Category: News Commentary

Dazed and Confused. The Comey Statement.

If you watched James Comey’s statement on TV, maybe you came away dazed and confused like I did.

The FBI Director went through his department’s year-long investigation and addressed what they had found. Not being a lawyer, it seemed to me Hillary Clinton was about to be indicted.

Some lawyers thought Clinton should have been indicted too. Andrew C. McCarthey, the former Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, and a personal friend of Comey’s, tore him a new one.

All over social media, people mockingly rejoiced in the “lack of intent” part of Hillary’s seeming exoneration.

“Sorry officer, I didn’t mean to speed. Will that be all?” You get the picture.

But I’m not sure Comey let Hillary off the hook. He may have even signaled his disdain for Clinton when he said:

“To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences.”

If you read Comey’s speech you can see it’s an attack ad bonanza for Donald Trump.

Comey’s description of how the woman who would be president handled state secrets for self-serving reasons has to make even the deepest blue Democrats question Clinton’s judgement and honesty. Again.

The recent State Department Inspector General’s report showed Clinton’s key assertions about how she handled her e-mails were false. Today, according to the Comey FBI report, her claims have once again proven to be mostly lies.

Jim Nabors Surprise

And surprise, surprise, It also seems Hillary’s representatives lied to the press about the process her lawyers employed to sort through her e-mails.

Even worse, Hillary may have perjured herself when she testified before Congress.

In light of today’s events, it becomes increasingly hard to believe the Clinton-Lynch tale about “running into each other at the airport,” calling into question Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s honesty. Today makes it feel even more like the fix was in. Think about the timing of today’s Obama campaign trip.

Maybe even worse for Clinton, it’s not hard to see how people believe that laws are different for the little people. It’s also not hard to believe if you have enough power and influence you can seemingly skate by anything. The very things Bernie Sanders voters despise.

The candidate that could least afford to look like a privileged insider will have a harder, if not impossible time shaking that mantle. Photo ops in a Mexican fast food place or on a subway car can’t wash away the smug entitlement of someone the voters believe is above the law and not accountable.

Not a good look for a candidate in the year of populism and the outsider.

 

© 2016 carlgottliebdotnet

The Tweet and Media’s Hypocrisy When it Comes to Anti-Semitism

My first clear memory of someone being openly anti-Semitic to me was in the mid-1950’s. I was probably about six, maybe seven years old.

As I sat on the “Johnny-pump,” fire hydrant to most of you, my young and boundless imagination re-enacted some western I’d no doubt seen on TV. The hydrant became my horse.

The little blonde girl, from the building next door, walked by and considered me. I had noticed her before. She may have been my first blonde shiksa goddess. Not for long.

“Do you know my name?” she demanded. An odd question to ask the first time you meet someone.
“No,” eyes down my shy face burned.
“My name is Christina,” she seemed angry. “Do you know how to spell Christina?” Another question I could only answer with a quiet, “no.”
“Christina has Christ in it and you can’t spell it because you’re a Jew. My Grandpa says the Jews killed Christ.” I remember running to my apartment in tears.

My parents, and nearly all of my aunts and uncles, were holocaust survivors. Most had been out of the camps no more than a dozen years. The memory of the horrors they endured were fresh and still raw, not yet softened by the years.

Some of their physical scars hadn’t faded. Their emotional scars never would. Those scars help shape the lives of people like me.

I grew up with stories about concentration camp “life,” death, and brutality the way most kids grow up with Hans Christian Anderson. My parents and relatives taught me to never accept anti-Semitism.

You’d think I’d be happy with the criticism of the now infamous Donald Trump Star of David tweet. I’m not.

The same self-righteous bull-shitters that shielded Barack Obama from years of sitting in the pews of anti-Semitic preacher Jeremiah Wright, are trying to use a tweet with Star of David imagery to tar Trump.

Wright, by the way, is also a fan boy of Jew baiter extraordinaire Louis Farrakhan.

