AN UNFORTUNATE CROP

Grave Remains Indeed

Here's some front page news from Comcast---make sure to read the caption!












Oh Ms. Allen, we respect your expert DNA credentials (and apparent ventriloquism expertise), but perhaps you might consider wearing a hat?

Source: Scientists say Copernicus' remains, grave found

WHAT'S GOOD FOR GM IS GOOD FOR...?

The Once Mighty and Arrogant Come Begging

Here's an e-mail letter we received today from General Motors:

You made the right choice when you put your confidence in General Motors, and we appreciate your past support. I want to assure you that we are making our best vehicles ever, and we have exciting plans for the future. But we need your help now. Simply put, we need you to join us to let Congress know that a bridge loan to help U.S. automakers also helps strengthen the U.S. economy and preserve millions of American jobs.

Despite what you may be hearing, we are not asking Congress for a bailout but rather a loan that will be repaid.

The U.S. economy is at a crossroads due to the worldwide credit crisis, and all Americans are feeling the effects of the worst economic downturn in 75 years. Despite our successful efforts to restructure, reduce costs and enhance liquidity, U.S. auto sales rely on access to credit, which is all but frozen through traditional channels.

The consequences of the domestic auto industry collapsing would far exceed the $25 billion loan needed to bridge the current crisis. According to a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research:

• One in 10 American jobs depends on U.S. automakers

• Nearly 3 million jobs are at immediate risk

• U.S. personal income could be reduced by $150 billion

• The tax revenue lost over 3 years would be more than $156 billion

Discussions are now underway in Washington, D.C., concerning loans to support U.S. carmakers. I am asking for your support in this vital effort by contacting your state representatives.

Please take a few minutes to go to www.gmfactsandfiction.com, where we have made it easy for you to contact your U.S. senators and representatives. Just click on the "I'm a Concerned American" link under the "Mobilize Now" section, and enter your name and ZIP code to send a personalized e-mail stating your support for the U.S. automotive industry.

Let me assure you that General Motors has made dramatic improvements over the last 10 years. In fact, we are leading the industry with award-winning vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu, Cadillac CTS,
Buick Enclave, Pontiac G8, GMC Acadia, Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, Saturn AURA and more.

We offer 18 models with an EPA estimated 30 MPG highway or better — more than Toyota or Honda. GM has 6 hybrids in market and 3 more by mid-2009. GM has closed the quality gap with the imports, and today we are putting our best quality vehicles on the road.

Please share this information with friends and family using the link on the site.

Thank you for helping keep our economy viable.

Sincerely,

Troy Clarke
---------------------------------------

Here's what we wrote in response:

Dear Troy:

I appreciate the e-mail, but this is a hard one for me. GM and the other US automakers have had a 30 year long heads-up on the inevitability of this very day.

Back then, you fellows met the long lines at the gas pumps, and ratcheting prices, with the horrific Fairmount and K-Car. We were in effect punished for trying to be sensible. (GM did nothing at all that I can recall, except for one lone bright spot: the years-later rollout of Saturn.)

In stark contrast, Toyota responded with the Corona. The first ride I took in one in 1974 woke me up, rudely and up to now unchangeably: this car from Japan wasn't cheap junk, as I'd been taught growing up; it was in fact less expensive and plainly better than its American counterparts.

I was a college senior then but saw it clearly (why couldn't you?). You'd already frittered away your competitive edge. Three decades later, you've still not recovered from that fundamental, tectonic shift. And Toyota builds factories and cars on your home turf.

Over the ensuing years, I wanted to buy American, I really did. When I shopped for new cars, I'd test-drive a few American models; on vacation, I'd rent American cars to gauge their progress. But the stuff you produced never fit my style, sensibilities, or demands for quality. Empirically, an entire segment of upwardly mobile and affluent customers--my contemporaries--felt exactly the same. It's telling that I eventually became a GM customer only because I leased a Saab.

US automakers, time and again, have demonstrated the polar opposite of a customer-centric business model. In perpetuating your unholy alliance with oil companies (who can be painted with a very similar brush), you've sought instead to make the market and use your formidable marketing muscle to drive demand for unconscionably ostentatious and wasteful products like the Hummer. Concentrating less on getting me from here to there and more on my fragile male ego. All the while using an old, doomed technology--the internal combustion engine.

You've spent your time and resources perfecting this aging (if not already obsolete) albatross, much the same as if the brightest engineers of the early 20th century had labored tirelessly to perfect the Conestoga wagon.

