The media, bias and advocacy

I have been thinking for the past few months about how we learn the “truth” about what is going on in government. I have had some conversations over the past month with people who have said that the only people that they can trust to tell the truth about the current administration are people like Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. In addition it is clear that blogging and the internet are becoming major sources of information about politics and with just about everything else.

At the same time I gave my student in my ecology class an assignment where they had to read scientific papers, newspaper articles and websites about the potential impacts of global warming on species and evaluate the different sources.

All of this has caused me to reflect on how I learn about what is going on politically and how I determine if I trust what is being said. One thing that I have realized is that many people do not distinguish between analysis and advocacy. This, I think, is a major issue. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are clearly advocates (as are blogs such as Daily Kos on the other side of the political spectrum). This does not mean that they don’t have anything good to say or that you shouldn’t listen to them, but it is critical to remember. The job of an advocate is not to present a balanced analysis of an issue but to advocate for a particular position.  For example a defense attorney is an advocate – if your attorney presented all of the potential reasons why you might appear to be guilty, you would fire him or her right away . The job of the attorney is to find all the evidence they can to support your innocence.

If we keep in mind that Glenn Beck or Michael Meade are advocates then it will help keep in perspective the ideas that they present. These people can play an important role in making sure that hidden issues come to light, but they can also make minor things seem dire – on both sides of the political spectrum.

My current concern is that many people seem to be using these advocates as the basis for their knowledge of what is going on in politics. This can lead to a very one sided view of things.

So how do we get around this? Well, I have two ways that I try to use. The first and best way is to read about a topic from a variety of sources that includes mainstream media (which should be relatively unbiased – although everyone is influenced by their own worldview to some extent) but also includes advocates from both sides of the political spectrum.

I did this for a while during the presidential campaign when I used google to send me all of the articles about Obama that appeared. They ranged the whole gamut from those blinded by his oratorical brilliance to those who considered him the anti-Christ. By getting more of a complete picture it became easier to see both his strengths and weaknesses and to see where there were exaggerations or even untruths being presented.

The downside of this is that it takes a lot of work and a lot of time, which I don’t really have anymore. For an issue that was really important to me I would try to make time to do this. However most of the time I have to use my second method. This methods begins with a healthy skepticism of everything that I hear in the media. They have the burden of proof to show me enough evidence to convince me. The second aspect of this is that I am more skeptical when no balancing point of view is presented – this usually indicates advocacy. If a media report or organization presents contrasting points of view or considers both the pluses and minuses of a course of action, I am much more likely to consider carefully what they are saying. Unfortunately in these days of the internet and sensationalism this is becoming more rare.

Two of the best examples of a balanced perspective that I have found are NPR  and Politico.com. I am sure that some people would argue that NPR has a liberal agenda, and that may be true to some extent, but they always try to present opposing viewpoints and multiple sides of the issues. Sometimes I am not happy with the way they present news stories, but often they do a really nice job of presenting multiple sides.

As for Politico.com, individual articles are sometimes from a conservative or liberal viewpoint, but they generally have multiple articles giving different viewpoints on the same issue. I feel like I can get a good handle on the issues by reading the articles.

No news outlet is completely unbiased – after all neither are we. Everyone responds to situations and issues based on their experiences and world views.  However, to better understand the issues facing this country we need to listen to more than just advocates on one side or the other.

 

 

 

An Amazing Moment

I have to say that watching the election coverage last night was quite an experience.  It was cool to see the diversity of Obama supporters crying with joy and especially to think about what this must mean for African-Americans (and all Americans) given their history in this country.  To think of those who struggled to make changes in this country and how they must feel.  To think about how Abraham Lincoln would feel if he could see this day.  No matter what happens with the Obama presidency, this day at least was great.

I have to say that I have a better impression of both candidates after their speeches last night. Clearly a speech does not change everything but it was great to see the grace with wich McCain spoke.  I hope that we can see the return of the characteristics that really made me admire John McCain.

