She was with the Russians, too?
In today's episode of "Who's letting driftglass down now?" I find myself very disappointed with Ms. Kathleen Hall-Jamieson.
Very, very disappointed, especially because there is so much that is unimpeachably admirable about Ms. Hall-Jamieson's body of work, so allow me to back up a few hundred miles and explain by my disappointment by way of briefly (since I am told that the posts of Successful Bloggers should never exceed one paragraph and I am way over my limit already) explicating Fake Centrism's Iron Triangle.
To start with, here is the audio from her appearance on Neal Conan's Centrist Tent Show that hacked me off:
The juice starts at around the 8:00 minute mark with host Neal Conan first going out of his way to "be fair" by chastising a caller for suggesting that ludicrous, destructive "Conservative" ideas are in any way related to the Republican Party.
No, I am not kidding (from NPR's transcript with emphasis added):
CONAN: Kathleen Hall Jamieson, "Looking for an Honest Politician." Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. Why is it politicians have so much difficulty being candid? Let's begin with Bob, and Bob's on the line with us from Suffern, New York.
BOB: Yes. And the reason politicians have so much difficulty being candid is we do not want to hear the truth. What we want to hear is rhetoric that conforms to our prejudice because no politician gets elected in America by telling the people the truth. And you have organized opposition to the truth in the form of the Republican initiatives against global warming, the Republican initiative about teach the controversy between creationism and evolution. I mean, it's all nonsense, but you got significance segments of a population that sign on to it because they just do not want to hear the truth.
CONAN: It might be fair to characterize some of those groups as conservative, Bob, but to say they're Republican...
BOB: No, no. It's not just...
CONAN: To say the Republican is - they're not associated with the Republican Party...
Then, through the magic of awkward, on-air lying, Mr. Conan simply redefines the caller's very reasonable point (the "organized opposition to the truth" being waged by Republicans) as a "values issue" (Darwinism!) and then further transmogrifies it into something about "gay marriage" before sprinting at top speed away from the scary and unacceptable idea that one side -- the Republican side -- is wrong.
No kidding.
CONAN: Well, to be fair to Bob...No, Mr. Conan. Global climate change is a fact. Widespread Conservative lying about global climate change is a fact. Republicans porting "Conservative" lies about global climate change directly into the language and policies is a fact.
JAMIESON: (Unintelligible) the alternative.
CONAN: To be fair to Bob, our caller, he was calling about more values issues. He was talking about, well, Darwinism. We can argue about that, but let's take the issue of gay marriage.
At this point, Neal Conan should have been taken off the air, but as regular readers of this blog know, that will never happen because leaping feet-first into any discussion that strays into suggesting that Both Sides Don't Do It is what NPR pays Neal Conan to do (these infamous example of Mr. Conan's Emergency Orthodoxy Control from 2009 ("The Wanktastics") and 2007 ("The Big Lie") make the point.).
So how does Ms Hall-Jamieson suggest the average citizen navigate the pointy rocks and blithering undertow of partisanship and public lying?
By trusting the Elite Consensus of our Beltway ruling class of course!
JAMIESON: That's a really important. One of the things we know about how the public in general learns is that when an expert consensus emerges, the public doesn't have to understand all of the ins and outs of how the conclusion was reached. If the public comes to understand that it is an expert consensus, the public does tend to accept it. I think we've got an expert consensus with Rivlin-Domenici and Simpson-Bowles.I must have missed that memo.
...
And if you are shopping for a regular source of trustworthy, expert opinions, where does Ms Hall-Jamieson suggest you look?
At the Sunday Morning Mouse Circus of course!
No, I am not kidding.
JAMIESON: ...But also, there's one other source of very valuable information, and in general, it translates well into English. If you watch the Sunday interview shows, whenever a candidate or a candidate's surrogate is on, you see some of the nation's best journalists holding them accountable and also trying to make sure that the alternative point of view is clearly articulated. We can then trace viewership of those shows, viewership of debates, the single most useful information vehicle we have in campaigns, and increase the viewership of media that tries aggressively to still maintain balance and fairness...That is when my jaw hit the floor, and it has taken me a couple of days to explain to myself (and now to you) exactly why I find this this exchange so insidious.
Because Ms. Hall-Jamieson always struck me as an intelligent, thoughtful academic dedicated above all to truth in journalism. She also touches all the right Liberal bases, appearing regularly on thoughtful, long-form programs like Bill Moyers and "Up with Chris Hayes".
So there's that.
