So Jay Rosen tweeted that he needed me "to grok this idea, 'regression toward a phony mean,'" which means "journalists associate the middle with truth, when there may be no reason to."
Here he quotes former WaPo reporter, Paul Taylor:
Sometimes I worry that my squeamishness about making sharp judgments, pro or con, makes me unfit for the slam-bang world of daily journalism. Other times I conclude that it makes me ideally suited for newspapering- certainly for the rigors and conventions of modern 'objective' journalism. For I can dispose of my dilemmas by writing stories straight down the middle. I can search for the halfway point between the best and the worst that might be said about someone (or some policy or idea) and write my story in that fair-minded place. By aiming for the golden mean, I probably land near the best approximation of truth more often than if I were guided by any other set of compasses- partisan, ideological, pyschological, whatever... Yes, I am seeking truth. But I'm also seeking refuge. I'm taking a pass on the toughest calls I face.
I'm reminded of this concept by the coverage of Tea Bagging and the protests and disruptions so frequently covered this summer, culminating today in a protest in Washington DC.
Big news, right? Huge demonstration? Michelle Malkin says, OMG, 2 million!!! except high estimates put the crowd about about 60,000, and David Shuster says Freedomworks - who organized it - put the number at 30,000, and a "park official says this is being 'generous.'" Devilstower: "More people showed up for the Apple Butter Festival in Kimmswick, MO -- a town with a population of 93."
Compare the coverage these people get with other, past demonstrations. Like the Million Man March (1995 and 800,000 participants), March for Women's Lives (2004 and 1.1 million participants), the antiwar protests on the eve of Iraq (2003 with a million protesters in New York, San Franciso, and Los Angeles). Clearly it's only news if conservatives protest.
Really, have so few, acting so poorly, and with less understanding of the issues, ever swayed the media so much? Not since the Brooks Brothers riot.
Somehow, the millions without health care in this country, and very conservative reform proposed in this Congress, have been "balanced" all summer with the outrageous and false claims of the Tea Baggers, a small, if fanatic, group worked up into a froth by cable news pundits...
Which is why this Marine vet is my hero! He gets up and totally gives it to Baird! Gives him exactly what he deserves! And compares health care reform to both socialism and Nazism! Like, because socialists and fascists are exactly the same thing! (Tho' I'm sure everyone who died in WWII is kicking themselves now about that...) And Nancy Pelosi is totally a Nazi! Just check our her website!
Nothing says you're not a Brown Shirt like riling up a crowd against a democratic process with a bunch of lies, right?
You've got to wonder when a major political party and its supporters become to be indistinguishable from LaRouche cultists why the traditional media paints them as ordinary folks who are just a little steamed at the president.
This is not about the politics of populism. It's about the politics of the jackboot. It's not about an opposition that has every right to free expression. It's about an angry minority engaging in intimidation backed by the threat of violence.
There is a philosophical issue here that gets buried under the fear that so many politicians and media-types have of seeming to be out of touch with the so-called American heartland.
The simple fact is that an armed citizenry is not the basis for our freedoms. Our freedoms rest on a moral consensus, enshrined in law, that in a democratic republic we work out our differences through reasoned, and sometimes raucous, argument. Free elections and open debate are not rooted in violence or the threat of violence. They are precisely the alternative to violence, and guns have no place in them.
On the contrary, violence and the threat of violence have always been used by those who wanted to bypass democratic procedures and the rule of law. Lynching was the act of those who refused to let the legal system do its work. Guns were used on election days in the Deep South during and after Reconstruction to intimidate black voters and take control of state governments.
Yes, I have raised the racial issue, and it is profoundly troubling that firearms should begin to appear with some frequency at a president's public events only now, when the president is black. Race is not the only thing at stake here, and I have no knowledge of the personal motivations of those carrying the weapons. But our country has a tortured history on these questions, and we need to be honest about it. Those with the guns should know what memories they are stirring.
In other, related, news, UnitedHealth apparently encouraged its employees to attend an anti-reform protest organized by religious extremists...
The biggest fall in this health care debate has be that of Chuck Grassley's integrity. Usually a Senator that usually works in good faith with Baucus in the Senate Finance committee, over health care he's devolved into a scrub. To wit: "We should not have a government plan," said Grassley last week, "that pulls the plug on grandma." And the news today?
