For the MSM, AEI is the New FiveThirtyEight

At Swampland, Jay Newton-Small posts "Landrieu for $100 million", in which she references this Bloomberg piece calmly reporting another huge take-home win for one of the centrists who call the shots in the Democratic Party, this time Mary Landrieu (DLC, Louisiana). Apart from the odd, blasé nature of a piece describing dollars for votes --something most Americans have a problem with, at least conceptually-- there was the equally blasé passing on of poor reporting.

Hard as it might be for readers to believe this, I feel that a response is necessary.

Jay Newton-Small:

Perhaps the most egregious problem in the Bloomberg piece is this example of He Said/She Said:

Landrieu, Lincoln and Nelson have all criticized a central element of the legislation, a new government-run insurance program to compete with private insurers like Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna Inc.

The three lawmakers “all represent states where Obama is pretty unpopular, and they will at least need to split their votes on health care, casting some key skeptical votes,” said John Fortier, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

First of all, everybody knows what the American Enterprise Institute is, right? We're all aware that it's not a political analysis house, but a conservative agenda policy factory?

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is a conservative think tank founded in 1943.

AEI scholars are considered to be some of the leading architects of the second Bush administration's public policy.[2] More than twenty AEI scholars and fellows served either in a Bush administration policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions.[3]

Among the prominent former government officials now affiliated with AEI are former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, now an AEI senior fellow; former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities Lynne Cheney, a longtime AEI senior fellow; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now an AEI senior fellow; former Dutch member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an AEI visiting fellow, and former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, now an AEI visiting scholar.

Other prominent individuals affiliated with AEI include David Frum, Kevin Hassett, Frederick W. Kagan, Leon Kass, Irving Kristol, Charles Murray, Michael Novak, Norman J. Ornstein, Richard Perle, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Peter J. Wallison.[4]

Does anybody who works in journalism understand the professional need to fact-check claims?

Let's see, how about Nebraska, where "Obama is pretty unpopular", according to the rightist think-tank guy (Link to Lincoln Journal Star):

Obama gets 57 percent approval in Nebraska

By DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 4:20 pm

President Barack Obama enjoyed 57 percent job approval in Nebraska in a Gallup Poll released Tuesday.

The daily tracking results were compiled from January through June and were billed by Gallup as the president's "half-year approval rating."

Obama's disapproval score in Nebraska was 32 percent.

OK, but I can hear you saying "Well, the rightist propagandist goofed on NE, but what about Arkansas, Lincoln's state, or Louisiana, Landrieu's?"

So what does Gallup say about those states (Link to Gallup state breakdown)?

Arkansas: Approve 56, Disapprove, 31

Louisiana: Approve 55, Disapprove, 34

Oh horrors! A mid-fifties approval rating!

Only in the minds of people who would bestow the laughable title of "visiting scholar" upon the fool ideologue Wolfowitz do these numbers signify that "Obama is pretty unpopular" in these states.

I know that you don't work there anymore, Jay Newton-Small, but is it possible for you to mention something to James Rowley and Kristin Jensen, the authors of that eye-rollingly bad piece, if you were to still be in contact?

Could you maybe point out that when journalists turn to the AEI for political analysis on politicians' votes on a "government-run" anything, they should probably expect something along the lines of "that would be bad politically" --even if the Senator were, say, Dick Durbin of Illinois?

Thanks so much in advance for letting your former colleagues know that many of their readers aren't idiots, Jay Newton-Small!

Abortion: Why We Lose

A few days ago, I put in my two cents on the dynamics behind public support for abortion restrictions:

The energy and funds spent by the Beltway pro-choice lobby could be even better spent persuading Americans that this is not what their tax dollars would be used to promote (link to rightist scoundrels demonizing "loose" women):

Abortion as Birth Control

Abortion is no longer primarily an act of teenage desperation; instead, more and more it is the calculated choice of adults unwilling to accept responsibility for their behavior. Abortion is becoming more “rare” among the nation’s teens, but a larger percentage of women in their mid to late 20s –– women who are supposed to be responsible, mature and informed –– are, to put it bluntly, using abortion as a form of birth control.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 6 million American women become pregnant every year — almost half of them unmarried. The abortion rate for unmarried women is four times greater than that of married women. Obviously, these women engage in irresponsible and risky sexual behavior with men who are poor candidates for marriage and even worse candidates for fatherhood. Of those 3 million unmarried pregnant women, almost half have an abortion and almost half become single mothers. Very few of them marry the father of their child or give the child up for adoption.

