Thank God for You Tube

Friday evening I went to a debate party. To be fair, I should clarify immediately that it was an Obama debate party, one I found out about on the Obama official website. Laughter, sarcastic remarks, and cheers were heard throughout the crowded living room, and they were of course, one-sided. However, when the TV was off, the discussion began, and someone actually said, “Thank God for You Tube.” She was referring to Obama’s reference to McCain’s bomb Iran song. I personally had never heard of the song, but in one click the next day, I was informed. You Tube has changed this campaign greatly. What one politician hopes to have slide away into the abyss of the forgettable is accessible to all. Anyone watching the debate and unfamiliar with the reference knows where to go and how to watch it for free. Not only that, but he or she can email the link to an entire address book. Like a virus or an inappropriate joke, the electronic message will speedily find its way to many computer screens. These clips and moments from past speeches will last longer than the words from the debate and will still be floating around even after the political bumper stickers peel from the cars.

Another handy You Tube phenomenon is the wave of clips splicing together the words of one candidate who contradicts himself across many speeches. The people putting together these videos have the privilege over journalists of possessing an unabashed agenda. They don’t play fair or walk on eggshells around the issue. They put it together, broadcast it, and make the viewer feel special or prized for being granted a peek at something deeper than the mass media would provide. At the end of many of these videos, the screen encourages the viewer to spread the word, as if it were gospel that needed to be communicated for the greater good. One such video was sent to me.

Of course, the video implies that media does not show the viewer such startling and important truths; however, journalists are shown in the clips as having caught him in changing his words and contradicting his quotes. True, reporters will not put the collage of untruths together in one entertaining format. The video is much easier to locate and spread than several mass media articles and shows. Thank God for You Tube.

Debating the Debate

Now is the time for every media entity from MSNBC to Town Hall to spin, twist, analyze, and breed sound bites and clips of last night’s first presidential debate. Of course, the question of the moment is who won. Well, the battle of the blog war was won by McCain’s face. This morning’s major criticism and clips belong to the topic of his smirk; or was it a smile?

In The Atlantic, James Fallows distinguishes between reading the transcript of a debate, watching a speech by either candidate, and watching a debate. In watching the debate, the viewer has the ability to see the two literarily side by side. We can hear every sigh, see how they react around each other, and read their faces and gestures. What’s the final verdict? Well, according to major news sources such as CNN, the winner is in the eye of the supporter. However, according to The Huffington Post bloggers, Obama won, and McCain’s face lost. His expression, his smirk, and his wild blinking when asked a question that made him uncomfortable took over the debate.

Obama appeared much more in control, poised, more relaxed, and even gracious as he gave credit to McCain for the issues about which he was right. McCain appeared smug and defensive. You Tube was lightning quick in posting the moment debate watchers fell a little more in love with Obama. He was polite, eloquent, and even respectful as he shook his head and said into the open mike repeatedly, “that’s not true” while McCain answered questions. However, when McCain chastised Obama for publicly saying he would attack Pakistan, the gloves momentarily came off, and in two minutes, Obama corrected McCain’s rewording of his stance and reminded him and the viewers of McCain’s song about bombing Iran. It was the sound bite heard round the world.

Who won? Bloggers say the winner is clear. Main news sites say it’s a close call. The question I have is if someone did not watch the debate to determine for oneself, where are that person getting his or her assessment of the “winner?”

Wikipoogle

Wikipoogle- why go anywhere else? If Wikipedia has an article regarding that topic, googling it will show it without asking you to scroll past five entries. The two entities are partners in the page-rank war. They are the power players. Google is ten years old, and Wikipedia is seven; in Internet years, this relationship has lasted quite a while. Our daily life has morphed into a break-neck-paced, visually overwhelming stream of information plugging into a person using all outlets. Our desk computers, laptops, phones, Blackberry’s, and PDAs keep us connected quickly and constantly. When something happens, whether that something is Anna Nichole Smith’s untimely death or McCain’s VP pick, the internet shows no prejudice, and it delivers the news before the story is even complete.

