1. Steve Benen: Breitbart's Version Of Regret
There's been some talk about whether Andrew Breitbart would get around to apologizing for the Shirley Sherrod fiasco. It's even been a topic for conservatives -- Jonah Goldberg thinks Breitbart should apologize; David Frum predicts he won't.
We got a better sense of Breitbart's perspective today when the right-wing media activist told MSNBC, "I feel bad that they made this about her, and I feel sorry that they made this about her. Watching how they've misconstrued, how the media has misconstrued the intention behind this, I do feel a sympathy for her plight." He added that he's "sympathetic" to the fact that the media "went after her and not after the NAACP."
So, in Breitbart's mind, the media is to blame -- apparently because news outlets ran with the story that Breitbart gave them.
David Kurtz calls the remarks "almost sociopathic." Simon Maloy labels Breitbart's response "pathological."
These aren't unreasonable responses. Breitbart pushed a deliberately misleading video that went after Shirley Sherrod for no reason. He proceeded to label her a "racist" who "racially discriminates against a white farmer," and demanded that the NAACP "denounce the racism in the video." That, of course, would be the racism that didn't exist when listening to the remarks in context.
Breitbart's racially-motivated media stunt cost Sherrod her job, at least for now. But he regrets that "they went after her"? That he said this with a straight face is disconcerting. 7.21.10 More at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_07/024831.php
2. Ruth Marcus: Why Congress should let the Bush tax cuts expire
The modern Republican argument about taxes seems to boil down to two principles, both misguided: Taxes can be reduced, but they can never be allowed to go up. And whatever level taxes are at, they are too high.
Think back to the beginning of the Bush administration tax cuts. It seems almost impossible to believe, but the argument then was that the budget surplus was too large. There was, or so President George W. Bush assured us, ample cash to cut taxes for everyone and protect the Social Security surplus and set aside $1 trillion over the next decade for "additional spending needs" and pay down the national debt.
"The people of America have been overcharged, and, on their behalf, I'm here asking for a refund," Bush told Congress in February 2001.
You know what happened next. The refund came. The supposed surplus evaporated. The Social Security surplus was spent. Instead of being paid down, the $3.3 trillion national debt ballooned to $9 trillion.
The only thing that remained the same was the clamor for tax cuts. Same argument, different rationale. The Bush tax cuts are set to expire at the end of this year, and the argument now is that they must be extended -- for everyone. This time not because the fiscal bottom line is too healthy but because the economy is too shaky.
This would be more convincing if the Republican line were something other than "no new taxes, ever." The economic and fiscal circumstances may change, but the prescription remains the same. And the patient is too ill to tolerate another dose of this quack medicine. 7.28.10 More at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/27/AR2010072704421.html
3. PAUL KRUGMAN: Addicted to Bush
For a couple of years, it was the love that dared not speak his name. In 2008, Republican candidates hardly ever mentioned the president still sitting in the White House. After the election, the G.O.P. did its best to shout down all talk about how we got into the mess we’re in, insisting that we needed to look forward, not back. And many in the news media played along, acting as if it was somehow uncouth for Democrats even to mention the Bush era and its legacy.
The truth, however, is that the only problem Republicans ever had with George W. Bush was his low approval rating. They always loved his policies and his governing style — and they want them back. In recent weeks, G.O.P. leaders have come out for a complete return to the Bush agenda, including tax breaks for the rich and financial deregulation. They’ve even resurrected the plan to cut future Social Security benefits.
But they have a problem: how can they embrace President Bush’s policies, given his record? After all, Mr. Bush’s two signature initiatives were tax cuts and the invasion of Iraq; both, in the eyes of the public, were abject failures. Tax cuts never yielded the promised prosperity, but along with other policies — especially the unfunded war in Iraq — they converted a budget surplus into a persistent deficit. Meanwhile, the W.M.D. we invaded Iraq to eliminate turned out not to exist, and by 2008 a majority of the public believed not just that the invasion was a mistake but that the Bush administration deliberately misled the nation into war. What’s a Republican to do?
