When McCain selected Palin as his vice-presidential nominee, my reaction was that it was a good August choice, but a bad October choice. That thought wasn't original with me. It was from a column by David Broder who wrote back in 2000 that a Democratic operative had told him that about Gore selecting Lieberman instead of Edwards. Well, Palin isn't even making it to October. Here it is September, and conservative pundits are asking her to get off the ticket.
One of the latest is Fareed Zakira of Newsweek magazine. He has an article up on the Newsweek website headlined "Palin Is Ready? Please." This is from the article:
Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, "to spend more time with her family"? Having stayed in purdah for weeks, she finally agreed to a third interview. CBS's Katie Couric questioned her in her trademark sympathetic style. It didn't help
Another conservative, Kathleen Parker who writes for the National Review, wrote a column headlined "Palin Problem". This is from that article:
As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.
Now, of course, McCain can't ask Palin to get off the ticket because the wingnut base of his Party adores her. Further, not only do they adore her, but they are not too crazy about him. Their recent enthusiam for the GOP ticket is because of Sarah, not Johnny. Her leaving the ticket would really tick them off and lead to them not coming out in November. Not only would this doom McCain, it would hurt every down-ballot Republican.
So, what was being lauded as a brillant choice less than a month ago is now being seen as a diaster by McCain's allies. Meanwhile, the choice of Joe Biden looks better and better.
Showing posts with label Newsweek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Newsweek. Show all posts
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Newsweek Cover Story on Hillary Clinton
Newsweek is following up its cover story on Barack Obama with a cover story on Hillary Clinton. It is a very interesting article. It contends that a mistake the HRC campaign made was assuming that she was known by voters. It also contends that both HRC and her advisers have learned that she is not that well known and that they have to allow the public to see a more complete picture of her.
When Clinton ran in New York for the US Senate she adopted a strategy of going everywhere to dispel the images that voters had of her. It worked in that she was able to do well enough in upstate New York to counter the Republican vote in the suburbs of New York City. Doing that made sure that the big Democratic vote out of New York City was sufficient to elect her. She followed the same campaign strategy that Charles Schumer had used in 1998.
The problem, though, is the size of the United States makes it hard to do that on a nationwide basis, especially if your campaign is distracted by charges of racism made by other Democrats. The question is can you go around the media and get enough voters to change their opinions about you? Opinions that have been formed not on personal experience by on the basis of media stories.
Well, we are about to see if HRC can pull it off. On the one hand she is an incredibly polarizing figure in American politics. On the other hand she is a very intelligent and very hard working woman. Only a fool would count her out, as the media found out last Tuesday in New Hampshire.
When Clinton ran in New York for the US Senate she adopted a strategy of going everywhere to dispel the images that voters had of her. It worked in that she was able to do well enough in upstate New York to counter the Republican vote in the suburbs of New York City. Doing that made sure that the big Democratic vote out of New York City was sufficient to elect her. She followed the same campaign strategy that Charles Schumer had used in 1998.
The problem, though, is the size of the United States makes it hard to do that on a nationwide basis, especially if your campaign is distracted by charges of racism made by other Democrats. The question is can you go around the media and get enough voters to change their opinions about you? Opinions that have been formed not on personal experience by on the basis of media stories.
Well, we are about to see if HRC can pull it off. On the one hand she is an incredibly polarizing figure in American politics. On the other hand she is a very intelligent and very hard working woman. Only a fool would count her out, as the media found out last Tuesday in New Hampshire.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Two Year Old Article Shows Problems with Corporate Media
We recently came across an article more than two years old on www.consortiumnews.com called "The Rise of the 'Patriotic Journalist'". If you are looking for an example of what is wrong with the corporate owned media in America, this is the article for you.
The article's author, Robert Parry, who used to work for both Newsweek and the Associated Press, gives example after example of how, starting in the seventies and continuing on in the eighties under Reagan and Bush, the corporate owned media carried water for Bush and Reagan on issues such as Iran-contra, right-wing death squads in El Salvador, and the involvement of the contras in Nicaragua in drug trafficking in America. He gives example after example of how editors and managers in so-called "mainstream" media outlets like the AP and Newsweek either ignored stories of Reagan and Bush misdeeds or, indeed, attacked journalists who revealed such information.