Sen. Charles E. Grassley a key Republican negotiator in the quest for bipartisan health-care reform, said Wednesday that the outpouring of anger at town hall meetings this month has fundamentally altered the nature of the debate and convinced him that lawmakers should consider drastically scaling back the scope of the effort.
Get it? Apparently we progressives have going about reform the wrong way. You know, peacefully, and by appealing to reason. I guess we should strap on our assault rifles, push and shove whoever stands in our way, and shout down our elected representatives.
By the way, make no mistake: the traditional media has legitimized this kind of discourse with its coverage of the Tea Baggers.
Meanwhile, anonymous White House sources still think that progressives will be thrilled about a health care bill in which progressive reform is gutted:
The president continues to operate under the belief that liberals will warm to the bill when presented with a goodybag that includes includes an individual mandate, community rating, guaranteed issue, and a minimum required package. There's no chance, really, that a bill WON'T feature these reforms. Quietly, to secure and keep Democrats on board, the White House is going to bargain, providing inducements, like more money for favored projects, etc., in order to secure individual votes.
The public option is the last line of defense for most progressives I know, and even that, for many, is too far. Jed Lewison:
Keeping in mind that this anonymously sourced report could be total bunk, it's worth pointing out that axeing the public option and requiring individuals to purchase coverage under a private health insurance plan would be a horrible political miscalculation. If you think we're having problems selling health care reform now, just wait until we try to explain why all adults under 65 will be required to purchase health insurance from the private sector with no public option.
Oh, you're not interested in making that argument? I didn't think so.
Seriously, who thinks, even with the community standard and other regulatory reforms, that private insurers won't find a way to wiggle out of their obligations? IMHO, even with all the reforms in the bill, without the public option and with an individual mandate and taxing health care benefits make this bill actively bad.
Update: Forward Montana is running a "smoking Grassley" campaign, urging you to contact his office and ask him to get out of our way and let us have health care reform:
Senator Charles Grassley
Washington, D.C. Office: (202) 224-3744
Or contact him on the web.
John Cook's description of the Tea-Bagger shouting "Heil Hitler" at an Israeli because he, you know, dared laud the Israeli health care system, is the funniest thing you're read today (maybe):
What does that mean? Well, it could mean "Heil Hitler, you Jew, you are a subhuman blood-sucker," a sentiment common to right-wing extremists who actively seek the violent overthrow of the federal government. Or it could mean, "By supporting government-run healthcare, sir, you may as well be shouting 'Heil Hitler,' because you are supporting Barack Obama, who is a Nazi"-a sentiment also common to right-wing extremists who actively seek the violent overthrow of the federal government. You see the problem? The feverish, paranoid snake that is contemporary right-wing political thought has begun to eat its own tail, and the swamp is full of anti-Semites and Nazi-haters who both seek the same thing-a return to the "real America."
Thing is, this kind of paranoid, extremist, hate-filled rhetoric appears to be common at Tea-Bagging events. As Greer's first-hand accounts, white supremacists were present at the Montana town hall meeting, and Tea-Baggers with ties to militia groups were prominent at the Arizona town hall. When will the media explore and uncover the roots of the Tea Baggers? Because I suspect GOP politicos and the insurance industry has woken up right-wing radicalism...not that it needed much nudging...
Also check out John Adams' video from the Bozeman town hall meeting below the fold. Note the behatted Tea-Baggers aggressively pushing their way among reform supporters at about the 0:50 mark. (Hey, because the reform supporters totally provoked them by standing still.) Or the Tea-Bagger getting reformers faces at the 1:48 mark. (Totally provoked! Again!) The Teabagger sign at 2:14 comparing Obama to Mugabe. (You know, because they're totally both black and everything!)
So. There was a meeting hosted by a president in Montana yesterday. While I'm at the NN09 in Pittsburgh, I followed Facebook accounts of the ugly, ugly protests - and Charles Johnson's coverage in the Gazette left out the uglier aspects of the Tea Baggers, the white supremacists, the Obama = Hitler signs, etc & co, and the pushing and shoving that went on. (Rumor: a Tea Bagger was arrested?) Remember: these protests are not about health care....
