Peggy Noonan Can't Pin the Tail on a Donkey
Right-wingers have gone ballistic since Wednesday's Republican YouTube debate because four of the questioners appear to be Democrats, including the retired "do ask, do tell" soldier who hogged not one but two microphones, and it's apparently GOP policy to avoid speaking to outsiders until the general election. But when Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan went hunting for Democrats today in that debate's target-rich environment, she still came up empty-handed.
Check out this huge blunder in Noonan's column:
I thought of this the other night when citizens who turned out to be partisans for Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards asked the Republicans, in debate, would Jesus support the death penalty, do you believe every word of the Bible, and what does the Confederate flag mean to you?
None of those three questions was asked by a partisan for a Democratic candidate.
Tyler Overman, who asked if Jesus would support the death penalty, is a 23-year-old from Memphis, Tennessee, with no stated political affiliations on his YouTube profile or MySpace page. I could find no blogger or media report linking him to Democrats.
Joseph Dearing, who asked whether candidates believe every single word in his Bible, describes himself on YouTube as a "saved Bible-believing Christian" and has posted 24 videos over the past six months on the Book. He's a 24-year-old from Grand Prairie, Texas, who has a GodTube profile that states, "I've grown a lot spiritually, thanks to the influence of the infallible word of God, which today is found in the Authorized (King James) Bible." He told the Dallas Morning News that he was disappointed in the answers he got and is a Ron Paul supporter.
Leroy Brooks, who asked the flag question, is a self-described "kid" from Houston, Texas who declares on his YouTube profile that he's a Paul supporter. This ought to be no surprise, considering the Guy Fawkes bust in the background of his video. Paul backers have adopted that literal revolutionary as a symbol of their metaphorical goal to blow up big government.
In comments he posted on YouTube, Brooks said the purpose of the question was "to get a major candidate to attack me or blow me off and therefore hurting their southern base." (I think it may have succeeded where Mitt Romney is concerned, because his slam against the flag will burn some South Carolinans.)
Brooks also explained what the Confederate flag means to him:
for me it is a image that represents the first and only time in american history when a large group of people, who disapproved of government policies (slavery being just one of many), stood up and said "We're not going to take it anymore!".
So he's hanging that ginormous Confederate flag on his wall as a symbol of opposition to slavery. YouTube grades on a curve.
There's something unseemly about fisking people because they asked questions at a debate, as if you can't ask a good question because you already picked a horse in this race. Many political bloggers have pledged their troth to a specific candidate; does that mean they should also drink a glass of shut the hell up?
My favorite response to the debate is the bloggers like Malkin who have outed Log Cabin Republican David Cercone because he's supporting Barack Obama. The fact he's been left to vote Democrat, because all of the Republicans on that stage are allergic to his support, was the point of his question!
As a yellow-dog Democrat who watched the entire debate, I thought most of the questions were fair, aside from the gay soldier who should've been excluded by virtue of being too closely affiliated with Clinton. The fact some people asked questions for less than genuine reasons is less important to me than the substance of the answers -- watching Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani wrestle with Biblical literalism is just deserts for a GOP that's come to believe it has cornered the market on faith.
As Peggy Noonan should know, that question came from a God-fearing Republican.
YouTube Questioner in the Dark on Immigration
During last night's Republican YouTube debate on CNN, a disembodied head asked the candidates if they would ever support amnesty for illegal immigrants.
None of the candidates who answered his question -- Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain -- wanted to anger the head, which makes perfect sense to me. That guy was terrifying.
When CNN moderator Anderson Cooper followed up the question by announcing that the head was in the audience, I expected the cameras to pan to a scene of unthinkable carnage.
Ripping Music to OGG Files on Windows
I rip music CDs to OGG files, abandoning the MP3 format in favor of an open standard that's encouraged for adoption by the Free Software Foundation. Although OGG works in fewer places than MP3 today, it's completely free for developers to support and gets music listeners away from patent attorneys, which makes it the better long-term choice.
After having some trouble finding a ripper that supports OGG, I discovered Audiograbber, a free Windows program that's unpolished but gets the job done. Audiograbber can download album data from FreeDB, save the songs with customized filenames, and create playlists.
I'm not an audiophile, so I don't know if the settings I'm using are optimal for music -- stereo, quality 5.0, 147 Kbits/second -- but I cranked it up to 11 on some new deviltry from Mudvayne, and I don't think I'm missing any subtleties.
Credit: The photo was taken by When1_8becomes_2zero and is available under a Creative Commons license.
CNN's Self-Importance is Beyond Debate
At last night's Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer spoke for more time than five of the seven candidates, repeatedly getting in the way of substantive discussion by reducing issues to yes/no options. But it wasn't until the audience got its chance to ask questions that the CNN team demonstrated how inflated in self-importance our leading broadcast journalists have become during presidential campaigns.
