NQ First Responders - Sadly overlooked articles
By LisaB on August 1, 2009 at 5:45 PM in Current Affairs
This round-up includes a real “teachable moment” for the media with its double standard towards two famous black women that differs solely because of their politics, the aristocratic scolds who are the most upset about the blue-collar Sgt. Crowley’s treatment of Henry Louis Gates, and the “group think” that explains the media’s sudden preoccupation with the birther movement.
1) While the US is supposed to be experiencing a “teachable moment” about race, realclearpolitics has a brief piece that shows how subjective such “moments” are. Back in the Bush era, it was OK to satirize Condoleezza Rice in unflattering ways, including a major newspaper cartoonist labeling her a “house n—-r.” But the same is not true for Mechelle. You probably figured that out already.
It’s a short piece, without analysis, but the illustrations are, well, illustrative.
2) Also at realclearpolitics is a piece about how classism is playing out in our national discussions of race and environment. You’ll probably be surprised to know the author is calling out people for the old “do as I say, not as I do” stand on both issues.
The rest of us would find these environmental scolds [Gore and Friedman] more convincing if they chose to live modestly in average tract homes. That way they could limit their energy consumption, and provide living proof to us of how smaller is better for an endangered planet earth.
Elite critics in the business of racial grievance offer the same contradictions.
Recently, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates got into a spat with a white policeman who arrested him in his own home for disorderly conduct.Gates immediately cried racism. He argued that his own plight was emblematic of the burdens that the black underclass endures daily from a racist white America.
——–Indeed, citing racial grievance at times proves a valuable asset for wealthy celebrities. Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson posed as victims of various racial oppressions when they found themselves in their own self-created legal problems. Race-baiter Rev. Jeremiah Wright simply retreats back to his three-story mansion on a golf course in between his day job of denouncing whites as exploiters.
Then we have other aristocrats on the barricades railing about the economic inequality of America. Former Sen. John Edwards preached about “two Americas,” one poor and abandoned, one wealthy and connected. Edwards should know since he built himself a multimillion-dollar gargantuan mansion in which he might better contemplate upon the underprivileged outside his compound.
Sen. Chris Dodd sermonizes about corporate greed and credit card companies’ near extortion. But Dodd managed to squeeze out of the corporate world a low-interest loan, a sweetheart deal for a vacation home in Ireland, and thousands in campaign donations.
Former Sen. and Cabinet nominee Tom Daschle was a big proponent of hiking taxes to nationalize our health care system. The problem, however, was that the populist Daschle both hated paying taxes and loved limousines - and so he avoided the former but welcomed the latter.
In the old days, critics for the most part of what we called the “system” were at least blue-collar workers, underpaid teachers or grassroots politicians whose rather modest lives matched their angry populist rhetoric. Now the most vehement critics of America’s purported sins are among the upper classes. And their parlor game has confused Americans about why they are being called polluters, racists and exploiters by those who have fared the best in America.
——-
Here’s a little advice for all of America’s aristocratic critics: a little less hypocrisy, a little more appreciation of your good lives - and then maybe the rest of us will listen to you a little more.
I think this last sentence is exactly why so many AA commentary, including DesireG on CNN’s iReport and mentioned in a post here at NQ, didn’t buy Gates’ claim of racist treatment.
3) Why are so many media outlets piling on the whole “birther” story now? Personally, I’m aware of the so-called “birthers” who question Obama’s legitimacy as a US citizen, but I’ve not paid it much attention.
But the media has recently gone on a feeding frenzy against “birthers.” Why? Or, more accurately, why now? These folks have been around for a while. Well, I guess it could be useful to divert attention from the lackluster performance of Obama’s health care initiatives, but that doesn’t really fit to me.
David Kuhn at realclearpolitics has an idea. He says it’s probably “group-think” by the press. Of course, the press would vehemently deny they’re capable of group-think, but that’s another story.
Am I the only one who finds it odd that the media is paying exponentially more attention to the “birther” issue today than during the campaign? There was reason to ignore conspiracy theories during the campaign. There were a great deal of lies flying around about Barack Obama in 2007 and 2008 (there were a few flying around about John McCain and Sarah Palin as well).
————-
Both sides have their ideological fringe that will believe their passions despite the facts. The mainstream media did not, to the same degree, discuss the conspiracy theorists that believed Bush and Cheney were behind the 9/11 attacks, in order justify an invasion for oil, in the context of liberals or Democrats.
Kuhn doesn’t mention the horrible “trig-truthers” out there (Andrew Sullivan) who continue to question whether Trig Palin is Sarah Palin’s son or not. Sullivan wants pictures or video of the event, apparently. But no matter. Kuhn says this type of piling on is evidence of bias.
Conservatives often think of the liberal bias in the media in a top-down sense. But most of the time there isn’t some big man calling down to reporters and broadcasters and telling them to do this or that story to nail conservatives (though that may happen on occasion). Instead, what happens could be more accurately described as a bottom up bias created by groupthink. Most reporters are cut from the same cloth–they live in cities or urbane inner-suburbs, are motivated by the same ideals, and like most professors most are not terribly well paid but are very well educated–and this can sometimes produce a collective bias. The outsized “birther” coverage feels like a case of that bias.
That seems about right to me. But note that Kuhn says reporters are well-educated. Sounds like more class bias as well. When those who “deliver” the news and increasingly create and comment on it as well, consider themselves more educated than the rest of us, it’s a recipe for condescension and failure.
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Excellent Job lisa
I think the members of the press are lazy. They are indeed an isolated group, swimming around in the same petri dish.
The press loves a story that makes blue collar Americans look like ignorant bigots. I don’t think the colony in the petri dish realizes where this story will lead.
Great post!
