The Daily Howler's Tea Party crush Pam Stout - and what she's up to now

Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby went from being an irreverent but perceptive liberal media critic to a cranky "concern troll" scolding liberals for not agreeing with Republicans.

Somerby was bowled over by the charms of a Tea Party activist named Pam Stout quoted in a New York Times article (David Barstow, Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right 02/15/2010). And he scolded George Packer, Kate Zernike and Steve Benen, and Digby for suggesting that the lovely Pam Stout might be anything more complex than an earnest citizen concerned about all the scary things these here libruls in Washington might be doin' to the country.

In the article that began the Howler's crush, Barstow wrote:

Pam Stout has not always lived in fear of her government. She remembers her years working in federal housing programs, watching government lift struggling families with job training and education. She beams at the memory of helping a Vietnamese woman get into junior college.

But all that was before the Great Recession and the bank bailouts, before Barack Obama took the White House by promising sweeping change on multiple fronts, before her son lost his job and his house. Mrs. Stout said she awoke to see Washington as a threat, a place where crisis is manipulated — even manufactured — by both parties to grab power.

She was happily retired, and had never been active politically. But last April, she went to her first Tea Party rally, then to a meeting of the Sandpoint Tea Party Patriots. She did not know a soul, yet when they began electing board members, she stood up, swallowed hard, and nominated herself for president. "I was like, 'Did I really just do that?' " she recalled.

Then she went even further.

Worried about hyperinflation, social unrest or even martial law, she and her Tea Party members joined a coalition, Friends for Liberty, that includes representatives from Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project, the John Birch Society, and Oath Keepers, a new player in a resurgent militia movement.

When Friends for Liberty held its first public event, Mrs. Stout listened as Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff, brought 1,400 people to their feet with a speech about confronting a despotic federal government. Mrs. Stout said she felt as if she had been handed a road map to rebellion. Members of her family, she said, think she has disappeared down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. But Mrs. Stout said she has never felt so engaged.

"I can't go on being the shy, quiet me," she said. "I need to stand up."

The Tea Party movement has become a platform for conservative populist discontent, a force in Republican politics for revival, as it was in the Massachusetts Senate election, or for division. But it is also about the profound private transformation of people like Mrs. Stout, people who not long ago were not especially interested in politics, yet now say they are bracing for tyranny. [my emphasis]

Barstow - and Somerby - should have known to be a little more reserved at taking Sweet Pam's self-description as a political neophyte when they saw that she was happily affiliating herself politically with the John Birch Society, the mother ship of most paranoid rightwing conspiracy theories for the last 50 years, and the Oath Keepers, a hard right outfit, which Barstow even noticed is part of "a resurgent militia movement." No one not already pretty accustomed to and sympathetic with far-right ideas and attitudes is likely to be instantly swept away by suddenly discovering such fringe groups.

Barstow:

Tea Party leaders say they know their complaints about shredded constitutional principles and excessive spending ring hollow to some, given their relative passivity through the Bush years. In some ways, though, their main answer — strict adherence to the Constitution — would comfort every card-carrying A.C.L.U. member.

But their vision of the federal government is frequently at odds with the one that both parties have constructed. Tea Party gatherings are full of people who say they would do away with the Federal Reserve, the federal income tax and countless agencies, not to mention bailouts and stimulus packages. Nor is it unusual to hear calls to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. A remarkable number say this despite having recently lost jobs or health coverage. Some of the prescriptions they are debating — secession, tax boycotts, states “nullifying” federal laws, forming citizen militias — are outside the mainstream, too.

At a recent meeting of the Sandpoint Tea Party, Mrs. Stout presided with brisk efficiency until a member interrupted with urgent news. Because of the stimulus bill, he insisted, private medical records were being shipped to federal bureaucrats. A woman said her doctor had told her the same thing. There were gasps of rage. Everyone already viewed health reform as a ruse to control their medical choices and drive them into the grip of insurance conglomerates. Debate erupted. Could state medical authorities intervene? Should they call Congress?

As the meeting ended, Carolyn L. Whaley, 76, held up her copy of the Constitution. She carries it everywhere, she explained, and she was prepared to lay down her life to protect it from the likes of Mr. Obama.

“I would not hesitate,” she said, perfectly calm.

People in the John Birch Society orbit often describe themselvbes as "constitutionalists" and treat the Constitution as a patriotic icon. That doesn't mean they know or care about anything in it, other than the far right interpretations of the Second and Tenth Amendments. No, their notions of the Constitution would not "comfort every card-carrying A.C.L.U. member."

Barstow continues later in the piece:

Pam Stout wakes each morning, turns on Fox News, grabs coffee and an Atkins bar, and hits the computer. She is the hub of a rapidly expanding and highly viral political network, keeping a running correspondence with her 400 members in Sandpoint, state and national Tea Party leaders and other conservative activists.

