Dona: Betty's son did the illustration of Obama that we're using. And Mike wasn't the only one but he and I spoke on the phone Friday about a number of aspects and they didn't get addressed in the previous roundtable. He'd held commenting at his site on Friday to save it for the roundtable. So what we're basically looking at here is the press performance. If it needs to be expanded beyond Obama, that's fine. If the focus is just Barack Obama that's fine as well.
Mike: There were a number of problems with Friday's Democracy Now! and you can see C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for one example. Does anyone want to grab that?
Jess: I'll grab some of that because Dona's always on my case about "Do you realize how little you said?" in any of these transcript pieces. All transcript pieces are rush drafts and should be considered as such, by the way. But, on Friday, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez devoted a segment to what happened in Iowa and they brought on three guests. Wayne Ford was the guest for Obama, Danny Glover was the guest for John Edwards and Ellen Chesler was the guest for Hillary Clinton. Presumably there was supposed to be information in the segment but there really wasn't and one guest in particular insured that there wouldn't be.
Cedric: Wayne Ford. Although, listening, it was good to know Mushmouth had a post-Fat Albert gig.
Betty: I may be the only one who gets that but it's so true.
Cedric: Waahblahoohhwahhblaah. What the hell was he saying most of the time? Mushmouth was the character on the Fat Albert cartoon that you couldn't understand and he came on Democracy Now! Friday: I-uah-bo-been-blogged-wah-wah-blah-blah. He was a real idiot in what he did say and his voice does not translate to radio.
Betty: And the point C.I. made was a good one, about the Iraq War being an issue the guests were asked about, or two of them: Glover and Chesler. Now maybe Juan or Amy just didn't want to hear anymore spinning from Mushmouth, I don't blame them if that's the case, but the reality is, you had three guests on speaking on behalf of three candidates and only two were asked about the war. Why wasn't Ford asked about the illegal war? And why did the issue of Hillary's office being occupied come up when Barack's Iowa office had been occupied the day before? That didn't come up in the segment. The day before Barack Obama's office was occupied by peace activists. And the way it looks is Barack Obama got yet another pass.
Wally: Can we talk about the intense vanity coming off Wayne Ford? Goodman asks him to talk about Obama's victory and here's how he starts his response, "Well, I'm very excited. I mean, I have been up all night, literally. I have been talking to friends all around the country. To be candid, I've been talking to some friends all around the world. I've been blogged. I’ve been everything. The excitement here is tremendous." Who was the candidate again because I'm not seeing Barack Obama's name in that once but I am seeing Ford using "I" seven times in his first five sentences.
Ava: Good point. "I've been blogged." "I've been talking to some friends all around the world." What the hell was that? You know what, people like that need to be cut off. At another point, he's asked a question and wants to go somewhere else before he responds. Cut him off. I'm serious, if this were a cable show and I'd been in the booth, I would've said, "Cut his mike." I don't see that as censorship, I see it as there is a limited time for the segment and he's not contributing. And it's not like a guest for Obama was needed since Amy and Juan, intentionally or not, were both doing the Obama's guest's job for him. David Brooks? That's what Juan brings into the conversation? A hit-job column on Hillary by David Brooks? Juan, there's a man named Paul Street, there's a website called Black Agenda Report, try checking both out. Can anyone explain the point in Juan quoting from that column because C.I. and I were listening, enroute to speak to a women's group, and we both just looked at each other shaking our heads.