You know the answer. There’s now a concerted effort under way to rehabilitate Mr. Bush’s image on at least three fronts: the economy, the deficit and the war.
On the economy: Last week Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, declared that “there’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy.” So now the word is that the Bush-era economy was characterized by “vibrancy.”
I guess it depends on the meaning of the word “vibrant.” The actual record of the Bush years was (i) two and half years of declining employment, followed by (ii) four and a half years of modest job growth, at a pace significantly below the eight-year average under Bill Clinton, followed by (iii) a year of economic catastrophe. In 2007, at the height of the “Bush boom,” such as it was, median household income, adjusted for inflation, was still lower than it had been in 2000. 7.22.10 More at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/opinion/23krugman.html
4. Jonathan Chait: The Conservative Pseudojournalist Method
By now, the story of USDA staffer Shirley Sherrod is familiar. Conservative media magnate Andrew Breitbart obtained a video of her speaking to an NAACP convention. In it she discussed not wanting to help a farmer because he was white. Here was explosive evidence of the reverse racism that Breitbart and some conservatives find so endemic. She was quickly fired.
It turned out that Breitbart's story was wildly misleading. Sherrod in fact told a story in which she recounted earlier in her career, while working for a nonprofit, feeling resentment about helping a white farmer. But, she continued, she later understood that such an attitude was wrong. The white farmer later testified that Sherrod in fact helped them save their farm.
Breaitbart claims he did not splice the video, and that he obtained it in the misleading, fragmentary form in which he published it. Coincidentally, Breitbart was the victim of the exact same trick. Last year, Breitbart published video purporting to show a man dressed as a pimp soliciting help from Acorn. It turned out, the video was deceptively edited. He dressed as a pimp for the cameras, but wore conservative attire to meet with Acorn. In meeting with Acorn, he presented himself not as a pimp but as a law student trying to rescue his prostitute girlfriend from a pimp. Yet the narrative presented by Breitbart took hold from the outset. When pressed, he claimed here too that he was the victim of deceptive editing.
But pPcautious when handling pseudo-journalistic stories. You can't assume that the information is being provided in context, or that the interpretive frame bears any relation to reality. 7.21.10 More at http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/76451/andrew-breitbart-pseudojournalist-method
5. Gene Lyons: GOP suffering from LeBron James syndrome
They're acting like they've already scored a big November victory. But they might not.
If people took politics as seriously as sports, they might notice that the Republicans are acting a lot like LeBron James. He’s the basketball star who, after basically rolling over and playing dead during the playoffs against the Boston Celtics, made his free-agent decision a multimedia spectacle. Now he calls himself “King James,” as if he’s already won next year’s NBA title and MVP trophy.
Most fans outside his new home in Miami react as follows: “Yo, LeBron. First win something, then swagger.”
So it is with GOP congressional leaders already gloating in advance of November’s midterm elections. Several are even warning Democrats not to try any funny business in between the election and the swearing-in of a new Congress next January.
“The American people shouldn’t have to face the prospect of lame-duck Washington Democrats imposing tax increases or any other job-killing policies on their way out the door,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said recently. Tea Party guru Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks is circulating a petition. One-time Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer has basically called upon President Barack Obama to take a vow of legislative chastity.
Here’s what Obama ought to say: “Yo, John, Dick, Ari. First win, then gloat.” 7.21.10 More at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/07/21/republicans_lebron_james/index.html
6. Glenn Greenwald The heroism of Shirley Sherrod
Everyone is presumably aware by now of the facts surrounding the disgusting fraud perpetrated on Shirley Sherrod, engineered by Andrew Breitbart, amplified by Fox News, and meekly submitted to by the Obama administration. Those who aren't can read excellent commentary from Jamelle Bouie, Joan Walsh, and Chris Martinez. Much has been written about the incomparable sleaze of Breitbart, the standard propaganda boost from Fox News, and the typical cowardice of the administration in the face of such attacks. All of that is well established by now and quite unsurprising, so I want to focus on what ought to be the enduring lesson from this ugly episode: the courage of Shirley Sherrod.