Likewise, I found Obama’s speech to be inspirational.  It has been a very long time since I have been inspired by the president and I look forward to that.  Words are not everything, but they are something.  I hope that in the coming weeks that we see that Obama follows through on his promise to listen to those who disagree and to work to unite the country.  I would like to see at least one republican appointed to his cabinet.  It would be great to see Colin Powell in an Obama admistration for example, and I think it would send a great message about how he is going to govern.

As Obama said, there are difficult times ahead, but I have great hope.  I hope that as president he can avoid being tied down by extreme liberal interest groups and use his great charisma to bring together the country and lead us in important directions (energy independence as one example).

It is great to have hope in a president again.

Thoughts on the candidates

I have not posted for quite a while because I have been busy teaching, but I wanted to post my thoughts on the candidates and how they have changed over the past few months.

I have to start out by saying that I have a less favorable view of both of the candidates now than I did several months ago. Unfortunately I have not been that impressed by how either candidate is running their campaign.

I have been dissapointed by how secretive Obama is about some things.  He has been willing to be negative and stretch the truth in speeches and ads (although not to the same extent as McCain). I am not really sure what to expect at this point if he is elected.  I just read an article today that I thought was the clearest explanation of how I feel about Obama http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/openingargument.php.

Most of what has been written about Obama has been extremely partisan (e.g. saying that he is a socialist or that he is a panacea).  This article clearly articulates some of the great things about Obama but also his weaknesses. 

I still think that he has the potential to be a great president and a great leader, but I am not totally confident that it will happen.  The campaign has left some doubts.  If he can be the person who can see and try to understand both sides of an issue and work to a positive outcome, then he could be just what the country needs.

While I am ambivalent about Obama, I am afraid that my former ambivalence about McCain has dissappeared.  I don’t think there is any way that I could vote for him right now for a couple of reasons.  He bears little resemblence to the very honest maverick that campaigned in 2000.  He has a willingness to distort Obama’s record and his response to the financial crisis was clearly a political stunt.  Now this is not that unusual for politians (although I had hoped that both McCain and Obama were somewhat different) but it is still disappointing. 

The biggest reason that I cannot vote for McCain, however, is Sarah Palin.  While she may be a wonderful person, and many people may like her conservative and evangelical positions, she is woefully unprepared to be president of the United States.  I am suprised that the McCain campaign can still make the argument with a straight face that Obama does not have enough experience.  The difference in experience between Obama and Palin is enormous.  When the arguments are made that she has foreign policy experience because Alaska is near Russia, or when she cannot come up with any newpaper or news magazine that she read regularly it is not clear to me how she could be president.  She is good at verbally attacking and turning other’s attacks back against them, but I am not sure that those are the only skills necessary to be president.

Now I know that she is not running for president, but her candidacy for vice president makes me unable to vote for McCain for two reasons.  First, she could become president.  Second, I think that choosing her is a big black mark against his judgement. 

At the start of the primary season, if I could have chosen who I would have wanted to be the nominees for the major parties I would have said Obama and McCain.  Now that the choice is here, I am not nearly as excited as I thought I would be (although to be fair, I probably would have had a lower opinion of the others if they had made it this far).  I still have hope (the audacity of hope?) that Obama will be the great leader that I envisioned a year or more ago, but I am less certain. As for McCain, I think he would at least do a better job than President Bush, so that is something.

I guess we will see what happens.

What experinence do you need to be president?

I have been thinking about this question lately, espeially after reading about the Wesley Clark brouhaha.  That was really interesting to read about.  Everyone was excoriating Wesley Clark for disrespecting Senator McCain’s military service.  When I actually read the transcript of the exchange from Face the Nation (see http://securingamerica.com/node/2993) I was surprised.  While I do not agree with everything he said, I don’t really think that he said anything that was disrespectful, but brought up a good issue of what experience is necessary to be a good president.  The exchange that seemed to get everyone overheated was:

“Bob Schieffer:I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be President.”

I would have to agree with this General Clark’s point. Clearly, serving in the military and being willing to sacrifice for our country, and the courage necessary to survive as a prisoner of war are things that I respect and show traits that would be helpful in being a good president, but that does not mean that that they provide executive experience (which is the point that General Clark was trying to make – I am, however, surprised that he discounts the leadership of a squadron and the time on the Armed Services committee).