C.I.: To clarify, Gonzalez is supposed to be asking a question of Danny Glover, on the program to represent the Edwards campaign. Brooks' column argues that Edwards' campaign is over. Why anyone would cite Bo-Bo The Clowner is beyond me, but if you're going to and time is limited, and you've told Danny Glover that this is a question for him, why aren't you zeroing in on the Edwards quote? Why do you feel the need to first offer Brooks on Hillary Clinton? That question didn't go to Ellen Chesler, who was there to represent the Clinton campaign. With time limited and the question not even aimed at Chesler, including the Hillary section not only wastes time but it indicates that people need to self-check and ask themselves what they think they're doing? If I could just add one more point, the left is rightly in an uproar that William Kristol has been added to The New York Times as a columnist. When people like Juan Gonzalez cite these crap columnists from the paper, they back up the paper's decision and they need to start thinking about that. It's very easy to say, "No one needs another right-wing columnist!" But if, in your outlet, that's what you choose to highlight you are sending a message to the paper that their right-wing columnists will be recognized around the political spectrum. Bo-Bo had a Bad-Bad column. There was no reason to cite it or mention his name. One more thing, I'm sorry, Dallas looks up the citations while we're citing so we've got them ready when these things are typed up. He just i.m.ed me about Z-Net. He notes Paul Street's page will have a link but it may or may not work. On Friday, Z-Net had problems. Earlier last week, the problems went beyond pages loading with people being hijacked to something called "teeny candy" which was a porn site. So I just want to make that clear before we move on.
Elaine: Yeah, good point. And thank you, always, to Dallas for all the work he does hunting down the links. Well, at lunch, Sunny and I were listening and we both looked at each other during that. We kept waiting for Goodman or Gonzalez to say, "Ellen, your response to Brooks?" It never happened. It was like a cheap stunt. It was really beneath them and as if they were attempting to 'fix' the discussion. This is exactly what we scream about big media for doing, that whole segment, and it's disgusting. It wasn't in any way balanced. There were no tough questions for Wayne Ford -- who I doubt could have handled them, but they booked Ford -- and it was one thing after another of "Why should your candidate still be in the race" for Glover and Chesler and a lot of cheap little slams at Hillary. When Juan Gonzalez read that quote, he chose to include Brooks' questionable judgement about Clinton as well as Edwards. In fact, "judgement" is too generous. It was Brooks playing Pyschic Sue and making predictions. By including the Clinton comment, after having stated the question went to Glover, it was incumbent upon Goodman and Gonzalez to go to Ellen Chesler for a comment. As it was, they put out a smear on one candidate, Hillary, that they allowed to go unanswered. For any who think Chesler could have piped in, she couldn't have. When Glover finished speaking, Amy Goodman called a break. When they came back from the break, Amy Goodman immediately went to Wayne Ford. And that transcript is a joke, not just because it credited one of Amy's statements to Ellen, but because it cleaned up what Wayne Ford said. He started to call Ellen his colleague and that's not in there. He started to and he rejected the call. The implication being that Ellen Chesler is not his colleague and possibly not his equal.
Kat: I'm with Ava on this and I don't care if someone wants to cry "censorship." Democracy Now! runs out of time too many times. Too many guests are allowed to ignore the questions and waste time. They're really just running out the clock and they know that. So, in the future when a guest says, "I will get to that but I want to address . . ." cut 'em off. In that kind of a format when you've got three guests in opposition, cut 'em off. If this were Robert Bailey's mother wanting to address a point that hadn't been made or had been mismade, that's one thing. She's there to provide information, her son is one of the Jena Five. But when you've got spokespeople for political campaigns on as guests, they either answer the questions or they don't. If they don't, you cut 'em off. Cut their mikes. That segment really wasn't journalism to begin with. But having decided to do it, they need to run it, Goodman and Gonzalez, and not just be present before the microphones. And Wayne Ford never needs to come back on as a guest. There are plenty of other people in the world. He is the most pompous gas bag in the world and he doesn't address the issues though he does love to talk about himself. Since the topic was not Wayne Ford's run for president of the United States, no one gave a damn what he was saying.
Ty: Wayne Ford was a lousy guest and, let's all be honest, he's supporting Barack Obama because Barack is bi-racial. They had him on the show in 2004 and why did he support Edwards then? Because Edwards was the closest to Black. This go round, he's supporting Bambi. I mean listen to that 2004 interview and, after you strip away all the "I" statements and all the bragging, that's what it is, that's what the support's based on. And that's a question Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez should have asked him: What positions do you support? Barack Obama's not going to do a damn thing for African-Americans except maybe offer an excuse for racism. And I really thought the point about we need to think about where the next wars are going to take place, Africa, and how Barack will provide a lot of cover for imperialism there as a solid point.