Why is it that I find the truly “moderate” thinkers in NoQ–neither fanatically obsessed with killing universal healthcare for the nation that’s #37 (one below Costa Rica!) nor fawning embarrassingly over an inept, ineffectual race-baiter-misogynist who was pushed forth by a sleeping, sexist media?????
Obama is being exposed daily for the “unqualified” “inexperienced” “and “lacking “judgment” neophyte that Hillary Clinton’s supporters knew he was from Day #1.
“Periodically, when Obamyopic supporters feel ‘down’, they start launching attacks against Hillary and Palin to boost their appeal”?
Now’s the time to give Barry the good ole fashioned “flip-off” he gave his opponent in N.C. that day after he was creamed by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and Hillary herself?!!!! This petulant, frivolous, narcissistic ignoramus should go back to Chicago to finish his COMMUNITY ORGANIZING ‘TEACHABLE MOMENT’! Enough already
I think the majority began hearing this “noise” regarding an original this, that or another thing some time ago. They didn’t quite know what it was about. The noise got louder and now Ma and Pa America wanted to know why this hasn’t been dealt with to eliminate the “noise” with no result. Now Ma and Pa America want to know what’s going on, who, why, what and where now that CNN is reported to have threatened Lou Dobbs if he didn’t drop the subject. Yeah CNN, like that’s the way to bury a story regardless of what it is.
I’m afraid that this will summate with either the right wing looking completely unhinged or there is something that the Obama handlers felt better in not revealing that will at some point have to be revealed. I read somewhere where its not that they don’t believe Obama was born in Hawaii but what is it on that COLB that seems is being suppressed is their question now. The BC that KOS put up, and that’s the last I’ve even checked, didn’t even fool my 98 year old grandmother. I don’t see this simply going away.
If reporters are “well educated” why do they act like lemmings following whatever theme Ozero and AxelRove want them to?
They are lazy. And they run around in cliques.
I am really surprised at many things that go totally un-noticed by the MSN, on person in particular and i am surprised even Larry Doyle never exposed it:
Who is Timothy Geithner, the Sec of Treasury that is sucking up more and more power while spending more and more of our tax dollars on SELECTIVE bailouts?
Well Tim is the son of Peter Geithner, and why is this important, simply for this reason:
While at the Ford Foundation, Stanley Ann Dunham worked with Peter Geithner, to develop the Foundation’s microfinance programs in Indonesia.
http://philanthropy.com/news/government/index.php?id=6453
BTW, the programs in Indonesia were total failures.
I think that there are three components to the Birth Certificate controversy taking hold.
1. There is a current case which did not automatically get thrown out because of lack of standing.
2. When the soldier refused to go to Iraq because of the argument that Obama cannot be his commander in chief, the army folded. This made the news and had to be explained which brought the controversy to the front, and
3. As Obama’s poll ratings fall — people, including the press, are more willing to consider facts that are not favorable to the president.
All of these make the general population more willing to ask the question — If he has nothing to hide, why is he putting so much time and effort into keeping his birth certificate secret?
My late father was a journalist, a newspaper editor during most of my childhood years. I will always remember the honor he felt to be a part of the fourth estate, the respect and sense of responsibility to the public that he felt was an integral part of his job. But what I remember most was his innate curiosity, his “nosy rosy” need to always search for more information, always dig a little harder than the next guy, always search for solutions or answers that others could not or would not find.
I do not see that wondrous curiosity anywhere among our current crop of “journalists”. Wouldn’t you think that just one of them would aspire to gather all the BC information available, sift through it to determine its veracity, and then publish the story that might put an end to all of this? Publish a copy of a Hawaiian BC from the year Obama was born, and ask very simply to be provided a copy of same from Obama. So simple, almost a gimme, but no one seems the least bit interested, much less personally curious, as to why this issue will not die. Much easier to label anyone with interest in this subject as a “birther” and go report on the price of Michelle’s latest pair of new shoes. An American tragedy.
Journalists? Lately, where do you find any?
The classism in America has skyrocketed since Obama’s election. From “bitter small town folks” to “dunkin donuts voters” to trailer trash comments about Sarah Palin. There’s no doubt in my mind that the whole Prof Gates’ fuss was about enforcing elite black male privilege. If it had anything to do with concern over racism and police brutality, they would be focused on 15 yr old Malika who was beaten by the Seattle cops. Obama said nothing, except he went and promoted the police chief to drug czar.
One thing I really appreciated about Bill Clinton is that he never spoke down to people. He always remembered to make people feel good about themselves when he was speaking. I worry about what Obama is creating because there is a real class war brewing. People get tired of being put down. Obama’s comment about stupid cops resonated across this country. Add that to his comments about his typical white grandma, another blue collar worker, and eventually he’s going to hit the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Someday people are going to realize, “hey he’s talking about me!” People remember how you made them feel and they will toss you right out of office.
I wish this were true. But his bitter voter comments went viral last April– it was all over the news. While he did lose the PA primary — he won the state in the general and he still won votes. Even though Hillary won more in the last half of the contests. Why would people not see that is exactly who he is — an elitist who looks down on people. Everybody must have been in a real forgiving mood to still vote for this man.
However, now that he is President, people are no longer voting on promises, they can vote their pocketbook, so that coupled with another of these types of remarks may help as you say. I’m just not sure how much.
Forgive me for being somewhat disillusioned.
Good comment. It’s getting really crowded under this bus. When those of us under the bus outnumber those riding it–and we will some day–you will hear the cry for Obama’s information amplify fourfold.
I think that day is coming soon.
I think the real clue in the Gates case, is that NONE of the “journalists” are writing about Sgt. Lashley being called an Uncle Tom by the Black radio pundits.
It’s a non-story, because it doesn’t fit their narrative.
The plantation won’t allow that discussion.
THERE is the “teachable moment,” Mr. President.