There is also the fact that Ms. Hall-Jamieson also frequently speaks passionately about the way things should be. Journalists should ask hard, relevant questions and our country's real, complex problems. Politicians should be pressed to answer in detail how they would solve those real, complex problems, and voters should hold politicians accountable if they refuse to do so.
Yes! That is the world I would like to live in too!
However, other than repeating that this is the way things should be, on pain of torture Ms. Hall-Jamieson consistently refuses to pull the fucking trigger and explain in detail exactly how she proposes to get from here to there. Refuses to confront the ugly reality to which her own, meticulous analysis has led her.
And here is why that is so infuriating.
You see, in Chicago, where I lived until recently, there is a gen-u-ine, Progressive radio station. Granted some of its programming sucks hard, and the weekends are mostly a wasteland, and for some reason (which no one has ever managed to explain without losing me in a bewildering thicket of winks, eyebrow semaphore and Significant Pauses) this station -- which has 188 hours of weekly airtime to fill and is located in the big, Blue heart of third largest city in the American empire -- cannot get its shit together enough to create more than one-and-only-one locally-produced program...but it exists.
Where I live now, there is no progressive radio.
There is a delightful, welcoming Liberal tribe and a terrific left-leaning weekly alt press newspaper powered by the seemingly limitless energy of its publisher, but when it comes to progressive radio -- that little, conversational voice in your ear that can travel with you anywhere you go -- there is none at all.
Local radio runs about 30% Conservative talk, 20% Christian religious, 30% sports and 19% music.
The remaining 1% is NPR (know to you all as Nice, Polite Republicans) which, downstate, means 75% classical music, with the rest given over to a variety of non-controversial, NPR staples.
This place -- this small corner of the three million square miles of America outside the range of the fragile archipelago of Liberal radio, teevee and print -- is where most of your fellow citizens live.
So imagine yourself as that modestly informed "independent" voter that every cable teevee pundit drools over: the one who lives down the street, or across town or two counties over from me.
On teevee and radio, you are awash in red state white noise, and the editorial pages of your local newspaper (assuming you still have a local newspaper) are a steady shriek about the horrors of Liberals, Union Thugs and "illegals". This is the default media setting of your world, but you want more. You want to be informed or (since that requires all kinds of heavy lifting with sharp edges) you want to at least appear informed.
And, just as important, you are really not in the market for any opinion that sets you completely at odds with your neighbors -- the ones who love, love love ol' Rush and whose opinions fill up the editorial pages of your local paper. Instead, you're shopping for a point-of-view which will permit you to disagree with them with "Good point, but...", not "What sort of imbecile would believe something that fucking ludicrous..."
And thus do you, Mr. or Ms. or Miss Independent, follow the spoor of Very Serious People to the Fake Centrism's Iron Triangle.
Part 1: You read the New York Times. You do it for any number of reasons, but nesting comfortably and predictably on its editorial page (which is so much more sophisticated and thoughtful than your own, local yahoo shoutycracker page) you find Very Reasonable Conservatives like Mr. David Brooks talking just like you talk and thinking like just you think. Not only is he always so polite and respectful, but (just like you!) he is very uncomfortable with Conservatives like your neighbors while at the same time agreeing that hippies are pretty terrible!
Part 2: You watch the Sunday Morning interview shows where you are repeatedly reassured that the Extremes on Both Sides of any given issue are equally wrong. Usually the Right Extreme is clearly identified while the Left Extreme is merely stipulated to exist, but you know you can trust this framing because it is often proffered (either in-person or in writing) by that very nice Mr. Brooks you already know and trust from the New York Times. Sure, it may look as if the Right is almost always heavily over-represented, but any lingering suspicions you might have about the Left being misrepresented are allayed by the presence of, say, Harold Ford, Jr. or Tom Friedman laughing it up with the other panelists and generally getting along very pleasantly.
Like lodge brothers almost.
Part 3: You listen to NPR and watch The News Hour on PBS. And right there, waiting for you every Friday on the radio and on the teevee, is that very nice Mr. Brooks you already know and trust from the New York Times...and from the Sunday Morning interview shows. He and one of the Reasonable Liberals with whom he gets along so well laugh and joke and cruise through the weeks' news, reassuring you for the third time that there is no crisis so grave that this country cannot overcome it if ONLY the Extremes on Both Sides would just shut up, get out of the way, and let Serious People do their job.
And in this way -- through the repetition of the same Big Lie multiple elite institutions the veracity of Fake Centrism claim that "Both Sides are Wrong" is gently reinforced in the mind of Mr. or Ms. or Miss Independent.
