He’s on his own channel on your satellite television. He’s in MTV videos by rap and reggae artists. His ads pop up on the Web sites you read. He’s delaying a World Series game to buy a block of national TV time. And when you’re cruising down the street in your favorite racing video game, his face whizzes by on a cyber-billboard
The only place he hasn’t appeared yet is on a box of Wheaties.
Love him or hate him, and whether it helps him or hurts him, the presidential hopeful is everywhere.
“It’s stunning, isn’t it?” said Dick Crepeau, a contributor to PopPolitics.com and a professor of American cultural history at the University of Central Florida. “It’s very, very calculatingly done, and they’ve done it very well.”
Brooks enlists Crepeau and other cultural critics to look at the benefits and possible pitfalls of being “everywhere.” While Obama has been able to reach non-traditional voters by appearing in places like a billboard within popular video games (the image above is from Burnout Paradise on Xbox 360), the McCain campaign uses the opportunity to claim, once again, that he is more “style than substance.”
Bitch magazine has been providing readers a “feminist response to popular culture” for the past 13 years. In a sea of mediocre media, Bitch consistently and forcefully rises above the fray. Just take a look at the diversity of topics covered — and voices included — in the past 41 issues.
Now Bitch needs all the help it can get to continue publishing smart feminist analysis and media criticism.
This is not a good time for independent media, as Andi and Debbie make clear in their funny and poignant video. Take a look, and then click here to give what you can, or visit Bitch’s donate section for more info on the sustainer program, hosting a house party and other actions.
I heard Chuck Todd report on Meet the Press today that insiders in both campaigns acknowledge that a major factor in Wisconsin and Michigan is an unspoken (and un-pollable) racism from white rural voters — “the Bubba vote.” Todd says that the Obama campaign has a “magic number”: They need to go into election day with a 58 percent majority in the polling in those states, because they are going to lose seven percent of voters who will tell pollsters they are for Obama but who instead will vote their racial fears when they complete the ballot.
What Todd didn’t mention is that this racism isn’t simply a result of a backwards segment of the population; it is being actively fomented by the Republican party and their surrogates. And I’m not talking about intimidating African American voters and others in places like Michigan, where they are threatening to challenge all voters who have received a foreclosure notice on their home (a legally questionable and certainly “mean-spirited” tactic).
No, I’m talking about the distribution of “Obama Waffles” at the Values Voters Summit. It featured a variety of racist portrayals of Obama. While the image on the front recalls classic racist stereotypes, the image of Obama on the top shows him wearing an Arab-like headdress. The image on the back depicts Obama wearing a Mexican sombrero. Joan Lowy of the AP writes:
The box was meant as political satire, said Mark Whitlock and Bob DeMoss, two writers from Franklin, Tenn., who created the mix. They sold it for $10 a box from a rented booth at the summit sponsored by the lobbying arm of the Family Research Council. [...]
While Obama Waffles takes aim at Obama’s politics by poking fun at his public remarks and positions on issues, it also plays off the old image of the pancake-mix icon Aunt Jemima, which has been widely criticized as a demeaning stereotype. Obama is portrayed with popping eyes and big, thick lips as he stares at a plate of waffles and smiles broadly.
Placing Obama in Arab-like headdress recalls the false rumor that he is a follower of Islam, though he is actually a Christian.
On the back of the box, Obama is depicted in stereotypical Mexican dress, including a sombrero, above a recipe for “Open Border Fiesta Waffles” that says it can serve “4 or more illegal aliens.” The recipe includes a tip: “While waiting for these zesty treats to invade your home, why not learn a foreign language?”
If you want to see how a caricature can legitimately use humor and make a political point, I would suggest Steven Brodner’s illustration of Sarah Palin in a recent New Yorker. BagNews Notes, as usual, has the insightful and convincing analysis:
Palin [...] is a reality show. Sixteen days out, her visage continues to permeate the media sphere, as the electricity — primed by biographical fairy tales tightly bound to visual spin aimed at the right brain — continues to trump the reams of qualifying or damaging information that is streaming out.