In any case, regardless of the specifics of this case, it brings up a really interesting issue: What is necessary to be a good president?  General Clark earlier in the interview highlighted good judgement and good communication as two important qualifications for president.  I agree, I think that good judgement may be the most important qualification. However, I do not think that it is possible to objectively compare candidates based on their judgement – of necessity our view of what good judgment is will depend on our values and point of view. So other than good judgment, what characteristics or experiences help make a good president. I will give a preliminary list of things that I have come up with and how I think the two candidate rate on each one.

 

Personal Integrity – this one is similar to Judgment, but may be slightly more objective.  Unfortunately, however, political campaigns do not seem to be a good place to highlight personal integrity.  While I have a good impression of the integrity of both candidates generally, during the campaign neither seems to hesitate to twist circumstances for there own good.  Although this is not new, I had higher hopes for Obama and McCain.

Communication – An important role of the president is to inspire and persuade, to negotiate and use diplomacy.  Although there clearly needs to be substance behind rhetoric and oratory skills, these serve a much greater purpose than just rousing the crowd at political rallies.  I think that Barack Obama has an edge here although John McCain is a good communicator in certain venues.

Knowledge and experience with how government works – This can be both a good think and a bad thing as it can lead to business as usual.  While McCain clearly has much more legeslative experience and time in the Senate, Obama has taught Constitutional Law and clearly has a pretty good handle on how the government is supposed to work.

Ability to listen to and learn from advisors – I think this is important, although again the president needs to avoid being swayed too much by advisors and has to be willing to make tough decisions.  I don’t at this point have a good handle on either candidate in this respect.

Executive experience – this is probably the most directly related, but I don’t really think that there is another executive position that is really similar to being the president.  I don’t think that either candidate has a lot of executive experience.  On the other hand, executive experience certainly does not guarantee a successful presidency as recent experience has taught us.

Understanding of the challenges and needs of the American People – This is another hard one to guage.  However, Barack Obama has experience as a community organizer that gives him a rare perspective for a politician.  It is ironic that he is sometimes viewed as elitist since I think he is more familiar with issues of lower-class Americans than most politicians.

I am sure there are more qualifications, and I will continue to think about this more, because this is an important part of determining who to vote for.  For my part I do not think that there is a clearcut answer to which candidate is the best prepared by their experience to be president.

Black and white politics?

I have been thinking for a while about how often politics tends to get framed as black and white choices.  What really made me think about this was working on the citizen badge with my scouts.  As part of the requirements for the badge they are required to know the name of the president and the vice president (as well as the governor of their state – Incidentally they all knew President Bush and could recognize a picture of him, but none of them could recognize Vice President Cheney or Governor Jodi Rell or knew their names – they can now).  I decided that since it was an election year that I would also show pictures of the presidental candidates as well.  They all knew all three of them (at the time). But what I thought was really interesting were the comments that they made, including: “President Bush is horrible”, “Hillary is a witch”, Barack Obama is really cool”.  These are ten year old boys and they clearly have a very black and white view of the candidates.  Now I am sure that part of this is that at that age they are not very sensitive to nuances, but they must have picked up these ideas somewhere.

I want to emphasize at this point that I am not trying to make a commentary or judgement on my boys or on their families or other associates (I think they are great).  I simply bring this up because it has really made me think about how often the campaigns, the press, and ordinary citizens start to portray political issues and candidates in black and white.  If you really stop and think about it I think that most people could find aspects of every candidates position that they could agree with or at least respect.  But it isn’t usually portrayed that way.  That is why we end up with statements that anyone who votes against Hillary is betraying women or that a vote for anyone but Barack Obama is racist.

I don’t know how prevalent this really is.  It may be (I hope) a minority and that these ideas get repeated in the media because they are controversial. It seems healthy to me to at least periodically remind myself of the good side of every candidate.

Wow

If you have not seen this speech by Barack Obama on Father’s Day, you should check it out.  This is the combination of personal responsibility and government that I find appealing about Obama.

