In corporate media, some political arguments are treated as indisputable fact. One of the most important: Democrats win by moving to the right. In the New York Times (5/3/12), Peter Baker offers the latest example:
Mr. Obama, who campaigned on Sunday with Mr. Clinton, seems to be following his Democratic predecessor's playbook. After a generation of Democrats alienating voters with liberal domestic positions, Mr. Clinton moved the party toward the center on issues like trade, welfare and deficit spending.
First off: Democrats had been alienating voters for a generation with their liberal policies? I am not sure what this is supposed to mean, but it's part of the Clinton Lesson so popular with mainstream reporters.
Clinton went to the "center" to win. With what? "Trade" would seem to mean NAFTA, which was never all that popular with most Americans (but it's still "centrist" because, well, it just is).
In any event, it's hard to figure how Clinton's moves to the right were key to his electoral success. The press loved his "Sister Souljah" moment, but it's hard to imagine voters much cared. And the 1994 election losses for the Democrats might suggest that voters, if anything, weren't at all happy with Clinton's rightward shift. The media drew a different lesson: Clinton the right-leaning New Democrat had veered too far to the left.
And in 2010, when Democrats suffered similar losses, the media again chalked it up to a Democratic president who hadn't learned the lesson and governed too far to the left.
But the Clinton presidency remains the corporate media's model for all other Democrats.
About Peter Hart
This a particularly corrupt corporate media meme.
It was the Clinton presidency and its obvious rightward degeneration that awakened me to the political bankruptcy of the Democratic Party and utterly destroyed my final links to the "2-party" system . Too bad so many US citizens are mass-media-opiated political imbeciles, they don't draw the appropriate lessons from the Clinton debacle.
The corporate media
The road to the White House's equivalent of a KEEP RIGHT sign
Too bad so many US citizens are mass-media-opiated political imbeciles, they don't draw the appropriate lessons from the Clinton debacle.
I would say that on top of that, with the limited debate available, and the limited number of outlets due to the consolidation, there is not the available outlets to get the actual news out. Too many people are limited to what ever R. Ailes and Fux Snooze wants to put out, in their current incarnation of the mini-true.
Thanks Peter for pointing out that the Democratic presidents' supposedly veering too far left is very popular. I think this is a widely propagated lie that helps scare most Americans into voting Democrat even though the Democrats serve the same interests as Republicans. Obama plays the role very well of the affected, victimized Democrat out to bravely defend our country against those bad Republicans. The reality is that Obama is doing the same thing the Republicans are doing especially in terms of foreign policy, but he relies on the social construction of race to remain center and veer center right. -RF.
Worth remembering: Ownership of Italian media is concentrated in Silvio Berlusconi's hands so effectively that he can elect parliaments favorable enough to excuse his crimes retroactively. American media ownership is even more concentrated, in a few corporate hands, not one individuals, but the effect is roughly the same.
…and Rupert Murdoch knows this.
We have two corporate parties, in my opinion. The difference for me is what was expressed by Thomas Mann & Norman Ornstein in the Washington Post:
"…..we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal effectively with the country's challenges."
So we have a "moving to the right" and a crazy right. Is that the choice?
No
Had Peter Baker meant "After a generation of Democrats alienating voters WHO HAVE liberal domestic positions…" the paragraph would have made more sense.
Sorry….I must have typed the word "no" under extreme anxiety, just thinking about this situation.
Elaine what is mainstream?It is not what you on the left say it is ,or me on the right.When the votes are counted THAT is the new (or old) mainstream.And your framing of what the right believes is as true as people on the right who would say all Democrats are communist.Nonsense !As far as getting extreme anxiety I would not doubt it.You passionately believed this progressive liberal swill,and thought Obamas hope and change would work.Well now all the cards are turned over.All the failures realized..They are damn near complete.AS WE SAID IT WOULD BE.Now it is obvious what disaster is looming and you are furious.Well Elaine 6 months after Mitt gets in you will see a huge turn around in this economy.Jobs and most all pertinent economic indicators.I dare say for the life of you ,you wont get it.You will be suspect of it.Dismissive.Find every way under Gods green earth to paint all positives as negatives.I think you are damn mad that Americans will be stupid enough to vote come November against their own best interests.Vote against the poor and the middle class.Vote for the rich and corporate money.Vote against what all those liberal elitists have screamed from the mountain tops at them.And of course having no real respect for their choice you will dismiss them.See Elaine America will do what it does best.Vote out a failure,and give the next guy a chance.Bush was voted out as a proxy vote against Mccain.But that was fair, and yes expected.Now its Obamas turn.He is a nice guy and little more.You offer no other candidates.What do you expect?
