson quoted her as saying is akin to the difference between a horse chestnut and a chestnut horse.
As part of its campaign to discredit Governor Sarah Palin, the Washington Post carries a front page article this morning by Anne Kornblut that headlines, falsely: "Palin Links Iraq to Sept. 11 In Talk to Troops in Alaska." The article begins:
Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."
The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself.
News flash to Ms. Kornblut: the Alaska National Guard isn't going to Iraq to fight "the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein."
This type of shocking ineptitude underscores the problem with the ideologically tilted press: They can't report objectively any longer because they don't have an effective check on their own bias. These examples featuring Palin may only be the tip of the iceberg.
As I have opined in the past, the press routinely recycles its own misconceptions as factual background information for the (ahem) benefit of its readers.
