MN Progressive Project - media

Bachmann: Anderson Cooper does Bachmann story

Bill Prendergast — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:00:00 GMT

Last night Anderson Cooper of CNN ran promotions telling America he was going to do a show on Bachmann at ten p.m.

I was in a Mexican restaurant halfway through a burrito when I looked up and saw that announcement on the big screen plasma TV that hung over the cantina bar. And when I saw you know I choked and did a habanero spit-take, paid the tab, and "adios'd" out of there, burning rubber to get home.

Because this wasn't going to be a Bachmann interview. It was to be a Bachmann profile, and that makes all the difference in the world. There's no shortage of face time interviews with MB; she gives them out in Bachmann friendly forums all the time. Depending on what happened the week before, she does either "the nice Michele" or "the nuts Michele."

This means you can get dozens of videos showing her addressing conservative crowds or being interviewed by conservative hosts. But there is a dearth (meaning "not much") of broadcast profiles about this nut and her hateful antics. So a serious news piece about Bachmann is news in and of itself. And it was a long shot, but who knows--this profile might even be the one to inform viewers that Bachmann is a puppet candidate of the national evangelical right.
(continued)

Well, there I was in pajamas and bathrobe with the popcorn when the piece came on, and surprise--it was kind of disappointing. They did get to the fact that Bachmann is a "Christian" politician (laying claim to the brand.) They did notice that Bachmann resists interviews with press that might possibly ask her embarrassing questions about her past position statements.

And there were other highlights in this single segment report. But the guy in the field mindlessly repeated the story about Bachmann "raising" twenty three foster children in addition to her five biological children.

She did not "raise" those foster children; because "raising children" denotes caring for children from childhood to independent adulthood. The foster children that the Bachmanns took in were pregnant teen mothers. The largest numbert that ever stayed with the Bachmanns at the same time was four. It is accurate to say the Bachmanns took in these unwed mothers, it is deceitful to allow the press to report (as she always has) that she "raised" them.

So that got by Anderson Cooper and into the national meme again; sloppy research by the guy who wrote the copy for the teleprompters.

An up spot: They note in passing that Bachmann claims that she was called to run by God and prides herself on being a Christian. "A born again Christian", according to Cooper's reporter--I never heard her claim that she was "born again," but I don't claim to have heard everything she ever told anyone. If she is claiming to be "born again," that's a whole new area there--it raises the bar for her on her own conduct. People who are intent on using evangelical belief for political career are very careful about using the phrase "born again" to describe themselves. (cf. George W. Bush.)

Because politics often involves lying. And Christian political figures who claim to be born again but are regularly caught lying to the public (cf. Bachmann) can alienate evangelicals of sincere faith.

Down spot: she's off the hook there, because Cooper's reporter said Bachmann was "born again," Bachmann did not herself claim "born again" status.

Another down spot: Bachmann was shown rushing from place to place to be interviewed, surrounded by people whizzing her through the state fair. She seemed intent on looking too busy to talk to CNN. Who did she want to talk to? A local evangelical radio station. (CNN filmed her in the booth talking to the evangelical radio guys, instead of talking to CNN.)

Then they showed her whizzing across the fairgrounds to another local radio station... a secular conservative radio station--once again dumping CNN to get to a Bachmann friendly forum. They filmed her going into that radio booth, too.

Why is this a down spot? Because Anderson Cooper, his producer, and the reporter doing the remote broadcast did not know that both of the radio stations that Bachmann chose in preference to CNN: were owned by the Salem Network, a national broadcast chain of mostly evangelical radio stations devoted to presenting conservative viewpoints around the country. The Salem Network owns about 2000 radio stations. (CORRECTION: I got the number "2000" from a Washington Post story referencing Salem. In fact, Salem Communications and the Salem Radio Network have about one hundred stations and claim 2000 "affiliates." Thank you, alert commenter who sent that in.) Salem's directors are members and in some case past leaders of the Council for National Policy: an organization of evangelical conservatives who introduce wingers like Bachmann into American government.

That's too bad, that Cooper didn't know that or care to find out. There's a story there that's changing the fundamental nature of the Republican Party. Which leads to the next down spot: four commentators were invited by satellite to comment on the piece--and none of them said anything remotely memorable. None discussed the fact of Bachmann's protege status within the national evangelical political machine. (I simply cannot believe that David Gergen knows nothing of this development in modern Republican politics; I cannot believe that he doesn't know "who Michele really works for.")

Bright spot: incredibly, it was Jason Lewis--our local Rush Limbaugh knockoff who provided the bright spot. For the first time in his life, he said something "true and valuable." After interviewing Bachmann (he's a Bachmann friendly forum, on her campaign's "approved media" list), Lewis noted that thing are different now. He told CNN that there are no gatekeepers now, no Walter Cronkite and New York Times to decide what the people will hear. Everything will get heard, said Lewis.

This remark provided the four commentators with chin-wagging material for about thirty seconds, once the piece had been aired. It seem to puzzle Cooper, probably because the remark (if true) would diminish the significance of the traditional news outlets that he represents.

But it doesn't puzzle you, if you read the last piece I did here about Bachmann. Lewis was making an oblique reference to a fact of contemporary American politics: conservatives now have their own national media, with its own standards for "what constitutes news reporting," and around a third of the American electorate are accepting conservative standards for news reporting in place of traditional news standards. In short, conservative Americans are accepting the organized propaganda in preference to the traditional professional preference for objective reporting.

And conservative evangelical media outlets have national audiences that prefer to accept their propaganda, in preference to reporting from the traditional media. As Lewis said: on this side of the political equation--there are no gatekeepers. He might as well have added: on this side of the political equation, there is no demand for factual reporting. The only demand of this audience, is broadcasting that confirms them in their conservative worldview.

And that's why Bachmann won't talk to Anderson Cooper's guys. She doesn't have to, to win. Her side has its own media; they own stations that broadcast conservatism in the name of Jesus Christ and in the name of Ronald Reagan. They will not ask her about the veracity of her claims. With local and national media like that, plus television ads and piles of money from evangelicals and conservatives around the country--the traditional media doesn't matter, except as a venue where she might possibly make a false step.

So she can avoid the professional press with impunity. F**k 'em; they're basically irrelevant," says Bachmann and scurries off toe the next Bachmann friendly broadcast outlet.