The crossed arms on two screens and in the larger caricature reflects her inherent defensiveness and hostility. The fish “that big” and the hand gestures on “Bridge to Nowhere” call out the chronic double speak. The way the eyes track in relation to the angle of her head speaks to how well she knows where the camera is (while the disappearing neck telegraphs the underlying reality of “the empty suit.”)
In real life as well, one can easily sense all this, but still she rolls.
Even though many Democratic activists are calling for it, I’m not yet sure that the Obama campaign needs to meet the Republicans down in the muck. I think the alternative narrative — which keeps them on a high road — might hold the most power, if we can afford to be a little patient.
Regardless, they need to seize control of the narrative. And an image, I’ve heard, can be worth a thousand words.
CNN’s Campbell Brown on Monday interviewed a spokesman for John McCain about what experience Sarah Palin, McCain’s pick for VP, has to be commander in chief.
The interview began with a discussion of when McCain knew about the pregnancy of Palin’s 17-year-old daughter and whether Palin had thought about the ramifications of putting her daughter in the spotlight. Spokesman Tucker Bounds sidestepped the questions, and the conversation transitioned — as every conversation with Republicans in St. Paul does — to Palin’s qualifications and reform-mindedness.
But this time around, an interview with a campaign spokesman quickly moved into the realm of Must See TV.
My two favorite takes so far on John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for his running mate:
Stephen Colbert accuses nay-sayers of missing the significance of the moment: “A lot of people are saying that Sarah Palin is being used as a cheap political ploy. That is such petty cynicism. This is historic. For the first time in America, a woman has reached the highest levels of being used as a cheap political ploy.”
See his entire analysis here:
And Maureen Dowd is just happy that while reporting from the campaign trail, she can still indulge one of her “guilty pleasures”: watching “a vacuously spunky and generically sassy chick flick” — even if she already knows how this one is going to end.
In a more semi-serious analysis, Gail Collins yesterday summarized the big insult:
Over the last week, we have heard over and over and over that Tuesday was the anniversary of the day women got the right to vote. (They got it when a state representative in Tennessee, where the House was split on the ratification issue, changed his vote because his mother wrote him a letter telling him to shape up. That’s a story that I would love to get into, but, unfortunately, right now we have Sarah Palin to deal with.)
After that big moment of enfranchisement, women went through a long period in the desert where they had the vote but not much else. Then came the great revolutions of the 1970s, when all the assumptions about the natural divisions between the sexes were challenged. During that era, women could be excited and moved by symbolic candidacies that promised a better, more inclusive future, like Shirley Chisholm’s presidential race and Geraldine Ferraro’s presence on the Democratic national ticket.
This year, Hillary Clinton took things to a whole new level. She didn’t run for president as a symbol but as the best-prepared candidate in the Democratic pack. Whether you liked her or not, she convinced the nation that women could be qualified to both run the country and be commander in chief. That was an enormous breakthrough, and Palin’s nomination feels, in comparison, like a step back.
If she’s only on the ticket to try to get disaffected Clinton supporters to cross over, it’s a bad choice. Joe Biden may already be practicing his drop-dead line for the vice-presidential debate: “I know Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of mine, and governor, you’re no Hillary Clinton.”
Of all the things about Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate, that bother me, her identification as a “feminist” is not one of them.
Yes, I realize she is not a feminist in any authentically enlightened sense of the term and her feminism doesn’t make conservatives flinch even a little bit.
But I’m so tired of “feminism” being a dirty word, that I don’t mind a little misappropriation. It’s just too much fun to see Pat Buchanan defending McCain’s choice on MSNBC Friday night by gleefully shouting, “But she’s a feminist!”
Melich admits that, at Friday’s announcement, “Palin was energetic, warm and reminded me of all those earnest young women we feminists have been recruiting into the women’s political movement since the early l970s.”
