Tag: Pundits

In Defense of the Filibuster 20100213

Recently we have seen quite a bit of controversy about the filibuster.  Most folks do not even know what that term means, and with good reason.  The rules for it changed, as I recall, in 1975, after damned old Nixon got booted, and, in my opinion, for ill.

However, the politicians, the pundits, and the public do not understand (or, if they do, are misleading folks) about its nature.  The Republicans mostly say that it was the will of the Framers, and that is just not only incorrect, but a lie.  In fairness, the Democrats said the same thing when they were in the minority.  Most of the pundits have it wrong as well.  Please follow and I shall explain what it was, and now is.

Mainstream Female Columnists Fail Men and Women Equally

Many bloggers, including me, have expressed frequent consternation at the lack of substantive female voices in the mainstream media.  On that note, there are times when I wonder what both Kathleen Parker and Maureen Dowd are both smoking and inhaling.  Tweedledum and Tweedledee routinely write columns crafted with such a flagrant disregard for coherence or original analysis that I wonder how they even ended up with a job.  Both of these writers are supposed to be the apex of serious journalism and with it the mouthpiece of womanhood and womens’ concerns.  It seems as though both conservative and liberal women are getting the short end of the stick, though I’m hardly surprised at the revelation.  And it isn’t just women who are suffering from such inadequacy.      

Martin Austermuhle, writing today at dcist, points out the sloppy logic of Parker’s latest column in The Washington Post.


Parker asserts that shoveling is something men just need to do, like it’s hard-wired into our genetic code. “What do men want?” she asks. “Shovels. Men want shovels, the bigger the better,” she responds.

“Women can’t be blamed for wanting to be independent and self-sufficient, but smart ones have done so without diminishing the males whose shoulders they might prefer on imperfect days. Add to the cultural shifts our recent economic woes, which have left more men than women without jobs, and men are all the more riveted by opportunities to be useful,” she observes.

According to her profound analysis on the matter, the minute we simple-minded men see a flake of snow, we go running to the nearest shovel. “Man is never happier than when he is called to action, in other words. That is to say, when he is needed,” she posits. Of course, she does add that women will shovel, but she only admits as much to avoid “sexist stereotyping.” Yeah. That’s like prefacing a homophobic joke by saying, “But some of my best friends are gay!”

I frequently use personal examples in my posts and diary entries, but I am always careful to try to use facts and other sources to bolster my claims.  There is great power in the personal, but Parker proves that the personal can be used very wrongly to stand in for objective truth.  Ignoring societal conditioning in favor of innate biological programming is a tactic frequently employed by the Right, particularly as a means of keeping gender distinctions frozen in time.  Even so, there are a few undeniable elements of our behavior that must be chalked up to the undeniable fact that some of us have two X chromosomes and some of us only have one.  Yet, relying too heavily on that fact fails to take into account that we are distinct from other animals in that we have highly advanced brains and reasoning abilities.  Since the beginning of time, humankind has been imposing its own version of reality beyond purely biological imperative and survival instinct.        

The feud between Parker and Dowd is well-documented and I don’t need to add much more to it.  Unsurprisingly, both columnists manage to miss the point altogether when they cobble together a collection of stale arguments and pseudoscience to make their case.  They end up on opposite ends of a great existential divide, managing to be equally wrong in the process.  Contrary to what Dowd says, men are necessary, but it should be added that they are necessary in ways beyond shoveling driveways or providing emergency manual labor.  Contrary to what Parker says, it’s not biologically determined that men are born snow shovelers and ditch diggers.  

Later in the column, Parker at least makes an effort to try to state that she isn’t homophobic or dismissive of the fact that gay men are equally capable of being “masculine”, but the conclusion she draws is bizarre, at best.  If it wasn’t so strangely rendered, I might take more offense to what it implies.


As for Craig, he’s been happy the past 25 years with Jack, who, though he pleads a bad back, cooks a mean stroganoff, from which I have benefited twice since the snows began.

Doubtless, such displays of manliness — which in my view include feeding the hungry — are, like the weather, passing divertissements. And these jottings are but a wee contribution to the annals of gender study. But if one should ever stop pondering the malaise of modern woman long enough to consider what men might want, the answer is obvious to any except, perhaps, the U.S. Congress.

Give a man a job, and he’ll clear a path to your door.  

Her convoluted conclusion seems to be that women have focused too selfishly on their own empowerment that they’ve failed to understand or appreciate the contributions of men.  With it comes an underlying assumption that men feel confused these days because their time-honored roles in society have been somehow denigrated or tarnished since women started demanding equal rights, equal pay, and basic equality.  If only things were this simple.  If only women had anything remotely close to the same degree of parity with men.  If only, for example, there was some set standard of what all men wanted or what all women wanted, for that matter.