In summary, over the past couple of decades, abortion has enabled women to engage in sexual activity without marriage or any other commitment –– regardless of whether either person is able or willing to commit to a permanent relationship and regardless of whether either person is willing or able to take responsibility for the consequences. That’s the driving force behind the so-called “pro-choice” movement.

Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse is Senior Fellow of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute.

This is what we're up against.

To argue past these people is to forfeit the debate, IMO.

Who in the Democratic party are the standard-bearers against this frame? Who in the Beltway lobby speaks to this rhetoric at all?

Who's getting up on their elected perches, and telling Americans that abortion isn't about promiscuous women defying their communities' moral codes? Who is standing their ground on the position that public funds should be available for abortion, because tax-payer support does not mean promoting irresponsible, immoral behavior in young women?

(I say this to point out that the two sides keep talking past each other, with the result being that the anti-choicers are winning the public debate.)

When we argue the issue in terms ("over 500,000 families have a child who went hungry") that lie outside the rightists' core proposition, I believe that we're avoiding the real fight.

We have to be able to look ordinary folks in the eye and say

"Young women who get pregnant in bad situations and have abortions are taking responsibility for their actions. It's the responsible thing to do. Abortion is about saving women from all the things that can go wrong in people's lives, from medical concerns to future-ruining mistakes to family survival.

That's why it's legal in the United States and around the developed world, because people have always known that these things happen to us when we expect them least. That's why public money should be available to help women do the responsible thing in bad situations, however they ended up in that doctor's office --because sometimes it's the only responsible decision to make."

Nothing less will do until this issue is confronted head on, in my opinion. People understand "Girls Gone Wild", but child hunger statistics? Not so much.

If the professional liars in the pro-life lobby can get away with doing this --with persuading most Americans who aren't firmly convinced abortion is murder to their core that it encourages irresponsibility and immorality, then we're going to lose, period.

If the debate were had honestly, on its merits, Americans would be confronted by this frame:

Q: In terms of pregnancy and birth, do you know when a baby is a baby, exactly?

A (anti-abortion): From the moment sperm touches egg.

A (pro-conscience): I don't know. I don't think we can know that for sure.

Q: If you were in a burning hospital with a test-tube full of 10,000 fertilized eggs on the one hand, and a single newborn baby on the other, and you had to choose one to save, which would it be? The test-tube with 10,000 potential babies, or the one live baby?

A (anti-abortion): I don't know. I don't think we can know that for sure.

A (pro-conscience): The baby.

If that were the sober discussion, whose side do you really think most Americans would be on?

Instead, they are presented with "Concerned Women for America" telling them a story about something that concerns their lives every day, i.e. young women having sex and making Moms and Dads uncomfortable, and a pro-choice lobby that seemingly would rather talk to itself than deal with that story.

Abortion

I was gonna put up a tweet noting that the controversial issue of government paying indirectly for abortion is much less controversial, in terms of popular opinion, than paying directly for killing civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But it turned out this is not unequivocally true.

CBS News Poll. Nov. 13-16, 2009. N=1,167 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Which of these comes closest to your view? Abortion should be generally available to those who want it. OR, Abortion should be available, but under stricter limits than it is now. OR, Abortion should not be permitted."

Generally Available 34%
Stricter Limits 40%
Not permitted 23%
Unsure 3%

This is very depressing. It reminds me of the stories clinic workers tell of women who picket the clinic, and then one day walk inside. For an abortion.

On the one hand, three quarters of Americans think that abortion should be legal and available. It is hard to believe that the restriction that comes to mind of the 40 percent is that the procedure should not be paid for by the government. Stuff like parental notification or restrictions on third trimester abortions (which Roe itself permits) are probably what the respondents are thinking of.

But I am absolutely certain that all of that 40 percent, and a good chunk of the not permitted 23% would discover that when they or their daughter were pregnant at a time when a child would be a bad idea, for the woman and the kid, they would have the abortion.

These polling numbers spook politicians. And they lead to a distortion of public policy. The Stupak-Pitts amendment rests on these numbers. The Village thinks this is much ado about nothing because they, and their daughters don't have to worry about access to reproductive health services. So, they say, make the women who can't pay for abortion out of pocket be forced to bear a child.

Joe Klein once agains brags about his Civil Liberties Cluelessness

I don't have much patience for legal niceties when thousands of innocents are being targeted and killed.

Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/11/18/the-al-qaeda-trial/

I responded with a hypotheitical:


We've always loved that about you Joe. Unfortunately legal niceties are the only thing that stands between civilization and chaos. Lets pretend for arguments sake that a rogue group of true believing neocons, started engaging in terrorist-like activities like perhaps sending Anthrax spores to people in the mail. Let's further assume that a prominent lobbying group with foreign connections was found to be involved.

Certainly the nature of the threat would dictate that waterboarding would be an appropriate tool for investigation and that failing that, preemptively arresting and permanently detaining the members of that lobbying organization would be AOK. And of course providing 'material support' for that organization in the form of monthly donation checks would itself be a prosecutable offense.

They might even come after YOU!

Needless to say he will dismiss such concerns as contrived and unlikely but the whole reason we like to refer to "blind justice" is because the key to the law is that it can stand independent of the identities of the perpetrators and victims. It's sad to note but the current debate over whether it's appropriate to try KSM in New York is based on simple bigotry. If there's any more evidence necessary then we need simply ask why the anthrax letters didn't result in wholesale detainee abuse and an unofficial declaration of war. (FBI stalking doesn't qualify!)

Centrists on the Up or Down Vote

Jay Newton-Small put up a post called "Trigger Happy" at Swampland late this evening, in which she dutifully stenographs DLC-ers ideas on procedure:

...if you talk to centrists the only word you hear is trigger: there's the Snowe trigger, the “hair” trigger and something Senator Tom Carper, a centrist Delaware Democrat, is calling the “hammer.”

Carper is trying to build centrist unity around his idea in order to offer it as an alterative if and when the opt-out public option fails – a provision, he says, that just doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate. “We'll see what comes out of Reid's bill but I think at the end of the day we may need something along the lines of what I'm suggesting in order to finish debate on the bill and report [the bill] out,” Carper said.

Carper is meeting with centrists such as Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln asking them what kind of a trigger they might vote for.

So the problem is preventing a Democratic filibuster of a Democratic bill, making sure that the centrists don't join together with the Republicans against the disorganized (and apparently brainless zombie) liberals, and that they will vote for cloture --ensuring that the bill gets a straight up and down vote:

“What we're asking centrists is: 'What concerns do you need to have addressed to vote for cloture?'” Carper said. “And the two concerns that we hear over and over again is government run and government financed.”

OK, "government run" is what the Republicans say over and over again like jack-in-the-boxes --check. "Government financed" is what the health insurance industry complains about over and over again --check.
Yep, they've just got to filibuster and obstruct the business of the Senate.

Hmm..."cloture"..."filibuster"..."straight up and down vote"... I'm sure I've read those words somewhere before...

The seven Republicans made a commitment to vote against a nuclear maneuver for the rest of this Congress. The seven Democrats agreed to reserve filibusters against judicial nominees to "extraordinary" cases, which aptly captures the extraordinary nature of filibusters themselves. The two sides compromised...[Nebraska Senator and New Democrat Ben] Nelson said[,] "Now the Senate can move forward and get to important business."

So...the last time it was beautiful and principled for centrist Democrats to join together with Republicans in an orgy of bipartisanship, it was to promise not to filibuster, so that "important business" could proceed.

Now, of course, they absolutely must filibuster health care reform, so that they can hold the flag of bipartisanship high once again (and satisfy the DLC's corporate "partners", just like all principled Third Way Democrats do), and important business cannot proceed.

Centrists do have principles, but just like conservatives' opposition to big government (except when spying on citizens en masse or torturing "suspects" in secret prisons or looting the treasury for war profiteers), those principles certainly do appear rather contradictory at times to folks of other political persuasions.

IP

One of the more brilliant bits of marketing language is "Intellectual Property." "Property" conveys the notion of permanence, while "Intellectual" conveys the sense of of seriousness.

Here is what the Constitution says (pdf) about copyright and patent:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

As always, the Founders recognized that times change, and that it is best to draw broad guidelines rather than precise definitions of stuff like how long monopolies on developments in science and useful arts should be in place. But they did clearly say "limited."

Current law doesn't reflect any notion of "limited" times.

The duration of copyright in these works is generally computed in the same way as for works created on or after January 1, 1978: the life-plus-70 or 95/120-year terms apply to them as well. The law provides that in no case would the term of copyright for works in this category expire before December 31, 2002, and for works published on or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright will not expire before December 31, 2047

.

So Mickey is good until 2048, at which time Disney will have gotten another renewal.

The entire point of having patents and copyright exist for a limited time is so that the work can eventually enter into the public domain, that the creators get a period of time where they exploit their ideas in a monopolistic environment, but, at some reasonable time after their invention or creation, the work becomes publicly available. The idea of copyright and patent is to protect innovation, for long enough that it encourages such innovation, but not so long that it remains out of the public sphere.

