A bigger TV audience for Palin's convention speech than for Obama's? I don't think so.

Posted by: Kevin B. O'Reilly at September 3, 2008 1:17 AM | Permalink

Strategy: double down on defiance by never letting her answer questions, except from friendly media figures who have joined your narrative

Up to this point, it's plausible, but this isn't. McCain doesn't share Bush's rhetorical disability; he knows how to charm mainstream journalists. (You can't have forgotten the Straight Talk Express.) And Bush's strategy of open hostility to the MSM hasn't worked that well for him or the GOP. Do you suppose McCain is unable to recognize a bad example?

Incidentally, is there really any distinction remaining between the NY Times and the Democratic party, or between DailyKos and the Left activist groups? It's true that the first two are "closed" and the last two are "open", and that distinction is reflected in their behavior. But within those pairs I find it hard to distinguish. It may be just my poor eyesight, of course; if it is, I'm sure you can explain it to me.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 3, 2008 3:01 AM | Permalink

Very interesting analysis ... but you point out the key issue ... WILL IT WORK!?

Bookmakers say "No" ... don't bet on that horse.

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/juno/ wait ... I meant this link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20080902/pl_bloomberg/azjwbcginwsg

Posted by: Halley Suitt at September 3, 2008 9:11 AM | Permalink

Two things: One, never underestimate the strength of the far right or its ability to energize voters. Two, the Palin pick (I love Chez Pazienza's "Palin Comparison" headline) absolutely undercuts the McCain/Bush twin brothers meme, which I think is the McCain camp's key to making the race competitive.

Oh, and I seriously doubt she'll pull a larger audience than Obama, but it wouldn't surprise me if the speech is dissected and replayed more than his.

Posted by: Terry Heaton at September 3, 2008 10:57 AM | Permalink

"Will it work?" is a different question than "What are they thinking?"

What I like about this analysis is that it acknowledges that "What were they thinking last week?" could be very different than "What are they thinking now?" Someone will win a Pulitzer Prize for writing the history of this campaign, and this chapter should be fascinating.

Was it originally a culture war choice? Mixed inputs on that one. Are we making a mistake by assuming that there was a clearly established and communicated Palin strategy before last Friday? Quite possibly.

One observable change that argues in favor of Rosen's theory: There's been an increase in the anti-media rhetoric.

Reminds me of another course-correction. In 2006 the GOP ramped up illegal immigration as its wedge issue, until it became clear that voters blamed both parties for the problem and didn't like the moderate stance adopted by the president. They had to change BACK to a gay marriage reprise of their 2004 wedge issue late in the campaign, and it really didn't produce results.

Up until last week, it was all about experience and white maleness. This week? Not so much. Suggests they're having to adjust on the fly and try a return to 2005.

Posted by: Dan at September 3, 2008 11:33 AM | Permalink

Michael: The "Straight Talk Express" jumped the rails a while ago. McCain -- or, more accurately, Rove's handlers of McCain -- shut off access to JM. There've been several pieces in the press lately on that theme, and on his snarky answers on the rare occasion he gives a one-on-one.

McCain's ability to charm the press has been damaged and will not be what it once was. Regardless, McCain's Rovian handlers share an utter contempt for the press that makes the old days of glad-handing and chuckles impossible.

Bush's open hostility towards the press worked perfectly until the failures began to pile up. Public opinion led the press, not the other way 'round, on Bush's fall from The Uniter to The Divider.

And it's laughable to try to sell the idea that the NYTimes is indistinguishable from the Dem party. Two words: Judy Miller.

If the press does its job well -- and it doesn't -- then big institutions are under regular scrutiny. That those institutions tend to be Republican and Conservative -- banks, oil companies, etc. -- is irrelevant.

And we'll concern-troll about Daily Kos and leftist activism when we also concern-troll about Rush Limbaugh and rightist activism, ok?

Posted by: Dave at September 3, 2008 11:34 AM | Permalink

Great analysis.
I'm most interested in the implications for how journalism might learn from the strategy of de-legitimizing.
Clearly, the days of centralized gatekeeping and neat vetting of claims are over, so old-school methods of checking campaign claims and being the "pipeline to the people" are out.
On the other hand, the opportunity to construct a narrative (be it however nonlinear or unconventional) and maintain consistency should be given new tools and a range of voices.
The issue with the most gravity in my mind is that of legitimacy. It may the most important to understand in the age of the post-modern presidency even though journalists resist broaching the subject for fear that their very foundations will crumble away. The answer isn't simply blogging and decentralization, since that easily becomes a tool of the de-ligitimizers.
I'm an advocate of asking the question, letting whatever crumbles go and starting to rebuild the practice of journalism anew.
Time to dust off the Baudrillard.

Posted by: Matt Neznanski at September 3, 2008 1:00 PM | Permalink

what's amazing is that we now know more minor personal details about Palin than we do about Obama -- the media frenzy to 'dig up dirt' on Palin is pretty pathetic -- and bears a closer resemblance to the media's hounding of Bill Clinton vis a vis Monica Lewinsky than anything close to approaching real journalism. You'd think that the media would be digging into Obama's relationship with Rezko, rather than worrying about why Palin fired the state trooper chief who treated drinking on the job (and death threats) by state troopers to not be disqualifying.

Unsurprisingly, straight-male Jay Rosen completely misses the real story here -- the sexism and ageism on display in both the traditional and non-traditional media. I mean, how many times have reporters asked about whether Barack Obama can be a good father to his two small children while running for (let alone being) President?

To say that Jay's analysis is over-determined is putting it mildly; what this really appears to be is Oborgian ranting dressed up as 'analysis'.

Its not the right, but the left, that is trying to restart the "culture wars" -- (OHMIGAWD!!!! Palin believes in God! She not pro-choice! If the McCain wins, its the end of civilization as we know it!!!!) And its not the right, but the media and the left, that think Palin's daughter's pregnancy is headline-worthy.

Just because Jay didn't know something about Palin doesn't mean she wasn't appropriately vetted. The fact that the media is breathlessly reporting anything (including six-degrees-of-Sarah Palin connections to Abramoff) they can find doesn't mean its significant --- or that Team McCain was not aware of all relevant information about Palin. "Vetting" is about finding out what a candidate needs to know about his/her VP choice. Jay thinks that just because the media might discover some tidbit about Palin that Team McCain was unaware of that its meaningful -- its not.

Finally, Jay acts as if Palin is being kept away from the media for some nefarious purpose. Its rather other that someone who is supposedly an expert on the media doesn't understand "message control" -- and that messages during political conventions are as controlled as possible. It makes perfect sense for Team Obama to not step on their message during the convention --- and to keep Palin "under wraps" to maximize the audience for her speech. (Of course, the mainstream media that Jay thinks should have access to Palin right now will obsess over the same kind of crap that he condemned Gibson and Stephanopolis for.... its the essence of Oborg double standard, wherein Obama's adversaries can be subjected to treatment that is just not appropriate when meted out to Obama).

John McCain picked Sarah Palin for two reasons
1) solidify the "evangelical" base
2) appeal to independents and moderates who find Palin refreshing, because she's the personification of the "citizen politician" rather than a "professional politician"

The Villagers hate the idea of someone who actually respects working-class and small town voters, and doesn't care what Broder thinks. That's where the real culture war has its origins --- and by simply giving us Obot talking points surrounded by big words, Rosen is on the attack in the culture wars.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 3, 2008 1:25 PM | Permalink

Paul: I didn't say the press "should" have access to Palin right now. I don't know how you got that. I said if they go all out with this strategy, they won't be giving access after the speech. The reference point is the post-speech period. "...Wait until she gets out on the campaign trail. Wait until she sits for those interviews with experienced reporters and faces a real press conference."

As to the rest of your post, well done!

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 3, 2008 3:07 PM | Permalink

Very intersting.

I agree that she was picked to bring the level of discourse down to personality politics and to foster the "culture of resentment" and the "culture wars" as the "media elite" (including bloggers) attack her.

The goal: to distract from the enormous success of the Democratic convention--which actually began to focus on issues and values rather than personalities.

My fear--that she will appeal, not just to Christian conservatives but to many "ordinary Americans" particularly in the Midwest and South-west, who like the idea of a citizen-politician. They may or may not be terribly religious, but they like the idea that this is a "Christian nation."

Attacking her is not the answer. Progressives have to turn the converation back to the economy, economic insecurity, healthcare , etc. and what we're going to do about it.

The Republicans have no solutions--just "every many for himself."

Posted by: Maggie Mahar at September 3, 2008 3:25 PM | Permalink

C’mon Lukasiak, let’s calm down a bit…

what's amazing is that we now know more minor personal details about Palin than we do about Obama -- the media frenzy to 'dig up dirt' on Palin is pretty pathetic…

If you remember back to last Friday, the welter of personal anecdotes about Governor Palin was initiated by the McCain campaign not by the news media. It was the McCain campaign’s biography that offrered up most of her defining minor personal details -- the Down syndrome baby, the former Miss Wasilla beauty queen, the Sarah the Barracuda point guard, the huntin’, shootin’ & fishin’ and all that. McCain wanted the news media to focus on Palin’s personal life.