But she sees McCain’s choice of her as simply a political “disguise”:
McCain hopes that by picking a woman he can show he’s open to doing things differently, but his selection is window dressing and insulting to anyone who knows that he opposes equal pay for equal work legislation and opposes a woman’s right to choose. And this is just part of the list of issues of concern to women that he doesn’t champion.
It’s nice to see a major media outlet willing to call out John McCain for the lies and slimy innuendo that his campaign has become.
But the greatest insight coming out of the whole “how many houses does he own?” episode has to be from BAGnewsnotes, who puts it in the context of McCain’s POW experience.
This shot of McCain in 2000 showing the prison to his son, Jack, evokes just how much the Hanoi Hilton — where McCain dwells so often in his speeches and his anecdotes — actually does seems to resonate as a “primary residence” — those cell walls representing the last, longest home that McCain could call his own.
You might say it’s a bit of a psychological stretch, but there’s no denying that McCain often appears lost in a place only he knows.
The most pressing question in this presidential campaign has become: Why isn’t the Obama campaign (or their surrogates and sympathizers) spreading insidious rumors about John McCain to counterbalance all the junk out thereabout Obama?
Now, I subscribe to plenty of liberal/lefty e-mail lists — so I feel fairly in touch with the viral pulse out there. And I know plenty of Obama sympathizers will say that they’re working very hard at getting out the unknown stuff about John McCain.
But my response to them would be that you’re still hampered by this ridiculous need to stay in the realm of truth.
For example, Brave New Films has done a great job of exposing “The Real John McCain.” In their latest salvo, they reveal that McCain, in fact, is the true elitist. He and his wife own, among other things, ten mansions:
Unfortunately, though McCain’s elitist hypocrisy might scandalize many of us, it doesn’t come across as a threat to the American way of life. That’s because old, rich white men have always held power in this country. Strangely, it’s not news — both to the man in the street and the Man in the media.
Unfortunately neither side is putting the cultural power of this cover in its full context.
And satire is all about context.
David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, actually said in his defense: “The idea that we would publish a cover saying these things literally, I think, is just not in the vocabulary of what we do and who we are.”
This statement sums up for me why, in fact, the cover is somewhat indefensible. Sure, for subscribers of the New Yorker — they get it. They don’t think the New Yorker is trying to undermine the Obama campaign. They’ve read the “Talk of the Town.”
But in the postmodern age, any responsible publisher in any medium needs to know that their images and words, especially the provocative ones, will disseminate to diverse audiences. That doesn’t mean they should avoid satire — but they should make sure their satire works on a broader levels.
Okay, that might work. But this is an extraordinary case. The rumors of Obama’s religious and national leanings are so insidious, so consciously constructed, that to throw the cover into that cesspool without a more direct refutation of that subtle, viral campaign can’t help but perpetuate the mess.
It all reminds me of John Kerry’s inability to see the power of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. With apologies to Marshall McLuhan — in the present political environment, the image or the soundbite is the message. Trusting in the ability of your audience to just “know” the truth isn’t enough anymore.
I posted last week about on the power of rumors in this year’s presidential campaign — about how this old-fashioned tactic has taken on new meaning in the digital age. Two subsequent articles have done a great job of explaining the reasons why and how rumors work.
In a New York Times op-ed, Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, experts on how the brain processes memory, discuss how a false rumor — such as that Barack Obama, a Christian, is a Muslim — is very hard to get out of your mind, even after you have been presented with and recognize the truth. Scary stuff:
The brain does not simply gather and stockpile information as a computer’s hard drive does. Facts are stored first in the hippocampus, a structure deep in the brain about the size and shape of a fat man’s curled pinkie finger. But the information does not rest there. Every time we recall it, our brain writes it down again, and during this re-storage, it is also reprocessed. In time, the fact is gradually transferred to the cerebral cortex and is separated from the context in which it was originally. For example, you know that the capital of California is Sacramento, but you probably don’t remember how you learned it.
