Politics in the Post-Media (Post-Press) World

Very interesting article by Ezra Klein in this month’s TAP on the whereabouts and activities of one Al Gore. Gore has been eerily right on so much since he was so wrong in running his campaign for the White House, hitting hard on the failings and dangers of the Bush Administration. But what is of additional interest is the ways in which he went about getting his message out:

On August 7, 2003, Gore headed to New York University to offer one of his first major speeches since his concession address; it was a notably prescient condemnation of the Bush administration’s later bellicosity and overreach. But more visionary than the content was the distribution method: the speech was Gore’s first -- but not his last -- offered under the auspices of the online-activism powerhouse MoveOn.org, an alliance that granted Gore a direct conduit to millions of engaged liberal activists nationwide.

“I know the word fell out of favor after the dot-com collapse,” mused Wes Boyd, founder of MoveOn.org, “but he’s doing disintermediation. He contacted us in the summer of 2003, said he wanted to give a speech, and was wondering if we’d like to sponsor it. What we lend to it is some of that disintermediation.”

Disintermediation is a big word for a type of subtraction, the sort that excludes the middleman (the “mediator”). As a dot-com term, it described producers selling directly to customers rather than working through established retail channels. In Gore’s case, it describes a public figure distributing his words directly to the public rather than working through established media outlets.

The reason Gore sought this out, as former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, Gore’s friend since 1961, told me, is that “Gore wants to make change, not be part of the distortive, stifling process of the mainstream media.” Speaking into the cameras, the former VP had learned, was like talking into one of those gag gift bullhorns -- what came out had little relation to what went in.

“Gore’s own view,” says Hundt, “is that he sighed noisily in the debate and used the wrong telephone line to ask for money and the media said these are momentous events. Meanwhile, they ignore global warming and the failure to catch Osama and the destruction of the safety net.”

So Gore sought a way to bypass the filter. Every time he gives a speech under MoveOn’s auspices, a guaranteed 3 million MoveOn members get the address blasted directly in their inboxes, where it can be read in full. From there, the speech gets e-mailed around, promoted on the blogs, passed from friend to neighbor -- what tech types call “viral marketing.” At no point in this process does a news editor or television producer decide which sound bites will be emphasized for ratings. MoveOn allows him to speak on his own terms and individuals to distribute his speeches on theirs. It’s Gore Unplugged, and everyone’s got a ticket.

Gore came to this approach the hard way, having badly used and been badly abused by the traditional political discourse and dissemination through mainstream media and press outlets (“MSM”). Gore’s methods present some fascinating scenarios for dealing with a malfunctioning MSM, but I can see significant limitations and problems with the approach.

1) Already there are signs that it is an effective means (in terms of economics and distribution) of communicating with Gore’s base, and with his target audience of already committed political activists who might be convinced by his ideas. But it is not enough to have large numbers of people agree with you or to convince large numbers of people to agree with you through the unfettered force of your ideas. This support must be translated into street-level activity (there is ample evidence that Gore’s methods can also work well as a fundraising plan). Readers have to be moved to the polls, to volunteer and to organize to operate within the mechanics of elective politics. However, there is nothing in this method that prevents a simultaneous organization and marshalling of resources and funds, provided it is directed by experienced, talented and committed political operatives. There is nothing inherent in communication within the MSM media, that would suggest those results would more readily be accessible. But given the primacy of the MSM, as of this point, the political operatives, right down to the precinct level have been brought up and fed on a diet of MSM and it will be a hard habit to break.

The rise of the Republican Right was, in part, a product of a low-tech version of the Gore approach. One of the true accomplishments of the Right was its creation of a support and information network, in the form of alliances with religious organizations, Conservative think-tanks, and direct- mail political newsletters. By the time the talk-radio, and then the politically dedicated cable news networks came online in force, the groundwork and ground soldiers were already working in place, and there was a synergistic acceleration of influence. Gore means to use the web to automate these devices, and its my sense that such an approach is more suited to Democratic and Liberal potential constituents, as the internet is the way in which these groups prefer to get their information.