How does this evolution affect the ever-changing Internet surfer, who googles his or her way along the campaign? The average attention span of someone searching for something on the Internet does not allow him or her the willpower and stamina to view all the endless pages of a search result. Getting to the end of the pages on a popular topic, such as Obama, holds the same futile mystery as finding out what is on every channel when someone has the three-hundred-channel cable package. We just can’t know everything, and we couldn’t begin to try. It’s information overload. Therefore, we reluctantly trust the wisdom of Google to provide the most reliable and best sources on the first or second page. As a student, would you do a research paper using books someone else checked out of the library, sources someone else decided were the best, these few choices from walls and walls of titles. Why do we trust a search engine to do the same? The answer is because Wikipedia speaks the fast-pasted language of the time-constrained surfer who still needs to know. It has everything and links to everything it used a source. It’s quick, convenient, easy to remember, written on a below average reading level, and generally holds short entries that don’t try the attention span.

The Google generation bred the demand for a source such as Wikipedia. Nicholas Carr writes on the need to explore the way the Internet and this media is programming the users in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He cites Maryanne Wolfe’s notion that deep reading is tied to deep thinking. Deep reading is of course nonexistent and entirely unnecessary when reading, more like skimming, the information surrounded by ads, pop-ups, games, and links, blinking and glowing in competition for the viewer’s attention. The pervasive thread in his piece is that the human brain is exposed to the google power, which will spawn “hyperactive, data-stroked minds,” which will lead to a race of what Richard Foreman calls the “pancake people… spread wide and thin.”

Dawn Teo writes in her post on the Huffington Post that Americans are widely under-informed about the election. She writes to promote the idea that political activists must accept this fact and share the light, so to speak. Essentially, she supports her stance that Americans are disengaged with the web traffic map. The blogs, political columns, and You Tube serve as distractions from the main sources of valuable information. The informed must reach out to the uninformed, the ones who lean on Google and Wikipedia.

Is Google Making Us Stupid? Well, no, it’s making us adapt to an instant information-charged life. And that doesn’t necessarily make us smarter.

McCain Calls for a Recess

Today, the press didn’t even need to point out any negativity in McCain’s statements. Today, they sat back with cameras rolling and let the two candidates speak for themselves. Obama wanted to show a bipartisan unity against the problem of the economy. He was ready to be anywhere he was needed but was also cognizant that he was running for the most important job in the country. McCain, in direct comparison, veered off the proverbial racetrack. He wanted to delay the presidential debate and the vice presidential one. To me, he saw that Obama was gaining a lead and the terrain itself was changing- quickly. He cried uncle, for the moment, and said he wanted to stop running. Does he need to catch his breath? Is he feeling ill equipped? Well, I’ll leave the metaphor and just say this: listening to Obama’s statement and then McCain’s is reflection enough of McCain’s tactic. He feels he’s a better senator than a potential president, so he wanted to retreat to comfortable territory just when the campaign demands that he prove himself and when the public needs him to prove himself strong and capable. Maybe, MSNBC intended each of them each to appear like a president giving a statement to America. They both stood polished looking in front of two flags and behind a podium. They both looked like leaders. However, Obama, without the pushing of reporters trying to hand him the advantage, looked more comfortable and more in control. Also, the most poignant difference is that Obama took questions.

Thomas Edsall, writing for the Huffington Post, asserts that this tactic on the part of McCain demonstrates his inability to stay in touch with the economic turmoil this week. He cites political scientist, Sandy Maisel, who says that McCain’s image hinges on the timeline of communication between Obama and him. However, ultimately, she points out that she “cannot imagine how the people will not react negatively to McCain.” In the same vein, another political scientist pointed out the obvious side effect of McCain delaying the debate- weakness. Andy Barr’s Politico post dances between both sides of McCain’s decision. Was it a “stunt” or a “smart move?” He writes that support is drawn distinctly along party lines, meaning that McCain supporters would see it as a display of “leadership” and “nonpartisan problem solving.”

