quote: It takes a lot to shake America to the core - 9/11 did it four years ago this weekend; the war in Iraq still has not.
It's 70 years since the satirist Eric Linklater noted in his novel Don Juan that life in America was spread over so vast an area that any number of strange and sinister interludes could be enacted without upsetting the national equilibrium.
Hurricane Katrina is one of those rare interludes which has upset the national equilibrium. While 9/11 made Americans angry, the fate of New Orleans has gone beyond that. In varying degrees the whole population is angry, ashamed, and fearful.
Angry at the incompetence and buck-passing between inept local, state and federal authorities; ashamed at those relentlessly recycled pictures of the abandoned black underclass; and fearful to see that the country is still unprepared to cope with a major terrorist attack.
There will be hell to pay for Katrina.
In my view, it is likely to have as traumatic an impact on American political life as the Great Depression of the 1930s. That catastrophe ushered in two decades of Democratic presidents - but even more, it reversed America's entrenched dedication to laissez faire Social Darwinism, a philosophy embraced by both major parties for 150 years.
posted
I give this particular catastrophe another two weeks. If Bush can keep his head down that long, he'll emerge unscathed.
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posted
Yes, Tom, I'm sure he will emerge unscathed because Bush is not getting any bad press at the moment. No one is blaming him, saying the buck stops with him. Nope, not one single story like that. Maybe Bush will emerge relatively unscathed because once the whole story comes out, people will understand that most of the problems begin at the local and state level, not at the top.
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quote:gah... you think the gas prices will go down then? (since of course that's all "we" really care about)
Who cares if gas prices go down?!? They should be going up even higher! Our current situation will only be exacerbated by low gas prices. We need alternative fuel and effecient mass transportation (where it makes sense...I don't need to hear from you yokels living on farms ).
The only way that Americans are going to wake up to how bad the situatuion has gotten is if it hurts our collective pocketbooks enough that we want a change, need a change, and demand a change.
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posted
Bush will emerge unscathed -- if he does -- because our media's not capable of sustaining a story without any new developments, and he'll be careful to avoid creating any new news. In the interim, right-wing bloggers will quickly fill the blogosphere with revisionist stories and heartwarming anecdotes, so by the time people come back to revisit the topic, there will be a whole defense pre-written if necessary.
This generally takes about a week, but it'll probably take two in this case. Barring any new developments, of course.
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quote: I give this particular catastrophe another two weeks. If Bush can keep his head down that long, he'll emerge unscathed.
Maybe. But there's another factor in play here, and that's the gut-level emotional reactions of the media people who were in New Orleans. They watched people die. They watched the lack of food, water, and sanitation.
It's possible - at least for the members of the media who were there - the outrage may take longer than a couple of weeks to fade.
quote: It's possible - at least for the members of the media who were there - the outrage may take longer than a couple of weeks to fade.
No matter how outraged they are, they won't be able to do anything to manufacture their own news. And without support from other elements of the government, they can't go fishing for more news without being hamstrung -- and rightly criticized -- by partisans from the other side. So as long as no one in the administration does anything over the next two weeks that is in any way related to Katrina, Bush is in the clear.
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posted
I am assuming you mean the truth of who actually did what, and who didn't do what, when you say revisionist stories.
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posted
If you like. You and I both know what kind of stories will show up, regardless of whether or not they're true, so the truth of the stories is really irrelevant to the phenomenon.
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posted
I see, so the stories about the Governor's delay of the decision to evacuate, the failure of NO to implement its own evacuation plans, and the withholding of food and water at the Superdome (and on and on) should not be told because we must have Bush take all the blame? Are you saying those things are not true? Or is that Bush must be blamed because something bad happened?
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posted
I say nothing of the sort. I say, rather, that it will take a few more days before the blogosphere is filled with right-wing blogs spinning positive stories on New Orleans. Whether you think those stories are factual or not, or whether you think they are relevant to the actual issue, is completely irrelevant to the purpose to which they will be put.
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posted
So the blogosphere is not also filled with left-wing blogs spinning negative stories on New Orleans?
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posted
DK, are you saying that because local and state levels are clearly to blame for a great deal of the problem, that Bush should therefore be considered blameless?
What if, like me, you think this opens up a huge can of malfeasance, cronyism, pork spending, and bureaucratic infighting up and down the chain?
