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Tom Friedman On Afghanistan Surge: US Just 'Decided To Adopt A Special Needs Baby' (VIDEO)

2009-12-06T14:19:10Z

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman appeared on Fareed Zakaria's CNN show to discuss the fundamental problems with the US surge in Afghanistan, arguing that the plan does not take into account the broader context of America's problems.

"I think what we need most in America today is nation-building at home, that that's what our country needs, that we aren't who we think we are," Friedman said. "We are a country becoming enfeebled by debt, with a weakening education system, and we need to get our groove back."

However, instead of nation-building at home, Friedman emphasizes that the U.S. plan to weaken the Taliban and build up a decent government is engaging in "nation-building 101 in the most fragmented country in the world," contrary to President Obama's assurance that what we are doing is not nation-building.

"Does the president understand?" Friedman said. "I feel like we're like an unemployed couple who just went out and decided to adopt a special needs baby. You know, I mean, that's really kind of what we're doing. And that's like, whoa, you know. That terrifies me."

Friedman argued that the only way for the plan to work is if it is successful in creating a decent government that the Afghanis will want to fight for, which will then be the true surge.

"I would argue, we're actually trying to create the conditions for the surge," Friedman said. "If they want to own it, they will fight for it to the death. But it's got to be something that delivers for them that they actually want to own."

Friedman elaborated on "Meet the Press," emphasizing that the key issue in all of this is the people of Afghanistan, who need "to have their own civil war." However, such an awakening is unlikely when the focus is not on the Afghanis.

"We're Americans, we focus on us. I think we're not focusing on the key issue," Friedman said. "If they think we want it more than they do, we are dead, because they will let us want it more than they do, and they will hold our coat from now until the next five or 15 years."

According to Friedman, this turns the issue of a deadline into a non-issue, as success is entirely contingent on the people of Afghanistan.

"When they want it, when they take ownership of it, it works," Friedman said. "And when they don't, we can be there till Christmas 2050."

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Clinton, Gates Walk Back Obama's "Locked In" Afghan Withdrawal

2009-12-05T22:49:22Z

Despite the president's commitment on Tuesday that a surge of US and international troops in Afghanistan would "allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011," that date is not a "drop dead deadline"--at least according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates recorded an interview with David Gregory that's set to air Sunday on NBC's Meet The Press. Both Clinton and Gates contradicted Obama's withdrawal language:

HILLARY CLINTON: We're not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline. What we're talking about is an assessment that in January 2011, we can begin a transition. A transition to hand off -- responsibility to the Afghan forces.

ROBERT GATES: We're not talking about an abrupt withdrawal. We're talking about something that will take place over a period of time.... Our military thinks we have a real opportunity to do that. And it's not just in the next 18 months. Because we will have a significant -- we will have 100,000 forces -- troops there. And they are not leaving-- in July of 2011. Some handful or some small number or whatever the conditions permit, we'll begin to withdraw at that time.

WATCH:

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After the president's speech, CBS News's Chip Reid sought clarification as to whether July 2011 was a "target" or a deadline and asked Obama's Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the date. Reid reported that Gibbs then called him to his office "to relate what the president said. The president told him it IS locked in - there is no flexibility. Troops WILL start coming home in July 2011. Period. It's etched in stone. Gibbs said he even had the chisel."

Joe Lieberman's Anti-Public Option Rationale Keeps Shifting

2009-11-23T16:04:52Z

This past Sunday, America was treated to the sight of Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) rolling out yet another argument against why he will filibuster any health care reform bill that contains a public option.

LIEBERMAN: One last word on the public option. I understand that some who have-- who have advocated say we need to have a government insurance company in the market to keep the insurance companies honest. This is a radical departure from the way we've-- we've responded to the market in America in the past. Here's what I mean.

We rely first on competition in our market economy. That's brought us a lot of wealth and-- given people a lot of jobs. But when the competition fails, then what do we do? We regulate or we litigate. We have never before said in a given business-- we-- we don't trust the companies in it, so we're gonna have the government go into that business. An irony of all ironies, Congressional Budget Office says, I repeat, the government run public option company will charge more than the private companies will.

Steve Benen has been tracing Lieberman's opposition to the public option, and has an excellent piece that points out the fact that every 30 days, Lieberman basically comes up with a new reason to inveigh against it:

In June, Lieberman said, "I don't favor a public option because I think there's plenty of competition in the private insurance market." That didn't make sense, and it was quickly dropped from his talking points.

In July, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public is going to end up paying for it." No one could figure out exactly what that meant, and the senator moved onto other arguments.

In August, he said we'd have to wait "until the economy's out of recession," which is incoherent, since a public option, even if passed this year, still wouldn't kick in for quite a while.

In September, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public doesn't support it." A wide variety of credible polling proved otherwise.

In October, Lieberman said the public option would mean "trouble ... for the national debt," by creating "a whole new government entitlement program." Soon after, Jon Chait explained that this "literally makes no sense whatsoever."

Now, it's worth pointing out that Lieberman hasn't entirely moved along from his Octoberfest line of reasoning on yesterday's "Meet The Press", continuing to talk "about filibustering a deficit-reducing bill in order to try to remove a cost-reducing provision, and doing so on grounds of fiscal probity." But, as Benen points out, this is a brand new rationale, "shifting towards opposition based on traditions."

In a nutshell, reform advocates are saying, "Giving people the choice of a public option is likely to help consumers by cutting costs and promoting competition." Lieberman is effectively responding, "We haven't done things that way in the past."

The other malformed component of Lieberman's reasoning is that he finds the fact that "the government-run public option company will charge more than the private companies will" to be an "irony of ironies." Of course, one of the things that will keep those private premiums low is that private insurance companies will be offloading the sickest patients into the public plan.

But the real irony of ironies is that, as I already mentioned, Lieberman and other conservative Democrats oppose the sort of cost-reducing provisions that would keep the public option premium low, like tying reimbursement rates to Medicare.

Naturally, there's a much simpler explanation for why Joe Lieberman keeps shifting wildly between different, incoherent rationales for opposing the public option: he's entirely beholden to the health insurance industry, who have given him millions of dollars, through thick and thin!

RELATED:
Another Month, Another Excuse... [Washington Monthly]
The Insincerity Of The Public Option Haters: Lieberman's Weasel

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Sadie Nardini: Mr. President: I Challenge You To Quit!

2009-11-05T11:43:36Z

Dear Mr. President,

I know you're trying to fix our massive problems, all while moving us forward on multiple fronts. I voted for you, and rejoiced when you won.

Yet, I also want you to quit.

I'm sure your stress levels are unbelievable. Yet, if you want to help create change we can believe in, then you must stop bumming cigarettes. I know you've done it, and might do it again, because you told Men's Health about it.

And you haven't come out with a definitive statement since then about totally putting down the pack. So, in service of my president, and my country, I am going to offer you a quick and easy way (yes, there is one) to replace those stress-related smokes with a more powerful habit to suit the powerful man you are.

Readers--take note.

Because now, Houston, we have a problem.

Cigarettes are one of the greatest causes of preventable death in our country, with obesity nipping at its heels. We don't need any more high-profile leaders leading our youth by example into the addictive mire of smoking.

And though bumming on the campaign trail isn't the same as heavy usage, no amount of carcinogens is OK. By it's very nature, doing something is saying that it's OK for others to do. I can't drink vodka and then tell you to lay off the hard stuff.

And no, our president doesn't have to be a role model for everything and I know he's not perfect. But he is undeniably cool. And by his natural emanation of coolness, he makes bumming cigarettes seem much, much cooler than it is.

Sharing a chocolate chip cookie with a friend is said to release all the calories, which is a harmless joke. But it's not as if, when smoking someone else's cigarette, all the death falls out.

Do cigarettes kill everybody who smokes? No.

Neither does staph infection, but I'm not going to go out and bum some from someone and see. I've decided that if the odds are good that the choice in question is deadly, but avoidable--I'm going to avoid it.

I can't tell what's in everything I eat, drink or breathe, but I sure as hell don't have to pick up a pack at the store on purpose.

Yet, I have to admit something to you, Mr. President, since you admitted it to us:
Even though every little harmless-seeming cigarette is a flirt with the can't-turn-back-now Big C, I, too, love smoking. A well-timed cigarette can be just what the doctor ordered if you know what I mean.

