September 6-7, 2009
Sep 06 10:39 Did Rep. Ellison's Loose Lips Sink Obama's Ship? Sep 06 12:46 Jones Resigns After Right Wing Smear Campaign Sep 06 23:15 How Dare He Talk That Trash Sep 07 16:41 Is the Strib Assuming Things?
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug
Did Rep. Ellison's Loose Lips Sink Obama's Ship?
Friday night, Rep. Keith Ellison appeared on TPT's Almanac. During his appearance, he said something that I don't think President Obama wants public. Here's a partial transcript of the crucial part of the interview:
Kathy Wurzer: Politics is the art of compromise.OOPS!!! That last sentence says everything. Rep. Ellison admitted that the public option is just a step to getting a single-payer system. He then compounds that mistake by saying that people don't view the public option the way he views it. Admitting those two things during a TV interview, especially after saying he'd participated in a conference call earlier in the day with President Obama and the Progressive Caucus, is a major mistake. (I suspect he'll start backtracking on that statement the minute he hears that he's been caught.)
Rep. Ellison: It is.
WURZER: So how are you all gonna compromise?
REP. ELLISON: Most of us are co-authors of HR676, which is a single-payer bill so we feel like we've already compromised. I think that the reality is the public option has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office as saving $150 billion, so this actually helps deal with the fiscal responsibility issues...It offers choice, which is a good thing...
Eric Eskola: Isn't the public option really just a step towards the single-payer system that you want so much?
REP. ELLISON: Yes but the reality is that for many people that's not what it is.
The biggest problem for President Obama is that he's caught between a rock and a hard place. If he says that he's for a public option, he's admitting that he prefers a single-payer system. He can't credibly say that he doesn't know that members of the Progressive Caucus see the public option as an intermediate step to a single-payer plan.
Likewise, President Obama can't abandon the Progressive Caucus outright because that's a big litmus test for Netroots nation. Dumping them is fraught with political dangers for 2010.
The bottom line is this: President Obama has a serious problem selling his health care plan because people see it as a government takeover of the health care system. Rep. Ellison just confirmed that to the people.
That's a bell you can't unring.
Originally posted Sunday, September 6, 2009, revised 08-Sep 3:07 AM
Comment 1 by Bats Right Throws Right at 08-Sep-09 02:23 PM
Of course they want a singlepayer system, thought Congress will save themselves a Cadillac plan.
The so called public option (which isn't an option, if they force the uninsured to buy insurance) will be subsidized by private insurance, the same way Medicare and Medicaid are.
Jones Resigns After Right Wing Smear Campaign
Conservatives often joke that the Left's definition of a dirty campaign is using their words against them. That seems to fit with Van Jones' resignation letter :
"I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today.The "opponents of reform" line is expected. Unfortunately, it isn't particularly convincing. People who commented on Jones' controversial statements ran the political spectrum. Liberals like Mara Liasson, Juan Williams and Bob Beckel didn't try defending him. Conservatives like Stephen Hayes, Fred Barnes and Charles Krauthammer rightfully grilled Jones for his Truther statements.
On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide .
I have been inundated with calls, from across the political spectrum, urging me to "stay and fight."
But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.
It has been a great honor to serve my country and my President in this capacity. I thank everyone who has offered support and encouragement. I am proud to have been able to make a contribution to the clean energy future. I will continue to do so, in the months and years ahead."
It takes chutzpah to say that his opponents are " They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide ." What his opponents are using is his own words. Nobody's done that better than Jim Hoft , the Gateway Pundit, who found more damaging video of Jones than all of the Agenda Media combined. AND THEN SOME!!!
The left, especially their cohorts in the media, will talk about how conservatives were out to get Jones. They'll actually be partially right, just not for the reasons they'll attribute to conservatives. Conservatives like myself think he should've been dumped because he's a radical, a revolutionary, an admitted communist and someone who thinks that America's entire economic structure should be changed.
Had the media done the job it's supposed to do, they wouldn't get away with saying this was a partisan smear campaign. They couldn't say that with any credibility because they would've reported the radical things Jones said. The only way they can write smear campaign stories is because they didn't write anything about Jones until his resignation.
This is as much an indictment of the Agenda Media as it is an indictment on Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett and the Obama administration.
Posted Sunday, September 6, 2009 12:51 PM
Comment 1 by maddmedic at 07-Sep-09 05:50 AM
Yeah...when Conservatives prove the worthlessness of an Obama thug it is a smear campaign!!lWhen liberals smear someone like Palin AND her family it is what??
