Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Liberal bias in the media.
We have just gotten to see yet another example of where the real bias exists in the media with respect to Trent Lott's pining for the days of Jim Crow. Over the past weekend, Lott said "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." On Meet the Press, the roundtable of Robert Novak, William Safire, Joe Klein, and David Broder paid sparse attention to the furor. In fact, Novak, who is prone to blab on about things he has not a clue of, said this:
"He's at a damn birthday party. I mean, this is the kind of thing that makes people infuriated with the media, is they pick up something that's said at a birthday party and turn it into a case of whether he should be impeached." Joe Klein followed up with a challenge: "Yeah, it's the media's fault" to which Novak replied: "Yeah, right. I think it is that we're talking about it." Novak then encouraged everyone to forget about it. Novak framed the story as if the media had jumped all over this and had taken his remarks out of context. Yet, by Monday, as reported by Slate, only the Washington Post had even mentioned it. Contrast this with the attention paid to John Kerry's haircut--a false story ran in the Drudge Report and picked up by the media.
To put a nice sum to this story, Paul Krugman wrote a dead on accurate editorial in the New York Times on this sordid story and where bias really lies. I am including the entire editorial in this entry.
'All These Problems'
December 10, 2002
By PAUL KRUGMAN
A man from Mars - or from Europe - might expect Mississippi
voters to favor progressive taxation and generous social
programs. After all, the state benefits immensely from the
legacy of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson: it doesn't
pay a lot of federal taxes because it has the lowest
per-capita income in the nation, and it does receive a lot
of aid. Unlike, say, New Jersey, which pays far more into
the U.S. Treasury than it gets in return, Mississippi is a
major net recipient of federal funds.
But Mississippi is, in fact, the home of Trent Lott - a
leader of a party determined to roll back as much as it can
of the Great Society, perhaps even the New Deal. Why do
Mississippi and its neighbors support politicians whose
economic policies seemingly run counter to their interests?
Do I really need to answer that?
Fifty years ago the politics of race in America weren't at
all disguised. Jim Crow laws both impoverished and
disenfranchised Southern blacks; Southern whites voted for
politicians who promised to keep things that way. The Civil
Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act ended overt
discrimination. Yet race remains a major factor in our
politics.
Indeed, this year efforts to suppress nonwhite votes were
remarkably blatant. There were those leaflets distributed
in black areas of Maryland, telling people they couldn't
vote unless they paid back rent; there was the fuss over
alleged ballot fraud in South Dakota, clearly aimed at
suppressing Native American votes. Topping it off was last
Saturday's election in Louisiana, in which the Republican
Party hired black youths to hold signs urging their
neighbors not to vote for Mary Landrieu.
Still, nobody now misses the days of overt racial
discrimination. Or do they?
Last week, at Strom Thurmond's 100th-birthday party, Mr.
Lott recalled Mr. Thurmond's 1948 race for the presidency.
"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran
for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if
the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't
have had all these problems over all these years, either."
What, exactly, did Mr. Lott mean by "all these problems"?
Mr. Thurmond ran a one-issue campaign: "We stand for the
segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each
race," declared his platform.
Is it possible that a major modern political figure has
sympathy for such views? After all, the Bush administration
includes figures like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice;
some of Mr. Lott's best friends . . . Yet during the 1990's
he was extensively involved with the Council of
Conservative Citizens - a descendant of the White Citizens
Council - telling them at one point that they "stand for
the right principles and the right philosophy." When this
came to light in 1998, Mr. Lott declared himself ignorant
of the group's aims. Was he also ignorant of the aims of
the 1948 Thurmond campaign? Or was he just, in the
excitement of the moment, blurting out his real views?
At first the "liberal media," which went into a frenzy over
political statements at Paul Wellstone's funeral, largely
ignored this story. To take the most spectacular
demonstration of priorities, last week CNN's "Inside
Politics" found time to cover Matt Drudge's unconfirmed
(and untrue) allegations about the price of John Kerry's
haircuts. "Just two days after moving closer to a
presidential race, John Kerry already is in denial mode,"
intoned the host. But when the program interviewed Mr. Lott
the day after the Thurmond event, his apparent nostalgia
for segregation never came up.
Now Mr. Lott has apologized for a "poor choice of words."
But choice of words had nothing to do with it. What he did,
quite clearly, was offer a retroactive endorsement of a
frankly racist campaign.
And yes, there are political implications. In the midterm
elections, Democratic candidates carefully avoided doing
anything to mobilize the black vote, fearing that this
would just encourage turnout by rural whites. But the rural
whites turned out anyway, while blacks didn't. In
Louisiana, black turnout - the result of a determined
get-out-the-vote operation, perhaps helped by Mr. Lott's
remarks - was the key to Ms. Landrieu's unexpected victory.