The media wasn’t rushing to the defense of Jews as Al Sharpton turned his wrath on Crown Heights in Brooklyn, and Freddy’s Fashion Mart in Harlem. People died and now Sharpton has a TV show on MSNBC and advises President Barack Obama.

Here are transcripts of Sharpton’s diatribes as he spurred protesters in the Freddy’s tragedy.

This account of the Freddy’s murders by prolific blogger Yid with a Lid is chilling.

As media continued its full-throated political defense of Judaism over a tweet, Elie Weisel died. Most of the world mourned the loss of a good man who taught the world what the holocaust meant.

Before Weisel’s body is even cold, Max Blumenthal, the son of Hillary Clinton confident, and e-mail buddy, Sidney Blumenthal, goes on a vicious tweetstorm about the man much of the civilized world admires.

Outside conservative media, the story got little coverage.

You may say none of those bigots are running for president. You’d be right.

Wright was Barack Obama’s spiritual advisor. Sharpton became Obama’s political advisor.

With all of the faults in Donald’s briefcase of bombast, I don’t think anti-Semitism is in there. A possibly clumsy tweet, magnified by the echo chamber of a hostile press, looking for the next outrage, doesn’t cut it for me.

Nor do I need the media to stand up against supposed anti-Semitism when it’s politically convenient and supports a narrative they want to push.

What ever happened with Christina? I never spoke with her again. Over the years her brother (I don’t remember his name) tormented me until I caught up with him in size.

One winter afternoon East 165th Street was snowed in between Whitlock and Longfellow Avenues. I saw Christina’s brother coming down the street with a full grocery bag while I played in the fresh, still falling snow.

My slush-ball flew fast and true. It hit him in the back with a heavy thud and his groceries flew everywhere. He ran into his building and his grandfather came for me in a rage. He slapped me hard across my face. At about eleven or twelve I was no match for this brute. I fell into the snow, dazed.

The man at least 40 years my senior berated me with every age old anti-Jew blood libel imaginable as I regained my composure. Sometimes I still think of his face as the closest thing to perfect hate I’ve ever seen.

“I wish Hitler had finished the job,” he spat at me as he walked away.

I made another slush-ball and hit him in the back of the head with it as hard as I could throw. He turned and stared death at me. I didn’t budge.

© 2016 carlgottliebdotnet

The Star of David

On the day the former Secretary of State, and presidential front runner Hillary Clinton, is questioned at headquarters by the FBI about her e-mail set up, the mainstream media are obsessed with a Donald Trump campaign tweet that has a Star of David in it.

04fd-stardavid-blog427
Photo courtesy of New York Times

As a Jew and the son of two holocaust survivors, I took a look to see if it was upsetting. It really wasn’t. In fact, since Hillary isn’t Jewish the charges make no sense.

But where have I seen the Star of David (outside Judaism) before?

Insert swirly flashback lines here. Sometime around 1972.

I was on I-40 West headed to Memphis. If you’ve ever driven that stretch of road, you know there is usually little traffic and flat, straight road. For me and my Camaro it was too much to resist.

My foot hit the floor and the V8 roared. The front of the Camaro jumped and in an instant I went from the speed limit, 75 at the time, to a speed I don’t care to mention.

The blue lights in my rearview pulled my foot from the accelerator.

And there it was. The Star of David on the Trooper’s shoulder patch. And as I recall, a Star of David on the Trooper’s car.

Trooper&HisCar
A more recent photo of a trooper and his car

Anything can be twisted into the worst possible meaning, and often is when it suits media’s narrative. That is: Trump’s followers are anti-Semitic.

They’re right. Some Trump followers are scumbag anti-Semites. So are some of Hillary’s followers. So are some of Barack Obama’s devotees. Anti-Semitism is a thing in America.

If we Jews were to withhold our votes from candidates with anti-Semitic fans we’d likely never vote.

The star looked to me like a law enforcement symbol used to push Trump’s favorite attack line “crooked Hillary.” The money a symbol, to Trump supporters, of Hillary’s greed.

