Completely Unnecessary

David Brooks weighs in on Palin’s debating techniques, and - as another testament to my studious work avoidance - I read his column.

Palin did great(ish), etc. Until:

With a bemused smile and a never-ending flow of words, she laid out her place on the ticket — as the fearless neighbor for the heartland bemused by the idiocies of Washington. Her perpetual smile served as foil to Biden’s senatorial seriousness.

I always have to look up ‘bemused’. I’m convinced that it should mean ‘vaguely confused amusement’, and fully expect that one day it will magically appear in the dictionary as such. So I keep looking.

Luckily, double clicking on any word on nyt.com brings up a definition of that word. So that’s how I know that, according to Brooks’ publication, Palin was:

So lost in thought as to be unaware of one’s surroundings: absent, absent-minded, abstracted, distrait, faraway, inattentive, preoccupied. Idioms: a million miles away. See ability/inability, awareness/unawareness.

Man, I agree with everyone these days!

Brooks goes on to ask, “Where was this woman was during her interview with Katie Couric?” Yes, because the antidote to ’senatorial seriousness’ is definitely what need on the Republican ticket - again.

And, finally, I can’t believe you’re going to make me go there, but all right:

…Palin broke no new ground, though she toured the landscape of McCain policy positions with surprising fluency… She was surprisingly forceful on the subject of Iran (pronouncing Ahmadinejad better than her running mate)…

If we’re really using pronunciation as the barometer of foreign policy depth, then her ‘mispronunciation’ of General McKiernan as “McClellan” certainly doesn’t bode well.

I mean, I don’t think it matters, but clearly Brooks must be worried about our policy in Afghanistan under a McCain/Palin Administration.

Dude, she can call Ahmadinejad ‘Joe SixPack’ for all I care, so long as she demonstrates an actual understanding of the world and its issues.

But - despite her folksy charm and well-rehearsed answers (and excellent pronunciation of words not ending in ‘g’) - that understanding is something she clearly lacks.

Vaguely Related

• The Toxic Mess on Main Street - The VP Debate
• Privacy and Publicity at the GOP Convention

Surprise!

Not sure why, but my brain just woke me at 5:30 in the morning. Given the all-historicalyness of McCain’s stunt and the debate tonight, thought I’d check the news:

McCain Decides to Participate in Debate

Well, that about sums it up.

Nothing like the promise of an hour of free television for one’s opponent to get one’s meddling butt on a plane to Mississippi.

Vaguely Related

• Second Debate Delay
• First Debate Liveblog

Is there really an article in the NYT today about the hugging ‘protocol’ between John McCain and Sarah Palin?

And could it possibly yield one of the most awkward paragraphs I’ve ever read?:

Already, there has been one noticeable shift in protocol: Mr. McCain now introduces his wife first, not Ms. Palin, when both are on stage. But it was not always that way: at his first postconvention rally with Ms. Palin, in Cedarburg, Wis., last Friday, Mr. McCain began by lavishly praising Ms. Palin, who had just rocked the Republican convention. “Isn’t this the most marvelous running mate in the history of this nation?” Mr. McCain asked the roaring crowd, as Mrs. McCain stood quietly by.
…
Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, Mark Salter, insisted that there had been no behind-the-scenes stage direction — “Nobody said, ‘Cindy first’ ” — and that no one in the campaign had discussed hugging etiquette or protocol between Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin. “They’re going to behave like normal human beings,” he said. “Nobody ever told him, ‘Just shake hands.’ ”

Some commentators have criticized the NYT’s article about Obama ‘dispatching’ Clinton and female surrogates, but this type of story is harder to stomach.

The use of verbs like ‘dispatch’ and ‘deploy’, I’d argue, have more to do with the media’s tendency to use sports and war metaphors in their election reporting than sexism. Clinton is now one of the troops in the Obama campaign machine.

In addition, Obama, as the head of the Democratic party, has the authority to direct supporters to where they are most useful. As such, it is also not surprising to see him as the subject of the sentence (though I could say a few words about the NYT’s seeming obsession with what will women do?! in this election).