They don't have to be irrelevant; they could "rip the lid off the whole 'broadcasting lies daily' scam, etc." but it's clear after decades of this that the traditional media doesn't have the stomach to do that. (They might get fired; they work for big corporations.)

Bachmann did finally agree to answer just two questions on camera for Anderson Cooper's reporter in Minnesota. Just two; the questions weren't memorable and the answers weren't memorable. So Anderson Cooper flew this guy all the way out to St. Paul not to hit a home run.

But there were two bright spots. One was a guy an ordinary citizen out with his family, walking by the Bachmann entourage, and he starts yelling out stuff like "she's NUTS!" The Anderson Cooper people did feature that footage at the end of the report, probably because they were pissed that she only gave them two questions after giving the rest of the day to conservative media.

Too bad they didn't stop to interview that guy; I bet he would have talked to them and told them why he thought Michele was a nut and a liar. Maybe they did interview him; but if they did they cut him out of the final piece.

The other bright spot was Tarryl Clark, Bachmann's Dem opponent. Clark did want to talk to CNN; they showed her walking side by side with Cooper's reporter, telling the score but what she was saying was blotted out by voiceover narration. In the end, she allowed to deliver about a soundbyte's worth of message to the viewers at home.

And this is how it goes: the liberal politician who will talk to the traditional media is allowed a soundbyte. The conservative politician who won't talk to the traditional media? They spend almost the entire piece chasing her around and film her talking to the conservative media. And the traditional media won't condemn her for doing that, or report the reasons why she's shutting out traditional media.

And CNN's telling me I'm missing something if I don't watch this show?

MPR Poll: bad methodology, slim chances for Emmer

Joe Bodell — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:55:10 GMT

MPR is out with a gubernatorial poll with a rather questionable methodology, showing a dead heat between DFLer Mark Dayton and Republican Tom Emmer at 34% apiece.

If it takes an 8-point oversample in Tom Emmer's favor to get him up to a tie, I feel pretty great about Mark Dayton's chances in a real electorate in which younger, cell-phone-only voters show up.

But aside from the weird methodology, check out the published crosstabs:

1. Independent voters:
Undecided: 38%
Horner: 26%
Dayton: 23%
Emmer: 13%

There's a lot of room for movement there, but there is virtually no way Emmer picks up significant enough ground among independent voters to make a dent in the overall results. Keep in mind that this is a mid-term election, and the non-partisan vote is generally going to be a lot lower than it is in presidential years, so given a normal partisan breakdown, or even a slightly GOP-leaning one, Emmer has a LOT of ground to make up.

2. The gender gap: MPR's writeup indicates that there's no significant gender gap -- that women are currently favoring Mark Dayton by a similar margin to men favoring Tom Emmer. However, what they fail to mention directly is that the sample includes 52% women (about normal for Minnesota) which is yet another built-in advantage for Dayton. Again, given a more reasonable partisan sample, this will go straight through to the final results of this election.

3. Age gap? MPR doesn't appear to have published the support breakdowns by age, only the sample sizes -- which look weird in and of themselves, since it's a decent bet the senior vote will be bigger than this poll indicates. If it is, it's another good bet that those voters will go with Dayton in big numbers, especially outside the city -- as we found in the DFL primary, these voters are more likely than not to go with the name they know and trust, and that is Mark Dayton.

Again, if it takes a huge GOP over-sample to get Tom Emmer up to a bare tie, I think Mark Dayton is in pretty darned good shape right now.

Republican operative asks questions, Twin Cities media goes along for ride

Joe Bodell — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:03:36 GMT

At a press conference today, Luke Hellier of Minnesota Democrats Exposed was allowed to ask a "gotcha" question of DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton, and tripped him up a little bit. Bravo, Luke. Glad to see you can read so well from a script that came from...who knows where.

There are some bigger issues here:

1. The real screw-up here is on the part of the organizers, whether that be the Dayton campaign staff, the DFL, or whoever was running the show, in allowing a publicly known Republican blogger, activist, and operative in the room, let alone into a position where he could open his mouth.

2. Pat Kessler asking a follow-on question to something asked by a publicly known Republican operative in such a setting is absolutely preposterous, and truly bends the standards of journalistic decency. Kessler is a good reporter, but this was just absolutely stupid.

3. The money quote from Dayton in the exchange is unlikely to get much play from the likes of MDE:

I just think it's way out of bounds to in terms of what people care about in this election.

People are hurting, and Dayton actually has proposals on the table for helping Minnesota get back on the right track economically (which Emmer does not, beyond "MORE OF WHAT PAWLENTY GAVE US"). So obviously this is how the GOP and Team Emmer think they're going to win: by talking about decade-old records from Dayton's divorce.

It's a pretty good example of the Chewbacca Defense, really: throw as much disjointed, irrelevant information at the wall and hope the jury is so confused that they don't notice you're an idiot, and thus ~~acquit~~ elect your guy who still thinks the waitstaff at your local restaurant are overpaid.

Pitiful. Disgusting and totally in character, but pitiful.

Bachmann: the piece in Minnesota Monthly

Bill Prendergast — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:00:00 GMT

They just did a big piece on her in Minnesota Monthly--the link is at the end of this post.

It's a long piece...too bad they gave the subject so much space and said so little. That's understandable, because the piece is largely composed of "what people are saying about Michele Bachmann," rather than "who is Michele Bachmann and what does she actually represent." And even within the limitations it sets for itself, the piece is flawed from the get-go. Because the reporter started out asking the wrong questions:

...does Bachmann mean what she says? And does she practice what she preaches?

Better questions are:

Is she really--as her opponents charge--a nut, a liar, and a bigot?
Exactly how and why did this person come to national prominence in American politics?

It doesn't make sense to ask whether Bachmann "really means what she says." Bachmann has been speaking on national issues since the beginning of her career. None of us have any idea what Michele Bachmann would do if she was handed actual power--say, the power to shape national policy and legislation after a major GOP pickup of seats this November.

