Tonight at 9 p.m. eastern time, PBS will broadcast Part 2 of Frontline's “Divided States of America,” an examination of the rise and fall of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. Part 1 was broadcast last night.
I believe the first part can be faulted for not being entirely accurate—mostly because it did not examine some of the hidden stories such as the October 18, 2008 Citigroup memo from Michael Froman “suggesting” a list of people Obama should appoint to his cabinet and other senior level government positions. Still, Frontline’s production provides a very informative reminder of some of the key milestones and developments in Obama’s presidency. Especially interesting are the interviews conducted with such key people as former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle; senior Obama advisers Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse; former House Republican leader Eric Cantor; former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; and Republican pollster and spinmeister Frank Luntz.
I suspect that in order to obtain the cooperation of this level of elites, Frontline's writers and producers had to steer clear of some of the most controversial aspects of the Obama administration, and the Republican opposition to it. So, what is presented is largely the story that the elites want people to believe: The Tea Party rises as a result of the economic crisis and Obama’s refusal to indulge populist demands for the blood of Wall Street executives. The rise of the Tea Party, in turn, breathes new life into the Republican Party, which had been declared dead after it was smashed in the 2008 election.
So, for example, when Frank Luntz smirks and chortles about how Republicans and conservatives benefited from “talk radio fully developed,” Luntz is not asked about the death of the fairness doctrine, and the studies which have shown that avid listeners of conservative talk radio and views of Fox News are less likely to have an accurate grasp of historical and political facts. Here is Luntz explicitly naming and openly acknowledging the crucial role of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others for fueling the opposition to Obama. Nor is there any examination of how the modern conservative movement was created and funded over the past eight decades by rich elites determined to roll back the legacies of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Rather than directly attacking the falsehoods and lies spread by the wrong-wing noise machine, Frontline’s producers present us with a couple clips of Republican 2008 presidential candidate Senator John McCain being forced to defend Obama in response to people in his audiences saying they fear Obama because he is a Muslim.
Frontline misses a fantastic opportunity to examine the role of speculative finance in choking the rest of the economy when it shows the canned rant of CNBC “reporter” Rick Santelli’s infamous rant on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade in February 2009, which is credited with sparking the idea of the Tea Party. No mention is made of the fact that Santelli’s rant was prepared ahead of time, as well as preparations for launching the Tea Party. And there is not one word d about the monstrous irony of Santelli launching the Tea Party in the futures pits of Chicago—a literal cesspool of the most selfish Ayn Rand freaks on the planet, who would probably have heart attacks if they ever learn that President George Washington wanted a law prohibiting bankers and stock jobbers from holding seats in Congress.
Tonight’s two-hour Part 2 will examine how the Republicans chose to oppose Obama with total obstructionism. I am looking forward to it, though I will be surprised if Frontline places the Republicans in the correct historical frame of being neo-Confederates.