Mrs. Stout forwards along petitions to impeach Mr. Obama; petitions to audit the Federal Reserve; petitions to support Sarah Palin; appeals urging defiance of any federal law requiring health insurance; and on and on.

Meanwhile, she and her husband are studying the Constitution line by line. She has the Congressional switchboard programmed into her cellphone. “I just signed up for a Twitter class,” said Mrs. Stout, 66, laughing at the improbability of it all.

Yet for all her efforts, Mrs. Stout is gripped by a sense that it may be too little too late. Yes, there have been victories — including polls showing support for the Tea Party movement — but in her view none of it has diminished the fundamental threat of tyranny, a point underscored by Mr. Obama’s drive to pass a health care overhaul.

She and her members are becoming convinced that rallies alone will not save the Republic. They are searching for some larger answer, she said. They are also waiting for a leader, someone capable of uniting their rebellion, someone like Ms. Palin, who made Sandpoint one of the final stops on her book tour and who has announced plans to attend a series of high-profile Tea Party events in the next few months.

“We need to really decide where we’re going to go,” Mrs. Stout said.

These questions of strategy, direction and leadership were clearly on the minds of Mrs. Stout’s members at a recent monthly meeting.

Their task seemed endless, almost overwhelming, especially with only $517 in their Tea Party bank account. There were rallies against illegal immigration to attend. There was a coming lecture about the hoax of global warming. There were shooting classes to schedule, and tips to share about the right survival food.

The group struggled fitfully for direction. Maybe they should start vetting candidates. Someone mentioned boycotting ABC, CBS, NBC and MSNBC. Maybe they should do more recruiting.

“How do you keep on fighting?” Mrs. Stout asked in exasperation.

Lenore Generaux, a local wildlife artist, had an idea: They should raise money for Freedom Force, a group that says it wants to “reclaim America via the Patriot movement.” The group is trying to unite the Tea Parties and other groups to form a powerful “Patriot lobby.” One goal is to build a “Patriot war chest” big enough to take control of the Republican Party.

Not long ago, Mrs. Stout sent an e-mail message to her members under the subject line: “Revolution.” It linked to an article by Greg Evensen, a leader in the militia movement, titled “The Anatomy of an American Revolution,” that listed “grievances” he said “would justify a declaration of war against any criminal enterprise including that which is killing our nation from Washington, D.C.”

Mrs. Stout said she has begun to contemplate the possibility of “another civil war.” It is her deepest fear, she said. Yet she believes the stakes are that high. Basic freedoms are threatened, she said. Economic collapse, food shortages and civil unrest all seem imminent.

“I don’t see us being the ones to start it, but I would give up my life for my country,” Mrs. Stout said.

She paused, considering her next words.

“Peaceful means,” she continued, “are the best way of going about it. But sometimes you are not given a choice.” [my emphasis]

But this did not make her an activist of the far right to Bob Somerby. Somerby was also impressed by her subsequent appearance on Letterman (Nikki Gloudeman, Tea Partier Appears on Letterman Mother Jones 03/31/2010; video of the interview is available there.) Here was Somerby's take on that performance:

We said we’d like to hear Stout’s account of the Tea Party movement—her account of her political views.

The silly children on MSNBC failed to jump to our tune. Last night, they played their schoolyard games as Letterman interviewed Stout! You can watch the bulk of the segment here, unless CBS has had the tape taken down. (The last few moments are not included.) We thought Letterman did a good job with the interview in certain ways. In other ways, his lack of political savvy showed.

But then, you’ve already grown accustomed to that if you watch our progressive channel.

Go ahead—take a look at that tape. If you prefer (and many will), you’ll be able to find some ways to insist that Stout is a snarling racist. (Though you’ll have to struggle a bit.) If you’re alternately disposed, you may notice that Stout could play the title role if some producer ever decides to cast Santa Claus as a woman. For our part, we aren't inclined to agree with Stout's views—at least, with the emphases she places. And the interview only ran nine minutes. And, of course, it only involved one member of a large movement.

Question: Can you watch that interview and imagine that Stout is a decent person? By now, many liberals quite likely cannot.

In his blast at Packer, Somerby described Sweet Pam this way:

“Government-run health care!” The sound of those words scares people away. Do you think our side [he means the Democrats, speaking in "concern troll" mode] has asked people why? Do you think our side has busted its keister trying to articulate sounder ideas?
We’re just asking.

In our view, our side rarely asks people about what they’re thinking. This brings us back to recent profiles in the New York Times about those Tea Party adherents. These people lack our sound ideas—but why is that? In a more rational world, it seems that our side might ask.

