Your comments don’t rise nearly to mespo’s level. You seem to think if you read a couple of articles and listen to a couple of podcasts you actually know what you are talking about. You don’t. You are , obviously neither a business person or an economist.

Nothing irritates me more – on this blog or elsewhere, than people like you, Jill. I am sick of your incessant hand-wringing negativity.

Throw your vote away if you chose, worry yourself to death, and continue to blame ‘wealthy people’ for this entire mess.

I don’t care to read it any longer.

And don’t be too terribly surprised if Jamie Dimon ends up as Secretary of the Treasury under Obama.

We could do a lot worse…

Dr. Paul,
I don’t know what your degree is in, but for the minds of potential students I pray that it is not history. To characterize the NAZI party as “socialist” betrays a lack of knowledge of both socialism and Nazism. The current Republican Administration represents the closest iteration of Nazism (Fascism if you will) that we’ve had in this country. Incidentally, are you aware that W’s Grandfather Senator Prescott Bush assisted in funding the Nazi’s rise and also was trying to organize a coup against FDR?

As far as welfare being “something for nothing” I also hope that your “Doctorate” isn’t in economics, because you show an extreme lack of understanding of our current meta financial system. The policy of the Federal Reserve has been for at least 3 decades to
raise interest rates, to dampen the economy and depress wages, each time unemployment falls below a certain number. In essence this means that our economy depends, according to Conservative economic thinkers, on an unemployment rate of about 4.5%, which figures in to about 8% if you don’t play with the definition of unemployed, as the Reagan Administration started doing.

Since the economic/financial elite deems it needs people being out of work to make their system work, welfare isn’t a “handout,” it’s a means of giving the appearance of financial fairness and stability. Beyond that we do have something for nothing in the US, handouts to corporations and a tax system that puts the burden on the middle class. 40% of US Corporations pay no taxes and loopholes ensure handouts to the wealthy in the form of tax breaks. Perhaps you’re a Medical doctor, or Dentist and have benefited from these handouts yourself?

I’d argue this further with you but the ignorance of your comment bespeaks a smug, self satisfied individual who replaces thought and research with dumb talking points.

bush felt quite strongly that he should not be asked any questions about his judgement on almost every topic. He let the media know they should be a lapdog or he wasn’t going to give them access. If Obama wants to bring change, this would be a very important area for him to exhibit this, not as a talking point, but as an actual reality.

I must echo mespo’s comments (above) on blacklisting.

Anyone who hasn’t realized that the current regime (and its successor in waiting, John McCain), has been engaged in the systematic erosion of our Constitutional rights just hasn’t been watching. I have no idea how “our courts have legalize [sic] many of the princiles of Eugenics, and now call it Genetic Engineering.” But I will say our courts have been stalwart protectors of the freedoms that are under daily assault. The reason John McCain should not be considered presidential timber is that if his selection of a VP candidate mirrors his judgment in the selction of Supreme Court justices, your dire prediction may well come true.

…one for the Gibb’er

I really see this so differently. The quote from James Galbraith was taken from his book published before this ratched up. We’ve had communist witch hunts, the red menace etc. for a long time in the US.

Maybe it’s because I live in a VERY conservative area that I think as I do, but the McCain supporters really freaked out when Obama talked about “spreading the wealth around”. That statement made him a socialist or worse, end of story.

Is it true that the right wing media took that to ridiculous levels? Yes. The right wing base will buy the idea that a right of center politician is a socialist. I don’t think anyone could not have understood the questioner was right wing, that was blatant. But Obama made the statement and he’s fully capable of restating what he meant, as Biden did in the interview.

Obama is believed by both the right and the left wing media to be the candidate of choice for the press. I just don’t see has campaign as victimized by those questions.

Dr.K.,
I agree with you about disclosure, it happens rarely in the MSM.
While most people know about Andrea Mitchell’s husband, it is hard to assume even with this disclosure, many don’t realize the bias appearance that this raises. Mitchell is just the tip of the iceberg and it is little wonder that our political discussion in the media is skewed so far to the right, that Pat Buchanan seems regarded as little more than a right wing centrist by the media.

I think answering the question is fighting back. This fear of “socialism” predates Obama and is embedded in our society. Let me just quote from James K. Galbraith: “{liberals} praise the “free market” simply because they fear that, otherwise, they will be exposed as heretics, accused of being socialists…” (from a review of his book, The Predator State in NY Review of books).

I like my neighbors. Many of them have McCain signs in their law, including one “traitor” trial attorney! So I ask them why they like McCain and don’t like Obama. I have heard the, “Obama is a socialist” line from each and every McCain supporter, no exceptions. These are not stupid people, yet that belief has no basis in fact. In my opinion Obama is a right of center politician. He comes out of the Chicago school of economics which is pretty right wing.