Instead of looking ahead, and re-inventing the automobile when times were flush by using the vast cash and resources at your disposal (the cash from sales and the money earned on your money via GMAC)--which would have given you first-mover status and a lock on years of unimaginable profits--you decided to serve the gods of short term profit and "shareholder value." You played ostrich.

This industry in general--and GM in particular--which once ruled the world's economy but has now come begging, has created its own insular culture and heritage, mirrored by its senior executives who've been harvesting millions in compensation. Remarkable not for vision or courage, but for hubris.

For this, GM has richly earned our scorn rather than our money.

Sincerely,

----------------------------

At least, as Troy asked, we're sharing this information with frends and family.

WORDS COUNT, VOLUME 4 - Fun With Proverbs

We were with you right up until the end.

HCO recently received a Power Point slide show displaying this inspirational proverb:

ABOUT MONEY

With money you can buy a house, but not a home.
With money you can buy a clock, but not time.
With money you can buy a bed, but not sleep.
With money you can buy a book, but not knowledge.
With money you can see a doctor, but not good health.
With money you can buy a position, but not respect.
With money you can buy blood, but not life.
With money you can buy sex, but not love.

So true, so true...and then, the last slide said:















We suppose this turnabout is okay, in retaliation for China flooding the market with knock-off wooden shoes.

WORDS COUNT, VOLUME 3 - The First Valley Girl President?

Just a few months ago, Sarah Palin burst into our screens as a serious contender for Vice President of the United States of America.

Imagine: a youthful, attractive--and dare we say well-dressed--woman as the first female VP. One heartbeat away from the Presidency. If John McCain had been elected (God forbid), and if the excitement of the inaugural ball had proved so intense he keeled over and died (God double forbid), she would have been ready and able to take the wheel on January 20, 2009.

Before the election, and now even in the backwash of defeat, speculation grows about Palin as a serious candidate in 2012. (We're using the word "serious" twice on purpose.)

Why not? She's popular, populist, an anti-elitist (a hockey mom who gets her clothes at a consignment shop!), and anti-intellectual. She's not ivory tower, she's Ivory Soap.

Please. Please stop.

Our intelligence had been taking a break, tryng to heal from the bruising repetitive insults suffered during the GOP campaign. But like the Bataan Death March, we find no succor, no respite...and must trudge on.

Here's what Palin said in an interview yesterday on Fox News, as reported by the AP in Palin blames Bush policies for GOP defeat:

"I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door."

And we're like, OK, God, if Palin ever runs for national office and wins, this is what we'll always pray, we're like, don't let us miss New Zealand's open door immigration policy.

ELECTION 2008: WHY THE REPUBLICANS STAYED HOME AND MORE POST-MORTEMS

A Vote for Nobody = A Vote for Obama

The numbers are telling an intriguing story: the Republicans didn’t turn out to vote.

According to Curtis Gans, director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate, Republicans voted in lower numbers than expected, with the Republican turnout actually declining 1.3 percentage points from 2004. Gans speculates that this happened “because of disappointment over John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, combined with a perception that the ticket would lose. ‘There was real hostility ... amongst moderate Republicans that McCain would choose the conservative governor,’ Gans said. ‘And then there was a gradual perception that the party was going to get whomped.’" (CNN.com: Number of votes cast set record, but voter turnout percentage didn't, http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/06/voter.turnout/; WSJ-Washington Wire: Voter Turnout Rate Not as High as in ’68; http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/11/06/voter-turnout-rate-not-as-high-as-in-68/.)

In Ohio alone, Republican turnout fell 17 percent compared with 2004, which translated into 500,000 fewer votes. (Ironton Tribune.com: Republican turnout fell 17 percent in Ohio, by Benita Heath; http://www.irontontribune.com/news/2008/nov/06/republican-turnout-fell-17-percent-ohio/.)

Why single out Ohio? Oho was a battleground state that McCain could not afford to lose. The final
vote:

2,708,988 Obama
2,502,218 McCain

(Source: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/president/)

The final margin: 206,770—or, less than half of the number of Republicans who took a pass. In other words, if the Republicans had shown up at all, McCain would have won Ohio. Could it have mattered in other states? Maybe, maybe not—but if a similar picture applied for Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida…what presented on Tuesday night as “no path to victory” for McCain might have become a dimly lit one.