However, what I see is that McCain, the maverick, is the buzzword of the moment, not for anything substantial, but for a stunt, smart move, political tactic, or sign of weakness. He may not know much about the economy, but I bet he plays a dangerous game of chess.

He Said/ He Said

The economy may very well become the biggest and only issue in this election. We began with a handful of concerns: the war, energy, healthcare, homeland security, and, of course, the economy. In this month, the economy issue has gained momentum. And the words of the moment are bailouts, deregulation, Wall Street, and recession. Asking a candidate what he would have done to avoid this current state is akin to asking him how he would deal with a crumbling house of cards that he did not stack. Finally the media is pressing them and asking what they would do in light of this recent emergency. The issue of economy is tough, and maybe it’s not fair to hover around the singular topic and cast value on McCain or Obama based on their responses. The other issues need to be considered too; however, let’s face it, few are thinking about the energy crisis at this time. Most American minds are turned toward their houses, their pensions, their investments, and further stretching their paychecks.

Two 60 Minutes reporters spoke with the potential presidents this Sunday. True the reporter for the Obama interview pressed, not aggressively but with determination, to extract an economic plan from him. McCain’s journalist allowed his very political answer to rest on the screen and sit on the page with no more investigation. The following is a comparison:

A clip from McCain’s interview

Pelley: You’re not an expert on the economy. Senator Obama is not an expert on the economy. So let me ask you what traits would you bring to the Oval Office that would help navigate this country out of the current emergency?

McCain: Never complain, but maybe I can explain. That statement about me and the economy was made in the context of a long conversation. Moral of the story is, don’t have long conversations, especially with 60 Minutes. Point is, no seriously, is that I understand the economy as chairman of the Commerce Committee, which oversights all of the commercial aspects of America’s economy. I’ve been involved in these issues for many, many years. I know the economy. I know how to fix it.

A clip from Obama’s interview

Kroft: Suppose you wake up on the day after the election, the president-elect of the United States. What are you gonna do? I mean, how are you gonna govern? …You’ve never run anything. And now, all of a sudden, you’re in charge of…running the United States.

Obama: Look, if the question is executive experience, then Senator McCain and I are on equal footing. If people want to know what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And I’m gonna tell them, “We need to find a way to bring this war in Iraq to a close. And we want to do it safely and protect our troops. But we are gonna get it done because we can’t keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq when the Iraqis themselves aren’t taking responsibility. “And we have to refocus our attention on Afghanistan.”

The second thing I’m gonna do is we’re gonna pull together a working group, including our treasury secretary, and everybody involved in our economy, and we are gonna make an assessment of where are we? What do we need to do in terms of stabilizing the financial markets and the housing markets?

Third thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna finally have an energy proposal that has moved through Congress that includes increasing production, but also make sure that we are making this economy more energy efficient.

Fourth thing we’re gonna do is get moving on a health care plan that finally provides people health insurance at affordable rates. The people who know me, the people who’ve worked with me and for me understand that I know how to make things run and get things done. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, sitting, having this interview with you. It’s not just because, you know, I can give a good speech once in a while.

End of interview segments

Was Obama’s reporter better at getting this out to the public? Is McCain’s current disdain for the media causing him to shut down in response to harder questions? As a viewer and a reader, I don’t entirely know the answer. But, as a voter, I feel much more comfortable with a president who has a crafted, outlined plan.

Ad Wars

Are negative campaign ads more effective than positive ones? Or, perhaps a more pertinent question is this: is what the media and others say about those negative ads more effective than the ad itself. Both campaigns have positive ads, but CNN, the Washington Post, and ABC and other entities are not driven to report on one uplifting and positive ad after another. No. This week, ABC and just about every other news source clamored to speak on the Spanish-language ads. Both McCain’s and Obama’s were riddled with misrepresentations. The Obama one even resorted to the acidic and controversial mention that McCain was friends with Limbaugh. Do Americans go to the fact checker website to research the claims made by either candidate, and if they do, will they remember the truthful information or the thirty-second, cleverly worded commercial designed to not ask too much of the average attention span? I really don’t know the answer. As cynicism creeps into my mind, I would venture to guess that negativity and arguments that refute one candidate’s claims tend to be more memorable and popular.