And Mitt will accomplish this economic miracle by lowering tax rates for corporations as they sit on two trillion dollars and refuse to hire and by making the Bush tax cuts permanent. He will accomplish it by enacting the Ryan budget which cuts virtually every program designed to help the poor and middle class in order to give to the oligarchs. The Ryan budget is "marvelous" according to Willard. He will voucherize Medicare so that millions of dollars can finance tax cuts for the rich. Etch a sketch Willard is the face of the 1%. If not this, what is Willard "corporations are people, my friend" Romney's plan? He spends so much time criticizing Obama and so little time telling us what he plans to do. Does he have a plan at all or is it Bush redux all over again?
The Republican Party is no longer a party. It's a cult. It's 100% corporate owned. I have never seen a party do everything it can to hurt this economy–and by extension the American people– in order to defeat one man and they call themselves patriots. Refusing to end tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs. Refusing to end taxpayer subsidies for oil companies that make the biggest profits on this planet. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling to pay for debts already incurred. Refusing to compromise on anything. It is exactly as Mann & Ornstein described them and then proudly admitting that they really don't give a damn about the American people. It's all about getting back in power. So, in all fairness, Obama has had to operate with his hands tied behind his back and pull this country from an abyss with absolutely NO help from the opposing party–in fact, a party that has done everything to worsen the situation, that has shown absolute disdain for the American worker, for seniors, for the unemployed, for college students.
Where are the jobs you promised, John Boehner, or were you too busy fooling around with anti-abortion legislation, as per the wishes of the radical House bunch you are completely incapable of controlling. Republicans have put forth absolutely no ideas for creating jobs–except in China–as they refused to end corporate tax breaks for sending jobs overseas.
The article says it all. "The Republicans are worse."
I can't wait for Republicans to start tacking to left to make up for their unpopularity after following a generation of unpopular policies masked by affable standard-bearers, but I won't hold my breath…
"Elaine, your framing of what the right believes is as true as people on the right who would say all Democrats are communist."
stating the obvious….almost elaine's entire comment posted 05/04/2012 at 8:36 pm
———-
"…..we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party. The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal effectively with the country's challenges. "
————-
is a direct quote from thomas mann & norman ornstein, one conservative and one liberal, who are old school beltway insiders.
ps
"Bush was voted out as a proxy vote against Mccain."
silly stuff. bush couldn't run and mccain had made it clear he was going to continue bush's failed policies. in addition, john was temperamentally illsuited for the office and between his vice presidential choice and his "the fundamentals of the economy are strong," comment the day lehman collapsed, his fate was sealed.
woodwarad: My comments are based on the actual voting record of the Republican party. They recently voted, in fact, against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. They are willing to allow interest rates on student college loans to double –unless they can find the money to stop this from happening and voila! They" found" the money by proposing to take it out of child immunization programs and women's health. Of course, they rejected the Buffett amendment but found the money by creating more human misery for the little guys.
Its so extremely obvious that they think we are virtually retarded. This constant attempt to pull the public to the right comes straight out of Lippman and Bernays' propaganda techniques. They offer us two choices: Right wing, AND UTLTRA RIGHT-WING. That's the "liberal vs. conservative" debate. Somehow we're not supposed to notice that Bill Clinton was basically to the RIGHT of Reagan. Its the same strategy of constantly touting the "Liberal Bias" in the media. It gets people, rather than to actually think about what the media bias really is by some objective analysis, to just accept it from DEFINITION. Yet, its so obvious, their tactics. If one even thinks about it for five minutes, it becomes jaw-droppingly clear. That is why our media is designed NOT to let us think…
Right you are, Keith. And anyone who rejects the "right wing and ultra right wing" must be a Communist. In 2011, corporations paid only 12.1% tax rate and when compared to foreign countries, U.S. corporations paid a smaller rate than 24 out of 25 OECD countries.