And its not the right, but the media and the left, that think Palin's daughter's pregnancy is headline-worthy.

Please! It is everybody that thinks the girl’s pregnancy is newsworthy. What is especially newsworthy is the peculiar fact that the juicy “grandmother-to-be” and “future son-in-law who is doing the right thing” was not rolled out by McCain at the same time as all the other personal facts. Why on earth would they not want to control the timing and framing of Bristol’s forthcoming happy event? It happens that a plausible answer was that Palin might have overlooked informing McCain’s vettors of that little detail -- and was therefore Exhibit A in a schedule of evidence that raised the question that McCain’s judgment was impetuous, even frivolous, when he selected Palin.

Asking whether McCain’s decision-making was thorough and well-considered is neither ageist nor sexist. You ask: “How many times have reporters asked about whether Barack Obama can be a good father to his two small children while running for (let alone being) President?” The equivalent question about Palin has really not been the dominant one inspiring the serious coverage of her selection (apart from frivolous Mommy Wars lifestyle features).

On the contrary, the serious coverage has followed the line: what was McCain thinking? To that question, your answers seem quite satisfactory: 1) the born-again base of his party had a veto over the likes of Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge; 2) he needed to bolster his maverick, non-professional politician image. A decision that may seem reckless to his political opponents and to the Gang of 500 may, to McCain, seem unconventional and defiant -- positive attributes.

Having said all that, your characterization of the motives behind McCain’s pick are not as much at odds with Professor Rosen’s Culture Wars thesis as you assert. If you see Jay’s Culture Wars Option as kicking in after the announcement, then McCain could easily have made the selection for the reasons you assert and then handed over to Karl Rove’s protégé Steve Schmidt for the purposes of mobilizing the base in its aftermath. Schmidt appears to be using the tactics Rosen delineated. Check out the Rovian message discipline of GOP delegates in rehearsing their talking points on Palin’s behalf.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 3, 2008 4:29 PM | Permalink

A bit scary to contemplate, but I like it. Jay has taken as good a stab as I’ve seen.

Palin is where the rubber meets the road in the battle of objectivity (fact-based reporting without regard to political outcome) vs. balance (political outcome-based reporting). It almost seems like the Republicans are daring the media to be objective.

The Republicans are portraying the investigations, an activity that generically is characterized by the imperfect gathering and inconsistent interpretation of facts (Thomas Eagleton’s mental illness was no different), as a smear campaign against them without the Republicans really getting into who’s in charge, how are efforts being coordinated, why, etc. It always puzzles me why journalists don’t ask the basic questions when the inevitable accusations of smear campaign come. Force them to provide details supporting their accusations - the way Campbell Brown did, not just relay the narrative. Their over-the-top anger at Campbell Brown’s employer for their employee simply doing her job when the McCain campaign did not do theirs demonstrates the overall contempt they hold for journalists and their profession.

Palin is but the latest right-wing celebration of incompetence as an ideological slap in the face to good government. P.lukasiak’s projection of the culture war strategy onto the left is like the arsonist who derides the family living in the house he just burned down for talking so obsessively about fire. As Jay linked, McCain’s own manager stated that the election is not about the issues but the cult of personality (Davis calls it the “composite view of what people take away from these candidates,” in their always carefully-vague language.)

The Democrats didn’t select her, nobody had heard of her, McCain apparently had barely spoken with her and then calls her his “soul mate,” they still are keeping her under wraps, and now we are supposed to suddenly trust her to be able to assume the leadership of the free world on the basis of one speech tonight? Pardon us for being somewhat curious about her governance and personal conduct in a sparsely-populated state and hamlet with a unique culture that is geographically closer to Russia than the Lower 48, and for being a bit more curious when the product doesn't seem to match the packaging.

Posted by: rollotomasi at September 3, 2008 5:35 PM | Permalink

Jay, you usually have a clue. Specifically re your "true, relevant, and damaging" link above, and the allegations contained there:

Tell me why, if Sarah Palin is a secessionist who secretly (despite continuous and exclusive GOP registration since 1982) wants Alaska to leave the Union, she'd voluntarily leave a position at the head of the Alaska National Guard and the governor's mansion, with all of the power inherent in that office, to go to Washington, where she'll take a job in which her sole voting power is in case there's a tie in the Senate.

C'mon Jay. C'mon, anyone. I'll go rent a copy of the Manchurian Candidate while I wait for your answer.

When we're done, then you can tell me why you think it's logically consistent to (a) characterize the AIP as a fringe party full of kooks and (b) characterize their undocumented say-so (from which they're now backing off, as even Obsidian Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has admitted) as being more credible than Gov. Palin's word and the state voter registration documents.

Then we can all go howl at the moon together as we wait for the next Palin scandal, which I think is going to involve Zombie riding snowmachines to drill for oil in ANWR.

Seriously, Jay, I wish instead of writing this post, you'd spent the time actually learning about Gov. Palin, which these days involves sorting through piles of horse crap from the Hard Left. You're behind the curve, and you're going to end up hurting your credibility (which is still considerable) by republishing things that just aren't so.

Posted by: Beldar at September 3, 2008 6:18 PM | Permalink

By the way, I expect that Gov. Palin will be her own best advocate over the next 60 days. And she's already run several more contested political races than Barack Obama.

Posted by: Beldar at September 3, 2008 6:20 PM | Permalink

My take-away since the Palin announcement has been that the press and partisan Left/Obamabots behaved badly.

If I was a political cartoonist, I'd draw Palin between two monkey cages at the zoo with the monkeys going bonkers throwing crap at her, themselves and each other.

Curiosity about Palin? Sure, that makes sense. What we've seen (in two days!?!) doesn't remotely look like curiosity.

Jay was wrong on the MJ hype-busting and he's wrong on this. I'm with Beldar on his concern for the credibility of someone I respect even if I don't agree.

Posted by: Tim at September 3, 2008 7:39 PM | Permalink

"Jay has taken as good a stab as I’ve seen." Me too. And while it's not journalism, it created a conversation in which the whole truth may be found.

Posted by: Neil at September 3, 2008 7:41 PM | Permalink

On being wrong on MJ hype, Obama won the Dem primary on a cult of personality.

Obama has no political history in the Illinois Legislature or US Legislature to point to as substantive on any signature issue, an agent of change, or a reformer (I'd like to be proven wrong on this.).

I do agree that Progressives should want to get back to national domestic issues as fast.

Posted by: Tim at September 3, 2008 7:46 PM | Permalink

Tim --

When Rosen predicted the following strategy...

confound and collapse all distinctions between closed editorial systems (like the newsroom of the New York Times), open systems (like the blogging community DailyKos.com) and political systems, like the Democratic party and its activist wing. Whenever possible mix these up. Conflate constantly. Attack them all. Jump from one to the other without warning or thread. Sow confusion among streams and let that confusion mix with the resentment in a culture war atmosphere

...and you use the phrase "the press and partisan Left/Obamabots behaved badly" how do you distinguish your conflation from the conflation Rosen predicted and excoriated?

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 3, 2008 8:02 PM | Permalink

They are two different entities. Their behavior differed. They both behaved badly.

How is that a conflation?

Posted by: Tim at September 3, 2008 8:10 PM | Permalink

Note that I didn't put all the monkeys in the same cage.

Posted by: Tim at September 3, 2008 8:12 PM | Permalink

Tim --

Fair enough. What is the difference between the way the press behaved badly and the bad behavior of the partisan left OIbamabots?

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 3, 2008 8:16 PM | Permalink

Staying with my visual, I'd say it was in the type of crap thrown.

The press went on a sensationalistic, anonymously sourced, "fill in the gaps" orgy of newsroom narrative-production in search of a Master Narrative for Palin. It came off as rushed, ill-considered, and tabloid.

The partisan Left reacted in a culture-war driven, misogynistic, and deeply personal way.

Posted by: Tim at September 3, 2008 8:27 PM | Permalink

Dead on.

The McCain campaign is seeminly run by Karl Rove. This is exactly the strategy, this is just how it is playing out, and just how King Karl would run the show.

Posted by: DaveW at September 3, 2008 9:05 PM | Permalink

Beldar:

C'mon Jay. C'mon, anyone. I'll go rent a copy of the Manchurian Candidate while I wait for your answer.

Believe VP attractiveness question is too obvious to bother with an answer, but the show that comes to my mind with Palin is American Idol. Her successful audition is here (h/t dday).

Posted by: rollotomasi at September 3, 2008 9:13 PM | Permalink

re: deny access, delegitimize and message-control

June: News organizations complain about access to Obama
July: Reporter Almost Admires Obama's 'Infuriating' Press Shop
August: Ralston becomes target, laments the new rules

Posted by: Tim at September 3, 2008 9:21 PM | Permalink

People are talking about her family because like most republics she is hypocritical. If she can't take the heat she should go back to Alaska. Aside from her family she has ethics issues to deal with. You might think it's perfectly fine for this person who doesn't know one thing about foreign affiars, or even what a VP does in her own words not more than a month ago. But my chidren have suffered because of the policy of the last 8 years and they certainly do not deserve what McCrazy or his pathetic excuse for a running mate would do to this country. You people can make excuses all you want, but if Obama had chosen someone like her you would all be singing a different tune, and if Obama's teen daughter was pregnant it wouldn't be a private family matter. Just like the repukes attacked Theresa Kerry for being rich and John for supposedly living off her, what the hell do you call what McCain does? Get off your hypocritical high horses and grow a brain this country is f'ed up enough with out two republican idiots who don't have the first clue about how to fix the very serious problems we have in this country.