For the record, I'm not mad at Mr. Bush.
I am very mad indeed at the system of government we have, the lack of checks and balances it now possesses, how easily personal greed overcomes public good, the awardance of important positions to incompetent friends, and the general rush towards blame when what we need is a dispassionate, independant look at what the system is now and how best to fix it without caving in to special interests or trying to make points on the other side.
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quote: So the blogosphere is not also filled with left-wing blogs spinning negative stories on New Orleans?
You keep asking these questions that in no way resemble replies to the words that I am typing into the little white box. A quick check of the screen shows me that the words I am typing are making it to MY version of the forum, but perhaps you are using some sort of software filter that transforms simple sentences into other simple sentences that say different things.
Perhaps you should uninstall whatever filter you're applying to reality; it appears to interfere with your ability to respond to what people actually say.
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posted
I wonder how different things would have been if Bush had actually appointed an experience disaster manager to the head of FEMA, rather gifting a favor to a friend. Maybe a position of such importance should be senate confirmable.
I think this will have longer lasting impact than you suggest Tom. It doesn't have to stay in the news long. People who dislike him just becuase of this will only remember that they are pissed at him, their opinion won't change, and as soon as the news cycle dies down, he won't have any chance to make amends for it. That FEMA thing will be beaten to death. Gas prices, one of the main reasons his approval rating sunk below 40% are not going down anytime soon, and that will be mentall connected to Katrina.
Besides, Democrats aren't going to let it go. And the media can, and will have at least some coverage on the rebuilding of New Orleans, not to mention the investigation into the screw ups that will follow. Everyone wants to blame someone, and until they know for sure who they can get away with blaming, it won't go away.
At the very least, Bush's agenda is stalled for the next month or two, possibly longer depending on how quickly he can rally his party. But Republicans are worried about mid terms and the looming 2008 election. If they feel they have to, they will distance themselves from him, and then any chance he has at an effective second term is sunk.
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posted
Umm, they completely resemble the words you are typing, just substituting 'right' for 'left' and 'positive' for 'negative'. Unless we are only able to discuss YOUR version of the forum, the way you see it, using only your filters?
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DarkKnights points look completely relevant to me. Perhaps you'd do well to explain the reasoning behind your exasperation, Tom.
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posted
I think the problem is that DK's points are in response to an incorrect interpretation of what Tom is trying to say.
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posted
I think Tom is saying that the Right will spin this to make themselves look as best they can? Is that incorrect or an oversimplification?
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Tom's original point is that the tide will wash over Bush without much of a problem, but DK launched into a defense on why Bush should be unscathed, as he has nothing to be blamed for, and then spent the entire time trying to pin Tom on defending Democrats, which Tom never did, and it was never his point to defend or attack them.
Basically, DK took the ball and ran in the other direction with it.
In the broader sense, it is related, but considering the context, I understand Tom's exasperation.
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Nope, I am saying that both the Right and the Left have their biases, and both of them contain some measure of the truth as they see it. I don't think reality has a liberal or conservative bias...Isn't reality just that, reality? Our interpretation makes reality appear liberal or conservative.
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quote: The Bush Administration's position is that they did everything they were expected to do in this situation. Since that is not accurate, reality is biased against the Bush Administration. Therefore, the media reports will be also.
I know how the substituting thing makes people mad but..... We could say the same thing as The 'LA Governor and Mayor's' position is that they did everything they were expected to do in this situation. Since that is not accurate, reality 'should be' biased against the 'LA Governor and Mayor'. Therefore, the media reports 'should' be also.
But they are not...well, some are, but nearly as many as against Bush.... OK, I don't know what the stats are for that, but from own biased anecdotal evidence, that's what I see.
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posted
DarkKnight, I'd like to ask you directly: do you believe that President Bush bears any responsibility at all for the events of the last two weeks in New Orleans?
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quote: The Bush Administration's position is that they did everything they were expected to do in this situation.
Is it? Didn't Bush say several times that he was not pleased with how the Federal Gov't responded? I suppose it could be lip service, but it isn't the same as claiming they did everything they were expected to do.
It is my personal opinion that Bush will not emerge unscathed at all. I think this will hurt him more than any of the many criticisms he has faced, and that the effects will be lasting.