Tax-paying responsibilities are shifting to workers. At the highest levels, most of the income comes from capital gains, taxed at 15%. (Romney can tell you all about that).
When the sheer exploitation of what is happening is pointed out by a Dem, well…..he must be a Communist. There is no left wing equivalency to what the right is foisting on this country today.
hello eliane
to be clear i was only discussing your comment posted at 8:36 not the one from 11:36 [which was clearly your words] because michael misread the first one and wasn't responding to the second one.
we're on the same page here. multiple studies have shown that congressional republicans have moved well to the right since the mid 70's while the democrats have barely moved at all. a recent study cited by npr concluded that the current republican congress is the most conservative in 100 years.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/04/10/150349438/gops-rightward-shift-higher-polarization-fills-political-scientist-with-dread
eliane, the latest gop house trick: they're trying to back out to the spending cuts they agreed to last year, pushing defense increases and cutting other things not in the original agreement
andrew leonard explains
"Paul Ryan and his fellow Republicans (and a not inconsiderable number of Democrats) are desperate to find a way to avoid the dreaded ”sequester” — a package of around $600 billion in defense spending cuts that are scheduled to start kicking in at the end of this year. Never mind the holy grail of deficit reduction: When the beggar with his hand stuck out is the Pentagon, “entitlement” isn’t such a dirty word, after all.
Ryan’s new package of cuts takes aim at the heart of the two biggest pieces of legislation Democrats passed during the Obama administration, bank reform and healthcare reform. The details are wonky, but the goal is clear. By defunding crucial mechanisms designed to ensure that the laws actually work as intended, Republicans achieve two goals simultaneously: They avoid the anathema of cuts to defense spending, while rendering the legislation that they hate so much not just toothless, but incapacitated.
Machiavelli would applaud. "
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/04/sabotage_the_new_gop_plan/singleton/
elaine, the house gop also want to extend the bush tax cuts again, while admitting they have no plan to pay for them
TheHill.com reports:
House Republicans say they have no plans to pay for the extension of the Bush-era tax rates, a move that could erase the deficit reduction they have achieved since winning their majority in the chamber in 2010.
The lawmakers also said that Republicans had always intended for the rates on income and capital gains, enacted during former President George W. Bush’s first term, to be permanent.
“From my perspective, you’re setting tax policy on a permanent basis, long-term basis,” said Rep. Tom Reed (N.Y.), a freshman Republican and member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. “It’s not a pay-for situation. It’s just strong policy that needs to be adopted.”
thinkprogress explains why this is doubling down on failed policy:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/01/474159/gop-bush-tax-cut-extension/?mobile=nc
Woodward: Thanks for the info. It's really hard to stomach these "conservatives", as they call themselves. They're no longer even subtle about the fact that they would throw Americans under a bus while fighting ferociously to protect (and increase) the wealth at the top.
Of course, they don't want the dreaded "sequester" to kick in. Ryan's budget increases defense spending while decreasing just about anything that helps ordinary folks. Austerity and deficit reduction are for the little people. And as weak as the bank reform regs are, they fight even that, setting us up for another meltdown. "Healthcare reform" for Republicans is getting rid of the Affordable Care Act and Medicare. Let's go back to the old days when the sick and elderly faced financial ruin in the final days of their lives.
You know, this bunch is beyond all words.
Let's not forget that the Ryan plan will lose us $4 trillion dollars over 10 years and Republicans since Reagan have shown no propensity for fiscal responsibility. And at least Clinton got us a surplus. He was a Right Wing Democrat. So it took an even more Right winger in Bush to suck it all out and then add over $4 trillion more into debt and at his lowest costing us 743,000 losing their jobs per month. Now we have Obama another Regressive only worse than Clinton. He sounds liberal but his National Security policies out pace Bush's draconian measures. Almost like they are working to the same agenda. Turn the USA into a defacto police state after the Middle Class is totally gone and we are powerless. With our police both militarized and protective laws so lax you wonder if the Bill of rights is just a useless piece of paper now.
One bright side Obama has seen to it that the Congress has don't nothing to keep us from having another Great Depression scare just like in 2008. What will he sacrifice from the New Deal to "save us" from it?