Just like that. Every media organization chimed in and said it was anti-Semitism. The Trump campaign changed the star into a circle. Is it proof the Star of David was there because of anti-Semitism? No. It’s proof that if you’re hounded about something you can change, you change it.

In this election media have elected to sanitize Hillary Clinton’s past. Hillary had her own anti-Semitic scandal years ago. She was accused of calling Paul Fray, a campaign aide during the 70’s a, “fucking Jew bastard.”

Contrast that to how media handled the now infamous “impromptu” Bill Clinton – Attorney General Loretta Lynch tarmac meeting.

Should media lay off Donald Trump to be fair? Hell no.

But please stop shading the news in favor of Hillary Clinton.

No one in their right mind believes the tarmac meeting was an accident. The fact that a candidate for the presidency is being questioned by the FBI is a “big fucking deal.” Apologies to Joe Biden.

Yes, remind people of her past. Many young voters weren’t alive or were kids when Hillary ran the “nuts and sluts” campaign against Bill’s accusers. They deserve to know everything, and no, the press doesn’t get to decide what’s been “litigated.”

One of the first things you’re taught as a journalist is to assume your audience knows nothing about the story.

As a former News Director of mine would implore, “a random act of journalism please?”

 

© 2016 carlgottliebdotnet

The Samuel Taylor Coleridge Election

This November, Americans will likely have to choose as their president one of the two most reviled and polarizing people in American politics.

Putting aside straight up Democrat vs Republican politics, the media should take the blame for two things they hate to acknowledge and likely won’t remedy; lack of trust by the public and their own bias. Both issues have some bearing on how this election has gone so far.

In September 2015, Gallup released its regular Trust in Media poll. What it showed was troubling. Trust in media was at an all-time low of 40%.

And it’s not only Republicans who aren’t feeling the love, where under a third (32%) trust media. Independents are at 33%. Democrats’ trust in media has plummeted from a high of 70% in 2005 to just 54% when the survey was conducted. And in what should be a loud wake-up call, only 35% of those under 50 trust media.

When you don’t trust the messenger, you don’t trust the message.

A more recent Rasmussen Report poll about media bias in election coverage helps us understand a little more about what’s happening. Voters believe, by a wide margin, that the media are biased against Donald Trump and favor Hillary Clinton.

Almost half (49%) believe media are biased against Trump, while only 15% think media are against Clinton. The survey also reminds us that voters believed media was biased for Barack Obama.

And just the other week Gallup dropped this little bomb on the self-righteous newspaper industry. Only 20% have a great deal of confidence in newspapers. Even Democrats and “young adults” have lost confidence in newspapers.

The people are right. Media were in the tank for Obama, and they’re in the tank for Hillary this time around. Think JournoList during the 2008 election.

But forget 2008 for now. A look at how more recent events played out in the news media are revealing.

In early May the NY Times Magazine published a story where Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor to the White House, admitted he and the president’s operatives lied about Iranian moderates to create an echo chamber with reporters (essentially a situation in which opposing viewpoints are suppressed, while the favorable position is constantly reiterated) to help secure the Iran Deal in Congress and influence public opinion. Rhodes also insulted the same reporters calling them a bunch of 27 year olds “[who] literally know nothing.”

Instead of holding the Obama administration accountable for lying, most news media reacted with speed and fury to trash the author, David Samuels. One criticism was that the author should have stated his politics on the issue. Predictably, the story got little traction except for in conservative media. Liberal media tried hard to refute it. After a few days the story died. Here’s how Samuels defended himself.

Weeks later, Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey, of the New York Times, did a piece about Donald Trump’s past behavior with women. The story made little or no real news, yet every morsel was lapped up, analyzed, and Trump criticized and harrumphed over for days on cable shows.

The horrible facts? Trump was a playboy rake, and often a boor, who liked pretty women in bikinis – yet was far ahead of the curve in promoting women in the construction trade despite taking heat for it. Shockingly, at times some women felt Trump was inappropriate.

Despite Barbaro being a frequent Trump Twitter tormenter, no one in media seemed concerned with his political leanings.

