Loving this

We have been discussing the media’s roller coaster ride with Palin’s accessibility and secrecy. As Palin would put it, she had become disenfranchised with gotcha journalism, the media twisting her words, and unfair questions. However, another possibility is that her handlers were doing everything in their power to keep her away from cameras and microphones. Here is just a brief reminder.

The reason I bring this back to the forefront is because she’s done it again. She snubbed Oprah. Has she never seen or read anything?? You just don’t lie to or snub Oprah. If this woman is going to attempt any career in politics, she has to learn to play with people who aren’t necessarily on her side.

There are just no words

I had to put this video up.  It’s like seeing something really disgusting on the ground and pointing it out to a friend, “eww look.”  Okay, I am being a little dramatic, but I have strong feelings about this video and I wanted to incite similar feelings in others.  He choses not to participate in the recession, was speaking in support of women when he said Hillary would get older and older before our eyes, loves Sarah Palin, and is a self-described fuzz ball.  I swear I didn’t make up that last one.

Nostalgia

With our information coming at us from all directions faster than we can absorb, the present is really old news, the future is breaking news, and the past is, well, not considered relevant. Case in point, Obama has not even taken office, and 2012 is a hot blog and media topic. Since well before the primaries, Bush’s name faded into the void of unspoken things as America looked forward to a new president. I am guilty of this too; he who we shall not mention rarely crosses my mind anymore. Because we are nearing the end of the semester and the end of he who we shall not mention’s term (which was counted down on bumper stickers and widgets), I think now would be an appropriate time to look back on the last eight years.

I am prompted to write this by the ABC interview, which was full of quote pearls:

I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it — (laughter) — but, look, in this job you just do what you can.

I was also intrigued by the Rove debate over how one should look at his presidency. The headline reads, Is Bush the Worst President in the Last 50 Years? The part that strikes me as enjoyable irony is that we assume he will at least fall into the top five, if not three. Him being among the worst is not up for debate; it’s how bad was he. In the article, Rove defends him by saying that we likely would not have gone to war if intelligence didn’t say Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. However, one blogger responds to Bush’s comment on the “intelligence failure” in Iraq saying that while he may want to lay the blame elsewhere, much of it rests with him:

The Bush Administration tried to make Americans think they were in imminent danger of attack from weapons of mass destruction from terrorists tied to those who attacked us on 9/11, not because we were but because they knew that was the most convincing case they could make, and because they thought it would be “better for American interests” in the long run to lie to the American people

The debate was ultimately inconclusive as far as his rank. However, the other two liberal journalists, brought up many other points as to why he should be considered one of the worst; one being “sacrificing the American unity after 9/11” and the overall economic situation. This sentence is one of my new favorites:

The liberals who argued that Bush was indeed the worst president, namely journalists Jacob Weisberg and Simon Jenkins, described the war as a protracted failure, a quagmire built on the lie of weapons of mass destruction, the execution of which alienated our allies and instilled an anti-American fervor in a new generation of young Muslims.

For the past few months, we’ve been so excited about Obama that we’ve happily forgotten Bush. Months and months may pass before comedians find something funny about Obama. This video should remind us of what we won’t be missing and provide the laughs we won’t get with Obama’s administration.

Grassroots for Palin

It’s scary, but Palin still has a great deal of support from the conservative right. Her fans are learning from the successes of the Obama campaign by starting with the internet. Several websites exist promoting her for 2012.

This one has a continuing soundtrack of country music.

Here is a blog supporting her potential presidential run.

I could list many, many more. Cafepress is selling t-shirts and other merchandise for her fans.

However, I consider this the grand finale- check out this video “Hang in There.”

Her reputation is dealing with a spreading disease of viral videos from her beauty pageant swimsuit competition to an increasing number of cartoon videos and songs produced to her expense. Part of me does feel sorry for her because the public can’t just encourage her to crawl into hiding where she can lick her wounds. Of course another part feels as though she brings it on herself. She has not definitively said that she will run in 2012. Then again, definitive answers rarely come from her mouth about anything. If she chooses to run, her supporters will have been working for years to build up a base. They have learned from a powerful internet driven campaign.

How the internet created a hero

Has the internet accelerated the notion of hero worship? Obama and his platform of hope and change have ignited something in a great deal of the American population: the need for a leader to believe in, to look up to, almost to see as a king. Some think he’s going to change the world, and some think he’ll do it before he even gets in office. He started his campaign with a grassroots movement strongly supported by the internet. A conservative writer took on this topic:

Recently, members of mainstream entertainment industry also seem to have drank the Obama Kool-Aid. The “Yes We Can” video, which features the Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am, Scarlett Johansson, and other celebrities chanting Obama’s New Hampshire primary speech, has popped up all over the internet. From the feigned emotion on these celebrities’ faces, one would think they were reading from the Bible or Shakespeare, not from a relatively well written but somewhat politically banal stump speech. Nonetheless, this nauseating video has now become the new symbol for Obama’s grassroots support.

