by Ellis Dean
The American flag is a distinctive symbol that has stirred Americans throughout our history. But as a symbol, it is at best a second-hand representation of the defining substance of America.
As we have seen, it is a vulnerable symbol whose meaning was corrupted in the past eight years. Lest we forget that era, the flag was co-opted as a logo for the Bush administration and the Republican Party, to the exclusion of those Americans who disagreed with its policies. The founding principles represented by the flag were repeatedly undermined by those sporting flag pins on their lapels as they violated one law and constitutional principal after another.
In an ironic twist on the malleability of symbols, these same Republicans would no doubt be troubled to learn that the http://history.vineyard.net/pledge.htm was written by a Christian Socialist in conjunction with his work as a member of the National Education Association.
I do not worry that the American flag has been forever lost to criminals masquerading as patriots. The election of Barack Obama was, among other things, an effort to reclaim America – both its symbols and substance – from those who seized it. But we should not forget how easy it was for a symbol like the flag to serve as cover for violations of the Constitution, which is in fact the core substance of America. That makes our traditional pledge of allegiance to the flag seem naively misplaced.
Instead, I believe our loyalty is more meaningfully pledged to the system of laws and principles, crafted by enlightened men of reason, which created the United States and continues to hold the promise of its potential. It is the Constitution that makes America America…not all the flags on Flag Day.
I therefore propose a new pledge; one that speaks to the true essence of America. Something along the lines of this:
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic that it defines: one nation, ruled by laws, with liberty and justice for all.
As told by Ellis Dean
God sat down hard on the couch and cracked open an O’Doul’s. He rolled the cold bottle against His swollen cheek, where an impacted wisdom tooth had been troubling Him for weeks. I had gently suggested that He go see a dentist, but He looked at me like I’d just voted for a Democrat. “I hate dentists!” He bellowed, then winced from the unnecessary strain on His jaw. “Have you got an aspirin?”
I grabbed a bottle from the hall closet. “Tincture of clove works pretty well, too,” I said, handing Him the bottle. He’d already turned on the NFL on Fox pre-game show, and I could tell He intended to watch every play of the Cowboys game. He snatched the bottle and said, “I’ll try it if this aspirin doesn’t work.” Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long were exchanging verbal towel snaps as I casually palmed the remote, which was sitting on the couch between us.
I lowered the volume as God placed an aspirin on His back tooth. “I bet that’ll help by kickoff!” I said, trying to distract Him.
“What’s the shpread?” He asked, with two fingers in His mouth.
“I think they’ve got the Eagles by three.”
“McNabb tweaked hizh knee in pracish on Thursday. Nobody knozh that. Put fifty on the Cowboizh.”
I glanced at my watch. Fifteen minutes to game time. “OK, but there’s something I need to talk to you about first.”
“I’m good for the fifty!” He snapped.
“No, that’s not it, Sir. I’ve got a big prayer to lead, and I wanted to get your advice.”
He took a pull on the O’Doul’s and reached for a handful of Frito’s, then remembered His sore tooth and dropped the chips back in the bowl. “You give prayers all the time, Rick. Can I have the remote back?”
“This one is different. It’s actually an invocation. For Barack Obama’s inauguration.”
Despite His focus on the pre-game analysis, He shifted His body away from the TV screen and turned to face me. “Barack Obama is a liberal, Rick,” He said, as if I’d forgotten the books of the Bible.
“I know, but he invited me to do this because he realizes that none of the true Americans voted for him, and that everybody who did vote for him will go to hell, including all the gays, abortionists, scientists, and liberals who live in America but aren’t really Americans.”
“Well, just say that in your invocation. Amen. Done.”
“I need to stretch it out a little bit, Sir. Maybe give it a little bit of a touchy-feely spin.”
“I swear to Me, Rick…every time you start to get soft on Me, it makes Me want to wipe out a city that leans left.”
“Maybe I can just remind everyone that You’re the God of love, and that it’s not too late for all the liberals to renounce their free will and go to Heaven when they die. And that if they don’t, American will be visited by war, corruption, economic collapse, and moral decay on all levels of society.”