For example: Would she really advocate use of nuclear weapons to stop Iran? (As a candidate, she said that use of the nuclear option against Iran shouldn't be "taken off the table." Would she really want Congress to spend all its time doing nothing but issue subpoenas to the GOP's political opposition? (She's said this, but it didn't make the article--is that really what she would do if she had the power?)
(continued)
It's impossible to know the limits of what she would actually do with the power to influence national decision making. Because there are so, so many "burning issues" that Bachmann has sworn to address--and then dropped as soon as they stopped paying off for her politically. There's no list of those dropped issues in this article: the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR), the "drill baby drill" stuff, the "Academic Bill of Rights," the need to teach creationism in public schools, "we must protect BP from from victims of the oil spill who will play them for "chumps" ...

Not in this article, about "whether she means what she says."

The reporter speaks to a legislator who opposed Bachmann's crusade against gay marriage--another "burning issue" she dropped after it raised her name recognition with the state's evangelical voters and paved the way for her congressional run. The problem is: Bachmann's stand on gay marriage is the cutting edge story of 2005.

It's just one of many issues Bachmann raised, exploited to court conservatives, and then dropped. That's real story: her pattern of ramping up the hate and fear on a particular issue and then dropping it. Not the gay marriage issue (because now, in 2010, it's on the furthest of her back burners.) The real story is the demagoguery, the long list of paranoid issues that she exploited and still exploits for personal political gain, the lies and smears have come a long way since the virulent homophobia days.

The only thing she's been consistent on are anti-abortion votes and "no" votes that favor special interests. As a freshman entering Congress, she sought and received a seat on the congressional committee regulating finance and lending. (That's not in this article either; you wouldn't know from reading this that she had any responsibility in this area prior to the lending meltdown and bailouts. In fact, it was supposed to be at the center of her national policy responsibility; that's why she asked for the assignment to this national committee.)

At a time when a these financial sectors were running wild, Bachmann was voting to prevent government regulation of the finance industry she was supposedly there to regulate. There was no action from Bachmann on the impending economic crisis--instead she was off on the radio ranting about various other issues, many of them crackpot issues.

Example: instead of spending months on radio appearances warning Americans about the dangers of an economic collapse; she spent months warning Americans about the dangers of CFL light bulbs. In Michele Bachmann's mind, the threat that "light bulb regulation" posed to "our freedom" outweighed any danger of a national economic meltdown.

So why was she so hot to get on the committee regulating lending if she wasn't going to do any real work on the problems in the sector? It seems pretty clear now that she wanted to serve on the committee so that she could be a vote against stronger regulation of the lending industry (this was just a couple of years prior to the crisis.) And she was rewarded for her loyal services to a Wall Street headed for a precipice--she received financial and political support from big money conservative interests.

And when the whole thing melted down, Bachmann's response was to blame Barney Frank and "lending on the basis of color and little else." But none of that is here, in this article that purports to tell us who Bachmann is and whether she "really means what she says."

Which leads to the one of the most glaring omissions in the piece--one that doesn't depend on anyone's 'opinion' of Bachmann. How are the people in her actually district doing, after four years of Michele Bachmann's representation? We hear from one disappointed constituent whose family is looking for solutions to the bad economy now--but that's not enough for context. For example, Bachmann's Sixth District has long had the highest home foreclosure rate in the state; it was already high when she came into office. Are Bachmann's constituents better off now than they were without her representation?

The answer is no, if you look at the facts in the Sixth. They're worse off and their situation is not likely to improve so long as Bachmann is their congresswoman. But there's no look at the statistics, the facts about the business climate, about whether or not Bachmann's constituents are seeing some of their federal taxes coming back into the district to help them during economic malaise (they're not, and she's kind of proud of not delivering that to them--for four years.) The people who love her, love her despite the fact that their neighbors are losing their homes--in part because Bachmann won't do anything to help them.

I don't know how much the opinions of the various people interviewed are worth, if they're presented without accompanying reporting on the facts of life in the district. Any current profile of Bachmann starts with the fact that she's controversial; opinions are the easiest thing to get these days. It's easy to point a microphone at someone, but a piece of reporting isn't valuable if it doesn't provide a factual context so you can evaluate the opinions.

It's not that there's nothing valuable in the article. This is the first print piece in Minnesota journalism that explains that the "twenty three foster children" that Bachmann "raised" were actually pregnant teen mothers. That's something, because prior accounts of this in local and national press left readers with the impression that the foster children were raised by the Bachmanns--as if they were superhumans who raised fosters from childhood to independence, in addition to their five biological children. That false impression, spread by the Bachmanns and redistributed constantly by the professional media--has helped Bachmann immensely in her rise.

So that's a baby step toward amending one false impression, delivered by this article. It helps you answer the question the reporter asks at the beginning of the article: "Does Bachmann practice what she preaches?" Well, if the issue is "taking pregnant teens into your home for months at time because you're pro-life": then yes, she practiced what she preached here...but...

How about another test of "practice what you preach?" She's always said she's hated taxes, that she's against taxing people to redistribute wealth. Well--it would have been really easy for the reporter to find out that the Bachmanns are themselves recipients of redistributed tax dollars and have been for years.

More than $250,000 dollars in federal farm subsidies, for example. That would seem to be a case of Bachmann not practicing what she preaches, given the fact that she constantly rails against the federal government's redistribution of tax dollars.

So, uh...why is the "pro-life" test of whether she practices what she preaches make it into this profile--but not the "snuffling up hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars at the federal trough" practice-what-you-preach test? Seems kind of biased, if "practice what you preach" is announced as a yardstick at the beginning of the article.

Don't like that one? Too petty to ask her why it's okay for her family to receive hundreds of thousands of fed tax dollars? Well, how about this one: she's accepted status as "darling hero of the tea party," the guys who say they're fighting the establishment Republicans and want a new, truly conservative citizen government in Washington.

"Practice what you preach"--why did she throw tea party candidates under the bus this year, in order to protect establishment Republicans running for office? (Yeah, she did that, but it didn't make it into this article.) Why (before the coming of the tea party brand) did she devote years to slavish praise of the DeLay/Hastert Congress, portraying them glowingly to her audiences? Were they doing the right thing then (as she told people then) or were they doing the wrong thing then (as she tells tea partiers now?)

"Does Michele practice what she preaches" is an interesting issue, but this article is not a sincere attempt to answer that question.

