Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

President Bush came out last week to (presumably) talk about a new direction in Iraq. Whatever. What's disappointing is that the press didn't just get up and walk out once they realized this was going to be another cookie-cutter "What-I'm-doing-in-Iraq-is- working" speech. But I guess you have to give the President (the office, not the specific person) respect no matter how many times s/he's lied to your face.
But that wasn't the worst part; far from it. After using the press corps to play presidential parrot, he gets into what I believe was his real agenda: trying to take control of of the news cycle in order to sway the midterm elections. Of course, under normal circumstances Bush could have done this by just saying "We have a new plan" and leaving it at that but circumstances aren't normal. Iraq isn't the Teflon Topic is used to be for him; now it's pretty much his kryptonite. So in order to get away from that, he has to change the debate. He just needed to get an audience, hence the press conference.

For Iraq in particular, it meant expanding the debate to say that it's part of the GWOT, and only his party can keep America safe. In general, it meant expanding the debate to topics that are traditionally Republican, like taxes.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir.
Is the coming election a referendum on Iraq? Should it be?
BUSH: I think the coming election is a referendum on these two things: which party has got the plan that will enable our economy to continue to grow and which party has a plan to protect the American people.
And Iraq is part of the security of the United States. If we succeed and when we succeed in Iraq, our country will be more secure. If we don't succeed in Iraq, the country is less secure.
[snip]
And this is a big issue in the campaign. Security of the country is an issue, just like taxes are an issue.
If you raise taxes, it will hurt the economy. If you don't extend the tax cuts, if you don't make them -- in other words, if you let the tax cuts expire, it will be a tax increase on the American people.
Take the child tax credit. If it is not made permanent -- in other words, if it expires -- and you've got a family of four sitting around the breakfast table, the taxpayers can be sure that their taxes will go up by $2,000: $500 for that child, $500 for the one right there; $500 for this one and $500 for that one.
That is a tax increase. And taking $2,000 out of the pockets of the working people will make it harder to sustain economic growth.
So the two issues I see in the campaign can be boiled down to who best to protect this country and who best to keep taxes low.
That's what the referendum's about.

I would like to cut the press some slack, but this has happened before. Last October, Bush announced that he would give a major policy address about Iraq that was really a "standard campaign stump speech" designed to woo on-the-fence voters.

The press was suckered in that time. This time, they pratically gave Bush the green light to turn his foreign policy press conference into a GOP GOTV effort.

Tough Nuts To Crack
I know the media has a pathological desire to support those in power bias, it's just amazing the depths some go to to call that bias deliberately liberal. I would think that a liberal media would be attacking Bush at every turn; they have not. I would think that a liberal media would give the opposition party more air time to unload their talking points; fat chance of that.

One problem involves the forces that are preventing "balanced reporting" from being a reality: reasonable-minded journalists who fear for their jobs, and neo-con loving wackos that pretend to be true media people. Nowadays, trying to tell who is who is becoming mind-numbingly difficult. You have Robert Novak saying with a straight face that this election isn't really important. There's Bill O'Reilly saying that ten years ago Iraq was viturally unknown to Americans. The New York Sun says the Democrats GOTV message is basically a bumper sticker. The insufferable mixture of information and entertainment has now given people like this the green light to pull proclamations right out their hairy old ass.

Shell-Shocked
The audience doesn't know better, and why should they? Nobody gave them the memo that the media has decided to order them around instead of informing them. This was accomplished by slowly and subltely muddying the waters; putting in the story of the water-skiing squirrel between the latest school shooting and the war in Iraq. Wash, rinse repeat. The result is a society where politics is made entertaining (through scandals), but entertainment can't be politicized. We can discuss the pros and cons of the Paris Hilton Tax, but damn if we let her talk about who she's voting for and why. Michael J. Fox was everyone favorite when he was ultra-Republican Supreme Alex P. Keaton, but now that he's getting political for real, he's a pariah.
You have NBC, the network behind The West Wing, deciding not to air Dixie Chick ads because "they are disparaging to President Bush." You have an ABC News Director giving Bill O'Reilly the "wink-wink, nod-nod" saying that conservatives will "get a fair break at the end of an election."  

What's the message to an already politically-fatigued American veiwing audience? Or better yet, do you think they'd even want to vote after being bombarded with a mix of fact and fiction?

A Mixed Bag of Nuts
The amount of outrageous people who compromise TV, print and radio is too long to list here. But their character traits are easier to identify: angry, self-righteous, stubborn, paranoid, and factually impotent. Pick one or make your own combination. While such colorful people fit right in with your local insane asylum or Stephen King novel, they make sad political pundits, and even worse politicians. Over the years, they've been able to mask their true nature from the masses, but every know and then they slip. For example:

At this time of intense pressure and negativity on the national town square, it is comforting to know that President Bush, Nancy Pelosi, Lynne Cheney, Phil Singer, Karl Rove, Elizabeth Edwards, and every other elite Republican and Democratic politico share a set of cherished core American beliefs:
The Iraq war is the great force in the midterms.
[snip]
If you know where and how Michael Whouley is spending his next week and a half, you will know how Democrats will do on Election Day.
If you know where and how President Bush is spending his next week and a half, you will know how Republicans will do on Election Day.
Harold Ford needs to be ahead by at least 5 on November 6 to win on November 7.
David Yepsen thinks he himself would be a better governor of Iowa than Chet Culver or Jim Nussle.
You can spend more and still lose.
The view that 2006 is "the most negative" campaign ever is quaintly absurd.
Michael Steele is a better candidate than his numbers reflect; George Allen's numbers are better than his campaign warrants.
History may be kinder to Dan Allen than to George Allen.
Republican candidates around the country are still paying a price for the House leadership's mishandling of the page scandal in the first week after Mark Foley was exposed.
Bill Clinton can talk owls down out of the trees.
It is amazing that Republicans haven't done more to scuff up Hillary Clinton this year in advance of 2008.
Going into the New Jersey Senate race was either a) a sign of desperation by the Republicans, or b) a brilliant tactical maneuver that could be remembered as the one bright spot for the party this year.

This potpourri of pelican poop could only come from the Note. Sadly, it's considered a political trough for many who want to know what's hot and what's not in DC. Personally, I'd like to see the quote where Pelosi basically endorsed Steele over Democrat Ben Cardin.

Is Shakeup In Order?
So what are our options? Do we allow the few balanced journalists out there to be smeared or silenced? Do we let the true media distorters run amok and spread their filth around, knowing full well that they will do continue to do this, day after day?

I wish I had some good, solid answers. It's gotten to the point where even noted experts get dismissed for not parroting the latest approved talking points. Just fighting the nuts won't solve the problem; more are waiting in seclusion to take their place. The shell that protects them has to be cracked first. You can't tell me that CNN and MSNBC are liberal institutions when they've so clearly been trying to imitate FoxNews. When the networks routinely have Bush supporters on not just as Republican insiders, but political insiders, that is not liberal television (let alone liberal media).

I guess if I had the connections, I'd encourage our young generation of progressive-minded journalists to "go forth" and try to make this institution, one that used to challenge any political figure, into a place where dissent isn't punished and information is presented in it's most purest form. Then, after they've established themselves, they can go after their counterparts on these "news shows." Maybe even facilitate a transformation from the O'Reilly/Tucker format to a Hannity and Colmes format; except that there is a Colmes to match every Hannity. Or even better: a Sam Seder or Rachel Maddow to match every Hannity.  

Until something like that happens, we'll have to deal with the press as it is and react accordingly. Document, critique, write a LTE. Ultimately, it all adds up.