Fox News Runs Toward The Center … Obama Should Follow Suit

by Nick Horton Posted on December 6, 2011

Fox news has been brow-beating the very candidates you’d normally expect them to cow-tow to as part of a strategy to appear more “neutral” to the public during the 2012 election.

This chaotic and raucous primary season is demonstrating that Roger Ailes will put the interests of his network ahead of all else. If 2010 was the year that Fox fueled the tea party — culminating in record ratings and the Republican sweep of the House midterms — 2012 is shaping up to be the year that Ailes decided Fox will benefit if the political world recognizes that his network is willing to make GOP candidates sweat in front of their base. Like any good candidate, the network plans to tack toward the center for the general election.

It’s a complex game Ailes is playing. Conversations with Fox sources and media executives suggest a new strategy: Fox is trying to credibly capture the center without alienating its loyal core of rabid viewers. To this end, the network is flexing its news-gathering muscles in high-profile ways that will capture media attention.

Sorry, I just don’t buy it. But, what the hell. It should be interesting to watch as this election unfolds.

An interesting side note is that while FOX is trying to shift to the center from the right, President Obama may need to start shifting that way from the right:

If President Obama loses in 2012, it will not be because liberals are complaining, as Chait suggests, but because Obama failed to address those “inchoate and emotional” concerns. The nation as a whole is feeling uncertain. Citizens don’t know if their jobs are safe (or if they’ll find a job at all), if their pensions are secure, or if their country will be able to meet the challenges of the future. Both the reasons for and solutions to this new malaise are unclear to ordinary citizens, but they know that leadership is at the heart of the problem.

And leadership is the substance of the liberal critique. When Chris Matthews calls Obama a transactional politician or James Carville questions his courage and manhood, they are not being nostalgic or utopian. They are channeling a general American frustration, and it is this that Obama must overcome to be reelected, not liberal criticism. Liberals will stand with the president even if he fails to stand up for us because we know that the alternative would be far worse.

Liberals will vote for him no matter what. That’s a given. What Obama has to worry about is whether the much-needed center and left-leaning Republicans will.

For all the whining that the left does about how centrist Obama seems to them, he doesn’t come across that way to anyone else.

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Quote of the Day: James Carville

by Nick Horton Posted on November 21, 2011

James Carville has had a strange, profound, and ever evolving influence on me as a person. When I was a kid, I was into political campaigns the way other kids were into sports. Michael Jordan was cool, but James Carville with his shaved head, snake-like features, and deep Louisiana accent was wicked (He looks more than a little like Gollum from Lord of the Rings).

His sly wit, crazy looks, and an aggressive attitude made my younger political-junkie-self idolize the guy.

But, as I’ve gotten older it’s his life story that is more compelling. Before he won that fateful election in 1992, he was a man in his 40′s who was dead broke, unmarried, had won very few campaigns up to that point, and couldn’t even get approved for a credit card. He was, on paper, a failure. Any “normal” man would have given up and switched careers. But not Carville.

He was, to use my own phrase, “A failure … not a quitter!”

Because of his tenacity, his willingness to push through no matter what anyone else says or thinks, he ended up in the White House with Bill Clinton. He is also a best selling author, TV pundit and commentator, and even an actor appearing as himself in myriad TV shows and movies. Not bad.

Here’s one of his funnier quotes:

“When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil.” — James Carville

Posted in Politics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Occupy Portland Responds

by Nick Horton Posted on November 19, 2011

Ezra Klein mentions Occupy Portland and the surprise Police raid that happened this week.

Occupy Weekly: The Establishment Strikes Back This was the week that Occupy Wall Street faced its greatest pushback and pulled off its largest action yet. Sunday’s surprise police raid on Occupy Portland turned out to be one of several around the country, as mayors sent cops to clear occupations in cities including Chapel Hill, Salt Lake City, and New York. Some raids were marked by violence against protesters and press (including reporters from the right-wing New York Post and Daily Caller). Occupy Boston has secured a pre-emptive restraining order in hopes of warding off a similar eviction, and Occupy Los Angeles is seeking one as well.

Here’s a response to the raid on the Occupy Portland website:

We are calling our strategy of Occupying Everywhere, “Occupark/Parkupation 2.0”. Today, Saturday November 19 we are occupying at the corner of Jefferson and Park. Tomorrow is Occupy your block. Next week we have Occupy Cafes. Please keep checking occupyportland.org and occupyportlandcalendar.org for events and updates. The physical occupation is only one small aspect of the movement. We are already drafting legislation to address the grievances voiced by OWS and the public. We are working with local banks and Oregonians to move their money to local credit unions and regional banks. We have petitioned city commissioners and the mayor’s office to remove tens of millions of Portland’s dollars from Wells Fargo and put it locally. We are working with outreach and faith organizations to help Portland’s unhoused communities to have safe places to sleep and healthy food to eat.

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

On The Difference Between British and American Comedy

by Nick Horton Posted on November 19, 2011

Ricky Gervais, the creator of The Office (the original British one that the US one is based on), expounds upon the differences between the humours of our two peoples.

There’s a received wisdom in the U.K. that Americans don’t get irony. This is of course not true. But what is true is that they don’t use it all the time. It shows up in the smarter comedies but Americans don’t use it as much socially as Brits. We use it as liberally as prepositions in every day speech. We tease our friends. We use sarcasm as a shield and a weapon. We avoid sincerity until it’s absolutely necessary. We mercilessly take the piss out of people we like or dislike basically. And ourselves. This is very important. Our brashness and swagger is laden with equal portions of self-deprecation. This is our license to hand it out.

As a dyed in the wool Monty Python and Eddie Izzard fanatic, I could really appreciate that.