In his lengthy profile in the Times, David Barstow, for whatever reason, chose to feature Pam Stout, a 66-year-old Idaho woman. It sounded like she has been influenced by Glenn Beck, though Barstow’s profile was sketchy.

How does Pam Stout see the world? What do others around her think? We’d be curious to see her interviewed. But within the aeries of High Manhattan, a high noble lord had a different reaction to Barstow’s report in the Times. At the New Yorker, his highness, the noblest Lord of Packer, condescended to ponder the mind of the hapless commoner Stout.

In a further blast at Digby, Somerby gave her a classic "concern troll" scolding, related to the fact that Sweet Pam professed to take Glenn Beck very seriously:

Digby doesn’t watch Beck a whole lot. Yes, he’s one of the biggest nuts and/or frauds ever seen on TV—but he can’t be dismissed quite that simply. Most of his work comes from fever swamps — but some of his work is quite erudite.

No, Beck is not erudite. Or honest.

Well, there's a new report out about what Sweet Pam's been up to lately: Devin Burghart, Tea Time with the Posse: Inside an Idaho Tea Party Patriots Conference (Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights) 04/18/2011. He writes:

An inside look at a recent Tea Party event organized by Stout shows a very different side of the Tea Parties, and highlights a disturbing direction taken by many local groups.

Little talk of repealing “Obamacare” or of modifying objectionable provisions of healthcare legislation took place at Stout’s “Patriots Unite” event, held March 26. The impending possibility of a government shutdown due to an impasse over the budget was hardly mentioned. Nary a word was spoken about bailouts or taxes. Instead, speakers at this Tea Party event gave the crowd a heavy dose of racist “birther” attacks on President Obama, discussions of the conspiracy behind the problem facing America (complete with anti-Semitic illustration), Christian nationalism, anti-environmentalism, and serious calls for legislation promoting states’ rights and “nullification.”

Stout, the Idaho state coordinator for Tea Party Patriots attracted around seventy Tea Party activists from Idaho, Montana, and Washington to the Coeur D’Alene Inn for the conference. The goal: to bring isolated Tea Party groups together.

Nothing that Burghart reports about that conference sounds erudite. Or pro-democracy.

Tags: bob somerby, daily howler, john birch society, pam stout, tea party

Has the Daily Howler gone over to the Dark Side?

Shorter Daily Howler 04/09/10: No, no, Democrats shouldn't ever say anything against white racism! We'll lose for sure if we do that!

Catherine O'Donnell, Survey finds that racial attitudes influence the tea party movement in battleground states University of Washington News 04/07/10.

A new University of Washington survey found ... that those who are racially resentful, who believe the U.S. government has done too much to support blacks, are 36 percent more likely to support the tea party than those who are not.

The survey found that 30 percent of respondents had never heard of the tea party, but among those who had, 32 percent strongly approved of it. In that group, 56 percent of Republicans strongly approved, 31 percent of independents strongly approved and 5 percent of Democrats strongly approved.

Among whites who approved, 35 percent said they believe blacks to be hardworking, 45 percent said they believe them intelligent and 41 percent said they believe them trustworthy.

Whites who disapprove of President Barack Obama, the survey found, are 55 percent more likely to support the tea party than those who say they approve of him.

"Are we in a post-racial society? Our survey indicates a resounding no,"Parker said.

As evidence supporting that notion continues to mount, Bob "the Daily Howler" Somberby continues to insist that liberals are losing votes by talking about it. He focuses on particular instances, but generalizes broadly about the supposedly condescending attitudes of liberals toward those nice white folks actively participating in the Tea Party movement. Which of course is a stock rhetorical defense that racially prejudiced white people toss out to deflect any criticism of white racism. Somerby is very reluctant to share what he thinks would be an acceptable method of criticizing white racism. His real point seems to be: don't criticize it.

In the post linked above, he thinks Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis should resign his Congressional seat because he criticized white racism in the Tea Party movement.

Somerby declares, generalizing freely, "how we liberals love our race-baiting!"

He says a column by Joan Walsh criticizing white racism in the Tea Party movement "should go directly to the Smithsonian, where it could live for all time in the display about the dumbest ways to do politics."

This Somerby declaration is just depressing:

Conservatives may want to “take the country back” from Obama, Pelosi, Sotomayor and Frank—but do they want to take it back from blacks, from women, from Hispanics and gays? Just this week, a large crowd of conservatives loudly cheered the idea of a Palin-Bachmann presidential ticket. (Palin and Bachmann are women.) When asked by Sean Hannity at that same rally, Palin said she supports Michael Steele. In Florida, Republicans have fallen in love with Marco Rubio; in the process, they’ve thrown away Charlie Crist, the whitest male pol on the planet. Do you know how dumb it is to keep insisting that they hate women, Hispanics and blacks when their biggest favorites are drawn from these camps? Do you understand the insulting message this nonsense sends to Walsh’s shocking “white people?” When we tell them they’re stone-cold racists—that their limbic brains don’t work right—we’re telling them to join the other side, We might as well send limos around to drive them to the tea party.