2. Today’s political milieu is nothing if not increasingly polarized, and the Republican Right have been the loss leaders in producing this sorry state of affairs. The polarization among the politically active is, if anything, more severe than is widely recognized, hidden by the presence of the majority of Americans within the natural center of the political spectrum, This natural centrism is hardly surprising, given the relative peace and prosperity of American postwar society. Even so, the center has been continually losing people to the margins, as single-issue controversies, such as the Viet Nam War, Watergate, abortion and 9/11 have produced fractures at the extremities of the center. The center will not hold indefinitely, when the operatives on either margin increasingly control the process and thereby the agenda.

To the extent that Gore (or some Democrat following Gore’s – and Dean’s – approach) succeeds in making headway in the nominating stage of the coming elections, there will be a tendency to discount the views of the center, despite all the blathering on and on about swing voters. The Bush Administration is like one long demonstration of the dangers of this approach -- of catering to those who are most easily accessible to and susceptible to your message. The danger is not merely one of losing contact with or support within centrist swing voters, but more significantly – losing contact with the aggregated wisdom of so many Americans.

With the rise of talk radio and politically committed cable news, and with specialty religious-oriented “news” services, such as those run by Pat Robertson, the Rove/Bush Administration had an embarrassment of media riches, only too willing to be malleable. Many of these new media outlets, when faced with troubling realities, increasingly drifted toward ‘making stuff up’ to fit their dogma. The accountability shoe never dropped. The kitten-weak attempts by the MSM to impose traditional standards were subsumed and eventually drowned within the daily cacophony of 24/7 confrontational news. The lesson was not lost on Rove/Bush, and has been largely institutionalized in their image management (see, for example, Swift Boat Veterans). Having seen the almost magic bullet quality of a distorted new media, Rove/Bush adopted these same techniques as a kind of working White House operating procedure. Where once these methods were resorted to only in times of unexpected crisis, they were soon incorporated directly into the policy-making and policy-selling process, with incredibly disastrous real world (as opposed to MSM world) results. However effective this approach has been for Rove/Bush, in terms of gaining and consolidating power, I have no wish to see a Democratic/Liberal version play out, as the Republic might not stand further success along these lines.

3. The other glaring limitation of the Gore approach is one that Howard Dean is painfully familiar with. To the extent that you are successful, you have to eventually come to terms with the MSM. I do not see within Gore’s methods, a dependable vehicle for breaking the message out into the general public, to the center, other than at last submitting to the traditional paddling gauntlet that is the MSM. From Gore’s perspective, there is less to lose than might be expected. The MSM is already pre-disposed to undermine Gore, just as it was throughout his campaign, and throughout Dean’s abortive run, and Kerry’s run, and more recently, the initial forays onto the national stage by Mark Warner. The MSM’s hostility will be even more pronounced, if they have been effectively cut out of the nominating process. But to what net effect? A more overtly hostile MSM might be less damaging in the near term, as part of the deadly impact of a biased MSM on Democrats recently has been that the attacks have been below the surface and under the guise of an ‘independent’ and ‘balanced’ MSM. Why not have at it, out in the open? Draw them out from under their cover, where their prejudices and compromised interests will be transparent, no matter the news ad campaign sloganeering. Gore’s approach is premised on an intelligent and ultimately independent electorate, if only he can be heard clearly enough.

I don’t expect the MSM to sit idly by and remain in a purely reactive posture. There have been a series of MSM articles and reports that reflect the first instinct of the MSM is to strike back at the upstart alternatives and at candidates that associate with them (the rapid take-down of Dean). You can see the MSM push-back in the deafening non-coverage of most of Gore’s major addresses during this period. Say what you want about Gore, but he is a former Vice President of the United States, and a well-informed one at that. Yet his blistering critiques on the Rove/Bush Administration’s environmental, civil liberties, and foreign policy debacles were all but ignored by the MSM (they preferred to run soft-focus pieces on how there were no strong voices within the Democratic Party).