This idea has been lost. Walt Disney is long dead. He isn't around to take advantage of his ability to develop a new Mickey Mouse character. The corporate inheritors of his legacy of genius are stifling innovation, in violation of the intent of the Founders. But they are well-funded, and fund their legislators to keep Mickey, and every other work that took place after Mickey, out of the public domain.

Shilling 2.0

Every so often, one hears of these flacks and operatives that supposedly go through commentary in establishment media sites, and will post agenda-advancing comments posing as ordinary readers. I hadn't seen one for myself until today.

This is one of these shills in action up at Swampland, in an important lobby-busting post from Karen Tumulty on a Times article on corporate influence called "Our Chatty Cathy Congress" (the hyperlink to the post is given the helpful URL "swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/11/15/drug-industry-pulls-the-strings-in-congress"):

Why is the headline linking to this story entitled "How the Drug Industry Pulls Congress's Strings? Once you review the actual article it becomes a discussion of the standard operating procedure of lobbyists and elected congressional representatives. Nothing in the story raises even a hint of an industry wide scheme of manipulation, never mind anything untoward at all.

The industry isn't perfect, but then I challenge you to find one that is, and I'd ask you to start with the profession of journalism. I long for someone to merely present me with the relevant facts so I may make my own judgments and conclusions, and weary of a focus on the sensational to the complete absence of presenting all sides of the issue.

Why has the Times chosen to denigrate an industry? Can I trust media if they don't present all sides of a story? You are supposed to present information, not simply tar industries, groups, individuals, with a brush and a label such as the one leading into this article. Don't you understand, I can't tell the difference between you and Fox; neither of you will give me the facts without bias or even give me all the facts.

Time, prove yourself journalists, and write an article about the good in this industry and the people who labor in it, rather than just focus on the negative aspects. The costs of prescription medications gets loads of press, but have any of you ever stopped to calculate and compare the annual costs of blood pressure medication vs the cost of treating a stroke. If you don't write this story, please change your tabloid, sensational tactics.

Give me Joe Friday and just the facts please.

Posted by: mdfstx
November 15, 2009
at 5:30 pm

Wow...What naked propaganda. How fucking stupid do these jackals think we, the politically engaged public, are?

This was my response:

The industry isn't perfect, but then I challenge you to find one that is...

If by "perfect" one means "unwilling to subvert through material influence the democratic processes our nation has preserved with the blood of patriots", then no, there doesn't seem to be a "perfect" industry in sight.
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The challenge isn't to find an industry that's "perfect", but to find and implement the system through which industry influence is minimized, and public influence is raised to its proper level. To do so necessarily means to weaken the power of corporations.
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...and all the yelling of "Bias! Bias!" is so much cheap working of the refs. The press should be biased --biased toward the public interest where it conflicts with industry's. Dutifully presenting "all sides of the story" has no public value whatsoever when one side is the public interest, and the other is industry interest. Only a shill or a fool would demand that the tobacco companies' point of view be given equal time and emphasis along side lung surgeons' in a piece on the dangers of smoking.

Time, prove yourself journalists, and write an article about the good in this industry and the people who labor in it, rather than just focus on the negative aspects.

That's a truly ridiculous demand, completely at odds with what the problems of journalism actually are. Balance for balance's sake (or to satisfy the criticisms of industry PR shills) isn't synonymous with presentation of the truth. Real journalists don't "balance" negative aspects of a story for the sake of deflecting criticism. There either is significant equivalence, or there isn't. The industries themselves are more than capable of buying advertising time and public relations expertise testifying as to "the good in this industry and the people who labor in it", something of which ordinary folks are well aware.
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Luckily for the institution of journalism, this kind of bogus criticism can now be countered by so many more engaged news consumers demanding an end to He Said-She Said. Luckily for us, most of us see this kind of demand for fake balance for what it is, and can tell journalists directly to reject it on our behalf --which they are starting to do.

I've always thought that this sort of sock-puppetry was more urban mythology than everyday reality, but I'm starting to reconsider.

Here's some video of mdfstx expressing another honest opinion at an "Americans For Prosperity" rally (he's the man in the top hat passing out fliers):



If you see bogus calls for "balance" and silly invective involving "bias" that doesn't emanate from the rightist "liberal media"-bashing crowd, it might make some sense to take thirty seconds to add your two cents about how journalism that seeks refuge from criticism in balance is useful to public relations shills --and nobody else.