We have our own speculation as to why these folks didn’t vote. We think that in the real world, where neighbors, friends, congregations, and communities talk about money, sports, and politics, where real people work, shop and play, a lot of moderate Republicans were not only repulsed by McCain’s horrific and graceless campaign, they found themselves warming up to Obama—he’s a charismatic guy. So, there they were, stuck in the mud: they didn’t want to vote for Obama—maybe even just because he’s part black—but couldn’t in good conscience vote for McCain.

No mavericks there. At ground level, there was no personal benefit. By sitting it out, these reluctant Republicans didn’t rock their social boats, and can also tell themselves that they didn’t exactly turn their back on the GOP. And better yet, if Obama falls flat, they can correctly if disingenuously say, “Well, I didn’t vote for him.”

But the tasty irony is, they did. The Republicans who stayed home in effect voted for Obama anyway—their votes weren’t there to cancel out Obama votes.

It was the equivalent of voting “present.”

Just a Few Kicks at the Dead Horse

"Well, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” Chico Marx in Duck Soup, 1933

First and foremost, it’s a relief to know we’re not insane. We started this blog spot for mental health reasons, because of the Alice in Wonderland, back-asswards aroma of the McCain campaign. (See, for example, “Trapped on the Other Side of the Mirror,”http://hypercriticalobserver.blogspot.com/2008/10/trapped-on-other-side-of-mirror.html; “The Would-Be Emperor’s New Clothes,” http://hypercriticalobserver.blogspot.com/2008/10/would-be-emperors-new-clothes.html; “Why I Must Vote for Obama…even if I didn’t want to at first,” http://hypercriticalobserver.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-i-must-vote-for-obamaeven-if-i.html.)

We can read, we can see, we can think. Yet we had an army of otherwise intelligent people looking us in the eye, swearing—figuratively and literally—that down was up, day was night. And we wavered and wondered: maybe we’re crazy.

We give thanks that, in the end, the outcome matched the evidence:

--The voters recoiled at the vicious and at times patently false GOP campaign messages.

--Instead of listening, thinking, and giving the electorate what they craved in these bleak, deteriorating days—equal parts substance and hope—the GOP did what the US automakers used to do: tell us we really need is old fashioned gas guzzlers and cram them down into our pockets. To put it in business terms, these are not customer-centric models. And therefore, no longer successful ones.

--The decision to pick Palin was virtually an impulse buy in the checkout line, because McCain was talked out of his first choice, Lieberman. Palin was not thoroughly vetted, yanked out of the tundra by the taproot, and thrown into the deep end (with wolves, sharks…pick a predator), over her head and overwhelmed. With insufficient time to adjust to the increased pitching speed at the major league level, she came off as ill-prepared and dumb. Yet the McCain campaign continued to make experience a central issue, and tried to recast Obama’s eloquence and aura as negatives. Vote for us, we’re just like you (to paraphrase Joe the Plumber, "We're up for it.") Don’t vote for him, he’s too smart.

--Conduct, as always, told the story. Wardrobe-gate underscored the disconnect between what they were saying and what they were doing. The party that would stop the wasteful spending of our money was wastefully spending theirs. (We’re also finding out what we'd suspected: this was as much Palin’s doing as any staffer's. Three or four outfits on a $25,000 budget [still $6,000 each!] became $150,000 plus—and counting; even a rich Republican blanched at the bill. We can’t help but use the image one last time: this behavior was…piggish.)

--If McCain sold out, Palin was pimped out. Sarah, forget what you said and did yesterday, here’s what you say and do today. She did it for the team, but in the process fed the smoldering speculation about her porous, ad hoc ethical membrane. Ultimately, Palin did not deliver a breath of fresh air, but a blast of the same old stale air out of a fresh lipsticked mouth.

Now we’re hearing more about the rift between Palin/McCain. Some of this is part of the recent pathetic blather, where the whole sorry circuit says it wasn’t all that bad (because McCain only lost by 7 million votes? Because it wasn’t a shutout?), and simultaneously stampedes to blame their siblings for knocking the heirloom GOP off the pedestal and breaking it. (One commentator has called it a “circular firing squad.”). But there was also visible evidence of Palin/McCain enmity:

--McCain fidgeting and wringing his hands while Palin talked during the Brian Williams interview. Remember the EF Hutton commercials? When EF Hutton talks, people listen. When Palin talks, McCain winces.

--Palin goes over to hug McCain after the concession speech. He visibly recoils and gives her a perfunctory and dismissive pat-pat-pat on her elbow.