However, even though I have a crush on cigarettes, I also hate dying. So, I find myself at odds.

I may be a relatively detoxified yogi now, but I used to smoke a pack a day. When I smell that first puff, what we used to call the "butternut" and which was always my favorite part, my whole body squeezes and I want...just...one...drag.

And yes, I still bum one once in a while. My last one was a few days back, and that's when I decided to lead by example, and offer you the same tools I'm offering myself.

So before all you smokers brush off the "healthy" chick, let's be clear that I'm talking to the sometime smoker in my own mirror, too.

And I don't think I accept my friends' offers to join them outside because movies and the media make it so inviting. I, like the president, am not easily swayed by advertising executives marketing to my target group. I also have a sneaking suspicion that if Barack Obama wants to smoke, it's not because he wants to be just like Joe Camel.

So, Mr. President, and readers, I invite you to do what I promise to do this month--own our proclivity for bumming smokes (and smoking) and stop this nonsense together. In so doing, I will teach you, readers, how to get all the benefits of a cigarette--without ever smoking another one again.

Because really, we're after the ritual, the alone time, the sense of calm and space and camaraderie and relationship we get with this often-deadly lover. None of us want to be codependent, but, dysfunctional or not, we are. They might be hurting us, but cigarettes are always there for us when we need them, and we keep going back for more.

Though cigarettes are quite the stimulant, smokers most often cite the sense of calm, and centering as their primary reason to reach for one.

Mr. President, if anyone in this country needs a freakin' ciggy, it's you. I get it. But let's get all of us that moment of Zen--and the buzz, too--without all the carcinogenic accoutrements.

Because, as we all know, stress happens. So what are you going to do about it?
We have to deal with life's pressures somehow, so why not choose the coping mechanism that makes your life better instead of worse, and actually solves the physical imbalance of stress rather than masking it with a literal smokescreen?

Ready? Ok.

THE BUTT-KICKING BREATH:

Use this technique any time you would normally choose to smoke, or any time stress or anxiety gets the better of you.

This breath has been shown to slow your brain waves down, switching your central nervous system from the fight-or flight of anxiety to the still waters of the parasympathetic, and release endorphins that give you that same glad-to be alive buzz without, oh, say, the carbon monoxide.

It lowers your blood pressure, oxygen consumption and heart rate, detoxifies you. It also increases your lung capacity, which tends to diminish in smokers. Importantly, this breath gets you back into mastery of your moment, so you can decide what to do next.

Best of all, every time you use it, you will feel better and your health will be better, instead of feeling better mentally and emotionally, but actually being worse physically. And a win-win is more optimal than a win-lose any day.

Here goes:

1) Go to a different, smoke-free spot to enjoy your moment, since inhaling other people's secondhand smoke doesn't really count.

2) Sit comfortably.

3) Breathe in through your nose for 4 counts. Let your chest and belly expand as you do this. Hold.

4) Breathe out through your mouth for about 8 counts with pursed lips, as if releasing smoke. Press the air our slowly with your belly and ribs. Hold.

5) Repeat.

Do the Butt-Kicking Breath for as long as you want or until the cravings and stress have dissipated. And watch...they will.

"That's it?" You might say.

Yeah, that's it.

And by "it", I mean "the power to calm yourself down anytime, anywhere, without killing you".

I'm aware that to quit smoking, you'll have to go through withdrawal, whether mental, emotional or physical. I want you to know that the Butt-Kicking Breath will help you get through the 14 minutes it takes to bust a strong craving. It will help cleanse your body of toxins faster, and give you a tool to use while you support your efforts with the Patch, the gum, or whatever you need to ease the transition.

Eventually, though, you will find the power in being a DIY stress-reliever. Any time you hit drama in your life, reach for this breath. Find center yourself. And then, you're free.

Smoking has other draws, too, that you can switch over to healthier habits.

You want a ritual? Whenever you're stressed, go for a walk, and do your breathing practice. With every exhale, release your shoulders more, and with them, your crappy day. Realize this too shall pass.

Seeking community? Join a vigorous yoga class, shape up your body, and meet other people who support your smoke-free lifestyle, and are choosing to de-stress sans emphysema and families who have to pay their medical bills long after they're gone.

Oral fixation? Try having more sex. Your partner will thank you (and me). Or, though not quite the same, keep tea tree or cinnamon toothpicks around. It worked for my husband, after smoking for 20 years. The toothpicks, I mean.

Want to avoid the weight gain that can come with quitting? Don't smoke more...move more. Take this opportunity to learn the joys of eating well.

Mr President, am I being hard on you? Smokers--ditto?

You bet.

I think you're all rock stars. I'd vote for all of you for a second term. In fact, that's what I'm trying to do right now.

It's just this bad habit of yours has been fooling you into thinking you're handling your stress. In fact, the smokes are managing you.

Yoga and mindful breathing is all about taking control, real control, of your life. I know you can get the relief and peace you're looking for in another, more life-affirming way. And I'm all for trading up.

In fact, Mr. President, and readers...I'm starting today.

You?

Daily Show Beat Meet The Press To The Punch On Jon Krakauer

2009-11-03T13:11:57Z

Here's an excellent observation from Mediaite's Rachel Sklar, who reminds us that while the "big news to come out of Meet The Press this week has been author Jon Krakauer's assertion that General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was implicated in the cover-up about the death of Pat Tillman," that big news had already been more or less broken by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show:

Krakauer was on [The Daily Show] over a month ago. It's surprising that this one flew under the radar, given how many sharp-eyed journalists, bloggers and media-watchers tune into the Daily Show, and regularly report on the news it makes. But it can and does happen, and happened here. What this says about Krakauer, McChrystal and his book is no different than what was picked up from Meet The Press. But what this says about so-called 'fake' news is, keep your eye on it. People with important things to say make a point of trying to say them on the Daily Show. So don't fall asleep before the interview.

All of that is absolutely right, and it's worth pointing out that Stewart conducted his interview with a greater awareness of where the "news" is in an interview with Jon Krakauer. That meant that Daily Show viewers got an interview that began with the Pat Tillman story and went on for six probing minutes. Meanwhile, at Meet The Press, Krakauer sat on the set like window dressing, and the subject of Pat Tillman wasn't broached until the show's final sequence of questions. Why have him on then?

GREGORY: Jon Krakauer, I want to get to a key element of your book, "Where Men Win Glory," about Pat Tillman and how it relates to this current conversation about Afghanistan. Because it does involve General Stanley McChrystal, who was obviously critical on the stage now and was critical in the Tillman story of well. As a reminder, if you look at pictures of Pat Tillman, the NFL star with the Arizona Cardinals, decides to enlist in the Army, serves in the Rangers after 9/11. This was certainly a big story when he enlisted. And at the time, General McChrystal was actually head of Special Operations command. So Pat Tillman was killed in a friendly fire incident and ultimately won the Silver Star, and that's what you focus on in the book and in a subsequent piece that you wrote for The Daily Beast. And here's what you wrote: "An October 5 Newsweek article [said, about General McChrystal] that `he has great political skills; he couldn't have risen to his current position without them. But he definitely does not see himself as the sort of military man who would compromise his principles to do the politically convenient thing.' In the week after Tillman was killed, however, this is precisely what McChrystal appears to have done when he administered a fraudulent medical" -- excuse me -- "a fraudulent medal recommendation" -- we're talking about the Silver Star -- "and submitted it to the secretary of the Army, thereby concealing the cause of Tillman's death." Briefly explain what happened.

MR. KRAKAUER: The--after Tillman died, the most important thing to know is that within--instantly, within 24 hours certainly, everybody on the ground, everyone intimately involved knew it was friendly fire. There's never any doubt it was friendly fire. McChrystal was told within 24 hours it was friendly fire. Also, immediately they started this paperwork to give Tillman a Silver Star. And the Silver Star ended up being at the center of the cover-up. So McChrystal -- Tillman faced this devastating fire from his own guys, and he tried to protect a young private by exposing himself to this, this fire. That's why he was killed and the private wasn't. Without friendly fire there's no valor, there's no Silver Star. There was no enemy fire, yet McChrystal authored, he closely supervised over a number of days this fraudulent medal recommendation that talked about devastating enemy fire.

GREGORY: And that's the important piece of it. And, and he actually testified earlier this year before the Senate, and this is what he said about it.