As this issue predates Obama and there seems to be a genetic fear of the “red menace” in the U.S. it needs to be addressed. I watched the tape twice. I though Biden aquitted himself very nicely (with one exception). By blacklisting the station the campaign has turned a positive into a negative.

This isn’t just a cooked up question from the MSM. It’s a belief of many people in this nation. It should be answered. It is to Obama’s benefit to answer it, not because he will convince the far right (he won’t) but he may get through to people who will listen to an argument. I think Biden’s answers accomplished that goal.

The Obama campaign is showing a very ugly side of itself by blacklisting or refusing further interviews. It’s sending a powerful message to all the press–”you ask questions we don’t like and we’ll cut you off”. That’s a formidable threat that I’m certain wasn’t lost on other news organizations. We don’t need an even more vapid, compliant press. This is a very bad move.

“It’s not that the questions were too (tough, it’s that they were) absolutely 100% ridiculous and unwarranted.

“It’s not that the questions were too absolutely 100% ridiculous and unwarranted.”

Obama’s campaign should spend their time talking with professionals! And my hat is off to them for saying they aren’t going to interact with this station. They’re telling it like it is. It’s not that the questions were too absolutely 100% ridiculous and unwarranted.

As for McCain giving full access to the media… You mean how he gave the media full access to Palin? Yeah, that was a good example of how it should be done.

The stupidity of equating Obama with being a socialist, or a Marxist would only have validity if McCain were being asked about whether he was a Fascist, or Ms. Palin as to whether she was a traitor given her and her husband’s ties to the AIP. As we know the MSM would not dare to ask such loaded questions to the Republican candidates. All tax policy deals with distribution of wealth and we are coming through almost 3 decades of a Republican tax policy that has clearly redistributed wealth upwards. The Bush tax cuts alone increased our national debt by about a Trillon$. I don’t particularly like blacklists, nor think it is politically smart to discuss them. However, the prior Democratic policy of ignoring the disparity of MSM press coverage proved totally ineffective.

At some point, no matter the quality of our intellects, we must also explore our visceral perceptions of the world. There are 10′s of millions of people in pain and despair in this country due to the faux Conservative mythology that has substituted for governance in the last 3 decades, view Greenspan’s astounding testimony at the Waxman committee. I am angry at how people of the supposedly lesser classes have been treated since the Reagan insanity began and I am sick and tired of the support given to the mythological nonsense peedled and coddled by the MSM. Maybe it was unpolitical to admit to this so-called blacklisting, but fighting back at this unfairness is absoluted neccessary.

Obama and Biden are not celebrities. They aspire to the positions of President and Vice President and seem likely to win them. The citizenry has a right to get straight answers from its political leadership.

Not all the questions posed by the media, corporate or otherwise, will be well framed or well intentioned. But I see no reason why Obama or Biden can’t parry such questions. Moreover, I believe it is their duty to do so. What would be so difficult about Biden telling the interviewer that she is simply confused, that progressive taxation is not the same thing as socialism?

If you don’t think this approach can work I suggest you tune in C-Span to the Prime Minister’s Q & A. No one cuts anyone else any slack & British political discourse is better for it.

I’ve chalked it up to making the best of a less than ideal situation,
rather than what would have amounted to a symbolic gesture.

As for taxes, the money has to come from someplace.

However, for some of us, money does grow on trees, well it did when I had a tree pruning business. But even back a couple years ago, when it was growing by the bushel load for me, only a small amount of objective observation could foretell the mortgage meltdown we were facing as 100 year old house in my neighborhood were “valued” at $450,000. Not to mention the national debt was skyrocketing after being brought under control in 1998-2000.

And that brings us to the point of, is it really “blacklisting” a “news” outlet, when they are nothing more than corporate lapdogs, owned by corporations, to represent the views of the corporations and to make their views the de facto truths of the world around us?

If we learned anything from the Rev. Wright “controversy”, it is that the MSM will do what is best for them first and foremost. If that means turning a sensational issue of zero relevance to their viewers lives in order to draw in more viewers and more advertising revenue, then that is what they will do. I hate using this term when it comes to Obama, but having a celebrity do an interview on a local station is a privilege to that station, not a right given that they no longer have any obligations to report news, but rather their obligations are to their stockholders and to make profit through drawing in the biggest names, most hyped sensational stories, all to increase advertising dollars spent at their station.