Just as CNN fired Octavia Nasr for one of the few insightful and interesting observations she ever voiced about the Middle East, Sherrod's speech -- which caused her to be fired -- is simply inspiring in its uncommon candor, courage and wisdom. Few people are willing so publicly to confess to tribal biases and detail how they struggle to overcome them, even though that's a challenge which any person who evolves at some point must confront. That process -- far more than the pretense of having always been bias-free -- requires difficult self-examination, and its public discussion offers vitally needed lessons for everyone. Many people are unwilling ever to engage that process privately, let alone candidly describe it publicly. Those with the courage to do so, like Sherrod, should be heralded for that candor. Instead, she was slandered, falsely disparaged, and fired.
Contrary to the excuse being offered by those who did all of that, her actual message -- that she was plagued by racial biases decades ago and overcame them with the recognition that it is poverty that unites people in need -- was clearly evident even from the deceitfully edited Breitbart video. This is part of what she said on that edited video:
- That's when it was revealed to me that it's about poor versus those who have. And not so much about white. It is about white and black, but you know -- it opened my eyes.
But -- just as happened with Octavia Nasr and so many before her, including the now-destroyed ACORN -- the blinding, lying, depressingly common right-wing hysteria churned out by Brietbart/Fox meant that no nuances were permitted, no reason could breathe, and few people had the courage to defend Sherrod or even demand that she be allowed to speak before being thrown to the trash heap. 7.21.10 More at http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/21/sherrod/index.html
7. Joe Conason: Now reopen Breitbart's ACORN fraud -- and get the story right
Former USDA official Shirley Sherrod, a dedicated public servant innocent of the prejudice and misconduct falsely imputed to her, deserves justice. As soon as the White House and Tom Vilsack restore her job, with an appropriate apology, they will begin to remove a stain of cowardice from their administration. But while that may be all the government can do, it isn’t sufficient to close this case.
Real justice, as I suspect Sherrod would agree, also requires due process for Andrew Breitbart, the Internet impresario who framed her on his Big Government website. In these circumstances, that means a fair, thorough and tough examination of the media fraud that launched his operation last year: the ACORN tapes, whose misuse by Breitbart closely parallels his behavior in the Sherrod affair.
Recalling Breitbart from his days as eager lackey to Matt Drudge, I warned from the beginning that nothing he produced would resemble journalism. More than once since then, I’ve mentioned the accumulating evidence of deception by O’Keefe and Breitbart in creating and then publicizing the ACORN tale. It was a "scandal" that became a national story only after wildly biased coverage on Fox News Channel, followed by sloppy, scared reporting in mainstream outlets, notably the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and the national TV networks (some of whom flagellated themselves for failing to publicize this canard sooner!).
Even today, despite overwhelming proof that he posted a snippet of the Sherrod video without any pretense of due journalistic diligence, Breitbart replies with taunts and gibes rather than any honest answers. His latest smear is to claim that the white farmers who vouched for Sherrod are not who they claim to be. On CNN, he brazenly demanded that John King explain how the cable network had determined their authenticity. Coming from a self-styled journalist who has admitted that he never sought to fact-check the ACORN or Sherrod tapes, this is audacity verging on insanity.
Like the late Joe McCarthy, Breitbart smears both reflexively and with premeditation. And like McCarthy, he badly needs someone to show the public how he does his dirty work.
So here at last is an opportunity for the Times and all the other media outlets that aided and abetted the ACORN fraud to restore a minimum level of standards and honor. Investigate Breitbart, O’Keefe, Giles and the making and editing of the ACORN tapes without fear or favor -- then report the findings on page one. 7.21.10 More at http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/07/21/acorn/index.html
8. Steve Benen: Obama Shines A Bright Light On Boehner's 'ideas' On Jobs
It was largely overlooked during a busy media week, but House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who's been reluctant to talk about his party's policy agenda in detail, was willing to outline three measures he'd pursue as Speaker to create American jobs. The list made it painfully clear -- to anyone who takes substance even a little seriously -- that Boehner has no idea what he's talking about.