Conclusion

What does the wretched election fiasco, overall, say about McCain’s judgment, his skill as an executive or a delegator, his talent for surrounding himself with smart people? (OK, a rhetorical question.)

If in America we needed—now more than ever—to elect the best and the brightest, we on all accounts chose the better and the brighter.

To do the right thing in this election, to make this signal choice, we Americans had to pass a signal test. This wasn’t just a referendum on the dotty, corrupted, and failed GOP, but a referendum on whether we as a people could live into our own propaganda.

We passed. Thank God, we passed…and my wife and I can stay.

Chico Marx said it perfectly, and in the end, it wasn’t really that hard. To choose the better man for this job, we didn’t need to be color-blind. We just needed not to be blind.

ELECTION 2008-RANDOM THOUGHTS AND TAKEAWAYS

“The child is father of the man.” William Wordsworth

Something for Everyone

After last night, even the most intractable, militant—and now horrified—Obama opponents have no choice: they must stop and reflect. (That’s all we ever asked of them.)

If their mental satellite dishes are plugged in and able to receive signals in this radically altered atmosphere, they may locate a few encouraging pings.

The American Dream

Obama’s win is a quintessential American success story. He’s the human embodiment of the melting pot. He’s transformed self-esteem (yes, ego and ambition play a part) and determination into self-determination. His extended family, his organization, and his voters mirror that.

For those who still experience visceral recoil at this idea, that’s the straight, not-at-all-new, deal. Wrought in direct descent from the Founding Fathers’ clearly articulated, idealized—albeit selective—vision.

Our tent, always intended in words (if not deeds) to be expandable and welcoming, has by God proven to be just so.

African-Americans

For us, this election represents some tough-love messages for African-Americans. Messages that conservatives can cozy up to.

Jesse Jackson, weeping last night at the import of the moment, has tried for years, but the messages got lost in the packaging (all rhyme, no climb):

• No more excuses. Yes, it’s harder to be black in America, but not as hard as it was before yesterday.
• Particularly for the disenchanted and disconnected African American male adult, time to challenge the understandable but deathly bankrupt definitions of courage and manliness. Time to man up.
• The path to success in America is through hard work, education, and assimilation. Honor your own ethnic identity, but work the system, beat them at their own game. And for that, you will be—perhaps grudgingly, perhaps warmly, but in any case inevitably—respected and embraced. “Talking white” and “acting white” viewed as not so much an insult as a success model.

Dare we hope, perhaps, for the beginning of the end for the hip-hop “culture”?

The GOP

Time to rethink and reinvent.

You guys had this election all wrong from the beginning, and got a well-deserved spanking.

This election took place in a different world than 2000. You guys missed the point. You marched in place, the world kept on going. While you fixated on and fiddled with the crusty allure of your own ideology infested navels, the balance of global wealth and power shifted and moved the cheese.

You showed your arthritic hand at the convention, when Giuliani literally scoffed at Obama’s experience as a community organizer. Then Rudy and the rest of you got to watch flat-footed as Obama assembled and organized a nationwide community of the modest that ran rings around you all-knowing, seasoned pros.

He’s using e-mail, you’re using hate mail.

You now have the opportunity to get fixed and get right.

McCain Never Had a Chance

McCain never had a chance. His task was impossible: to somehow distance himself from, and at the same time tie himself to, the disgraced GOP junta, embrace those he’d once maverick-ishly offended, and still follow the “tried and true” Bush/Karl Rove/GOP election roadmap: tired tag lines, appeals to fear, unconscionable tricks, and nut jobs to the far right. Folks who could support bombing an abortion clinic, executing a convict, poisoning the environment, taking health care away from children, and then argue pro-life.

• McCain sought to skewer Obama on his questionable associations, but in order to get elected, willingly (even if not gladly) shared his table with shameless cheaters and unconscious haters.
• He spoke against elitists and wasteful “pork,” but his staff flew around the country spending $150,000 on clothes for Palin that would never be worn.
• He made experience a central campaign issue up until 6:00 PM EST yesterday, but picked a running mate who, as attractive and intriguing as she may be, is better qualified to host a talk show (we’ve got a title: “Just Plain Palin”) than run for national office. Palin didn’t go rogue, she went rouge.
• Intending to praise Obama as a decent family man, he slurred Muslims.

McCain, in his last-chance lust for the prize, sold out. He was compelled to do what he condemned in others, and then try to rename it as something else. This was nothing like the change he promised: it was classic GOP.

