February 16th, 2009
“Do you approve or disapprove of the job the Republican leaders in Congress are doing?”
51% disapprove
Pew Research Center Poll. Feb. 4-8, 2009.
N=1,303 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3
Josh Marshall, over at TalkingPointsMemo.com, captures something that I’ve given a couple of thoughts this past week. Understandably, if you watched the coverage over the stimulus bill you probably thought that president Obama was out of sync with Americans and that republicans, somehow, were now representative of public opinion. Of course, you would’ve been utterly and 110% wrong; however, according to the mainstream establishment media, especially cable news, republicans were gaining traction with their message of opposition against the stimulus bill and, thereby, against president Obama.
More importantly, however, than where the media thinks the momentum lies in the back-and-forth of a debate, the arguments or frames that the media decide to present to the public regarding policy do, in fact, influence public opinion. And, by this standard, the establishment media, given the last 25 years of conservative dominance of Washington, D.C., is simply predisposed hardwired to be more accommodating to the republican propaganda arm message machine. Washington, D.C., is a town that remains dominated by a conservative infrastructure composed of think thanks, media consultants, corporate lobbyists that are fundamentally attuned to the conservative ideology, and, therefore, composed of media producers with rolodexes filled with the numbers and contact information of conservative spokespersons ready to provide a quote, or to appear on-camera.
ThinkProgress.org ran the numbers and, as suspected, these illustrate that establishment media is dominated 2-to-1 by republican spokespersons, which is why consumers of establishment media may have thought that republicans were up and that president Obama was down in the court of public opinion:
As Media Matters has documented, during the Bush administration, the media consistently allowed conservatives to dominate their shows, booking them as guests far more often than progressives. The rationale was that Republicans were “in power.”
It appears that old habits die hard. Even though President Obama and his team are in control of the executive branch and Democrats are in the majority in Congress, the cable networks are still turning more often to Republicans and allowing them to set the agenda on major issues, most recently on the debate over the economic recovery package.
[...]
In total, from 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on Wednesday, the networks have hosted Republican lawmakers 51 times and Democratic lawmakers only 26 times. Surprisingly, Fox News came the closest to offering balance, hosting 8 Republicans and 6 Democrats. CNN had only two Democrats compared to 7 Republicans.
As Josh Marshall points out, there seems to be a big disconnect between the establishment media in Washington, D.C., and the rest of America:
“It’s eerie — I read the news from the Beltway, and there’s this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me.”
That’s from Ann Selzer, the Iowa pollster who’s an expert on public opinion throughout the midwest, as quoted by Ben Smith.
It really is the big story of the first weeks of the Obama administration. In Washington, it was a battle royale between the new president and an emboldened Republican minority. At times they seemed to have him on the ropes. And yet in the country at large, Obama remains super popular. And the GOP is wildly unpopular.
[...]
The city remains wired for the GOP. Not that it’s done them a great deal of good of late. But it remains a key part of understanding every part of what is happening today.
If the dynamic described above is true, and I believe that it is, it may take a while before the mainstream establishment media starts reflecting the shift in the balance of power that has come about in the country, given how unlikely it is that news producers and editors will empty out their trusty rolodexes.
February 8th, 2009
Fresh off his victory as the new chairman of the republican party, Michael Steele proves adept at continuing with his party’s practice of hypocrisy and mendacity. While on ABC News, Steele made the nonsensical argument that government created jobs are not jobs, they are work; and that only private sector jobs count as jobs, since only they are sustainable over the long term.
In the near-term, with national unemployment creeping over 7%, the goal is to put Americans back to work and to thereby boost the economy, period. So, while the government contracts included in the stimulus package may come to an end at some point, the immediate goal of putting Americans back to work will have been fulfilled; and, equally important, the long term benefits of these “government jobs” will accrue as regards to the nation’s infrastructure.
Incredulously, Steele dares to suggest that the goal of the stimulus bill ought to be to create sustainable jobs for the long term; thereby completely undermining the entire rationale of the republican opposition to bill. Remember, this is the very bill that republicans claim contains “wasteful” spending on education, healthcare, teachers, firefighters, police, and public infrastructure. The very things that create the dynamic for sustainable growth over, yes, the long term.
Here’s Steele with George Stephanopoulos this morning:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But outside of Washington, some strong Republican voices have said the stimulus package is needed now. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, he supports the package.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHARLIE CRIST, R-FLA.: This program will help us with education, with health care, Medicaid specifically, infrastructure. These are the kinds of things that produce jobs. It could mean $13 billion to the sunshine state. It comes at a time when we need it. People need jobs. It’s about jobs, jobs, jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: He suggests that you and Republican Party leaders here in Washington are on the wrong side of the biggest issue, jobs.
STEELE: Well, no — you know, with all due respect to the governor, I understand where he’s coming from. Having been a state official, I know what it means to get those dollars when you’re in tight times.
But you’ve got to look at the entire package. You’ve got to look at what’s going to create sustainable jobs.
What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s a job.
STEELE: No, it’s not a job. A job is something that — that a business owner creates. It’s going to be long term. What he’s creating…
STEPHANOPOULOS: So a job doesn’t count if it’s a government job?
STEELE: Hold on. No, let me — let me — let me finish. That is a contract. It ends at a certain point, George. You know that. These road projects that we’re talking about have an end point.
As a small-business owner, I’m looking to grow my business, expand my business. I want to reach further. I want to be international. I want to be national. It’s a whole different perspective on how you create a job versus how you create work. And I’m — either way, the bottom line is…
STEPHANOPOULOS: I guess I don’t really understand that distinction.
STEELE: Well, the difference — the distinction is this. If a government — if you’ve got a government contract that is a fixed period of time, it goes away. The work may go away. That’s — there’s no guarantee that that — that there’s going to be more work when you’re done in that job.
May 11th, 2008
House republicans have been using delaying and obstructionist tactics against the Democratic majority for sometime now; however, the republicans’ vote against mother’s day as a delaying tactic is inane. As Dana Milbank suggests, What’s next for republicans, a vote against puppies and kittens?
From the Washington Post:
It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother’s Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.
On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day,” when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.
“Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote,” he announced.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt’s request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers. [Emphasis added.]
[…]
Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: “Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother’s Day.”
By voting against it?
April 14th, 2008
Just what was republican congressman Geoff Davis thinking when he made such an asinine remark? Take a look here, you would think that in 2008 people would be smarter than this:
Kentucky congressman Geoff Davis “compared Obama and his message for change similar to a ‘snake oil salesman.’ He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner [on Saturday] that he also recently participated in a ‘highly classified, national security simulation’ with Obama.”
“‘I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button,’ Davis said.
September 10th, 2007
Just more evidence that Rupert Murdoch’s Faux News is the propaganda arm of the republican party and of Bush’s White House, via TalkingPointsMemo.com:
It’s 9:13 PM (September 10, 2007). If you have a chance, flip on Fox News at least for a moment. It’s Gen. Petraeus’s (and Crocker’s) one hour “exclusive” with Brit Hume on Fox. The chyron actually reads “A Briefing for America.” And that’s really pretty much what it is. It’s another briefing. It’s not an interview. It’s a continuation of today’s bamboozlement but in prime time on Fox with the expected soft-ball questions and credulous analysis.
Late Update: The “exclusive” is also helpfully interspersed with commercials from the White House-organized pro-Iraq War astroturf group Freedom’s Watch.
Later Update: As around 9:45, Hume is walking Petraeus toward explaining how the Iraq War is really a “war against al Qaeda.” Petraeus is playing along.
UPDATE: TPM.com has a video clip up.