In fact, the remarks were so patently ridiculous, President Obama devoted much of his weekly address to shining a bright light on Boehner's understanding of job creation.
First, Boehner would repeal health insurance reform, which would take away tax credits from millions of small business owners, and take us back to the days when insurance companies had free rein to drop coverage and jack up premiums. Second, he would say no to new investments in clean energy, after his party already voted against the clean energy tax credits and loans that are creating thousands of new jobs and hundreds of new businesses. And third, even though his party voted against tax cuts for middle-class families, he would permanently keep in place the tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans - the same tax cuts that have added hundreds of billions to our debt.
"These are not new ideas. They are the same policies that led us into this recession. They will not create jobs; they will kill them. They will not reduce our deficit; they will add $1 trillion to our deficit. They will take us backward at a time when we need to keep America moving forward."
If you listen really carefully at the 3:44 mark, you'll notice that the president actually chuckles, just a little, when describing just how ridiculous Boehner's approach to job creation really is.
That's what it has come to in 2010 -- the Republican agenda is so truly awful, it's hard to describe it without finding it literally comical. 7.24.10 More at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_07/024882.php
9. Andrew Sullivan: The Long Game And The Breitbart Implosion
I have not been immune to feeling frustrated and depressed by the sheer power and energy of the Fox News/Drudge/Breitbart media onslaught against anything to do with Obama. As in the campaign, I've longed in my gut for the administration to lash back with as much vehemence as Fox lashes forward. I've also winced when the Obamaites have appeared totally craven in responding to the context-free narrative many on the denialist, angry right have been pushing. (But at least Vilsack apologized which makes him much more of a man than Breitbart.)
But I've learned over time to respect the canniness of this president's restraint. His gift is patience and perseverance and allowing his enemies to destroy themselves. And I suspect this Breitbart racial smear may be a moment when, once again, you see how Obama outsmarts his opponents. I mean: when you examine it, you see that a woman who actually exemplifies honesty about race and overcomes prejudice was cynically and recklessly used to create a false notion that this administration is racist toward whites, an old and disgusting canard devised by the Becks and Hannitys and Limbaughs in the tradition of Wallace and Atwater and McCarthy.
But - and here's the thing - to the credit of many on the right (and, of course, good old Shep Smith of Fox News), this episode has led to the first real rift in the lock-step of the right-wing noise machine. I know this was so egregious a smear it was indefensible. And I know, as David Frum has noted, that many conservatives tried to deflect blame onto Obama, and the media - led by the cynic Lloyd Grove - has joined the pack. But nonetheless, many on the right took Breitbart on, from NRO outward. This great injustice has, to anyone with a fair mind, deeply damaged Fox News, deeply discredited the Breitbart noise machine, and will render every new soundbite and video issued by FNC more suspect.
I may be wrong and may be misreading an ornery public and the power of Palin-style demagoguery. But I think they have committed the same error in Obama's time in office as they did when he was running. They have mistaken tactics for strategy. 7.22.10 More at http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/07/the-long-game-and-the-breitbart-implosion.html
10. Joan Walsh: The civil rights heroism of Charles Sherrod
People who care about civil rights and racial reconciliation may eventually thank Andrew Breitbart for bringing Shirley Sherrod the global attention she deserves. Really. Her message of racial healing, her insight that the forces of wealth and injustice have always pit "the haves and the have-nots" against each other, whatever their race, is exactly what's missing in today's Beltway debates about race. What's even more amazing, but almost completely unexplored in this controversy, is the historic civil rights leadership role of her husband, Charles Sherrod, an early leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who served on the front lines of the nonviolent civil rights movement in the early 1960s.