(Videotape, June 2, 2009)

LT. GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: Now, what happens, in retrospect, is--and I would do this differently if I had the chance again--in retrospect they look contradictory, because we sent a Silver Star that was not well-written. And although I went through the process, I will tell you now I didn't review the citation well enough to capture--or I didn't catch that if you read it you could imply that it was not friendly fire.

GREGORY: Even those who were critical of him and the Army say they don't think he willfully deceived anyone.

MR. KRAKAUER: That's correct. He, he just said now he didn't read this hugely important document about the most famous soldier in the military. He didn't read it carefully enough to notice that it talked about enemy fire instead of friendly fire? That's preposterous. That, that's not believable.

GREGORY: All right, part of this debate. Thank you all very much.

All part of the debate! But not a part deemed important enough to televise.

Krakauer did get to respond to other matters on Meet The Press and, in one instance uttered a line that was pure Beltway anathema when he suggested that the answer to the War in Afghanistan wasn't an immediate, Kagan-style troop surge:

GREGORY: And, Jon, the fear that you hear among critics of the president, or even if they're not critics, they're just skeptical of the policy, is that he'll ultimately choose a half measure, which they believe would be deadly in the circumstance.

MR. KRAKAUER: I don't, I don't agree with that. I mean, there's a, there's a huge range of options between pulling out and bringing in 40,000 or 85,000 troops. I mean, 40,000 isn't going to be enough to make much of a difference. Most--I think most people would agree to that. There's a whole, there's a whole range, and, and so I think you have to be careful of that black or white, either/or, all or nothing thing.

RELATED:
Tillman-McChrystal Controversy? Jon Stewart Had It First [Mediaite]

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Geithner On Meet The Press: Worried Banks May Be Too Timid (VIDEO)

2009-11-01T08:47:09Z

***SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO***

WASHINGTON (Associated Press) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner acknowledges the federal budget deficit is too high, but that the priorities now are economic growth and job creation.

Asked repeatedly on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether this means taxes will rise, Geithner avoided giving specifics. He did say President Barack Obama is committed to dealing with deficit in a way that will not add to the tax burden of people making less than $250,000 a year.

The White House has not decided how to reduce the red ink, Geithner said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

"Right now we're focused on getting growth back on track," he said. "And we're not at the point yet where we have to decide exactly what it's going to take."

He acknowledged that the economic recovery, while showing positive movement, has been shaky and uneven.

"A lot of damage was caused by this crisis. It's going to take some time for us to grow out of this. It could be a little choppy," he said. "It could be uneven. And it's going to take awhile."

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A bright spot in the recovery identified by Geithner is the banking system, which he said is "dramatically more stable" because of the government bailout.

Geithner said that just one year ago economic activity came to a standstill as major financial institutions shut down due to lack of liquidity.

Even though 115 banks have failed so far this year, Geithner said there has been a "dramatic improvement in confidence," with private capital back in the system. He said large businesses are now able to borrow again.

"The banking system is dramatically more stable than it was three months ago, six months ago, nine months ago, a year ago," he said.

But Geithner said more needs to be done to assist small businesses, adding that the administration is working to help open up credit to them. These businesses, he said, "face a really tough environment on the financing side."

After financial institutions were widely blamed for assuming too much risk and bringing the economy to the brink of collapse, Geithner said a concern now is that they might end up being too timid.

"The big risk we face now is that banks are going to overcorrect and not take enough risk," he said. "We need them to take a chance again on the American economy. That's going to be important to recovery."

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, citing the growing unemployment rate, said Sunday the president's economic stimulus program has done nothing but increase the size of government. He said businesses are "sitting on their hands" because of government spending and proposals for health care and other initiatives he contended would increase taxes.

"Business people are afraid to invest in their business, afraid to grow their business, because they don't know what's going to happen next," Boehner said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Geithner acknowledged the economy remains tough for many workers who have lost jobs and it's going to be some time before the employment outlook starts to brighten for many of them.

"Unemployment is worse than almost everybody expected. But growth is back a little more quickly, a little stronger than people thought," he said.

Unemployment hit a 26-year high of 9.8 percent in September, and the October report due in the coming week could show it topping 10 percent.

"It's likely still rising. And it's probably going to rise further before it starts to come down again."

Geithner said it's too early to decide if a second government stimulus package should be offered, though he acknowledged unemployment probably will rise even more before it starts to turn around. Economists expect to see job growth after the first of the year, probably in the first quarter, he said.

"You're not going to see real recovery until it's led by the private sector, by businesses," he said.

The treasury chief added that with about half of the stimulus money left, along with tax cuts and investments ahead, "there's a lot of force still moving its way through the system now" and that will keep providing economic support. "It's working. It's delivering what it should result."

Last week, Christina Romer, who heads the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said the government's economic stimulus spending already had its biggest impact and probably wouldn't contribute to significant growth next year.

Geithner also said the administration supports steps being considered by Congress like extending unemployment insurance and the homebuyer tax credit.

In addition, he complimented Obama's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, for his work in reining in pay for senior executives at the top seven recipients of government bailout money. Geithner played down concerns about government interference in executive compensation and the potential for the most talented and productive executives to leave their companies.

"We were very concerned about that from the beginning. And he had to balance some very difficult kind of choices. I think he's found a very good balance among them," Geithner said.

Asked if he saw an exodus at those companies, he said he didn't, but added, "I worry about this a lot."

Boehner disputed Vice President Joe Biden's recent assertion that the economic downturn has bottomed out.

"I don't think anybody knows whether we've hit bottom," Boehner said.

Mark Weisbrot: When the Media Is a Big Part of the Problem

2009-10-30T11:09:57Z

What kind of a public debate can we have on the most vital issues of the day in the United States? A lot depends on the media, which determines how these issues are framed for most people.

Take the war in Afghanistan, which has been subject to major debate here lately, as President Obama has to decide whether to take the advice of his commanding officer in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, to send tens of thousands more troops there; or whether to heed public opinion, which actually favors an end to the war. This month, one of America's most important and most-watched TV news programs, NBC's Meet the Press, took up the issue.

The lineup:

Retired General Barry McCaffrey, former Army General and Drug Czar (under President Clinton) turned defense industry lobbyist. In a news article on McCaffrey entitled "One Man's Military-Industrial-Media Complex," the New York Times reported that McCaffrey had "earned at least $500,000 from his work for Veritas Capital, a private equity firm in New York that has grown into a defense industry powerhouse by buying contractors whose profits soared from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." McCaffrey has appeared on NBC more than 1,000 times since 9/11/2001.

Retired General Richard Meyers, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Bush (2002-2005). He is currently on the Board of Directors of Northrop Grumman Corporation, one of the largest military contractors in the world, and also of United Technologies Corporation, another large military contractor.

Senator Lindsay Graham, Republican from South Carolina, a pro-war spokesperson that is one of the most regular guests on the Sunday talk shows.

Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a Democrat, was apparently intended to represent the "other side" of the debate. Here is what he said:

"Clearly we should keep the number of forces that we have. No one's talking about removing forces."

"No one," in the above sentence refers to the American people, whom Levin understandably sees as nobody in the eyes of the U.S. media and political leaders. According to the latest (September 24) NYT/CBS News poll, 32 percent of those polled wanted U.S. troops out of Afghanistan within one year or right now. That was the largest group. Another 24 percent wants the troops "removed within one to two years." For comparison, the leadership of the Taliban is willing to grant foreign troops 18 months to get out of their country.

In other words, a majority of 56 percent of Americans wants U.S. troops out of Afghanistan about as soon as is practically feasible or even sooner. Yet Meet the Press - a mainstream network news talk show since 1947 -- does not see fit to find one person to represent that point of view. The other major TV and radio talk shows that the right also labels "liberal" in the United States make similar choices almost every day.

When asked whether the U.S. should set a timeline for withdrawal, Levin answered "no."

I know, if you have enough time you can still find an anti-war, public interest viewpoint and the facts to support it -- on the Internet and even among some of the news stories in major media publications. But most Americans have other full-time jobs.

If the media's influence stopped there, the damage would be limited. After all, Americans can often still overcome the tutelage of the media's opinion leaders, as the above poll demonstrates. But the media also defines the debate for politicians. And that is where the life-and-death consequences really kick in.