But McCain really did have few options; he had to try to put lipstick on this pig.

McCain and Cheney – The Final Nail?

At the eleventh hour, Dick Cheney endorsed McCain. Read that again, slowly.

There is but one reasonable explanation for both the endorsement and its timing, since it could only further wound McCain’s glimmering chances: Cheney must dislike McCain very intensely. He’d skulked in the weeds, salivating at the chance to pay McCain back—for something.

McCain cannot have welcomed the endorsement, but was apparently powerless to do anything to muzzle it. If he could, wouldn’t he have told Cheney “thanks, but keep it under your hat”?

After all, Dick Cheney’s indelible legacy is as the sneering poster curmudgeon for arrogant, insensitive, unintelligent, unwise, feckless, out-of-touch conservative power liberally misapplied in service of misguided ideology. There is blood on Cheney’s hands (insert hunting joke here). McCain could not have willingly let Cheney wipe some off onto him.

Cheney shot down, with finality, McCain’s lathered and laborious flight away from George Bush.

For McCain, Tragedy and Irony

We feel sorrow for John McCain. He wanted this so badly, he broke faith with his hard-earned reputation. The real John McCain—the one we liked and admired and would have voted for—didn’t emerge until last night’s concession speech.

It’s extraordinary, admirable that he survived a North Vietnamese prison camp, but this is not a job qualification (really, what had he run)? The enduring tragedy (chronicled in several previous HCO posts)—and for those who practice schadenfreude, the enduring irony—is that McCain may find himself a tortured prisoner of this election, his own poorly conceived and miserably executed war.

We hope he doesn’t and his resilience wins out. We need him.

Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson stood in Grant Park, weeping. Not stage center, but one face in a galvanized rainbow gathering.

Like him or hate him (we're not fans), we are nevertheless in his debt. He helped to shoulder the door open; he was the first to motivate credible people to put the words “African-American” and “President” into the same sentence.

If thoughts and words are the progenitors of deeds, Obama stands on his shoulders.

Lenses and Lessons

• To those who continue to rail and would resist the new reality: look at the electoral map. This election did not resemble 2000 when Bush beat Gore (by the width of a boar’s hair, if at all); Obama’s support did not depend solely on the overpopulated slivers hugging the coasts. This election was more tectonic than episodic, a national referendum on an obsolete mindset. Eight years ago, we looked at the map and concluded that WE were out of touch, out of the main stream. Your turn.
• Karl Rove (and disciples) had as much effect on this election as Karl Marx.
• As Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” This election was a triumph of sense over nonsense, the articulate over the stupefied: you can’t sell something you don’t believe in yourself.
• Genuine leadership requires intelligence, cognitive and emotional. Peripheral vision, knowing what you don’t know, surrounding yourself with sages rather than sycophants.
• When anyone claims to “know” something or “know” everything, suspect the opposite.

What We’d Like to See

Obama borrowing from Lincoln, and hiring his opponents. How about McCain as Secretary of Defense? Powell or Rice as Secretary of State? Hillary Clinton as something?

Parting Words

William Wordsworth, a romantic poet, wrote, “The child is father of the man.” Here’s the whole poem:

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my
life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So be it when I shall grow old
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man:
And I could wish my
days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

Our children, who we teach right from wrong, have taught us. They’ve grown up in a more diverse world, have over time begun to drop many of the artificial barriers that divide, and held us to our own words.

They helped us fight our own flawed programming to chide the arrogant and the ignorant, and relegate them to bitter sniping from the back bench over their ruined regime.

Last night in Grant Park, Obama stood. Subdued, not elated. Humbled by the accomplishment, processing the implications.

Like the Wordsworth poem, he’d spoken of idealized, romantic aspirations, he’d inspired and motivated, and then at the very moment when he might have been justified to revel, to gloat, he remained constant, tethered to reality.

Later on, we may discover that Obama was neither Mr. Right nor Mr. Right Now. But he is clearly Mr. Right for Right Now.

IMPORTANT LAST MINUTE MINDSET REMINDERS

On several postings here over the last several weeks, we've compared the pronounced differences in style, tone, and messaging between the GOP and the Democrats. We've also talked, more pointedly, about the virtually deranged fringe clusters that McCain must welcome into the tent in order to cobble together a coalition that could get him elected.