Somerby has descended into "concern troll" clowning with this kind of approach. By his own standards, why would he say that Sarah Palin and Marco Rubio are the favorites of Republicans? And if he seriously thinks that white people cheering minority spokespeople who echo the most conservative whites' ideology is a sign that white racism is no factor, then he's confessing that he knows practically nothing about real existing white racism.

In this column, he's taken to discussing it the way the most conservative whites who are most opposed to civil rights legislation of any kind respond to any suggestions of racism in them or any of their supporters: relying on quibbling abstractions, accusing them libruls of being condescending and the real racists "how we liberals love our race-baiting!", arguing that, hey, some of their best friends are minorities and stuff.

He seems to be declaring Digby part of the enemy pundit camp in the following passage. (I've discussed his recent debates with Digby in several posts the last few days.)

We’ll admit it—we didn’t know! We never could have imagined how nasty and dumb we liberals are — how much we love to play race cards, how much we love to mock teabaggers, a term Digby applied to Pam Stout again, just yesterday. (Darlings! Glenn Beck makes her think! She gets more like Sally Quinn every day.) Just a guess: Digby doesn’t watch Beck a whole lot. Yes, he’s one of the biggest nuts and/or frauds ever seen on TV — but he can’t be dismissed quite that simply. Most of his work comes from fever swamps — but some of his We’ll admit it—we didn’t know! We never could have imagined how nasty and dumb we liberals are—how much we love to play race cards, how much we love to mock teabaggers, a term Digby applied to Pam Stout again, just yesterday. (Darlings! Glenn Beck makes her think! She gets more like Sally Quinn every day.) Just a guess: Digby doesn’t watch Beck a whole lot. Yes, he’s one of the biggest nuts and/or frauds ever seen on TV—but he can’t be dismissed quite that simply. Most of his work comes from fever swamps — but some of his work is quite erudite. People who aren’t quite as bright as the self-admittedly brilliant High Lady Quinn-Digby may not always see the problems with Beck’s claims. They will be much less likely to see the problems when nasty, name-calling “Quinn lite” types keep calling them naughty names.

Our side is nasty, brutish and stupid. (And short — in attention span.) We seem determined to lose at politics, as we so skillfully did four decades ago, the last time we pretended we cared. Some of us were raised by racist fathers, against whom we grandly recoil. Just a question: Is there any chance that the “my tribe and no other” gene of the fathers may be swimming around in the daughters? The fathers ridiculed The Other on the basis of race. The daughters also love to exclude. And we love to play our own race cards! Just go back and review the work of the honorable Mr. Cohen.

Liberals are "nasty, brutish and stupid"? Some of Glenn Beck's "work is quite erudite"? Compare that to what Dave Neiwert, someone who actually knows a lot about the real existing Radical Right has to say about Beck: Maybe the scummiest Glenn Beck show ever: Smears Obama's parents, says Mom 'abandoned' him for 'Marxist political theory' Crooks and Liars 04/07/10.

I suppose it's possible that Somerby has been so immersed in analyzing the flaws of mainstream pundits and reporters that he's just unfamiliar with the nature of Radical Right pseudoscholarship. But he gave quite a bit of attention in 2004 to how the media dealt with the Swift Boat Liars for Bush slanderous "scholarship" against John Kerry. It's hard to even imagine that he's actually unaware of the obsessive footnoting and citing of real and imagined authorities that is typical of crackpot pseudoscholarship. And that's exactly the nature of Beck's supposed erudition.

I'm thinking that the Howler's 04/09/10 post may well be his personal declaration of, I used to be a liberal, but .... Sad to see.

Tags: bob somerby, daily howler

McCain's 100 Years War and the bad, naughty, wicked Democrats who criticize him

I was inspired in the last few days to write a couple of e-mails to Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby taking partial issue with a couple of his more literal readings of news commentary. I was reminded of this by Marigold2's post on the bold Maverick defending his 100 Years War position against those nasty Democrats.

Bob "The Daily Howler" Somerby in his 03/27/08 post scolded unnamed culprits for reinventing, massaging and improving the Maverick's statement on staying in Iraq for 100 years. The original quote from which the 100 Years War line was taken goes this way (Somerby's version of 04/01/08):

QUESTION (1/3/08): President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years—

MCCAIN: Maybe a hundred. We've been in South Korea. We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That'd be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it's fine with me.

