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Fox News Channel

Palin, Obama, & Terror

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While some folks regard Palin as a shallow thinker (at best) she does an excellent job of presenting the thoughts and feelings of a certain segment of America. She also excels at sticking to the Republican‘s talking points. Interestingly enough, the views that she expresses when criticizing Obama about the war on terror nicely raise the contrast between Obama’s views and those allegedly held by Republicans.

On Fox News she raised the usual point against Obama by pointing out that “We are in war. These are acts of war that these terrorists are committing.”

While the Republican’s take the line that Obama does not get that we are at war, this does not seem to be the case. Obama, of course, says the word “war” to describe the situation and we are still conducting military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, we are still actively involved in the more general conflict with terrorist groups. As such, Obama seems to get the idea that we are at war.

I suspect that Palin (and other Republicans) do not harp on the “we are at war” point to try to convince Obama that we are, in fact, at war. Rather, I think that the line is that “we are at war, so we have to act like we are at war” and by this they mean “we are at war, so we can, should and must act in ways that violate Constitutional, moral, and human rights.” As Palin puts it:

“We need to treat them a little bit differently than an American who is worthy, an American being worthy of our U.S. constitutional rights. I don’t think the terrorists are worthy of our rights.”

The first claim, that terrorists need to be treated differently, can be taken as a reasonable claim. After all, terrorists (like criminals) act in ways that are different from law abiding citizens and hence should be treated differently. After all, people who break the law get treated differently-they are punished. Of course, Palin makes it clear that she does not mean this. Rather, her point is that the terrorists should not have our rights because they are not worthy of them.

This view does have a certain appeal. After all, when people act badly (be they terrorists or criminals) it is natural to think that they deserve less protection from the law and also forfeit some of their rights.

In some cases, it is reasonable to argue that people should be denied certain rights based on their actions. For example, someone who murders someone should have his right to liberty restricted because he no longer deserves that right. Of course, this should be done after a trial that involves due process. After all, to justly take away someone’s rights requires establishing that doing so would be just. To take away the right before the trial would be rather unjust and to hold no trial at all would be extremely unjust.

The same applies to terrorists who are captured. To strip them of their rights before their trial or to not hold a trial at all would be to act unjustly.

The usual counter to this is to restate that we are at war. After all, we do not conduct trials during firefights to see if we can shoot back at the enemy.While this is a reasonable point, it does not establish that captured terrorists should not be subject to the rule of law. After all, when the police come under fire, they can shoot back without holding a trial first. This fact does not prove that we should not hold trials for criminals who are captured or surrender.

Palin, not surprisingly, is very much against the idea that fighting terrorist is a matter of law enforcement. She says,

“Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at great risk because that’s not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we’re at war, and to win that war we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.”

This is, of course, a stock point: the terrorists do not respect the rule of law and they “know we’re at war” (that is, they are willing to do whatever it takes to win), so we need to be like them.

While being as bad as the enemy does have a certain appeal (eye for an eye and all that), this is a war of values. In the West, we put forth the rule of law, human rights, and justice as being among our most important values. We also pride ourselves on our ethics and often cast this battle with terrorists as a moral struggle. In short, we are fighting for our values against their values.

As Palin points out, the terrorists do not value the rule of law, they do not respect human rights, and they have a badly distorted view of justice. But, if we take her advice and accept that being at war means we can be like them in this regard, then we have lost this war in a very meaningful sense. Each day that we remain true to our values, we win. As such, those who would tempt us away from these values is aiding the enemy.

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Thoughts on the Tea Party

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CHICAGO - APRIL 15: Demonstrators participate ...
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While the Tea Party movement has often been dismissed as a crank movement manufactured by the folks at Fox News, it does seem to have the potential of being both a significant and a positive movement.

On the negative side, the Tea Party movement does have some unpleasant elements that play to base fears and various prejudices (racism, anti-intellectualism, and so on). There is also the concern that the movement is a political tool that has been manufactured as a weapon against the Democrats and to serve the good of certain Republicans rather than the country as a whole.

On the positive side, folks in the Tea Party movement has presented some legitimate criticisms of the folks in power and its shows that there seems to be a growing independent movement. Since I have long been critical of our two party system that enables the scoundrels in the two parties to merely swap power back and forth, the idea of some serious competition is very appealing.