For a moment, we both stared in silence at Jimmy Johnson’s hair. “Maybe I should leave that part out,” I said.
“Tell it to ‘em straight,” said God. “Tell ‘em I hate queers and tree huggers and people who get all high and mighty about Constitutional rights. Tell ‘em I own enough guns to conquer Afghanistan, I voted for John McCain, I think Dick Cheney was the greatest president America ever had. I wear white briefs because anything else is faggy. I don’t eat sushi because fruitcakes eat sushi. I’m a Budweiser, Marlboro, and Ford man, and I would give My right nut to have sex with Kellie Pickler. Remind ‘em that Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein, that he went to school at Hah-vud, and that if I had wanted people to think, I would have given them brains. And tell ‘em I said that the Cowboys will kick anybody’s ass in the Super Bowl because Jerry Jones is the best owner in football. Amen. And seriously, Rick – hand Me the remote.”
When He gets that tone, I know the deologue is over. I gave him the remote and stood up. “You’ve still got five minutes to call in that bet,” He said. “While you’re up, I’ll take another O’Doul’s.”
“You got it,” I said. “You ready for some bean dip?”
“Yeah, that aspirin is kicking in. Hey, who’s on the Sunday night game?” He asked, pulling a Tony Romo jersey on over his long white hair and beard. Sure, he had his game face on. But He still took time to give me the help I needed. I thank Him for reminding me that America is a conservative, heterosexual, Caucasian country, and that no gay-loving liberal of color is gonna change that. God is truly great. I love that Guy.
Postscript: Philadelphia beat Dallas 44-6, knocking the Cowboys out of the playoffs.
by Ellis Dean
(Note: A version of this piece first appeared on Huffington Post.)
October 14, 2008
The history of political violence in America is a well-documented disgrace, and is not to be taken lightly. It is almost exclusively relegated to right-wing America haters like the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party (which inspired the likes of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh). Like many of my friends, the violence mongered recently by John McCain has not escaped my attention.
So I couldn’t help checking out “A Little Reality” – a video shot on October 8, 2008, of supporters lined up to see the deregulating, plane crashing, husband of a millionaire who has earned the loyalty of these hate-spewing thugs. But what I discovered was not what I expected.
At first, I thought maybe I’d clicked on the wrong link. Were these people shuffling into a Home & Garden Expo…or the grand opening of a new Fatburger? And then the buffet-line refugees began to bellow.
“I think you’re stupid,” said one, to the cameraman. “Why, sir?” “Because…that guy (Obama) gets elected, he hangs around with terrorists!” “Who’s the terrorist?” The old timer almost stifles a smirk: “Obama!” I get it – Obama’s a terrorist because he hangs around with terrorists, because he’s a terrorist. On second thought, maybe this is a MENSA reunion!
“Commie faggots,” whines another one, who in that one poignant moment spans both ends of his life, from the pre-school sandbox taunt to the death rattle in the cardiac ward. I find myself hoping they’re serving food at the hatefest – he doesn’t look like a guy who’s ever waited long for his next meal.
“Get a job,” shout the retirees whose government-provided entitlements the rest of us are paying for. These are the true Americans! “Socialist swine” hisses one through his dentures, as the Bush administration prepares to buy ownership interests in banks.
A bald, bespectacled 70-year old lumbers by and says “Die,” then brings his finger across his throat and points at Obama supporters across the street. He looks like a truly dangerous guy. Plus about 45 years. “You think they should die?” asks the cameraman. The ruthless killer thinks for a moment. He sees where this is going, but he’s one step of the liberal with the camera. “Everyone dies, don’t they?” Oh, snap!
“And he is a Muslim,” an elderly woman warns us. We can tell right away that she knows a Muslim when she sees one. Her bowling league is probably littered with them.
“Do you think he’s an American?” asks the cameraman. “I don’t know what he is,” says interchangeable old guy #62, slamming that door shut.