This phenomenon, known as source amnesia, can also lead people to forget whether a statement is true. Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true.
It’s a mind-opening read.
And from another angle, Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post discusses the latest work on political rumors by Danielle Allen at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton (yeah, it’s the free-wheeling genius think tank that was once the research home of Albert Einstein). Allen, an expert in the “the way voters in a democracy gather their information and act on what they learn,” became obsessed with how the rumor of Obama being a Muslim — specifically, the chain e-mail about it that became viral — began and spread.
The coverage — truly, the celebration — of Tim Russert’s life and legacy has been, surprisingly, very engaging. Sure, I got a bit tired of the non-stop eulogizing, but the affection and dignity with which everyone has remembered Russert feels like a oasis of humanity amidst the manufactured narratives that dominate TV news.
Having said all that, I can’t help but agree with Hal Boedeker’s scathing critique of the coverage — which he calls “one of the most embarrassing chapters in television journalism history” and “outright merchandising of his death for ratings.”
It really is a must-read in its entirety — but to give you a sense of it, here are excerpts from the first three of the six major “lessons” from the coverage that “should be taught in journalism schools”:
Watching Michelle Obama on “The View” (watch it yourself while it lasts), you see all her very admirable strengths — and you see a predictable campaign strategy emerging. As Jodi Kantor and Michael Powell over at The Caucus put it:
The virtue of a show like this is clear — not only is there a fair dollop of politics, it’s a very useful forum for a candidate, as they can talk about Third Rail topics such as race in a chatty, just between us fashion… . A smart place to roll out the non-makeover makeover.
That’s not to say the discussion isn’t full of shopping tips, a pantyhose debate, motherhood, etc — all the post-Hillary-”standing by my man” safe stuff that allows us to know that Michelle is, first and foremost, a woman.
And of course, not a dreaded feminist. That was made clear long ago, in an early 2007 interview with the Washington Post: “You know, I’m not that into labels. So probably, if you laid out a feminist agenda, I would probably agree with a large portion of it [...] I wouldn’t identify as a feminist just like I probably wouldn’t identify as a liberal or a progressive.”
“The View” appearance, though, certainly reveals that, when she wants to/is allowed, Michelle can be a great, measured spokesperson for the Obama campaign on a variety of substantive issues. Like her husband, she has an uncanny ability to seem like she is never breaking a sweat, no matter what she is asked. And she absorbs other viewpoints with a friendly smile and talk of diversity and a transcendence of party politics.
Basically, she’s really cool — someone, as I’ve said before, with whom everyone (black and white, woman and man) wants to hang.
Let’s just hope she isn’t confined in this new/old role — and she’s able to makes some enemies.
Yes, make enemies — a great indulgence in a campaign season but a potentially profound way to show leadership and demonstrate that true “change” will requires sacrifice and will inevitably be, at times, unpopular. That sense of non-negotiable values is what made John and Robert Kennedy moral touchstones for a generation.
So if someone calls her out on her supposed lack of patriotism or her supposed racial antagonism or if someone turns her intelligence and self-confidence into negative “manly” qualities, she shouldn’t just say they are “lies,” which they are. She herself should use the opportunity to lead us into needed conversations about the power of dissent and the complicated history of race and gender in America.
Whether or not one agrees with Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s strategy of introducing thirty-five articles of impeachment (pdf) against President Bush on the floor of the House last night — I don’t know how anyone could deny that Kucinich’s list provides a devastating indictment of the Bush administration’s misuse and abuse of power over the past eight years:
If what the Bush administration has done to our global credibility, our legal foundations, our promise to safeguard all of our citizens is not impeachable, what is? And, from all accounts (including now from inside Bush’s own inner circle), this recklessness and neglect was and is the extension of a premeditated, systematic agenda. A Reagan-like ignorance or faulty memory can never be an excuse here.
What’s most interesting about these articles of impeachment from a cultural standpoint is how they barely register in the mainstream media — the same media that failed to report on most of the offenses that they now begrudgingly admit are true.