Posted by: tbsa at September 3, 2008 11:59 PM | Permalink

I think Jay's main point, about the McCain campaign going forward banking on the culture wars, is accurate and borne out by the past week's developments: his campaign manager saying this election is not about "issues" and now the rollout of Sarah Palin as a cultural warrior and archetype of the middle America mom.

I think it's a mistaken strategy by the McCain/Bush machine - this election will turn on cultural issues only at the margins - but it may have worked were Clinton the nominee.

Posted by: JD Lasica at September 4, 2008 12:34 AM | Permalink

I like Jay's analysis, and think he's onto something. The media are covering the race as they did the dot-com explosion and the explosion in home ownership: As a story about momentum and dramatic swings. The media has a drama bias, not a liberal bias.

But who's minding the underlying issues? The dems said their fair share about actual issues. But I haven't heard anything from the Republicans about health care, the federal budget, education and energy independence. It's all "drill baby drill." Yet the media are wowed by charisma and attack politics. Once rational thought is abandoned, then we've become unmoored from the facts that matter. The media's role is to stay focused on the facts facing the country, and steer clear of trying to be kingmakers. But journalists love to feel like they're "moving the market" so to speak.

Posted by: Andrew at September 4, 2008 2:33 AM | Permalink

The media has a drama bias, not a liberal bias.
Did you see Glenn Reynolds' remark on how McCain might have killed the story of Bristol Palin's pregnancy?

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 4, 2008 3:44 AM | Permalink

If the post-speech bloviators are any indication, "culture wars" will be the new description for Palin. But what is most interesting is that while there was an undertone of "small town vs big city" rhetoric, the bloviators used the "culture wars" meme when the issue of Palin's critique of the media and the DC establishment was raised.

What's most extraordinary is the contrast between the media's skepticism of Palin with its embrace of Obama -- which is really a reflection of the media establishment's own self-regard. Obama panders to the media's vanity (until they give him a hard time....then he whines about how unfair it is), Palin (like Bill Clinton) is signalling that the media does not represent American values, but merely the self-interest of a coterie of powerful people.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 4, 2008 7:15 AM | Permalink

The strategy professor Rosen outlined would not work if vast majority of the media isn't so in bed with the Democrats. Otherwise, this option would have been available to the Dems as well.

Posted by: Peter at September 4, 2008 8:49 AM | Permalink

The Obama campaign should hardly break stride here ... continue to label McCain-Palin as just a rethread of Bush-Cheney, which it is.

Let the Press have their frenzy... tonight is the end of the convention bounces & the VP bounces. Next week we will know how much Obama is ahead or behind. I will be surprised to find him behind.

Next it's the debates, then the endgame. Obama has played a long game and a smart game all through. Its been a great achievement on his part, no matter what Ms Palin says.

When we all thought he was losing it before the Denver convention, he was just poising to make it a memorable and energizing event. I am sure he has a strategy for the next six weeks ... appearing on Bill O'Reilly tonight will take some interest from McCain's speech and is a good start.

Biden can now earn his corn by going after Palin. Even if he comes off worse, it will remind people she is "only" the VP candidate. Biden's avuncular manner might be able to get under her skin without being patronizing. His "Great American" crack at Rove was genius.

Its still advantage Obama. Don't screw it up by getting into a barney about personalities, character, and "small town American" values. We are hearing much less about "not ready". Its still what difference can McCain and Palin offer on the economy, on energy, on torture, on the Bush-Cheney wars.

Posted by: toby at September 4, 2008 8:53 AM | Permalink

Obama Met With Fox News Executives
Barack Obama Gives Daughter $1 Allowance a Week
Access Exclusive - Barack Obama & Family Chat With Maria Menounos

Posted by: Tim at September 5, 2008 9:25 AM | Permalink

The problem is simple: McCain and Palin could not suggest that the press is bias and untrustworthy if the press had not first lost the confidence of most of the American people. Once the trust has been lost, it must be rebuilt—which takes time that the press and journalism has notand will not invest (they just want to go on to the next story). Just as trust for the candidates is based on knowing them, vetting them; even so, trust for the press (or any organization) is built on knowing them, knowing their character and their motivations. The American public sees the hypocrisy of the press—wanting to examine every candidate (character, history, decisions, etc.) while not being willing to reveal their own character, history, decisions, etc--suggesting that the character of the reporter is not the issue. Until the press reveals their character they will never recover from the distrust that they themselves have produced in the American public. But no one has a right to look into the character and motivation of the messenger—we are only to somehow trust that this time they will be faithful to the facts.

Posted by: steve at September 5, 2008 12:11 PM | Permalink

Wonderfully expressed. and so true. Thanks so much! A revelation of the the 7+ year nightmare we've been living in and which has caused such pain and harm. A madness which no sense can penetrate. No sense can touch. The disease is beyond treatment. It's a cancer which devolves in upon itself, feeding at the trough like a pig, destroying everything in its wake, every "human" value, without distinctions. Without discrimination. In the end it will self-destruct.

The peace of the media here stands in stark contrast. The fund of information on what's happening in the country, taking into account the many exceptions, makes for an unexpected "freedom of the press" not yet realized in the U.S. It's a kind of community journalism that is getting stronger, more plural, and more interesting every year. It's the future.

Stuart Cooke
Shanghai

Posted by: Stuart Cooke at September 5, 2008 2:39 PM | Permalink

John McCain speech draws record TV ratings* Nielsen Media Research reported a record 38.9 million U.S. TV viewers -- more than one in 10 people -- watched McCain's acceptance speech

* 38.3 million people watched Obama's acceptance speech the week before

* Palin drew 37.2 million viewers.

Posted by: Timt at September 5, 2008 4:32 PM | Permalink

Fun Fax: According to the Pew Research Center biennial news consumption survey, only 18% believe all of most of what they read in the New York Times.

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 5, 2008 8:24 PM | Permalink

This is a fascinating post.

Do you think the Obama campaign recognizes this culture war strategy?
Is this why Obama and Biden have refused to attack Palin directly?

It would make sense for them to add to the drama.

Posted by: Cat Ion at September 5, 2008 8:54 PM | Permalink

Oops. Correction: It would make sense for them not to add to the drama.

Posted by: Cat Ion at September 5, 2008 8:56 PM | Permalink

I thought it was Obama who fired the first shot that reignited the culture war with his inartful "bitterly clinging to guns, Bibles, hatin' on people who don't look like them" etc. attack on working class Pennsylvanians as he was trolling for cash amongst the rich liberal elites of San Francisco.

For some odd reason, Rosen didn't see THAT as part of the culture war and instead focused on the journalistic ethics of Mayhill Fowler.

Hmmmmm. Maybe the culture war argument is in the eye of the culture warrior.

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 6, 2008 12:00 PM | Permalink

I hate to say it, but MSM is falling for Rovian tactics all over again. Remember how it brought down Dan Rather and took the whole National Guard issue off the table. Don't take the bait. Dems would best ignore her completely. Attack the issues and she will have to come out of hiding, Cheney style. It's all they got.

I'm also wondering if anyone has asked Fred Thompson, Rudy or Huckabee if they thought Palin is more qualified to be President than they are?

Posted by: aarchitect at September 6, 2008 3:02 PM | Permalink

Paul...

You nailed it. Exactly right.

What's hilarious is that Rosen can't see what's going on here. McCain's a pilot. He understands OODA-loops. With the Palin nomination, he got inside the press's OODA-loop. Palin was an effective nomination (only a complete idiot could deny, based on the latest polling, that it was an effective pick, but yet, some idiots have, like Andrew Sullivan and Jeralyn Merritt) in part because they KNEW that the liberal media, both closed and open, would practice culture war to the hilt.

With every desperate smear, every baseless or undersourced attack, and every slime of the Palin children in the media, any negative effect for Palin/McCain is balanced and possibly trumped by the second order effects: the inflammation of the GOP conservative base, number one, and the alienation of women, especially Hillary Dems who are not too pleased with Obama to begin with.

Now, this would not be possible had McCain not been confident that the established media and the left (but I repeat myself) would reflexively launch into full-on culture war mode.

I mean, even I can look up from clinging to my religion and guns long enough to figure that out.

Further, with this pick, McCain tears the guts out of Bob Barr's threat as a spoiler from the libertarian side. I thought he might play the role of Nader 00 or Perot 92. Not anymore.

I couldn't be more thrilled by the Palin pick.

She pisses off all the right people.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 6, 2008 10:05 PM | Permalink

I may end sending a series of emails, as I work through your article; but I hit the brakes at the end of the second paragraph.

