Media Shapes Views of Low-Information Voters

A funny television feature by Dan Joseph on MRCTV prompted me to question how public opinion could possibly be so distorted these days. In man-on-the-street interviews, the reporter asked numerous people whether President Obama or President Bush was responsible for the government shutdown. A hilarious succession of people solemnly declared that President Bush is the one responsible. While the interviews are laughable, the problem of "low-information voters" is not funny at all. A republic whose educational and cultural institutions produce voters that are ill informed cannot hope to arrive at good civic decisions.

Evidence that the public is not well-informed abounds. According to the Pew Research Center's biennial survey, television is still the public's top news source (69 percent) and the public still believes that journalists are the ones who make sense of issues and conflicts (54 percent) and that the press is a "watchdog" preventing political leaders from misleading the public (43 percent).

Yet, a fawning New York City reporter, WABC's Diana Williams, interviewed President Obama, asking him if he felt any responsibility for the government shutdown. Astoundingly, the president accepted absolutely no responsibility whatsoever, calling the standoff purely a result of the "bad strategy" of the GOP, aimed at "blindsiding" the Democrats and "extracting ransom." The obsequious reporter left unchallenged Obama's self-serving statements that painted him as "above the fray" and totally innocent of any involvement in the political crisis. Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, the president claimed that he had a "track record of consistently seeking compromise," to the point that members of his party "were critical of him," but that he "always does what is best for the country." The reporter summed up the interview by calling him "calm, thoughtful and kind." Calm, perhaps. Kind? What planet has this reporter been living on for the last five years?

Via: American Thinker

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Government default? It’s already happened, twice

Although President Barack Obama and the establishment media routinely describe a potential federal default as “unprecedented,” the United States government has flaked on its debt service several times, and one expert says the current default has already begun.

The historical default precedents should be of limited comfort to Obama, however. One of the deadbeat presidents was the commander in chief during a disastrous war that saw Washington, D.C. occupied and the White House burned to the ground. The other was Jimmy Carter.

According to Connie Cass of The Associated Press, the U.S. government “briefly stiffed some of its creditors on at least two occasions.” The first default took place in November 1814, during the administration of James Madison, America’s tiniest chief executive. Just a few months after the British conquest of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812, the Treasury was unable to move enough precious metal to service its debt, and missed interest payments on bonds. Boston bondholders, according to Wayne State College history professor Don Hickey, were paid off in short-term interest-bearing treasury notes or more bonds. These debt service troubles, and the war, were resolved within a few months.

A more recent default came in 1979 under President Carter, who, until Obama, held the record for presiding over the country’s longest post-World War II period of economic stagnation. Cass attributes the ’79 default to “a back-office glitch that ended up costing taxpayers billions of dollars.” She writes, “The Treasury Department blamed the mishap on a crush of paperwork partly caused by lawmakers who — this will sound familiar — bickered too long before raising the nation’s debt limit.”

The Carter default is potentially more relevant because it occurred under the 14th Amendment, a post-Civil War change to the Constitution that declared the “validity of the public debt….shall not be questioned.”

These precedents for an event the president describes as unexampled in U.S. history are unlikely to get much attention from media that have been eager to ape the administration’s terror-mongering over the debt ceiling increase.  Executive branch efforts to whip up hysteria have gotten wide distribution and arguably caused minorfinancial panic.

Via: Daily Caller

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Who Created the Gerrymandered Media?

New York Times media columnist David Carr thinks its shocking that some smart people don’t want to read his paper or the Washington Post. He was amazed to learn in a New Yorkmagazine interview that Justice Antonin Scalia a man who is widely acknowledged, even in the saner precincts of the left, to be an intellectual giant, won’t read either of them and that his daily sources for news are limited to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and conservative talk radio. Carr presents this as evidence that denizens of the right wing echo chamber are not just “a bunch of narrow-minded, politically obsessed characters who send mass e-mails from their mother’s basement.”

To understand this problem more fully, he then asks our John Podhoretz about the problem. John is introduced to the Times readership as a conservative but one that should rate some respect because he recently criticized the architects of the government shutdown tactic. John rightly dissects the shrill nature of some of the most popular cable news programs and points out that the bifurcated ideological media don’t just disagree but make anyone who disagrees with their point of view unwelcome. That helps gin up the intensity level and manufactures a level of vituperation that has caused the two sides to largely insulate themselves from opposing points of view.