The story quoted above smacks more of gender-based trivialization in its light, isn’t-this-so-weird-gurlfriend? tone. It quotes a male McCain representative, followed by two women etiquette experts and then Christopher Buckley for the funny.

Right in the middle is a comment from whatever woman they could find (and create more awkward sentences about):

Christine Todd Whitman, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bush who 15 years ago was the first woman elected as New Jersey’s governor, said that she, for one, had embraced many of her male counterparts, as long as she knew them well. “I gave them lots of hugs and kisses, depending on the governor,” she said. (Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania was one, John Engler of Michigan was another.)

Look, other girls do it, too! (And here’s who they do it with!)

I’m much less concerned with a (perceived) linguistic affront to Clinton (imagine her being sent somewhere, like every other surrogate!) than with articles that emphasize a (perceived) need to treat women candidates differently from their male counterparts.

The article doesn’t explore how Obama and Biden (the McCain/Palin equivalents) interact - it details interactions between Obama and Clinton.

The message is that political body language (at least hugging) is only important between the sexes.

This view posits women as outsiders to the political process - their presence in the arena is awkward and makes us scrutinize what is considered appropriate behavior.

In this article Palin, Clinton, Whitman and Ferraro are women first, politicians second.

It reaffirms and makes commonsense the notion that women in politics (and, perhaps most troubling, their bodies) are something unusual enough to garner special coverage. The constant repetition of this logic in the media prevents the naturalization of women as equal political figures.

One might say, it keeps them at arm’s length…

Vaguely Related

• Life Without Hillary Clinton
• Privacy and Publicity at the GOP Convention

During a time of crisis, it’s nice to know that you can turn to the media.

Specifically, citizens can rely on the Associated Press, who will more or less publish a press release in full, before it is carefully placed on the front page of the nyt.com:

Before she loaded up two daughters, an aunt, her sister-in-law and a niece to get out of Pearl River, La., north of New Orleans, Cyndy Nobles got into her 2007 Saturn Vue and called OnStar, figuring the operators would know the best way to get to the safety of a relative’s house in Meridian, Miss.
…
[Mo Crane] called to add minutes to his OnStar cell phone, which the service says has better coverage than standard cell services because it transmits from a car rooftop antenna rather than a hand-held phone.

Wait. Which year, make and model has OnStar?

A couple of touches keep this from being a straight press release. I’m almost sure that the reporter added the words ‘the service says’ to final sentence. The original would have read, ‘…which has better coverage…’

This has the usual dead giveaways of awkward, overly long sentences and the quotes that don’t sound like actual people.

But in this case - I think it’s the subadvertisement for the Saturn Vue that makes this a great advertorial.

Link:
Drivers rely on OnStar to evade Hurricane Gustav [AP via nyt.com]

[Oh darn, I seem to have forgotten to link to it.]

Vaguely Related

• Pictures in the Media: White vs. Brown
• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read

Well, supposedly the cat’s out of the bag. Eight minutes ago, the NYT posted that Biden’s been selected to fill the other half of the Obama ticket.

If it’s true, it’s certainly not the way Obama would have liked it to get out - Friday night via ‘people told of the decision’.

I’d actually really like it if the Obama camp pulled a big ’syke!’ on the press. That seems unlikely, though, since it would incurr the wrath of the people that Obama needs to communicate with voters.

All the buildup, though, seems rather… blah. The NYT’s Adam Nagourney’s been saying all week it’s Biden. It was supposed to be announced on Saturday, and now it’s announced by Nagourney and Jeff Zelney on Friday night instead.

It’s unclear to me if I’m supposed to be thrilled by this. (Also, if Nagourney’s paper really gets that many accolades for breaking a story that they’ve pretty much had all week.)

I’m hoping for an Obama bait-and-switch. American politics is supposed to be all drama and circuses.

I demand absurd surprises. If McCain selects Alan Keyes, I’ll vote for him.

ps - They’ve got Biden saying that Obama was ‘not yet ready’ to be president. Can’t wait to see those commercials run on loop for the next couple months. (Oh yeah, I don’t have to. Yay!)

Update- Obama’s website now has the Obama/Biden ticket up. Way to steal the Democratic ticket’s thunder, liberal media.

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Life Without Hillary Clinton

Let’s watch media priming in action, shall we?