Anyway: if you're really want to tell readers who Michele Bachmann is, what Michele Bachmann is--in my opinion, the first thing a reporter should do is assemble the quotes; the words out of Bachmann's own mouth over the years. And I've been doing that for years. I've been doing it here, before that on the Dump Bachmann blog, before that on a website I own called the Bachmann record.

The problem is getting it into print, where it can reach people outside political blogs. If you were to string together Bachmann's most interesting broadcast statements since 2000--you'd be presenting readers with a very alarming picture. The readers who aren't already rabid Bachmann fans would be forced to conclude that she is indeed some kind of nut, liar, and bigot. A demagogue trying to build a political career on the basis of sowing hate and paranoia.

So far, there aren't any print journalists willing to include as much of that as they can, in a print piece. It's just too repulsive; doing that--repeating Bachmann's own words back to a mainstream audience--would be incorrectly perceived as some kind of journalistic "attack" on Bachmann.

But if you want to know who and what Bachmann is, you look at the way she practices politics. From the very outset, it's been about rhetoric. It's not going to help to ask what other people think about Bachmann. You can't find out who she is by looking at "what she's done," because by her own admission she's done very little, almost nothing, in ten years of public office.

If you want to know who and what she is, you have to look at her words--because those words are practice of politics. The way she's used the broadcast media to drum up hate and fear against fellow citizens and American government...her predilection for lies and smears and conspiracy theory, in place of constructive legislation.

That rhetoric, ten years of it, is what makes her beloved of right wing paranoids and detested by liberals and progressives. (How many US legislators' names appear in Southern Poverty Law Center's yearly report on causes in the rise in hate crimes? That didn't make it into this piece either. Isn't it worth a mention, if you're discussing whether Bachmann "really means what she says?)

And to this day, the most glaring omission in all of Bachmann journalism persists: no reporter, and I mean no reporter, has gone into the fact that she's the protege of an organized national evangelical conservative political movement.

It's one of the most important things a reporter could tell readers about this politician and the state of the Republican Party and American politics. But this article won't go near that: Bachmann is simply presented as an independent minded individual of sincere faith--and that amounts to a bizarre distortion. Again, with the foster children and the loving marriage and the gays who don't like her and Democrats who don't like her and the washed up Republicans who don't like her...

I have to give this one a "D", given the fact that it's this lengthy, appears this far into Bachmann's career, and is this devoid of new facts and existing context.

But Bachmann and her mentors would, I think, give it a "B minus." A piece like this will actually help Bachmann, a little...it's so "even-handed" it actually distorts reality.

http://www.minnesotamonthly.co...

Obama supports American values, media misinterprets (again)

Joe Bodell — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 22:37:13 GMT

Here's what President Obama said about the controversy about plans for a mosque near Ground Zero in New York:

"Let me be clear: as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable."

And of course, the headline from your liberal media:

Obama Supports Building Of Ground Zero Mosque

Sigh. No.

Josh Marshall says it well:

This was in response to the president himself clearly making this distinction. He's not getting into the identity of the builders or whether he agrees the exact placement. They have the right to build on private property. We're Americans. We'd don't discriminate on the basis of religion.
What stands out here is that there is nothing surprising about Obama's stance since I believe this is the stance of most people who take a 1st Amendment stance on this. Who the people behind the project are is beside the point. Getting drawn into the design of the building is irrelevant. We don't discriminate on the basis of religion. Call it the American values position.

Twin Cities media already pushing valueless themes on electorate

Joe Bodell — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:04:47 GMT

After Mark Dayton was declared the victor in the DFL primary yesterday, the dead-tree media immediately started pushing the theme that the two major parties had picked candidates from their ideological poles, begging their readers to whine for a better option.

This kind of valueless, factless statement does a disservice to readers, citizens, and voters everywhere.

Tom Emmer has repeatedly made clear that he is from the conservative wing of what is now an extremely conservative, small-tent party. He advocates tax cuts for the rich, tip penalties for working class servers, and deregulating business to turn Minnesota into a prairieland banana republic. Emmer is an extremist, and proud of it.

But what exactly about Dayton's platform is extreme, I ask the media? He advocates raising taxes on the rich, including himself, so that everyone up and down the economic scale pays the same effective tax rate. That's extreme? I call that fair, common-sense populism. Like the candidates he defeated in Tuesday's primary, Dayton advocates for expanding renewable energy solutions -- that's extreme? I call that smart, especially given that we have more and more proof every day that big investments in green energy can yield concrete benefits.

Dayton's platform is largely common-sense progressive solutions to pull the state out of the mess caused by too many years of the same Pawlentyism a Governor Emmer would continue and expand.

In short, there's nothing about Dayton's platform or background that makes him anywhere near the polar opposite of Tom Emmer's self-aggrandizing extremism; quite the contrary. The Twin Cities media does itself, its readers, and the entire state of Minnesota a disservice by sexing up the story of this election by trying to pitch it as such a matchup.

And putting recently-kind-of-not-really-a-Republican-consultant-anymore-but-now-third-party candidate Tom Horner in the amorphous, squishy middle of that analysis just makes it all the more useless.

We can, we must demand better from our news media.

WSJ jumps the shark (again) on Citizens United

Joe Bodell — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:15:00 GMT

I would link directly to the Wall Street Journal's incorrect and fairly offensive editorial on Citizens United and Target's little problem with MNForward, but I'd rather you read Dante Atkins' explanation of its mendaciousness instead.

The first problem with hacks like Taranto is that they are exclusively focused on the marketplace and unable to see beyond it. Thus, Taranto and his ilk see no problem with political donations being an exclusively economic investment designed to generate a maximum rate of return from a government official made more pliant--or more elected--by the contribution made. But while the rare mega-corporation with a conscience, such as Target, may be swayed by the lobbying of a group far less economically influential than the corporation itself, the vast majority of corporate "speech"--that is to say, political investment--will not be. No amount of interest group pressure, for instance, could possibly convince the far-right Koch Industries not to contribute a million dollars to the Republican Governors Association.
Corporate contributions are not speech. They are often, instead, calculated investments made by a legal fiction with no other legal motive besides profit--something which Justice Stevens explained all too well in his [Citizens United] dissent

Worth a read to remind ourselves and our neighbors exactly what "corporate free speech" really means to the Roberts court and to the health of American democracy.

