The AP's Nedra Pickler is at it again. Is Obama all style and little substance?
I've argued many times here that we kogs in the wheel of democracy need to be increasingly vigilant in keeping watch on the members of the media. Many of the usual offenders are quick and easy to spot - be they Chris Matthews, Charles Krauthamer, or Richard Cohen. Others are veiled by the (supposed) cache of being AP reporters. There are many among us who still want to believe that the AP is a benevolent source of news and information. We are led to believe that the AP is a "just the facts" organization. But that's just the myth.
Let's look at Nedra Pickler whose latest screed begins with a variation on "Some say":
WASHINGTON - The voices are growing louder asking the question: Is Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) all style and little substance? The freshman Illinois senator began his campaign facing the perception that he lacks the experience to be president, especially compared to rivals with decades of work on foreign and domestic policy. So far, he's done little to challenge it. He's delivered no policy speeches and provided few details about how he would lead the country.
See, Pickler herself isn't suggesting that Obama lacks substance. On that charge she would plead innocence. She's just reporting "the voices" that she hears. And whose voices are these? The voices coming from rival campaigns? The voices of the people? Or the voices in her head?
These are the voices of the authors of the Big Script.
Jamison Foner of Media Matters gets it. There is a storyline on each candidate and this storyline develops over the course of the campaign. Obama's storyline is that he is inexperienced.
Those who would apologize for the media's treatment of Clinton, Gore, Dean, and Kerry -- or who somehow fail to recognize it even now -- chalk it up to Clinton's supposed slickness, or Gore's trouble with the truth, or Dean's craziness, or Kerry's liberalism, and on and on and on -- somehow failing to recognize that they're excusing flawed media storylines about these candidates by citing those same flawed storylines. Hopefully hoping for the day when a progressive leader would emerge without these weaknesses.
It's up to us to spotlight and counter these flawed storylines. Because, on the other side of the political chasm, are people like Margaret Carlson. She is one of the many pundits who are responsible for the decline of political discourse in America. These words from her interview on Imus in the Morning are nearly seven years old, but haven't lost their resonance.
CARLSON (10/10/00): Gore’s fabrications may be inconsequential—I mean, they’re about his life. Bush’s fabrications are about our life, and what he’s going to do. Bush’s should matter more but they don’t, because Gore’s we can disprove right here and now...You can actually disprove some of what Bush is saying if you really get in the weeds and get out your calculator or you look at his record in Texas. But it’s really easy, and it’s fun, to disprove Gore.
[snip]
CARLSON: I actually happen to know people who need government and so they would care more about the programs, and less about the things we kind of make fun of...But as sport, and as our enterprise, Gore coming up with another whopper is greatly entertaining to us. And we can disprove it in a way we can’t disprove these other things.
Yup - for the Margaret Carlsons of the world, this is sport. But for the rest of us, this is about our country, life and family.
Does Obama "lack substance" or does he have something to say? Does someone like Nedra Pickler even give a damn about how a Democrat's policies might effect the lives of Americans.
Look again at that Carlson quote and remember what Pickler wrote:
CARLSON: I actually happen to know people who need government and so they would care more about the programs, and less about the things we kind of make fun of... But as sport, and as our enterprise, Gore coming up with another whopper is greatly entertaining to us. And we can disprove it in a way we can’t disprove these other things
These folks - these millionaire pundits who travel the Georgetown and Nantucket cocktail party set - actually know people that need the programs that our candidates are trying to get enacted. How quaint. How fucking quaint!
The Picklers of the world have one goal - to marginalize Democratic candidates via "the script." Take a look at how she recently described Al Gore's Senate appearance on Climate Change
Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.), who has labeled global warming a hoax, complained that the Democratic leadership gave Gore extra time and advantages not afforded typical witnesses. Inhofe then grilled Gore about his personal energy use at his Tennessee mansion and showed the final frame of Gore's film that read, "Are you ready to change the way you live?"
When Gore tried to respond at length, Inhofe cut him off.
The committee chair, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), kept trying to bring order to the hearing, and told Inhofe he could not control things anymore now that Republicans had lost their majority.
"Elections have consequences, so I make the rules," she said, holding up her gavel to cheers from the audience.
Gore sighed and proposed that he and Inhofe have breakfast and privately discuss the matter away from the cameras.
She knows the script that was used against Gore in 1999 and 2000. He goes on too long when he speak and he sighs too much. And just how does The Pickler know that Gore was going to "respond at length" if Inhofe cut him off? Like the rest of her ilk, she has her mind made up before Gore even opens his mouth. If Gore is responding, he must be doing it "at length." And don't forget about the "sigh."
This isn't news for those who remember Pickler's shenanigans during the last presidential election. There was a script about John Kerry that so many of the members of the entertainment "enterprise" voiced loud and clear. That script in 2003 and 2004 was that Kerry was a phony. Not a real man. Not a real veteran. But a phony.
When she hears voices about John Kerry, they are voices that come from the authors of the Big Script:
Records of John Kerry's Vietnam War service released Wednesday show a highly praised naval officer with an Ivy League education who spoke fluent French and had raced sailboats -- the fruits of a privileged upbringing that set him apart from the typical seaman.
Yup. Kerry's a phony. Got that, America. Oh, and if you want to parse the Pickler's language: Do you think she really meant that the records "showed" that Kerry spoke French and raced sailboats? Because that's what she wrote.
But wait, maybe just maybe, she's being fair. Maybe she gets pissed off at the wealthy Republicans too. Let's see:
PICKLER: After a week of campaigning for the less fortunate, John Kerry went on vacation with the fabulously wealthy.
Kerry is a rich man who promotes the Democratic ideal that government should do more to help the poor. He moves between both worlds, spending the past week traveling to downtrodden places like South-side Columbus, Ohio, and the affluent island playground of Nantucket.
[snip]
Like Kerry, President Bush is a Yale graduate who has benefited from his wealth and family connections. But Bush spends his down time trying to be more of an everyman, preferring to spend vacations at his Texas ranch clearing brush.
Nope. My bad. Pickler makes it real simple - Kerry is a wealthy phony, Bush is a wealthy everyman.
Nedra Pickler does hear "the voices". They are the voices of those who pen the scripts that are being shoved down our collective throat by a media establishment that "know people who need government" but are more concerned with the "sport" of destroying political discourse.
Update: h/t to tommyg15 for pointing out that the RNC has posted a truncated version of this article on their website.