We've pointed out how he's tragically sold out his reputation. And, in chapter and verse, how the fringe clusters he's had to embrace—just like GOP candidates before him, tracing back to the "moral majority"—have wrapped themselves moral and religious rectitude, yet managed to spin the core ideals of America 180 degrees backwards into messages of exclusion and even hate. (FUNDAMENTALS BAFFLE FUNDAMENTALISTS; http://hypercriticalobserver.blogspot.com/2008/10/fundamentals-baffle-fundamentalists.html)

We've pointed out the unbroken legacy of dirty political tricks from the GOP and its supporters, directly and indirectly, from Nixon's Watergate-era CREEP to convicted felon Allan Raymond (who's now hawking his book How to Rig an Election (SMELL FAMILIAR? The Toilet Paper on the GOP Shoe; http://hypercriticalobserver.blogspot.com/2008/10/smell-familiar.html)

After trying hard to give the McCain and the GOP a fair hearing, and despite our hesitation and doubt, their unremitting dishonor has led us to the only sensible conclusion that we must vote in favor of a new mindset—a new lens. We most vote for Obama.

Sometimes, when we see McCain's ads, our resolve wavers…hidden in the reprehensible accusations are legitimate questions about what an Obama presidency might look like. It is plausible that our foreign enemies will cook up a test of his spine as Commander in Chief—will he be ready?

But just when McCain shows us he can be a great sport on SNL, and we can allow ourselves to speculate that a McCain victory wouldn't be so bad after all—he's kind of the devil we know, right?—we get a nice cold water slap in the face to bring us back to level consciousness.

This morning, the Associated Press posted this article: Onslaught of dirty tricks as election day nears-In the final hours of the campaign, bogus fliers, e-mails and calls increase http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27508967/.

The telling point of the AP article is this: all of the horrid, dirty tricks cited for the presidential election are being perpetrated on behalf of the GOP.

He’s John McCain, and he’s approved these messages.

So, here’s the lasting, decisive lesson: this odious stuff has CREEPed into the GOP DNA—this is how they roll.

True patriots would want them gone.

THE IMBALANCE IN “FAIR AND BALANCED”

O'REALLY? OR:
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE RIDICULED, DON'T ACT RIDICULOUS.

We were more than ready to shut up about the election, but when we made our regular online run through the news, including Fox News—again, we're trying very hard to be fair, and to see what the righties are saying to balance the lefties—we came across this Bill O'Reilly piece: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,445548,00.html, Talking Points, Why McCain Continues to Run Behind Obama, Friday, October 31, 2008, by Bill O'Reilly.

After reading it, we now have a punctuation puzzler: do we put the ironic quotation marks around "fair and balanced" or around "journalism"? It looks strange to write "fair and balanced" "journalism".

O'Reilly asserts that Obama is ahead for two reasons: he's raised more money and the media is biased. Let's go all hypercritical up in here, shall we?

O'REILLY: OBAMA IS LEADING BECAUSE OF MONEY AND MEDIA BIAS

Money Talks, the Other Stuff Walks

First, let's talk about the money. O'Reilly did not offer any insight or analysis about this in the body of his piece.

What might his silence suggest, beyond space/word limitations (which should not be a factor for the Factor in cyberspace)? Here's a possibility: O'Reilly can't attack Obama on the money issue, because Obama's amassed a stunning reservoir of cash from an unprecedented groundswell of small donors. O'Reilly has nothing to offer in response; he's tacitly acknowledged that regular people have practiced democracy in the most fundamental way—they've voted with their dollars.

The Biased Media Favors Obama

The particular problem with this O'Reilly piece—wrapped in the Fox "fair and balanced" flag—is his "proof" that media bias is skewing the election in favor of Obama. O'Reilly writes: "In addition to the money, it's now certain that the American media has given Barack Obama an enormous advantage. According to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, John McCain's getting hosed big time." [HCO: More about O'Reilly's choice of the word "given" later.]

HCO hungers for fair, thirsts for balance. So, we looked up the study. Although O'Reilly doesn't specify the study he refers to, there are actually two of them, which we found at journalism.org: The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (http://journalism.org/node/13436; The Color of News, October 29, 2008, How Different Media Have Covered the General Election), and its predecessor, Winning the Media Campaign, Barack Obama, October 22, 2008 at http://journalism.org/node/13308.

The more recent study, as O'Reilly suggests, notes that "In cable,…there now really is an ideological divide between two of the three channels, at least in their coverage of the campaign." However, Mr. O'Reilly's presentation and interpretation of these studies—offered in his piece as facts—is in many important ways at odds with what they actually said.

