Disclaimer: It is late and I am tired so this may not be the most articulate post I have written, for that in advance, I apologize. But I feel compelled to say something before I go to bed so against my better judgement I give you this.
End of Disclaimer.
After reading an inordinate amount of blogs and listening to the pundits spin this on television for three days now. Something doesn’t set well with me.
First let me say that Barack made a mistake in saying what he said the way he said it. It was at the very least inartful. But it must be put into its proper context. He was speaking at a closed fundraising event in which it was announced that there was to be no tape recorders etc. So it stands to reason that he would be a lot more laxed in his responses thinking that he was in friendly terrain. If you want a much more artful explaination of what he said check out his you tube conversation with Charlie Rose. http://youtube.com/watch?v=dJut4-dHuV8
Listen to the whole interview it is quite insightful about the candidate and his views. Having said that, there is certain elements to this whole “dust up” that disturbs me. I think there is/was a pattern to a lot of this.
First, is Miss Fowler herself. She claims to be an Obama supporter and a “citizen journalist” what ever that means. But if you read the articles she writes about Obama they don’t seem to show this “support.” In fact, they do the opposite. You would think by reading her articles that she didn’t like the man, coloring him as arrogant, flirty and putting on acts for crowds. Now in fairness to Mrs. Fowler, if she is to be objective as a journalist then she can’t show her bias. And yet I think that maybe her assesments of his character do just that. One could argue that they may over compensate for her laiden feelings for Barack. In her attempts to not show slant in his favor she became overly critical of the Senator.
To me, this seems like it may be plausible, at first and second glance. But that still doesn’t explain away the whole “gotcha” tactics in which she broke this story. Now, she claims to be a supporter of Barack. This means that she most likely voted for him in the democratic primary when it came to California. I think it’s safe to assume that if she supported and believed in his politics so much that she gave him her endorsement by voting for him. That is the very least and the best way she could express that.
But we know that she has done more. Because the fundraiser she was at in San Fransico was aclosed to the public; which means that you had to be a donor to the campaign in order to attend the event. And we also know through her own admission that it was an event for those who had maxed their donationis. In other words we know that she at least gave the Senator 2,300 dollars towards his candidacy. Which means she helped put ads on televisions, pay for his staff, his travel expenses etc… I think you see what I am getting at.
Now here is where my problem lies. If she was there as a supporter, why the recorder if they said that they weren’t permissible. If she was there as a journalist, why then when they said no recorders she didn’t turns hers off. Because in my humble opinion, it was the equivilent of telling the room that what ever is said here is off the record. It is clearly obvioius that she and I differ on opinions on this matter. So lets move on. Now, if she were either a supporter or a journalist or maybe even both, why wouldn’t she let Barack know what she intended to do? Why wouldn’t she try to get clarification on what he meant if it bothered her and that is the reason she is bringing this tape out. She potentially could have sank the candidate she supported without so much as giving him a chance to ease her mind about what she thought was troubling remarks. And my last point about her is why she took liberties with distorting the story to fit her telling.
Ms. Fowler posted two stories in relation to this fundraiser. In one, she categorizes the audience as being middle classed Americans who were listening to the “Cocky” Barack tout about his foreign policy experience and speculate on who his VEEP would be. Yet, when she retales this “bitter” story, the middleclassed Americans are now upgraded to affluent cushioned from the troubles of the every day man millionares. (Funny how the person who was bothered by the generalizations of rural Pennsylvanians took out her own paint brush and proceeded to do a little broadstroking of her own.) Anyway, in either case, the respectable thing to do was give Barack an opportunity to explain himself, check with other people at the the event to see if they interpreted the way she had before she ran with the story. But of course, this doesn’t get her name in the paper. And it is my suspicions that this is what she wanted in the first place…
And might I add, that Ms. Fowler didn’t even place this story in the proper setting. She made it seem like Barack was just talking to supporters in whispered tones behind closed doors about how backwards people were in small towns. When he actually was asked a question by some supporters who were coming to Pennsylvania to go door to door for him to drum up support. They wanted to know what to expect, what they would be facing in terms of obstacles when they got to Pennsylvania and in a relaxed, non politically correct way Barack tried to convey how things were in the small town as it pertained to their mentality about voting.