The Maverick defends his comment by pointing out, accurately, that he referred specifically to Americans staying there in conditions where they were "not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed".

This is the text of the e-mail I sent the Howler on that one:

Bob,

I'll take up your implied challenge when you wrote, "By the way: Some of you will now compose e-mails. You'll insist that McCain didnt say what he so plainly said, or that he plainly meant something different."

Now, I know you did not say it was a challenge. But I'm inferring that from my own experience and understanding of speech patterns in American English.

Which relates directly to your literalistic comment about McCain's now-famous, "Maybe a hundred" about the length of time he would be content seeing American troops stay in Iraq, followed immediately by his specifying that he meant, "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed".

Here, I won't bother to interpret his remark. I'll stick to literalism. And in the literal words that came out of his mouth, he did not address how long he envisioned leaving American troops in Iraq if they are still "being injured or harmed or wounded or killed". Every quotation I've seen from him on the Iraq War leaves the time frame open-ended.

What he has not said is how many ones, or tens, or dozens of years he's willing to continue to have Americans "being injured or harmed or wounded or killed" in the Iraq War. One might interpret his statements as implying that would be something less than 100 years. But I haven't seen him quoted as saying that.

If you report that a Lexux/Nexus search turned up an occasion on which he specified some more specific time limit for continuing to have Americans "being injured or harmed or wounded or killed", I will stand corrected.

Somerby returned to the theme in his posts for 04/01/08 and 04/03/08. In the 04/01 post, he observes, in the process of verbally scourging Eugene Robinson for doing a similarly sloppy piece of reporting on the Maverick's statement:

It may well be Robinson's opinion that what McCain envisions will never occur. Robinson is hardly a foreign policy expert - and even experts lack crystal balls. But if Robinson thinks McCain is dreaming when he pictures an outcome like this, he is of course free to say so - and to explain his view.

Somerby is right that reporters and columnists - and even bloggers - should take care to be accurate in such things.

But in terms of using the "100 Years War" line against the Maverick, it's perfectly valid for the Dems or the netroots to do so. Because - for other Howler fans, this is my interpretation coming - McCain's use of the hundred-years line both then and in his defenses of it later, serves two purposes. One, for hardcore war fans, it lets them hear an in-your-face response to a war critic, with the Maverick saying it doesn't matter how long it takes to win it, you disgusting hippie, we'll fight for as long as it takes.

But by defending the line then and later by emphasizing he meant that only in a situation where Americans weren't being hurt, he ducks the question of how long he's willing to see the fighting go on. Instead, he and his fans can whine that his in-your-face response is being misquoted by those liberal meanies, another example of the "Liberals are liars! Liberals are liars!" phenomenon.

In fact, the Maverick insists on leaving the question of a time frame entirely open. Since our Savior-General Petraeus who the Maverick adores and supports has said counterinsurgency wars can easily go for 10 years or longer, voters can legitimately conclude from his vague insistence on Victory that the Maverick wants an open-ended commitment. Especially when he's tossing around dates like 100 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years, and so on. Yes, even though he tosses the alibi qualifiers in.

This is the letter that appeared in the 04/03/08 San Francisco Chronicle (scroll down), defending the Maverick on that comment:

McCain's words in context

Editor - I read almost daily in The Chronicle claims that Sen. John Mc Cain wants us to remain in Iraq for 100 years. The latest is by letter writer Fernando Feliciano (April 2).

The 100-year quote by Mc Cain is only half of what Mc Cain said and this quote is being taken completely out of context.

Here is the full quote by McCain:

Question: "President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years ..."(cut off by McCain).

McCain: "Make it a hundred. We've been in South Korea ... we've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It's fine with me and I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world."

McCain clearly means that our long-term presence in Iraq would be as a policing, peacekeeping force such as the United Nations, not as an active, fighting, military presence.

This is a completely different meaning than the spin the Democrats and liberals are putting on his partial quote.

I think it is a cheap shot.

NANCY DEUSSEN Palo Alto

The incomparable Daily Howler would presumably observe that the letter-writer also does a bit of mind-reading on the statement herself when she says that what the Maverick meant was "that our long-term presence in Iraq would be as a policing, peacekeeping force such as the United Nations".

But Dems and the peace movement should not let the Maverick get away with this dodge. His Iraq War plan so far represents open-ended war. We need to remind as many people as we can that such is the case. "100 Years War" is a vivid and appropriate image for that.

Juan Cole in Rich, McCain, and the Coming Heartbreak Ridge Informed Comment blog 04/07/08 discusses McCain's comment and the debate that has developed over them. Among other things, Cole looks at what it might mean if we take McCain's Korea analogy seriously. Making policy by bad historical analogy is one of the biggest plagues that affects American foreign policy and has for a long time.