 

Newt Gingrich and Green Conservatism

I came across an interesting chat transcript on Slate.com with Newt Gingrich about a conservative approach to solving environmental problems.  Here are a couple of additional links to web pages that Gingrich has set up:

www.americansolutions.com

A website about his book:
A Contract with the Earth

Now, I am not really a big fan of Newt Gingrich in general but he made some very interesting points.

First, I like the idea of trying to find values and issues that a large majority of Americans agree on.  In principle (although not in detail) this is very similar to the concept that Barack Obama is espousing.  I am somewhat skeptical that all of the points they have in the Platform for the American People (see www.americansolutions.com) really have the degree of support that he says they do, but I don’t want to quibble over details at this point. It is at very least an interesting statemen of values.

Second, I really like his statement that he thinks that there is a need to develop conservative solutions to environmental problems. He is right that there could be very fruitful dialog about the best approaches to solving environmental problems.  The conservative approach to the environment does not have to be, and I would argue, should not be, to ignore or deny the potential consequeces of human alterations of the physical environment and natural ecosystems.  On the other hand, the traditional environmentalist approach is not the only, or even the best approach to solving environmental problems. 

I am impressed that he would be in a commercial with Nancy Pelosi that was orchestrated by Al Gore. His explanation of why he did this (on the Contract with the Earth web page) is quite interesting.

Personally, I think that incentives to produce technological solutions (as Gingrich recommends) would be helpful but need to be combined with more traditional efforts (including some degree of regulation, energy and resource conservation efforts, etc.).  But this is a debate that doesn’t seem to even be occuring. If Mr. Gingrich can help bring conservatives to the table to discuss solutions to environmental issues then I applaud his efforts.  I look forward to reading his book and hearing his ideas.  While I disagree with some of the details of what he says, I think this is a discussion worth having and expect to learn some things.

 

 

Is Barack Obama too liberal?

So, this is a question I wonder about occasionally.  I really like Barack Obama’s approach to politics as expressed in many of his speeches and particularly as expressed in his book The Audacity of Hope.  He claims to be reaching out for common ground and trying to unite the country around values that we generally have in common rather than focusing the debate on divisive policies.  On the other hand, he is often described as having an extremely liberal voting record in the US Senate (ranked the most liberal senator in 2007 by the National Journal). This leads me to two questions: 1) Does Obama really have an extremely liberal voting record in the senate? 2) If so, what does that mean for his policies as president (does it contradict his rhetoric?). I decided to do a little research on the first (see below).  The second will be a subject for a later post.

Percent of time voting with the majority of his party (from the Washington Post website) 

96.7% This puts him in 7th place slightly below Hillary Clinton at 97.2%.  For some perspective only nine senators voted with the majority of their party less than 80% of the time

Percentages of Missed Votes  

Barack Obama comes up on some of the sites that I have looked at as having missed a lot of votes.  I finally found a site that has a graph of missed votes by date and it clearly shows he was in line with the other senators until the beginning of the presidental campaign. I checked and obviously you see a similar pattern with senators McCain and Clinton. It is somewhat horrifying (although not really surprising) that these senators are missing 60-80 of the votes in the senate 1.5 to 2 years before the election. By the way this website www.govtrack.us is very interesting.  They have a very interesting statistical method for determining where the members of Congress fit on the political spectrum. Obama is listed as a rank and file Democrat and Clinton as a radical Democrat based on bill sponsorship.  McCain is categorized as a rank and file Republican. Check out the site for the definitions.

Scores from various interest groups (from Project Vote Smart’s webpage) 

Just a few economics based groups to get started. There are 45 Democrats (including the two independents that caucus with them) and 93 total senators included in this list.  Note that all of these are from 2005 and 2006 so they do not direct correspond with the claim that Obama was the most liberal senator in 2007.

Budget, Spending and Taxes 

American for tax reform (conservative) 15 – this puts him tied with 9 other Democratic senators for 29th lowest score, basically the middle of the pack for the Democrats.