The video the writer is referring to is below.

Personally, I don’t find it nauseating; I understand its method of inspiring and energizing a nation. McCain produced a lot of videos that created fear; videos like the one above were a welcome contradiction.

This second video on the other hand makes my point of hero worship more clearly.

The internet is the only medium that will support these kinds of videos. Mainstream media, even the liberal media, will simply not show something so blatant. CNN reports on America’s trend of aligning him to some other great leaders in history. He will be our Kennedy, our Roosevelt, our Lincoln, and our Clinton. Dangers exist in these constant comparisons. One is that incredibly high standards are already set for a man who has yet to take over the presidency, and another is that it puts an identity on him without letting him have his own. I hesitate to bring this to light; however, Lincoln and Kennedy were taken from us in their term and therefore practically deified. Few talk about the human characteristics of these men. I am not saying anything about Obama’s future, but I do think that America will see him become human and slightly imperfect at times. The internet reaches a huge mass of people in a short time, and if he starts to slip, even a little, the medium will carry the message far and wide.

The Young Voter’s Connectivity

Blogs, You Tube, Face book, and stories that immediately appear on news websites have all changed the way younger voters view the election and politics. In this election, voters under the age of 30 accounted for 66% of the democratic vote. The gap between the parties has widened as more and more young voters have leaned toward the left.

Young voters are more diverse racially and ethnically than older voters and more secular in their religious orientation. These characteristics, as well as the climate in which they have come of age politically, incline them not only toward Democratic Party affiliation but also toward greater support of activist government, greater opposition to the war in Iraq, less social conservatism, and a greater willingness to describe themselves as liberal politically.

Voters under 30 are more inclined to utilize the more technological and readily available resources. I personally view the CNN website far more than I watch the channel. The computer is something that younger people spend their entire day around. They typically work all day on a computer and then come home to their laptops or desktops. If not around a computer, we carry a Blackberry, Palm, or some other device that can immediately link a person to any news source. The constantly evolving technology and speed of information has brought the world of politics to the younger voter and made it more interesting and accessible. People under 30 are becoming more informed. Some stories find more popularity in the blogosphere than on network television. Those stories are fueled by the ongoing interest in the population who remain linked in. An example of one story that receives very little attention in the media outside of the internet is the lawsuit over Obama’s birth certificate. Blogs are keeping this story alive though in all likelihood it will lead nowhere. As a story, it does breed a great deal of opinions making people’s blogs more and more popular. The world of technological communication keeps itself alive in this way. As long as it remains the fastest and most accessible source, it will remain people’s main news source.

Twittering Away

So, in order to understand this new phenomenon, I have joined twitter. I just recently got into FaceBook, and this reminds me of the status update feature (Kasey is getting ready for work or making coffee or about to walk the dog.) I have grown accustomed to facebook, but I’m incredibly slow in updating my status. I suppose I don’t feel I need to alert all my friends that I’m watching bad TV or shopping online.

Check out this very helpful video that summarizes it.

According to our other good friend, Wikipedia, twitter has significant uses for certain news industries and colleges. BBC is using it to disseminate breaking news. This is extraordinarily powerful when people have the application on their phone. People can get news no matter where they are. Also, colleges are using it as a way to get information out to everyone. Think how different the Virginia Tech. incident would have been if they had used this application. I was in undergrad when the 9/11 incident happened. I caught the beginning of it on the news as I was leaving for class. Class was not canceled, so I (and everyone else with a 9:30 class) had no idea what had transpired in the last hour until I reached a TV around 11:00. Technology is bringing everything current to people’s fingertips, and twitter is most definitely not the only application that provides this- and probably not even close to the most reliable one. However, I have an instinct that the primary and most popular use for twitter is a way to stay connected to friends from everywhere.

CBS had a segment about the explosive popularity of twitter and it’s use in elections. The correspondent came to the ultimate conclusion toward the end that there is such a thing as too much knowledge of what people are doing.