This kid-glove treatment of conservatives and Republicans continued with the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and the suppression of stories about how Al Gore would have carried Florida if an honest count had taken place. Then, of course, came Iraq and the so-called weapons of mass destruction. The Washington Post and the New York Times in particular became cheerleaders for George W. Bush's invasion by allowing its reporters, particularly Judith Miller, to basically become in-house reporters for the Bush administration.
It is not surprising that news corporations want Republicans to win because Republicans stand for allowing corporations to do what they want without regulation or oversight. Of course, we are never told that this is the agenda of these organizations. Instead we are told that they are dedicated to giving us vital information that we need to be informed. All while maintaining a profit margin of around 20% or so.
Thankfully the Internet has the promise to change this situation, but only if it does not become dominated by the same corporations that control other news organizations. That's why the battle over access to the 'Net is so important.
The article's author, Robert Parry, who used to work for both Newsweek and the Associated Press, gives example after example of how, starting in the seventies and continuing on in the eighties under Reagan and Bush, the corporate owned media carried water for Bush and Reagan on issues such as Iran-contra, right-wing death squads in El Salvador, and the involvement of the contras in Nicaragua in drug trafficking in America. He gives example after example of how editors and managers in so-called "mainstream" media outlets like the AP and Newsweek either ignored stories of Reagan and Bush misdeeds or, indeed, attacked journalists who revealed such information.
This kid-glove treatment of conservatives and Republicans continued with the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and the suppression of stories about how Al Gore would have carried Florida if an honest count had taken place. Then, of course, came Iraq and the so-called weapons of mass destruction. The Washington Post and the New York Times in particular became cheerleaders for George W. Bush's invasion by allowing its reporters, particularly Judith Miller, to basically become in-house reporters for the Bush administration.
It is not surprising that news corporations want Republicans to win because Republicans stand for allowing corporations to do what they want without regulation or oversight. Of course, we are never told that this is the agenda of these organizations. Instead we are told that they are dedicated to giving us vital information that we need to be informed. All while maintaining a profit margin of around 20% or so.
Thankfully the Internet has the promise to change this situation, but only if it does not become dominated by the same corporations that control other news organizations. That's why the battle over access to the 'Net is so important.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Great Newsweek Article on why Fear Works in Political Ads
Newsweek has an interesting article in this week's edition, which deals with why appeals to fear and anger work better in political ads than appeals to reason. This is a quote from the article:
Fear makes people more likely to go to the polls and vote, which reflects the power of negative emotions in general. "Negative emotions such as fear, hatred and disgust tend to provoke behavior more than positive emotions such as hope and happiness do," says Harvard Universitypsychology researcher Daniel Gilbert. Perhaps paradoxically, the power of fear to move voters can be most easily understood when it fails to—that is, when an issue lacks the ability to strike terror in citizens' hearts. Global warming is such an issue. Yes, Hurricane Katrina was a terrifying example of what a greenhouse world would be like, and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" scared some people into changing their light bulbs to energy-miserly models. But barely 5 percent of voters rank global warming as the issue that most concerns them. There is little public clamor to spend the kind of money that would be needed to change our energy mix to one with a smaller carbon footprint, or to make any real personal sacrifices.
If you are interested in the interaction between politics and the biology of the brain, check out this article.
Fear makes people more likely to go to the polls and vote, which reflects the power of negative emotions in general. "Negative emotions such as fear, hatred and disgust tend to provoke behavior more than positive emotions such as hope and happiness do," says Harvard Universitypsychology researcher Daniel Gilbert. Perhaps paradoxically, the power of fear to move voters can be most easily understood when it fails to—that is, when an issue lacks the ability to strike terror in citizens' hearts. Global warming is such an issue. Yes, Hurricane Katrina was a terrifying example of what a greenhouse world would be like, and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" scared some people into changing their light bulbs to energy-miserly models. But barely 5 percent of voters rank global warming as the issue that most concerns them. There is little public clamor to spend the kind of money that would be needed to change our energy mix to one with a smaller carbon footprint, or to make any real personal sacrifices.