Backlash? What is it exactly that conservatives have to backlash against? Obama's ascendancy to the nomination? Other than that, how about backlash to
a) a vanished surplus b) a crazy war in Iraq c) a decimation of the Constitution d) an economy in shambles.

Are you saying that more than half the country will be swayed by Republican machinations, to over look A-D and backlash against liberal-to-progressive forces?

Maybe I'll more clearly see this picture, as I read on through your piece.

In Service of THE ONENESS,
Rafiki Cai

Posted by: Rafiki Cai at September 7, 2008 1:48 AM | Permalink

Another thing about their anti-media activity...

They, on their side, have a hierarchical media structure: RNC employs people like Luntz who come up with talking points. Those talking points are then given to elected officials in case they get interviewed, to their minions in the media, to radio talk-show hosts, and right-wing bloggers. They really DO act in unison - the party, the candidate, the media and the bloggers are one and the same.

So, they naturally assume that the Left is just as monolithic and unified and it is easy, through such projection, for them to lump DailyKos, some nasty little blogger, Maddow and Olberman, NYTimes and WaPo, the DNC and Obama all into a single entity. They do not understand (at least their audience does not) that we are a loose coalition of fiercely independent individuals with some of the same goals (elect Democrats) but no coordination.

Posted by: Coturnix at September 7, 2008 12:34 PM | Permalink

Paul, re: "culture wars" will be the new description for Palin

PressThink Basics: The Master Narrative in Journalism

Taylor’s use of "construct" intrigues me for two reasons. Journalists, he’s saying, help create the universe from which they draw news, which is a truthful but disruptive observation. How to report the news—accurately, fairly, comprehensively—is something we know how to teach in journalism school. How to construct the public arena (accurately, fairly, comprehensively? do these terms even make sense?) is not. It’s pretty clear where the authority to report the news comes from; it’s not clear where the authority to construct the world lies, or could lie.

Back to basics ....

Posted by: Tim at September 7, 2008 2:08 PM | Permalink

Coturnix:

Projecting much?

I'm a conservative blogger. Have been for nearly five years. Somehow, I never got the memo. The ONLY campaigns that ever send me talking points, EVER, are Democrat campaigns.

There are some influential voices with a lot of reach. But there simply is not one monolithic voice. That's a liberal myth.

Your confusing a lot of people who can think for themselves and who come to the same obvious conclusion (specifically, the intellectual bankruptcy and moral turpitude of progressivism) for a vast right-wing conspiracy.

Two people looking at the sky can both observe that the sky is blue. From this, you can conclude one of two things:

1.) They are receiving messages from Karl Rove via the fillings in their teeth that instruct them to state that the sky is blue. Or:

2.) The sky appears blue.

Your logic needs a shave. Here's Occam's razor.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 7, 2008 2:51 PM | Permalink

How do you then explain that so many of those people simultaneously, on the same day, conclude that the sky is pink? Or that Up is Down, War is Peace, etc.?

Posted by: Coturnix at September 7, 2008 3:36 PM | Permalink

What Time is it in Political Journalism?

But [Gopnik's] point was that Sawyer and other journalists on television think with the ideas of the tribe— and give evidence of the same vacuum by being, uh, vacuous.

Posted by: Tim at September 7, 2008 4:13 PM | Permalink

More fun fax:

According to Rasmussen:

68% of voters think "most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win"

49% of voters think reporters are backing Barack Obama

51% of voters think the press is "trying to hurt" Sarah Palin with it's coverage

55% of voters think media bias is a bigger problem for the electoral process than large campaign donations

But still. . . the press keeps digging.

Posted by: QC Examiner at September 7, 2008 4:17 PM | Permalink

van Steenwyk --

In the professor's defense, when you called it "hilarious" that Rosen cannot see what is going on, you pointed out to him that John McCain "KNEW that the liberal media, both closed and open, would practice culture war to the hilt" in response to the Palin nomination.

Here is what Rosen said: "John McCain’s convention gambit is a culture war strategy. It depends for its execution on conflict with journalists, and with bloggers...it bets big time on backlash."

Hilarious, no; slightly amusing, yes, that you and Rosen make identical observations yet you mock him for seeing eye to eye with you. You both analyse the purpose underlying the Palin nomination as a desire to spark a culture war; you both assert that a backlash by the news media is a necessary precondition for that culture war to begin.

Speaking in my role as an analyst of the MainStreamMedia, I have, so far, found little evidence of the flaws in coverage you cite -- the desperate smears, the baseless or undersourced attacks, the slimes against Palin's children. The worst characterization of the MSM's response was summarized by Tim earlier in this thread: He called it a "sensationalistic, anonymously sourced, 'fill in the gaps' orgy of newsroom narrative-production in search of a Master Narrative for Palin. It came off as rushed, ill-considered, and tabloid."

Rushed, ill-considered and tabloid is milder criticism than "smears" and "slimes." Sensationalistic and anonymously sourced is milder than "baseless" and "undersourced."

By the way, van Steenwyk, your selection criteria for an admirable Vice-Presidential nominee seem narrow, inappropriate and divisive. Surely you had your tongue in your cheek when you suggested that Palin was best suited for office because:

-- she can provoke the news media into inflaming the GOP conservative base
-- she can function as a wedge to alienate female Rodham Clinton supporters from journalists
-- she would undercut Bob Barr's appeal to would-be Libertarian voters
-- she pisses off people you like to see pissed off

What here makes her an admirable successor for Dick Cheney or Al Gore or Dan Quayle?

Surely one can list the attributes of youthful vivacity, ideological clarity, an outside-the-Beltway mentality and demographic diversity, she brings to the ticket, citing the relevant qualities she adds rather than the irrelevent arguments she starts.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 7, 2008 6:49 PM | Permalink

Andrew, re: Rushed, ill-considered and tabloid is milder criticism than "smears" and "slimes." Sensationalistic and anonymously sourced is milder than "baseless" and "undersourced."

True. Sad and nothing to be proud of, but true.

I think Jason makes a good point about McCain's Palin pick getting inside of OODA loops. I think they're both wrong about betting on a culture-war backlash ... although we've seen one, unfortunately.

The group that wasn't thrown off by Palin's pick were conservatives already aware of her politically, as this editorial suggests.

Everyone else was acting out publicly initially on their observation of Palin being picked (shock & disbelief) and then on their orientation to the pick (Eagleton, Quayle, Clarence Thomas, Gender Token, Politically-vindictive Fecund Hockey-Mom Gun-Nut, Conservative Heroine, ...).

I would like to see a compendium of corrections based on the Palin reporting. I'll offer two links to get started:

- Reporters’ fuzzy math
- Finally: Official Correction on Palin-Alaskan Independence Party "Membership"

Posted by: Tim at September 7, 2008 8:32 PM | Permalink

I'd also add that Obama's OODA loop was quicker than most: Obama distances himself from "hair-trigger" campaign criticism

Posted by: Tim at September 7, 2008 8:42 PM | Permalink

Speaking in my role as an analyst of the MainStreamMedia, I have, so far, found little evidence of the flaws in coverage you cite

Translation: Speaking as a fish, I have, so far, found little evidence of this thing you call "wet."

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 7, 2008 11:38 PM | Permalink

Don't underestimate the significance of the Rasmussen poll cited above.

MSNBC just, erm, "redeployed" rabid Obama partisan Keith Olbermann, and it seems that Chris Matthews's job description had to be changed in order to accommodate these debilitating chills running up his leg.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 8, 2008 12:08 AM | Permalink

I don't know about all you sophisticated analysts of the press out there, but does anyone else find the following statement from the OP nonsensical (and a bit frightening given the purported level of discourse in this venue): "Other interpretations may turn out to be truer than mine." Huh???

Posted by: Alan John Gerstle at September 8, 2008 12:46 AM | Permalink

Speaking in my role as an analyst of the MainStreamMedia, I have, so far, found little evidence of the flaws in coverage you cite

Translation: Speaking as a fish, I have, so far, found little evidence of this thing you call "wet."

Translation: Speaking as the Wicked Witch of the West, who will melt at the slightest contact with water, I have such an aversion to the stuff that I prefer to characterize anything that has even the slightest appearance of being wet as "wet" rather than rely on a fish -- who has intimate contact with it -- to tell me whether the wet-looking stuff is in fact the water that I am mortally afraid of.

Tim's list of MaidStreamMedia tropes seems -- "Everyone else was acting out publicly initially on their observation of Palin being picked (shock & disbelief) and then on their orientation to the pick (Eagleton, Quayle, Clarence Thomas, Gender Token, Politically-vindictive Fecund Hockey-Mom Gun-Nut, Conservative Heroine, ...)" -- seems much more accurate than van Steenwyk's imaginary catalogue of desperate smears, baseless or undersourced attacks, slimes against Palin's children.

Some of the qualities Tim discovers turn out to be products of the McCain campaign's presentation of their candidate rather than the MainStreamMedia's coverage of it.

