1, as in Bill Clinton’s one misleading statement about his personal relationship with Monica Lewinski
or
935, as in nine hundred and thirty five false statements made by President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001.
April 1967. Martin Luther King decides to turn it up to eleven and gets vilified and/or ignored.
In 1995, Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon wrote about King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech in the essay, “The Martin Luther King You Don’t See on TV.” They’ve re-released it every year since hoping that more people will come to understand that King was an even greater man than they think.
It’s become a TV ritual: Every year on April 4, as Americans commemorate Martin Luther King’s death, we get perfunctory network news reports about “the slain civil rights leader.”
The remarkable thing about these reviews of King’s life is that several years – his last years – are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling segregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).
An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn’t take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.
Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they’re not shown today on TV.
Why?
It’s because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.
Summary: No, not Elbert Ventura, Research Fellow for Media Matters for America who joins us each week to discuss what matters in the Media. It’s that other guy – Chris Matthews – who’s finally being held accountable for his inflammatory and misogynistic statements. What a maroon.
Listen to: That Guy’s Insane (:23:20 37.4MB)
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Summary: Last week was the 6th Anniversary of the opening of Guatanamo Bay so we’re joined by The Center for American Progress’s Ali Frick for an update. Plus, Dr. Stephen Zunes, a Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus, talks to us about George Bush’s trip to the Middle East.
Listen to: The Accountability Offices of Frick and Zunes (:28:24 45.5MB)
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Summary: Meet Addison Pate, President of the Davidson County Young Democrats, and Aaron Dorn, Chairman of the Davidson County Young Republicans. These two very nice young men are under the impression that all this partisan bickering does nothing to move our country forward. Kids today. Sheesh.
Listen to: The Ambigously Partisan Duo (:23:37 38MB)
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Summary: It’s a cold day in hell on Liberadio(!) when we read a certain right-wing talk radio hosts’ Sunday column and our heads don’t explode. Plus, the integrity of our elections are still suspect, Rep. Rob Briley’s balancing act, Fred Thompson as Dick Gephardt, and isn’t “lozenge” a fun word to say?
Listen to: We Need a Very Large Flyswatter (:24:58 40MB)
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Tomorrow, Thursday, January 17, at 9:30 a.m., the legislature’s Voter Confidence Act Legislative Study Committee will meet to discuss SB 1363 (Senator Haynes), HB 1256 (Representative Moore) – legislation that will mandate that all voting equipment in Tennessee use or produce a voter-verified paper ballot and that statewide random post-election manual audits be conducted to verify the vote count. More information here.
Go to VoteSafeTN.org to find all the information you need to contact the members of the committee and urge them to take immediate action so Tennessee may have secure November elections. And if you can, please attend the meeting.
The agenda [pdf] is interesting. Chairman Burchett has asked that Common Cause of Tennessee, Gathering to Save our Democracy, Secretary of State Riley Darnell, and State Election Coordinator Brook Thompson be present for questions/clarification from the committee. Hijinks will surely ensue.
After realizing that the biggest fraud of an entitlement program–marrying her way to the presidency–was in jeopardy, Hillary Clinton has demonstrated just how poisonous Clintonism will be if we allow it to return for a sequel. She has finally distilled the Democratic primary contest to the basest type of identity politics.
Until immediately after Iowa, Barack Obama had succeeded in running a campaign of ideas and inspiration. (For anyone who thinks he’s short on substance, I encourage you to read his Blueprint for Change.) Finally, after his win in the Iowa caucus, there were a few media references that seemed borne out of a feeling of pleasant surprise that a black man had won among Democrats in this overwhelmingly white state.
Then came New Hampshire, where Hillary, dramatically under threat of not getting her presidential handout, “found [her] voice.” She became a woman to win over women.
And now, as South Carolina, where approximately 50% of the Democratic voting bloc is black looms on the horizon, she has dragged the two front-runners into the muck of identity politics.
Let’s review:
The Washington Post presents a summary of the whole sordid tale.
I’ll even give Bill a pass on his “fairy tale” comment since I’m familiar enough with the context of his remarks.