If you are interested in the interaction between politics and the biology of the brain, check out this article.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Newsweek Article on Ethnic Cleansing of Sunnis from Baghdad
Newsweek has an interesting article on how Shia Muslims are forcing Sunni Muslims out of Baghdad. Here is a quote from the article:
The surge of U.S. troops—meant in part to halt the sectarian cleansing of the Iraqi capital—has hardly stemmed the problem. The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was slightly higher than in February, when the surge began. According to the Iraqi Red Crescent, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has more than doubled to 1.1 million since the beginning of the year, nearly 200,000 of those in Baghdad governorate alone. Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration, says that the fighting that accompanied the influx of U.S. troops actually "has increased the IDPs to some extent." (IDP refers to internally displaced persons.)
So what about the success of the surge that the right-wing and the major media outlets keep telling us about? Here is an explanation about that from the same article:
When Gen. David Petraeus goes before Congress next week to report on the progress of the surge, he may cite a decline in insurgent attacks in Baghdad as one marker of success. In fact, part of the reason behind the decline is how far the Shiite militias' cleansing of Baghdad has progressed: they've essentially won. "If you look at pre-February 2006, there were only a couple of areas in the city that were unambiguously Shia," says a U.S. official in Baghdad who is familiar with the issue but is not authorized to speak on the record. "That's definitely not the case anymore." The official says that "the majority, more than half" of Baghdad's neighborhoods are now Shiite-dominated, a judgment echoed in the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq: "And very few are mixed." In places like Amel, pockets of Sunnis live in fear, surrounded by a sea of Shiites. In most of the remaining Sunni neighborhoods, residents are trapped behind great concrete barricades for their own protection.
This is a very interesting article, and also very sad, because it shows how much havoc our failure to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq has caused for Iraqis. Obviously, things were going to change once Saddam was removed. Sunnis are a relatively small portion of Iraq's population but had been exercising all of the political power. Just as obviously, though, Iraq didn't have to be like this.
According to this article in the Washington Post, taken from a new book that is coming out about Bush he thought that Americans would be greeted as liberators. This was based on three conversations he had with dissident Iraqis before the invasion. Here is a quote from that article:
Several of Bush's top advisers believe that the president's view of postwar Iraq was significantly affected by his meeting with three Iraqi exiles in the Oval Office several months before the 2003 invasion, Draper reports.
He writes that all three exiles agreed without qualification that "Iraq would greet American forces with enthusiasm. Ethnic and religious tensions would dissolve with the collapse of Saddam's regime. And democracy would spring forth with little effort -- particularly in light of Bush's commitment to rebuild the country." We now see how useful that information was for the United States.
The surge of U.S. troops—meant in part to halt the sectarian cleansing of the Iraqi capital—has hardly stemmed the problem. The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was slightly higher than in February, when the surge began. According to the Iraqi Red Crescent, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has more than doubled to 1.1 million since the beginning of the year, nearly 200,000 of those in Baghdad governorate alone. Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration, says that the fighting that accompanied the influx of U.S. troops actually "has increased the IDPs to some extent." (IDP refers to internally displaced persons.)
So what about the success of the surge that the right-wing and the major media outlets keep telling us about? Here is an explanation about that from the same article:
When Gen. David Petraeus goes before Congress next week to report on the progress of the surge, he may cite a decline in insurgent attacks in Baghdad as one marker of success. In fact, part of the reason behind the decline is how far the Shiite militias' cleansing of Baghdad has progressed: they've essentially won. "If you look at pre-February 2006, there were only a couple of areas in the city that were unambiguously Shia," says a U.S. official in Baghdad who is familiar with the issue but is not authorized to speak on the record. "That's definitely not the case anymore." The official says that "the majority, more than half" of Baghdad's neighborhoods are now Shiite-dominated, a judgment echoed in the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq: "And very few are mixed." In places like Amel, pockets of Sunnis live in fear, surrounded by a sea of Shiites. In most of the remaining Sunni neighborhoods, residents are trapped behind great concrete barricades for their own protection.