Betty: To clarify, Ty's talking about C.I.'s point. That point wasn't made in the interview. C.I. raised it in the "Iraq snapshot." And it's a solid point -- solid as a rock, shout out to Ashford & Simpson -- that's where the US is building bases and shifting their focus -- from Europe -- and someone like Barack Obama provides the perfect cloak for imperialism -- for the continued US imperialism in Africa. And let's look at his advisors, Sarah Sewer, Sammy Power and their inflations of Darfur and call for military action. They don't give a damn about the Congo. They aren't interested in helping anyone, they're two whores on the US payroll to push for imperialism. And these are his advisors? I mean, go back and read Ava and C.I.'s TV commentary from last week, and use the link in it to watch the show yourself, you'll see how bound and determined Sarah Sewer is for war.
Rebecca: Right. Iraq can't be, she insists, called a failure because if it is, we might not see more US wars, the US might go isolationist. And she's calling for a new force, while saying that nations have failed -- she means nations in the west. Do you get where she's coming from because that is one scary thug. And these are his behind the scene support people so anyone remotely interested in the fate of Africa better grasp real damn quick that his team has Africa in the cross-hairs and his election means they get their wars. Maybe when that's your real goal, maybe that's one of the many reasons you can't give specifics on the campaign trail and maybe someone like Allan Nairn should know about these things before he goes on the show, as he also did last week, to weigh in. Keith Harmon Snowe, who won't be asked on ever, could have gone there. He could have talked about US interests in Africa, US desires to dominate Africa and what it means when Bambi's team is composed of so many War Hawks. We didn't get in reality in that interview, the Nair one. We got him offering that Bambi does take corporate monies but -- and there's no factual basis for this -- just because Bambi's afraid if he refused the monies, he would be attacked. C.I. gave Nair the benefit of the doubt but I won't. It was one more false tale that paints Bamib in a better light. One more refusal to hold him up to any standard and instead lie. And do we want to talk about Robert Parry's appearance on the show this week?
Wally: That was disappointing. That was so exteremly disappointing. I couldn't believe it and even now I can't.
Ava: Parry was on the program to . . . to what? To say Hillary's vote in 2002 for the Iraq War resolution and for the 2007 resolution on Iran demonstrated something. But he failed to note that Bambi skipped the 2007 vote. That was a hideous moment and Amy Goodman should have noted it herself.
C.I.: Myself, I wondered if Parry was aware that Obama skipped the 2007 vote? Remember that the Obama campaign has made it a talking point, "Hillary voted for it!," and for weeks all Big Media did was repeat that without noting that Bambi skipped the vote. I did make point to ask, when I was dictating the snapshot that day and after, that Consortium News be visited to see if Parry had written on it and, if he had, we would have linked to it but I still wonder whether he was aware that Bambi had skipped the vote.
Jim: Well you can't make an example, as Parry did, that Hillary's 2007 vote for something is a liability when the candidate you're praising -- and Parry was praising Obama -- skipped the vote. Whether Parry knew of it or not, Amy Goodman should have and she should have brought that up. But, repeatedly, what gets brought up is anything that looks bad for Hillary and nothing that looks bad for Bambi. In one of our graduate classes last semester, Dona and my project was following Bambi's coverage in The New York Times. We noted how often his photo appeared even in stories on Clinton where her photo didn't appear. By the way, I'm not spoon feeding statistics. I saw C.I. get ripped off again last week and then saw it get amplified and praised by a fool, the rip-off. Dona and my work was for a class and we're not going to provide a bunch of lazy ass, thieving independent media types with our work to rip off. But we gave our presentation and it was well received. Then a female classmate went after us and her focus was Democracy Now! and, like Dona and I told her, "Wow." It's not just The New York Times that has had a clear preference for Obama in their coverage.
Jess: I want to add that as a general rule, you can't rip off C.I. on The Myth of the Great Return without being obvious because C.I. was the only one calling that out and when you cite a New York Times story that C.I. has repeatedly praised you should know that C.I. emphasized the strengths and you only reveal you didn't read the story when you extrapolate and demonstrate huge ignorance.
