OBAMA ASKS PUNDITS
NOT TO SKEW WORDS:
BUT THAT'S WHAT THEY DID
I was a supporter of Barack Obama, but have not always felt he was focused or exercised the tough leadership a president has to provide to get the job done.
So, during his State of the Union address, I wondered and worried
what he would say. Would he go the diplomatic route, nervous about the
recent electoral losses to his party and convinced the public was
against his programs and policies? Would he try to play the middle
ground, admitting responsibility for the logjam in Washington and hope
that his affability would bring folks together? Or would he recognize
that the "politics of hope" was just that and to actually accomplish
anything you have to stand for something?
Other than the 70-minute length of the speech, I felt Obama did all
right. Not a stirring FDR type of address, but a solid B+. A bit
slow at first as he dealt with what everyone expected, the economy and
putting people back to work. But it was necessary and the people needed
to hear he was on top of what was most adversely affecting them.
But what pleased me mostly about the speech, which has now been
dissected ad nauseam by almost everyone, is how prescient he was about
one point almost at the end. He urged the TV pundits not to talk just
to stir things up into neat controversial sound bites, instead
suggesting we constructively figure out how to come together to get the
nation going again.
But what did the pundits do? Well, to almost a man and woman, in
particular CNN's Gloria Borger, David Gergen and Campbell Brown, there
were observations that, to me, didn't make much sense. They, and others
all around the TV dial, on NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox News and MSNBC,
continually noted that Obama's health care reform comments came half an
hour into the speech. This was proof positive that health care reform
was dead or severely damaged to the extent that if anything at all was
accomplished it would be nothing like Obama had wanted.
The simple fact is that Obama mentioned health care reform. And
forcefully. It was in the middle of the speech, which means that he had
gotten everyone's attention with his determination to alleviate their
job distress and then, bang, he got their notice with the subject so
many of these news prognosticators were convinced he was backing away
from. I didn't hear any reverse course, and I admit I didn't hear
specifics of how the politics will work. But that was smart, because
everyone knows there are House and Senate bills already passed and
people are working behind the scenes to get the House to pass the
Senate bill. A law may well be enacted, a good start, and the
Republicans will not be able to do anything about it.
Obama will have ample time to get improvements to it and to get the
nation up to speed on how it will work before the senate and house
races in the mid-term elections. More importantly, he will have
accomplished something no president has been able to accomplish in the
sixty years since Harry Truman tried.
I'd been concerned with all the talk about Democrats giving up hope
because of Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts and the loss of
their 60-vote super majority in the senate. It made no sense. The
Democrats are still in charge for the better part of a year, and I
believe the Massachusetts election was a reaction to the way Obama was
conducting business -- in other words no business was being conducted.
So, I was excited when Obama reiterated his strong support of health
care reform, that he was not going to let it die and dared the
Republicans to come up with something better. I was thrilled when Obama
reminded his own party members that they still had the largest majority
in a long time and it was no time to "head for the hills." I was
delighted when he criticized the Supreme Court, sitting just in front
of him, for narrowly ending a century-old tradition of keeping
corporate money out of our election process. And I was ecstatic when he
said he wasn't a quitter, giving me some hope that he was going to be
tough.
But the TV commentators only want to stir up trouble. Naturally, and
it was expected, longtime GOP workhorse Mary Matalin expounded on how
disappointed and offended she was with the speech, and actually used
the word "unpresidential" to describe it. This, from a woman who worked
on the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. Sitting next to her and not
even able to look at her while she spoke was her husband Democratic
strategist James Carville, who not only strongly disagreed with his
wife, but did so disdainfully and made me wonder how on earth they live
together? Yes, husbands and wives don't have to agree all the time, but
this is their business and life's blood. Exactly what do they talk
about at home? It can't ever be politics or they'd kill each other.
Admittedly, Sanjay Gupta, chiming in with Anderson Cooper from
Haiti, took issue with what some of them said and thought, as I did,
that the president was in no way retreating from health care reform. He
did mention that Obama referred to it as health insurance reform
instead of the apparently more loaded health care reform moniker. And
then that triggered some more banter from the media hogs flailing their
arms to get Campbell Brown's attention.
Later, John King showed Wolf Blitzer Twitter "Tweets" from all over
the country on his Magic Wall, and demonstrated in a selective view of
states that most of the people were positively disposed to the speech.
However, Blitzer ended the segment saying that the results were
essentially dead even, indicating his inattentiveness or perhaps his
desire to keep the tension alive.
Apparently these media types are there to keep themselves and their
hefty paychecks forthcoming, egged on by the networks' need to create
controversy. How else will they get the viewers to watch, and thus
generate valuable ad revenue? The continual analysis and one-upmanship
to try to find hidden meanings in the way Obama said something or how
he said it or whether he smiled a certain way or angled his shoulder is
a desperate attempt to get air time.
When we hear reportage about events we haven't witnessed, we are
essentially captive to the accounts and hope what we're watching is
accurate. When we are observers of a live occurrence we are more
cognizant of how things are skewed. How often have you said, "Hey,
that's not what I saw. What're you talking about?" And then we put our
opinions on Facebook or post the video on YouTube. So, who are most of
these experts? The teams presented tonight were mostly composed of
people who have actually worked in government or in politics. But often
the talk shows feature folks of no major standing who are marginally
knowledgeable about a subject and are assigned presumed credibility
because we've seen them time and again in front of the camera.
It's time to severely cut back on these diatribes. After all, we've
just seen the same speech that they have. Are we any less significant
than a focus group in Columbus? Are we too stupid to come to our own
conclusions and make up our own minds? The sad thing is that the
so-called reporting and analysis of voters opinions often themselves
contribute to a change in the polls rather than the events themselves.
That's not what I thought journalism was supposed to be about.
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