This is a very interesting article, and also very sad, because it shows how much havoc our failure to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq has caused for Iraqis. Obviously, things were going to change once Saddam was removed. Sunnis are a relatively small portion of Iraq's population but had been exercising all of the political power. Just as obviously, though, Iraq didn't have to be like this.
According to this article in the Washington Post, taken from a new book that is coming out about Bush he thought that Americans would be greeted as liberators. This was based on three conversations he had with dissident Iraqis before the invasion. Here is a quote from that article:
Several of Bush's top advisers believe that the president's view of postwar Iraq was significantly affected by his meeting with three Iraqi exiles in the Oval Office several months before the 2003 invasion, Draper reports.
He writes that all three exiles agreed without qualification that "Iraq would greet American forces with enthusiasm. Ethnic and religious tensions would dissolve with the collapse of Saddam's regime. And democracy would spring forth with little effort -- particularly in light of Bush's commitment to rebuild the country." We now see how useful that information was for the United States.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Eleabor Clift's Column for Newsweek: "Marketing the War"
Here is a link to a great column by Eleanor Clift because it contains an analysis on how the Republicans plan to blame the Democrats when things go wrong in Iraq. This is a quote from the article:
Forget September. April is the real deadline. That’s when the U.S. military can no longer sustain the surge, and the debate will then be over whether to return to pre-surge levels or begin a staged withdrawal. You can guess where Bush will be; he’ll want to keep 130,000 troops (down from the current 160,000) in Iraq until he leaves office. The strategy of the war’s architects is clear: keep enough troops in Iraq to provide a surface illusion of progress, and then when the Democrats (ideally, Hillary) win the presidency in ’08 and pull out of Iraq, Bush and the Republicans can claim they were on the verge of a great victory against Islamofascism when the weak-willed opposition party betrayed the troops and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It worked with Vietnam, crippling Democrats on national security for decades because it was a Democratic Congress that pulled funding from the South Vietnamese government.
This is why Democratic politicians in Washington are not lining up to cut off funding for troops while they are serving in Iraq. They realize that they are going to be blamed if we withdraw rapidly and a bloodbath results. The thing that is not known, however, is whether the American public will care if there is a bloodbath in Iraq. If you want an explanation of why Democrats aren't willing to cut off funding, Clift's column is a good place to start.
Forget September. April is the real deadline. That’s when the U.S. military can no longer sustain the surge, and the debate will then be over whether to return to pre-surge levels or begin a staged withdrawal. You can guess where Bush will be; he’ll want to keep 130,000 troops (down from the current 160,000) in Iraq until he leaves office. The strategy of the war’s architects is clear: keep enough troops in Iraq to provide a surface illusion of progress, and then when the Democrats (ideally, Hillary) win the presidency in ’08 and pull out of Iraq, Bush and the Republicans can claim they were on the verge of a great victory against Islamofascism when the weak-willed opposition party betrayed the troops and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It worked with Vietnam, crippling Democrats on national security for decades because it was a Democratic Congress that pulled funding from the South Vietnamese government.
This is why Democratic politicians in Washington are not lining up to cut off funding for troops while they are serving in Iraq. They realize that they are going to be blamed if we withdraw rapidly and a bloodbath results. The thing that is not known, however, is whether the American public will care if there is a bloodbath in Iraq. If you want an explanation of why Democrats aren't willing to cut off funding, Clift's column is a good place to start.
Newsweek Reports Democratic Pressure Hasten Rove's Departure
Newsweek has an online story out that quotes an unnamed White House official as saying that Democratic pressure was the reason that Karl Rove, aka Bush's Brain, decided to leave before Bush's term ends in 2009. Apparently Rove thought that after the 2006 mid-term elections he could return to his former role in the White House. A Democratic-controlled Congress changed that by launching investigations of activities that were connected with Rove. Karl apparently then decided that his family needed him to leave his White House position. So not only Gonzales' departure but Rove's as well can be credited to a Democratic controlled Congress. Two good by-products of the country voting Democratic in 2006.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Political Reporters: They Only Talk the Talk & are Afraid to Walk the Walk
If you click on the link in this entry's title, you can read the cynical writings of some idiot named Tom Watson who is just soooo bored with covering presidential debates. This is a sample of this guy's writing:
Ah, the Democrats. So much promise, and yet they remain Democrats, at heart—and therefore perfectly capable of blowing the historic opportunity before them.