McCain clearly wanted a headlinegrabber, so "shock & disbelief" were desired reactions. The comparisons with Quayle -- older well-established nominee picks next-generation running mate to appeal to his none-too-loyal partisan base -- turn out to be apt. Palin herself made an appeal to women explicit in her acceptance speech so "gender token" is merely a pejorative way of describing that pitch. "Fecund" was certainly emphasized by McCain's team to establish Palin's pro-life bona fides. "Hockey Mom" comes from Palin's own mouth. "Gun Nut" refers to the repeated emphasis on her NRA credentials, no pejorative indicated. "Politically vindictive" seems to be nothing more serious than the flip side of McCain's charcaterization of Palin as a reformer who is not afraid to make enemies, even in her own party. As for "conservative heroine," I agree with the conservative part; heroine is a bit strong, don't you think?

So that leaves "Eagleton" and "Clarence Thomas" as characterizations that I disagree with. I have seen little of either in MSM reporting; much more in blog commentary.

The negative stories about Palin in the MSM have tended to be less ideological, more straightforward factchecking, than the list Tim characterizes. As mayor, did she try to get books banned by her town library? As governor, did she use official channels to orchestrate a family vendetta? In her relations with the federal government, was she truly committed to rejecting porkbarrel spending? There is nothing suspicious or malevolent about such lines of reportage.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 8, 2008 6:16 AM | Permalink

I'm late to the party but Andrew is dead-on:
The media has a drama bias, not a liberal bias.

Brilliant. And how much more satisfying is it when media can have a starring role in the drama? After all there's both me and I in media.

Posted by: Janet at September 8, 2008 1:20 PM | Permalink

Andrew,

re: ... products of the McCain campaign's presentation of their candidate rather than the MainStreamMedia's coverage of it.

I disagree with this, somewhat. The news orgs are in complete control over what they print/broadcast. The can be credulous or incredulous. Accepting or cynical. "Just the facts," he said/she said, or facts with analysis.

For example, the "headlinegrabber" pick should not assume that those controlling the headlines will see it the same way: surprising, progressive, gutsy, pandering, dangerous, "shock & disbelief." Lots of choices, and the reporter/editor/publisher decides.

Posted by: Tim at September 8, 2008 5:09 PM | Permalink

Tim --

Point taken. If by "shock and disbelief" one means an incredulous reaction at a selection that is so far outside accepted political norms that it reveals unhinged decision making by the candidate, then that represents a negative editorial opinion underlying coverage.

If by "shock and disbelief" one means a surprised reaction to a choice that was on nobody's shortlist, that was successfully kept secret by the campaign in order to create maximum impact, then that represents an accurate description of a tactic successfully executed, no negative opinion inferred.

It is my assessment that there was plenty of the former type of "shock & disbelief" among partisans; mostly the latter type among the MainStreamMedia.

Here, for example, are links to videostreams of the first day of coverage on the broadcast networks' nightly newscasts. You will see that the surprise is almost all of the second kind -- astonishment at a secret well kept -- and that personal details about Palin in the networks' biographical profiles adhere loyally to the McCain campaign talking points: former small town beauty queen, Sarah Barracuda the point guard, NRA hunter and snowmobiler, pro-life mother of a Down syndrome baby, son headed for Iraq.

Using your set of oppositions, Tim, the initial coverage was credulous, accepting and “just the facts” -- rather than incredulous, cynical and analytical.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 8, 2008 6:47 PM | Permalink

Andrew,

I watched the first (ABC) video and saw more of the latter "shock & disbelief" (as you predicted) than the former.

What did you think of the "shotgun wedding" description by the correspondent?

Posted by: Tim at September 8, 2008 7:48 PM | Permalink

Andrew, Sarah Palin was on shortlists -- the ones written by conservatives. If the MSM had been paying attention to them her selection wouldn't have come as a shock. That they were shocked proves, not that McCain was unhinged, but that the MSM was clueless. Contrast it with Bush nominating Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court; that decision really did cast doubt on Bush's judgement, because it really was inexplicable, even after the fact.

And naturally the first day of coverage of Palin after she was picked cribbed from McCain's campaign; the MSM knew nothing about her then, except what McCain and Palin chose to say. That proves nothing but the MSM's lack of savviness.

I should mention, also, that since none of the negative stories about Palin which you mention have proved to be true, but were published nonetheless, they can't be described as "straightforward factchecking". More accurate words would be "malicious gossip" or "crass sensationalism". Last I heard reporters weren't supposed to publish stories they couldn't prove ...

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 8, 2008 8:05 PM | Permalink

Everyone should enjoy this: Spinspotter

Posted by: Tim at September 8, 2008 8:32 PM | Permalink

Andrew says: "If by "shock and disbelief" one means a surprised reaction to a choice that was on nobody's shortlist," ...

"The Myth That Sarah Palin Came Out of Nowhere"

Posted by: Kristen at September 8, 2008 9:59 PM | Permalink

Kristen & Brazier --

I stand corrected. When I said Sarah Palin was "on nobody's shortlist" what I should have said was that, in the rush of speculative coverage that preceded her announcement, Palin was noticeably absent. The names being circulated during the week of the Democratic Convention were Pawlenty, Ridge, Lieberman and Romney.

My underlying point still stands. The McCain campaign wanted their selection of Palin to grab headlines, to take the political press corps by surprise. The rollout of the selection and the timing of the announcement were both designed to drown out the buzz that Obama had worked for with his Mile High Stadium speech.

If McCain had not wanted the surprised "shock & disbelief" reaction, he would have made sure, days in advance, that Palin's name was mentioned alongside those four men simply by leaking the fact to reporters, on background, that she was being seriously vetted. He chose not to. He wanted to create a surprise. The price he paid in doing so was having to face the charge that his vetting had not been thorough. It was his trade off: the advantage of surprise vs the disadvantage of seeming impetuous. Do not blame the news media for McCain's decision to make that trade off.

Brazier -- you say that "none of the negative stories about Palin which you mention have proved to be true." Please elaborate. Did that library controversy not happen when she was mayor? Are her dealings with Commissioner Walter Monegon not being investigated? Is her record of opposition to earmarked federal spending not ambiguous?

You seem to be implying that reporters cannot cover controversies about public officials until after allegations against them by opponents have been definitively validated. You seem to claim that coverage of such controversies pre-validation amounts to nothing more than crass sensationalism and malicious gossip. You cannot be serious.

Finally, you say: "Naturally the first day of coverage of Palin after she was picked cribbed from McCain's campaign; the MSM knew nothing about her then, except what McCain and Palin chose to say. That proves nothing but the MSM's lack of savviness." I disagree. It also proves that the MSM's coverage did not display a priori animus against Palin. Since the initial coverage comported with McCain's view of his pick, it demonstrates that any subsequent critical tone did not derive from a prejudiced predisposition to resort to "desperate smears, baseless or undersourced attacks, slimes against Palin's children" as van Steenwyk so colorfully put it.

In my opinion, as I said earlier, most of the negative coverage of the Palin selection in the MainStreamMedia -- as opposed to that coming from partisan activists -- has concerned questions about McCain’s seriousness, diligence and judgment rather than Palin herself. What was she supposed to do? Turn down the job?

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 9, 2008 9:18 AM | Permalink

The rollout of the selection and the timing of the announcement were both designed to drown out the buzz that Obama had worked for with his Mile High Stadium speech.

And it worked. The only news outlets remotely interested in Obama's speech the next day were the dead tree media, and they only because they'd already gone to press when the rumors of the plane en route from Alaska to Ohio.

He wanted to create a surprise. The price he paid in doing so was having to face the charge that his vetting had not been thorough. It was his trade off: the advantage of surprise vs the disadvantage of seeming impetuous. Do not blame the news media for McCain's decision to make that trade off.

I "blame the news media" for doing everything possible to create - yes, create - the impression that she had not been vetted. It is true - Culvahouse has said as much - that certain vetting tools were not used because doing so might fan too many rumors and the McCain camp wanted to keep the selection process quiet, doubtless for the reasons you mention. It does not follow from that, however, and it is not in fact true, that Palin wasn't vetted or was inadequately vetted, or that she was a last minute pick that no one had been suggesting (per my post that Kristen linked to), and it's that latter impression that the media has feverishly worked to create.

Posted by: Simon Dodd at September 9, 2008 10:38 AM | Permalink

Sorry, my comment above was directed to Andrew, I should have made clear.

Since I'm adding a second response anyway, let me respond to this, too: "[w]hen [Andrew] said Sarah Palin was 'on nobody's shortlist' what [he meant was] ... that, in the rush of speculative coverage that preceded her announcement, Palin was noticeably absent." That much is true, but it doesn't prove your point. Many on the right had been saying for a long time that Palin was their preferred pick. I notice that Beldar commented above, and although he and I both jumped on the Palin bandwagon as long ago as June, we were late to the party. Some high-profile conservative blogs had been touting Palin for veep since January. The surprise at her pick (from anyone who had been remotely paying attention, that is) came not from the fact that she was on the list but that McCain actually picked her.

Until 8/29, many on the right were operating under the assumption that he would pick someone they didn't like (born from a long-standing belief that McCain likes to poke conservatives in the eye) or (as I had resigned myself to) someone safe and mediocre. It wasn't that we didn't know who Palin was or that we didn't want him to pick her - it was that we couldn't believe that he would see Sarah as we did. That's why you saw such surprise and unbridled joy when he picked her.

