This was on the front page of CNN.com just now:
Since a spokesman generally gets up in front of microphones and, you know, speaks for the organization in question . . . do I even need to finish this? So why does the media report this story when, one, Rashid Khalidi was not a PLO spokesman and, two, Rashid Khalidi is not radical, at least by any reasonable definition of the term.
Story here.
This is an interesting article about McCain’s transition toward neo-conservative thinking. I found this paragraph to be telling:
The words “diplomacy” and “State Department,” however, don’t appear on the McCain-Palin campaign Web page, which outlines a national security platform heavy with vows to pump up U.S. military muscle.
Enough said.
Last Tuesday I got a call from a producer from al Jazeera-English who was putting together a thirty-minute show on whether or not Paul Krugman’s Nobel Prize in Economics was politically motivated. A couple of years ago I had presented a paper at the International Studies Association annual meeting that examined how Norway has used the Nobel Peace Prize to gain leverage in the international system. It was a fairly straightforward argument that examined questions of small state power, international norms and the role of non-governmental organizations. The producer for the show was very intelligent and we had a fairly long conversation about the differences between the Peace Prize and the academic prizes—how the peace prizes are inherently political, but that it would be difficult to ascribe any political motivation to the academic prizes (except for maybe in the case of literature). The panel was going to be a part of a half hour show called Inside Story and the other panelist that he had lined up prior to calling me was Bertil Holmlund, one of the members of the Nobel selection committee. He then told me that he was going to also get a conservative critic of Krugman’s for the third person on the panel. Overall it sounded like an amazing opportunity. Al Jazeera has a strong reputation and often can cover stories that the Western media would never have access to. The Nobel Peace Prize isn’t a main focus of my research, but it has always been something of an academic hobby especially because of my connections with the prize via my previous work and association with Pugwash and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
I arrived at the studio at 7 AM the next morning (after a somewhat harrowing alarm clock malfunction) to tape the segment. The first thing I learned after watching the show later is to never take your eyes off the lens of the camera. Ever. The other time that I had done a news show it was on an in studio panel where the host and the other guest were gathered around the table. This was just me in a studio looking at a camera with an ear plug and no monitor. I didn’t know what the other panelists looked like and they didn’t know what I looked like. If someone did a Bill O’Reilly and got bombastic and in your face I would have never known, except that their voice was raised.
The panel started out with just myself and Professor Holmlund because the “conservative political commentator” (Yes, that was actually his title!) was late to the studio. I think this threw the moderator for a loop and he assumed that I was the one that was making the claim that the Economics prize was politically motivated, which lead to some very awkward transitions. I was embarrassed how simplistic the arguments of the show were, however. They refused to distinguish between the Peace prize and the academic prizes and essentially wanted controversy, not an intelligent discussion. (I’m obviously not surprised by this.) This was especially clear when the CPC came on for the second half. He was the last person booked for the show and was most likely booked in the previous five hours. He had no knowledge of the Nobel Prizes or the process by which Nobel Prizes are selected. He sputtered off some lame conservative talking points and speculated on how disturbing it would be if the prize were political, which he never went so far as to claim it was. He also played the old trick of making sure he got the last word by interrupting the moderator while he was signing off.
My guess is that this is the process by which most cable news is made. Stories are pitched, people are booked in a somewhat haphazard sort of way. It makes sense why you see the same faces over and over again—its not that they are experts, but they are available and can play a certain role. It didn’t matter that the CPC had no knowledge of the topic he was discussing, he was cast to play a role and he did a decent job. Experts are problematic because being an expert, by its very definition, means you don’t make unsubstantiated claims and understand multiple arguments on an issue. That doesn’t bring in viewers. Cable news is sport with winners and losers–if you want nuance, read books.
Here are the clips:
Obviously I have not kept this up to date. Perhaps some day.
Have you noticed that headlines about speeches John McCain gives on foreign policy tend to always include a reference to his metaphorical hammer? Yet when you read his speech he is advocating the continuation of the United States’ most ineffective policies.
So John McCain thinks the sanctions policy is working? Until he recently stepped down, Fidel Castro had held power longer than any other non-figurehead head of state. Hell, he’s even older than John McCain by a whole ten years!
McCain finds this 2003 statement by Barack Obama to be particularly troubling:
I believe that normalization of relations with Cuba would help the oppressed and poverty-stricken Cuban people while setting the stage for a more democratic government once Castro inevitably leaves the scene.
Instead McCain says that his administration:
will press the Cuban regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor unions, and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections. The embargo must stay in place until these basic elements of democratic society are met.
The embargo has been in place for nearly fifty years, yet the same oppressive regime stays in place. With Fidel having stepped down and with Raul being five years older than John McCain it might actually be a very good time to start engaging Cuba, especially if that engagement is welcomed by Cuba’s larger civil society.
Instead he chooses to pursue the Bush administration’s policies which were to revoke the licenses of human rights groups and NGOs from visiting Cuba (an important part of public diplomacy) and increasing penetration of U.S. multinational corporations (a move that is often seen as suspect by Latin American civil society). According to the May 2008 edition of Harper’s Magazine:
Although few Americans know it, George Bush has opened vast new fronts of commercial trade with Cuba, ramping up food and agricultural deals from nothing to $600 million a year. U.S. cargo ships loaded with the bounty of Archer Daniels Midland, Con-Agra, Tyson, and other agribusiness gianys now arrive in Cuba up to twice a week. . . These goods mostly go to the dollar stores, where the Cuban government skims an enormous profit, but some drift into the ordinary street rations.
So here would be an interesting follow-up question to John McCain . . . should the United States continue to pursue George Bush’s policies and export agriculture goods to Cuba, in which most of the profits are going to prop up Raul Castro’s regime? Just wondering.
This, in a nutshell, is why John McCain does not have the judgment to be President of the United States.
Republican John McCain accused Democrat Barack Obama of inexperience and reckless judgment for saying Iran does not pose the same serious threat to the United States as the Soviet Union did in its day.
If John McCain really believes that Iran and other assorted rogue states represent the same threat to U.S. interests as the Soviet Union then he is an obtuse, ignorant, naive clown. God help us all if he is ever put in a position where he would be making key foreign policy decisions. I think he, himself, put it best: “Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator [McCain’s] inexperience and reckless judgment. These are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess.”
If John McCain seriously believes we are at war with al Qaeda in Iraq, that alone is such a serious error in judgment as to rank him with George W. Bush at his worst and therefore disqualify him from any chance to govern this country.
I thought this story was very interesting. It is fascinating to see how new technologies get integrated into social movements and protest.
Whenever I am feeling like I can’t take much more of teh stupid I head over to Juan Cole’s place. Today’s post made me feel warm all over. Political discourse in this country is so screwed up. It is no wonder that most Americans have little idea about the political actors and problems in Iraq when our specialists are restricted to writing on blogs while an endless cadre of American Enterprise Institute cretins, ideologues and propaganders have unrestricted and unchallenged access to the cable and network news.