One can’t just make a blanket statement based on absolutes.  Men are not some monolithic entity any more than women are.  Surveying the women and men with whom we work, live, and interact will reveal that gender distinctions are not distributed exactly the same for everyone.  In that spirit, it is equally wrong-headed to reduce men to violent brutes or women to flighty fashionistas.  A major problem everyone faces is that we are forced to conform to gender roles that are designed for one-size-fits-all settings when we are all different sizes, shapes, and proportions.  If gender were a set of clothes, we’d be tugging on it constantly, hoping that with enough effort it eventually would cover us properly.  And so long as we impose simplistic identity upon complex humanity, it never will quite work.        

The major problem at play here is that Feminist groups and women’s rights groups tend to often to couch their analysis in overly-academic terms.  I can vouch for this personally.  This means that pop-feminist analysis like Parker and Dowd ends up shaping the perception of most people, as though these sorts of stilted descriptions are some objective picture of the way things really are.  But these two aren’t even the worst offenders.  At least these columnists usually mean well and usually at least aim high.  Meanwhile, aside from “serious” analysis, a perversion of Feminism leads women to believe that there is something empowering in being publicly sexual or in adopting the same pose of their chauvinistic brethren.  Objectification by any other name, this is an attitude reflected ever more frequently in popular culture.  But instead of focusing on whether or not it’s a good thing that now Tween aged girls are dressing provocatively rather than like the children that they are, or whether we’re including people of color into our depictions of feminine identity, or whether transgender citizens are treated with the respect they deserve, instead we get into the eternal back and forth about whether the cause of women’s rights has done more harm than good and whether men are suffering as a result.          

This degree of navel-gazing does no one any good.  Periodically, it might be helpful if we engaged in a respectable dialogue about how far the rights of women have come, where the movement is headed, and what we all might take from it.  However, if this territory is mined constantly without anything especially novel or even interesting to report from it, then we forget that there’s much more to Feminism and gender equality than the tit-for-tat that never ends.  Gender is a construct of the human mind and it is so pervasive that its impact effects us in ways that are both exceptionally glaring and maddeningly minute.  The complexities of civilization and the human mind have given rise to a huge amount of interrelated information to be combed through, but if we fail to survey it in totality, then it does us no good.  The mysteries of men and women will remain so forever.  We might not solve them all, but we’d be a damn sight closer to a greater understanding than we are now, instead of focusing so narrowly on one particularly yawn-inducing issue.

The Feud That Wasn’t

Recent Obama Administration attacks against the Chamber of Commerce, and, more notably, Fox News have been greeted with perfunctory attention and notice by the major media outlets.  Though a few pundits and experts chimed in to state their case in the immediate aftermath of Team Obama’s war on bias, few were willing to really say what they believed.  Reaction from the chattering classes and the peanut gallery was largely negative and unfavorable of the decision but one got the feeling that many expressed heavily disingenuous views.  Invoking Nixonian tactics in a critique reveals more about current station than All the President’s Men and Women.  In an era where every network and news agency is under increased pressure to maintain advertising revenue and, let we forget, often running significant deficits due to competition with electronic sources of information, caution prevents a major ratings war or uppercut.  In another time, a direct challenge by the White House might have fueled a bare-knuckle brawl among the heavyweights, following its bold example, but at the moment the best one can expect is a holding pattern and resulting uneasy truce.  Peace might be explained away as journalistic ethics, but ethics often are disregarded if monetary advantage is an option.      

Low-octane, under the radar sniping that frequently resorts to passive-aggression is the most obvious sign of the friction between politicians and purveyors of content.  As a result, the major cable networks have largely resisted the temptation to go after each other.  Striking from a defensive posture, MSNBC recently ran effective ads that directly contradicted Fox News’ claim that the 9/12 Tea Party demonstrations in Washington, DC, were not sufficiently covered by other outlets.  MSNBC was, however, careful not to go for the jugular.  To cite another example, despite recent attempts to modernize its programming and its look, CNN still takes a frequently unsatisfying middle ground between centrism and more progressive reporting that frequently comes across as artificial and plebeian in all the worst ways possible.  Still, CNN runs self-serving promo ads on a regular basis that tout its status as number one cable news network, making particularly mention of those under its employ who have won numerous awards and accolades.  This may be so, but CNN in many ways is the proverbial sleeping giant and it will take more than a direct challenge or surprise attack to fully rouse it from its self-satisfied stupor.  CNN was the first on the scene and as a result its demographic is often older and beholden to brand loyalty, but if it continues to lose younger viewers, it will find itself hemorrhaging revenue.      

Returning to the President’s attack on Fox News, one would expect the network, despite its obvious disdain for labor unions, to be solid in its hatred for President Obama.  However, a chink in the armor appears to have developed.  One of its reporters has declined the opportunity to directly engage the President in hand-to-hand combat.  The question remains whether or not he is violating policy or merely exercising a liberty he has the right to embrace.  It is also possible that this decision is a coordinated attempt designed purely to make President Obama look like a child and make Fox News seem like the rational adult in the matter.          