If you want to know why President Obama has not fought for a public option for health care reform; why he has caved to Wall Street on financial reform; why he has been AWOL on the most important labor law reform legislation in 75 years (despite his campaign promises) - just look at the major media. Think for a moment of how they would treat him if he did what his voters wanted him to do. You can be sure that Obama has thought it through very carefully.

President Obama's whole political persona is based on media strategy, and on not taking any risk that the major media would turn against him. That is how he got where he is today, and how he hopes to be re-elected. Many analysts confuse this with a strategy based on public opinion polling. But as we can see, these are often two different things.

Seventy-five percent of Americans support a public option for health care reform. (A majority would support expanding Medicare to cover everyone, but over the years the media, insurance, and pharmaceutical companies made sure that this option didn't make it to the current debate). President Obama has the bully pulpit: he could say to the right-wing Democrats in the Senate: "Look, you can vote against my proposals, but if you do not allow your president to even have a vote on this reform, you are not a Democrat." In other words, you can't join the Republicans in blocking the vote procedurally. He could probably force Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to join him in enforcing this minimal party discipline that would come naturally to Republicans, which would allow it to pass the Senate even if conservative Democrats voted against it.

But to do that would risk losing some of President Obama's "post-partisan," "non-ideological," aura that guarantees his media support. Of course, the media is not the only influence that hobbles health care reform. The insurance, pharmaceutical, and other business lobbies obviously have more representation in Congress than does the majority of the electorate. But President Obama does not feel this direct corporate pressure nearly as much. After all, he was the first president in recent decades to get 48 percent of his campaign contributions from donations of less than $200 - a very significant change in American politics, made possible though Internet organizing.

There are other powerful elite groupings, such as the foreign policy establishment - which is more ideologically driven, like the medieval Church, than a collection of lobbying interests - that thwart reform on issues of war and peace. But the major media remain one of the biggest challenges to progressive reform in the 21st century.

This column was published by The Guardian Unlimited on October 23, 2009

Schumer: Success In Iraq A "50/50" Proposal (VIDEO)

2009-10-25T18:29:57Z

Sunday's twin bombings in Iraq were the first topic of discussion on NBC's Meet The Press Sunday morning. The attacks killed at least 147 and wounded 720.

Referencing the attack, David Gregory asked Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and John Cornyn (R-TX) if the US had "won in Iraq."

GREGORY: Have we won in Iraq?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well...

SEN. CORNYN: I think we've certainly made great progress. You know, I wouldn't declare a victory or say we've won, but it certainly is much better than anyone even...

GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

SEN. CORNYN: ...hoped for just a few months ago.

SEN. SCHUMER: If, if the goal...

GREGORY: It's premature?

SEN. SCHUMER: ...if the, if the goal has--if the goal was to stop terrorism, that link between Iraq and terrorism has long been exposed as false. If the goal is to bring stability, it's still a 50/50 proposition even after all we've done.

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Before Sen. Schumer stated the dim "50/50" prospects for succeess in Iraq, he praised the sacrifice of troops, noting that over 4,000 had given their lives for the war. Schumer also noted the war's staggering $1 trillion price tag.

Sunday's bombings follow a report released by the Iraqi government estimating that 85,000 civilians died from 2004-2009. Deaths logged from March 2003 (the invastion of Iraq) - 2004, were not included in the government's tally. About 148,000 people were injured during the same period.

Trish Kinney: My Meet the Press Minute

2009-10-21T11:15:51Z

It started just like every Sunday morning, watching Meet the Press. I picked it up when David Gregory was getting into the Shriver Report, A Woman's Nation, with Valerie Jarrett (Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls) along with Maria Shriver and John Podesta of the Center for American Progress. This was an unexpected and welcome possibility, the second half of Meet the Press devoted to women's issues. Valerie acknowledged that by thanking David for devoting so much of the program to the topic.

However, it didn't take long for me to take off my woman hat and put on my business owner hat. Once I saw where this seemed to be going, I let out the deep sigh that over the past twenty-eight years has been reserved for the ongoing tangle of complex business issues that balance the privileges of ownership with its responsibilities.

It seems that our society is changing in ways we have already been experiencing but now are borne out in real numbers. We are fast approaching a time when women will outnumber men in the work force. Existing labor policies are outdated, according to the study, and reflect a time when breadwinners were predominantly men with a spouse at home. Now in most homes, single parent or otherwise, all available parents are working outside the home. So it is concluded that we need new, family friendly employee benefits such as paid family leave, flexible hours, and employers who are supportive of the complex pressures on working mothers, in particular, because we still seem to be at the point where mothers have more responsibility in the home, no matter if they do make more than their spouses.

Maria stated we can all agree that it is best if a parent is home when children get out of school at 3 pm, so flexible hours are in order. If a child is sick, the parent should be allowed paid time off, because no family can afford to give up paid work days to stay home with a sick child. And then there is the need for time off for elder care as well.

Let's flip the coin to the other side for a moment. So many small businesses have lost the battle with the tough economy, and others are hanging on doing the best they can with less income, perpetually rising costs, and increasing pressure from competitors who will do just about anything to wrestle away clients. My company's staff is lean and dedicated, most with years of longevity in our high stress industry, and I pride myself on being an understanding, fair and loyal employer. We have the standard policies but are always willing to listen to individual requests for time off due to family or personal concerns. But I cannot imagine how we could manage flexible work hours as a policy and still get our jobs done. What do I tell the client who calls at 3:45 PM asking for their manager or accounting contact? "I'm sorry, she has left to pick up her child from school." Who does the work of the employee who misses 2-5 days because her child is sick and then she gets sick as well? And if I am to be required to pay for those days off, how do I afford to pay whomever does that work during those days? It has been my experience that if you quietly allow one worker "mom" to come in early and leave early each day, you immediately have 5 more who want the same benefit. Obviously everyone can't work those flexible hours when your business operates on an 8-5 schedule, so now I have a morale problem, or perhaps even a discrimination claim from childless workers who feel they are being penalized by not being offered the same benefit. And if I give the unmarried male worker more responsibility and more pay because he has greater availability and is willing and able to put in the longer hours, I am accused of contributing to the problem of women being discriminated against in the workplace.

As a woman business owner, I am sensitive to the challenges of combining motherhood with career. I have done it all my life. We decided that my husband would quit his lawyer job while I built the business so that he could be home with our two young sons. It was tough financially for a long while but we felt the sacrifice was worth it. After our sons left home, my husband joined the business full-time. But I admit that it was frustrating to hear David Gregory get personal and state that this study was about his own life and family. He referred to his wife by name as a prominent trial attorney, suggesting that they both had demanding careers with three children and how challenging that could be. Instantly imagining what a prominent trial attorney and the moderator of NBC's Meet the Press must make in combined income, I somehow didn't feel his case was a fair reflection of the social issues being discussed considering they could probably afford a live-in nanny for each child. But I am being asked to accommodate families who, in some cases, choose two parent careers, even though they could afford to live on the income of one of those careers, which in theory could force the family of a small business owner into the necessity of two incomes due to the sheer cost of the requested workplace changes. There are millions of workers employed by small and medium size businesses that are not Chase Bank, for example, that apparently has $3.6 billion in third quarter profits to work with. Perhaps they can afford flexible schedules and paid family sick days. Most of us simply cannot.

And while I am being so politically incorrect as to challenge a study urging employers to accommodate the changing needs of women in the workplace, let me also have a go at health care. I don't have to offer health insurance to my employees, but I want to. I pay 75% of the employee coverage which has now ballooned to well over $300 per employee. It is a huge corporate expense to offer a decent plan to my workers. Annual increases have been staggering over the years but somehow my clients are not all that sympathetic when I ask for contract increases to offset the constantly growing costs. They have their own costs. So every year, the increases have to be absorbed.

Nothing would please me more than to offer the benefits recommended in the Shriver Report to all my employees, male and female. But somehow I feel at this point that it would be better to insure they continue to have jobs and not join the nearly 10% of the population who is unemployed. I can do that by remaining competitive, being a fair and decent employer, and caring about them as people. That is the best I can do for now. I sincerely hope that this national conversation will eventually include the rights and challenges of everyone in the workplace, including small business owners who collectively represent a significant portion of our country's employers and who struggle every day to be good at it.

Obama Aides Stand Up To Big Banks On Sunday Morning Talk Shows

2009-10-19T09:45:45Z

WASHINGTON -- Striking a populist tone, several of President Obama's leading advisers on Sunday issued stern warnings to Wall Street. They said big banks must not resist greater government oversight now that they have regained their financial footing through taxpayer financed bailouts.