The Clinton camp knows that the race issue actually hurts Obama. Obama has run his campaign specifically against the legacy of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Until he was actually a threat (“those meddling kids”), he might’ve gotten away with it. Now, though, every political news item I read, every NPR discussion program I hear, is talking about the politics of race.
Sadly, the Obama camp is responding by playing too much defense. Circulating a memo highlighting Clinton camp transgressions only fuels the fire.
I see the hand of Howard Wolfson (Hillary’s own Karl Rove) in all of this. He and Bill are surely aware that, as with Karl Rove and the evangelical vote, they can sacrifice just enough of America’s black vote (which they’re losing in South Carolina) if they can engineer enough of a Bradley effect to keep Obama from winning the delegate count. Identity politics and the racializing of Obama is going to stem the tide of superdelegates we saw start to go for Obama after New Hampshire (a brilliant timing move on the part of the Obama campaign until the Clintons intervened).
In a way, I think it would’ve been better for Democrats if New Hampshire had served for Obama as a Kerryesque coronation so that we could’ve put paid to the Clintons once and for all. Beating the Clintons in Iowa, I think, was liberating for many Democrats around the country. They saw that they were able to vote their hopes and still back a winning horse. Even though we saw Ken Mehlman’s hand in identity politics when the RNC stuck it’s nose into the competition between Harold Ford, Jr. and Bob Corker in 2006 (“Call me!”), I actually think the Clintons would be more willing to play this game than any of McCain, Romney, or Huckabee (sorry Thompson, Giuliani, and Paul fans: I think your guys are done.). I think watching Obama take on any of the Republican candidates would be a breath of fresh air in national politics. Obama/McCain would be an especially beneficial debate about the direction of our country precisely because it would engage independents as much as partisans. I’d sacrifice the experience/change debate during the primary since I’m sure it will be reprised during the general.
Maybe Obama wins in Nevada and South Carolina will trump Clinton “wins” in Michigan and Florida (whose delegates won’t be seated by the DNC at the Democratic National Convention as a result of violations of rules regarding primary dates by the state parties in question). But watch for the Clinton team to promote a “victory” in Michigan today, despite hers being the only name on the ballot.
I certainly hope that there are enough Democratic primary voters to reject the rest of the Clinton brand of politics, like an unfortunate organ transplant, as not self. We have an opportunity to move beyond the “same old fights of the 90s”, but the Clintons don’t seem to want to let go of them. I sincerely think Obama entering the arena for a true contest of ideas would be of benefit for America. But putting the Bush-Clinton era behind us entirely? That’s change I can believe in…
The Moody Credit Rating company issued a warning this week that the U.S. is “at risk of losing its top-notch triple-A credit rating within a decade unless it takes radical action to curb soaring healthcare and social security spending.” U.S. Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN, The Fightin’ 5th!) is all, “Tell me something I don’t know, sister.” *snap, snap, snap*
“The private sector is finally discovering the red ink stains on America’s long-term balance sheet,” said Cooper, a member of the House Budget Committee. “The world’s most prestigious credit rating agencies, first Standard and Poor’s and now Moody’s, have issued public warnings that the global economy’s benchmark bond is becoming a risky investment. We can’t afford to ignore these warnings any longer.
“If America’s debt goes subprime, it will be felt around the world. Even today, some analysts have suggested that Moody’s forecast is precipitating the dollar’s decline. The U.S. must get its fiscal house in order today, or our children and grandchildren will inherit a broken economy.
“Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and I, along with 69 cosponsors, have proposed a long-term fiscal reform commission to address this crisis before it cripples the U.S. Already we have drawn support from both Democratic and Republican leaders. The House and Senate must pass the SAFE Commission Act (HR 3654) immediately and work across party lines with the White House to reform government spending.
“Presidential candidates of both parties should make their positions clear on this urgent topic. Now is a time for leadership in the nation’s interest.”
Anyone? Anyone?
Summary: It’s time for Elbert Ventura of Media Matters to de-spinify (It’s a word. Look it up.) what we hear on the radio and the TV. Despite what we may have heard from Chris Matthews, John McCain did not win the Iowa Caucus. Plus, Phil Valentine wants to find out just how low he can go and Tennessee is gearing up for the fight against electronic voting machines.
Listen to: McCain Wins Iowa! McCain Wins Iowa!
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