Carr deserves credit for acknowledging this problem rather than merely rehearsing the usual liberal complaints about conservatives but there is something important missing from the piece. What he fails to acknowledge is that his own newspaper is as good an example of the media echo chamber as anyone on cable television or talk radio. Indeed, if we have a gerrymandered media that has helped to exacerbate political differences it is to no small extent the responsibility of institutions like the Times whose liberal bias made the creation of conservative alternatives inevitable as well as necessary.

Via: Commentary

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Dana Perino to Juan Williams: ‘Liberals Live in Biggest Media Bubble in History of the Universe’

On Fox News Sunday, Former George W Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino rebutted Fox contributor Juan Williams’ accusation that Republicans live in an ideological echo chamber by accusing Democrats of living in the “biggest mainstream media bubble every created in the history of the universe.”

Perino had argued that the conservative strategy that resulted in the government shutdown had been worthwhile, as it had “shaken upo the status quo.”

That was a bit much for Williams. “I don’t think shaking up the status quo is the goal here,” he said. “The problem is that you get people into office who say, when I’m talking to them, they say ‘I was elected to fight Obamacare, I was sent to Washington to shake up the status quo.’ And I think: you were sent to Washington to govern, to represent the interests of the American people, not some small sector.”

“Right now in the Republican Party, the base of the party is in the south, overwhelmly white, and very, very, very conservative,” Williams continued. “And all they do is live in a very small bubble, including a media bubble, and talk to each other, and they are confirmed.”

“And you don’t think that’s true of Democrats?” Wallace asked.

Perino backed him up. “The Democrats and the liberals live in the biggest mainstream media bubble every created in the history of the universe,” she said. “If you look at Republicans across many of the states, governorsor state legislators, Republicans are actually doing really good work, just nationally they’re taking a hit on their reputation.”

Watch the full clip below, via Fox News:

Via: Mediaite.com

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Media Blasts Obama: Most Closed, Control Freak Administration

You know things are really bad when the mainstream press corps trashes the Obama administration—on the record!—for its secrecy, aggressive efforts to control information and hostility towards the media when it exposes information viewed as unfavorable to the president.  

This includes an unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources, seizures of journalists’ records and even criminal investigations of reporters. As a result government sources are afraid to speak to journalists, even if it doesn’t involve sensitive national security issues but rather routine stories that help keep elected officials and government accountable. “There’s no question that sources are looking over their shoulders,” said a senior managing editor at the Associated Press, who added that “sources are more jittery and more standoffish.”

 A veteran chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, David E. Sanger says “this is the most closed, control freak administration I’ve ever covered.” Consider the source; a journalist at a powerful mainstream newspaper well known for its favorable coverage of everything Obama. The surprising lashing by the mainstream media comes this week via a special report on the Obama administration and the press from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

A former executive editor at the Washington Post wrote the analysis, which includes scary details of the Obama administration’s efforts to control and even silence the media. It also offers a forum for some of the nation’s best known journalists and editors to vent about the unprecedented animosity towards the press. The Obama administration is “squeezing the flow of information at several pressure points,” says a former CNN Washington bureau chief who directs the School of Media and Public Affairs at a university. This includes limitations on everyday access necessary for the administration to explain itself and be held accountable.

How bad is it? “The Obama administration is far worse than the Bush administration,” in trying to thwart accountability reporting about government agencies, according to Ellen Weiss, Washington bureau chief for E.W. Scripps newspapers and stations. ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton, who has been covering presidents since Gerald Ford, reveals in the report that “there is no access to the daily business in the Oval Office, who the president meets with, who he gets advice from.”  In fact, Compton said many of Obama’s important meetings with outside figures on issues like health care, immigration, or the economy are not even listed on his public schedule which makes media coverage difficult.

“I think we have a real problem,” said New York Times national security reporter Scott Shane. “Most people are deterred by those leaks prosecutions. They’re scared to death. There’s a gray zone between classified and unclassified information, and most sources were in that gray zone. Sources are now afraid to enter that gray zone. It’s having a deterrent effect. If we consider aggressive press coverage of government activities being at the core of American democracy, this tips the balance heavily in favor of the government.”

Via: Judicial Watch

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MEDIA CELEBRATE INCREASED UNEMPLOYMENT, LOWER WAGES

In January of 2009, when President Obama took office, the unemployment rate was 7.8%. Four years and around $5 trillion dollars in debt later, it's 7.9%. When Obama took office the long-term unemployment (U-6) rate was 14.2%. Today, it's 14.6%.

Obama promised us 5.2%.