I just find this a bit interesting is all I’m saying. I think that maybe Mayhill Fowler is being a bit disingenuous when she calls herself a supporter.
Now on to CNN. MY GOD! The way they have handled this whole dust up has been deplorable. It felt like Fixed news was running with the story…well I wouldn’t go that far. But I found it funny that they spent a whole hour pouring gasoline on this brush fire in hopes that it would ignite the forest. High minded and serious thinking pundits sat down around a round table and gave their professional opinions of how Barack’s comments were the worst thing that could have been uttered in the history of politics. Meanwhile the caption on the crawl below the screen said “Barack slams small town America” Slams? Wow, it was almost as if they were trying to destroy his candidacy…I take back my previous comment, this was as bad as something Fox news would have done.
Now for the record, I think that they should have been critical of what the Senator said, harshly so even. But what they were doing was an overt attempt to rouse the court of public opinion in almost a demagougish way. I mean you would have thought that Barack had stole some seven year old’s lunch money the way they were going on. Now let me also state for the record that I am a supporter of the Senator of Illinois so their may be a little bias in my statements. But not much.
Funny how Barack’s careless words could be construed in such a way that they require CNN to devote an entire show to the overall meaning of their intent. I mean, in the overall scheme of things, were they even half as bad as the news that Hillary Clinton’s top advisor was taking money from Columbia in the hopes of pushing a trade agreement that she is allegedly opposed too. Even though she has eight hundred thousand reasons not to be….That isn’t a bigger story than this? Her own husband is taking eight hundred thousand dollars on behalf of Columbia to promote free trade is not a torpedo sinker to her candidacy but Barack’s clinging to guns comments is? On a scale of one to ten which subject do you think is more damaging to America as a whole…free trade…or Barack saying that people vote for guns and based on their religious beliefs?…
Where has our politics gone when unartful words about the middle class is more of a concern than conflicting interest in the economy for this same middle class. When has someone comments about the way people vote been more of a concern to the voters than potentialy those middle class citizens losing more jobs to another unfair trade agreement? I wonder how much time did they devote to this Columbia story? This story which twisted and turned two ways, pointing in two directions from Mark Penn to Bill Clinton and ending up pointing in the direction of the Senator running for the white house. How is not her close relationships and ties to these two men not part of an underlying theme to something that is potentialy huge for the overall direction of the American people? Okay, let me stop ranting on that and get back to CNN coverage of this incident.
I thought that they devoted entirely too much time on this topic of Barack’s gaffe. But I figured that tomorrow they would have Barack’s response up to rebuttal the allegations of him being an elitist from John Mccain and Hillary Clinton only to find them giving entire segments to Hillary talking on the stump in the hopes that she or someone in the crowd may respond to Baracks comments from the day before. I am not kidding. They were devoting entire segments to Hillary. And then when they finally did show the Senator’s response from the night before while he was out on the stump in Terre Haute Indiana they would edit it. It took all of three minutes….his response did… and they edited the response.
Now how are they devoting entire segments to Hillary and not even giving Barack three full minutes of time in his response? That doesn’t sound right. That was the first time in this campaign where I can say that it was clear bias from the media as far as coverage goes. To further illustrate this point there is a part in Baracks video where he attacks John Mccaine and then right after he goes after Hillary. Well CNN cuts off his response right after he addresses Mccain and then Susan Maulvox says that he didn’t have anything to say about Hillary.
To me, it just seems like the media is being irresponsible about reporting it all because it is their desire to see this continue. They make more money and get more ratings when it does. I mean they are devoting hour long shows to cover Baracks words, when they wont even do an entire segment on a war criminal and his crimes.(That means you Mr. Bush) Bush was caught on tape joking about the whole Iraq and Katrina fiasco. And the media barely mentioned it. That is sad.
I don’t know I just think we should be better than this. The country is on the edge right now. We are tittering on something drastic here. This country is the worst I have seen it in my thirty three years. I am currently out of a job due to the brilliance of nafta, I am on the verge of losing my home, I have a grandmother that can’t retire, a mother that needs real healthcare and kids that need a stable future and CNN and Ms. Fowler wants to play politics.
And oh, by the way, I am bitter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!