Posted by: Simon Dodd at September 9, 2008 10:47 AM | Permalink

Factcheck.org on Newsweek: Sliming Palin

Funnier Andrew Malcolm LAT blog post.

Posted by: Tim at September 9, 2008 7:36 PM | Permalink

Hello Jay,

Just left you a mail. You may appreciate this:

http://whatssarahthinking.com

marguerite (green blogger, also at HuffPo)

Posted by: marguerite manteau-rao at September 10, 2008 1:16 AM | Permalink

Jay, I've been watching this post come true beat by beat over the past week (everytime you post a reference to it on twitter, sure enough -- we've hit a point on the laundry list).

I guess my question to you is; what is an effective counter strategy for Team Obama and their surrogates to implement? Right now they seem to be locked up; the media will address all of their attention on Palin in order to pressure her into allowing access, which the McCain campaign with withhold indefinitely; as long as the media's attention is on Palin, Obama's message gets lost and McCain rises in the polls because any emphasis on Palin -- particularly the as-of-yet unsullied persona of Palin-as-Reformer that they've constructed -- helps bolster McCain's assertion that he's running against his own party as a change agent.

Since it could be assumed that the traditional media as a whole will most likely continue to serve their own interests in this case, and can't be counted on to stop "playing along", how do the Dems change the subject away from this escapist entertainment and back to the substantive issues they want to talk about?

Posted by: RidleyGriff at September 10, 2008 2:54 AM | Permalink

RidleyGriff: nominate a different candidate for President? A party interested in talking about substantive issues wouldn't have chosen Obama for its spokesman; his campaign was "escapist entertainment" from the beginning ...

Andrew: You seem to be implying that reporters cannot cover controversies about public officials until after allegations against them by opponents have been definitively validated. You seem to claim that coverage of such controversies pre-validation amounts to nothing more than crass sensationalism and malicious gossip. You cannot be serious.

Why not? That's exactly the rule the New York Times followed with the allegations that John Edwards had fathered a bastard. I'll certainly maintain, against anyone, that "we're just covering the controversy" is a piece of hypocrisy allowing reporters to spread unfounded rumors without admitting responsibility for doing so, and that the ethics of journalism ought to forbid it, without exception. If you disagree, do explain what the licit use of the practice is.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 10, 2008 5:05 AM | Permalink

Brazier --

John Edwards was not a public official at the time those paternity rumors surfaced, rumors which concerned his private life. That makes two reasons why that story could in no way be construed as a public policy controversy. That is why it was appropriate for coverage in the celebrity journalism pages of The National Enquirer but not in the so-called MainStreamMedia.

Of the three stories I mentioned re Palin, none of them concerned "unfounded rumors." The librarian was fired after Mayor Palin asked her self-described "rhetorical questions" about her willingness to censor of books and was immediately reinstated. The controversy concerned whether the answer to the question and the dismissal were related. The investigation into the state trooper is a matter of public record not "unfounded rumor" as is Palin's record on federal earmarks.

I cannot understand where you find "hypocrisy" here.

You are right that it is dishonest for reporters to claim they are "covering the controversy" when they are actually using that rubric as a ruse to spread unfounded rumors irresponsibly; but when they claim they are "covering the controversy" in order to explain that they are looking into an open, legitimate, public policy controversy and reporting on it, they are just doing their job -- and, in your words, in licit fashion.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 10, 2008 9:08 AM | Permalink

Andrew, this is false...

The librarian was fired after Mayor Palin asked her self-described "rhetorical questions" about her willingness to censor of books and was immediately reinstated.

The librarian was never fired, rather her resignation was requested, and firing never took place. And the missive in which this intent was communicated was sent months later, and made no mention of the "censorship" issue (rather, it appears that it had to do with overall political support and/or budgeting issues).

Were any books censored banned? June Pinell-Stephens, chairwoman of the Alaska Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee since 1984, checked her files Wednesday and came up empty-handed.

Pinell-Stephens also had no record of any phone conversations with Emmons about the issue back then. Emmons was president of the Alaska Library Association at the time

I like to suggest an alternate theory -- that the questions regarding "censorship" were based on the concerns of some of her supporters -- and she got the librarian 'on the record' in a public meeting to wash her hands of the controversy.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 10, 2008 9:25 AM | Permalink

Lukasiak -- I was relying on the factcheck.org analysis that Tim linked to earlier: “The librarian was fired, but was told only that Palin felt she didn't support her. She was re-hired the next day.”

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 10, 2008 10:00 AM | Permalink

andrew...

here's the best timeline I can come up with...

Palin asked a general question about censorship before she was inaugurated on October 14, 1996.

Around Oct 24, Palin sent Emmons (and four others) letters requesting their resignation -- censorship was not cited as a reason. Emmons kept her job.

On Oct 28, at a town council meeting, there was an discussion about library policy with Emmons -- not just about censorship but about how protests would be handled by the library (Emmons said the ACLU would get involved).

The issue was again raised in December, after she used the "library policy discussion" as an example in an interview on a different subject.

On Jan 30, 1997, Palin sent notice that Emmon would be terminated as of Feb 13, but that termination was rescinded the next day after (take your pick) popular pressure was brought to bear and/or Emmons agreed to a combined budget for the library and the town museum. (I favor the latter choice, given the lack of time for any organized 'pressure' to be put on Emmons.)

To me, this looks like a complete farce -- five resignations of public officials who served at the pleasure of the mayor were requested 10 days after Palin took office -- that sounds to me like it was something along the lines of what happens whenever administrations change. The fact that Emmons reiterated her opposition to 'censorship' at a public meeting suggests that no pressure was ever placed on Emmons, because she was keeping her job.

The Jan 30th termination notice appears to be completely unrelated to 'censorship' issues as well -- having been resolved (according to Palin, and uncontradicted by Emmons) with Emmons acceptance of Palin's proposed merger of the library and museum.

Of interest is that there is already a 'censorship procedure' in place, however its called a "book challenge" policy.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 10, 2008 12:28 PM | Permalink

Paul --

After your accounting, where do you stand on the discussion I was having with Brazier? Was there enough legitimate controversy about the resignation timeline and the "rhetorical" censorship question in the library story -- was the "popular pressure" angle plausible enough -- to warrant reporting it? Or did the entire affair amount to "unfounded rumors," "crass sensationalism," and "malicious gossip" as Brazier contends?

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 10, 2008 12:56 PM | Permalink

re: Edwards, which is ~OT

Dec. 28, 2006: Edwards announces his candidacy for the 2008 nomination.

Oct. 10, 2007: The National Enquirer reports that Edwards had an affair with Hunter. Edwards tells reporters: "The story is false. It's completely untrue, ridiculous." Rielle Hunter also denies the allegations.

Dec. 19, 2007: The National Enquirer reports that Hunter is pregnant and Edwards is the father. An ex-Edwards aide, Andrew Young, 41, claims paternity.

Jan. 30, 2008: Edwards ends his campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Posted by: Tim at September 10, 2008 6:51 PM | Permalink

Also:

According to federal election records, the Edwards campaign paid Hunter's production company roughly $114,000 in 2006 and 2007 for "Website/Internet services."

Posted by: Tim at September 10, 2008 7:18 PM | Permalink

Tim -- you cut off that timeline one entry too early. It says that Edwards had already returned to private life for a month by the time Hunter's baby was born, at the end of February.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 10, 2008 7:39 PM | Permalink

Your point?

If we count back 10 months from February 2007 to conception, are you still arguing that Edwards was a private individual engaged in a private affair with another private individual not being paid by his campaign?

Did you notice I also didn't include the date Elizabeth was diagnosed with cancer?

Posted by: Tim at September 10, 2008 7:48 PM | Permalink

Correction: Feb 2008

Which would put conception at what? May 2007?

How long was the affair going on during the campaign before that?

Posted by: Tim at September 10, 2008 7:51 PM | Permalink

And remember, you're arguing with Paul over whether there was "enough legitimate controversy" 11 years ago to report in a week since Palin's VP announcement.

Posted by: Tim at September 10, 2008 7:56 PM | Permalink

Tim -- the discussion, admittedly off topic, concerned The New York Times' decision not to cover "allegations that John Edwards had fathered a bastard," as Brazier put it. Brazier was interested in the child not the fornication. The "bastard" was born when Edwards had already ended his campaign. Paternity disputes start when children are born. If Hunter wanted to pursue any claim on behalf of her child with Edwards, she would be doing so with a private citizen. That the couple may or may not have had procreative sex together nine months earlier is neither here nor there.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 10, 2008 8:00 PM | Permalink

Oh, OK then ....

Brazier can speak for himself, and my contribution is "neither here nor there."

;-)

Posted by: Tim at September 10, 2008 8:10 PM | Permalink

After your accounting, where do you stand on the discussion I was having with Brazier? Was there enough legitimate controversy about the resignation timeline and the "rhetorical" censorship question in the library story -- was the "popular pressure" angle plausible enough -- to warrant reporting it? Or did the entire affair amount to "unfounded rumors," "crass sensationalism," and "malicious gossip" as Brazier contends?