I'd point you to the various summaries of Obama's speech in Bozeman, but better to read what he said. For me, the biggest news was that he reaffirmed his commitment to the public option, and his continued advocacy for a surtax on the wealthy (as opposed to taxing health care benefits) as a means for paying for health care reform. You'll notice that both stances differ substantially from where Baucus (apparently) stands.
By making a rare presidential visit to Montana, Barack Obama has put even more pressure on the rural state's senior senator, Max Baucus, and his panel to produce bipartisan health care legislation in just a month's time.
Given the context of this visit - the fact that Baucus' committee is essentially single-handedly holding up health care and gutting provisions that the Democratic caucus thinks crucial to reform - you can't help but think Obama's visit is intended to put pressure on Max by appealing directly to his constituents. And then there's this from the Gouras report:
For his part, Baucus doesn't appear worried that a bipartisan group of six senators has already blown through several targets for producing a Finance Committee bill. The veteran senator has told Obama that "it will be ready when it's ready" - even if that means waiting until September.
Heh. Tough words, eh?
Probably as a result of signals from the White House, which Jane Hamsher helps us interpret. The WH, through Emmanuel, is blaming Baucus for the logjam in Congress, and he and Jim Messina are being set up to take the fall if all fails, and for any untoward deals cut in Baucus committee with the health-care industry. (Wasn't it in the Indy's profile that Baucus said his whole life prepared him for this legislation? Little did he know how prescient that comment may be...)
So now Obama's in Montana playing "good cop."
Oh, and in case you want a good laugh, check out Montana GOP chair (and Missoulian!) Will Deschamps lame attempts to put forth positive policy on health care:
Deschamps said the current system does have problems, but he doesn't think the federal government ought to be the one trying to fix it. Asked what role central government should play in health care changes, Deschamps said he "didn't have a hard and fast answer."
He said the government should use other means to change health care.
"Maybe they should spend their time in the (public relations) end of it," he said. "They should promote healthy living."
Some people can afford health insurance, but choose not to buy it, he said, particularly young people who don't think they'll get sick.
"There ought to be some way to encourage them to buy health insurance without government interference," he said.
That would lower premiums for everyone else.
Uh...okay...so basically stick with the status quo. Cool.
As JC pointed out, President Obama will be at the Bozeman airport on Friday for a public town hall meeting open to the public, and that Jake Eaton et al will be on hand to disrupt things.
Parading with Bitterroot Valley Republican groups in her Hummer, Cathy Kulonis said she was exercising her First Amendment rights Saturday when she hoisted a sign reading "No Mo Bro" during Creamery Picnic festivities here.
In response to angry requests to remove the sign, and contentions that it carried unsavory racial overtones regarding President Barack Obama, Kulonis held her ground, referring to those who complained as "red-faced maniacs" and "liberal extremists."
When the parade committee chairman requested that she remove her sign, she once again stood fast and refused to put it away.
She claims the sign was just "Okie talk."
"This issue is not about racism," Kulonis wrote in an e-mail to the Ravalli Republic. "It is not even about me. It is about control. A useless effort by the left to silence me."
"No one intimidates me," she continued. "I will not bow to or obey the pc police. I am afraid of no one. I was born for a time as this. Opinions and names do not change the facts or who I am. I say, 'Watch this Patriot Act!' "
Kulonis said it doesn't bother her that some interpreted her sign as racist.
"I can't help what people think and someone being offended is not my responsibility," she said. "Everything I did, I did with my own kind heart."
Racist, paranoid, self-obsessed, and oblivious: these are the people we're dealing with...
Update: This isn't the first time LiTW has mentioned Kulonis. The "Okie talker" got into a little set-to outside an abortion clinic when she blocked the sidewalk in front of the clinic. That little incident led to the abusurdist SB 497, a bill that made it a crime to "obstruct" anti-abortion demonstrations at clinics.
Steve M has more on Kulonis' extremist activities.
A little reminder of why health care reform is important, and why the lies about reform are important:
Don't talk to me about death panels, Sarah Palin....