Rachel Maddow Would Fix "Meet The Press": Writer

2009-10-19T08:38:08Z

...[It's] time for MTP to make another change. It's not about the guy who replaces the legend, it's about the guy who replaces the guy who replaces the legend. He (or she) is the one that really has a shot. A chance to step out of the shadow, to be their own host, to make the show in their image, not as a reflection of the great one who came before them. And that person is Rachel Maddow.

If you're familiar with her work on MSNBC, then you know what I'm talking about.

"Meet The Press" Wins Again With Maddow

2009-10-08T16:48:14Z

"Meet the Press" had a convincing win this past Sunday, taking the top spot among Sunday talk shows with an average of 3.140 million total viewers. That's 17.6% more than second-place "Face The Nation" (2.670 million) and 19.3% more than third-place "This Week" (2.630 million). "Fox News Sunday" averaged 1.190 million total viewers.

"Meet the Press," moderated by David Gregory, featured US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and a roundtable including The New York Times' David Brooks, The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, and Republican strategist Mike Murphy.

It was Maddow's second appearance — the first, on August 16, drew 3.359 million total viewers for the show's highest delivery since April.

"Meet the Press" has now won nine consecutive weeks since falling to ABC's "This Week" on August 2.

Rachel Maddow: I'd Be A Bad Senator (VIDEO)

2009-10-05T09:05:19Z

Rachel Maddow said Sunday on the "Meet The Press" Take Two web extra that she doesn't feel she'd be a good senator.

"I don't think I'd be a good Senator for so many reasons before we even get to policy," Maddow said in response to a viewer question. "I am not interested in doing that. I have great respect for people who choose to pursue their both ideological aims and what they want for the country by doing that, but I think I'd be horrible at it."

Maddow added that she believes the switch from media to politics hinges on one important question.

"It depends, I think, on whether or not you want your daily job to be participating in a big group decision with other legislators," she said. "I'm bad at that."

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Paterson Wastes His 'Meet the Press' Moment: Politicker

2009-09-28T15:44:22Z

Watching David Paterson play dumb on "Meet the Press" on Sunday called to mind a favorite scene from "The Naked Gun," when Leslie Nielsen's Lt. Frank Drebin tries in vain to dissuade shocked passersby from staring at a truly spectacular explosion by shouting: "Nothing to see here! Please disperse! Nothing to see here!"

David Paterson On Meet The Press: "I'm Blind, I'm Not Oblivious" (VIDEO)

2009-09-27T21:06:05Z

ALBANY, N.Y. — David Paterson thrived politically as a state senator, working his way up in a nearly all-white Albany political structure.

Now, he's governor, and things have never been worse.

For nearly a year, Paterson, the state's first black governor, has been battered by a faltering economy and with poll numbers hovering at record lows. This week, he learned President Barack Obama's administration is worried he'll drag other Democrats down in 2010 if he runs for a full term, perhaps even threatening the narrow margin the party needs to ward off filibusters in the U.S. Senate.

These days, Paterson finds himself very much alone.

Paterson said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Obama never directly asked him to step aside, and he wouldn't discuss what presidential aides may have told him confidentially. But the legally blind governor added he's heard the message from Democrats in New York and Washington: "I'm blind, I'm not oblivious."

"But I am running for governor," he said. "I don't think I am a drag on the party. I think I'm fighting for the priorities of my party."

At an Associated Press event in Syracuse last week, Paterson said that when he was Gov. Eliot Spitzer's lieutenant governor, he had never envisioned becoming the state's chief executive.

"I had this grand plan that Hillary Clinton was going to become president," he said. "Maybe the governor would appoint me to the Senate."

In January 2008, that was the plan. Paterson worked to draw black voters to Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. On TV screens and front pages, he was wedged next to President Bill Clinton and closer to the senator than Chelsea.

Democrats thought it was a well-deserved fit for Paterson as a reward for bringing the party close to controlling the state Senate for the first time in decades. Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch said Paterson was capable, highly intelligent and courageous. Paterson was the dashing statesman in an otherwise plodding Albany. He was smart, collegial, a reformer, ambitious and funny – on purpose.

Now, for many, he's a punch line.

Even Paterson is starting to talk about exit scenarios.

"I don't think anyone who is clearly hurting their party would take an action like running when it is going to make the party lose," he said. Then he added a shot: "I'm not sure those that are always calling for loyalty in the Democratic Party have been loyal themselves."

Albany's top two legislative Democrats – Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Conference Leader John Sampson – last week committed to Paterson "right now" and "until otherwise known." Another Democratic pal, Rep. Gregory Meeks of Queens, called Paterson "my governor, my friend, who has done a relatively good job."

For a sitting governor, that praise is a few shades shy of faint.

All of this comes days after Washington Democrats sent a clear message that Paterson should step aside for the popular Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. They are concerned that a weak top of the ticket could hurt other Democrats, including Kirsten Gillibrand, whom Paterson appointed to fill Clinton's Senate seat. A Paterson run could even entice Republican savior-in-waiting Rudy Giuliani to run for governor.

"He needs a game-changer," said Lee Miringoff of the Marist College poll, which found Paterson had a 17 percent approval rating.

Many, however, say the game is over.

Last week's criticism and an apparent snub by Obama who gushed over Cuomo during a New York visit was embarrassing publicly for Paterson. Worse, it may be lethal financially, giving Democratic campaign contributors cover to cut checks to Cuomo and, with the apparent blessing of the nation's first black president, not worry about a backlash.

That will make Paterson's decision for him. It was the same force that made Cuomo exit the 2002 race for governor as money and support flowed to then-state Comptroller Carl McCall in his losing campaign to unseat Gov. George Pataki.

Without friends, a free flow of campaign cash and the contacts made from a previous campaign for governor, Paterson is mostly alone. Inheriting the job 18 months ago when Spitzer resigned amid a prostitution probe and governing through the worst fiscal crisis in state history left him saying "no" to powerful, well-funded special interests, while repeatedly committing his own political missteps, including the ugly process to replace Clinton with Gillibrand.

Paterson angered the Kennedy family when he didn't embrace Caroline Kennedy for the job and a Paterson operative later leaked unsubstantiated rumors about her in an attempt to show she was ill suited.

He is left with a message that is not much more than his character – which polls show New Yorkers like – and how he feels he kept the state from worse fiscal fates faced by other states.

So Paterson says he's "clearly running" even as Democrats urge him to reconsider.

"You don't give up because you have low poll numbers," he told "Meet the Press." "If everybody can tell what the future is, why didn't they tell me I'd be governor? I could have used the heads-up."

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"Meet The Press" Wins Obama's Sunday Ratings Race

2009-09-24T14:59:39Z

NBC's "Meet the Press" has won President Obama's Sunday talk show blitz.

Obama appeared on five shows Sunday — NBC's "Meet the Press," ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face the Nation," CNN's "State of the Union," and Univision's "Al Punto" — and "Meet the Press" drew the most viewers.

David Gregory's interview with the President attracted an average of 3.290 million total viewers, 7% more than George Stephanopoulos' 3.081 million, and 20% more than Bob Schieffer's 2.740 million.

Fox News Sunday, which did not receive an interview with the President, averaged 1.239 million total viewers.

On cable, Jorge Ramos' interview averaged 954,000 total viewers for Univision, more than John King's 602,000* on CNN.

*"State of the Union" airs from 9AM-1PM on CNN. The 9-10 AM hour averaged 602,000 total viewers.

Michelle Kraus: The Two Presidents Are In Sync Using the Media to Deliver the Message: CGI Opens in NYC.

2009-09-22T19:31:57Z

Something is really going on over the last few days. You can smell it in the air like springtime. There is hope. The two Presidents are dueling for prime time television spots, and romancing the American public. A-ha, these two are showing the loggerheads in the media how it should be done.

Obama did the grand slam on the Sunday shows from Meet the Press to Face the Nation and This Week attempting to defuse the acrimony over his health care agenda, and it went very well. Good going! And if that were not enough now former President Clinton waltzed through the television networks with his global message for the opening of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City held during the convening of the United Nations.