Now, here is the point this jerk is missing: unlike himself every one of those candidates, Gravel included, are putting themselves on the line in front of millions of their fellow Americans. Unlike this guy, they are willing to walk the walk instead of just talk the talk. Maybe, just maybe, someone who is not willing to put themselves in that position should have some respect for those who do. Maybe, just maybe, this idiot should drop this pose of above-the-battle, world-weariness, and get on the field.
Look, we not saying that everyone has to run for office who is interested in politics. What we are saying is that if you are interested in politics and don't have the stomach to put yourself out there as a candidate, at least be aware of the fact that those who do are different from you. Not necessarily better, but different and that difference is essential for a democracy.
Reporters who cover politics are like sports writers: they love a game that they know they can't really play. It does strange things to your head. That's why they love Bush so much. They can tell themselves that he had advantages they didn't have and they can still feel superior to him.
Ah, the Democrats. So much promise, and yet they remain Democrats, at heart—and therefore perfectly capable of blowing the historic opportunity before them.
Now, here is the point this jerk is missing: unlike himself every one of those candidates, Gravel included, are putting themselves on the line in front of millions of their fellow Americans. Unlike this guy, they are willing to walk the walk instead of just talk the talk. Maybe, just maybe, someone who is not willing to put themselves in that position should have some respect for those who do. Maybe, just maybe, this idiot should drop this pose of above-the-battle, world-weariness, and get on the field.
Look, we not saying that everyone has to run for office who is interested in politics. What we are saying is that if you are interested in politics and don't have the stomach to put yourself out there as a candidate, at least be aware of the fact that those who do are different from you. Not necessarily better, but different and that difference is essential for a democracy.
Reporters who cover politics are like sports writers: they love a game that they know they can't really play. It does strange things to your head. That's why they love Bush so much. They can tell themselves that he had advantages they didn't have and they can still feel superior to him.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Bush's Problems With Lawyers
If you click on the link in this entry's title, you can read an article in Newsweek about Monica Goodling and Alberto Gonzales. In that article is a fuller description of the confrontation between Ashcroft, Gonzales and Card over the Justice Department's refusal to sign-off on certain surveillance tactics being used by the Bush Administration.
One thing that a lot of people don't know about George W. is that while he was able to get into the Harvard Business School, it was not his first choice for a graduate school. He also applied to the University of Texas's law school. That school refused to admit him and its Dean suggested that he would not be happy as a lawyer.
Now, here is a question to consider: does W's failure to get into law school help explain the contempt that he has for lawyers and for the law? He has made a lot of political points taking shots at trial lawyers. He has tried to politicize the Justice Department. He has installed a hack yes-man as United States Attorney General. He has disregarded laws he doesn't like and when he signs a law that he disagrees with often issues a "signing statement" indicating that his administration has no intention of following the law.
All of these acts are evidence of the disdain that he has for lawyers and for the law as a profession. Now a lot of business people don't like lawyers. Lawyers are often the people who screw up a deal by insisting on language in contracts that complicates a contract. Corporations see lawyers as people who sue them and insist on exposing the way they do business. So this attitude of W's is not surprising, but he is not any business school graduate. He is a person who runs the Executive branch of the United States government which, by the way, carries out its function by using laws.
Given his background, it is fair to ask whether we are now stuck with Gonzales as AG because the University of Texas's law school wouldn't let him in. Maybe a lot of this stuff could have been avoided if they would just have let W come to school and not insisted that he be qualified.
One thing that a lot of people don't know about George W. is that while he was able to get into the Harvard Business School, it was not his first choice for a graduate school. He also applied to the University of Texas's law school. That school refused to admit him and its Dean suggested that he would not be happy as a lawyer.
Now, here is a question to consider: does W's failure to get into law school help explain the contempt that he has for lawyers and for the law? He has made a lot of political points taking shots at trial lawyers. He has tried to politicize the Justice Department. He has installed a hack yes-man as United States Attorney General. He has disregarded laws he doesn't like and when he signs a law that he disagrees with often issues a "signing statement" indicating that his administration has no intention of following the law.