This is not blacklisting, this is selective marketing. West and her producers, asked the questions they did to draw in viewers and in turn advertisers. The Obama-Biden campaign decision to not go on this channel again, is nothing more than denying that channel the privilege of their celebrity to capitalize for their stockholders.

If the “news” media was not owned by corporations, then the Obama-Biden campaigns choice to not appear on there again would be considered blacklisting free press, however that is not the case in this corporation/market driven infotainment media environment we find ourselves blinding buying into.

Rafflaw, I did not read any comments here suggesting ‘it’s OK for Obama to act ‘badly’.

As for FISA, you know the criminal provisions are still intact and must be aware of the reasoning Obama gave for voting for the bill, when he stated:

“…It is a close call for me,” Obama told reporters. But he said the addition of the “exclusivity” provision giving power to the secret court, along with a new inspector general role and other oversight additions, “met my basic concerns.” He said the bill’s target should not be the phone companies’ culpability, but “can we get to the
bottom of what’s taking place, and do we have safeguards?..”

John Dean also wrote about it at length and appeared on KO this summer.

http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/dean/20080702.html

As for taxes, the money has to come from someplace.
It ‘doesn’t just grow on trees’, as my father always used to say.

I agree that more such questions should be asked. Most of the questions, particularly during the vice presidential debate, were laughable soft balls eliciting scripted responses. The point is that Obama and Biden (and other leading democrats) have made taxes a major issue. Saying that you want to redistribute wealth can be a misstatement. However, democrats have been repeatedly saying that tax increases are a central part of the objectives — playing to the very weakness the handed over the middle class to the GOP in the first place. We can debate the logic of such a campaign politically. We can also agree that reporters are not asking enough tough questions. However, this response was highly ill-advised and I doubt that it was approved by the campaign. It sounds like Biden was ticked and then the staff member over-reacted.

We’re not going to agree on this one. I want to say that I do know you have spoken out strongly on FISA and you did say the blacklisting is wrong. It’s other statements I disagree with you on. Even so please don’t think I ever question your good intent.

I agree that relevance of a question is a material concern. Creating false impressions is at the heart of propaganda and irrelevant and/or inflammatory questions are a tool in that toolbox. I do think there are ways to handle this type of tactic. I say since you can object for relevance in court, it’s fair game in an interview. Just say, “That’s not relevant. Do you have another question?” and move on. If they continue, briefly (and only briefly, to go on extemporaneously might put you on the defensive) explain once why it is irrelevant and again ask do they have other questions. By explaining your objection succinctly and being open to more questions you remove the appearance of stonewalling. If they persist, end the interview politely – possibly with an offer to return when the “reporter” has legitimate questions. Your opponent is disarmed. They are left with no place to run but opinion, speculation and/or smear, all of which can be countered in other ways and often self-destruct in the information age. Look at how successful McRage and Ms. Nasty Alaska have been in linking Ayers and Obama. Only the most propaganda susceptible among us believe an eight year old boy was helping Ayers in the old days. Since Ayers has been a model citizen since his bomb making days as well, it was easily exposed as a raw tactical lie and irrelevant to boot. The men had brief but legitimate business contact. I like it when things like that blow up in the liar’s face. The GOP look petty and desperate for their efforts.

The danger of this tactic for the politician is that he/she had damn well better be certain that it’s neither relevant nor related to something of legitimate concern that could come back to bite them. If your flanks are covered though, I think it’s a solid tactic.

I am not concerned with how the McCain campaign runs as a way to excuse what Obama does. It’s like torture–it’s not about them, it’s about us. Obama has not just sporadically tried to control the press, he has done so consistently and from the beginning. It would be wrong for McCain to do this and many have rightly critized him for doing this with Palin. It is equally wrong for Obama to do so.

The socialism claim has been made and needs to be addressed forcefully. It is particularly ironic that it occurs at the same time cheneybush have socialized the losses and left the gains in private hands of the finacial industry. Obama and Biden should show some courage and take this issue on squarely.

rafflaw, I get so worried when you and other Obama supporters say it’s O.K. for Obama to act badly. I feel this is sending him the strongest message that he can take as much power as he likes and get away with it. Flower child and FFLEO are correct in pointing to the disastrous consequences of a compliant press and a secretive candidate/president.

The First Amendment is too important for denigration by blacklisting, especially by government officials who are public servants.

I have spent 2 years attempting FOIA requests and state public records requests to expose governmental abuse, dishonesty, and unethical behavior. Redacted FOIA documents I receive, that are worthless because of the marks-a-lot blacking-out of information, are a form of ‘blacklisting’ my requests for facts and transparency in government.

The Bush Administration’s abuse of power should demonstrate why we must abhor all forms of blacklisting.