I also think that it is ridiculous to say that right-ish blogs will stop him from being scathed when there will be plenty of material going in the other direction (which is what DK's point appeared to me to be.)
As to whether he deserves it, I am not one of those people that are entirely pleased with Bush, and I worry that he does bear responsibility for many of the things he stands accused of both now and in the past. But I do think that people have gone overboard in wanting him to be The Big Scapegoat For Everything Having To Do With Katarina. I personally think that is unrealistic.
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quote: Perhaps you'd do well to explain the reasoning behind your exasperation, Tom.
You may be right. The issue is this: truth is not a valuable commodity. It does not get you political capital. It is, in fact, almost completely irrelevant to the kind of coverage you receive, or whether the public likes you, or whether you're seen as an effective leader. This kind of thing has NOTHING to do with the facts on the ground, and everything to do with the way people are fed information within what's called the "news cycle."
The Bush team has spent a great deal of effort tweaking the news cycle so that they are largely immune to bad press. To penetrate this effect would require that the press itself completely change its methods -- which would in turn require that the American public consume media in a different way. This is harder than it sounds.
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posted
I'm having a hard time figuring out what scathing we expect Bush to have and why it matters. I mean, it's not like he's up for re-election or anything. Unless you think this will have bearing on other parts of his agenda that he wants to sell to the public, like his social security reform, and who here thinks he didn't already have a huge fight on his hand with those things anyway?
Besides, I think he is taking approprite action - firing Brown is a start, though I think he should answer for why he appointed the guy in the first place. And I hope that in the future, he and other presidents will consider more carefully when looking for posh govt. jobs for their friends and contributors. But of course, that's wishful thinking on my part.
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quote:The Bush team has spent a great deal of effort tweaking the news cycle so that they are largely immune to bad press.
I haven't seen any evidence of this, but that might be due to the fact that I don't keep up on the news like I ought to.
In fact, this seemed to me to be the case with Clinton, who again and again had scandals come against him, and seemed to slide out unscathed each time. It seemed to me that the media was being tweaked somehow in his favor.
Could it be both our biases speaking here in how you and I perceive the truth?
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posted
There is plenty that has gone wrong at all levels of government.
Perhaps our concern here with the Federal government's response is that, as citizens, it is our duty to hold our government accountable. I am not a citizen of Louisiana or Mississippi or a resident of NO - I am sure that the people in those states will do what they need to to correct goverment at the state and municipal level. (At least in Chicago our politicians may be corrupt, but if they fail to get the streets plowed they are looking for a new job.)
But as a citizen of the US it is my duty to pay attention to the Federal Government and to hold it accountable when it fails.
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quote: Could it be both our biases speaking here in how you and I perceive the truth?
No. I am right and you are wrong. In fact, Clinton consistently received extremely hostile press while in office, and failed for the most part to manipulate it effectively. Bush has until the last two years received extremely favorable press, and has been able to deflect the rare bit of bad press by timing the news cycle efficiently; his people are very good at distracting the media at the appropriate times, and his own willingness to use the powers of the executive branch to assist in this distraction -- through the timing of appointments and the like -- helps enormously. With the advent of the blogosphere, a faux-grassroots organization now exists to give Bush supporters scripts of varying effectiveness to reply to or dismiss rivals, all while permitting his administration plausible deniability. It's quite difficult to defeat, actually.
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posted
There's a question... does warmer weather inherently lead to more corruption and debauchery because lives aren't on the line as frequently?
I remember my mother saying (while living in California) that she felt snow helped develop community, because nearly everyone still has to clear off their drivways in the morning. (unless you hire a service...)
It does seem like there are more homeless in the warmer parts of the country than the colder...
quote: his people are very good at distracting the media at the appropriate times,
Then why did it seem that every time a scandal came against Clinton, his very next action was to bomb the Middle East? It certainly seemed that way to me.
I don't understand what you mean by timing news cycles, though. What sorts of distraction has the Bush Administration used?
I am not a blog-reader nor a grass-roots-participator, so I am largely immune to these things. Though I do get some democtractic grass-roots type stuff ever since I logged into a free ecard site. I've never bothered to unsubscribe (yet) and I don't really read them, but I glance enough to see plenty of criticism of current government leaders. It seems ridiculous to me to point to grassroots and blogs as "points for Bush" when there are just as many going in the other direction. Don't they kinda cancel each other out?
