Kudos: ‘Attytood’ is right about ABC and last night’s ‘debate’

A big hearty plug for the open letter to Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, posted today by Attytood (Will Bunch) of the Philadelphia Daily News/philly.com. He’s right about last night’s show on ABC, which was supposed to be–by the way–a debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Excerpt from the piece:

“You implied throughout the broadcast that you wanted to reflect the concerns
of voters in Pennsylvania. Well, I’m a Pennsylvanian voter, and so are my
neighbors and most of my friends and co-workers. You asked virtually nothing
that reflected our everyday issues — trying to fill our gas tanks and save for
college at the same time, our crumbling bridges and inadequate mass transit, or
the root causes of crime here in Philadelphia. In fact, there almost isn’t
enough space — and this is cyberspace, where room is unlimited — to list all
the things you could have asked about but did not, from health care to climate
change to alternative energy to our policy toward China to the deterioration of
Afghanistan to veterans’ benefits to improving education. You ignored virtually
everything that just happened in what most historians agree is one of the worst
presidencies in American history, including the condoning of torture and the
trashing of the Constitution, although to be fair you also ignored the policy
concerns of people on the right, like immigration issues.”

Back at home, I began by watching the broadcast, then felt free to leave the room to do other things because of that feeling that I was unlikely missing anything anyway, then gave up altogether. Why do wealthy figureheads in the news media presume that they are in touch with the concerns of millions of other people who face problems–every day–that  gentlemen like Gibson and Stephanopoulos never even see? No wonder the evening news shows focus on health topics so much–virtually always individual health problems, btw:  our cardiac systems and a few other body members constitute some of the few remaining worries faced even by the wealthiest in our society, in the huge and galloping divide between the super-rich and everyone else.

Why do the media figureheads presume that they have latitude to define the election as ‘about’ anything other than the major issues of our time? And why can’t they tell what those issues are? Why won’t the networks use some of their financial resources to hire the researchers, fact-checkers and investigators who could actually make a difference, so the news could make a difference?

The egos that get on television . . .

Live-blogging the Petraeus and Crocker Iraq hearings, continued

11:15 a.m. With the televised portion of the Petraeus and Crocker appearances now concluded–including a very little Q&A with some senators–there is indeed little new news. What Petraeus said, or projects for the future–“the way ahead,” it’s characterized–amounts to little good, for the public interest.

Gen. Petraeus

The ‘drawdown’ of the ‘surge’ buildup will be completed in about July. Then there will be a ‘pause,’ acc to SecDef Gates, tho Petraeus phrases it differently, for “assessment” and “evaluation.” The ‘pause’ is projected to last about 45 days, during which time apparently they’re not going to be trying to bring any more troops home. Then–it will be around election time.

I suppose we can all hope that John McCain will not suddenly notice that the Iraq war is wrong, go roadblock on national television at the end of October, and call for bringing all the troops home with a promise to do it himself if elected. Or if he does, we can but hope that the public will not be fooled. But both Ike and Nixon did milder versions of same, Ike with regard to Korea and Nixon w/ Vietnam.

Shots of Sen. Joe Lieberman always show him looking like McCain’s mini-me. All the speculation about how the three senators who are presidential candidates will present seems to me to be trumped by the inevitable: Sen. Clinton will come across bogus; Sen. McCain will come across used up by the system, played out; Sen. Obama will come across well.

CNN seems to have judged accurately that the news quotient of any remaining discourse will be comparatively negligible. Some senators might ask good questions, however. We can tune in at cnn.com.

Meanwhile, I wish the Code Pink people would demonstrate at Lockheed Martin, at GE (incl NBC), etc. Much of the political world has gotten the message. It’s the corporate world that needs to get it.

Leading to Iraq: High crimes and misdemeanors. May, 2004.

120th in blog series on the administration
push to war. As more information on the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and
other
U.S. prisons becomes public, the
White House becomes more defensive. Its special new ally in the White House
press corps continues his effort to defend the administration. The situation in
Iraq continues to worsen, predictably, and the
administration responds

Leading to Iraq: High crimes and misdemeanors. April, 2004.

119th in blog series on the administration
push to war. As the election year proceeds, the tragedies of war continue,
including the death of football star Pat Tillman, who gave up his pro contract
to volunteer in
Afghanistan. The death occurs under
suspicious circumstances, and the administration instantly fabricates a John
Wayne-style narrative.
April, 2004:

 

Apr. 18, 2004