Time for media to update rolodexes

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.

So it Begins: Republicans Aim after Democrats

Well, it looks like the political landscape is about to be littered with bodies — in spite of what the news headlines read like. Just yesterday House Republicans reversed themselves by repealing changes they had made to the House Ethics Committee, which Republicans adopted to protect their Majority Leader — Tom DeLay (NY Times – April 28, 2005 ):

House Overturns New Ethics Rule as Republican Leadership Yields
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, April 27 – In a rare retreat, the Republican-led House on Wednesday overturned contentious rule changes made to the House ethics process, with Republicans saying they surrendered to the Democrats to try to restore a way to enforce proper conduct in the House.

[...]

One of the most immediate effects of the House’s reverting to the old rules will be the opening of an investigation into persistent questions about Mr. DeLay’s overseas travel and his relationships with prominent lobbyists. His fund-raising operations are under investigation by a grand jury in Texas, and some of the lobbyists’ roles have come under increasing scrutiny by federal investigators in recent months. While Mr. DeLay has not been named as a target of those investigations, the attention paid to his troubles has proven disruptive in the House.

[...]

The vote marked another pivot in a politically charged ethics tug-of-war expected to persist in the House. Lawmakers of both parties said they expected the resolution of the standoff to lead to calls for ethics inquiries into not only Mr. DeLay but also other members, including Democratic leaders.

As the NY Times article explains, the immediate effect will be to start the investigation into Tom DeLay’s alleged corruption violations, which “Tom DeLay’s House of Scandals” does a good job of cataloguing. The key point, however, is listed in the third paragraph above. So, while on its face Republicans’ reversal on the Ethics Committee changes may seem like a retreat, it in fact is the opening of a new front: Republicans are about to go after Democrats in the House.

The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress exclusively, has a lot more background information on the tit-for-tat ploy that Republicans are about to engage in:

Republican lawmakers who met yesterday to discuss a proposal by Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to reverse changes to House ethics rules said it is inevitable that their colleagues will file complaints against Democrats once the ethics panel is again operational.

Republicans said that not one of their colleagues has volunteered to file a complaint against a Democrat but that they have no doubt that will in fact happen.

Some GOP legislators are upset that they were forced to back down on the ethics rules, handing House Democrats a huge political victory. Others, including Hastert, believed that keeping the rules in place would have inflicted significant, long-term damage on House Republicans.

Clearly, Republicans are not interested in getting to the bottom of the corruption allegations under which Tom DeLay continues to exercise his leadership over House Republicans; instead, Republicans merely aim to muddy the waters by going after Democrats by fishing for any charge that’ll stick against any one of them.

As always, LiberalOasis provides some of the best commentary and analysis on the Republicans’ strategic retreat:

As you can see, scrapping the new ethics rules intended to block an investigation into Tom DeLay is not a retreat.

Just a change in strategy.

They’re tired of playing defense for DeLay.

So now they’re gearing up to play some offense.

[...]

While they can’t fully bump DeLay off the front pages, they can potentially muddy the waters, turning the narrative into an “everybody does it” kind of story.

Now, this is very much a high-risk strategy for the GOP.

A steady stream of “everybody does it” stories can create an anti-incumbent “Throw The Bums Out” dynamic, as the House Bank scandal did in 1992 (43 congresspeople were defeated, another 52 retired.)

While the GOP margin in the House has been fairly slim for several years, Dems have never been given much change to regain control, because incumbency re-elections rates have been so high.

A Throw The Bums Out dynamic, while possibly stinging some Dems, may well be the party’s best chance in 2006.

Read the entire post at LiberalOasis, there’s a lot of great insight and advice in the entry.

Our Own Radical Clerics

Bob Jones and his ilk — which compose our own American brand of radical clerics — have declared a war of civilizations against those that do not share their worldview. These radical clerics have issued fatuahs against modernity and progress, and — if it were up to them — these radical clerics and their followers would impose an authoritarian Theocracy on one of modern history’s greatest exponents of Liberty, Reason and Progress: America.

I that there are millions of conservative Christians that firmly believe in the correctness of their convictions. Well, I — and millions more across this nation — firmly belive in correctness and righteousness of our convictions, too. And, of course, both our camps stand diametrically opposed on many issues — especially in regards to the strict separation that must exist between church and state.

As I sit here, it is perfectly clear to me that the single greatest impediment to social progress, peace and “modernity” in the Arab world is a constant flirtation with Islamic Theocracy. In 2001, just before our forces went into Afghanistan, there was a lot of talk about being engaged in a war of “civilizations”; and that we would be liberating Afghanistan from the hands of a group of “strict interpreters of spiritual scriptures,” the Taliban. Well, many Americans have died — in part — to liberate the Afghan people from the clutches of an authoritarian Theocratic regime; and it would be a shame if, as our military tore down such a regime abroad, that radical clerics here erected a theocracy at home.

I’m afraid that many on my camp have not yet taken the threat of our radical clerics here at home seriously enough, and by the time that they do, it might be too late. Already these radical clerics have marshaled millions to more rapidly tare down the center pillar of our nation: the separation between church and state.