Because I have respect for the American voter, I would like to think that one’s political affiliation and actual vote are hardly swayed by ads, positive or negative. Their power is rooted in the fact that they stir the emotions of the viewer, they’re humorous at times, and most importantly, they’re more likely to be shared or talked about among people and journalists. At this crucial time in the election, I would prefer ads from both sides that focused on the issues, as opposed to ads that point fingers at each other.

Where’s Biden?

Can you spot the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate?

According to CNN, Palin’s popularity is waning. This perception is interesting considering that a two-month waiting list exists for her every-so-stylish rimless glasses. Simply put, the media is in love with this woman. Not even a month has gone by since she was introduced at the Republican National Convention. Now, Googling Palin produces nearly 22 million hits; McCain yields 94 million, and Obama produces about 177 million. So far, those numbers seem about right. Then, Biden’s name, when typed into the all-powerful Google bar, results in about 9 million search results. He has a longer, more impressive, and smear-free record in government. He’s a leader in foreign policy, and one of my personal favorites is that he wrote and passed the Violence Against Women Act.

With his years of experience, he was the rational, pragmatic, intelligent pick as Obama’s running mate, and he fills the gap in Obama’s campaign, thereby making the ticket more solid. Being the logical pick doesn’t get one a great deal of face time in the media. For the sake of argument, I will give McCain the benefit of the doubt and consider the possibility that he was attempting the very same thing with Palin. Maybe he was trying to align himself with a more youthful candidate and put a female in power, which he was hoping would  appease the Clinton voters. However, his choice has given birth to controversy, useless headlines (Palin’s husband was arrested for driving while intoxicated 22 years ago), and the very element of celebrity for which he chastised Obama. The presidential campaign has always appeared to be a bit of a popularity contest; however, I was hoping that sensibility and experience would take over and the public would hear less about her hair and shoes. Was I being too optimistic?

Woe is I. The Media Hosts the Ultimate Pity Party.

As this week spins along, I am beginning to ponder one particular thing. Is the media victimizing poor Palin and devouring the McCains or is it exposing their weaknesses? As I read Dennis Prager’s assertion that Gibson now has his own doctrine and was unprofessional and unfair to Palin, who could not be expected to answer if she aligns herself with the blurry and mysterious Bush Doctrine, I thought about whether I would support a candidate who faced the “biased” journalist intent on proving him and viewers wrong or the one who cries pity me.

Additionally, Cindy McCain accused The View of picking her and her husband’s bones clean. A distinction exists between picking clean the bones of a politician who was been in government nearly thirty years and picking on a woman who has been shockingly tossed into the campaign like a golden apple into a banquet. As if the voters didn’t have enough distractions, we are asked to pity McCain because he can’t type an email or scratch his head because of his extensive war injuries. Well put, since I had spent a solid twenty-four hours without hearing about the honorable and self-sacrificing POW. I am waiting for the McCain camp to either say that he cannot speak accurately about the economy because of his years in the war or because he invented the economy, like the Blackberry. The latest woe-is-I headline is that poor Palin is being investigated and subpoenaed by a board made up Obama supporters. This particular cry of wolf backfired in that she appeared to be thinking herself above the law, uncooperative, and intent on hiding the truth.

America wants a few characteristics of its presidential hopefuls. A candidate should be, for the most part, an open book, able to speak intelligently on the issues important to the country, and strong enough to face the media, talk shows, and the public along with their questions. A politician who wines and attempts to evoke the pity of the public because the media was too hard on him or her is not someone I want leading the country.