Citizens for tax justice (liberal) 100 – tied with 20 other Democratic senators with this score

Business

There are scores for industry groups from a wide variety of industries.  Obama’s scores for the industry groups range from the teens to 100 and everything in between.  Some notable ones:

National Small Business Association: 28 – tied with 4 others for 23rd lowest.

US Chamber of Commerce: 55 – tied with 2 others for 31st lowest

The National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association has him at a 92, while the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association and the International Sleep Products Association have him at 100,  so some business groups like him (very interesting right? well maybe not, I don’ think I will go into more detail). 

Now for a consumer advocacy group:

Public Citizens Congress Watch; 69 – tied with 9 others for 30th from the highest

I may add more information later, but my conclusion from all of this is that Obama’s voting record would put him roughly in the middle of the Democrats in the Senate by most measures.  His voting record is not as moderate as his rhetoric might imply, but I find little evidence that he is one of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate.  I will talk about what I think this means later.

Hillary’s Hypocrasy

It is ironc that Hillary Clinton’s camp expresses outrage that anyone would call on her to end her campaign and disenfranchise the voters in states yet to vote.  Now I know that it is common practice in campaigns to cloak self-interest in a guise of altruism or looking out for the voters.  There are two reasons why this is tremendously ironic.  First, the whole primary system with its bizzare and variable methods for picking the delegates is clearly not designed to give each voter equal opportunity to have a say.  In many election years voters in many states essentially have no part in selecting the nominee.  But the second reason for irony is even more interesting.  If, Hillary and her supporters are so concerned about disenfranchising the voters, why are they trying to convince the superdelegates that they should vote the way they want to, not follow the lead of the voters.  Almost the only way that Hillary could win would be to essentially disenfranchise the majority of voters in the democratic primaries (in terms of delegates, total votes and numbers of states) who have voted for Barack Obama. I am surprised that I have not seen anyone calling her on this.

What does it mean to be conservative? or liberal?

I don’t really consider myself to be conservative.  I consider myself more of of moderate who can see some value in both ends of the political spectrum. However, I came across an article by Andrew J. Bacevich in the March 24, 2008 issue of The American Conservative where he lists his ideas of conservative ideals.

• “a commitment to individual liberty, tempered by the conviction that genuine freedom entails more than simply an absence of restraint;
• a belief in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the rule of law;
• veneration for our cultural inheritance combined with a sense of stewardship for Creation;
• a reluctance to discard or tamper with traditional social arrangements;
• respect for the market as the generator of wealth combined with a wariness of the market’s corrosive impact on humane values;
• a deep suspicion of utopian promises, rooted in an appreciation of the sinfulness of man and the recalcitrance of history.”

Although I don’t agree with a lot of the rest of the article (although he is proposing support for Barack Obama who I really like – albeit for different reasons) I found this list of conservative principles very interesting. I do not agree completely with these ideals, but I come very close on most of them.  Unfortunately I do not see many political leader who seem to espouse these principles.  The Republican Party seems to have drifted far from these ideals.  For at least some (but certainly not all) the Democratic Party seems to be closer (such as the first one).  It made me think about what my list of political ideals would be.  I think that this would be an interesting exercise to have and could lead to interesting discussion.  I will have to work on this for the future but my first thoughts would be that I would include something very similar to the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th above.  I would modify the 2nd because I am not sure limited government is an end of itself (although it depends on what is meant by limited government). I would not include the 6th as a major principle and I would add a principle of compassion and a sense of brother and sisterhood with my fellow citizens of the United States of America and the world as a whole. I might add more or consolidate as I think about this more.

It is a thought provoking mental exercise to think about my personal political ideals.  It is useful to get beyond the traditional grouping of positions as described by the platforms of the Democratic and Republican Parties.  There is no particular reason why abortion rights must be coupled with pro-environment positions or gun rights with fiscal responsibility, just as some examples. In addition, I believe that thoughtful and careful articulation of political ideals or principles, such as Mr. Bacevich provided in his article may lead us to recognize that there is more common ground then we may imagine (a major theme in Barack Obama’s book by the way, but that will have to wait for a future post). I would be interested in hearing your response to Mr. Bacevich’s list of conservative principles and any of your own that you care to share.