My reading is that Palin was being responsive to the concerns of her constituents in asking about "censorship", and that the controversy was hyped by "liberal democrats" like that Kilkenny (sp?) woman 12 years ago.

Most telling to me was the fact that Emmons was trying to change the towns "book challenge" policies to be consistent with the changes that had just been made in the Wat-Su Borough (read, "county" for borough) policies, and the fact that there had been a "book challenge case" in Wasilla the previous year -- and that Palin was aware of it.

Those on one side of that "book challenge case" would have been using the word censorship -- and one gets the impression that Emmons was among those who saw that challenge as censorship -- that "censorship" became shorthand for everything having to do with changes in the "book challenge policy".

In terms of its actual significance, I think that Brazier is pretty close to the mark. The timing of the request for resignation and the notice of termination don't seem to be related in any way to the "censorship" issue -- and all the hype has been about how Palin tried to fire a librarian because she stood up to Palin's desire to set ablaze half the books in the Wasilla library.

I think that Palin is probably the kind of person who would personally prefer that "Heather Has Two Mommies" not be part of the Wasilla library collection -- but that she's also the kind of person who separates her personal feelings from her duties as a government official.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 10, 2008 8:50 PM | Permalink

Paul --

Your response seems temperate and plausible. On your advice, I retract my earlier insistence that this was a controversy that was newsworthy enough for publication; it clearly warranted a reporter's spadework -- but the information gathered should have been kept as background not used for airtime.

Just one question and one observation before I let this go.

First, about Mayor Palin's request that the librarian submit a letter of resignation. You say: "...five resignations of public officials who served at the pleasure of the mayor were requested 10 days after Palin took office -- that sounds to me like it was something along the lines of what happens whenever administrations change." Granted, I know such requests are made of US Attorneys from the Department of Justice when a new President is inaugurated at the White House. But are such requests routine in municipal governments in towns of population 7,000? Being a big city boy myself, I have no idea. Perhaps someone with knowledge of small town politics can tell us if the librarian is routinely treated as serving at the pleasure of the mayor -- or whether Mayor Palin was being atypical?

Second, an observation about the political questions underlying the decision to deem this story newsworthy enough for publication. I agree with you, Paul, that a major motivation behind John McCain's decision to select Palin as his running mate was to "solidify the 'evangelical' base" as you put it. It turns out that a substantial minority of that base has no problem with politicians who fail to separate personal feelings from government duties, leading them to tolerate, or even encourage, the purging of certain titles from library shelves. Since Palin, if elected, will be sworn to uphold the Constitution and may, if elevated, have the power to nominate Justices to the Supreme Court, the question of whether she belongs to the book-banning minority of the base she represents or to its tolerant majority is completely germane. The facts of this controversy are not unequivocally reassuring that she is a committed anti-censor.

So, certainly, do not publish any more stories on the Wasilla Library story. But, please, Charles Gibson, let's have a question and a follow-up on Palin's understanding of the First Amendment in his ABC News interview.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 11, 2008 10:39 AM | Permalink

I'm not sure they're routine in a general sense, but I do think they're common when a long-time incumbent is defeated, or "change" is the theme:

Mayor Melton Requests Resignations
Mayor [Ravenstahl] asks for resignations

Posted by: Tim at September 11, 2008 11:58 AM | Permalink

I think that Tim has it about right... it depends upon the circumstances. If we're talking about a new mayor who was endorsed/supported by an outgoing mayor, then requests for resignations are probably less common. But Palin defeated an incumbent mayor who had been supported by the librarian (among other officials) and I'd be surprised if the 'request for resignation' was not the rule (rather than the exception) in those cases.

ince Palin, if elected, will be sworn to uphold the Constitution and may, if elevated, have the power to nominate Justices to the Supreme Court, the question of whether she belongs to the book-banning minority of the base she represents or to its tolerant majority is completely germane. The facts of this controversy are not unequivocally reassuring that she is a committed anti-censor.

Palin has a stock answer to these kinds of questions (if you watch her gubenatorial debates) -- basically, she defers to the courts' interpretation of the Constitution -- so I suspect that she'd provide the same kind of answer to First Amendment questions. I also suspect that she's an advocate for "community standards" when it comes to the question of library book selection and display (and ultimately, most "book challenge" cases are not about removing books from the libraries themselves, but about removing them from the stacks accessible to everyone including children and/or not buying them in the first place.)

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 11, 2008 12:46 PM | Permalink

The "deferring to the courts' interpretation" answer about the Constitution does not work if she is in the position of helping to shape that interpretation by appointment. The level of scrutiny is stricter for a Vice President than for a Governor.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 11, 2008 1:25 PM | Permalink

Andrew:

are such requests routine in municipal governments in towns of population 7,000?

In the abstract, let us suppose that someone is elected mayor on a platform of change (let's suppose that Palin was, arguendo), and they inherit the principal officers of the previous administration - officers who had essentially created and run the things that the mayor was elected to change. Is it not reasonable for that mayor to ask for those officers to either resign, or stay only on condition that they implement the new mayor's reforms?

Since Palin, if elected, will be sworn to uphold the Constitution and may, if elevated, have the power to nominate Justices to the Supreme Court, the question of whether she belongs to the book-banning minority of the base she represents or to its tolerant majority is completely germane

Why so? I'm not a First Amendment expert by any means, but I'm not sure that I follow the application of the First Amendment to the decision as to which books to provide in libraries, and I had thought that the Supreme Court thought so too. See United States v. American Library Association, 539 U.S. 194 (2003) ("To fulfill their traditional missions, public libraries must have broad discretion to decide what material to provide to their patrons. Although they seek to provide a wide array of information, their goal has never been to provide universal coverage ... [and] the government has broad discretion to make content-based judgments in deciding what private speech to make available to the public" on its dime in public libraries (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). Is that 6-3 decision joined by one of the most liberal justices on the court an "extremist" decision? I find it hard to believe that with all the other issues a President must consider in selecting a Justice of the Supreme Court that this issue would play a major role, coming down to the willingness vel non of a candidate to follow American Library Association. The Constitution doesn't settle all questions. Some of them you just have to fight out the old fashioned way.

Posted by: Simon at September 11, 2008 5:39 PM | Permalink

Simon --

Concerning "principal officers," I was looking at things from the point of view of a resident of a big city. When Mayor Giuliani is replaced by Mayor Bloomberg, I am not surprised if the head of the Public Library is replaced in turn...but I also expect to see the same librarian at my local branch, unaffected by the current occupant of City Hall.

Since, in a small town, the head of the library and the branch librarian is likely to be one and the same person, I was merely wondering whether the norm would be to expect one's local librarian to be treated more like the latter or more like the former.

As for Palin's views on the First Amendment, I assumed that the library story made news because it might offer insights into her general attitudes towards moral values, freedom of expression, cultural relativism, pluralism, permissiveness -- that entire gamut of issues. Where she stands on such a spectrum would inform her views on Supreme Court selection. I agree with you, of course, that where she stands on the narrow question of United States vs American Library Association would not.

That is why I suggested that ABC's Gibson should ask about the First Amendment generally, not the library brouhaha specifically.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 11, 2008 6:13 PM | Permalink

Andrew,
I don't know how it is in small towns, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to me - at least in abstracto - for a new mayor to ensure that their staff works for them. At any level, government administrators and bureaucrats are responsible to the people through elected executive officials - that's the beating formalist heart of Chevron deference, after all. A mayor, no less than a Governor or even a President, is judged by the electorate largely on whether they keep their campaign promises and implement their policies. A mayor, and a fortiori a Governor or a President, can only implement their policies (and thereby keep their promises) through the agency of their officers; our first President wrote that "[t]he impossibility that one man should be able to perform all the great business of the State, I take to have been the reason for instituting the great Departments, and appointing officers therein, to assist the supreme Magistrate in discharging the duties of his trust," 30 Writings of George Washington 333, 334 (May 25, 1789) (John C. Fitzpatrick ed., 1939), and that reality has only become more acute since then. This being so, I see little to fault in the desire of a mayor -- or a Governor, a Vice-President or a President; after all, we're only interested in what Palin did in Wasilla to the extent it's probative of how she will approach the Vice Presidency and ultimately the top job, right? -- to ensure that their staff are willing and able to enact the policies that the mayor was elected to enact.

I think you may be missing my point about American Library Association. My point is that you're telling us that her views on whether a library can ban books (views that you're inferring and that I concede only arguendo) tells us about her views on the First Amendment, but I don't understand what the First Amendment has to do with what books a public library provides, and as I understand American Library Association, neither does the Supreme Court, which suggests to me that the answer is "not very much." The First Amendment prevents government from censoring a person's speech (at very least on political matters); why that limitation would limit the decisions of a government as to which books to provide in a public library, still less why it would be a right asserted by a person wishing to visit the library (it is, after all, the speaker who has First Amendment rights, not the listener), is unclear to me.

Posted by: Simon at September 11, 2008 6:47 PM | Permalink

Re Libraries and the First Amendment....