C.I.: I think we're off topic. And I'm much more offended that Katrina vanden Heuvel ripped off Deliah Boyd than I am by what you're both talking about. In terms of Parry, his concern was that, due to comments by Bill Clinton, a signal was being sent by the Hillary campaign that Bully Boy would be let off in the way that his father was let off when Bill Clinton became president. There is no known public statement by Barack Obama, whom Parry was praising, that indicates Bully Boy would be held accountable if Obama became president.
Kat: I disagree about the thefts, both are important, but I will stay on topic. Three segments last week involved guests addressing the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. All three segments refused to call Bambi out on the war or on his record. It's not one incident, it's not just Friday, or just Allan Nairn or just Robert Parry. It's a very serious problem and the little bits in headlines last year that were chosen to embarrass Hillary add into it as well.
Mike: I think we need to note on that the fact that Democracy Now! never reported when Barack Obama took planted questions in a campaign appearance but they made a big-to-do when Hillary did.
Rebecca: How about the Barack Obama campaign telling The Atlantic that they needed to look into Bill Clinton's sex life last spring? How does that not get seriously reported. His hands are not clean, he's got a pit-bull, David Axelrod, smearing like crazy and Democracy Now! and others are clearly happy to repeat those but when it's the ugly truth on Bambi, they never get around to reporting it.
Jim: C.I. and Trina have both noted the false rumor that Bambi's a closet-socialist and, if in power, will save the day. I'm glad that got noted because when I was on the road with Ava and C.I. on three different weeks, I heard students raise that repeatedly. One would say, like they had a big secret, that Bambi was a socialist.
Mike: That rumor's been going around forever. When it made it to our home at Christmas dinner -- and remember that many of my relatives are socialists -- I think Ma was just appalled to realize how much was being painted onto the cypher that is Bambi. I mean, my grandfather walked the relative slowly to explain how Bambi wasn't a socialist. But it goes to the point Ava made in a roundtable which was, when they're going around to campuses, she and C.I., people have their favorite candidate and, in most cases, they're lying to themselves that their candidate is going to end the illegal war. The record doesn't support that claim but it's really important that they believe in it.
Betty: Those are great points and I'm glad they're being made. But I want to turn to Glen Ford's "2007: The Year of Black 'Media Leaders' -- Especially Obama" (Black Agenda Report) before time runs out:
My saddest, and yet most telling, experience with Obama-coma came late last year, when I was bracketed with New York City Councilman Charles Barron on Ron Daniels' weekly WBAI Radio political discussion show. Barron is one of my favorite politicians, a former Black Panther who is also a grassroots community activist and implacable foe of racism and entrenched power. Barron announced that he and the local activist group with which he is affiliated were endorsing Barack Obama for president.
In what turned into a debate between us, I confronted the councilman with all the facts outlined above, and more. He, like every other Black Obama supporter, could offer no coherent response, except to pillory Hillary Clinton, Obama's political twin. Indeed, the interview/debate experience was audibly painful for Barron, who knows full well that Obama stands on the opposite side of the political line - when he decides to stand anywhere, at all. Finally, Barron could only offer that he "wants to give the brother a shot." That was it. The phrase, which he later repeated, was like an exhalation of used up air, an abdication of the imperative to Speak Truth to Power if the representative of Power is Black and seems to be an unstoppable phenomenon.
Betty (con't): I think that goes to both the cypher that is Barack Obama that allows people to paint their beliefs onto him and also to the issue of race. We've raised the latter many times before, I'm Black, but Ty and I have wanted to raise another aspect and have repeatedly said, "You do it, I'll support you," but we never get to it.
Jim: Okay, well sure, let's do that issue. Ty?
Ty: Cedric, Betty and I are the African-Americans and we raise race issues obviously. They are important to raise. We both, Betty and I, didn't bring Cedric in on this because we knew he would grab it and we're always asking after, "Were we hiding behind Cedric?" For Betty, that's less important because she makes many strong points on her own. And she and I have repeatedly attempted to figure out how to insert this topic in. I thought we could do it Christmas weekend and planned to do it then but we had covered race at length in that roundtable so I didn't bring it up because I knew the point was, after that discussion, was let's touch on the other planned topics and wrap this up quickly. But here's the thing, and Ford's covered it himself many times, how much is the push for bi-racial Barack about race? Ford's noted that Obama being elected would allow many White racists to say, "See, racism is dead." And Obama's entire 'platform' is built on the idea that racism doesn't exist.