What WCCO can't say about Waitergate

Joe Bodell — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:29:55 GMT

WCCO News had brief coverage this morning on Tom Emmer's ridiculous claims about waiters making $100,000/year and his proposal to reduce their wages. Emmer, of course, followed up with a self-contradictory non-apology, which should be no surprise. What's sad (and also not entirely surprising) is that the traditional media really can't make itself analyze the meat of what Emmer really said -- for fear of losing access or drawing the ire of the Big Scary Republican Party of Minnesota, all they could say is that Emmer's comments "caused controversy."

No. Sorry. This is completely incorrect. There is NO controversy over Emmer's statements. No one is defending them -- all Emmer's campaign and political benefactors could come up with was a limp, mumbled counterattack against "something something liberals something something." In no way did they defend Emmer's proposal, which is factually, politically, economically, and morally wrong.

There is no controversy, because there's no "other side." Emmer is wrong on this and wrong for Minnesota. And everyone outside of Emmer's inner monologue knows it.

Alternately, we can let the always-genius Tild give us several thousand words and dozens of headlines in a single picture:

Although I will take credit for "Waitergate". Seriously, why has no one thought of that yet?

Strib discusses horse race aspects of MN-06, when will they analyze Bachmann's statements?

The Big E — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:00:00 GMT

Eric Roper of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote an article today about the fundraising of Michele Bachmann and Tarryl Clark. Once again, the Strib glosses over Bachmann's insane conspiracy theories, lying and bigotry. The strongest language Roper uses is "outspoken" and polarizing."

Bachmann certainly is these things, but when will the Strib EVER provide any analysis of what she actually said? When will it ever be appropriate to discuss her insane statements, lies and bigotry?

It's not like Bachmann doesn't provide enough material or do so often enough. It's simply a matter of the Strib has ALWAYS glossed over her insanity, lying and bigotry.

Will Roper and et al ever ask Bachmann any tough questions? Will they ever examine the truth of what comes out of her mouth? Are Roper and company averse to reporting the truth about her?

Personally, I'm not holding my breathe for any investigative or analytical political journalism to come from the Star Tribune anytime before November ... or ever, actually. Their journalistic standards are just so low.

Star Tribune lets far-right hack Michael Gerson attack Al Franken on their editorial page

The Big E — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:13:33 GMT

What was most infuriating about the Star Tribune publishing Michael Gerson's attack on Sen. Al Franken? Could it be that a really excellent speech pointing out the truth about our Supreme Court was completely misrepresented by George W. Bush's former speechwriter? Could it be the Strib's limited coverage of politics? Could it be they failed to cover a really excellent speech by Franken? Could it be they've always had it in for Franken?

Let's start with Gerson. He wrote speeches for Bush from 1999 to 2006. He wrote the speeches Bush gave as he lied us into war with Iraq. He wrote the Mission Accomplished speech. Since resigning from the Bush Administration, he's been attacking anyone who points out the truth about conservatives and telling lies to push the far right's agenda. He's in high dudgeon because someone spoke out against an icon of the far right. His first six paragraphs are simply ad hominem attacks on Franken.

What about the Strib editors? This is the same group who did everything they could to get Norm Coleman reelected. The paper's political coverage is so poor and so slanted rightwards that I would be criticizing their editorial page several times a week if I didn't have better things to do with my life. They almost completely rely on DC pundits to provide commentary on national issues.

So the only way that their readers knew Franken gave a speech is because a far right ideologue attacked him for it on their editorial page. They can't hire any more people to help them cover politics because their reader base is disintegrating and their ad revenue is in steady decline. Who is in charge of covering Franken? Apparently nobody. So they rely on hacks like Gerson.

There is two parts of Gerson's attack piece that are true: Al Franken is a Senator from Minnesota and this quote from the speech:

... The "Roberts court has consistently and intentionally protected and promoted the interests of the powerful over those of individual Americans."

The rest is utter rubbish.

Bachmann update: Washington Post profile...not bad...

Bill Prendergast — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 05:58:21 GMT

I mean--it's not great. But it's not bad, and a payroll journalist on a major paper did it.

It's in the Washington Post. The reporter and editor who did this one are actually "alive" to the fact that Bachmann's a demagogue. In other words, they understand that the mere fact that she's popular with millions--doesn't mean that's she actually produced anything of note for those conservative millions during a ten year career in politics.

That's something that Bachmann doesn't like to talk about, but in this profile the WaPo "goes there" in an interview with her. Interviews with Bachmann in Bachmann-friendly forums (evangelical radio, the Pat Robertson show, Fox News, other forums where conservatives "moderate") are quite common. But, as the WaPo piece points out--Bachmann resists talking to media that doesn't openly side with her political career and proposed agenda.

And that's how we get this, which I found hilarious:
(CONTINUED)
(During the WaPo interview:)

...she voiced frustration with what she regarded as the "media's focus" on her "language." She listened to a question about comments she had made regarding a federal program designed to expand the national number of community volunteers, a measure authored by the late Massachusetts senator and liberal lion Edward Kennedy and signed into law by President Obama. She was asked about her charge that the program would lead to political "reeducation camps" for its young participants.
Dead silence came over the telephone line.
After a while, it was time for the mainstream media's next question. "Are you there, Congresswoman?"
The silence lengthened.
"Are you there, Congresswoman?"

And that's not the end of that particular exchange. (You can read the conclusion at the end of the WaPos piece.)

Do you know how rare that is?
1) ...that someone in the non-"Bachmann friendly" media is allowed to interview her,
2) ...that the interviewer is both willing and informed enough to ask her a about one of her paranoid smears against her fellow Americans?

A moment like that, is like sighting a real live Yeti--mainly because Bachmann, her people and her mentors simply don't allow such moments to happen. Media access to her is notoriously restrictive, unless it clear that the media in question are pro-conservative and pro-Bachmann.

That (I think) is why a question to Bachmann about a particularly ridiculous charge--was met with dead silence. She's simply not used to getting questions like that. I'd also bet that this particular question floored her because after she made the charge that Americorps programs were in fact "political re-education camps," it was revealed that one of her biological children worked for Americorps as a salaried employee. If she had tried to defend her characterization of Americorps as political "re-education camps," she probably knew what the next question would have been.

