by matttbastard
One bone of contention, Antonia: saying that anything spawned by the gliberati who rule USian cable NOOZ networks and talk radio even remotely constitutes ‘news commentary’ is akin to earnestly declaring that Barack Obama is an unreconstructed Marxist.
Er, ok–never mind. If America didn’t already exist The Onion would have to invent it.
Yeesh.
by matttbastard
You ever watch something so vicariously embarrassing, so painfully awkward that it almost gives you a full-body toothache?
Yeah. That.
h/t @Humanity Critic (via HuffPo)
by matttbastard
Yours:
Ours:
Um, wanna trade? You can keep Wolf.
by matttbastard
When embarking on a Landmark Multimedia Event™ called ‘Black in America’, it’s best not to risk your black-people-love-us-cred by, er, credulously citing avowed racists as experts on teh Negroes. Just a thought.
Next up on CNN’s 2008 Ethnic Anthropology US Tour: Jewish in America, where we find noted WWII historian David Irving waxing poetic about picturesque Polish vacation spots for the Judenreich set.
Related: More commentary on Black in America from Jack and Jill Politics (and here), Kevin, elle and Renee.
by matttbastard
As the countdown to the clinch continues, the Village Idiots are growing ever more idiotic at the prospect of talking gibberish when Senator Barack Obama becomes the first black nominee for president of the USA. David Gergen, charter member of The Best Political Team on Television™, just gave a preview of what’s to come by noting that Obama’s now-inevitable nomination comes “exactly” 200 years after the end of the slave trade.
Got that, folks? We can now officially start talking about racism in the past tense.
With that–and, as this “historic” campaign goes to the next level, the promise of even more hoary, overinflated rhetoric from a punditocracy addicted to soundbite significance–in mind, this refreshingly grounded LRB essay from David Runciman couldn’t be more timely.
A sample:
Now that the primary season has nearly run its course, a different pattern can be seen. Followed day by day, the race for the Democratic nomination has been the most exciting election in living memory. But viewed in retrospect, it is clear that it has been quite predictable. All the twists and turns have been a function of the somewhat random sequencing of different state primaries, which taken individually have invariably conformed to type, with Obama winning where he was always likely to win (caucus states, among college-educated and black voters, in the cities), and Clinton winning where she was likely to win (big states with secret ballots, among less well-educated whites and Hispanics, in rural areas). Even the initial drama of that week in early January – when Obama’s victory in Iowa had seemed to give him a chance of finishing Clinton off, only to be confounded by her victory in New Hampshire, which defied the expectation of the pundits and had them all speculating about what had swung it (was it her welling up in a diner? was it hastily rekindled memories of Bill? was it hints of hubris from Obama?) – turns out to have been an illusion. Iowa was Obama country (younger, smaller, caucus meetings) and New Hampshire wasn’t (older, bigger, voting machines). The salient fact about this campaign is that demography trumps everything: people have been voting in fixed patterns set by age, race, gender, income and educational level, and the winner in the different contests has been determined by the way these different groups are divided up within and between state boundaries. Anyone who knows how to read the census data (and that includes some of the smart, tech-savvy types around Obama) has had a good idea of how this was going to play from the outset. All the rest is noise.
Yet if the voting patterns have been so predictable, why have the polls been so volatile? One of the amazing things about the business of American politics is that its polling industry is so primitive. Each primary has been preceded by a few wildly varying polls, some picking up big movement for Clinton, some for Obama, each able to feed the narrative of a contest that could swing decisively at any moment. All of these polls come with warnings about their margins of error (usually +/–4 per cent), but often they have been so far outside their own margins as to make the phrase ridiculous. A day before the California primary in February, the Zogby organisation had Obama ahead by 6 per cent – he ended up losing by 9 per cent. In Ohio, the same firm put Obama ahead by 2 per cent just before the actual vote – this time he lost by 10 per cent. The sampling of national opinion is even worse. Before the Indiana primary, two national polls released at the same time claimed to track the fallout from the appearance of Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright on the political stage. One, for the New York Times, had Obama up by 14 per cent, and enabled the Times to run a story saying that the candidate had been undamaged. The other, for USA Today, had Clinton up by 7 per cent, leading the paper to conclude that Obama was paying a heavy price.
The reason for the differences is not hard to find. American polling organisations tend to rely on relatively small samples (certainly judged by British standards) for their results, often somewhere between 500 and 700 likely voters, compared to the more usual 1000-2000-plus for British national polls. The recent New York Times poll that gave Obama a 12 per cent lead was based on interviews with just 283 people. For a country the size of the United States, this is the equivalent to stopping a few people at random in the street, or throwing darts at a board. Given that American political life is generally so cut-throat, you might think there was room for a polling organisation that sought a competitive advantage by using the sort of sample sizes that produce relatively accurate results. Why on earth does anyone pay for this rubbish?
The answer is that in an election like this one, the polls aren’t there to tell the real story; they are there to support the various different stories that the commentators want to tell. The market is not for the hard truth, because the hard truth this time round is that most people are voting with the predictability of prodded animals. What the news organisations and blogs and roving pundits want are polls that suggest the voters are thinking hard about this election, arguing about it, making up their minds, talking it through, because that’s what all the commentators like to think they are doing themselves. This endless raft of educated opinion needs to be kept afloat on some data indicating that it matters what informed people say about politics, because it helps the voters to decide which way to jump. If you keep the polling sample sizes small enough, you can create the impression of a public willing to be moved by what other people are saying. That’s why the comment industry pays for this rubbish.