It surpasses my understanding how a scholar of Constitutional law could have voted for the FISA bill. I know that it may have been politically expedient to do so, but if there was ever a time to reject expediency in favor of principle, that was it.

Obama’s manipulation of the press is right out of the Atwater/Rove play book, albeit kinder & gentler. And why not: you don’t have to play hardball when you’re a media darling. In any case, the press is out of its depth covering anything other than celebrity meltdowns & lurid crimes –often in the same story.

I can see the element of bad faith in the questions addressed to Biden, but Biden should be perfectly capable of both answering the questions & deflecting the attempt by the interviewer to score cheap points.

The reaction by the Obama campaign signals that they are only willing to engage with a lapdog Fourth Estate. In other words, the media should treat them with deference. Obama & Biden are not royalty –which gets back to my remarks about the Imperial Presidency. We do not owe deference to our political leaders when it comes to examining their policies or public pronouncements.

I have to agree with JT on this one. Blacklisting the station isn’t the answer. However, I understand the temptation to do so. Buddha teaches us that difficult people are a blessing because they give us a chance to practice patience. It is also a perfectly human response to want to strike back when you’ve been ambushed – either in a conversation or elsewhere. Was the formulation of the question top shelf? No. They were garbage. The were an irritant and possibly (probably) designed to be that way. Some reporters question this way because they cannot make a distinction between reporting the news and making the news. To her, getting Biden to get mad or make a mistake because it would be good for her career is more important than doing her job properly. She is a bad reporter, not as in bad actor, but as in poorly skilled. It is also human nature to avoid irritants when you cannot eliminate them. To properly handle the situation, Biden could have out argued her premises in such a way as to embarrass the woman. That would have also required more time than he was probably allowed and runs the risk of making him look aggressive, petty, etc. if not executed just so. So the A List solution was out from the onset. That leaves them with B and C. B would be to let sleeping dogs lie – probably the optimal solution. She didn’t succeed in making news like she had intended but blacklisting the station only draws attention to her. Had they let it drop, no one would be talking about it now. So the Obama camp went with a draconian C. Blacklist the station. Total avoidance of future irritation. Also a understandable human reaction. However, it also creates an issue of access. Politicians need to appear open to questions even if they aren’t and ideally they should be willing to take all comers since they want to have such an important job. Blacklisting conveys the opposite. It is also a tactic of Bush Co. – press access control. We’ve had enough of that I think you’ll all agree. But that leave the question of appropriate response. How to seem open and yet avoid any future issues. Given this scenario, I understand why they went with C, however, their version of C smells more like hatchet than scalpel. If you don’t want to deal with HER IN SPECIFIC in the future, I have no issue with that – a “micro-blacklisting”. I’m betting Bob Woodward will get to talk to Bush again on about the 3rd of Never. I know I’d give an interview to CNN unless the questioner was going to be Glenn Beck – I don’t traffic with fascist propagandists. Hell, people do this all the time in daily life. Ever go to a longer line at the grocery store to avoid a checker that just pisses you off? Go around some half-wit at work who makes your head ache to deal with? I’m thinking most of you have. But blacklisting the station smells like Revenge ala Nixon served with a side of “I don’t have to answer your stinking questions”. I for one have had way too much of that kind of arrogance during the last eight years, but with the options available in this scenario, I think I understand how this happened. The Obama campaign overreacted. But in the scope of the totality of issues, it’s a small and understandably human screwup and one that can be fixed.

“John McCain, you have voted 90% of the time with George Bush, that is of course the 34% of the time you show up to vote. Bush’s tax policies have straddled $5 Trillion more dollars onto the National Debt, or $16,667 owed by each and every man, woman and child in the United States. Why are you willing to continue Bush’s tax policies and continue to kick the can down the street, forcing your grandchildren to pay for your extravagant spending, free giveaways to offshore corporations and unending war in Iraq?”

Oh right, no one in the journalistic profession with any integrity whatsoever is willing to ask that question, yet nut bag hypocritical “fiscal conservative” people on the right can claim the sky is falling with socialism looming around the corner, will ask anything with no validity whatsoever and then cry when they are rightly “blacklisted”.

Yes, this blacklist should be withdrawn immediately. Obama and Biden are intelligent people and they can answer these questions. They should take them on and make the questioner state things like, “Do you really think I’m a Marxist? Then let me explain about Marxism.”

Our press didn’t ask questions of bush and friends. Interestingly when don rumsfield was questioned by the british press he suddenly became able to answer actual difficult and nuanced questions.