The Republicans are trying to make a case of "Liberals are liars! Liberals are liars!" We shouldn't forget some important points in connection with the 100 Years War concept:

McCain has never specified any projected time line for the end of fighting in Iraq. Petraeus' own position on counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare says that a major COIN effort could take 10 years or more of active fighting. Does McCain think we're in the middle of 10 years war?

The Maverick does not acknowledge that the involvement of the United States in protracted warfare is itself a major problem and risk.

The Straight Talker's expressed position on the Iraq War does not spell out any strategy other than continuing the approach we're currently following.

The bold Maverick now says that we are "no longer staring into the abyss of defeat" in the Iraq War. Will he have any "straight talk" to offer to his fellow Republicans who have called critics who pointed out just such a thing happening in the past defeatists, unpatriotic, even traitors? Shouldn't McCain "distance himself" from those Republicans by name, no, denounce their wicked slanders? (Obama shouldn't be the only one apologizing for and denouncing his own supporters.) Come to think of it, did you ever hear the Maverick himself say that we were "staring into the abyss of defeat" at whatever time he now says such a thing was happening? Me neither.

McCain's 100 Years War (or was it not-war?) comment seemed to assume that permanent US bases in Iraq are a given. This has been a controversial proposition, here and abroad - not least in the Middle East - from the start. The pursuit of permanent bases is in itself a major factor that could prolong the already-prolonged combat in Iraq.

Finally, Juan Cole is more generous than I would be to Frank Rich's column Tet Happened, and No One Cared New York Times 04/06/08. In fact, this supposedly stalwart liberal writer opens his column with these two paragraphs:

REALLY, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should be ashamed of themselves for libeling John McCain. As a growing chorus reiterates, their refrains that Mr. McCain is "willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq" (as Mr. Obama said) or "willing to keep this war going for 100 years" (per Mrs. Clinton) are flat-out wrong.

What Mr. McCain actually said in a New Hampshire town-hall meeting was that he could imagine a 100-year-long American role in Iraq like our long-term presence in South Korea and Japan, where "Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed." See for yourself on YouTube.

Yes, Rich clucks about McCain's deficiencies on the Iraq War, proving that they are so glaring even a Big Pundit can notice them. But what really, really, really bugs him are Vile Hillary and Libelous Obama criticizing St. McCain over his 100 Years War crack. Does Frank Rich give a flying [Cheney] if the fighting in Iraq goes on for 100 years or not? I seriously doubt it.

And the great Straight Talker is certainly not "the crazed militarist portrayed by Democrats", Rich assures us. Now, I certainly hope there are Democrats out there calling our Greatest Living Saint (next to Savior-General Petraeus) a militarist, because I sure have been. I can't recall hearing Obama, Clinton or any member of Congress call him a militarist, though. Even I haven't called him a "crazed" militarist, though I'll probably be calling him worse at some point. Is "warmonger" worse than "crazed militarist"? I'm sure an above-the-fray sage like Frank Rich would disapprove of both.

I wish we did have to worry about the Democrats having so much fight in them that they risked going overboard in their furious criticism of the bold Maverick. Hey, I'll sign up to be one of the ones ringing alarm bells when an excess of Jacksonian democracy starts becoming an urgent political problem for the Democratic Party.

Rich's column is just full of groaners:

So far his bizarre pronouncements have been drowned out by the Democrats’ din.

Oh, I see, Rich is watching the Presidential race in one of those alternative universes where a reincarnated Andrew Jackson is the leader of the Democratic Party.

Iraq’s sects have remained at each other’s throats since their country was carved out of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.

Um, not so much. As Patrick Cockburn explains in his new book Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq, tensions between the Iraqi Shi'a and the Sunnis were dramatically increased by the Baathist coup in 1968 and even more radically by the aftermath of Old Man Bush's Gulf War of 1991.

The electorate doesn’t want to hear much anyway about a war it long ago soundly rejected.

Big Pundits routinely assume that their own heads reflect the majority opinions of the public. Actually the public remains very interested in and concerned about the Iraq War. But our compliant corporate media has insisted on de-emphasizing coverage of the Iraq War, which I first naively thought was the point of Rich's column's headline. But it's against Big Pundit law to say that its the Establishment press like the New York Times that have decided to shirk their responsibility of covering the war even more than they have in the conflict's earlier years.

But while Rich's own mind reflects the majority opinion, we shouldn't forget that Big Pundits rise above the pettiness of the dirty masses:

For the majority of Americans who haven’t met any of the brave troops who’ve been cavalierly tossed into the quagmire, the war is out of sight and mind in a way Vietnam never was. Only 28 percent of Americans knew American casualties in Iraq were nearing 4,000 last month, according to the Pew Research Center. The Project for Excellence in Journalism found that by March 2008 the percentage of prominent news stories that were about Iraq had fallen to about one-fifth of what it was in January 2007. It’s a poignant commentary on the whole war that Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the nonpartisan advocacy group, was reduced to protesting the lack of coverage.