The Trump story got many news cycles. The admission by an administration official that one of the main selling points of the Iran Nuclear Deal was bull, got a big “meh.”

How about the media treatment of the long awaited State Department Inspector General’s report about Hillary’s email server?

The IG said that Clinton having a private email server violated federal standards.

When department officials approached Hillary staffers about the server they were sent packing and told never to bring up the subject again.

Not only that, Clinton lied about having permission to use the server. The report said she never even asked to use a private server.

We also know that despite her assurances that she was cooperating with the Inspector General, she refused to be interviewed for the investigation. The only former Secretary of State to not cooperate.

I figured this was curtains for Hillary. I figured wrong.

There was a great start by both the NY Times and Washington Post editorial pages which blasted her. The story got a few days coverage and is now old news to the media.

I don’t mean to single out Jake Tapper, since he usually holds all sides accountable. That’s why I found his May 31 interview with Hillary Clinton frustrating.

I happened to be watching CNN the afternoon Tapper teased us through an hour of waiting for Hillary to call in. I waited because Tapper is usually a no-BS tough interviewer, known to go for the jugular.

Instead, Tapper asked a throw away question citing a USA Today editorial that said of the former Secretary of State, “she is going to have to convince voters that she can put the national security above her short-term self-interest.”

Here’s Tapper’s question: “Do you see this as a challenge that you have to face to convince voters you’ll put national security ahead of your own interests?”

Clinton’s stammering answer: “Well, I have — I think that is obvious. I always have.”

Ya think?

Did anyone believe she’d answer, “Jake, the editorial is correct. It was my intention to hide things from public scrutiny that made me look bad, the national interest be damned.”

Tapper let Clinton ramble on for a while and never pushed her on the issue. Here’s the transcript. Decide for yourself.

Maybe Tapper was having a bad day.

How about a simple, “The Inspector General’s report says you never asked for permission to have a private server. You said you had permission. Which is it?

Or, “You’ve said you were fully cooperating with the Inspector General’s investigation, but the report says you’re the only Secretary of State who refused to be interviewed.” Again, which is it?

Compare and contrast (I’ve always wanted to say that) Tapper’s questioning of Donald Trump about his criticism of Judge Gonzalo Curiel during the latest Trump storm.

To be sure, the way Tapper interviewed Trump should be, and is, the standard. Obviously, Tapper has the brains and skill to hold The Donald accountable. What people at home rightfully ask is, why didn’t Hillary get the same treatment?

And, more recently it appears Tapper does get it. He seems to understand that people have a right to expect equal treatment of the candidates in going after the truth. So what happened?

The media are not immune to one of the basic reactions of human nature. When people lose faith in anything they seek what they’re looking for elsewhere.

We now have lots of media that will confirm your bias no matter what you believe. Liberals don’t seek news on conservative sites and conservatives won’t go to liberal sites. Neither side finds the other’s media credible. Each sides abuses the other on social media.

The problem is while folks may be reading, watching, or listening, no one is hearing anything they don’t want to hear. This is true for those on the left and the right.

Try confronting a Clinton supporter with the recent IG’s report. When finally conceding to facts, Clinton supporters inevitably go with, “all politicians lie.” You get the same from Trump supporters.

Try telling a Bernie Sanders supporter his ideas are nice, but pie-in-the-sky socialism hasn’t worked anywhere ever. Be prepared to get blasted.

No matter who a voter supports in 2016, truth is expendable in defense of that position. The argument has become “the other guy’s lies are worse.” Theater of the Absurd, anyone?

The news media are a vital public institution that rely on buy-in from the public to be effective. When more than half the people don’t trust you, and your only capital is trust, it’s a problem.

A few commentators have already mentioned the lack of conservatives in newsrooms leading to groupthink bias. It’s even been said that reporters are out of touch with the people they write about. Both allegations are true.

Media can dismiss this as an old complaint, but dismiss at your own peril.

How else to explain the rise of a phenomenon like Donald Trump that media never even saw coming?