I read that quote by Biden and I don’t know what the hell he meant by it. I’m certain he’s capable of explaining what he meant. I’m also certain Obama can explain what he meant by spreading the wealth around. For one thing, wealthy “support the troops” Republicans should actually quite whinning and “support our troops” by funding their medical/education/get their life back together programs. It is shameful that wealthy people will not put their money into these types of programs while screaming loudly that we need the war to “keep us safe”.

I very much worry that the left is letting Obama get away with an awful lot. If we don’t stand up for our rights, no matter if it’s “our guy” violating them or the other guy then we will lose them.

Joe Biden can speak for himself – ‘gaffes’ and all and not have it be a disaster, unless they insist on following up with responses like this. And he is right, Obama would need our support if something happens early. I trust Americans to participate in supporting an administration that is the antitheses of the current one, on all sorts of issues this time around. At least that is my wish. Perhaps we’re starting now.

When I listen to McCain, I shake my head at how desperate and crotchety he’s become with clenched fists waving and his wild-eyed insistence that he has all the answers already and has been ‘tested’… No thanks!

Politicians are asked such inappropriate or badly framed questions all the time. The issue here is not whether the question was well-crafted (it wasn’t, but I believe the tax question as a subject is a legitimate one). The issue is an official campaign blacklisting, a long scourge of American politics.

As for the content, I agree with the people who have pointed out that taxes ALWAYS redistribute wealth in some way. The only way to avoid that is a 100% pay-as-you-go model, and I think we all agree that charging a murder victim’s families hundreds of thousands of dollars for the investigation and prosecution of the murderer is unacceptable. Plus, what do you do when the convicted murderer can’t pay for his incarceration any longer? Set him free? Bill the murder victim’s family?

The only question is the policy driving the distribution of those taxes. Do you base it on a conscious public policy, no matter how flawed the implementation, or do you take a “squeaky wheel” approach? Do you try to make the tax proportionate to the benefit? E.g., the current bailout hits everyone via a general obligation. Why wasn’t a “0.1% tax on each transaction” financing model chosen instead?

I think there’s no doubt that we’ve had a “squeaky wheel” approach to taxation since Reagan, and especially under the current administration. I think it’s a legitimate question for people to ask if we need to balance taxation again, especially after huge gap between improvements in worker productivity and drop, in real value, of employee compensation while the top people have made unprecedented gains. You don’t have to be a Marxist to ask if that’s in the long term interests of this country. But a 5 minute interview where you’ve been called a Marxist is not the place for that discussion.

I certainly do not want to defend the form of the questions. However, politicians find many question to be “loaded.” Bush hated unscripted questions. I though that Biden handled the question well in the interview. I simply do not understand the need or wisdom of embracing blacklisting of a station because a reporter was clueless in how she framed the question.

JT

It was a truly offensive “interview”, though Biden handled it extraordinarily well.

I agree that the questions were poorly constructed, but they were in my view valid points of inquiry. The Obama campaign has made tax increases a looming concern for taxpayers due to Biden’s “taxes are patriotic” statement and Obama’s “spreading the wealth.” Polls show that middle class voters are showing increased concern over such pro-tax views. The concern is that, just as the Republicans refuse to think beyond their past themes, the democrats are returning to the tax policies that undermined them in the past with the middle class. Biden’s statement on being tested was remarkably ill-advised and an legitimate subject of questioning. (I happen to view the tested controversy as overblown and it should be easily dismissed in an answer from Biden).

My concern Rafflaw is the scourge of a blacklist. First, it is remarkably stupid to publicly announce a blacklist, even if you are going to do it. Second, I do not think that you should do it. West blew the question by throwing in Marxism. However, the question of “redistributing the wealth” does reflect a very extreme view of the purpose of government. Obama appears to have distanced himself from the statement, but it is worth such questioning. I disagree that there was not legitimacy to the subject of the questions. However, even though I do not believe that the “tested” controversy is a serious political question, it is a better of public concern.

A president and vice-president must uphold the constitution, including the freedom of press. It is not a violation to blacklist whole stations, but it certainly runs against the spirit of first amendment. I give great credit to Obama and Biden for going on Fox News. While one may agree with blacklisting in this case, it inevitably leads to Nixonian abuses. If you can blacklist a station over awkward or clueless questions, then you can blacklist over rising “irrelevant” subject matters in the view of a candidate. The campaign views these gaffes and mistakes as statements taken out of context and irrelevant. Many voters do not agree. It is particularly ironic to have someone questioned on a gaffe, then blacklist the reporter for a poorly crafted question.

I understand your points and I am not saying that the campaign should over-compensate by struggling to give future interviews with the reporter. However, an interview was scheduled and should be honored. More importantly, the campaign should retract the letter from McGinnis as not the policy of the campaign.