Despite Breitbart's attempt to cast Shirley Sherrod as The, um, Man ("The Woman" doesn't have the same ring), out to keep oppressed white folk down, under our first black racist president, she turned out to be the opposite, an advocate of justice for everybody. Given that history, it's fascinating to learn more about her husband, an early SNCC leader known for being willing to work with white volunteers even after tension developed over the role of whites in the organization. Charles Sherrod is important for much more than the fairness with which he treated whites, but given Breitbart's attempt to make his wife the poster woman for black "racism," that footnote to his leadership history is particularly noteworthy. If there's anyone more clueless about our civil rights history than Breitbart, as well as more abusive to it, I'm challenged to think of who it might be. He tests my commitment to nonviolent social change, but I'll share the work of Charles Sherrod to remember my values. 7.22.10 More at http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/07/22/charles_sherrod_civil_rights_hero
11. Robert Borosage: Stop Coddling the McCarthyite Smear Machine
The right-wing smear machine that cost an exemplary Agriculture Department official her job should be denounced for what it is: a high-tech, low-rent McCarthyism that launches search-and-destroy missions with no purpose but poisonous partisanship.
The Obama administration must realize that this isn't about independent investigators unearthing government malfeasance. These are ideologically motivated attacks, often relying on distortion and slander, to target individual employees. This is an ideological war against the very principles that a majority of the American people entrusted the Obama administration to champion. When there are allegations of wrongdoing, by all means they should be addressed--through time-honored procedures of due process and truth-seeking, not through the summary execution by video editing software that is the tactic of the Andrew Breitbarts of the world. And, above all, the administration must show that it is championing the kinds of people that Shirley Sherrod was fighting for--by defending champions like Shirley Sherrod when they are under attack. 7.23.10 More at http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010072921/stop-coddling-mccarthyite-smear-machine
12. Greg Sargent: Do "both sides" really do what Breitbart does?
If I ran the universe, the Shirley Sherrod mess would prompt a real media conversation about these questions: Do both sides really engage in Breitbart-style tactics? Is all "ideological media" created equal?
The discussion of the Sherrod saga has been marked by an inability to distinguish between the media techniques employed by ideologically motivated media on the left, and those used by Breitbart's operation and sometimes Fox. What's not being acknowledged is that the latter camp is far more willing to use tactics that are pretty much indistinguishable from political opposition research.
Do some left wing commentators say crazy things? Sure. But high-profile commentators on the left, for instance at networks like MSNBC, inarguably hold themselves to a higher factual standard than Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. (Yes, they apologized to Sherrod. So what?)
What's more, sites like HuffPo and TPM, while perhaps ideologically and politically motivated in some ways, have teams of reporters who are devoted to determining what's fair and accurate before sharing it with readers. These reporters would never run with a video like the one leaked to Breitbart without making a serious effort to contextualize it and determine its significance and accuracy. I challenge anyone to demonstrate that the Breitbart-Fox axis has any real equivalent on the left.
Do both sides do it? I say No, they don't. And if I ran the show more media folks would step up and take a stand on that question one way or the other. 7.23.10 More at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/07/do_both_sides_really_do_what_b.html#more
13. Steve Benen: Inhofe Still Sees 'global Cooling'
It happens every year. Winter comes, snow falls, and right-wing nuts start insisting that cold weather necessarily disproves global warming.
And perhaps no nut is as aggressive in his denialism than Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who continues to believe winters constitute evidence against climate change.
As for Inhofe's bizarre belief in global cooling, take a moment to consider this David Leonhardt piece from the other day.
- All the while, the risks and costs of climate change grow. Sea levels are rising faster than scientists predicted just a few years ago. Himalayan glaciers are melting. In the American West, pine beetles (which struggle to survive the cold) are multiplying and killing trees.
According to NASA, 2010 is on course to be the planet's hottest year since records started in 1880. The current top 10, in descending order, are: 2005, 2007, 2009, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2004, 2001 and 2008.