Of course, the Tea Party is not yet a political party in a meaningful sense. In fact, some Tea Party folks are explicitly against political parties (of course, some are not). There is also considerable conflict and infighting among those claiming membership in the movement. This conflict is further exacerbated by the fact that the Republicans seem rather inclined to try to get control of the allegedly independent movement. If the movement becomes a mere attack dog for the Republican political machine, then that will be a rather sad end to what could have been a revitalizing political movement.

While the Tea Party is generating a great deal of media attention it might turn out to be a mere flash in the media pan. After all, the movement was inspired (in part) by Fox and seems to be partially sustained by the media attention. But, like all media darlings, it might simply fade away into obscurity. Or not-as always, time will tell.

Currently, the Tea Party seems to be advantageous to the Republicans. After all, the Republicans seem to be running some parts of the movement and Republican politicians like Sarah Palin are very popular with the Tea Party folks. Of course, the Republicans do not have mastery over the party and there has been some criticism of Republicans from some Tea Party folks.

For now, the Tea Party seems to be an aid to the Republicans. However, the Tea Party folks seem to be often driven by a genuine dislike of business as usual in politics. So, when the Democrats hand power back to the Republicans, they might find that the tea is no longer quite to their liking.

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Talk Radio

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Blogworld Talk Radio
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CNN recently did a series of segments on talk radio. One fact that struck me is that about 90% of talk radio hosts are classified as conservatives. This, of course, puts a number on the liberal perspective that conservatives dominate talk radio. Naturally, conservatives point out that liberals dominate the other media venues, with the obvious exception of Fox News in the TV arena.

Naturally, there has been considerable speculation about the conservative dominance in radio. Over the years, various implausible explanations have been provided.

One poor explanation is that the dominance is due to Rush’s skills as an entertainer. While it is true that he is a master of his craft, this would not explain the success of all the other conservative hosts nor would it explain the dearth of liberal hosts. After all, it is often claimed that Hollywood is awash in liberals and surely someone among these folks would have the talent to make her/his voice heard.

Another poor explanation is that the big corporations are conservative and hence unfairly keep the liberals off the air. Of course, this runs contrary to the fact that there are plenty of liberals with money and the fact that mainstream media is regarded as being liberal, despite also being owned by the corporate masters. Also, there is the failure of Air America-a liberal attempt at liberal radio that was well funded.

A third poor explanation is that talk radio appeals to the uneducated and is not a suitable medium for the complex enlightenment that is liberal thought. While it is true that talk radio tends to be lacking in intellectual rigor, it is also true that liberal ideas can (and are) be pitched at a level suitable for talk radio. Further, to cast the listeners of talk radio as simpletons is to do them a grave injustice.

One hypothesis that has some plausibility is that the conservatives were able to stake out their territory in talk radio and dig in. Since there is only so much air time, for a liberal to get a show would seem to require that they cut into an established radio show. Of course, this explanation does have some weaknesses and does not account for why liberals have yet to succeed in getting more of the market share.

Naturally, it would be well worth considering the differences between the people who listen to talk radio and folks who do not. For example, perhaps their is a factor here relating to jobs. Maybe folks who work jobs that allow them to listen to the radio more would tend towards being conservative (or at least being entertained by conservative talk). Or maybe conservatives are more inclined to like purely audio media as opposed to visual media. In any case, the conservatives are dominating the airwaves.

Another hypothesis worth considering is whether there is a difference between liberals and conservatives in regards to the skill sets needed to be appealing in talk radio. For example, it has been claimed that actors and journalists are more liberal than other folks, so perhaps there is a link between modes of expression and political leanings. So, conservatives might have a tendency towards talk, while liberals have greater visual skills. Or there might be no connection at all.

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Fox Fight

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Foxnewslogo.
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While Fox News presents itself as “fair and balanced”, it has recently been the target of intense criticism from other media folks as well as the Obama administration. Naturally, it is important to put this into an historic perspective: administrations have had such tiffs with the media in the past and media organizations have had spats against each other as well. As such, there is really nothing new here other than the players in this particular fight.

The main criticism against Fox News is that it is suffers from a clearly biased perspective. Some critics go so far as to assert that Fox does not really report the news, but that it merely serves to present a political agenda under the guise of reporting. Naturally, folks point out that other media organizations are liberally biased and Fox’s supporters assert that Fox is merely being honest.

While perfect objectivity is impossible, there are clearly degrees of objectivity and fairness. Some journalists are true professionals in this regard. While they are honest about their own views, they are able to consider other viewpoints fairly and present relatively unbiased reports and analysis. Others are clearly true believers and make no attempt to consider alternative views, except to assert how wrong they are. The folks at Fox seem to largely fall towards the unprofessional end of the spectrum. Of course, the same can be said of some other news organizations. For example, MSNBC seems to have some rather significant liberal bias.