Priming (and this is the short version) argues that the media help shape the way people think about issues - either through highlighting a particular issue or through the way an issue is presented. Essentially, people don’t use all the knowledge they know at any given time; our brains tend to travel down paths created through repetition or recent exposure.

Man, how boring is media theory?!?!

Here’s the lede from the NYT/Reuters story about the Green Party convention and nomination:

The U.S. Green Party, which captured far less than 1 percent of the vote in the last presidential election, chose former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney as its 2008 presidential candidate on Saturday.

The most important information comes first in hard news. So, the most important thing about the Green Party according to Reuters is that its candidates and the party are wildly unviable. They do not and cannot win elections.

Two paragraphs later, this information is reiterated and expanded upon, just in case you missed it:

In 2004, the Green Party drew 119,859 votes, or 0.1 percent of the total, finishing in sixth place behind the two major parties and three other third-party tickets.

But, wait… didn’t they do pretty well once? (Next paragraph)

The party’s best performance came in 2000 when Ralph Nader headed the ticket, and won 2.8 million votes, or 2.7 percent of the total. Some political analysts say Nader, a political and consumer activist, may have drawn votes from Democrat Al Gore and helped tip the election to Republican George W. Bush. Nader is running for president again this year as an independent.

That information comes before a description of McKinney, meaning it is more important than her qualifications or fitness for the presidency.

There’s a real sense of trying desperately to fill the story out. What is this sentence about?

The U.S. Green Party says it is a partner with the European Federation of Green Parties and the Federation of Green Parties of the Americas.

It ’says’ it is? And what does this signify? We’ll never know. (Sounds vaguely un-American though, doesn’t it?)

And, lastly, we get a quote from what is clearly the Green Party press release.

It’s pretty obvious that Reuters sent no one to the convention. There’s no one quoted in the story; they don’t even use a direct quote for the spokesman in the 3rd par, as would be standard.

So this story is just a combination of a press release and knowledge the Reuters writer thought was important enough for reiteration to readers. These facts are essentially:

• The Green Party loses elections by vast margins.
• When the party does well, they siphon votes from real candidates (and we get George W. Bush)

I don’t necessarily disagree with the bit about Nader (and Jeremy will explain why I am both wrong and a bad person in the comments), but these are the facts that we are constantly told about a party that - by its very position as a third party - challenges the status quo.

Imagine if the story about Obama’s nomination in Denver started this way:

The Democratic Party, which lost the presidency in both 2000 and 2004, chose Senator Barack Obama as its 2008 presidential candidate on Saturday.

Does that sound like a party you want to vote for?

As a small, realatively unfamiliar party, the Green Party relies on the media to introduce it and its candidate to the public. The US paper of record just ran with an agency story based on a press release that says, ‘Don’t waste your vote.’

Democracy served. Or primed.

Link:
Green Party Names McKinney as Presidental Pick

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Life Without Hillary Clinton

I told you he was back in fine form.

As opposed to last year when I was not so pleased with him, Kennedy has made some interesting rulings. (Not that I always agree with them, but…).

Anyway, the Times has a feature about his role on the Court this year.

He’s like the new Sandra Day-O!

Vaguely Related

• Pictures in the Media: White vs. Brown
• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read

Here’s the lede to a NYT article run the other day about the media’s potentially sexist treatment of Senator Clinton during her presidental campaign:

Angered by what they consider sexist news coverage of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, many women and erstwhile Clinton supporters are proposing boycotts of the cable networks, putting up videos on a “Media Hall of Shame,” starting a national conversation about sexism and pushing Mrs. Clinton’s rival, Senator Barack Obama, to address the matter.

And here is the picture they ran (and, considering that I saw it on HuffPost today, continue to run):

That is a sloppy screen capture, I apologise. I feel I should also say…

For realz?!?!

Though, I guess what better way to give that extra bit of meta f-you to Clinton than to show a picture of her boobs in the story in which you pretty much of blow off those charges of sexism.

Nice work.

Then again, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann called Katie Couric the “Worst Person in the World” for backing up the Clinton campaign, so I guess there are worse things.