And, still, the media celebrates the jobs numbers. If you weren't watching the cable nets, consider yourself lucky. It was nauseating. CNN's Erin Burnett and Soledad O'Brien were practically jumping out of their chairs. Need I even describe MSNBC? Keep in mind that the media collective isn't thrilled because these numbers are good news for millions of everyday Americans who are suffering. The media's celebrating because they think these numbers mean well for one person's job -- Obama's.

In the hours since, we've seen the exact same spin from almost every media outlet, analyst, and host.

What we were not being told, though, is that the only reason the unemployment rate increased a mere 0.1% over the last four years is due to millions giving up looking for work and dropping out of the labor force. If the labor participation rate was the same today as it was when Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be closer to 10.5%.

Still the media celebrates.

Under Obama, the growth of food stamp recipients is 75 times greater than the net number of jobs created since Obama took office.  

Still the media celebrates.

The long-term unemployment rose to 40.6% in October.

Still the media celebrates.

The unemployment rate for blacks jumped from 13.4 to 14.3% in October.

Still the media celebrates.

In October, average weekly hours of work, hourly earnings, and weekly earnings, all declined.

Still  the media celebrates.

Via: Breitbart

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BIDEN AND OBAMA AREN’T PART OF THE WHITE HOUSE, WHICH IS NOT PART OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Not Part of Administration

Courtesy of The Hill, a stunning admission from the White House:

The White House on Friday said Vice President Biden was speaking for himself and President Obama when he said the administration was unaware of additional requests for security in Libya.

“He was speaking directly for himself and for the president,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said at his daily briefing.

The explanation came after Biden made waves during his debate with GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan by indicating the administration was unaware of requests by State Department officials for additional security in Libya.

Oh, so the Obama White House isn’t part of the Obama Administration?  And “The White House” is an organization distinct from B. Hussein Obama and J. Biden?  They’re just a couple of guys the “White House” occasionally meets for drinks after work?  You learn the most amazing things listening to Jay Carney.

The staggering incompetence of the Obama Administration has rocked even some of their media supporters.  The best thing they can do at this point is try to downplay the significance of what Obama, Biden, and their spokespeople are saying.  They report the news as quickly as possible, in the softest whisper they can manage, and hope readers don’t absorb the import of what they’re saying.

Some reporters are doing nice work on the Benghazi debacle, but Big Media, as a whole, is not building a “narrative” that ties it all together, they way they most certainly would for a Republican administration.  If Vice President Sarah Palin had tried to excuse patently false statements made during a debate, concerning a debacle that claimed the lives of four Americans, by claiming that she and President John McCain really weren’t part of the McCain Administration, you’d be seeing 24/7 “America in Crisis” news coverage of it all weekend.

Leaving the Administration’s deceits unconnected by a narrative thread allows ridiculous falsehoods to be taken as serious responses.  Obama’s people keep insisting that they’ve been calmly and rationally “investigating” the Benghazi attack, and releasing the best information they have at each given moment.  That’s nonsense – they haven’t “released” anything since the “spontaneous video protest” fantasy.  All the valid information Americans have about the Benghazi attack has come from investigative reporting and Congressional oversight.  The Administration hasn’t given us the truth; we’ve taken it from them.

Via: Human Events

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POLITICO: ROMNEY UP 4 IN 'TOSS UP' STATES

This week, Politico released its latest Battleground poll of the presidential race. Despite coming from the left-wing news site, the poll is one of my favorites. Its put together by respected pollsters from both parties, makes available its full cross-tabs and uses a very modest and reasonable turnout model for its sample. Including leaners, the sample in the poll is D+2. Nationally, Obama leads by 2-3 points, but, in the critical swing states, Romney now has the edge.

Each candidate leads in states considered "safe" for their party. In safe GOP states, Romney leads by 8. In safe Democrat states, Obama leads by a massive 22 points. But, in the more numerous and more important "toss up" states, Romney leads by 4, hitting the critical 50% threshold. 

In the slightly different category of "battleground" states identified by Politico, Romney leads by 2, 49-47. Romney's lead over Obama is powered primarily by his edge with independents. Romney leads Obama by 4 among the important swing voters. By 11 points, these voters think Romney would do better on the economy than Obama, 51-40. 

Romney also has a big edge with middle class families, who prefer him over Obama by 15 points, 56-41. 

The media has anxiously portrayed tonight's debate as a critical moment for Romney to propel his campaign into the final stretch. They have built their analysis around the false narrative that Romney is losing ground against Obama. The Politico poll, however, shows that it is Obama who is losing ground in the campaign. The President needs a knock-out punch tonight.

Via: Breitbart Continue Reading...