If I get on the town soapbox, and the mayor decides to drop a "cone of silence" around me, preventing anyone from hearing what I'm saying, are my first amendment rights being violated?

Removing library books is very much like that -- the first amendment rights of authors are not infringed if the decision is made not to buy a book for a library, but they are infringed if that book is removed from the library.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 11, 2008 7:51 PM | Permalink

OK, everyone: now that Palin has sat for an interview with an experienced reporter, does it seem likely that she will avoid them in future, as the strategy our host suggested would require?

Posted by: Michael Brazier at September 11, 2008 10:17 PM | Permalink

p.lukasiak, that's a fascinating and indeed (so far as I know) entirely novel theory of the First Amendment. What's your best case for that?

Posted by: Simon at September 11, 2008 11:13 PM | Permalink

Its based on the wording of the first Amendment... "[Government] shall make no laws ...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"

Denying access to an audience for those already engaged in exercising their free speech/free press rights constitutes an abridgement of those rights. Thus if the town has a soapbox, the government cannot act to deny an audience to those with whom it disagrees. And if a book is in the library already, the government cannot deny the author an audience because it disagrees with the what the author is saying.

*********
off topic, but I think it would be an interesting post if Jay were to comment on the Gibson/Palin interview ---especially Gibson's intentional use of out-of-context quotes, and the subequent 'after the fact' cover-up of what Gibson did (apparently, the version that was broadcast had Gibson's "exact words" and Palin's objections edited out.)

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 12, 2008 6:06 AM | Permalink

Paul, Jay's been too busy campaigning against Palin on Twitter to comment here. But perhaps we'll get a Twitter roundup post on the Gibson interview. If so, you can preview it there.

Posted by: Tim at September 12, 2008 8:12 AM | Permalink

p.lukasiak, I'm left to repeat what I said above - you're advancing a theory of the First Amendment that is not only deeply counterintuitive but also, so far as I know, both unprecedented and contradicted by the seeming thrust of cases like American Library Association, supra. What case holds that libraries are either a traditional or designated public forum by their mere existence? Even the Ninth Circuit hasn't gone that far, treating libraries only as limited public fora - and then only in a case where what was at issue was not the books in the library system but rooms in the library building offered out for meetings! See Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries v. Glover, 462 F.3d 1194 (9th Cir. 2006). Can you cite any case - or even a dissent! - that has as much as dropped hints supportive of your analogizing libraries to a soapbox in the town square?

I agree with you about Gibson's dowdification of Palin's quote, and ABC's somewhat belated attempt to cover for themselves.

Posted by: Simon at September 12, 2008 10:08 AM | Permalink

Simon....
In Island Trees vs Pico, (see wikipedia entry here) the court found that there was a first amendment right that forbade schools from removing books from its library because it did not like the ideas presented in them. I haven't read the whole case, but apparently the court decided that there was some kind of "right to read" implicit in the first amendment... but the only way that I can get to that conclusion from the text of the first amendment is to assume that its based ultimately on the speech/press rights that are held by those who express themselves.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at September 12, 2008 11:28 AM | Permalink

Simon & Paul: ALA Notable First Amendment Court Cases

Posted by: Tim at September 12, 2008 12:16 PM | Permalink

Too many comments already but i don't find it all too surprising for the culture wars. I live in Indonesia and even here it makes for a buzzing conversation starter. It will be interesting to see how Palin - and her politics - affects the rest of the world sees america (especially the eastern parts, with asian views of women, etc.).

Nice post.

Posted by: treespotter at September 13, 2008 3:06 PM | Permalink

Another Page 1 Palin correction in the making ...

Posted by: Tim at September 13, 2008 5:11 PM | Permalink

At what point can we begin to question whether Jay's "irresistible force of fact-fed controversy" has instead become a resistible force of controversy fed with false-facts?

When will Jay own up to being wrong?

No meet the press at all. No interviews of Palin with the DC media elite— at all.

Posted by: Tim at September 13, 2008 5:36 PM | Permalink

oh palin. i dont think so.

Posted by: Martin at September 13, 2008 6:52 PM | Permalink

Mark Steyn nails it responding to a typical thumbsucker by Howie Kurtz:

A conventional launch strategy for a little-known vice-presidential nominee might have involved "manipulating" the media into running umpteen front-pagers on Sarah Palin's amazing primary challenge of a sitting governor and getting the sob-sisters to slough off a ton of heartwarming stories about her son shipping out to Iraq.

But, if you were really savvy, you'd "manipulate" the media into a stampede of lurid drivel deriding her as a Stepford wife and a dominatrix, comparing her to Islamic fundamentalists, Pontius Pilate and porn stars, and dismissing her as a dysfunctional brood mare who can't possibly be the biological mother of the kid she was too dumb to abort. Who knows? It's a long shot, but if you could pull it off, a really cunning media manipulator might succeed in manipulating Howie's buddies into spending the month after Labor Day outbidding each other in some insane Who Wants To Be An Effete Condescending Media Snob? death-match. You'd not only make the press look like bozos, but that in turn might tarnish just a little the fellow these geniuses have chosen to anoint.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at September 13, 2008 7:01 PM | Permalink

Neuro-conservative --

Have you even read this thread before you entered it? We spent such a long time trying to disentangle the journalistic scrutiny of Palin in the MainStreamMedia and the reckless partisan attacks in the blogosphere. So please, what about some links to back up your claims?

Where are the MSM stories depicting Palin as...

-- a Stepford Wife?
-- a dominatrix?
-- akin to Islamic fundamentalists?
-- Pontius Pilate?
-- a porn star?
-- a dysfunctional brood mare?
-- a liar about her own pregnancy?
-- too dumb to have an abortion?

You are just making this stuff up.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 15, 2008 10:34 AM | Permalink

p.lukasiak, Pico is, I must admit, a new one on me - and what a trainwreck it appears to be (a lot of opinions to get through, as your comment above hints at). Justice Brennan's plurality opinion clears the bar of my request for even dicta that drops hints in support of your proposition, but I would qualify that in three ways. It's dicta, not holding (see Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977); Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 325 (2003)), it's thinly-reasoned dicta at best (Justice Rehnquist's dissent cuts it down to size, and at first read is, if anything, too generous with what it leaves standing, I think), and it's dicta that hasn't been followed in subsequent cases. I would be inclined to see Brennan's opinion there as an outlier.

Posted by: Simon at September 15, 2008 11:11 AM | Permalink

Oops, neuro-conservative, my apologies. I did not notice the colon punctuating the end of your first line. Those words were Steyn's not yours. I withdraw the comment. You were not the one who was making that stuff up. Sorry about that.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 15, 2008 1:46 PM | Permalink

Andrew Sullivan, a blogger for the Atlantic, which is definitely an MSM organization, floated the notion that Palin faked her pregnancy. (Now he's accusing her of not being pro-choice because at the age of 44, she had an amniocintesis done).

Juan Cole, who is frequently called for quotes and analysis on Middle Eastern affairs by mainstream outlets (he speaks Arabic, you know!), recently directly compared Palin directly to Islamic fundamentalist whackos.

US Magazine ran a cover story called Sex, Lies and Babies, or some such... playing directly on the Palin lied about her pregnancy meme.

The Pontius Pilate comparison came not from the mainstream media, but from the Obama campaign itself. (Of course, it was dutifully passed on by the useful idiots in the media today.

Sorry, Andrew. He's not making stuff up. Your COLLEAGUES are. And they're trashing the whole industry's credibility in the process.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at September 16, 2008 4:07 PM | Permalink

van Steenwyk --

For crying out loud. This is what I said: “We spent such a long time trying to disentangle the journalistic scrutiny of Palin in the MainStreamMedia and the reckless partisan attacks in the blogosphere.” To which of those two categories do Sullivan and Cole belong? The blogosphere, of course. Sullivan was quoting from the DailyKos when he made his reckless insinuations (by the way, you meant pro-life not pro-choice for Palin).

Us Magazine? You have got to be kidding. Here is the magazine’s Babies, Lies & Scandal cover under the banner Celebrity News. You just cannot group supermarket celebrity tabloids under the category MainStream Media. That was the point of our earlier discussion about John Edwards and The National Enquirer. And anyway, the speculation about lying about pregnancies concerned whether Palin told McCain’s vettors that she was about to become a grandmother, nothing to do with hiding her boy Trig.

You have already conceded that the Pontius Pilate quip was not coined by a journalist. You were wrong about the Obama campaign, however. That stupid comment came from an Obama partisan, the Rep Steve Cohen (D-Tenn) speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives: “Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus, who our minister prayed about. Pontius Pilate was a governor.” When the Associated Press disseminated the talking point it was in order to cover the outrage it generated, not to act as the “useful idiot” who “dutifully” passes it along.

Professor Rosen offered this prediction when he published this post:

“Strategy: confound and collapse all distinctions between closed editorial systems (like the newsroom of the New York Times), open systems (like the blogging community DailyKos.com) and political systems, like the Democratic party and its activist wing. Whenever possible mix these up. Conflate constantly. Attack them all. Jump from one to the other without warning or thread.”

In what way does your comment not vindicate him?

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at September 16, 2008 5:26 PM | Permalink