That's why she adopted "silence" as the best tactic, immediately after claiming that the basis of her support is that she's willing to "speak up."
The interviewer might have taken her down "the Chris Matthews road" (where she claimed that Congresspeople with anti-American values were worthy of media investigation), and another mistake like that is something she and her handlers devoutly wish to avoid in this election year.

This profile is also noteworthy because it points out that Bachmann's only tangible contribution to American political life has been "talk." She's incredibly popular with conservatives despite the fact that she's contributed nothing of note in the way of lawmaking, in the way of statecraft and the conservative agenda. Conservatives confer "hero" status on Bachmann for talk in the tradition of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter and James Dobson. (And various conspiracy theorists.)

The astonishing amount of attention Bachmann has received from the media is entirely due to her popularity with the right--which in turn, is based on the "panic" rhetoric that she feeds millions of American paranoids. But when it comes to delivering on the rhetoric--Bachmann's delivery of conservative initiatives is non-existent. (I'm not just talking about her career in Congress; this was also true when she was state legislator.) The rallies are held, the broadcasts are made, the smears are delivered to adoring audiences, and she proposes dramatic initiatives and resolutions that languish and go nowhere--and then she moves on to the next smear.

Conservative voters and pundits do not require their "heroes" to create tangible solutions; demagoguery counts for more than delivery of results. It's refreshing to see a major newspaper documenting that.

If there is a common thread to Bachmann's pronouncements, it is that, other than when issuing a press release, she makes no major pronouncement to anyone outside a favored corps of conservative television and radio talk-show hosts. Access to her became limited in 2008, after her appearance on Chris Matthews's MSNBC show, "Hardball.

You knew that, if you've been reading these regular updates. But now the Washington Post is noticing and telling. The Minnesota political media aren't. In Minnesota, the object of the game that political reporters play is to get "access" to Bachmann, the hottest political commodity in the state. And they know that you do not get access to Bachmann if her handlers know that you're going to ask her tough questions and publish her answers.

Thus, we get articles from Minnesota political reporting professionals like this:

Michele Bachmann reviews 'Saturday Night Live'
By Derek Wallbank | Published Fri, May 28 2010 8:43 am
WASHINGTON - Here's a fun fact about a member of Minnesota's congressional delegation: Michele Bachmann is a fan of "Saturday Night Live."
At the tail end of an interview this week on a variety of topics, Bachmann mentioned that she's a huge fan of SNL. She said she thinks the show is hilarious.

Bear in mind that this isn't an article from some sort of Minnesota version of "People" or "Us" magazine--this was printed by the MinnPost, an online political news blog staffed by professional political news reporters with serious news credentials. The MinnPost is actually supported by reader contributions! (Those contributions were called into question by some readers after the MinnPost commissioned an interview with Bachmann that was conducted by a fellow conservative.)

Anything, for access to hot copy. A "she's a Saturday Night Live fan!" piece--published at the very same time Bachmann was voting against repeal of DADT. At the same time her effort to permit evangelical military chaplains to ignore non-denominational prayer requests failed.

The Minneapolis City Pages, the state's most popular alternative news weekly knows she nuts. But even they ran a cover story promoting their "definitive" interview with her...which they got by agreeing to Bachmann's terms: questions must be submitted in advance.

Access is everything, to these guys--even if they're sure she's an extremist demagogue. For all I know, the WaPo piece I'm recommending here is part of the same game. Maybe the object of this one was an object lesson: "If you don't talk to us, we'll point out that you're a demagogue and paranoid.

But even if that happens to be the WaPo's strategy here, I commend them for this reporting. If Minnesota's political media had even that much professionalism ("You explain that latest remark to us in an interview, or we'll publish the fact that you won't")--this demagogue's career couldn't have gotten off the ground in her home state, much less nationally.

The solution, by the way, is both easy and newsworthy. News professionals should have been dogging her all along (like I did, like other anti-demagogue activists have been doing for years.) If she won't talk your publication in person: listen, tape, and report what she says in forums where she feels safe making McCarthy-like smears against her fellow Americans and their patriotism. Assign the reporters to do what we do--to listen to her garbage (emitted regularly before such audiences), write it down, and then simply report what she's saying.

It's hot copy in and of itself, because it's an elected official sowing paranoia and hatred. Millions of Americans are interested in a story like that, whatever their feelings about the paranoia and hatred. Put a reporter on her remarks to conservative audiences--her remarks to the conservative broadcast audiences, particularly.

Professional reporters would then be "breaking" a real and important story--instead of leaving it to the blogs, instead of sniffing around hoping to score some "no news," carefully controlled in-person interview. And people would learn: the basis of this career is the perversion of religion in the name of politics, the dissemination of political paranoia and lies as a substitute for substantive achievement.

They might even learn about the national political machine that makes the influence of demagogues like Bachmann and Palin possible. They might even run the crazies out of national politics, by exposing them as such--regularly.

And people would read it. In my experience, people on all sides of the political equation are fascinated by her craziness. Why does the professional political media choose to be last to report it?

LINK: The WaPo profile..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
LINK: Bachmann an SNL fan!
http://www.minnpost.com/derekw...
ACTION LINK: Tarryl Clark, Bachmann's liberal Dem opponent:
http://tarrylclark.com/

Strib Bias Clear in Headlines

minnesota_liberal — Sat, 22 May 2010 11:36:00 GMT

The Star Tribune's choice of headlines lately is very revealing.

When King Timmy signs a bill full of smoke and mirrors, stealing money from schools, guaranteed to worsen the budget problem in upcoming years and forcing local municipalities to pass along the state's tax increases in the form of higher property taxes, the headline reads: "Pawlenty signs bill to erase $3 billion deficit."

Earlier, when the guv was preparing to veto a far more reasonable budget bill, the headline read, "Pawlenty's eager to veto DFL taxes."

The newspaper's bias is clear.

Garbage about Tim Pawlenty: "fourth most influential Republican in the US?"

Bill Prendergast — Sat, 22 May 2010 05:25:34 GMT

It's depressing enough to see political journalists get paid to print unwitting BS--but it's downright disheartening to see political journalists print intentional BS.