All of these acts are evidence of the disdain that he has for lawyers and for the law as a profession. Now a lot of business people don't like lawyers. Lawyers are often the people who screw up a deal by insisting on language in contracts that complicates a contract. Corporations see lawyers as people who sue them and insist on exposing the way they do business. So this attitude of W's is not surprising, but he is not any business school graduate. He is a person who runs the Executive branch of the United States government which, by the way, carries out its function by using laws.
Given his background, it is fair to ask whether we are now stuck with Gonzales as AG because the University of Texas's law school wouldn't let him in. Maybe a lot of this stuff could have been avoided if they would just have let W come to school and not insisted that he be qualified.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Newsweek Columnist Claims U.S. to be in Iraq for 10 Years
Michael Hirsh of Newsweek has a column online in which he argues that what most Democratic and Republican candidates for president aren't realizing is that the approach the new commander of U.S. forces in Iraq is pursuing could mean American soldiers will be in Iraq for up to 10 additional years. According to a military source that is quoted in the article, the U.S. is pursuing a "classic counterinsurgency" strategy. This involves moving American troops out from four main "superbases" to 160 smaller bases where they can interact with the Iraqi population. It also means that American troops are taking the lead in dealing the insurgents instead of Iraqi troops.
There are a couple of points that need to be kept in mind when reading this article. One is that apparently the Bush administration has wasted not only 3,000+ American lives and billions of American dollars, but also about four years of time. We could have been pursuing this strategy from the beginning of the armed resistance, but instead this administration's incompetence meant that the wrong tactics were being used. George W. Bush has put us in deep shit.
There are a couple of points that need to be kept in mind when reading this article. One is that apparently the Bush administration has wasted not only 3,000+ American lives and billions of American dollars, but also about four years of time. We could have been pursuing this strategy from the beginning of the armed resistance, but instead this administration's incompetence meant that the wrong tactics were being used. George W. Bush has put us in deep shit.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Fear of the Other in Politics
Newsweek had a short interview with the author of Why Good People Do Bad Things, which you can read by clicking on the link in this entry's title. The reason for the interview was the sad case of Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who is charged with trying to hurt a romantic rival. In this interview he noted that there are two basic fears that humans have: a fear that "the other" will overwhelm us, and the fear that "the other" will abandon us. According to this author, each of these basic human fears can lead to extreme and even violent actions. He goes on to theorize that it was her fear of abandonment that led to Ms. Nowak's actions.
While his interview was about romantic obsession and why a person as accomplished as Lisa Nowak would do something that appears incredibly stupid, his remarks have application to politics. One thing that all political ideologues who preach intolerance and hate have in common is that they base their appeal on fear of "the other." Think of Hitler and Stalin. Both of them were able to convince followers that "the other" was a threat to those followers. Think of homegrown ideologues such as the KKK or the John Birch society. Each of them tell their followers that "the other" such as Afro-Americans or liberals are a threat to their existence, or at least the existence they have known. It doesn't matter that the threat may be trivial or even non-existent, what matters is that they are able to convince their followers that the threat is real. They are able to raise fears in the minds of their followers that have their origins in out primal past.
Listen to the statements of people like Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh and analyze them to see if they are based on appealing to a fear of "the other." "The other" being liberals, Democrats, feminists, non-Christians, or anyone else that isn't like them. They raise the spectre that their listeners will be overwhelmed by "the other" and that they have to aggressively resist "the other" to preserve their lives and the lives of their families. It is very hard to rebut such emotional appeals with reason or facts. The reasoning part of the brain isn't involved in processing such appeals.
Of course, fear of "the other" isn't always illogical. There are people in the world who do wish to destroy others, or harm their families. Think of people like Osma bin Laden who seem nothing wrong with killing people who have never met him or his followers, let alone harmed them.
This fear of "the other" explains the rise and fall of George W. Bush between 2001 and 2006. Following September 11, 2001, it was easier to convince Americans that "the other", in this case Islamic terrorists posed a direct threat to our existence than it was on September 10, 2001. It was easy to get political support for attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then, before emotions could subside, he started hyping the threat from Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.