Next up, a small, solemn group of patriots – average age about 75 – sings a painful chorus of “God Bless America,” as if to inoculate themselves against the idea that a “colored boy” (insert your own euphemism) might possibly defile the White House with his presence.
A 300-pound man in an XXXXXXXL T-shirt displaying an Obama logo customized with a hammer and sickle (remember those?) transports his bulk down the street covering more ground from side to side than he does straight ahead, while another explains how Barack Obama and ACORN caused the worldwide economic crash. It’s obvious, to him at least, that with a little more deregulation, that would never have happened.
Well scrubbed, well dressed, well fed, well indoctrinated, and mostly well over the hill…this, then, was the unruly bunch of troublemakers that stirred so much Progressive anxiety. Up close, they seemed more like cattle – dangerous only if stampeded, and then only to delicate things like china shops and Constitutions. But few looked fit enough to sustain a quick waddle, much less a stampede.
I realized that my physical safety was really the last thing threatened by this herd. More horrifying was the thought that I might someday have to squeeze into a middle airplane seat between two of them. After half an hour in their presence, I might gladly jump out of the plane.
But therein lies the point. Although America’s violent history is long and shameful, so is its history of ignorance, conformity, irrationality, selfishness, racism, and mean-spiritedness. As we have come to realize in the eight years since willful stupidity became fashionable, these less obvious character defects can threaten our safety and prosperity every bit as profoundly as overt threats of violence can.
McCain’s pathetic rabble are to be feared, more than anything, for the loss of moral integrity they represent. They live on lies. We can only hope that their destructive petulance ends abruptly on November 4th, when the decent and honorable among us rise up in overwhelming numbers and insist that we the people embrace the better angels of our nature.
by Ellis Dean
Every day I push the pea
Look at me – I pushed the pea!
They pay me to push the pea
It makes my Mom so proud of me
One, two, three, push the pea
The reason isn’t clear to me
Why everyone is glad to see
Me push the pea from A to B
From B to C and C to D
They smile at me so happily
Every time I push the pea
Some day I’ll solve the mystery
I’ll earn myself a Ph.D.
They’ll ask me questions on TV
On ethics and philosophy
Mathematics and technology
The ways of honey and the bee
How humble I will try to be
And hope that everyone can see
The world as it appears to me
When that is done, then I’ll be free
To go back home and push the pea
by Ellis Dean
A version of this blog was published on Huffington Post on 9.11.08.
Progressives have tiptoed for years through the minefield of religion in politics, too intimidated by its perpetrators to speak up. But by picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain did more than just purchase the enthusiastic support of the Christian base of the Republican Party. He also raised the urgency with which reason-based journalists and the voters they represent must learn to recognize and expose the theocratic intentions that Palin and her party represent.
On the inaugural installment of The Rachel Maddow Show, Pat Buchanan provided a case study in the “sound-and-fury” techniques that right-wing propagandists use to neutralize their often-docile media counterparts (Maddow being a notable exception). The topic was Palin’s treatment by the media, and it ended up focused on religion.
Palin doesn’t hide the role religion plays in her personal life. As she said this summer at the Assembly of God in Wasilla, “It was so cool growin’ up in this church, and gettin’ saved here.” She also doesn’t hide religion’s role in her public duties. She told the Wasilla congregation that, “I can do my part in doin’ things like workin’ really, really hard to get a natural gas pipeline, about a $30 billion project that’s gonna create a lot of jobs for Alaskans, and we’ll have a lot of energy flowin’ through here. And pray about that also. I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.”
By her own words, Palin’s God guides her actions as a public servant and helps her execute public policy. And yet perception manipulators like Buchanan would make religion off limits to a discussion of whether Palin should be second in line to the presidency. He would have religion be a one-way factor in government: capable of influencing decisions that affect all citizens, but protected from examination by any citizen.