The only thing more dangerous than Jim Inhofe's allergy to reason is a Senate that mandates supermajorities to approve all public policy. If the chamber operated the way it was designed and intended to operate -- the way every legislative body on the planet functions -- it could approve legislation to deal with the climate crisis. Instead, with a Senate featuring 59 Democrats, Inhofe's stupidity rules the day.The consequences will be severe. History will not be kind. More at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_07/024870.php
15. E.J. Dionne Jr.: Enough right-wing propaganda
The smearing of Shirley Sherrod ought to be a turning point in American politics. This is not, as the now-trivialized phrase has it, a "teachable moment." It is a time for action.
The mainstream media and the Obama administration must stop cowering before a right wing that has persistently forced its propaganda to be accepted as news by convincing traditional journalists that "fairness" requires treating extremist rants as "one side of the story." And there can be no more shilly-shallying about the fact that racial backlash politics is becoming an important component of the campaign against President Obama and against progressives in this year's election.
The administration's response to the doctored video pushed by right-wing hit man Andrew Breitbart was shameful. The obsession with "protecting" the president turned out to be the least protective approach of all.
The Obama team did not question, let alone challenge, the video. Instead, it assumed that whatever narrative Fox News might create mattered more than anything else, including the possible innocence of a human being outside the president's inner circle.
Obama complained on ABC's "Good Morning America" that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack "jumped the gun, partly because we now live in this media culture where something goes up on YouTube or a blog and everybody scrambles." But it's his own apparatus that turned "this media culture" into a false god.
Yet the Obama team was reacting to a reality: the bludgeoning of mainstream journalism into looking timorously over its right shoulder and believing that "balance" demands taking seriously whatever sludge the far right is pumping into the political waters.
This goes way back. Al Gore never actually said he "invented the Internet," but you could be forgiven for not knowing this because the mainstream media kept reporting he had.
There were no "death panels" in the Democratic health-care bills. But this false charge got so much coverage that an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll last August found that 45 percent of Americans thought the reform proposals would likely allow "the government to make decisions about when to stop providing medical care to the elderly." That was the summer when support for reform was dropping precipitously. A straight-out lie influenced the course of one of our most important debates.
The traditional media are so petrified of being called "liberal" that they are prepared to allow the Breitbarts of the world to become their assignment editors. Mainstream journalists regularly criticize themselves for not jumping fast enough or high enough when the Fox crowd demands coverage of one of their attack lines. 7.26.10 More at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072502756.html
16. PAUL KRUGMAN: Who Cooked the Planet?
If you want to understand opposition to climate action, follow the money. The economy as a whole wouldn’t be significantly hurt if we put a price on carbon, but certain industries — above all, the coal and oil industries — would. And those industries have mounted a huge disinformation campaign to protect their bottom lines.
Look at the scientists who question the consensus on climate change; look at the organizations pushing fake scandals; look at the think tanks claiming that any effort to limit emissions would cripple the economy. Again and again, you’ll find that they’re on the receiving end of a pipeline of funding that starts with big energy companies, like Exxon Mobil, which has spent tens of millions of dollars promoting climate-change denial, or Koch Industries, which has been sponsoring anti-environmental organizations for two decades.
Or look at the politicians who have been most vociferously opposed to climate action. Where do they get much of their campaign money? You already know the answer.
By itself, however, greed wouldn’t have triumphed. It needed the aid of cowardice — above all, the cowardice of politicians who know how big a threat global warming poses, who supported action in the past, but who deserted their posts at the crucial moment.
There are a number of such climate cowards, but let me single out one in particular: Senator John McCain.
There was a time when Mr. McCain was considered a friend of the environment. Back in 2003 he burnished his maverick image by co-sponsoring legislation that would have created a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions. He reaffirmed support for such a system during his presidential campaign, and things might look very different now if he had continued to back climate action once his opponent was in the White House. But he didn’t — and it’s hard to see his switch as anything other than the act of a man willing to sacrifice his principles, and humanity’s future, for the sake of a few years added to his political career.
Alas, Mr. McCain wasn’t alone; and there will be no climate bill. Greed, aided by cowardice, has triumphed. And the whole world will pay the price. 7.25.10 More at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/opinion/26krugman.html