Here's a table laying it all out:

WHAT O'REILLY SAID	WHAT THE STUDIES ACTUALLY SAID	HCO COMMENT
Zzzz…	10.29.08: When it comes to coverage of the campaign for president 2008, where one goes for news makes a difference.	One person's "fair and balanced" = another person's bias.
In all of the media studied, 57 percent of the stories on McCain were negative, 29 percent negative for Obama.	10.22.08 Much of the increased attention for McCain derived from actions by the senator himself, actions that, in the end, generated mostly negative assessments. [Emphasis ours.] ...For McCain, coverage began positively, but turned sharply negative with McCain's reaction to the crisis in the financial markets. As he took increasingly bolder steps to try and reverse the direction of the polls, the coverage only worsened. Attempts to turn the dialogue away from the economy through attacks on Obama's character did hurt Obama's media coverage, but McCain's was even more negative.	Pokes holes in the "inherent bias" cause-and-effect argument.
Newspapers are very unfair: 69 percent of the reporting on McCain negative, as opposed to 28 percent negative for Obama.	10.29.08: …on the front pages of newspapers, which often have the day-after story, things look tougher for John McCain than they tend to in the media overall.
NBC News is the most biased news agency by far…. On the broadcast side -- that's primarily Brian Williams and "The Today Show" -- 54 percent of the stories about McCain were negative, 21 percent of Obama stories were negative.	10.29.08: On the evening newscasts of the three traditional networks, in contrast, there is no such ideological split. Indeed, on the nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC, coverage tends to be more neutral and generally less negative than elsewhere. …And on NBC News programs, there was no reflection of the tendency of its cable sibling MSNBC toward more favorable coverage of Democrats and more negative of Republicans than the norm. …The distinct tone of MSNBC—more positive toward Democrats and more negative toward Republicans—was not reflected in the coverage of its broadcast sibling, NBC News. Even though it has correspondents appear on their cable shows and even anchor some programs on there, the broadcast channel showed no such ideological tilt. Indeed, NBC's coverage of Palin was the most positive of any TV organization studied, including Fox News. [Emphasis ours.] …At night, the newscasts of the three traditional broadcast networks stood out for being more neutral—and also less negative—than most other news outlets. The morning shows of the networks, by contrast, more closely resembled the media generally in tone….Overall, 44% of the morning show stories were clearly negative, compared with 34% on the nightly news and 42% in the press overall.	He's got it right on the morning show side. On the broadcast side, looks like an oopsie on O'Reilly.
On MSNBC, it's an absolute scandal: 73 percent of the stories on McCain negative, 14 percent negative toward Obama.	10.29.08: correct on the facts.	MSNBC effectively discredited as a trustworthy source of unbiased political news.
Thus a huge American corporation, General Electric, which owns NBC, is using its money and power to benefit a presidential candidate. That is a gross violation of the spirit of the constitutional powers given to a free press.	NA	Pot versus Kettle. In light of the unmistakable and historical GOP big-business alignment, this comment is—well, silly.
The three men behind this corruption are GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, NBC News boss Jeff Zucker and NBC News chief Steve Capus. These three calculated that by openly supporting Obama…they could lure millions of Obama supporters and make money.	NA	Another conspiracy found festering under the rocks. And Rupert Murdoch's calculus in creating Fox News was…?
Now, much of the other media covers for NBC, unfortunately. The Associated Press article about the press study had this headline: "NBC News doesn't follow MSNBC's left drift." But that's a bit misleading. The article written by committed leftist David Bauder says that the study found no hint that NBC's coverage was worse than the media as a whole. But, as we mentioned, the media as a whole is far more negative toward McCain than Obama.	10.29.08 [repeated from above]: …on NBC News programs, there was no reflection of the tendency of its cable sibling MSNBC toward more favorable coverage of Democrats and more negative of Republicans than the norm. …The distinct tone of MSNBC—more positive toward Democrats and more negative toward Republicans—was not reflected in the coverage of its broadcast sibling, NBC News.	O'Reilly has lost his own "facts" in his stilted rant. Mr. Bauder has, to all appearances, accurately portrayed what the study actually said. O'Reilly, on the one hand, uses the Pew research to make his case that media in general and NBC in particular is biased against McCain, then argues against the Pew research when a liberal uses it. And then he cites it as a case of the other media "covering" for NBC. Bad on O'Reilly, unfortunately.
As for FNC, the study found that 40 percent of our reporting was negative to McCain and 40 percent was negative about Obama. Whoa, sounds fair and balanced to me.	10.29.08: On the Fox News Channel, the coverage of the presidential candidates is something of a mirror image of that seen on MSNBC. On Fox News, in contrast, coverage of Obama was more negative than the norm (40% of stories vs. 29% overall) and less positive (25% of stories vs. 36% generally). For McCain, the news channel was somewhat more positive (22% vs. 14% in the press overall) and substantially less negative (40% vs. 57% in the press overall). Yet even here, his negative stories outweighed positive ones by almost 2 to 1. [Emphasis ours.]	Whoa yourself! The findings align but O'Reilly's conclusion is a non sequitur. (See our conclusion below.)
Zzzzzz…	10.22.08: One question likely to be posed is whether these findings provide evidence that the news media are pro-Obama. Is there some element in these numbers that reflects a rooting by journalists for Obama and against McCain, unconscious or otherwise? …Obama's coverage was negative in tone when he was dropping in the polls, and became positive when he began to rise, and it was just so for McCain as well. Nor are these numbers different than what we have seen before. Obama's numbers are similar to what we saw for John Kerry four years ago as he began rising in the polls, and McCain's numbers are almost identical to what we saw eight years ago for Democrat Al Gore. What the findings also reveal is the reinforcing—rather than press-generated—effects of media. We see a repeating pattern here in which the press first offers a stenographic account of candidate rhetoric and behavior, while also on the watch for misstatements and gaffes. Then, in a secondary reaction, it measures the political impact of what it has reported. …Throughout the race, critics have contended that the media were besotted with Barack Obama's candidacy…. [But] the evidence suggests something more complicated than that. Coverage of Obama since the conventions has been more positive than negative, but it has also been almost as neutral or mixed. In all, 36% of stories about Obama have been positive, vs. 35% that have been neutral. And 29% have been negative. …The last week of the study (Oct. 12-16), which included the final presidential debate, coverage of Obama became more positive again (50% positive, vs. 19% negative and 31% neutral). …The rare instances where Obama was seen to have misspoken on the stump also hurt. …In short, the financial crisis and particularly Obama's steadier reaction to it in relation to McCain's were clearly a turning point in the media coverage. That more positive coverage was then reflected in the polls, which in turn were reinforced in the horse race coverage that played off those polls. In that sense, the data show, Obama was the beneficiary of the tactical, strategic bias of the press.	Careful when you cherry pick certain facts and ignore the others. The studies show Obama has taken a hit when he deserved to. They also indicated that the media is not so much the aboriginal source of biased coverage—as O'Reilly asserts—but jumping on the bandwagon.