That's why it was essential to the Bush administration that Iraq possess weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons.
Once, though, the invasion took place and no WMDs were found, then Bush's popularity began to fall. Although it had not yet caught up with him by 2004, it had by 2006. His administration's attempts to use fear of "the other" to gain political power weren't successful since now Americans had plenty of evidence that instead of increasing our security, the Iraq War was hurting our security. Unlike 2002 or even 2004, fear of "the other" wasn't enough to overcome the empirical evidence of the harm that Bush's policies were doing to America.
The political use of fear of "the other" also explains why the Republicans in the House of Representatives don't want to debate the merits of Bush's plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq. Instead they want the focus of the debate to be on Islamic terrorists because such a debate appeals to people's fears and not their reason. They can possibly win a debate based on fear, but not win based on reason.
All this is not to say that there aren't Islamic terrorists that present a threat to America and Americans. After 9-11 only a fool would think that such threats don't exist. It is to say, however, that use of fear of "the other" can be a tool for political manipulation and as a instrument for obtaining and wielding political power, one that the radical right-wing Republicans won't hesitate to use.
While his interview was about romantic obsession and why a person as accomplished as Lisa Nowak would do something that appears incredibly stupid, his remarks have application to politics. One thing that all political ideologues who preach intolerance and hate have in common is that they base their appeal on fear of "the other." Think of Hitler and Stalin. Both of them were able to convince followers that "the other" was a threat to those followers. Think of homegrown ideologues such as the KKK or the John Birch society. Each of them tell their followers that "the other" such as Afro-Americans or liberals are a threat to their existence, or at least the existence they have known. It doesn't matter that the threat may be trivial or even non-existent, what matters is that they are able to convince their followers that the threat is real. They are able to raise fears in the minds of their followers that have their origins in out primal past.
Listen to the statements of people like Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh and analyze them to see if they are based on appealing to a fear of "the other." "The other" being liberals, Democrats, feminists, non-Christians, or anyone else that isn't like them. They raise the spectre that their listeners will be overwhelmed by "the other" and that they have to aggressively resist "the other" to preserve their lives and the lives of their families. It is very hard to rebut such emotional appeals with reason or facts. The reasoning part of the brain isn't involved in processing such appeals.
Of course, fear of "the other" isn't always illogical. There are people in the world who do wish to destroy others, or harm their families. Think of people like Osma bin Laden who seem nothing wrong with killing people who have never met him or his followers, let alone harmed them.
This fear of "the other" explains the rise and fall of George W. Bush between 2001 and 2006. Following September 11, 2001, it was easier to convince Americans that "the other", in this case Islamic terrorists posed a direct threat to our existence than it was on September 10, 2001. It was easy to get political support for attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then, before emotions could subside, he started hyping the threat from Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.
That's why it was essential to the Bush administration that Iraq possess weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons.
Once, though, the invasion took place and no WMDs were found, then Bush's popularity began to fall. Although it had not yet caught up with him by 2004, it had by 2006. His administration's attempts to use fear of "the other" to gain political power weren't successful since now Americans had plenty of evidence that instead of increasing our security, the Iraq War was hurting our security. Unlike 2002 or even 2004, fear of "the other" wasn't enough to overcome the empirical evidence of the harm that Bush's policies were doing to America.
The political use of fear of "the other" also explains why the Republicans in the House of Representatives don't want to debate the merits of Bush's plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq. Instead they want the focus of the debate to be on Islamic terrorists because such a debate appeals to people's fears and not their reason. They can possibly win a debate based on fear, but not win based on reason.
All this is not to say that there aren't Islamic terrorists that present a threat to America and Americans. After 9-11 only a fool would think that such threats don't exist. It is to say, however, that use of fear of "the other" can be a tool for political manipulation and as a instrument for obtaining and wielding political power, one that the radical right-wing Republicans won't hesitate to use.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Newsweek's Fineman Sees Fear in Bush's Eyes During Iraq Speech
Howard Fineman has a well deserved reputation in Washington as being an exceptional purveyor of conventional wisdom. His reputation doesn't depend on original thinking or on pungent analysis. It depends on his ability to figure out what the conventional wisdom is among the Washington elite and then report on it. So, when he writes that he sees fear in Bush's eyes, it is significant. Not because it is true, although it may very well be true, but because this may become the conventional wisdom of the Beltway elite.