"Pundit" Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post has gone into the business of naming the most influential Republicans in the country, regularly. The "blatant BS" part is that Cillizza identifies our departing GOP governor, Tim Pawlenty, as "fourth" in terms of influence in the GOP.

Of course that's nonsense. In the four quarters of the globe, who reads a Pawlenty book? or goes to a Pawlenty rally? or looks at a Pawlenty picture? What does the world yet owe to Pawlenty policy? What new solutions has Pawlenty discovered? what old problems has Pawlenty analyzed and solved?

You look at Pawlenty's record in Minnesota, and all you see is failure. If you're a working conservative, all you see is a sell-out (he was dyin' to be McCain's running mate before Palin got the nod.)

Who looks to Pawlenty for national leadership? Not America, not Minnesota (where polls show no endorsement of his presidential hopes.) The GOP doesn't. In yet another poll of Republican voters last week, Pawlenty comes in seventh--after years of pursuing a spot on a White House ticket.

But--for reasons that remain mysterious to this writer--professional journalists and news organs around the country persist in telling their audiences that Pawlenty is "influential," a major figure in GOP thinking. It's as if corporate news media and reporters are trying to keep him relevant, simply by telling their audiences over and over again that he is. It's like Pawlenty's a product they're being paid to market.

Why?
(CONTINUED)
It's a very, very expensive proposition to elect a president, ya know. The GOP spent 400 million dollars to re-elect Bush in 2004. (And he was an incumbent, for Chrissakes.)

And for whatever reason, Cillizza and other traditional media reporters continue to gift Pawlenty with publicity that would cost millions if he had to pay for it: news space in stories in nationally influential publications that confer a "pretend" national credibility--on a candidate who's lost credibility with his own constituency.

I'm singling out Cillizza, but it's not just him. It's the New York Times; it's the news weeklies and the cable networks.

Despite his lip-service to conservatism, Pawlenty's a non-starter with audiences of conservative activists. Pawlenty's a poor speaker, an uninspiring presence with no conservative triumphs to trumpet. Crowds of conservatives drown Palin, Paul and Bachmann with applause--at the very same events, Pawlenty puts them all to sleep.

He has a crap record on his state's economy--after two terms of office he's leaving the state six billion in the hole, overseeing wild increases in local property taxes and licenses and fees.

No perceptible or articulated positions on foreign policy, he shuns that like it's V.D.--but he gets the puffing, regularly, from national corporate media. Why? Who decides that, and why did they pick this empty suit?

How does anyone arrive at the conclusion that Tim Pawlenty--with no national base, a shrinking base in his home state, no memorable ideas or policy intiatives, no national organization or presence in Washington, no national name recognition--is the fourth most influential politician in the Republican Party?

"Influence" means "power," "leadership," the ability to impose one's will on others, a significant body of followers. Here's how Cillizza defines "influential," in his attempt to identify the ten most influential Republican leaders:

(Cillizza says his list is) an attempt to rank the 10 Republicans currently exerting the most influence on the party's direction whether from the inside (like Republican Governors Association Chairman Haley Barbour) or from the outside (Kentucky Senate nominee and tea party favorite Rand Paul).

Tim Pawlenty? Exerting the most influence on the party's direction? Where? How? Where has Pawlenty demonstrated that, in the national Republican Party? Nowhere; absolutely nowhere. But the professional press seems determined to report that Pawlenty is a player--even though it's demonstrably not so.

Pawlenty isn't exerting influence of any kind; instead he's desperately trying to play catch-up to the rhetoric, influence, and "ideas" of tea party queens like Palin and Bachmann. On closer examination, you see that even Cillizza recognizes that this is so. Look at his explanation for why he ranks Pawlenty as the fourth most influential GOP pol. There's no mention of influence on the national party or voters at all:

4. Tim Pawlenty: Allies of the Minnesota governor were ecstatic at how the budget showdown with the state legislature turned out earlier this week -- no new taxes, most notably. And, Pawlenty continues to travel the country to raise money for the Republican Governors Association (he's in Wisconsin today) and for his Freedom First PAC. Pawlenty will need to have a "wow" moment in front of activists and the national media at some point in the next year or so but, in the meantime, he's doing all the basic blocking and tackling right. (Previous ranking: 5)

What the hell does that last football metaphor even mean? How can you be said to "exert influence" on the party or its agenda or voters--if all you're doing is floating around the country for the better part of the year trying (and regularly failing) to build your own name recognition?

Cillizza leaves out Pawlenty's dismal showings in Republican and Minnesota polling. He fails to cite any way in which Pawlenty has influenced GOP strategy or ideas, any way in which Pawlenty has demonstrated "juice" within the party itself. Yet Cillizza and so many other professional journalists insist that Pawlenty, the next to last choice on so many Republicans' list--is a person of consequence.

There are reasons not to write Pawlenty off. He's got an "in" with the national evangelical machine that most people don't know about. He's a two-term GOP governor, which automatically gives him some credibility as a national candidate.

But to call him "influential" within a national party that regularly ignores him or rejects him--is a lie, Chris, it's a flat out lie. It's puffing, and it's baseless puffing of a guy with no stand-out achievements or influence or even name recognition.

It bugs me that professional political journalists can do this--report "nothing" and tell people it is "something," in the expectation that this "nothing" will someday become "something"--simply because the traditional corporate media report that Pawlenty has an influence and national base that he doesn't have.

You want to report that political horse race watchers should keep an eye on Pawlenty--fine; I agree, we've seen bigger mediocrities attain national and party influence (eg, Palin.) But if you want to use your pundit status and lie to readers about "influence" that simply isn't there... well, then, you're an a*****e, you've crossed the line from "journalist" into "candidate publicist."

And people should know that.

Link to Cillizza piece:
http://voices.washingtonpost.c...

Bachmann update: Geraldo v. Michele, Michele wins

Bill Prendergast — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 06:09:49 GMT

The video clip (linked below) begins with statements from the President, followed by Bachmann repeating her charges of "gangster government" by the White House and the Dems in Congress.

Bachmann asserts that government intervention in the collapse of GM constitutes "gangster government." And Democratic proposals for federal regulation of Wall Street merit the adjective "gangster," criminal.