I’ve Caved

I can’t not write about it; it’s just too provoking to be ignored. Today at lunch I sat and talked with a few friends with whom I share a common frustration. The issue is trivial to this post, but the remarkable thing that happened was our particular frustration dominated the conversation. We had not come together to vent; it was a social gathering, but despite the many times the phrase was uttered “let’s change the subject,” we couldn’t stop ourselves. Magnetically, we were being pulled toward this annoying, stressful, circular, unsolvable issue. We couldn’t not talk about it.

This pervasive, I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it, feeling is my new label for “The Palin Effect.” I have tried to avoid the topic, write around it, look for something else on which to focus, but as Charles Gibson asked the same question two to five times and even said he was lost in her blizzard of words in his interview with Sarah Palin, I have at last caved. From being offended by “Lipstick on a Pig” to going or not to Iraq, to never banning any book, to the bridge to nowhere flip-flopping, her face, words, and constant strong-politician hand gesture has invaded and won over the internet, newspapers, and news stations for another week. What perplexed me the most was her choice to answer the question of whether she believed the troops were on a task from God, which she was quoted as saying in her previous church, with a quote from Abraham Lincoln. She explained that Lincoln had said that the question is not are we on God’s side but rather is God on our side. The term backpedaling would imply that she was on the same bicycle. This answer was akin to jumping from a motorcycle to a skateboard and frustratingly using one foot to slide the board and herself away from the interviewer.

I tried, really did, to watch her exclusive interview with a glimmer of optimism. I held in my head a hope that if McCain and she were elected it might not be as a bleak as I had once preemptively thought. My small spark was snuffed out as she expounded on her pro-life stance and confirmed Gibson’s remark that she thought abortion should only be permitted when the woman’s life is in danger. Rape, incest, or both are not valid reasons for such ending pregnancy. At least, my mood was lifted as I watched her scramble to speak on the Bush Doctrine. And, I am still quite amused at the notion of what one can see from one’s state serving as education and experience in the policy and culture of that neighbor. Though it might be a blow ever so slightly below the belt, I am compelled to share this You Tube video of Tina Fey’s impersonation of Sarah Palin on September 13th’s Saturday Night Live.

Chasing the Female Voter

I’m feeling very sought after lately. Apparently, I am an illusive, mysterious, closely watched, and highly desirable creature. I am the white female voter. They want me, and they will do whatever they can to win my favor. They watch, as National Geographic filmmakers would, our movements, what we read, what we watch on television, and how we react to certain speeches. They’re careful not to invade our natural environment and keep to their method of incessant polling. “They” are of course both of the candidates, their campaigns, and the media. However, the McCain campaign is significantly more aggressive about it. For a moment, we should address the debatable tactic of him picking a female for his running mate. Was he trying to snatch up the last few morsels of Hilary supporters? Well, I personally was puzzled by the idea that Hilary and all that she represents could be theoretically replaced by a hockey mom/ pit-bull, lipstick or no. While women purportedly change their minds twice as often as men, they have not in my experience been inclined to change their personalities.

The scary and wonderful truth is that people, women and men, vote for many different reasons. Some vote because they long to see a woman in power; others perhaps vote because they want anyone but a woman, an African American, or someone in his seventies in or close to the presidency. The perspective to maintain is that people are voting. Despite this election drawing in more and more voters, the gold mine apparently is to secure the white female vote, or the female vote of any ethnicity. Interesting enough, the media is not remarkably concerned about the male vote. If the newspapers and TV stations want to focus on females, I will indulge them in this moment.

I am more than a little nervous over the perspective of the election being means to an Affirmative Action goal. Hilary and now Palin have mentioned the adage of breaking through the infamous glass ceiling. As much as I would love to say that I saw a female president in my lifetime, I am far more concerned about the other things I am exposed to (or forced to endure) in my lifetime such as war, terrorism, a vulnerable economy, a $70 tank of gas, and staggering unemployment rates. I prefer to afford to have and raise a child to telling him or her that history was made in the white house. Can we please shift the microscope a little to the left (or right) and examine the issues and not the gender or ethnicity of the candidates. And, can we not make headlines over the fact that women change their minds.