This is really impressive in its attempt to right the media machine, and put it back on track. There is no controversy here, and yet the story has legs. It is the President who kicks off the convening of the Clinton Global Initiative embracing the world leaders and the fundamentals of world health, global poverty alleviation, education and climate intervention. This is a magnificent prelude to the meetings to be held later in the week with the Chinese government and other world leaders at the United Nations. This is a true gesture of unity. It is powerful and provoking as Obama steps up to regain leadership in the eyes of his country and world. Notably, there is no one more skilled than the former President Clinton to extend his hands to the new President. Consider the implications of the trilogy of President Obama, his Secretary of State Madam Hillary Clinton and the former President Bill Clinton. If the media cannot get this right without stirring the proverbial pot, they never will.

This is the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, an event that brings together global leaders from business, government, academia, science, religion, and non-governmental organizations, including numerous heads of state, former heads of state, CEO’s of multinational corporations, and prominent philanthropists. This evening President Clinton announced that more than 60 current and former heads of state, 500 business leaders, and 400 leaders from nongovernmental and philanthropic organizations will be attending the meeting, representing 84 countries. "In the midst of a global financial crisis, it doesn't surprise me that more people are attending this meeting than ever before,"” President Clinton said. “"Since 2005, it has become clear that CGI has found an effective model for addressing challenges around the world….”

Consider this in light of the irony of the cameo appearance last evening of former Majority Leader Tom Delay on Dancing With The Stars. The media has been handed one of the stories that will change our lives. Hopefully, they will run with it and return to good journalism.

WaPo Critiques Obama With "Expert" Panel Of Five Republicans, Two Dems

2009-09-22T10:47:59Z

The Washington Post on Tuesday called in a panel of "experts" to weigh in on President Barack Obama's attempt at the Modified, Limited Ginsburg over the weekend. Naturally, they are a day late to the topic. And, of course, the panel, in keeping with Washington Post traditions, is mostly a drab gaggle of Republicans. Here's how they achieve "balance": Republicans Karl Rove, Dana Perino, Dan Schnur, Ed Rogers, and Linda Chavez take on Democratic Pollster Douglas Schoen and Lanny Davis -- who moonlights as Washington DC's most unpleasant person.

Do you wonder what they'll say about the matter? Well, you'd be surprised! As you read the piece, you start to realize something -- the problem with this piece isn't that the panel is primarily composed of kneejerk, predictable, Republican critics. The problem is that the panel is astoundingly lackwitted!

Suppose someone were to come up to you today and say this:

Obama is 'on the edge of being pedestrian and boring.' He 'will be disappointed' when 'his media blitz" fails to 'move the needle' and 'affect public opinion.' Benefits are going to be 'short lived,' he will not 'persuade the large majority of Americans,' and it is 'hard to see what is going to be accomplished by this.' He should have 'gone on Fox News' to reach 'swing voters' and not 'insult [Fox] on the record.' I 'thought that the administration would have something new to say.' He 'said nothing new.' Also, 'hasn't really had anything new to say.' 'I...recommend...bipartisan...'

My response would be: "YES, I TOO AM CAPABLE OF BLANDLY RESTATING LAST WEEK'S CONVENTIONAL WISDOM LIKE A CRANIALLY TRAUMATIZED MYNAH BIRD." What the Washington Post said was: "OOOH! LET'S SPEND MONEY, ACQUIRING THIS INSIGHT."

Close readings of the individual pieces don't make it any better. Karl Rove -- a man who is credited with genius for driving the GOP into the ground while constantly intoning the most prosaic utterances about politics, ever -- thinks it's "expertise" to tell readers that there are five Sunday talk shows and then attempts to relitigate an argument between Obama and George Stephanopoulos that was much better when litigated by the original litigants. Linda Chavez thinks it's a contradiction for Obama to want to "reward decency and civility in our political discourse" while simultaneously decrying the "lies" and "bogus claims" of "critics." Lanny Davis, of course, likes the Wyden-Bennett bill -- not because it achieves savings, not because it's effective, not because it's going to make Americans healthier -- but because it's covered in BIPARTISANSHIP SAUCE, the most precious substance in Washington.

And I don't know why you pay editors if it's not to stop Dana Perino from putting sentences like these into your newspaper: "All of that is fine and good. But is fine good enough?"

To be honest with you, there's only one really smart thing said in this whole piece. Credit where credit is due to Dan Schnur, who says:

Most people don't watch television news programs on Sunday morning, and even political junkies don't watch five of them.

Seriously. That's maybe the one thing in this whole piece that actually needed to be said.

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The Best And The Worst Of Obama's Speed-Date With The Sunday News Anchors

2009-09-21T12:56:44Z

This Sunday, as you are no doubt aware, President Obama invited State Of The Union, Face The Nation, Meet The Press, This Week, and NOT FOX NEWS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES into the White House to attempt "The Full Ginsburg", which is a term given to anyone who attempts to appear on all five Sunday morning political shows. (Obama opted to favor Univision with an appearance, instead of Fox News.) Since Obama eschewed the warm embrace of "Fox News Sunday", it would perhaps be better to call the president's effort the "Modified, Limited Ginsburg".

This series of tete-a-tetes was much-hyped and the going concern was that Obama was "overexposed." People wondered: WHAT WOULD HAPPEN? And: HOW WOULD EVERYTHING CHANGE? And then Obama just let each reporter into the same drably-lit room at the White House and conducted the interviews as if the goal were to make them as uninteresting as possible.

This left little room for the networks to distinguish themselves (with the exception of CNN). And, as you might expect, taken as a whole there was a ton of repetition in the questions and answers. Most of the interviewers managed variations on the following themes:

--Generic process questions on health care reform.
--Generic questions on racism/Town Halls/Jimmy Carter/Nancy Pelosi
--Will health care reform require you to break a promise and tax the middle class?
--Generic question on Afghanistan: troop levels, McChrystal's report, are you changing your strategy?

Coupled with the fact that the entire interview process was more like a morning of watching Obama speed-date a bunch of news anchors, the repetition didn't do much for the viewer in terms of making any one of these interviews stand out as the Seminal One-On-One Obama Interview. No one came close to pulling a Frost/Nixon. But, nonetheless, there were some standout moments and it's worth noting who did the best and worst job at getting the interview to pop.

THE BEST: It was close, but CNN. CNN had the most raw material and put it to the best use, skillfully editing the interview and making a drawn-out event out of it. Where everyone else led off the interview with questions on health care, John King focused on the larger economy and began specifically with a question on unemployment: "Where the are jobs. When are they coming back?" SMART, SMART, SMART. Going into 2012, the key to Obama getting re-elected is whether or not people are back at work or still getting ground up in the teeth of double-digit unemployment. King not only found the most relevant way to begin an interview with the President today, he set his table, shrewdly, for interviews to come.

King also only one tiny question about the political process ("Mitchell McConnell [said]...we're winning the health care debate. What do you think of that?") and didn't attach a whole lot of importance to it, using it as a pivot question as opposed to a lead question. If you're as sick of process questions as I am, you appreciate this greatly.

On the more generic fare, King's questions were more informative. His "will you raise taxes on the middle class" question explained the "Cadillac insurance plan" fees. His Afghanistan interrogation began with intel from CNN's Pentagon reporter. He asked a better variety of foreign policy questions, and his final question -- which was used by most as a "lighter side" outlier -- asked Obama to "kitchen table" the H1N1 virus. To the end, the interview was serious, substantive, varied, and actively sought to not waste a minute of the viewer's time.

THE WORST: Hate to sound like a broken record but the metaphor is more than appropriate in this case. Meet The Press was the worst, by several country miles. This was Folgers Crystals -- mountain-grown vapidity. It was almost as if the working thesis was to prove that nothing of value could possibly come from having a half hour alone with the President of the United States.

Here's the Meet The Press interview in a nutshell: some generic process questions about health care reform, followed by questions about racism, and then some questions about Afghanistan, and then, "Who will win the World Series?" If every single question asked by every single interviewer on Sunday were wannabe kickball players, David Gregory's questions would all be the last ones chosen.

The first five questions were an example of pure vacuousness: lame, insufferable process questions of the most head-pounding sort:

First: "As you assess the situation, I wonder whether you approach this with a minimum threshold of what you'll accept for reform or at this point have you said, 'I've laid out my plan - take it all or nothing?'"

Then: "What are the hard choices that you are now asking the American people to make, and who are you going to say no to in order to get health care done?"

Then: (not even a question), "Like the public option? You effectively said to the left, it's not going to happen."