Journalism, at its core, is a conversation with the people. How do you have that conversation when you don’t even know who the people are?

How do have that conversation with people you look down on? Elitism is a problem.

If the people believe media’s approach to covering news is slanted and tell them so, isn’t media obliged to have that conversation? Instead, what people get is mockery and derision. Look at the rage from the punditry directed at supporters of a guy they didn’t take seriously.

It feels like the rage of impotence.

Most journalists don’t intentionally set out to do biased news, even though that’s exactly what they wind up doing. Stories are conceived and executed from a liberal point of view whether it be conscience clearing “social justice” stories or political reporting. Everything is framed in a politically correct way because the majority of people who work in the news media now see things that way. Everything seems reasonable when those around you agree.

[Note: The only thing that beats political correctness in newsrooms is money. A subject for another time.]

And while journalism has rightfully made great strides in many types of diversity – newsrooms look very different from when I started in the early 1970’s – diversity of thought remains the lone outcast.

If you were in journalism when Fox News started, you know there was great gnashing of teeth from the journalism establishment about a channel with a conservative slant. The notion that a profession devoted to ideas would be worried about more ideas was telling. Some journalists went out of their way to try and discredit the new cable network.

The free market spoke and Fox News has all but destroyed their cable competition by simply offering another point of view. Some call it choice.

Look at the May 2016 ratings. Despite some recent gains by CNN, it’s a Fox News ass kicking.

In business terms it was an underserved audience the big brains in media either didn’t know or care about. How do you know an audience you won’t even acknowledge exists?

CNN’s reaction to the new network was a lesson in how not to respond to competition. They didn’t take Fox seriously.

Many of the raging pundits (band name?) have complained that this has become a post truth election because of Donald Trump. Nothing could be further from the truth. The press and pundits are the reason.

Anyone who payed attention watched the media give Barack Obama an easy ride into the White House in 2008. There were even reporters who conspired to attack Obama critics as racist. Not because they were racists, but because it was part of a strategy to discredit Obama’s critics and get him elected. I referred to JournoList earlier. Check out this hot mess.

All that needs to be said about the 2012 election is GloZell. Great vetting job. No really, great job.

What many news consumers saw is a media reluctant to go after both parties equally.

The people saw a president who did his best to squelch, and even prosecute news coverage, despite continuing to claim to be “the most transparent administration.”  The transparency president went after reporters and their parents. Ask Fox News’ James Rosen and the AP.

Where’s the self-respect in the “rock star” worshiping press when Pulitzer Prize winner James Risen of the New York Times wrote that Obama is “the greatest enemy to the press freedom in a generation.”

Maybe Jack Shafer of Politico put it best when writing about the irony of Barack Obama, enemy of the press, being chosen to give out press awards.

Despite Barack Obama’s antipathy for the press, media continues to lay off real critical coverage. Criticism of Obama hurts his legacy and reflects poorly on Hillary.

Why should the people trust the media about Trump when they couldn’t trust the media about Obama or Hillary?

Think the fun and games are over?  In this election cycle (so far), some of Hillary Clinton’s released emails revealed reporters from CNN and Politico helping her with coverage. Transactional journalism or something.

There is a danger to our way of life when the news media aren’t trusted.

That danger comes when a really bad actor shows up and the people ignore the press. If you’re on the right you believe the media have already ignored the current “emperor and the empress wannabe.” If you’re on the left, you believe the media haven’t hit the next potential “emperor” hard enough.

I frequently say I love this election. I love it because the people have sent the news media a loud and unmistakable message we’ve heard before: “I’m angry and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

So, Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Yes.

Almost 200 years ago Coleridge came up with the concept of the, “willing suspension of disbelief.” That is to say, if one could make a story, or narrative, so appealing through “human interest and the semblance of truth” people would believe even the most fantastic stories. The problem is Coleridge was writing about fiction.

 

Thanks to Josh Gottlieb for the second pair of eyes. You too MF.

© 2016 carlgottliebdotnet