Vaguely Related

• Candidates, the Media and the Sexist Politics of Hugging
• Life Without Hillary Clinton

People assume that I’m a Clinton supporter because I’m writing my thesis on her. It took me a long time to make a decision, but I eventually came down on the side of Obama.

With Obama making plans in Iowa for Tuesday night - presumably to claim the nomination - it seems a good time to reflect on the campaign and prospects for the future.

The problem is that I love Hillary Clinton. I think she’d make a great president, which is why it’s been so painful to see her campaign struggle and wildly misjudge the electorate. She undoubtedly faced a hostile press, but seemed unable to stop herself and her surrogates from continually harming her campaign.

Yet, Kate Zernike’s short opening question in her Week in Review piece laid bare the deep sorrow I’ll feel when Clinton seemingly inevitably gives in:

If not her, who?

And how long will we have to wait?

It’s not that I think a woman will necessarily represent me better than a man - just as I resent the media for assuming I am a woman candidate’s natural constituency - but I do sometimes wonder how much of a difference it would make in the lives of American women if we had a woman president.

Might some glass ceilings be shattered? Might some laws about women’s bodies be prevented? Might this never-ending cycle of women as ‘firsts’ be broken so that it stops holding back other women who run for office?

Anyway, looks like we won’t know this year.

But for many women, whether or not they support Mrs. Clinton, the long primary campaign has left them with a question: why would any woman run?

Many feel dispirited by what they see as bias against Mrs. Clinton in the media — the “Fatal Attraction” comparisons and locker-room chortling on television panels.
…
For this reason, [Karen O'Connor] said, she doesn’t expect a serious contender anytime soon. “I think it’s going to be generations.”

Others say Mrs. Clinton had such an unusual combination of experience and name recognition that she might actually raise the bar for women.

In fact, the biggest point of agreement seemed to be that there is no Hillary waiting in the wings.

Except, of course, Hillary.

I find this article almost absurdly depressing. I feel like Clinton and I have both let each other down.

Confidential to Hillary Clinton: If we’re wrong about Obama, you come kick his ass in 2012, okay?

Links:
She Just Might Be President Someday [NYT - Week in Review]
Obama to Return to Iowa, Possibly to Claim Victory [NYT]

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Privacy and Publicity at the GOP Convention

Fascinating article on Clinton in today’s NYT. Some highlights below in terms of gendered language.

I know a hell of a lot about Hillary Clinton, but there were some really interesting things I’d never heard before. For instance, she’s the one who came up with the term ‘war room’ for the 1992 Clinton campaign strategy team. Incidentally, War Room is an interesting documentary about that time, featuring Carville and Stephanopoulos, who looks all of about 15-years-old in 1992.

“She makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy,” North Carolina’s governor, Michael F. Easley, said in endorsing her, and a union leader in Portage, Ind., praised her “testicular fortitude.”

This kind of language and pugilistic imagery, however, also evokes the baggage that makes Mrs. Clinton such a provocative political figure. For as much as a willingness to “do what it takes” and “die hard” are marketable commodities in politics, they can also yield to less flattering qualities, plenty of which have been ascribed to her over the years. Just as supporters praise her “toughness” and “tenacity,” critics also describe her as “divisive,” “a dirty fighter” or “willing to do anything to win.”

I’m amazed that they totally leave aside the ‘bitch’ memes that float around her (or expressed on national television by Newt Gingrich’s mom). There are only vague references to troubles with her public persona. ‘Uppity’ is about the closest they get to describing the usual ‘aggressive’, ‘too…’, ‘not enough…’ language that usually turns up.

That’s not true actually - the NYT just has someone else say it:

“To me it showed her brittleness, her coldness, her spoiling for a fight,” said Mr. Cooper, an Obama backer.

Anyway, I think it’s a really interesting article, both in the construction and the content. Especially, as it’s currently running with a flattering picture of Obama and his daughter as a sidebar.

ps - couldn’t hate the gas tax ‘holiday’ more if they were offering to fuel cars with puppies.

Link:
Ruthlessness and Grit Seen in Clinton’s Style [NYT]

Vaguely Related

• Life Without Hillary Clinton
• Clinton, the Pundits and the Math