In the old days, we used to believe politics was about something.
So I watched a debate this week, and then I went to find out what I saw. And, though the miracle of television, I found out that the debate had been a near drawn and that John McCain had introduced a bold new proposal to buy up a lot of bad mortgages and reduce them to the present value of the houses they were on. Through the wonders of the interwebs, I found out that Obama has "slammed" this proposal, that Obama lied four times and McCain three, or maybe the other way around, or maybe it was all Tom Brokaw's fault, or something. I've read about how dishonestly Obama is campaigning and how Orwellian McCain's campaign is, or maybe a crypto-fascist, or maybe he's actually going to step down two days into office for McCain. The point, anyway, is that I don't give a shit.
You know, there was, like, a time when we had these things, and we, like, called them "issues," and we used to play like there were objective truths about them independent of what the candidates said. But this year has seen what I would consider to be one of the best campaigns in living memory, and far and away the worst coverage of any of the last three, which are the only ones I'm old enough to remember.
I'm going to apologise right now for commenting on this. I'm not qualified, and I'd prefer to keep out of this thing, but as long (and it is important in a blog to make your point of view entirely clear) as I'm writing a blog on pass/fail I suppose I might as well make a spectacular ass of myself occasionally.
I'm sorry to say this, and I know it's an unfashionable point of view, but I think we've been badly screwed over by the blogs. It's a sin the media's criticised for every election, but I really don't think this was nearly this bad in 2004--people believed that there were objective truths about whether the war in Iraq was going well, and whether people would be better off with nationalised health care, and even whether Kerry had deserved his purple heart and Bush ever turned up for his service in the Texas National Air Guard, and that the answers to these questions could tell you who to vote for. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whether their attacks were effective or not, were considered sufficiently shameful that Bush had publicly to disavow them--in fact, we had a phrase for those kinds of arguments, which was an "ad hominem attack." I certainly remember employment figures being followed closely. They were seen as dishonorable but inevitable low blows, irrelevant to the real issues of the election.
Fast forward to 2008. I've heard people talking seriously about whether it was fair for Charlie Gibson to ask Sarah Palin about the Bush Doctrine in the way he did. Many of today's top stories are about McCain's choice to spend the waning days of the campaign trying to tar Obama with a connection to Bill Ayers. If you watch coverage of any major speech, any of the sum-ups of the conventions, or the talking heads who pop up to comment after the debates, the first thing they say is invariably "I don't think there were any major gaffes tonight," quite rightly admitting that the most significant thing that could possibly happen is that one of the candidates might say something foolish that could be used in an ad against them.
This kind of "analysis," based on nothing more than you can learn about the campaigns through YouTube, is the form most popular online, for the fairly simple reason that it's what you can do without leaving your chair, but it's been a long time since other media held themselves above the fray. And indeed, when I tried to find an article that actually attacked the question of whether McCain's plan made sense, one of the better things I found was on Slate, from back in February. The other was in the New York Times.
This detailed analysis of exactly how the candidates are campaigning keeps getting printed under the excuse that it reveals their character, and that it addresses the important issue of who will be the next President of the United States. But this is, of course, bullshit--the bit that actually counts is whether their economic plans are going to work, which approach to health insurance actually makes sense, and which approach to Iraq. But it looks as though the chance of most front pages, electronic and paper, getting any closer to the question of which economic plan will work than the debate over whether Obama and McCain are accurately characterising what each other said about the economy four months ago, is pretty slim. It makes the clip at the top of this entry look like a romanticization of American campaigns.
So, on the whole, I think Dean Reynold's piece about how well the McCain and Obama campaigns tend to the press was about the deepest and most important piece of journalism I've read about this campaign. As long as we're talking mostly about how the candidates attempt to manipulate their own and each other's images in the media, what could be more relevant than the immediate way they interact with representatives of the media?
I'm going to apologise right now for commenting on this. I'm not qualified, and I'd prefer to keep out of this thing, but as long (and it is important in a blog to make your point of view entirely clear) as I'm writing a blog on pass/fail I suppose I might as well make a spectacular ass of myself occasionally.
I'm sorry to say this, and I know it's an unfashionable point of view, but I think we've been badly screwed over by the blogs. It's a sin the media's criticised for every election, but I really don't think this was nearly this bad in 2004--people believed that there were objective truths about whether the war in Iraq was going well, and whether people would be better off with nationalised health care, and even whether Kerry had deserved his purple heart and Bush ever turned up for his service in the Texas National Air Guard, and that the answers to these questions could tell you who to vote for. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whether their attacks were effective or not, were considered sufficiently shameful that Bush had publicly to disavow them--in fact, we had a phrase for those kinds of arguments, which was an "ad hominem attack." I certainly remember employment figures being followed closely. They were seen as dishonorable but inevitable low blows, irrelevant to the real issues of the election.
Fast forward to 2008. I've heard people talking seriously about whether it was fair for Charlie Gibson to ask Sarah Palin about the Bush Doctrine in the way he did. Many of today's top stories are about McCain's choice to spend the waning days of the campaign trying to tar Obama with a connection to Bill Ayers. If you watch coverage of any major speech, any of the sum-ups of the conventions, or the talking heads who pop up to comment after the debates, the first thing they say is invariably "I don't think there were any major gaffes tonight," quite rightly admitting that the most significant thing that could possibly happen is that one of the candidates might say something foolish that could be used in an ad against them.
This kind of "analysis," based on nothing more than you can learn about the campaigns through YouTube, is the form most popular online, for the fairly simple reason that it's what you can do without leaving your chair, but it's been a long time since other media held themselves above the fray. And indeed, when I tried to find an article that actually attacked the question of whether McCain's plan made sense, one of the better things I found was on Slate, from back in February. The other was in the New York Times.
This detailed analysis of exactly how the candidates are campaigning keeps getting printed under the excuse that it reveals their character, and that it addresses the important issue of who will be the next President of the United States. But this is, of course, bullshit--the bit that actually counts is whether their economic plans are going to work, which approach to health insurance actually makes sense, and which approach to Iraq. But it looks as though the chance of most front pages, electronic and paper, getting any closer to the question of which economic plan will work than the debate over whether Obama and McCain are accurately characterising what each other said about the economy four months ago, is pretty slim. It makes the clip at the top of this entry look like a romanticization of American campaigns.
So, on the whole, I think Dean Reynold's piece about how well the McCain and Obama campaigns tend to the press was about the deepest and most important piece of journalism I've read about this campaign. As long as we're talking mostly about how the candidates attempt to manipulate their own and each other's images in the media, what could be more relevant than the immediate way they interact with representatives of the media?
By David Cohen
October 18, 2008 1:12 AM
I'd like to withdraw these remarks, as, considering the turn the campaign's now taken into talking in as much detail as you can expect about their economic plans, they're moot if they weren't just dead wrong to begin with.