Cedric: The lie.
Ty: Thank you, the lie. But what's going on with the left. When someone I won't name wants to have a hissy fit, Mike I'm not naming him and doing this quickly, with Mike for noting that he praised Bambi, when he wants to write in a private e-mail why he's not for Bambi, well gee, why didn't you say that when you were on Democracy Now!, Mr. White Man? You seem to be very passionate in private about Bambi not being a worthy candidate but, as Mike rightly noted, your statements on Democracy Now! were read as praise for him. And Betty and I have talked about that at length, how there was no reason for Whitey Jackson to bring up Bambi to begin with, but wasn't it curious that he did and wasn't it curious that his words were positive?
Betty: How much of this is about liberal guilt from years past?
Ty: That's the topic Betty and I wanted to raise. Does Koo Koo Katrina feel she's making up for past racism by pushing Bambi? If she does, you're not doing me any favors. Push a candidate, regardless of race, who's going to help African-Americans and I'll say, "Thank you." It won't wipe out the debt the country owes, but it will be something. Pushing a bi-racial man who denies race isn't helping African-Americans.
Cedric: I love this topic and you were both right that if you'd raised it with me, I would've brought it up. I've actually thought about that myself and thought it was just me, about how all these Whites are showing up to praise the 'good' 'Black' -- who, as Betty has noted many times, is 'good' because he's half-White. But in terms of liberal guilt, I've thought about that but thought I was the only one. Racism hasn't vanished. And it hasn't vanished on the left. It's why a Wayne Ford can mumble on Democracy Now! but we can't get Bruce Dixon, Glen Ford or Margaret Kimberley on to save our life. Or look at Ruth's Report on Counterspin's best-of and I listen to that show. The majority of the guests are White and male and Ruth's correct that the best-of overlooked the exceptions to that repeatedly. So what's going on? Barack becomes president and The Nation, Democracy Now!, CounterSpin and all the rest can kid themselves that they don't even have to do their minor efforts at being reflective? And let's talk about who gets the places while Kimberley, Dixon and Ford are denied.
Ty: Bad writers pushing off their rap crap? You want to talk about him and his zing-zang delivery and how offenisve that is to African-Americans that he's repeatedly paraded around by independent media thereby sending the message, "Well those people always been good about the music." There's another element to the racism that C.I. brought up to me and I hope we can do that feature this week, I know we're trying to knock out the roundtables and haven't discussed the rest of the edition. But the White left culture, Mike Papantonio and others, have been going to town on what is a Black spiritual. I wasn't aware of that until C.I. pointed it out. And when C.I. was explaining the history of that song to me and when I did my own research of the song, I got enraged. They have robbed African-Americans of their history and repeatedly tarred and feathered a song they have removed from historical context. I'd argue, I don't like the Pap Smear, that Joe Scarborough's law partner is just the sort of person who would love a Bambi presidency so they could avoid issues of race. And I think that is at play in The Nation magazine as well.
Cedric: Absolutely it is. They trot out Gilligan as a person of color. That's not how Gilligan writes. He writes as someone who grew up in Europe. He's not American. So people of color can get into that magazine regularly if they go to Europe. That's the message. So let's all copy Josephine Baker and head to France!
Betty: And this really is offensive in terms of who gets provided space to write or who gets interviewed. Blacks get on if they talk about music. Blacks get on if they talk like preachers. But if we have strong opinions and real ideas, like Kimberley, Ford and Dixon, we're not getting the support we need. And when you grasp that this is who independent media invites in, it's not a surprise that they hop on board with Bambi. He is their stereotype. It doesn't matter that he's got nothing to say or help me and my kids. Ford's talking about, in the excerpt, how a man is going along with Barack Obama just because Obama is half-Black. And I want Mike to hop in because this goes to what he noted in is post Friday.
Mike: Absolutely. I didn't make that point, and noted how racist the woman sounded, but yeah, absolutely, she's writing like she's confessing to 'liberal guilt.' We're not going to link because it's The Pooper and all of his writing is crap. But his article appeared at Common Dreams on Friday and a White woman named Colleen posted the following.