That’s why it’s no surprise that so few stopped to absorb the disastrous six-day battle of Basra that ended last week — a mini-Tet that belied the “success” of the surge. Even fewer noticed that the presumptive Republican nominee seemed at least as oblivious to what was going down as President Bush, no tiny feat. (my emphasis)

That "lack of coverage" that a veterans group found the need to poignantly protest is due to the lazy, out-of-touch public, you see, not to our train-wreck of a press corps.

After shoveling this kind of hooey for the first half or so of his column, then he gets down to criticizing the Maverick for his crazed militarist sadly mistaken Maverick views on the Iraq War. Given the sloppiness of the first part of the column, even I wouldn't rely on his accounts of what the Straight Talker actually said.

By the way, consistency is the hobgoblin of lesser minds than those of Big Pundits. After scolding those wicked Democrats for their rude, nasty, extremist language against St. McCain, he writes of the Maverick's unimpressive policies of continuing the Iraq War indefinitely, "As the old saying goes, doing the same thing over and over again and hoping you’ll get a different result is the definition of insanity."

Oh, I get it! It's horrible and naughty and stuff to call the Maverick "crazed" but okay to suggest he suffers from "insanity". Of course, there's a huge difference between the two. At least in that alternative reality where Frank Rich is observing the Presidential race.

But let's not forget, what's really, realy bad and horrible and a world-historical shame for American democracy are those wicked Democrats, Vile Hillary and Libelous Obama, who are so out of control as to criticize the bold Maverick in ways not pre-approved by Frank Rich:

The Democrats should also stop repeating their 100-years-war calumny against Mr. McCain. There’s too much at stake for America for them to add their own petty distortions to an epic tragedy that only a long-overdue national reckoning with hard truths can bring to an end. (my emphasis)

How did we wind up in the Iraq War, the worst strategic disaster in American history? How did we wind up with the Cheney-Bush administration, the worst Presidency in American history? We couldn't have done without the immense assistance of our corporate press corps.

Tags: bob somerby, daily howler, establishment press, frank rich, mainstream media, mainstream press, mccain

Democrats and press "scripts"

I think Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby should be regular daily reading for all Democratic Presidential candidates and all their strategists and PR people. And Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog required reading for every literate American citizen, but that's a story for another post.

A lot of us Dems have spent years, decades even, poo-pooing the rightwing conspiracy theory of the Liberal Press, a conspiracy theory that gets more widely spread the more conservatives get media bullhorns. I heard Sean Hannity ranting on FOX News the other day that the New York Times (of Judith Miller fame), the Washington Post (which supported the Iraq War), plus CBS and NBC (or was ABC in there too?) were all "very leftwing".

Bob Somerby has been making the case for years that liberals and Democrats have failed to face up to the fact that the mainstream media, or the Establishment press as I prefer to call it, has been the driving force behind the trivialization, trashing and ridicule of Democratic candidates during the last decade and more. The Republican rightwing definitely plays a role, as in the phony and dishonest story spun up by Rev. Moon's propaganda machine and popularized by FOX News that Barack Obama attended a radical, Saudi-funded "madrassa" as a child. Somerby gives a (for him) rare pat on the back to CNN for quickly debunking that one.

But it's not just a matter of the rightwingers making stuff up and having the "press corps" adopt it as their script, though that happens far too often. The mainstream press corps originates a lot of this, a process of which Somerby provides copious examples at The Daily Howler.

I liked this definition of the problem as defined by Al Gore, one of the primary victims of this press dysfunction, in a talk that Green Greenwald summarized as follows(Various items Unclaimed Territory blog 01/09/07):

I listened to part of an interview with Al Gore earlier today in which Gore argued that the Internet and blogs are in the process of fundamentally changing the nature of political debate and dialogue in this country. Television has been overwhelmingly dominant in shaping public opinion, Gore argues, and because its attributes (corporate control, advertisement-dependence, reliance on an entertainment-format) preclude meaningful political discussions, our political debates have been vapid, substance-free and highly manipulative (and those who have exercised the most influence in that environment - presumably television "journalists" and pundits - have thrived because they excel at these empty tasks.