Returning to the relative surface placidity of Fox News versus Barack H. Obama, et al,

Fox News Channel correspondent Major Garrett called himself a “conscientious objector” in his network’s fight with the White House after a brief interview with President Barack Obama Wednesday during which the topic never came up.

One wonders also if this is merely a shrewd tactical move or indicative of larger trends within Fox News.  Much exists behind the scenes that we simply aren’t privy to and whether the Obama Administration has struck a deal with Fox News is purely speculative because no one’s talking.  Naturally, at least one conservative pundit has taken the opportunity to take a condescending swipe at the President’s strategy and perceived lack of satisfying and successful victories in foreign policy.  It is the intention of many on the right to paint our President as little more than an empty suit.    

Tongue in cheek, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said the interview “constitutes the most important truce in our history since the Korean armistice of 1953.”

“We are South Korea in this particular analogy,” he said.

To be completely honest, however, Fox News has never truly embraced an all out battle royal with the Obama Administration.  While it continues to be snidely dismissive of its policies and eager to run stories with a healthy dollop of right-wing distortion, it has never counter-attacked with any kind of ferocity.  When the immediate charges were levied against Fox News, namely that it was merely a propaganda wing of the Republican party, it became at most a two-day story, and notably reached no fevered pitch of nastiness.  Clearly, no one really wanted to run with the story for very long.  The truth is that the media had nothing to gain and quite a bit to lose if it pushed back too hard.  

Any means of information dispersal has to justify its own existence from time to time and anything that might cause some degree of doubt on behalf of viewers or readers is poisonous.  Opening up a major dialogue about the role of the media in daily life is the last thing any of the mainstream outlets wanted in this situation, which is unfortunate because I think it’s a long-overdue topic that the American people need to debate and then decide for themselves.  Fox News’ stated objective is noble enough, until one realizes that it is cynically manipulative at best.  We report, you decide?  I suppose it depends on what one means by “reporting.”  The easiest populist tactic in the toolbox of any politician is the act of criticizing the media for unfair and unbalanced treatment.  The irony, of course, is that the media, and by this I notably remove Fox News for the most part, is frequently criticized for fueling baseless fears as a means of pushing back against accurate, damning revelations.  It is notably not held accountable for its real limitations and real shortcomings.          

Snide commentary aside, one isn’t sure whether this revelation constitutes victory, stalemate, or submission.  The powers that be in this circumstance are shadow figures who always talk off the record and never wish to be identified.  Nothing could be less transparent than the motives at play or the ultimate decision.  Still, if conditions continue to deteriorate regarding the quality of content and a resulting shift towards partisan bias rather than impartiality, expect some major wars to break out that will not be assuaged by back-stage politics.  If, at some critical juncture in the near future it seems like there’s not enough money or enough oxygen to go round, one can be sure the gloves will be coming off and staying off.

Cat — Meet Nip … Press, Meet President!

Since pulling random Definitions, out of the air, during Presidential Interviews, seem to be topic de jour …

Here’s another Definition we might want to get up to speed on …

catnip definition

* cat-nip (-nip’)

noun

an herb (Nepeta cataria) of the mint family, with downy leaves and spikes of white or bluish flowers that are used in flavorings and tea: cats like its odor

http://www.yourdictionary.com/…

Interesting, cats like the odor of catnip ???

Well what happens if we give the People what they want?

It is NOT a Center-Right Country!

also posted on dkos

It is NOT a Center-Right Country!

We may have a Center-Right Media.

We may have a Center-Right Punditry-ville.

But our Country, and the majority of the American People in our “Two America’s” are NOW decidedly a deeper shade of Blue!



Larger Map

Source: NYTimes

Tide of the Country has shifted Dramatically!

THANK you, Eric Boehlert!

If you haven’t read Smirking Chimp writer Eric Boehlert’s excellent column regarding the shameless double standard in media coverage of John McCain, now is the time to do it.  There are some grammatical errors, but beyond those, the piece does a superb job of pointing out the tepid criticism of just one of the Republican candidate’s endless series of lies – compared to its record of pouncing on nearly everything, no matter how innocent, uttered by Democratic candidates as pathological deceptions.  Boehlert systematically dismantles the new Lie being promulgated that the media has somehow “turned” on McCain.

Barack Obama does not support the return of the Fairness Doctrine.  He should, if for no other reason than it would place some restraints on media goons who play favorites during electoral cycles.  Please use the comment feature for ideas on how we can get the Democratic candidate to change his mind.

Patience, by Bill in Portland Maine

This is a crosspost (with permission) of the above the fold editorial from today’s Cheers and Jeers by Bill in Portland Maine on Daily Kos.

People think he’s a funny guy, and he is.  But he’s not just a funny guy and in this case he speaks for me.

Below the fold enjoy the meat without the 400+ mojo whoring comments (not that there’s anything wrong with mojo whoring, it’s a survival skill).