*"What makes this so remarkable, that Obama won in white Iowa, is that only about 50 years ago people who were black were being denied the right to vote and blacks were put into separate schools by the government in the US. . . . This gives us hope that humans are capable of change and that in 50 years maybe some of the hatreds we see today between peoples could be reduced. Its a glimmer of hope."
Betty: Yeah, honey, Bambi winning the presidency would mean all the injustice against Black people was wiped aside. What an idiot.
Mike: Now here's Colleen again and she's leaving hope and facts aside.
*"90% of what are called blacks in the US have some white blood. There is not a pure race and all of us in the US have been influenced by what is called 'black culture' The US has been very fortunate to have the influence of the black culture in the arts and in sports...and also in politics."
Cedric: Golly, Mizz Colleen, wez sure happy and might proud that you think wez done some good in arts and sports. Thanks you, Mizz Colleen. Wez going to get your bath ready for you now.
Ty: "09% of what are called blacks"? That's so offensive. I'm laughing because this woman supports Obama. And Bambi grew up outside the US, he doesn't know what it's like to grow up under racism in the US. Also, blood is red when exposed outside the body. There's no such thing as "Black blood" or "White blood" but that racist belief was real important last century. It takes a Bambi groupie to raise that racism all over again.
Mike: Here's Colleen again:
*"Well we will see where the black vote goes..and my guess is that they really really like Obama...with Oprah backing him up."
Betty: Colleen, you poor well-meaning racist, Oprah's viewing audience is predominately White. It's probably a huge step for you to know who is Oprah is and since she's on TV and a person of color you wrongly assume she must be popular with "those people," but Oprah is popular with Whites more so than Blacks. But that is the 'liberal guilt' that some are operating from, yes. And when I read Mike's post, I called Ty and said, "We have to bring it up this week."
Ty: And the other aspect is that "liberal guilt" isn't helping African-Americans. First off, it's a tiny faction today -- although those suffering it do have big spaces in little media -- and it's not key to the Democratic Party. The centrist Democrats have moved away from any programs that help and the left wing of the party wasn't able to stop them so the sop we're going to get tossed out is that Bambi can be president. Which will effect all of our lives about as much as if an African-American wins American Idol. It won't change or help the lives of African-Americans but it will allow for some feel good writing on the part of some Whites. I'm sure Whitey Jackson, to go back to him, could pen a book length feel good piece.
Cedric: You said something just then that I want to pull out, you're talking about how "liberal guilt" isn't key to the Democratic Party today, which I agree with. I think you can go through many of Ava and C.I.'s TV pieces and find them calling out the racist 'humor' on display and that 'humor' is an attempt to disown obligations and responsibilities. That 'humor,' though wrongly applauded by some who say they are 'left,' is aimed at a broader population, not at a political faction. So my point is that the weak left who won't advocate serious changes for and improvements in the lives of African-Americans, possibly because they know what they're up against in the bulk of the Democratic Party, are kidding themselves if they think they can 'give' to the presidency to Obama. That 'humor' and the refusal of most to call it out -- Richard Goldstein, to name someone other than Ava and C.I. who will actually call it out -- goes to its popularity. So while they have treated Bambi with kid gloves, they've done their candidate no favors. If he gets the nomination, his record will be examined and, when that happens, all the piffle that The Nation and others have piled around will not just fall away but they won't be in the position to defend them because many in their audience will feel they were already lied to once. I don't know if that's followable. I'm talking off the top of my head and trying to pull together several different aspects.
Ava: No, Cedric, that was perfectly clear and you're exactly right.
C.I.: Just to clarify, that's under "news" -- yes, that is hilarious -- Pooper's column with Colleen's remarks is not filed by Common Dreams as a column. So people wanting to find it will have to look for the bad photo of Hillary they've used on the news section. And, later, in the news archives.
Mike: That is correct, sorry. We don't link to trash and people going to Common Dreams to find it should look under news. It ran Friday.
Jim: And we're back, with Cedric's comments, to the fact that Little Media's repeated handing of a pass to Barack Obama isn't journalism, isn't reality and isn't helpful. That's going to be it.