CONCLUSION

We'll accept O'Reilly's premise that overall, the mass media is left of center while the country is right of center. For O'Reilly (and others of a simlar stripe) this disconnect is a disaster, and indicates that something calculated and sinister is going on. But this conclusion is intellectually lazy, superficial, and doesn't follow—for several reasons.

First, even conceding the media's liberal tilt, the heavy disproportion of negative coverage against McCain does not mean that those reports are inherently unfair. The Pew studies suggest a much more complicated picture, and instead indicate that when any of the candidates mess up, the negative reports intensify. (Please note, in this regard, the telling Pew comment that Obama has misspoken only in "rare instances.")

Second, the fact that Fox reported an equal percentage of 40% negative stories for Obama and McCain does not mean Fox is fair or balanced. How does "one for me, one for you" represent responsible journalism? This is not an "equal time" calculation. The Pew studies offer more persuasive insight, based on the finding that Fox and MSNBC are a similarly biased "mirror images": even though a right-biased Fox is trying like hell to ferret out positives for McCain and negatives for Obama, the best Fox can muster is two negative McCain stories for every positive one.

Third, speaking plainly does not equal speaking honestly and bluster is not a suitable substitute for thinking. O'Reilly has cherry picked the Pew studies but ignored their core lessons.

At the end of the day, the Pew studies lead to a very different, more plausible conclusion than O'Reilly's. Here it is: the media hasn't "given" Obama anything that Kerry and Gore didn't have. If McCain loses, his campaign, his choices, and his actions—not a stacked deck—are to blame. He'd have turned the hose on himself "big time" and earned it.

In his piece, O'Reilly writes, "I feel like John McCain." If so, he's earned it.