And I do not seem to have read anything about Van Jones family!
Liberals=Hypocrites, Liars, Whiners, ....
How Dare He Talk That Trash
Sunday morning's Meet the Press gave the world a perfect glimpse at the elitist attitudes of journalists like Tom Friedman. After Jim Hoft kicks the NYTimes' ass all week on the Van Jones scandal, Friedman has the temerity to say that the internet is an open sewer:
MR. FRIEDMAN: David, when everyone has a cell phone, everyone's a photographer. When everyone has access to YouTube, everyone's a filmmaker. And when everyone's a blogger, everyone's in newspaper. When everyone's a photographer, a newspaper and a filmmaker, everyone else is a public figure. Tell your kids, OK, tell your kids, OK, be careful. Every move they make is now a digital footprint. You are on "Candid Camera." And unfortunately, the real message to young people, from all of these incidents, OK, and I'm not here defending anything anyone said, but from all of these incidents, is you know, really keep yourself tight, don't say anything controversial, don't think anything--don't put anything in print. You know, whatever you do, just kind of smooth out all the edges, and maybe you too--you know, when you get nominated to be ambassador to Burkina Faso, you'll be able to get through the hearing.Mr. Friedman doesn't get it. The Van Jones scandal went unreported in the NYTimes and on MSNBC because of the filters their editors applied. The thing that the American people are rebelling against is the Agenda Media's filtering out things that they should be reporting on.
MR. GREGORY: OK.
MR. BROKAW: Well, I've--one of the things I've been saying to audiences is this question comes up a lot, and a lot of people will repeat back to me and take it as face value something that they read on the Internet. And my line to them is you have to vet information. You have to test it the same way you do when you buy an automobile or when you go and buy a new flat-screen television. You read the Consumer Reports, you have an idea of what it's worth and what the lasting value of it is. You have to do the same thing with information because there is so much disinformation out there that it's frightening, frankly, in a free society that depends on information to make informed decisions. And this is across the board, by the way. It's not just one side of the political spectrum or the other. It is across the board, David, and it's something that we all have to address and it requires society and political and cultural leaders to stand up and say, "this is crazy." We just can't function that way.
MR. FRIEDMAN: You know, David, I just want to say one thing to pick up on Tom's point, which is the Internet is an open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information , left, right, center, up, down, and requires that kind of filtering by anyone . And I always felt, you know, when modems first came out, when that was how we got connected to the Internet, that every modem sold in America should actually come with a warning from the surgeon general that would have said, "judgment not included," OK? That you have to upload the old-fashioned way. Church, synagogue, temple, mosque, teachers, schools, you know. And too often now people say, and we've all heard it, "But I read it on the Internet," as if that solves the bar bet, you know? And I'm afraid not.
I'll readily admit that I'm a partisan conservative. People who've read this blog aren't surprised by this admission. Still, I've always maintained a belief that there's no such thing as acceptable corruption. When Duke Cunnningham accepted bribes, I said he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and I meant it. PERIOD. The net result of that belief is that I won't bury scandals for partisan reasons.
I was proud of the fact that I was the first blogger on either side of the partisan divide that called on the people of SD-16 to defeat Mark Olson after he won the endorsement to run for the open Minnesota State Senate seat.
The filth that Van Jones mouthed was despicable. He admitted that he was both a revolutionary and a communist. He accused white people of directing pesticides towards communities of color. He was 9/11 Truther. This information begs a simple question: Why didn't the NYTimes think this information was newsworthy?
Let's make this more personal. Why didn't Tom Friedman think this information was newsworthy? Is it because he thinks these are mainstream opinions? Might it be that he's only interested in this information involves a conservative?
It's time that elitists like Tom Friedman stopped lecturing bloggers about how unreliable our information is. The last election cycle, I covered more state legislative debates than our local paper covered. I broke stories that never made it into the local newspaper, too. That's in addition to the news I've broken on the Haditha Marines.
When Chrissie Matthews stops getting tingling feelings down his legs when President Obama speaks, I'll pay attention to Friedman's diatribes. When Wolf Blitzer or Chrissie Matthews stops accepting every word from John Murtha's mouth about the war in Iraq being a lost cause or that the Haditha Marines broke under the pressure of combat, then I'll start paying attention to what elitists like Tom Friedman have to say.