If you click on the link in this entry's title and read the article another fact jumps out at you. He apparently believes that one thing that drives Bush is his fear of being branded a "loser." Not that over 3,000 Americans have lost their lives in Iraq. Not that thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives in Iraq. Not that our reputation around the world has been totally trashed or that we have lost the moral high ground that we had after the attacks on September 11, 2001. No, according to Fineman what Bush is afraid of it being branded a "loser."
This brings up the problem with George W. Bush and indeed the whole Bush clan. They are in government not to serve the public, but to satisfy their egos. It is not about us, it is about them. It is not about solving America's problems, but about filling their need for public adulation. As far as we can tell, the history of the Bush family in politics is a history of self-gratification.
If you click on the link in this entry's title and read the article another fact jumps out at you. He apparently believes that one thing that drives Bush is his fear of being branded a "loser." Not that over 3,000 Americans have lost their lives in Iraq. Not that thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives in Iraq. Not that our reputation around the world has been totally trashed or that we have lost the moral high ground that we had after the attacks on September 11, 2001. No, according to Fineman what Bush is afraid of it being branded a "loser."
This brings up the problem with George W. Bush and indeed the whole Bush clan. They are in government not to serve the public, but to satisfy their egos. It is not about us, it is about them. It is not about solving America's problems, but about filling their need for public adulation. As far as we can tell, the history of the Bush family in politics is a history of self-gratification.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Will 2008 Mark the End of "Boomer" Obessions in American Politics
Since 1968, when Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew first used what was perceived as the rise of the counter-culture to gain political power, presidential politics has been shaped by the forces unleashed in the 1960s. Most of the time this has been to the detriment of the Democratic Party. In that period Republicans won elections in 1968, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004. During that period Democrats won elections in 1976, 1992, and 1998. If you are keeping score, that's Rs 7 and Ds 3.
The decade of the sixties unleashed a form of passionate politics because the challenges of that era were very divisive. America faced challenges to the established order from movements that advocated civil rights for blacks, women, and gays, from the anti-Vietnam War movement, from the environmental movement, and from people who challenged the existing sexual mores of the time. All of those movements found a political home in the Democratic Party and all of them were bitterly opposed by other Americans. It is not surprising that their opponents found a political home in the Republican Party.
It is no wonder, then, that the politics spawned by that era was and remains very personal and divisive. Time, however, changes everything. The "baby boom" started with people born in 1946 and ended with people born in 1960. The oldest boomers are now 60 and the youngest are 46. They are starting to give way to the next generation.
According to Howard Fineman of Newsweek this could lead to a politics that is no longer dominated by boomer obsessions. (You can read his article by clicking on the title of this entry.) Although his article doesn't go on with this analysis, Democrats far more than Republicans will benefit from America moving past the "culture wars." From our perspective it can't happen soon enough.
The decade of the sixties unleashed a form of passionate politics because the challenges of that era were very divisive. America faced challenges to the established order from movements that advocated civil rights for blacks, women, and gays, from the anti-Vietnam War movement, from the environmental movement, and from people who challenged the existing sexual mores of the time. All of those movements found a political home in the Democratic Party and all of them were bitterly opposed by other Americans. It is not surprising that their opponents found a political home in the Republican Party.
It is no wonder, then, that the politics spawned by that era was and remains very personal and divisive. Time, however, changes everything. The "baby boom" started with people born in 1946 and ended with people born in 1960. The oldest boomers are now 60 and the youngest are 46. They are starting to give way to the next generation.
According to Howard Fineman of Newsweek this could lead to a politics that is no longer dominated by boomer obsessions. (You can read his article by clicking on the title of this entry.) Although his article doesn't go on with this analysis, Democrats far more than Republicans will benefit from America moving past the "culture wars." From our perspective it can't happen soon enough.
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