Posted in Culture | Tagged | Leave a comment

Stupid Candidates, Stupid Voters

by Nick Horton Posted on November 18, 2011

In a New York Times debate the question is, “Should candidates have to pass a civics test?”

Here’s an answer by Dan Schnur:

The only thing worse than electing an unqualified candidate would be empowering someone to decide who is qualified.

That’s sort of obvious, as I don’t think anyone is serious about requiring such a thing. And even if someone WERE serious, it wouldn’t pass. Hell a good chunk of the voters required to pass the law couldn’t pass the test!

John Stuart Mill said that the survival of a democracy rested on a well educated public.  Unfortunately, this is us:

  • While only 25% of Americans can name more than one of our rights in the Constitution, 50% can name more than 4 characters of the Simpsons.
  • Less than 60% of Americans can name all three branches of government
  • Only 20% of Americans know that there are 100 Senators
  • Only 1 in 7 Americans can find Iraq on a map
  • Only 20% of Americans even bother keeping up with current events.
Given all of that … no wonder some of our candidates seem clueless! 

 

 

Posted in Politics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The New Liberal Evangelicals

by Nick Horton Posted on November 18, 2011

The Weekly Standard on the rise of the liberalization of some Evangelical views:

[A] new generation has ascended to leadership of NAE, which reports membership of 40 denominations that include about 45,000 local churches. The new NAE has distanced itself from the old religious right with more liberal stances on the environment, U.S. enhanced interrogation techniques [sic], federal budget policy and immigration.  During its October board meeting in Washington, D.C., NAE officials met with President Obama. And the NAE board also approved the new anti-nuclear weapons statement. It notes that a “growing body of Christian thought calls into question the acceptability of nuclear weapons as part of a just national defense, given that the just war theory categorically admonished against indiscriminate violence and requires proportionality and limited collateral damage.”

Here’s more on the evolution of evangelism in America.

Posted in Religion | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Being a Straight Male Isn’t All Roses and Football

by Nick Horton Posted on November 14, 2011

Dan Savage on the plight of the Straight Guy in America:

But also, heterosexual male identity — and in America I don’t want to get too pointy-headed about it, but it’s really this package of negatives. You know, to be a straight guy is not to be a woman and not to be a faggot and so it doesn’t really leave you much room to maneuver. If there’s anything about your interests or personality that can be remotely perceived as feminine or faggoty, you have to kill it or people won’t believe you’re straight or you’ll be tormented — you know, questions for the rest of your life. And it’s kind of sad to watch how hemmed-in straight guys are. And I didn’t realize that.

The bolded text is mine. I can’t tell you how much I relate to that.

I’m typing this on a Pink iPad. I have a Pink iPhone. I like jewelry, make up, heels, and glitter – I LOVE that stuff. I can’t remember a time that I didn’t.

Yet, I’m straight. I’m married to a beautiful woman – and I’m happy about it!

I’ve had to hide this shit from nearly everyone all of my life because we live in a world of idiots. If you’re a boy who likes pink, you’re a “faggot”. What’s horrible about this is two-fold.

First, people are using “Gay” as a negative pejorative term, an insult of the worst kind that strikes at the very heart of your masculinity. That’s a real shame considering that being gay is not at all something to be ashamed of. It just is. And, being gay certainly doesn’t make you less of a man!

Second, I’m not gay! It is inaccurate to equate frilly clothes or make up with either femininity or homosexuality. What did Benjamin Franklin wear? How about George Washington? What is considered “manly” during one era can become totally “fem” in the next … and it is arbitrary at best.

Posted in Culture | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

GOP Loves Waterboarding

by Nick Horton Posted on November 13, 2011

With only a few exceptions (including Ron Paul, who I wouldn’t vote for despite his Libertarian-ness) the GOP candidates in their debate on Saturday went Gaga for Waterboarding.

The use of waterboarding was discontinued late in the administration of President George W. Bush, and top officials later conceded that waterboarding in particular was illegal.

But in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden, several Bush administration officials have launched an effort to resurrect the technique, or at least salvage its reputation, by suggesting that information acquired during the earlier waterboarding years may have provided an essential clue to locating bin Laden.

Only Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who used the foreign policy debate to bolster his image as the experienced statesman of the current crop of Republican candidates, challenged the logic of the brutal tactic.

“We diminish our standing in the world and the values that we project, which include liberty, democracy, human rights and open markets, when we torture,” Huntsman said. “Waterboarding is torture. We shouldn’t torture.”

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Why American’s Hate Each Other

by Nick Horton Posted on November 12, 2011

American’s just can’t get along. We hate each other for everything. Thankfully, however, we are slowly getting better about hating one another because of race, gender, sexual orientation and other things that ain’t a choice. But, the problem is that humans are simply PRONE toward hatred and xenophobia.

Here’s an excerpt from a 1921 Atlantic piece by the the Rev. Francis Edward Clark:

Why is it that Indian blood is esteemed so much more desirable than African blood? In many cases both are equally tawny. Yet even society queens, if the newspapers are to be believed, are proud to count their generations back to Pocahontas; while no one could be elected to the upper ten who was a forty seventh cousin to Toussaint l’Ouverture or Booker Washington. …

Then there are all the grades of color between the black and the red (so called, although any ruddy tinge is difficult to discover in the Indian). There is the light yellow grading to dark yellow of China and Japan, the seal brown of Java, the dun brown of the New Hebrides, the ècru of Hawaii; to all of them different degrees of antipathy are manifested on the part of the fair haired and blue eyed races

Read his whole article here. I’ll end with his most important point:

It would seem that most national antipathies are the result of fear, conscious or unconscious, that some race or nation will get the better of us.

Beware, there are parts of his article that are a bit uncomfortable, he was definitely a product of his time. However, I think it is hard to argue with his Evolutionary Psychology-like thesis.

Posted in Politics | Tagged , | Leave a comment