And just think: this has only been the warm up. The real contest starts tonight. CNN just announced that Obama has gone over the top.
Lord have mercy.
by matttbastard
So sad to see that Muckraking Journalist™ John King is apparently still being forced to lob softballs at the Maverick by the powers-that-be. I feel your pain, brother. Cry freedom!
by matttbastard
Hmm, methinks Greenwald struck a delicate, precious nerve with CNN tongue bather Chief Political Correspondent John King after GG took King to the woodshed the other day over a recent Situation Room rim job King gave to perpetual media darling John McCain (as is apparently King’s wont):
From: King, John C
To: GGreenwald@salon.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 5:40 PM
Subject: excuse me?
I don’t read biased uninformed drivel so I’m a little late to the game.
But a friend who understands how my business works and knows a little something about my 20 plus years in it sent me the link to your ramblings.
Since the site suggests you have law training, maybe you forgot that good lawyers to a little research before they spit out words.
Did you think to ask me or anyone who works with me whether that was the entire interview? No. (It was not; just a portion used by one of the many CNN programs.)
Did you reach out to ask the purpose of that specific interview? No.
Or how it might have fit in with other questions being asked of other candidates that day? No.
Or anything that might have put facts or context or fairness into your critique. No.
McCain, for better or worse, is a very accessible candidate. If you did a little research (there he goes with that word again) you would find I have had my share of contentious moments with him over the years.
But because of that accessibility, you don’t have to go into every interview asking him about the time he cheated on his sixth grade math test.
The interview was mainly to get a couple of questions to him on his thoughts on the role of government when the economy is teetering on the edge of recession, in conjunction with similar questions being put to several of the other candidates.
The portion you cited was aired by one of our programs — so by all means it is fair game for whatever “analysis” you care to apply to it using your right of free speech and your lack of any journalistic standards or fact checking or just plain basic curiosity.
You clearly know very little about journalism. But credibility matters. It is what allows you to cover six presidential campaigns and be viewed as fair and respectful, while perhaps a little cranky, but Democrats and Republicans alike. When I am writing something that calls someone’s credibility into question, I pick up the phone and give them a chance to give their side, or perspective.
That way, even on days that I don’t consider my best, or anywhere close, I can look myself in the mirror and know I tried to be fair and didn’t call into question someone’s credibility just for sport, or because I like seeing my name on a website or my face on TV.
Greenwald’s post wasn’t evidence of unprofessional “bias”; he was merely utilizing one of the senses evolution gave us hairless apes–in this case, a keen nose that caught a whiff of what King was so eagerly shoveling.
As Greenwald tartly observes:
Ponder how much better things would be if establishment journalists — in response to being endlessly lied to and manipulated by political officials and upon witnessing extreme lawbreaking and corruption at the highest levels of our government — were able to muster just a tiny fraction of the high dudgeon, petulant offense, and melodramatic outrage that comes pouring forth whenever their “reporting” is criticized.
Hey, here’s another novel idea, John–how about directing some of your self-important umbrage towards your CNN producers–y’know, the ones who (apparently) bowdlerized your hard-hitting muckracking until it was nothing but anodyne pablum. Either that, or cut the crap and become The Maverick’s new communications director. But for the love of god, don’t get your dander up in an entitlement-infused huff just because a member of the great online unwashed dared to call bullshit.
More from Blue Texan and Big Tent Democrat.
Via Memeorandum
by matttbastard
Well, well — our old pal Rachel Marsden, the uncrowned Canadian queen of spittle-flecked right-wing self-parody, has apparently landed in marginal exile at WingNutDailyNorth–as perfect a proto-fascistic forum for her now-antiquated incoherent firebrand routine as anyone could hope for. Both Prole and JJ note that Marsden remains entirely unchastened by her recent unceremonious turfing from the Toronto Sun after a delightful column that extolled the virtues of torture was successfully met by a grassroots campaign of popular resistance. Her most recent screed (sorry, Rache, no linky luvvins from yours truly) replaces the initial reductive waterboarding metaphor (“CIA sponsored swim lesson“) with version 2.0 (“bobbing for apples” — wee!!11)
Puh-lease–Rache, you’re trying way too hard, now, trolling for (left-wing) outrage to help build up your ever-expanding conservative martyr complex.
Well, congrats — as far as this objectively pro-Bin Laden bastard is concerned, you’re now in the same league as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, etc etc etc: so entirely out to lunch that offering a serious response to your hate-filled paranoid delusions would be pointless, even counterproductive. Why bother legitimizing arguments that are so fucking ridiculous (and telegraphed) they essentially refute themselves? In other words, DNFTT — especially one with an undeservedly elevated media profile (to say nothing of ego).
Have fun wallowing in the muck and mire with the rest of the rabid swine, Marsden; I have many, many far more important matters to attend to.
[edited slightly for clarity]
bastard.logic 