Admitting the gravity of these offenses, of course, would make a mockery of all the vacuous pundit-driven shows that have come to dominate the media landscape. True investigative reporting has been replaced by off-the-top-of-the-head reactions to packaged political events.
This has all been said before, I know. But when Rep. Kucinich exposes the mechanisms of power so blatantly, I feel it’s independent media’s obligation to spread the word.
Of all the images from Tuesday’s historic night, this simple, intimate fist pump is the most striking:
BagnewsNotes, of course, is all over it, appreciating “Michelle’s proud, private, knowing, understated, intimate and unselfconscious expression, as well as the lack of tension in each partner’s body.”
Not only does it show the Obamas and their relationships in a good light, though, it also points the way toward victory in November.
Barack Obama’s greatest asset is his likability, and the genuine affection that he and Michelle seem to feel for each other just adds to it. In a moment like the one above — or maybe in the moment immediately following it, when he turns his smile to us — the entire audience feels like we are his friends and partners, because we can see that the “real” Barack is not so different from our own confidantes. He and Michelle demonstrate an intimacy that’s infectious.
And that’s different from Bill Clinton’s Bubbha persona or George W. Bush’s “regular guy” routine — because those were more self-conscious personal performances — clearly public gestures of sorts. The moments we have between Barack and Michelle, while certainly performances on some level as well, at least feel like extensions of a private life.
Their relationship reminds me of another inspiring political couple, John and Abigail Adams:
Before moving on to other subjects, I thought I’d add a final word (for now) on the Great Keith Olbermann Debate. Is he a progressive savior amidst the morass of mainstream media or is he a progressive demagogue doing more harm than good?
Well, it’s nice to hear someone coming to his defense. Aaron Barnhardt at TV Barn goes so far as to say that the Olbermann bashers are actually feeding a Republican attack machine that wants to KO KO. He takes particular issue with the views of Jamie Poniewozik, the Time magazine TV critic, whom I reference in a previous post.
The discussion that ensues in the comments is quality stuff, including a lengthy response from Poniewozik himself.
That discussion leads, in fact, to the contemplation of what it means to be a modern journalist — and whether someone like Olbermann is one of those rarified sorts. All of which gives me an excuse to mention a great column by Glenn Greenwald of Salon, in which he condemns Politico and self-conscious editor-in-chief John Harris — among many others — for the fixation “on meaningless, ephemeral trivialities in lieu of substantive reporting.” You might have heard it all before, but it’s worth hearing again (as well as looking at the statistics Greenwald cites at the end of the piece):
That’s the defining activity of the modern American political journalist: copy down what political officials and campaigns say. That’s what they consider to be “reporting.” Their “scoops” are determined by whoever gets chosen to be the first one to copy down (or cut and paste) those statements first. They focus on trivial stories not only because they think doing so will get them quick attention, but also because — by definition — trivial chatter requires no analysis, thought, or critical faculties.
The real harm inflicted by the behavior Harris describes isn’t that we’re all subjected to an endless stream of worthless gossip from our political journalists. That’s more of an avoidable annoyance than anything else. It’s that the trashy gossip completely crowds out any discussion of anything that actually matters, allowing our government and political class generally to get away with the most extreme acts of corruption, lawbreaking and destruction while those assigned to “report” on what they’re doing prattle on about haircuts, horse races, and an endless stream of soap opera storylines. Those who know best how to feed journalists their easy, gossipy items are those who best manipulate their “reporting.”
Which brings us back to Mr. Olbermann. In this context, he doesn’t seem so remarkable.
Get the Feed
What Todd didn’t mention is that this racism isn’t simply a result of a backwards segment of the population; it is being actively fomented by the Republican party and their surrogates. And I’m not talking about 
If you want to see how a caricature can legitimately use humor and make a political point, I would suggest Steven Brodner’s illustration of Sarah Palin in a 
Joe Miller of Factcheck.org 
Plenty 