Week after week.
Year after year.
Or, as Lewis Carroll wrote in "The Hunting of the Snark":
"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."
Which bring us back to Ms. Hall-Jamieson.
Straight-up Conservative lies from Birtherism to "Obama apologizes for America" to "Reagan never raised taxes" to the Sekrit Plot to Steal Mah Gunz! survive and prosper because they have no moving parts. They are simply false on their face, which means that they depend solely on the credulous bigotry of the Pig People for their efficacy, and that no amount of fact-bombing is ever going to shake the faith of the true believers in the infinite conspiratorial evil of the Dirty Hippies.
On the other hand, the Big Lie of Centrism does have moving parts. Centrism relies on Lies of Comparison -- setting Extreme Liberal position X and Extreme Conservative position Y against each other and declaring them both equally and oppositely false -- and that is its Achilles' Heel. It is weak point at which bullshit, Centrist vanity projects like "The Rise of the Center" and "No Labels" come apart at the seams. It is the weak point where scrappers like Paul Krugman have concentrated much of their firepower.
And it is the weak point at which I have concentrate the bulk of my energies these last seven years, because unlike straight-up Conservative lie delivery systems like Hate Radio which react to any attempt at rebuttal by automatically dismissing contrary evidence as proof of the larger media conspiracy of the evil of the Dirty Hippies, the Big Lie of Centrism depends on appearing Serious and Reasonable which is why it is vulnerable at any point where new information can be pushed upward into the feedback loop.
Which bring us -- really and truly this time -- back to Ms. Hall-Jamieson and her appearance this week on NPR's "Talk of the Nation".
Because small interludes like Mr. Conan's reaction to "Bob" represent those rare moment where you can see straight through all Centrism's bullshit about reasonableness and spot its enforcers aggressively patrolling the border, baring their teeth and batting down any attempt by anyone to challenge any of Centrism's most sanctified Lies of Comparison.
It is why, no matter how many thousands of serious, fact-based challenges to David Brooks' Centrist bullshit may pile up in the blogosphere or in his own comment section every week, every one of them is uniformly ignored by America's Newspaper of Record.
It is why real Liberals are virtually never allowed within shouting distance of any of the Sunday morning gasbag shows.
And it is why Neal Conan has a job at NPR.
13 comments:
Bravo, as usual. NPR has the balance disease, and has had it for quite a long time--probably at least since the Rethugs in Congress started threatening the money stream.
I understand your disappointment; however, I have never found Ms Hall-Jameison's analysis or positions very compelling. She is a self-styled Cassandra without much in the way of truth or trenchant prophecy to reveal. She and her "research" have always struck me as backward looking and not particularly well researched. The paradigm that "reasonableness" is a natural human process that will prevail if all the "facts" are dispassionately presented to the "public" is belied by all recorded history. The record of human conduct, especially political conduct, is that "reasonableness" is the least motivating of all political strategies. If "reasonableness" were the primary motivating instinct in human political interaction then President Adlai Stevenson would easily have beaten Eisenhower and Nixon would never have beaten the "Pink Lady."
David Brooks is a shill to a fatuous public that thinks voting is their only civic responsibility and a bothersome one at at that, willfully ignorant and looking for an easy set of solutions to ever more complex problems, they are ripe for the simple scapegoating that is American politics.
It is not an "honest" politician that we need now, you could hardly call any of the great political actors in history what the average person calls "honest," we need a highly skilled, experienced political leadership with the vision to know that true political achievement does not come from embracing the "art of the possible," but from the ability to make what seems impossible a goal that the public believes you can help them achieve.
The Neal Conason's and David Brook's of the world will always be with us, but so will the possibilities of great movements and leadership; hopefully, "the arc of history does bend toward justice," and we can continue to move with it.
I love your work. Your criticism is pointed and well thought out and if I wasn't so broke, I'd definitely "pay the effing writer," as it is I can only pay you the compliment of reading and appreciating your work.
No doubt.
Still, down here in Redstateville Georgia I am quite certain that people's political beliefs are energized by one immutable truth: Obama is a negro.
And my taxes spent on govt welfare are taxes illegally spent upon reparations for slavery.
OK, down here in Redstateville Georgia we operate on two immutable truths.
I think this is almost exactly right - the one thing I might try to weave in the emotional/structural/financial underpinning of this behavior. At the end of the day, many of these folks are paid rather well and have their positions largely based on their ability not to piss off too many people and/or their family connections. I believe that many of them know how tenuous their positions really are, and truly despise anyone who attempts to change anything or rock the boat.