In your free market wonderland everyone somehow manages to get healthcare, even those who are poor or live in isolated areas, though the poor and isolated in your own state required assistance from the federal government.
And despite all of this, you appear blithely unaware that the free market healthcare system we have now does, indeed, have "death panels." I've been part of a death panel conversation. I know about death panels.
You have no idea what it's like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you've never met before and be told that your mother's insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to "make some decisions," like whether your mother should be released "HTD" which is hospital parlance for "home to die," or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.
If this isn't a "death panel" I don't know what is.
...since Good People, Real Americans, have health insurance, only bad people have to worry about this, which is how it should be. The problem is that if the government takes over they're going ration by taking away the Good People's health care and giving it to welfare queens and illegal immigrants who don't deserve it.
(All Good People have health are? Maybe not. Or maybe Good People solicit donations after mauling ministers...er, I mean, after a mauling by union "thugs"...though he looked pretty sprightly after the "attack." Funny how he's wheelchair bound and unable to speak the next day? D*mn those lingering funny bone injuries...)
I have to take issue with Debra Saunders' sophist op-ed, likening Tea-baggers' form of protest and speech with anti-war activists during the Bush administration and its decision to invade Iraq. To wit:
When Boxer grilled Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about what personal price the childless Rice paid for the Iraq war, Boxer later boasted that she was "speaking truth to power." But when angry voters try to do the same with elected officials, whether they're heckling them or just showing up, Boxer wants the media to investigate.
It's laughable: Democrats discrediting protests because - ooooooh - they're organized. Last year, weren't these same folks guffawing about Jesus being a community organizer?
This kind of "they-did-it-too" dodge plays especially well to traditional media outlets, with their predilection towards he-said-she-said style of "objectivity." It's especially specious because the two kinds of protest are not at all alike.
The Tea Baggers are not heroically standing up for freedom - they're operating under false premises, that the health care reform means sending babies and elderly off to die in the grinding machinery of socialized medicine.
The protests are based on lies created and spread - not by community organizers - but by political operatives and popular television pundits and intended to end discourse, not foster openness and accountability.
That's quite a different cry from the anti-war movement, which was grossly ignored by the media, but essentially based on truths the media were reluctant to acknowledge. (Wasn't Saunders here during the Bush administration? Doesn't she remember the real depredations committed by our government, not the fantastical, illusory crimes birthed in the lurid, molten imagination of Glenn Beck?) And certainly no one would claim that Code Pink for all of its stunts actually shut down discussion the war -- right?
No one's calling for the Tea Baggers to be silent. Dissent is patriotic. But bullying people at rallies, shouting down other points of view, silencing debate? - that's not patriotic.
Over at ECC, I read Greg's soothing call for "objectivity" on the GOP-led efforts to thwart health-care reform:
You see, there really are two sides to every story. That doesn't mean that you can not 'pick' one of those sides, strongly believe you are right, and actually be right. It just means that every time you take a position on a matter, you had better understand that there is a different position somewhere that someone else thinks is right....
...We've never, ever seen anyone one with a leftist agenda disrupt any sort of a government meeting, have we? That's because they're nice, and people on the right are "violent" and "authoritarian." Remember a few years ago when there was a study or a few studies claiming that people leaning right are dumber than liberals? (By the way, Mark has pointed me to "studies" too...no doubt funded by tax dollars!) Who was the last Republican Presidential candidate who was not generally mocked as stupid? Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, these men are geniuses. Reagan, an amiable dunce. President Bush (W), a Yale graduate is an idiot.
Yes...how...how...reasonable! And it's...true...sort of...
But wait. What's the "other" side of the story? The outrage over the recent spate of Republican-led protests isn't about acknowledging conservative opposition to Democratic health care reform. It's about a concerted effort - by quasi-legal means - to kill reform. Not to alter it, not to influence it, not to offer compromise, or to put forth a conservative solution - or even a coherent worldview, competing ideas, an alluring image of what's right and proper. No, this is plain, politics, brutish and ugly, not meant to open the doors of democracy and debate, but to slam them closed.
And this isn't some kind of tit-for-tat: the disturbances of Baucus' committee hearings on health-care by single-payer advocates was in favor of widening debate in the hopes of forcing representatives to at least consider a powerful and beautiful idea. Those disturbances weren't thuggish or malicious or wrapped in lies and racist, nativist fury.