After a commercial break, undecided voter LaShannon Spencer posed the following question, which was greeted with applause by the crowd: "We constantly hear health care questions and questions pertaining to the war. But we don't hear questions pertaining to the Supreme Court justice or education. My question is, if you are elected president, what qualities must the appointee possess?"
This question was the first posed about the court during the debate, and the audience greeted it with applause. But Suzanne Malveaux, the CNN anchor assigned to audience duty, couldn't leave it alone and let the candidates speak. She added a question of her own: "I'd like to get to Senator Dodd, if you would. And in answering that question, also tell us whether or not you would require your nominees to support abortion rights."
After Dodd answered the question, Blitzer posed it to all of the candidates: "All right, let's go through the whole panel. I want everybody to weigh in. This is an important question that was raised. I'll start with Senator Biden. Would you insist that any nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court supported abortion rights for women?"
Last night's voter questions were better and more serious than the ones asked by CNN (with one exception at the end). On the court question, Blitzer and Malveaux reduced the voter to a prop, replacing her question with their own and telling the audience how "important" it was.
The arrogance was so apparent that Sen. Joe Biden, much to his credit, chided them for it:
Biden: Suzanne's decided. I'm not answering her question. I'm answering the question of the woman who is there. Okay? (Cheers, applause.) And -- number one. And then I'll answer Suzanne's question.
Blitzer: Well, let's ask the woman. Do you want him to answer that question?
Biden: Do you want me to answer your question?
Spencer: I would like for you to answer both questions.
Despite the admonishment, Malveaux did it again as the debate was drawing to a close.
Frank Perconte, a student at UNLV where the debate was being held, posed this question: "Whether it's the continuing violence in Iraq, or if it's a potential confrontation with Iran, or even the emerging instability in Pakistan, nothing seems to be getting any better in the Middle East. It only seems to be getting worse. And if the upcoming election is anything like the last two elections, if any of you is elected, in all likelihood, you'll be presiding over an extremely divided electorate. Almost half the country is not going to agree with you on the direction you want to take this country to meet those challenges in the Middle East. So my question to you is, assuming you are elected, the day after you take the oath of office, what message will you offer the whole country, to unite all of us behind you, so that you can see us through this period of transition that we're in?"
Malveaux couldn't just direct this question to candidates and let them run with it. She responded, "I'd like to refer that to Senator Obama. Senator Obama, you said on a TV interview just this past weekend, you didn't believe that Senator Clinton was able to unite this country. Why do you believe she can't?"
In the movie Broadcast News, Albert Brooks plays a high-minded TV reporter who finds his business being taken over by telegenic celebrity anchors and ratings-obsessed entertainment. Watching a colleague shed a tear on the air during an interview, Brooks laments, "Let's never forget, we're the real story, not them."
Like every film decrying the state of broadcast journalism, the film has proven to be prophetic. Sharing a stage in Vegas with the next Democratic nominee for president, Blitzer and Malveaux acted like they were the real story. But we're the ones who should be crying.
Supporting the Writers Guild Strike
I'm in full support of the 10-day-old Writers Guild strike, which you can follow by reading their strike blog United Hollywood and television writer Mark Evanier's News From Me blog. There's a lot of money being made in DVD sales and online viewing of TV shows, and writers get bupkiss, as Lost head writer Damon Lindelof explains:
My show, Lost, has been streamed hundreds of millions of times since it was made available on ABC's Web site. The downloads require the viewer to first watch an advertisement, from which the network obviously generates some income. The writers of the episodes get nothing. We're also a hit on iTunes (where shows are sold for $1.99 each). Again, we get nothing. ...
I am angry because I am accused of being greedy by studios that are being greedy. I am angry because my greed is fair and reasonable: if money is made off of my product through the Internet, then I am entitled to a small piece. The studios' greed, on the other hand, is hidden behind cynical, disingenuous claims that they make nothing on the Web -- that the streaming and downloading of our shows is purely "promotional." Seriously?
I sent Evanier an email asking how strike-supporting viewers can help put the screws to producers and force a deal. I won't be happy if this strike ends up killing my soaps, which have been teetering on the brink of doom and would be unlikely to survive if they stopped broadcasting new episodes for any length of time. It would be particularly cruel if General Hospital were cancelled so soon after Kelly Monaco's character bought a hot tub. Evanier's advice: "Don't watch reruns and filler shows. Complain about them." I can do that, no matter how much my TiVo wants me to catch up on Ugly Betty.
One of the only perks of a strike in the entertainment business is that the pickets are entertaining, like this rant by Everybody Hates Chris producer Ali LeRoi and series star Todd Bridges.