But MSM is also busily and manically trying to co-opt the new process, with tepid results so far. Fox News is not suited to adaptation (although Murdoch is famously a political and commercial realist when it suits him), so it is not surprising to see their institutional hostility to new and independent outlets. Fox News is surprisingly calcified for a relatively young institution, so the strain from seismic shifting is starting to show within the rigors of the Fox Mindset. Nicholas Lemann has a hilarious but astute profile of Papa Bear O’Reilly in this week’s New Yorker (his description of O’Reilly’s forgotten novel “Those Who Trespass” makes me want to rush out to B&N tomorrow). Lemann makes this observation of the evolution of the O’Reilly Factor:

. . . . you’ll be surprised by how little of the content these days is political. “The O’Reilly Factor” is, increasingly, not a conservative show but a cop show—“O’Reilly: Special Victims Unit,” perhaps—devoted particularly to sex offenders; the host, in effect, is Shannon Michaels playing Tommy O’Malley. Once, when Howard Stern was asked to explain his success, he said that he owed it to lesbians. O’Reilly owes his to child molesters.

I won’t pretend to be a faithful Fox News watcher (shudder), but if ever you go out to lunch in a restaurant, diner or delicatessen, almost certainly you will be subjected to daytime spectacle of Fox News on the establishments’ large-screen televisions. At first, I expected to be confronted by hard news, Fox style (for hardheads), but what I have most often seen is America’s Greatest Police Chases and afternoon talk-show host, audience participation format shows about some lurid, not even marginal outrage (it’s like angry, amped-up Sally Jessie Raphaels have taken over). Fox personnel still affect the high-intensity, high-volume barking delivery, but what I am hearing (after the ringing in my ears quiets down) is the sound of politics passing them by. The more traditionally Aussie Tabloid format and subject matter is what sells these days.

So it is within the realm of possibility that the Gore approach could result in a change in the hard-wired-against dynamics of MSM coverage, at least over the long haul. In the pre-war era, the print media dominated political coverage. FDR rose to power and transformed America’s fortunes in the face of overwhelming editorial opposition. Radio was his secret weapon.

Mission Creaps (DHS Style)

The 9/11 Commission, co-chaired and controlled by a loyal old-line Republican, graded the Department of Homeland Security, Bush’s exemplar of post-9/11 governance, on its ability to perform its first and primary mission – responding to and preventing terrorist threats.

Provide adequate radio spectrum for first responders – Grade: F

Establish a unified Incident Command System -- Grade: C

Allocate homeland security funds based on risk -- Grade: F

Critical infrastructure risks and vulnerabilities assessment – Grade: D

Private sector preparedness -- Grade: C

National Strategy for Transportation Security -- Grade: C-

Improve airline passenger pre-screening -- Grade: F

Improve airline screening checkpoints to detect explosives -- Grade: C

Checked bag and cargo screening -- Grade: D

Better terrorist travel strategy (Border Security) -- Incomplete

Comprehensive screening system -- Grade: C

Biometric entry-exit screening system -- Grade: B

International collaboration on borders and document security -- Grade: D

Standardize secure identifications -- Grade: B-

The 9/11 Commission rightly focused on DHS’s stunning failure to meet the challenges directly relating to terrorism. They did not dwell in detail on the wisdom of broadening the brief of such an inept, ill-conceived and non-performing Department, to take on the additional burdens of overseeing and directing the response to natural disasters, like Katrina. The DHS Katrina performance was the subject of a Select “Bipartisan” Congressional Committee (Bipartisan in the sense that it was stocked entirely by Republican supporters of President Bush). The lead paragraph from the section of the Committee’s report dedicated to the performance of DHS needs no further explanation: “Critical elements of the national response plan were executed late, ineffectively, or not at all.” Here is another excerpt from the Republican Congressional report:

Not only did senior DHS officials fail to acknowledge the scale of the impending disaster, they were ill prepared due to their lack of experience and knowledge of the required roles and responsibilities prescribed by the NRP (National Response Plan).

I know of no parallel to the universal condemnation of the performance of the DHS, a potentially critical, cabinet-level department of the federal government. Bush, having butchered the preparation and response to the storm and floods, and having slept-walked and strummed through the political firestorm that followed in Katrina’s wake, begrudgingly mouthed qualified words of disappointment about his government’s shameful and abject failure. He promised to do better, and to “fix” the flaws in the DHS.