Sweet & Sour Socialism wrote: "This a particularly corrupt corporate media meme.
It was the Clinton presidency and its obvious rightward degeneration that awakened me to the political bankruptcy of the Democratic Party and utterly destroyed my final links to the "2-party" system ."
Exactly. Me too. NAFTA, the lopsided China trade deal, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, financial derivatives deregulation, "ending Welfare as we know it" (Welfare helps women & their young children. As if there would never be hard times again, thanks to the above.) Clinton was disastrous. Obama isn't much better, either.
Elaine,
You're magnificent!
Bob: Thanks. I assure you that's not a sentiment everyone shares on this site. As Harry Truman said, "I don't give them hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it's hell."
ps about thomas mann & norman ornstein…they make it clear in their book that the media is failing democracy by not pointing out that it's republican extremism that is causing most of washington's dysfunction
npr:
A central message of their book, Mann says, is that norms of nonpartisanship in the media and elsewhere sometimes do "a disservice to the reality."
"It disarms the electorate in a democracy when you really need an ideological outlier to be reined in by an active, informed public."
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/30/151522725/even-worse-than-it-looks-extremism-in-congress
woodword: Yes, what is this "pox on both your houses" nonsense that the media feeds us when it's really one house that is at fault. The Republican Party has gone completely over the edge.
They're moving with the speed of lightning to bust unions, end collective bargainin rights, gut social safety net programs, disenfranchise voters (Dems), roll back years of reproductive legislation, become gyno governors, and, to top it off, blow up the U.S. economy over the debt ceiling–to name but a few. Every week it's something new. It's a war on the environment, a war on women, a war on seniors, a war on workers, a war on the unemployed. The only ones whose outstretched hands they stroke are the MIC, the uber rich, and big corporations.
Either they feel very confident about winning in November to the point where they can show their utter disdain for anyone who's not one of the "haves or the have-mores" or they're not so confident and want to squeeze in as much of their ideological beliefs as possible. Or maybe they're so blinded by their ideology that they feel nothing at all.
Elaine,
You're so bright and such a great writer. Do you write for a blog or web site where I can find more of your stuff? Thanks.
elaine
extra bonus points for "gyno governors"
Bob: Well, if you're not saying this with your fingers crossed, thanks again. I don't write for a blog. I'm not even on Facebook. You feel as you do, I believe, because I assume you agree with me. If you didn't, you'd have quite another opinion of me and it wouldn't be a very nice one.
Thanks for the info Elaine, and no my fingers were not crossed. I'm not on Facebook either. I don't go in for mass hysteria. I'm a liberal libertarian, if there is such a thing. I'm a libertarian on social issues(live and let live), and a liberal on economic ones. The social programs to help the needy are there for a damn good reason and I don't want to see them eviscerated by crazy messianic Republicans who have degenerated into the big bad wolf. I look forward to continuing to read your stuff hear on the FAIR blog.
Ok I have sat back and "listened" to you libs pat each other on the back and congratulate one another on your oh so in sync visions for America.Well we have seen that vision these last 4 years.A liberal president and a super majority stepped up to the plate and bombed.And the bad news for all your bloviating on these blogs is that enough people think enough of you and your beliefs ,to vote you out come November.That will be the answer to all your arguments.
Elaine Im glad Bob is so enamored with your thoughts.I being well educated in liberal spin and theology(Remember I worked for Clinton)understand the process used to dupe people like you into believing that government is the only answer.I of course can find nothing to agree with you on.By the way that is not in any way personal.It would not lead me to say anything or have an unkind opinion of you.That is a liberal game.
Bob c. So you have a live and let live feeling that socially the FED should stay the hell out of telling you how to live your life and conduct yourself.Yet economically you want them to step in and take over your life,and everyone else's?Interesting
On the defining issues of our day all Barrack Obama does is bob and weave.
Obama derangement troll is Obama derangement trolling
[...] an ad to that effect. And media people claimed that they took this claim seriously. Here's Peter Baker in the New York Times (7/19/12): It took only a few days for it to become a favorite Republican [...]
[...] ran an ad to that effect. And media people claimed that they took this claim seriously. Here's Peter Baker in the New York Times (7/19/12): It took only a few days for it to become a favorite Republican [...]