"We got kids, man," LeRoi said. "How do you think Todd Bridges ended up on crack? He was broke. We don't want our kids to end up on crack; give us our DVD money."
Credit: The strike photo was taken by NoHoDamon and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
Obama Hits Wrong Note with National Anthem
Of all the presidential candidates to make their feelings known about symbolic expressions of patriotism like flag lapel pins and the National Anthem, none has been more candid than Sen. Barack Obama -- hands down.
In early October, Obama told a TV reporter in Iowa that he had made a conscious decision to stop wearing a flag pin on his lapel, a standard fashion accessory for American politicians since 9/11.
"You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."
Obama's explanation impressed people who are sick of empty patriotic gestures like leaving a "These Colors Don't Run" bumper sticker on your SUV for so long that it fades. But his decision to make this reasoning public doesn't make sense at all.
Nothing good can come from being a presidential candidate who explicitly refuses to wear an American flag. It's a discussion you lose just by having, like holding a press conference to declare that you are so not gay.
Yesterday, Obama chose to defend a photo where he's shown with his hand down during the singing of the national anthem at a campaign event in Iowa. (Some reports incorrectly claimed it was during the Pledge of Allegiance.)
"My grandfather taught me how to say the Pledge of Allegiance when I was 2," Obama told a reporter, expressing his annoyance. "During the Pledge of Allegiance you put your hand over your heart. During the national anthem you sing."
For starters, Obama's granddad was wrong. There are four rules you're expected to follow during the anthem, as anyone who attends a sports event knows: Remove your gimme cap, move your beer to your left hand, place your right hand over your heart and mumble the words. (There's one extra rule in Dallas: Yell the word "Stars!")
But with this issue, Obama has once again fed a discussion that gains him nothing and throws a bone to the Lee Atwater memorial wing of the GOP, which can't wait to define this guy in the minds of a public that hasn't formed a strong sense of him yet. While Americans are still getting to know Obama, they're being told that he won't wear a flag pin and doesn't cross his heart during the national anthem. And it's true!
Are there any other symbolic gestures that represent love of country that Obama can go on the record against? "God Bless America" is kind of egotistical! Mom's apple pie is loaded with carbs! The insertion of "Under God" in the pledge was a misunderstanding of what Abraham Lincoln meant! The wings on Captain America's head look stupid and do not confer the power of flight!
Ron Paul: The $4.2 Million Dollar Man
I gave $25 to Ron Paul Monday because I couldn't resist being part of the largest grass-roots fundraising day in the history of American politics. The libertarian Republican raised $4.2 million from 37,000 contributors, according to a final tally provided to USA Today, from an effort that wasn't even organized by the campaign.
The idea to raise his profile with a "money bomb" on Nov. 5 was the brainchild of Trevor Lyman, the publisher of ThisNovember5th.Com. Lyman adopted the incendiary metaphor of Guy Fawkes, using a literal anti-government revolutionary to attract attention to a rhetorical bomb thrower.
In an email Paul sent contributors, the straight-laced doctor sounded more like a child of the '60s than any of the Democratic candidates:
I have to admit being floored by the $4.2 million dollars you raised yesterday for this campaign. And unlike the fatcat operations of the opposition, the average contribution from our 36,672 donors was $103.
I say "you raised," because this historic event was created, organized, and run by volunteers. This is the spirit that has protected American freedom in our past; this is the spirit that is doing so again.
Some of the mainstream media have sat up and taken notice. Others have pooh-poohed our record online fundraising. But the day is coming -- far faster than they know -- when they will not be able to ignore our freedom revolution.
I like Paul, in spite of the fact that I believe in most of the government programs he'd like to see abolished. Liberals can find common cause with Paul on issues like opposition to the Patriot Act, an end to the war in Iraq and preservation of constitutional liberties. (On Social Security, Medicare and the Department of Education not so much.) Paul's one of the most ideologically consistent presidential candidates, voting his beliefs reliably during 29 years in politics, and he's a throwback to the days when Republicans had an uneasy relationship with government. Today's borrow-and-spend Republicans are just as likely to break the bank as the tax-and-spend Democrats of old, but they spend the money on military adventures and corporate welfare instead of social programs, and they lay the bill on our grandkids and great-grandkids.
The chord Paul's striking with disenchanted Americans is impressive, even as they drive right-wing sites like RedState to hysteria with their online activism. The stuff that disciples of Paul are creating on their own has been the most effective campaigning I've seen thus far, like the iconic Ron Paul Revolution banner:
This astounding fund-raising achievement should compel the media to take Paul more seriously, even though he's yet to show enough polling success to be a realistic threat to win the nomination. He's raising money at a faster clip than the other Republican candidates and can carry his effort all the way to Election Day as a third-party candidate, which is where he ran in 1988 as the Libertarian nominee.
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