Then, "Are these the hard choices? Who are you saying no to?"

Then: "What are you really doing to say to the left? 'Look, you may not like this, but you've got to get on board and you've got to do this?'"

Basically, Gregory begins with a question that everyone has asked Obama a thousand times, then goes on to attempt to put words in his mouth twice, make generic mention of "hard choices" a couple of times, and giddily cheer-lead any efforts to stick it to "the left," as if the progressive caucus hasn't already made considerable compromises. David Gregory's clear message to the president is: "I'm going to ask a series of bad questions, but if you give me the answer I like, I will give you a free bouncy ride, Mr. President."

Honestly, the highlight for me was that David Gregory got Obama to nominally support the Saint Louis Cardinals.

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THE REST: Were it not for CNN, I'd probably have given my top marks to George Stephanopoulos at This Week. While he hit all of this week's generic obsessions, he didn't pointlessly dwell on any of them. His exchange with Obama over whether he could keep his promise on not raising taxes on the middle class was the weekend's most electric exchange, with Stephanopoulos quoting from the dictionary, and Obama snarking, "My critics say everything's a tax increase. My critics say I'm taking over every segment of the economy."

Stephanopoulos also got to ask a variety of unique questions, on Medicare Advantage and on ACORN, and his use of a historical question as his "lighter side/outlier" (Kennedy and Khruschev leading to "What's the moment in the last eight months where you took a step back and said, 'Wow, I'm going to have to step up my game'?") was one of the better ones I've heard in a while. The ACORN questioning was interesting, as he got Obama to say that "it's not something that I followed closely" yet to also cop to having seen the videos that Fox has been running. That was a contradiction that tripped my "Oh, really?" alarms.

Bob Schieffer at Face The Nation was the model of a good interviewer, constrained. As a news consumer, Schieffer always managed to convince me that he's committed and serious, that he doesn't care about being self-aggrandizing or looking pretty for the cameras, and that he's there to do a job on his viewers' behalf -- period, end of story. But then the vagaries of a bad time slot and a small half-hour window inevitably close off the potential. Schieffer managed to get in a question about the decision to scrap the Eastern Europe missile defense system and he was one of two interviewers to bring up Eric Holder's decision to launch an investigation into the CIA and torture. But that was about as unique as the questioning got. The interview never did anything to grate on the viewer but it rarely managed to get beyond the generic queries that everybody else was asking.

THE PRESIDENT: These interviews were hyped in advance as an attempt on Obama's part to continue to "move the needle" on health care reform and get a "game changing moment." If this was the goal, chances are, nothing of the kind will be achieved. Obama's passionate defense of the goals of health care reform was clearly bundled into his speech before Congress. Obama did an adequate job defending how his plan would benefit the middle class and he clarified some key sticking points on insurance mandates and fees for top-dollar plans. Obama continued to seem pretty much untroubled by the fact that a "public option" might not be an eventual feature of the reform bill and attempted no defense of the "public option" on the merits.

Asked repeatedly about whether race had been injected into the debate, Obama consistently offered the explanation that it was generic anti-government sentiment fueling the uproar of the summer and that race was a bug, not a feature, of that. He consistently called out the media for giving more airtime to the more intensely senseless voices in the political spectrum, which is why many have framed the entire interview weekend as some sort of Obama-versus-the-media spectacle.

What did President Obama achieve? Well, the president came into this September weekend after a long August during which he seemed to lose the thread of his presidency, facing the criticism that he was an overexposed celebrity figure. Just like last year, if you remember! And just like last year, Obama's response was to present himself, not as a hero to an issue or cause, but simply as a competent manager who could be counted on to handle a variety of critical tasks without giving in to the passions of the moment. So, rather than a blockbuster series of interviews, everyone was treated to the same, interchangeable, low-fi set up, and the president demonstrated a decent grasp of the entire presidential portfolio.

Anyone who tuned in hoping that Obama would reveal himself as a crusader or a fool probably turned off the teevee feeling a little bit disappointed. Just as he did with John McCain, Obama built his defense along these lines: my opponents are going to win news cycles, I am just going to show up every day and work on this immense array of serious issues with competence.

There were no game-changers, there were no gaffes. The big takeaway here is that President Obama has returned to his default position. From that position, Obama has not provided much in the way of revolutionary change. However, it's the one place where no one has yet bested him.

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Philip Lee Miller: Want Real Medical Reform -- Change the Paradigm

2009-09-15T13:54:13Z

Joseph Campbell first offered this sage aphorism:

"If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor." -- Joseph Campbell

The president subtly changed the metaphor this morning in a major financial address. Instead of the phrase health care reform he used the phrase health insurance reform. Ah , now we are framing the right debate. Was this metaphorical or strategic?

We have argued for months now that this is not about health care reform. Want real health care reform -- you change the paradigm. Read Deepak Chopra's OpEd this morning in SFGate. Then read all our past and future posts. We are just beginning to sense the advent of the 21st century. Old paradigms, companies, and entire industries are vanishing.

The current debate is about economic reform. And economic reform is about insurance reform -- catastrophic economic reform.

If health care is central and vital to the health and well-being of the nation, then health insurance should be regulated as a utility. As if Dr. Howard Dean had been following our very advice, just yesterday on Meet the Press, he offered the same prescription:

There's another way. There's two countries in Europe that have universal health care without -- and it's entirely run by insurance companies. But they treat the insurance companies like regulated utilities. If the insurance companies would prefer to be treated like regulated utilities, we'd drop the public option in a heartbeat.

-- Howard Dean

This image from the morning's news captures the sentiment even better. Shows that the administration may be serious about the fundamentals of a healthy economy first.

White House Shifts On Public Health Care Option

2009-09-06T09:56:50Z

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's top political adviser is backing away from having a government health care plan compete against private carriers.

David Axelrod says Obama believes a public option would be a good tool. But Axelrod says "it shouldn't define the whole health care debate."

The president is trying to refocus the debate on proposals to help the majority of people who already have insurance -- for example, limiting out-of-pocket costs. That's part of the legislation in Congress, but hasn't gotten a lot of attention.

Axelrod says it's essential to create a competitive market for self-employed people and small businesses to get affordable coverage. But he's suggesting a government plan may not be the only way to do that.

Axelrod appeared Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says President Barack Obama is considering his own health care legislation to cut through the stalemate on Capitol Hill.

Gibbs says Americans will know exactly where the president stands after his speech to Congress on Wednesday night. He says Obama is ready to "draw some lines in the sand."

It's still unclear what Obama will do on a proposal for government-sponsored coverage to compete with private insurers. Gibbs says the president supports it. But Gibbs isn't saying Obama would veto a bill if it doesn't include the public option.

Health care overhaul has been losing support, will polls showing only a slim majority thinks Congress should press ahead.

Gibbs appeared Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Angela Bonavoglia: Media Blind to GOP Hypocrisy in Health Care Debate

2009-08-27T12:29:53Z

The confrontations between the GOP, the Democrats and their supporters in this health care debate have reached hysterical proportions. But not once in all the media coverage have I heard a conservative Republican pontificating on the sacredness of the doctor-patient relationship asked how one reconciles that position with the governmental restrictions their party has championed on women's health care for the better part of three decades.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is one of the Gang of Six, the three Republican and three Democratic senators charged with hammering out a health reform compromise. Speaking to Iowans recently, he set himself apart from those who think that "when Grandma's lying in a hospital bed with tubes in her," government policy has a place, by declaring: "I am just the opposite." In a recent NPR interview, he singled out, as markers of progress in making health care reform more palatable to Republicans, his caucus's staunch opposition to rationing care and its insistence on "no interference in the doctor-patient relationship."

Carrying the banner for patients' rights on the subject of end-of-life care, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) passionately declared on Meet the Press that "The idea that we ought to talk about our future health and what our family and what we want done is a good idea, it's legitimate. What is not legitimate is having the government even weigh in on it. It is intensely personal, your health care, your plans, your family. There is no role for government in it."

What's stunning is that these are the same people who, with their party, have brought us an avalanche of governmental regulations dictating the availability of women's reproductive health care. It's even more stunning that the media is failing miserably to call them on it.

Indeed, conservative Republicans have spent years limiting the access of American women to birth control, emergency contraception, and pregnancy termination services, while requiring expensive medical tests, irrespective of medical need, and literally putting words into doctor's mouths in order to impede if not prevent women from getting reproductive health care.