It's a prominent conservative repeating AM-radio canards to her gullible followers. It's Republican political operatives masquerading as "ordinary moms" at protests to foster the illusion of a seething mass. It's death threats made to union members. It's a anti-health-care-reform activist urging his followers to "carry" and "hurt badly" ACORN/SEIU members that oppose them at protests. It's a concerted effort by the Republican party to deliberately mislead Americans as to what the health care legislation actually contains.
There are days when I look at the modesty of the plan -- which would cover 40 million people, impose some small taxes on the rich, curb the worst excesses of the insurance industry and not affect the overwhelming majority of people at all -- and the pitch of the rhetoric and really wish that the plan on the table was actually worth this much controversy and rage. It is evidence for the view that the difference between proposing something really ambitious and something pretty modest is that the modest plan gets you more industry support. The political mobilization and polarization will be the same either way.
Back to the Steven Pearlstein op-ed. "The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers, on the effort to reform the health-care system," writes Pearlstein, "have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage....They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems."
After describing what's actually in the various proposals (as opposed to the blustering hyperbole and lies supplied by the right), Pearlstein concludes:
Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.
If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.
Sadly, the likely reform will be as Klein described it, "pretty modest," and not "worth this controversey and rage." It's hard to muster the troops to support something devoid of meaning and largely inconsequential. Unless, of course, you poison the troops with birth certificates and Red-baiting.
I haven't given the Tea Baggers' protests much attention - they're obviously a small minority of Americans riled up by professional provocateurs; the less said, the better. Except things are quickly spiraling out of control. It's bad enough these people are disrupting public town meetings on one of the most critical issues facing the country, but the protests in Tampa Bay and St. Louis broke out into violence...
Honestly, it's not surprising given the increasing political marginalization of these people and their increasingly hysterical rhetoric.
But while the organizers are as crass as they come, I haven't seen any evidence that the people disrupting those town halls are Florida-style rent-a-mobs. For the most part, the protesters appear to be genuinely angry. The question is, what are they angry about?
There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they "oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care." Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands.
Now, people who don't know that Medicare is a government program probably aren't reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they're probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they've heard about what he's doing, than to who he is.
That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that's behind the "birther" movement, which denies Mr. Obama's citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don't know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn't be surprising if it's a substantial fraction.
And cynical political operators are exploiting that anxiety to further the economic interests of their backers.
And to underscore this point, here comes Peggy Noonan in the pages of the WSJ calling on Democrats and the president to respect the Tea Baggers, claiming that they represent a majority of Americans on health care reform...despite all the evidence and polling that Americans actually want a system that's more progressive than what the president has suggested...and any violence that occurs will be the inevitable result of the president's...er...democratic impulses...er...
At what point does the traditional media call out the Becks and Limbaughs and the Fox News hosts and Republican politicos who stoke the flames of hatred? At what point does the media do a full attack on the political misinformation campaign on health care reform?
As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don't agree. Today, I'm going to step over that line.
The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
Ah...remember the good ol' days, when Jonah Goldberg said that liberals were fascist because, well, some of us are vegetarian (Hitler was a vegetarian!) and some of us are gay (some Nazis were gay!)?
It's important to remember that what made Nazis bad wasn't that they cleaned up their country's water supply (like liberals want to!), or had an anti-tobacco campaign (like liberals!), or spent taxpayer money on infrastructure (liberals!!!), but because they riled mobs with nationalist and racist and nativist rhetoric, because they used violence to achieve political ends, because they scrapped democratic processes, instituted a dictatorship, arrested and tortured any who opposed them, invaded other countries without provocation, and murdered millions in concentration camps.
I'm not saying Tea Baggers are the new, American Brown Shirts. But is it hyperbole to point out that there are disturbing anti-democratic and violent impulses behind this new right-wing movement? I don't think so...
Tea party members plan to be out in full force to protest President Barack Obama's health care initiatives during his visit to the Bozeman area next week.
Let's hope the Tea Baggers keep their people respectful. It wouldn't help our state's reputation much to have crazed right-wingers rioting at a presidential town hall meeting.