Might I suggest that this tells us something?
|
We have just gotten to see yet another example of where the real bias exists in the media with respect to Trent Lott's pining for the days of Jim Crow. Over the past weekend, Lott said "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." On Meet the Press, the roundtable of Robert Novak, William Safire, Joe Klein, and David Broder paid sparse attention to the furor. In fact, Novak, who is prone to blab on about things he has not a clue of, said this:
"He's at a damn birthday party. I mean, this is the kind of thing that makes people infuriated with the media, is they pick up something that's said at a birthday party and turn it into a case of whether he should be impeached." Joe Klein followed up with a challenge: "Yeah, it's the media's fault" to which Novak replied: "Yeah, right. I think it is that we're talking about it." Novak then encouraged everyone to forget about it. Novak framed the story as if the media had jumped all over this and had taken his remarks out of context. Yet, by Monday, as reported by Slate, only the Washington Post had even mentioned it. Contrast this with the attention paid to John Kerry's haircut--a false story ran in the Drudge Report and picked up by the media.
To put a nice sum to this story, Paul Krugman wrote a dead on accurate editorial in the New York Times on this sordid story and where bias really lies. I am including the entire editorial in this entry.
'All These Problems'
December 10, 2002
By PAUL KRUGMAN
A man from Mars - or from Europe - might expect Mississippi
voters to favor progressive taxation and generous social
programs. After all, the state benefits immensely from the
legacy of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson: it doesn't
pay a lot of federal taxes because it has the lowest
per-capita income in the nation, and it does receive a lot
of aid. Unlike, say, New Jersey, which pays far more into
the U.S. Treasury than it gets in return, Mississippi is a
major net recipient of federal funds.
But Mississippi is, in fact, the home of Trent Lott - a
leader of a party determined to roll back as much as it can
of the Great Society, perhaps even the New Deal. Why do
Mississippi and its neighbors support politicians whose
economic policies seemingly run counter to their interests?
Do I really need to answer that?
Fifty years ago the politics of race in America weren't at
all disguised. Jim Crow laws both impoverished and
disenfranchised Southern blacks; Southern whites voted for
politicians who promised to keep things that way. The Civil
Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act ended overt
discrimination. Yet race remains a major factor in our
politics.
Indeed, this year efforts to suppress nonwhite votes were
remarkably blatant. There were those leaflets distributed
in black areas of Maryland, telling people they couldn't
vote unless they paid back rent; there was the fuss over
alleged ballot fraud in South Dakota, clearly aimed at
suppressing Native American votes. Topping it off was last
Saturday's election in Louisiana, in which the Republican
Party hired black youths to hold signs urging their
neighbors not to vote for Mary Landrieu.
Still, nobody now misses the days of overt racial
discrimination. Or do they?
Last week, at Strom Thurmond's 100th-birthday party, Mr.
Lott recalled Mr. Thurmond's 1948 race for the presidency.
"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran
for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if
the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't
have had all these problems over all these years, either."
What, exactly, did Mr. Lott mean by "all these problems"?
Mr. Thurmond ran a one-issue campaign: "We stand for the
segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each
race," declared his platform.
Is it possible that a major modern political figure has
sympathy for such views? After all, the Bush administration
includes figures like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice;
some of Mr. Lott's best friends . . . Yet during the 1990's
he was extensively involved with the Council of
Conservative Citizens - a descendant of the White Citizens
Council - telling them at one point that they "stand for
the right principles and the right philosophy." When this
came to light in 1998, Mr. Lott declared himself ignorant
of the group's aims. Was he also ignorant of the aims of
the 1948 Thurmond campaign? Or was he just, in the
excitement of the moment, blurting out his real views?
At first the "liberal media," which went into a frenzy over
political statements at Paul Wellstone's funeral, largely
ignored this story. To take the most spectacular
demonstration of priorities, last week CNN's "Inside
Politics" found time to cover Matt Drudge's unconfirmed
(and untrue) allegations about the price of John Kerry's
haircuts. "Just two days after moving closer to a
presidential race, John Kerry already is in denial mode,"
intoned the host. But when the program interviewed Mr. Lott
the day after the Thurmond event, his apparent nostalgia
for segregation never came up.
Now Mr. Lott has apologized for a "poor choice of words."
But choice of words had nothing to do with it. What he did,
quite clearly, was offer a retroactive endorsement of a
frankly racist campaign.
And yes, there are political implications. In the midterm
elections, Democratic candidates carefully avoided doing
anything to mobilize the black vote, fearing that this
would just encourage turnout by rural whites. But the rural
whites turned out anyway, while blacks didn't. In
Louisiana, black turnout - the result of a determined
get-out-the-vote operation, perhaps helped by Mr. Lott's
remarks - was the key to Ms. Landrieu's unexpected victory.
Might I suggest that this tells us something?