Grassley has a 100 percent rating from National Right to Life Committee. Call it by any other name, but he's apparently quite content letting government ration women's reproductive health care, enthusiastically supporting efforts to withhold access to a legal procedure, to family planning services, and to birth control.

Coburn has the dubious distinction at this moment of being from the first state in the Union where Republicans are fighting -- first in the legislature, now in the courts -- to pass a uniquely onerous law. As one of its elements, the law would require that any woman who chooses to end a pregnancy have not just an abdominal ultrasound -- irrespective of medical need--but that she have a transvaginal ultrasound, if that would "display the embryo or fetus more clearly."

It's hard to imagine any test more "intensely personal" than a transvaginal ultrasound. It is an extremely invasive test wherein the woman lies half naked on an examining table while a cold, plastic probe is inserted inside her and painfully maneuvered for image clarity.

According to this legislation, the woman has no right to refuse -- even if her pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Here's her choice: an invasive sodomization with a transducer, upon orders of the State, or carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term.

Nor does her doctor have a right to refuse. If the woman is terrified, does not want a transvaginal ultrasound, or has already suffered forced penetration, her doctor is helpless to protect her. If the doctor does refuse to do the test, he or she can be fined $10,000, have his or her license suspended or revoked, or be sued by the woman, the spouse, parent, sibling, guardian, or "current or former licensed health care provider" -- this from the party that fights so vociferously for tort reform. (The statute generously adds that the woman will not be prevented from "averting her eyes," and that if she does, neither she nor her doctor will be subject to prosecution.)

Beyond the facile dismissal of pregnancy termination as a covered service, thereby restricting access to a safe, legal procedure for hundreds of thousands of women each year, what has happened with women's reproductive health care in this country, despite its pertinence to health care reform, is essentially invisible in this debate. Yet we have to ask: Would people stand for it if the health care reform model being promoted gave the State the power to mandate a non-medically indicated, invasive, costly test as a prerequisite for the open heart surgery Grandma needs to save her life? If it countenanced State mandates forbidding her to refuse to have the test or the doctor to refuse to give it? If it put words into her doctor's mouth?

While many are fretting over the notion of a government takeover of health care in the spirit of Big Brother, for women in America, in the area of reproductive health care, that takeover has already occurred.

It's time this came up in the health care reform conversation.

This piece was written for The Women's Media Center website, a non-profit organization founded by Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, and Robin Morgan, dedicated to making women visible and powerful in the media.

Michelle Kraus: August Madness: Politics, Money and Discontent

2009-08-25T18:11:30Z

August Madness strikes in the summer of health care discontent. Economics are running wild despite the "cash for clunkers" program. If they weren't so small, maybe folks could live in their new government subsidized cars. But a Prius just doesn't work for a family of five during the school year. Yet it is the last hurrah for consumer credit card companies before regulation. Interest rates skyrocket, and no one is putting the breaks on because Congress is at summer camp learning hand-to-hand combat, Chelsea is getting married on Martha's Vineyard, and Bernanke is still running the Fed. Set against this backdrop, Arianna is waxing longingly about FDR and encouraging Obama to get tough.

We know August is always the time when the loonies come out to howl at the moon and do a jig. And yet here we are again locked into August madness without our talking points as: Republicans kick the shit out of the Democrats, Democrats continue to fight among themselves, folks show up to hear the President bearing arms, Liberals threaten to boycott, and the media morphs into whores for ratings. Emotions run high, it's all about juicy drama, and we were not ready. Even sane (and sometimes boring) David Gregory gave into the pressures two weeks ago. Meet the Press entered the arena of high drama news as people tuned in for the tête-à-tête between Rachel and conservative Dick Armey talking about health care reform.

Somehow we are locked into the drama of health insurance reform while so many moving parts are ignored. How did we get here? And more importantly, how do we change the conversation?

"Meet The Press" Draws Most Viewers Since April On Maddow's Debut Appearance

2009-08-20T17:24:42Z

"Meet the Press" had its highest total viewer delivery since April this past Sunday, averaging 3,359,000 total viewers for David Gregory's most convincing victory in months.

ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" — which was guest-hosted by Jake tapper while Stephanopoulos was on vacation — averaged 2,470,000 total viewers for a distant second place, while CBS' "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer averaged 2,447,000 total viewers and FOX's "FOX News Sunday" averaged 1,207,000 total viewers.

Sunday's "Meet the Press" featured Rachel Maddow's debut on the show; she appeared with former House Majority Leader Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) for an in-depth look at the health care debate.

WATCH MADDOW BATTLE ARMEY

"Meet the Press" hasn't seen an audience as large as Sunday's since April 19, when it featured Larry Summers and averaged 3,439,000 total viewers.

Perhaps more importantly, though, it hasn't had as decisive a victory over its chief competitors — ABC's "This Week," which recently topped it for the first time since 1999, and CBS' "Face the Nation" — since the spring.

Sunday's "Meet the Press" topped "This Week" by 36% (889,000 viewers), Gregory's strongest victory over "This Week" since March 22; and it beat "Face the Nation" by 37% (912,000 viewers), Gregory's strongest victory over "Face the Nation" since May 17.

Michael B. Laskoff: Dick Armey - Master Scaremonger

2009-08-17T15:25:57Z

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines scaremonger as, "one inclined to raise or excite alarms especially needlessly." It's an excellent definition, but for anyone struggling to understand it at the gut level, I'd suggest trying to visualize the face of Former Representative Dick Armey. Many people already knew this, but I didn't realize just how true this is until I saw the fearless leader of Freedom Works on Meet The Press yesterday.

I cannot recommend watching his shockingly inflammatory "performance," but I also would be remiss not to recount ten great scaremongering tricks that he displayed. Truly, I don't think that I've seems such virtuosity since Dick Cheney was responsible for defending our civil liberties.

1. Distract - Blame the bad behavior on the left. Apparently, moveon.org ran a 2003 ad, which compares the Iraq invasion to Nazi war crimes. That's in bad taste, and totally irrelevant.

2. Diminish - Downplay the bad behavior. "There are always colorful people that show up with town hall meetings, a lot of people with a lot of colorful statements." We're not talking about your weird uncle coming to the holiday party in high-water pants. We're talking about people screaming and chanting anything and everything from rude questions to the Pledge of Allegiance to prevent any substantive dialog from occurring.

3. Deny - According to Armey, Freedom Works, "...encourage them [colorful people] to go and make their points clearly, assertively and with good manner." This does not exactly jibe with a Washington Post article that quotes him on the Freedom Works website as saying, "If you are going to go ugly, go ugly early."

4. Reveal - He characterizes a single-payer option as, "...the largest hostile government takeover in the history of the country..." What's worse is that, "...somebody in a bureaucracy with a degree in sociology..." could be in the position to deny you healthcare. Today, of course, an insurance industry bureaucrat who has no degree is already doing the same thing.

5. Involve God - Armey was sure to relate the fact that he and his Minister have discussed Medicare, and the right to withdraw from it. This way, we know that he goes to church and that his religious leader shares his fear of liberals.

6. Wear the Flag - Armey proudly declaims, "...freedom, the right to buy your own insurance..." Really?

7. Praise Capitalism - There are, after all, 1,300 insurance companies; if only government would get out of their way, they would make everything all better. To hear such talk, you would never think that the status quo is a problem. And didn't we just learn out that too little government involvement can be just as bad too much?

8. Act Grassroots - Armey extols the "...enormously impressive grassroot[s] uprising across the country..." while failing to mention that, "...major financial [Freedom Works] backers have included MetLife, Philip Morris and foundations controlled by the archconservative Scaife family, according to tax filings and other records." That last bit is courtesy of the aforementioned Washington Post article.

9. Demonize - Check out the Freedom Works web site, where you will be greeted by the least flattering photo of Nancy Pelosi ever taken, the word "unconstitutional" and the reminder that "Health Care Is Not A Right." (That whole life, liberty and pursuit of happiness thing apparently does not apply to health.)

10. Yell - When all else fails, use volume to drown out your opponents.

What's sad is not that Dick Armey would resort to all of this; he's just a politician, turned lobbyist, who misses the limelight. Sad is that these scaremongering tactics are so effective. They make it easy to forget that we rank #37 in world health, a statistic that tends to whitewash the avoidable human suffering it symbolizes.