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quote: Then why did it seem that every time a scandal came against Clinton, his very next action was to bomb the Middle East? It certainly seemed that way to me.
Clinton only bombed the Middle East twice (that made the news, at least). How many scandals do you remember?
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quote: I don't understand what you mean by timing news cycles, though. What sorts of distraction has the Bush Administration used?
The Bush team understands that people get tired of hearing the same news story over and over again. This means that no matter how earth-shattering a story might seem when it first breaks, it'll be much less interesting if a week or two goes by with no new information. That's why Bush's press secretaries have elevated to an art the ability to talk without ever saying anything; it's their job to get in front of the media and talk without actually giving them any new information, because all stories die without new information.
This is especially effective if you can juxtapose a lack of new information on an important story (especially a scandal) with a sudden bit of new information on something you can control. If, for example, you're being roundly criticized for a given policy, the best thing you can do is have your press secretary deflect all questions for a week and then suddenly announce that you've appointed someone to something. With no new info out there on the important story, it gets bumped to page five; discussion of your new appointment is now front-page news. And you haven't had to lift a finger, or even explain your policy yet. The great thing, too, is that people like to believe that the "teams" in which they're emotionally invested are all winners; you can let them do a lot of the grunt work for you, if they can. So if you're caught flat-footed on a scandal or policy criticism, let it simmer for a week while the blogs start pumping out excuses, links, and documents of varying levels of reliability; at the end of the week, you can pick your favorites and feed them to your friends at the news organizations, who can in turn get linked BACK to by the bloggers -- and BAM! you don't have to make any excuses because the best excuses are already being aired for you on Fox News.
This has routinely been Bush policy. And the media has no idea how to deal with it.
quote: It seems ridiculous to me to point to grassroots and blogs as "points for Bush" when there are just as many going in the other direction.
There aren't. The ratio is something like 7:3, last I heard.
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quote:In fact, this seemed to me to be the case with Clinton, who again and again had scandals come against him, and seemed to slide out unscathed each time. It seemed to me that the media was being tweaked somehow in his favor.
Yay! Just when I thought an argument about Bush could go without Clinton being brought up, I've been proved wrong! And please, Clinton was assaulted constantly by news stories, most of which were created as offshoots of the failed White Water investigation. Republicans knew that was a dead end, but kept digging around in other areas they really shouldn't have been allowed legal access to, trying to find dirt on Clinton. And every time Travelgate, or Memogate or whatever arose, Clinton took heat, regardless of whether or not the charge had any merit, and it rarely did.
quote: Then why did it seem that every time a scandal came against Clinton, his very next action was to bomb the Middle East? It certainly seemed that way to me.
I give credit for that to the Republicans. Clinton bombed the Middle East far less than Bush did, and for better reason. He bombed Iraq in response to attacks into Kurdish north Iraq. And Kosovo was to stop a genocide. I wish Bush would but our military to better uses like that, such as to stop what is going on in Darfur.
The actual amount of times Clinton sent forces to do these things was not that high, two actually, if memory serves correctly, especially compared to the high number of scandals the Republicans tried to cook up.
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posted
Don't forget the habit of making unpopular announcements on Friday afternoons, after the 5:00 news deadlines. It wasn't invented by this administration but they're pretty good at it.
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posted
It's hard to see if this will stick, but right now several initiatives are getting severely challenged. Not just for Bush, but for the Republican majority.
Senator Bill Frist pulled the Estate Tax bill from the floor, figuring this was not the time to try for a bill that would reduce tax dollars coming in - and in a way that most benefits affluent people (to be fair, there are also beneficiaries such as those who own family farms, but they're shrinking in number every year).
Congressional conservatives are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They don't dare oppose the commitment to rebuilding New Orleans and to support the people displaced. At the same time, the deficit is growing astronomically.
Where are they going to cut? Are they going to cut medicaid - which will hurt the same types of people left stranded in New Orleans?
They've been doing it - although it's been hard to get coverage. For example, the Republican-led legislature of Missouri and its governor announced recently that feeding tubes and ventilator supplies are now "optional" under medicaid. You can apply for an exception - but you have to know how to file and hope that you'll be approved. You can read about it here...