I’ve been on twitter for less than 20 minutes, and I’m already not doing so well. It can’t find any of my contacts from email because of multiple errors, and it has told me that it’s over capacity, twice. “Too many tweets,” it says. So, as it stands now, I prefer facebook. How many websites should I have to search to find out what someone is doing only to discover that it’s not that interesting. Don’t get me wrong- I think technology that connects people and makes the world seem smaller and more… sharable is great. However, what I have a difficult time getting on board with are systems that make it easier and easier to isolate oneself from neighbors, friends, or colleagues. I wonder if twitter is bringing us down that road. Perhaps I would feel differently if I had some friends on it….

They Still Love Her

Slowly and gradually Palin has been sliding toward the back burner in some of the major media outlets as the more newsworthy topic has become Obama’s picks or rather his anticipated picks for cabinet.  However, some sources still love her and write about her present and future.  The Washington Times for example still cannot get enough of her star power:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska | Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is juggling offers to write books, appear in films and sit on dozens of interview couches at a rate astonishing for most Hollywood stars, let alone a first-term governor.

Oprah Winfrey wants her. So do David Letterman and Jay Leno

Who doesn’t want her?  Rush Limbaugh has her all over his website.  The conservative movement is still clinging to her because of her potential to inject life into their dying party.  It’s a shame that they feel this rests on her shoulders.

All’s Fair

Fox News has reported on Obama’s pick to head the FCC transition team- a radical leftist who is a proponent of the Fairness Doctrine.  Funny how the term radical gets thrown around with ease by Fox News.  In any case, below are come clips regarding the feared Fairness Doctrine, which essentially means censorship to them.

Rushing to the Point

I’ll start with Rush Limbaugh because his show, both TV and radio, was always on in the house when I was growing up. While my parents may have thought that his political view would have influenced mine, it has not, and thus, I still have some strong feelings about him. They’re disappointed… but I digress. I find it interesting that he has such a following and audience but no journalism skills. People who listen to him think him to be an arm of the media, but in actuality, he is a college drop out. He’s not a reporter for Fox News, and he’s not a particularly good writer. He is entertaining- to some. His opinion and viewpoint should be granted the same credit as any celebrity with an endorsement and small speech to make. However, I want to focus on one specific topic and how it is handled by Limbaugh, Fox News, and CNN (for comparison sake).

CNN commentator, Steve Clemmons, spoke on the rumored or potential appointment of Clinton to Secretary of State. Clinton has a stronger reputation in foreign policy and was thought of favorably by Israel:

Interestingly, when Obama and Clinton were battling each other in a neck and neck race, Israeli public opinion polls showed huge support for Clinton, followed by John McCain, with Obama in a distant third. Why? Because many Israelis, rightly or wrongly, thought Clinton would be coercive with Iran and would hug Israel closely at the expense of other Middle East Arab interests — and Obama would not.

Clemmons also points out the other two glaringly obvious points about Clinton’s potential appointment: he would be keeping his enemy close and taking her out of the running for 2012.

Fox News makes these points and adds an additional mark against Obama’s possible choice. They state that appointing Clinton negates his mantra of coming change:

Admittedly, there is a need for proven producers to manage the new administration. Obama’s inexperience was overshadowed in the final months of the campaign by the even weaker credentials of Gov. Sarah Palin. Her shortcomings, though, do not lessen his. So, it is reasonable to look at seasoned Democrats to fill significant posts. Still, there must be a few out there who did not serve in the Clinton White House and who could provide just a soupcon of the change that voters signed up for.

Ultimately the Fox writer says the Obama could create havoc by giving his opponent so much power in the cabinet. And, he also theorizes that his doing so could demonstrate payback to Clinton supporters who ultimately helped him win the election.

Now, that brings me back to Rush. I can understand Fox putting a negative spin on Obama offering a position of power to his democratic rival. Fox is going to look at nearly everything Obama does through a different lens. And, they will be quick to point out that he is back peddling on his promise of change. However, Limbaugh went several steps further and made it about gender. He like Fox and even CNN made the point that her being in the position takes her out of the running for 2012. I cannot begrudge Obama on that one. But Limbaugh puts it in such a way as if he is further supporting the glass ceiling. Despite the fact that one has nothing to do with the other, he compared it to Obama sending his wife and kids backstage before finishing his acceptance speech. Taking Clinton out of the running for 2012 is akin to him putting the woman in her place. Limbaugh was the only one to make it about gender. He also asserted that she would not pass the intense questionnaire and essentially was not qualified. Palin, of course, was overwhelmingly qualified.

One last thing about Limbaugh, his “media” website is rather exclusive. One cannot access archives or many articles of interest without becoming a Rush 24/7 member. Not even Fox News requires a viewer’s email to read their news.  His website looks more like joining a club as opposed to subscribing to the news.