It is this fear of being exposed, of having to justify themselves that hangs over the entire discussion like a mist. In their world, it seems like the easiest path to success is to buy into the big lie, no matter its consequences to the republic. Any number of individuals have been right and are never heard from again (or are not invited onto the discussions, which is how they get their next book deal or whatever). Meanwhile, people who have been materially wrong about just about everything for the better part of 25 years keep getting booked, keep selling columns, and so on. I think the question we have to answer as a community is how do we make being correct about things matter again to these folks?
I stopped listening to Bill Moyers because he has Kathleen Hall Jamieson on his show so often. You never know when you'll be subjected to her blather. She may be a secret conservative trying to poison the dialog (poor to non-existent as it is) by whispering her poison in liberal ears Gríma Wormtongue-style. You hit all the high points about her in your excellent post. Wormtongue/Hall-Jamieson and her ilk play right into the hands of propagandists and liars.
NPR seems wothless to me. I can get conservative news anywhere; why go to NPR for it? Back in its salad days it was a different matter, but now it is irrelevant. You constantly get both-sides-do-it on NPR and worse. They have sold out.
I wish there was a liberal billionaire out there some where who would fund a media group dedicated to reporting the truth about issues, and not this goddamned balance crap. I predict his money would come back to him many times over because there is a hunger to hear the truth in America. People are sick of lies and propaganda.
I would like to cancel my membership in the human race. I no longer want to be part of the hominid family, as this is apparently very controversial, and I don't want to offend anybody, like those nasty extremists on both sides do. But as Mr. Conan assures me that evolution is just a "values issue", I imagine a transfer to a nicer and less divisive species should be a mere formality?
That's what you get for listening to NPR. sigh. I gave up years ago, except to accidentally turn on "all things belabored" in my car and then, after a few choice adjectives, turn off the radio.
The conservatives in congress really have NPR and PBS running scared.
And don't diss Bill Moyers too hard - I saw a clip of him recently with Matt Taibbi and Yves Smith... and he has had Bill Black on a couple of times.
"they're not associated with the Republican Party"
someone needs to read the platform of the texas gop.
Thank you so much for calling this out. I heard it live on my car radio and nearly drove up a utility pole.
I only ever listen to NPR in the car any more (I can't stand commercials) but I learned long ago that it's safer to turn the radio off when Neal Conan comes on. Three minutes of listening to what Driftglass described (which is every Neal Conan show) would send me hurtling at top speed into a bridge abutment.
I'm going to keep this focus on Kathleen Hall-Jamieson. I listen to her several time and when breaking it down, she literally advertises for Republicans and pushes an idea that politicians need to be honest without journalist.
I took something different from it, well not too different. She is in fact a Russian spy. Her entire purpose is to trick those of us who believe in the truth and objective facts to lean towards this soft lazy journalism. This lady is dangerous and she and her entire organization should have NO credibility. In short, she's a liar.
In some ways she managed to trick you to a very small degree. How she tricked us is simply by avoiding to answer the question Moyer asked. She always goes into what she hope for politicians should do.. when the question was "Do they lie to us".
I also noticed an interesting pattern:
1) She talks about republicans first, then leans towards Obama.
2) When she talks about republicans, she makes an effort to let us know about their position and ignores Obamas (be easier if she never went into detail)
3) She always from the republican point of view.
For example when she talked about the most effective advertisement, noticed the words she used to describe them. Mitt Romney ad feature real people.. Obama takes a 'small' sentence. Mitt Romney needs to question Obama, Obama's ad was affected because of Mitt's tone.
Going through that interview, people would know more about the republican position and trying to get us to watch the debates. She tries to focus on what both sides agree on. She literally says "One of the really important things about debates that people don't notice is that if two can agree on something" So if both Obama and Mitt believe the world is really flat, she's secretly trying to tell us to believe in that.
Places like FactCheck tries to trick us into believing both sides are equal and avoid the bigger context of the situation. She literally tries to bury the truth that the Obama Campaign make efforts to correct their flaws and the Romney doesn't give a damn
I'm not surprise she's a spy, I'm more surprise on how systematic she play her roll. The only time she gives credit to the Dem is with Clinton's speech (which is about how republicans are liars), but only in passing to say Obama isn't as honest.
I wish to apologize for my previous comment. I was under the impression you were talking about the same episode i saw last week and most of my comments were about that, on how the well is being poison.
Greetings! How do you think what does your average reader look like?
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