I have watched Fox and have tried to be objective in my assessment of their handling of the news. While I do expect the commentators to express opinions (that is their job), the bias is clear and evident. Of course, folks who agree with the Fox agenda will generally not see this bias-they will think that Fox is telling it like it is. This, of course, does provide grounds for dispute and it can be argued that Fox is not biased and is, in fact, the only news agency that is getting it right. Showing bias does, after all, require establishing a baseline of objectivity/neutrality and that point is contested territory.

However, even if a baseline for objectivity is in dispute, a relative baseline can be established. By comparing Fox to the other news agencies as well as independent sources, it is possible to get a picture of relative bias. On this measure, I suspect that Fox will still seem biased.

Also, even without using a baseline, a degree of bias can be discerned by the way the reporters report. To use an analogy, consider the paper I have my Intro to Philosophy students write. One part of the paper is a summary of the Apology and the goal is to clearly, concisely, accurately and in their own words convey the key points of that dialogue. The objective is not to comment, criticize, assess, speculate, or otherwise evaluate and it is rather easy to see when a student deviates from summarizing. The same sort of standard can be applied to reporting in order to check for when a reporter has ceased reporting and is now commenting and presenting a view. The second major part of the paper is an argument section and in this section the students present their position on the issue and argue for it. This, of course, corresponds to news commentary and editorials. However, this is quite distinct from summarizing or, by the analogy, reporting. While journalists do go beyond reporting, they do so in various degrees. The more this is done, the greater chance there is that bias is involved-especially if the commentary has a consistent ideological leaning. The folks at Fox seem to have a significant tendency to go from reporting to commenting without making it clear that they are doing so, thus suggesting the possibility of bias (or at least a failure to understand the distinction between a report and an editorial).

Now, in regards to the administrations fight with Fox, they are ironically helping Fox out. After all, Fox’s viewers will tend to be against Obama and the administration’s words and actions serve to reinforce the views of such people. While Obama and his people have the right to decide which news shows they visit, it does not seem appropriate for the administration to get into this sort of brawl with Fox, even if Fox is distorting facts.

A final remark I have, inspired by the wrestling episode of South Park, is that perhaps Fox is like the WWF of news: it puts on a morality play to entertain the viewers and merely pretends to be a real news agency, just as the pro-“wrestlers” pretend to really be fighters.

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Hey, Joe…

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Joe Biden, United States Senator.
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My conservative readers have been saddened by my failure to cover Joe Biden and instead focus more on Sarah Palin. No doubt, there is the suspicion that my alleged left leaning ways have compelled me to ignore Joe. This is not the case. The main reason is that Joe has not been as interesting or as significant as Palin. The VP position, as John Garner once said,  is often “not worth a bucket of warm piss.” Joe really has not done all that much worth writing about. However, to be fair and balanced, I will say a few things about him.

First, he is famous for rambling on and on. This is not really a mark against him, but people do make note of this.

Second, he often seems to fail to think through what he is saying. One recent example is his remarks about public transportation and swine flu. While having the VP say something so factually inaccurate and potentially frightening is a bad thing, the fact that he is Joe Biden helped minimize the impact. After all, people seem to expect him to say things like that and hence what he says is often not taken that seriously. On the downside, having a major political figure who is looked at a bit like a slightly wacky uncle might be a problem.  Naturally, it would be nice if he reflected a bit more before speaking.

Third, he has a knack for contradicting what his own administration says. This is rather bad because it makes him seem to be either out of the loop (the land where VPs traditionally live) or at odds with the President (which does not seem to be the case). However, I suspect that he is the sort of person who gets talking and loses track of what it is he should be saying and instead just ends up saying what pops into his head. That sort of thing rarely turns out well. If Joe doesn’t know what the administration is up to, he should probably get up to speed. If he knows that he tends to just say stuff, he should work on that as well.

Some conservatives complain that Joe is able to get away with things that other politicians would be nailed for. I suspect it is because Joe seems to be a likable, down to earth sort of fellow. Perhaps he reminds many Americans of “that uncle” who rambles a lot and says the darnedest things. Perhaps it is because his blunders seem to be honest blunders, rather than anything malicious or calculated. Or perhaps, as some suggest, the liberal media is blinded by their liberalism and they fail to see the dark shadow of evil behind his sunny smile and folksy charm.

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