libera voce/libera mente

A Few More Firsts

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:57:00 +0000

On top of the many firsts in the 2008 presidential election, we have:

the first radical ever to be elected president of the United States, dedicated as he is to "remaking" this country "block by block, brick by brick, callused hand by callused hand.";
the first avowed Marxist to be elected president of the United States, dedicated as he is to "spreading the wealth";
the first man elected president of the United States who claimed as his "moral compass" his pastor and for twenty years sat in his pews as he would rant things like: "Not God bless America, God damn America!";
the first man to be elected president of the United States of America who could not pass the White House security clearance.

'Accumulated Wisdom'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:32:00 +0000

"Conservatism has always been and will always be a force to reckon with because it most closely approximates the reality of the human condition, based, as it is, on the cumulative judgment and experience of a people. It is the heir, not the apostate, to the accumulated wisdom, morality and faith of the people."

From "Forging a conservative agenda: Time to reassess what went wrong and right" by Tony Blankley November 4, 2008.

In His Own Words

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:02:00 +0000

"But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties ... And one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change ... The Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day ... The Framers had that same blind spot ... the fundamental flaw of this country."

From a 2001 National Public Radio interview.

'Spasms'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:33:00 +0000

"If Obama loses it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me. My back is also suffering from spasms, so much so that I had to see an acupuncturist and get prescriptions for Valium. Yesterday, Jane Fonda sent me an email to tell me that she cried all night and can't cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduced her to a bundle of nerves."

Erica Jong to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera last week.

The UnAmerican One

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:12:00 +0000

Significant question arises as to the degree to which Barack Hussein Obama is really American, unAmerican, or actually anti-American. Spurring this concern:

Lack of proof of U.S. citizenship--the State of Hawaii may have just announced that his birth certficate is in order there, but this raises two important questions: why wait until a few days before the election to say so? where is the photocopied proof? If he took Indonesian citizenship for his long years of residence there he forewent U.S. citizenship by U.S. law. Was he repatriated? When and where?

His name is certainly not mainstream American, and it includes the name of a man we've fought militarily twice, one who was demonized long before we captured him and put him on trial (leading to his execution).

Promoting the Marxist doctrine of "share the wealth". Nothing seems more anti-American to most Americans than Marxism, an ideology this country has fiercely fought for more than a century.

Associations and affiliations with vociferous anti-Americans who haved preached the violent overthrow of our country. The Most Reverend Jeremiah 'Not God Bless America, God Damn America, God Damn America!!' Wright, in whose pew Mr. Obama sat for 500 sermons without uttering a single complaint. Black Americans seem more concerned about how quickly he dropped the church, not the preacher, after twenty years of supporting him--all for political expediency. And Phil Ayers is even worse.

As the first black American to win his party's nomination for president, his black experience has little in common with that of the main body of black America: no member of his family was ever enslaved here; his father, from whom he receives his black blood, was Kenyan and returned there when done his siring and education here (his father's siblings appear to be in the U.S. illegally); he was not raised in any sort of black ghetto in the States, but was raised overseas by a white mother. (Ironically, the most American part about him is his white Kansas stock.)

He seems to be the rest of the world's candidate for U.S. president, and they seem to be sponsoring him financially. Given the enormity of his campaign chest, double what Bush took in for 2004 and roughly double what his opponent has taken in this year, perhaps half of his funding comes from outside the U.S. What does that mean if he's elected? Whose interests will he serve? Many of these countries whose people support him energetically are strongly opposed to the U.S. government. Will he be beholden to these anti-American forces who actually put him in the White House?

Many Americans seem justly concerned about his agenda. Is it anti-American in essence? Why would his wife say she's only now proud of her country, now that she sees we going to allow her husband to overthrow it?

'Very Dangerous Game'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:33:00 +0000

The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game -- with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.

Platonic Objectivity

There's always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. But we are supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible.

That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can't achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty -- especially in ourselves.

This Campaign

Nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign.

Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press.

I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play.

The few instances where I think the press has gone too far -- such as the Times reporter talking to prospective first lady Cindy McCain's daughter's MySpace friends -- can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha bureau.

Coverage of the Other Side

What I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.

Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?

'Absolute Nadir'

The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.

Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.

Why Are They Doing This?

Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power & only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension.

In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -- and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway -- all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.

And then the opportunity presents itself -- an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.

With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.

And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country.

Michael S. Malone is a fourth-generation newspaperman. His great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kansas, during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian). His hard-living -- and when he knew her, scary -- grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. His father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. He's spent 30 years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And his oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national byline before he earned his drivers license.

From "Media's Presidential Bias and Decline" by Michael S. Malone, Oct. 24, 2008. Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures.

'Hoax'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:45:00 +0000

"Never before in our history have we had a candidate with such a lack of accomplishments and a lack of transparency into his background and associates:
We can't see his records from prep school, Occidental College, Columbia University or Harvard. What was his thesis?

Was he born in Hawaii or Kenya? Did he become an Indonesian citizen? If so, he would have had to give up his U.S. citizenship.

Was he then naturalized as a U.S. citizen when he returned to Hawaii from Indonesia?
If John McCain had . .
a 15-year relationship with the former unrepentant Weather Underground domestic terrorist, Pentagon bomber, flag-stomping radical leftist communist fugitive William Ayers and his accomplice wife Bernadine Dohrn

worked as a community organizer for the 'Industrial Area Foundation,' an organization founded by the Marxist radical agitator Saul Alinsky using his training manual 'Rules for Radicals'

been associated with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and considered him to be his 'moral compass', not to mention nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan

. . his judgment would be trashed, he could not have made it through the primaries, and he would be condemned as a racist."