Gore contends that the Internet will make political debates far more substantive and will render the punditry world far more meritocratic, because online commentators are largely free of the constraints of television which ruin political debates, and because online political dialogue both permits and demands higher-quality arguments in order to persuade. ... (my emphasis)

I don't mean to make Bob Somerby sound like the William Faulkner of the Web, or something. Comparing people like Faulkner or Elvis or Britney Spears to mere mortals just isn't fair to the poor mortals. Somerby strangely failed to understand the significance of the Valerie Plame case, which turns out to still be one of the outlets from which we are learning a great deal of fatual detail about the road to war in Iraq and about the rank maliciousness and dishonesty of the Cheney-Bush administration.

But he's is very good when he focuses on the "scripts" that the press locks into about various individuals, in particular. And while the "scripts" may very occasionally favor a liberal, they usually don't. And, he is good about keeping in mind the reality that the problem is not simply personal bias toward Republicans, thought that certainly does happen. It's the very kinds of things that Gore mentioned: shallowness, sensationalism, an "entertainment" orientation.

His post of 01/29/07 gives a good example of how rigid scripts, superficiality and just plain carelessness and dumbness so badly distort political reporting in the US today, to the particular detriment of Democrats.

And he argues passionately that Dems, including those of us in the "liberal Web", have to find a way to counter those scripts. That presents particular challenges in a primary seasons when the Democratic candidates are fighting to distinguish themselves from each other.

But Somerby's right. The frivolous, dishonest story that the Moonie Website "Insight" made up about Barack Obama having attended a radical Islamic "madrassa" as a child and that it was Hillary Clinton's campaign spreading the rumor is a good example. As Joe Conason points out, not only were both claims bogus. But they are a signature Nixon-style "dirty trick" from the Watergate days: Ghosts of dirty tricks past Salon 01/26/07. And the real damage is not that an outlight for a far-right cult group makes up these stories, irresponsible as that is. The most serious damage is that allegedly responsible journalists, pundits and news outlets pick it up and publicize it. In this case, CNN did some actual journalistic work and debunked the story.

I have my own reservations about Obama as a Democratic candidate, which I've expressed here before. Not least because I'm still hoping that Al Gore will announce his candidacy. Obama has been the beneficiary of the press' celebrity obsession. But we've already seen with the Moonie madrassa story how quickly that can morph into the Establishment press spreading total hokum about him.

But Somerby's point is that even while the Dems battle it out for the Presidential nomination in 2008, we all have to guard against those deadly, phony "scripts", even for our less-favored candidates. Because by the time the primaries are over, they will be much harder to undo.

"Dirty trick" sounds almost benign these days, doesn't it? In the Cheney era, full-blown sleaze-slinging, shameless manufacture of stories, outing of CIA agents, accusations of treason (against war critics, not against Republicans who out CIA agents for cheap politics) and godlessness have become standard operating procedure for the Grand Old Party.

Here's a prime example of this kind of problematic reporting, from Matt Taibbi who writes on politics for Rolling Stone: Hillary Is In It to Win It Alternet.org 01/22/07. Now, Taibbi can do good reporting. I've seen some of it in Rolling Stone. But this is essentially a smug, cynical polemic against Hillary Clinton, relying on some of airhead press scripts that are kicking around out there. The short version of Taibbi's piece: Hillary Clinton uses English words in her speeches that other people have also used and this proves she a Big Phony! It's ridiculous.

And, not to pick on Alternet which runs some good articles and which I normally check daily. But what's with Earl Ofari Hutchinson whose work they regularly feature? He is supposed to be, like, their token black Republican or something? Oh, I see at his Web site that he's a "FOX liberal", as in "I'm a liberal except on the subject which we're talking about at the moment where I totally agree with the Republicans".

On the same day as Taibbi's hit piece, they published Hutchison's Hillary's Problem Is Hillary, Not Republicans 01/22/07. To use just one example, let's take the third paragraph:

In exit polls on election night last November following her smash Senate reelection victory, one out of five New York voters were adamant that Hillary would not make a good president. And these were the voters that backed her in her Senate victory.

Okay, he didn't cite which exist polls. But on the face of it, what does it say? If you read it quickly, it certainly sounds like a fifth of the New Yorkers who voted for her do not like her for President: "these were the voters that backed her in her Senate victory."

But what he reports about the poll in the preceding sentence is that "one out of five New York voters were adamant" in insisting that Clinton would not make a good President. Now, I don't have the final results of that race in front of me. But as I recall, the Republican candidate got more than 20% of the statewide vote. I would have thought that all New York Republicans and maybe some small percentage of Democrats would be against her Presidential candidacy. The 20% figure, though, presumably wouldn't even include all the Republicans.

Yet he presents this as showing that 20% of the New Yorkers who voted for Hillary are "adamant" against her Presidential campaign. This sloppy at best, clownish and dishonest at worst.

Here's Bob Somerby on 01/23/07 reacting to the press coverage of Hillary's announcement that she intends to run for President.

Tags: barack obama, bob somerby, daily howler, hillary clinton