There might be an opportunity to wake up and realize what the real human costs are from having drained the surplus, unrealistically large tax cuts, and waging a war on an informational house of cards.
That doesn't mean I know what choice the public will make. Get used to paying some more in taxes or writing off some of the elderly, disabled and poor in this country. (I'm not a fan of human nature for the most part.)
But it's possible the choice won't be one made in ignorance. I hope to see some decisions that people can "live with."
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posted
Though not directly blogospheric, here's a lovely example of 'right' spin.
Synopsis:
'Journalists' who are reporting 'unconscionable delay' in the relief effort are operating based on 'opinion' and 'conventional wisdom,' not 'fact.'
If journalists looked instead at 'facts,' they would be reporting that this was the most spectacularly fast and successful disaster relief effort in history.
The conservative who forwarded this link to us snidely implied that reporters' jobs should be on the line for this supposed malfeasance.
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quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't forget the habit of making unpopular announcements on Friday afternoons, after the 5:00 news deadlines. It wasn't invented by this administration but they're pretty good at it.
It's not unique to this administration. I can't remember ever getting a disaster declaration that didn't come at 4:30 on a Friday...
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posted
I don't see what most of this thread has to do with the title. I know that's not a new complaint. So is the darwinism referred to supposed to be the unfitness of certain people for national office? Half this country is unhappy with Bush. All of this country is alarmed at what happened in New Orleans.
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quote:but DK launched into a defense on why Bush should be unscathed, as he has nothing to be blamed for,
I don't think DK did this at all. Talk about being misunderstood.
quote:Clinton only bombed the Middle East twice (that made the news, at least). How many scandals do you remember? [Smile]
And they both happened *right* after really sticky moments as the heat was stronger than it had ever been before. If he was bombing because it needed to be done, that is one thing. It is the timing that seemed quite suspicious. Especially since the bombings seemingly came out of the blue. There was no more "need" for them at the time they happened than months before that. I personally think that any bombing in order to take the heat off of oneself is extremely ugly behavior. It isn't something I can forgive or overlook.
If Bush suddenly and without reason redoubled aggression against Iraq right after the hurricane, I would find that ugly and reprehensible as well. I guess I find that sort of "strategy" particularly disgusting.
Can you demonstrate to me that the Clinton Administration did not treat scandals against Clinton in exactly the same way that the Bush Administration handles complaints against it? The fact is, I don't know because I wasn't looking for it at the time. But you seem to think there is a big difference.
As for there being more out there on the net for Bush than against, I guess that is hard for me to believe because the only sources I regularly get news from have nothing good to say about Bush. I guess I'm not looking in the right places.
The reason I bring up Clinton is because he is the *only* other president that was in office soon enough ago for me to really remember much about. I wasn't paying much attention to world events when Bush Sr. was in office, and most of the info I got came through the very Republican filter of my parents. When another president comes into office, I will probably constantly compare him (or her ) to both Bush and Clinton.
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quote: In fact, Clinton consistently received extremely hostile press while in office, and failed for the most part to manipulate it effectively.
Please. Read Spin Cycle by Howard Kurtz sometime if you think they failed to manipulate it. The hallmark of both the Clinton and Bush press strategies is that they got lots of bad press and yet had people on the other side claiming the bad things weren't being covered.
quote:The Bush team understands that people get tired of hearing the same news story over and over again.
And they adopted this technique after it was so successfully used by the Clinton administration.
I heard a ton of coverage about the Downing memo not getting coverage. There must be dozens of stories I hear about that months later I hear someone complaining about how the press has ignored the issue. And I don't watch the news.
And yes, this happened during the Clinton years as well.
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quote: Read Spin Cycle by Howard Kurtz sometime if you think they failed to manipulate it.
I HAVE read Spin Cycle. My point was that they failed to manipulate it effectively.
quote: I heard a ton of coverage about the Downing memo not getting coverage. There must be dozens of stories I hear about that months later I hear someone complaining about how the press has ignored the issue.
You know, people cite this as an example of the press not ignoring the issue -- but that's just it: it's an example of the press ignoring the issue. One sure way to get the American people to ignore a story is to make it clear to them that no one else cares about it.
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