The fix is now in, in the form of a stealth Presidential Executive Order entitled, “ Responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security with Respect to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives” once again broadening the mission of an already overwhelmed and destructively non-functioning department, this time reaching clearly into WTF territory. With respect to faith-based and community initiatives? Go ahead, link away to the order and search in vain for the words “terrorism”, “hurricane”. This is one expensive shoe dropping, and while we will get the bill, the President’s Pals will get the cash.

Here is a taste from the Executive Order:

Sec. 2. Purpose of Center. The purpose of the Center shall be to coordinate agency efforts to eliminate regulatory, contracting, and other programmatic obstacles to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the provision of social and community services."

Sec. 3. Responsibilities of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. In carrying out the purpose set forth in section 2 of this order, the Center shall:
(a) conduct, in coordination with the WHOFBCI Director, a department-wide audit to identify all existing barriers to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the delivery of social and community services by the Department, including but not limited to regulations, rules, orders, procure-ment, and other internal policies and practices, and outreach activities that unlawfully discriminate against, or otherwise discourage or disadvantage the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in Federal programs;
(b) coordinate a comprehensive departmental effort to incorporate faith-based and other community organizations in Department programs and initiatives to the greatest extent possible;

There is no acknowledgement in the Order that the DHS failed to execute on its reason for being. But something else is missing. I was struck be the absence of qualifying terms in the Order, so as to make clear that only those "obstacles" (read - regulations, rules, laws, US Constitution) which are unfair or illegal should be targeted for elimination. Reading this Order, I might be tempted to think our President wanted all obstacles purged, whether those obstacles served a legitimate purpose or not. But that would be silly of me.

Ever with their eyes on the ball, the Administration has impressively identified and quickly corrected the most pressing failing of the DHS, the gravest lost chance of them all. The bloated parish floaters and the water-logged wreckage that once was one of the Great American Cities was a golden opportunity to cash in on American’s empty-headed empathy and their childish impulse to lend aid to those in most desperate straights.

Brownie’s ham-handed attempt to divert relief funds to Bush-supporting, quasi-religious “charities” was the source of additional consternation directed toward the Administration, and this Brownie Bumble was the one thing he did that finally shook the President’s incredible faith in his man on the ground. FUBAR’ing away the lives and City was strict Administration S.O.P., but leaving money on the table that could otherwise have gone to Rightwing coffers was the cardinal sin. Bush’s famous loyalty has its price, and Brownie was dumped overboard.

The Bush Administration’s bottomless well of overflowing offenses unfortunately obscures gems like this, as fresh atrocities spring forth from the White House on a weekly basis. FEMA, DHS and the entire Bush Administration was in full, all-hands-on- deck, do-nothing-to- help-the- drowning mode. Americans across the land were shocked into near panic by the spectacle of a significant portion of the country going under, while the government played guitars, ate birthday cake and primped and preened for the television cameras. There was an immense and immediate outpouring of help from ordinary Americans, of the most meaningful kind. They were ready, willing and able to lend support, lend even the sweat of their brows, to what they somehow dreamed up as a rational response to unfolding and cascading disaster -- a genuine rescue and relief effort.

The awful prospect of American’s taking the well-being of their fellow citizens into their own hands at last spurred Brownie to action, and he fired off a Press Release ordering volunteers to stay the hell out of it, “Volunteers Should Not Self-Dispatch”. But do send “cash”, and to this list of charities. The original list of approved charities read like it might have come directly from one of Karl Rove’s direct-mailing Political Action Committee databases. Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed would soon be even more flush, and they could jet down with some de minimis remainder of the donations and have themselves a fine old photo op. The critical flaw uncovered by Katrina was that there remained within the gutted shell of FEMA and the newly minted and hollow propaganda arm that was DHS, some pesky contracting regulations, something about qualifications and the need for at least some of the monies donated for specific relief efforts to actually go to those relief efforts. These barriers and obstacles will soon fold up like crumbling levies, and the cash will find its natural and rightful level within the coffers of the Republican Religious Wing. I feel safer already. Bring on the hurricane season!