Until then, they can expect me to ridicule them anytime that they try lecturing me about journalistic integrity or their selective censorship of anything truly damaging to liberals.
Putting it simply, it's time that the media started acting like impartial reporters of fact, not like partisan liberal hacks.
Posted Sunday, September 6, 2009 11:22 PM
Comment 1 by Sheila at 07-Sep-09 08:54 AM
AMEN!! Thanks for the post, I was going to work on something similiar on Friedman- now I can cross-post yours!
Is the Strib Assuming Things?
In a recent article , Kevin Diaz wrote, perhaps intentionally, that Sen. Franken was "confronted by a group of anti-reform 'Tea Party' activists..." It's unfortunate that a reporter would inject that type of invective into an article.
It's one thing when bombthrowing op-ed journalists like Nick Coleman and Paul Krugman use that type of incendiary language. In fact, it's expected in that context. In their minds, their job is to incite people. Their job isn't to educate or persuade. If it were, they would've been fired years ago.
Reporters are supposed to be about reporting verifiable facts. Reporters are supposed to tell the who, what, when and where. Reporters aren't supposed to get into answering the why questions. That's a job best left to politicians and experts on the subject.
That being said, let's discredit Diaz's statement:
Confronted by a group of anti-reform "Tea Party" activists about whether he would side with President Obama or "the people," Democratic Sen. Al Franken replied, "I'm going to vote the way I want to vote...I use my independent judgment."Why would Mr. Diaz think that the Tea Party activists are opposed to reforming America's health care and health insurance systems? Did they say explicitly that they think the current system doesn't need changing whatsoever? Did Mr. Diaz simply assume that Tea Party activists reflexively reject health care reform of any sort? Is it possible that the Tea Party activists support reforms that Mr. Diaz disagrees with?
If Mr. Diaz made this statement without verifying the voracity of his statement, then he's guilty of assuming something, which obviously is significantly different than reporting verified facts. If Mr. Diaz wants to start making these types of statements, he should become a columnist where stating unverified opinions aren't judged quite as harshly.
It isn't a stretch to think that this is proof that Diaz has some hostility towards Tea Party activists, though I don't know that for certain. At minimum, Kevin Diaz owes his readers an explanation as to why he thinks Tea Party activists are opposed to health care reform.
I'm also curious why the Strib's editor didn't edit that phrasing before it went to print. An editor's job should be to eliminate things that aren't verified facts. This leads to other questions. Do the Strib's editors verify each statement for its accuracy? If they do, what standards are used in verifying their reporters' statements? Do the editors demand a direct quote in a situation like this? Is it possible that they let this slide because they assumed the statement was accurate?
This is proof that the editing at newspapers isn't as thorough as people like Tom Friedman would have us believe. People have figured that out. Elitists like Tom Friedman hasn't. What's worse is that Kevin Diaz put in a defamatory sentence into an important article. What's worst of all is that the Strib didn't investigate a possible mischaracterization.
That's the most damning indictment of the Strib in ages, far worse than anything Nick Coleman writes.
Posted Monday, September 7, 2009 4:41 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 07-Sep-09 04:54 PM
I dropped the Strib a few years back when I could no longer devote the two or three hours a day it took to read it, identify all the errors in spelling, grammar and context, AND the rampant but persistent biases of their news items.
I don't know I would class this example as particularly egregious. It seems fairly typical to me.
Comment 2 by Lady Logician at 08-Sep-09 09:51 AM
But....they have editors....they have gatekeepers....they shouldn't be making errors because they KNOW STUFF - just ask Nick Coleman....
LL
Comment 3 by Walter Hanson at 08-Sep-09 03:24 PM
Gary:
They have been doing this for years. A great example a couple of years ago in 2006 Michelle Bachman and Ellison were endorsed the same day.
* Ellison was protrayed as mainstream while Michelle Bachmann was protrayed as an extremist. Why is being proabortion mainstream, but being prolife isn't? Why is being against drilling for oil in the US mainstream, but wanting to drill for oil in ANWAR extreme.
Furthermore they burried inside the Ellison story the Republicans endorsing his opponent. Every single other candidate endorsed (there were about eight) had a clearly seperate article talking about their endorsement.
And lets not forget this is the same paper when Rehnquist died told the public that the supreme court gave President Bush the election by a 5-4 decision (wrong the first one was 9-0 and the second was 7-2. The remedy on the second one was 5-4 which is what the media picked up on).
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