Adapted from "Obama, the hoax" by James Lyons, October 29, 2008.

Big Boy

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:55:00 +0000

From "4 National GDPs as US Regions" The Big Picture, May 15, 2008.

'Over the Head'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:44:00 +0000

"The press knows who the press is for, and it isn't generally the one to the right. This has been true all my life. What has also been true is that the Republican had to get around it with the truth of his stands, the force of his arguments, the un-ignorability of his words, the power of his presence. You have to go over the head of the interpreters and gently seize the country by its lapels."

From "43% Isn't Nothing: Obama looks like a winner, but it's not over yet" by Peggy Noonan, October 24, 2008.

'Are You Joking?'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:34:00 +0000

ORLANDO, FLORIDA--WFTV-Channel 9's Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama's comment, to Joe the Plumber, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn't being a Marxist with the "spreading the wealth" comment.

"Are you joking?" said Biden, who is Obama's running mate. "No," West said.

West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America's days as the world's leading power were over.

"I don't know who's writing your questions," Biden shot back.

Biden so disliked West's line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife.

"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election."

wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.

From "Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interview with Joe Biden" posted October 24, 2008.

National Economies as U.S. States

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:09:00 +0000

From "Countries GDP as US States" The Big Picture, January 15, 2007. Source and year not noted. U.K., Japan, Germany, China, and Italy omitted due to size.

Thank God for Big Oil

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:14:00 +0000

"Oil Companies Paid More Than Bottom 75% of Taxpayers"

McCain Endorsement

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 23:50:00 +0000

"There's just no comparison. Obama's own running mate warned this week that Obama's youth and inexperience will invite a crisis -- indeed a crisis 'generated' precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?"

From "McCain for President" by Charles Krauthammer, October 24, 2008

'Most Heroic'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:45:00 +0000

"Mr. McCain has an unambiguous duty to the nation to force the public to at least be informed as to the nature and character of Barack Obama. He needs to lay out all the accurate available information on Mr. Obama's prior alliances, affiliations and conduct both for the purpose of revealing Mr. Obama's character and his radical policy disposition . . As courageous as Mr. McCain's life has been to date, the next three weeks may be his most heroic."

From "McCain's next call: Win with questionable dignity" by Tony Blankley, October 15, 2008.

'Moral Obligation'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:15:00 +0000

"Catholics have a moral obligation to withhold their vote from Barack Obama. It's people who are wishy-washy about their faith that would vote for Obama. How can you be a Catholic and vote for Obama? You can't honestly do it. I don't buy it for a second."

Pat Stanton, whose father founded Pro-Life Union of Southeastern Pennsylvania

Global Cooling

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:14:00 +0000

"Four scientists: Global Warming Out, Global Cooling In"

'That Real Scary Dude'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:53:00 +0000

"It kind of really sucks as a conservative anymore in this presidential election because it basically comes down to who I'm more afraid of if they win. In that case, I'm definitely more scared of Obama because he's a scary dude. I'd actually vote for Sarah Palin because she's a conservative. McCain is kinda scary to, but definitely not as bad as Bay-Rock Obama, so I guess I'm not going to be voting for that real scary dude."

THE RANT, October 14-20, 2008, C-ville Weekly

'Ways to Win in the Electoral College'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:10:00 +0000

Road to 270
Electoral College Calculator

I Am Voting for the Chick

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:56:00 +0000

Hatched by Tom Sheets who owns Blue Ridge Lumber in Fishersville, Virginia, now popular throughout the region.

'Polite Society'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:39:00 +0000

"Had any white presidential candidate had a close 20-year association with a white preacher overtly spreading race hatred from the pulpit, that candidate would have been not just universally denounced and deemed unfit for office but written out of polite society entirely."

From "Obama & Friends: Judge Not?" by Charles Krauthammer, October 10, 2008.

'Dangerous'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:27:00 +0000

“I know them well and I can assure you that no pitbull, no dog, nor any other animal for that matter is as dangerous as you are.”

Bridget Bardot in a letter to Sarah Palin on her depiction of herself as a pitbull wearing lipstick.

'Hysterical Emotionalism'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:25:00 +0000

"The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin's bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition -- without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor . . she's pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite -- which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend."

From "Nobody's dummy: Liberals underestimate Sarah Palin's vitality and -- yes -- smarts at their own peril." by Camille Paglia, October 8, 2008

'Nothing Personal'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:39:00 +0000

"Sarah Palin can't come to my party. Sarah Palin can't come to my show. It's nothing personal."

From "Madonna: Sarah Palin Isn't Welcome On Tour: The singer is rocking a private party . . ." by Laura Elias, 07th Oct 2008.

You Betcha!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:15:00 +0000

". . the affable, tough, determined pit-bull-hockey mom presented to the GOP convention was back with a jaw-jutting, happy-warrior vengeance."

From "Sarah Palin's Bridge to Somewhere" by Kathleen Parker on October 4, 2008.

'Everything She Stands For'

noreply@blogger.com (Michael J. Farrand) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:16:00 +0000

"I've been following her religiously. I had never heard of her before, like everyone else. I find her bizarrely fascinating, even though I pretty much despise everything she stands for."

Man who painted nude rendition of Sarah Palin for his wife's bar in Chicago.
From "Sarah Palin gets painted in full, and nothing's conservative about it: North Side tavern hangs nude portrait" by Emma Graves Fitzsimmons, September 30, 2008.