 

Thomas L. Friedman as Mr. Pither

Last week, the Moustache of Understanding counseled us to put aside our childish and “borderline racist” security concerns about the Dubai Ports Deal: “As a country, we must not go down this road of global ethnic profiling — looking for Arabs under our beds the way we once looked for commies. If we do — if America, the world's beacon of pluralism and tolerance, goes down that road — we will take the rest of the world with us. We will sow the wind and we will reap the whirlwind.” Spoken like the true Oracle of American Facial Hair.

But even the Moustache grows weary sometimes, of being so wise, so Wednesday’s column comes not direct from the Moustache, but from the Moustache’s tummy: “My gut told me this was the case, but it's great to see it confirmed by the latest New York Times/CBS News poll: Americans not only know that our oil addiction is really bad for us, but they would be willing to accept a gasoline tax if some leader would just frame the stakes for the country the right way.” The Gut must not be on speaking terms with the Moustache, because the Moustache’s sublime and surpassing generosity toward the Arab world is not shared by the Moustache’s Gut, as in the Gut’s view, just topping your tank off at your local Exxon station is now tantamount to treason, because when our engines combust and burn gas, which we must replenish, we are, in fact, financing “Al Qaeda, Iran and various hostile Islamist charities with our energy purchases.” Whoa, whiplash city! I think it best that we await reports from other parts of the MOU’s anatomy before we draw any definite conclusions. Personally, I am reserving judgment until I hear from the MOU’s Toenails.

Thomas L. Friedman has disappeared up his own tailpipe on the Dubai Ports Deal, and his self-nullification is a welcome contribution to the debate. But Friedman has other fish to fry in his Wednesday Column entitled “Who’s Afraid of a Gas Tax?”. He once again is beating the drum for a punitive, regressive gas tax, one that will artificially and permanently inflate the price of gas above $3.50 a gallon, preferably even higher. How can he ask such a dumb-ass question? Let me help out on this. The poor, the middle and working class and just about every other American class you can take attendance on would be rightfully afraid of Friedman’s destructive proposal if it weren’t so fantastically absurd. Sticker shock doesn’t begin to describe the impact of the post-Katrina spike, when suddenly your bi-weekly trip to the gas station cost as much as courtside seats at Madison Square Garden.

Much of America already lives in the gathering shadows of debt, and solvency for many would be numbered in weeks if they had to continually peel off C-notes just to get around. Friedman would have half the country hobbling around on foot, and the economy would soon follow to that crawling pace. As the country crashed around him into economic ruins, Friedman would begin a series of columns decrying the fact that his magical solution was not executed in accordance with his Masterful Plans. Just because my theories have resulted in Great Depression scale misery, doesn’t mean we should give up on the whole program! Think of the savings on otherwise necessary expenditures to prop up our crumbling infrastructure! Forget all that bridges and tunnels upkeep.

I-95 could be converted to the world’s longest skate park! Or better yet, as it became bucolic and overrun with various weeds, grasses and native trees, it could become an enchanted bike path, stretching from the top of Maine to Key West! George W.T.F. Bush would truly be our firstest and bestest Bicycle President. When he’s not crashing, his mountain-biking has kept him in fighting trim, and it could do the same for the rest of us. Suddenly, we are all Mr. Pither on “The Cycling Tour”. No Thomas L., Americans are not clamoring to have their gas bills doubled or trebled, no matter what the CBS/Times poll has told your Gut.

The Friedman Laughing Stock is a bubble that shows no sign of bursting, so his inane and insulting ideas are no real threat to damage the vital, and growing more so, interest in the development in an alternative, cleaner, sustainable energy source. We need an new Manhattan Project devoted to this, and it seems fairish that before we saddle the economically challenged with the lion’s share of the costs, we first consider the gargantuan windfall profits the energy sector begrudgingly has had to accept in the Bush years.

Freidman has self-applied the term Flat-Earther, but even so, what can you do with someone who says, “Green is the new red, white and blue, pal. What color are you?" and thinks it’s a cant-miss winning campaign platform. Oh yeah, pal, just ask President Nader about what a hard-luck color Green is in American politics.