The problem of course, is that none the policies cited by Bachmann are criminal or anything close to criminal. No arrests, no indictments, no nothing--the only significance in the charge is that she insists on making it, regularly. She has been going around the country and on television to assert that laws passed by Congress with the approval of the White House amount to criminal behavior and conspiracy--that the people in the White House and in the Dem Congress are indeed criminals.

Without criminal charges against the elected officials to support the rhetoric, it's calumny and a lie. And the most weak minded extremists in the country will not care about Bachmann's silly rationalizations for the charge--all they will hear is a US Congressman telling them what many of them already believe: that the US government has been taken over by criminals, that the US government itself is outlaw.

As I've written before, this is Bachmann and her supporters putting bulleyes on the backs of the President and Democrats in Congress. The facts about right wing kooks with guns and bombs are as available to Bachmann as they are to any of us; the death threats continue to come in. It is clear that Bachmann's purpose in using the charge of gangsterism by the White House and Congressional majority is to fan the flames.

I expected more of Geraldo. (There's another sentence I never thought I'd write.)
(CONTINUED)
At the height of the Monica Lewinski affair, I saw career dirt-monger Geraldo Rivera make a televised prediction that no other "respectable" news personality dared to make at the time: that revelations about sexual indiscretions of Clinton's Republican foes were breaking up support for the impeachment, and that there would be no conviction in the Senate and Clinton would not be removed from office.

So he's irresponsible and a circus master, but he's not stupid. This interview represented a chance for a clever, attention-seeking broadcaster to lacerate Bachmann with good research and a few good follow-up questions, a la Chris Matthews/Bachmann or Katie Couric/Palin.

For example, he might have let her ramble on with her pat explanation for her charge of "gangster government"--and then asked her to define the word "gangster." (I haven't seen any definition that doesn't reference criminals and criminality. Asking Bachmann to paraphrase her use of the word would have forced her to either back off or double down.)

But we were denied that. In fact, Geraldo gets it wrong from the get-go. He introduces Bachmann as "a fierce proponent of free markets and small government."

Absolutely wrong. Like most elected conservative heirs of Reagan, Michele merely mouths the conservative rhetoric of free markets and smaller government. In practice she was a vociferous supporter of the Bush/Cheney government and Hastert Republican Congress.

She slavishly supported the GOP White House and Congress as they impacted and intervened in "the free market" by borrowing billion after billion of future taxpayer revenues to keep the national and local economies going--Bachmann never uttered a word against them. She made a promise not to seek or accept earmarks for her district, and broke it (she's currently seeking federal taxpayer dollars for a 400 million dollar bridge project.)

As to the size of the government: see again her slavish support for Bush/Cheney and its rubber-stamp GOP Congress. Throughout the Bush administration, she remained an adoring fan of a President who expanded the size, reach, and power of the federal government (including its surveillance powers; a development that still panics Bachmann's most paranoid fans.) She didn't speak out against any of this, her most famous interaction with President Bush is in fact a very public kiss on the lips.

So it is astonishing that she is introduced as a passionate conservative despite her record--as if a politician's claims counted for more than the actual on-the-record policies they supported.

Thus Geraldo's introduction should have been "my next guest claims to be a fierce proponent of free markets and small government, but has in fact supported government intervention in free markets and a bigger and the growth of a more powerful federal government."

And then right to the interview. Good first question, straight to the point:

GERALDO: Do you wish you used different characterization, is "gangster government" really appropriate?
BACHMANN: Well, what I wish is that the federal government would not have created the Automobile Task Force--

--and I'll stop it right there, because she launches into a rehash of the rationale she gave the Hill during the earlier interview. Leading Geraldo away from the charge "gangster," as she led the Hill interviewers away from the same charge. You can watch it if you want to.

I warn you that there's is an unexpected terrifying edit at about 4:40 where Geraldo jump cuts to Bachmann calmly spouting evasive BS to Bachmann screaming at a public event: "WE'RE ON TO THEM! WE'RE ON TO THEIR GANGSTER GOVERNMENT!
It's very likely to make you "start" in your seat if you're not expecting it--kind of like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" staging where the quiet suspense is suddenly shattered by a loud noise, a cheap scare. Watch out for that.

(The video won't embed, and it's one in the morning. So here is a link directly to the video:)

http://videos.mediaite.com/vid...

And so the fact of the calumny is the news story here, not Bachmann's take on administration policies. Either those policies are criminal and amount to gangsterism--or they're not, and Bachmann's charge that gangsters are running the government of the United States is totally--"inappropriate" to use Geraldo's mild term.

I would use the term "trying to sow hatred directed the elected government of the United States." Because the "gangster government" soundbyte is not "stand-alone." It's a single piece in a larger, dangerous strategy, and Bachmann and her mentors know that it is. The charge that the US and its citizens are now in the hands of "gangsters" should be placed in the context of Bachmann's other broadcast lies about the government--that President Barack Obama is "practicing tyranny" and leading the country into "economic Marxism," that Americorps programs are actually "re-education camps..."

What an interview this could have been if the gangster government charge were put in context with the rest of those crazy conspiracy theories and well-documented insanities! What a legendary eight minutes of television that would have been, if Geraldo had gone down the litany, allow viewers to hear the context for the "gangster government" charge. They would seen her avoid, deny, lie, play the victim--as she has in the past, on camera. That's real news; the exposure of a hater live on television. That kind of footage lives forever.

As it stands, the best part of the interview is "the crawl" at the bottom of the video screen which tells viewers throughout the interview that Bachmann "gangster government" charges have alienated fellow Republicans.

Other than that: I score it as win for Michele, because she was able to evade every question Geraldo asked her, avoid any qualification of her charge that the Dems are a criminal conspiracy, and re-hash her anti-administration points of view.

What else can I say about an interview that diminishes the level of respect that we have for Geraldo Rivera?

Way to be fair and balanced, Tom Hauser

Joe Bodell — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 02:33:24 GMT

Direct quote from Tom Hauser, overheard near the media riser:

"They debate for fifteen minutes whether to take twenty-five minutes to decide something. And they want to run our state?"

Followed by a smug shake of the head.

Slight correction, Tom, with all due respect: The people who are debating are following the rules of order in order to select the people they want to run the state.

Slight difference. Obviously that doesn't matter to the Twin Cities' fairest and balanced political ~~reporter~~ media personality.