Buchanan raised the issue (at 4:00 into the clip) in an accusatory tone, then moved quickly to the smoke screens of God, family, the military, and Abraham Lincoln: “You’re bringin’ out this religious stuff…. I heard what she said, she said, ‘Let us pray that this war is part of God’s plan.’ What is wrong with that, for a woman whose 19-year-old boy is about to be sent off and may never return, that she asks for prayers…? She did not say that war is God’s plan…. It’s just like Lincoln said, ‘Look, let us pray that we are on God’s side.’”
Ignoring the emotional appeals, Buchanan’s dissembling distorts the truth of what Palin actually did say: “Our national leaders are sending them (soldiers) out (to Iraq) on a task that is from God.” She clearly means that God wants the U.S. to be involved militarily in Iraq. But if U.S. taxpayers are spending billions of dollars a week executing God’s will, then we have a right to subpoena God and ask him/her/it under oath to justify the human and financial costs. And if God does not show up, we have another reason to get our troops out of Iraq – and God out of our politics.
Buchanan also conveniently misquoted Lincoln, who according to sources actually said, “Sir my concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God’s side.” Note how Buchanan skillfully skewed the religiously-ambivalent Lincoln’s statement by switching the verb to “pray”.
Buchanan quickly followed with a non sequitur: “The fact is, you know how many Assembly of God folks there are out there, you know how many Pentecostals there are out there, you know how many pre-millennialists there are out there? Tim LaHaye’s book sold 40 million copies! Now you go on national television and you go trashing that religion because of what they believe about the end times…. Name one thing to suggest that (Palin) wants to establish the Assembly of God or her Baptist church or whatever she’s in now as a national church. There is nothing.”
The national church question is a red herring. But Buchanan implied that the number of people who share Palin’s religious beliefs somehow inoculates her from criticism, or that religious belief itself has no place in the discussion. However, the moment a public servant inserts the role of a personal religious belief into the public realm, as Palin explicitly did, then religious belief becomes political fair game, because it is a basis on which that public servant makes decisions that affect everyone. Either religion is personal and thereby off limits, or it is public and in play. This is the Achilles heel of those who would obliterate the wall between church and state.
Buchanan ended in a flourish of hypocrisy. He said, “We have the other candidate, Barack Obama, who has (sic) for 15 years belonged to a church which is run by a racist, anti-white, anti-American pastor and (had) his wife and his kids baptized by him.”
Maddow interrupted: “Bad strategy to talk about trashing religion and then come on and bring that stuff up.”
“I think we can trash Rev. Wright,” Buchanan insisted from behind a second face.
Buchanan’s star rose decades ago, writing press-bashing speeches for Spiro Agnew. Ironically, Buchanan once called the press a “tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one.” He and fellow-traveling right-wing babblers have created careers out of such double standards. The tricks of their dark arts must now be dragged into the light of day, and they must be held accountable for the effects of their endless war on truth. Otherwise, we might all end up “gettin’ saved” at Sarah Palin’s church.
by Ellis Dean
The 2008 presidential election is actually not an election at all. It’s a collective IQ test. If we fail it, we may have missed our last opportunity to reverse America’s relentless pursuit of ignorance before we pass the point of no return as a nation, a culture, and an ideal.
The national IQ test, to be conducted on November 4th, consists of one yes-or-no question:
· Do you realize that since 2001, the Bush administration and the Republican Party have:
o Used lies, propaganda, and political blackmail to engineer an unnecessary and catastrophic war in Iraq;
o Mishandled, through greed, incompetence, and ideology, the occupation of Iraq, at a cost of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi lives, and billions of U.S. taxpayers’ dollars;
o Through borrow-and-spend economic policies and tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals and largest corporations, not only spent the budget surplus it inherited from the Clinton administration, but run up the largest debt in American history;
o Encouraged irresponsible financial schemes which have enriched the wealthiest financial players while fostering personal bankruptcies and the loss of homes for thousands of Americans;
o Undermined the stability of the U.S. economy while transferring primary ownership of the national debt to Communist China and other countries;
o Ignored both the supply-and-demand realities of the international oil market, and the opportunity to increase American security by supporting the conservation of energy use in America and development of alternative energies;
o Aligned itself with anti-science evangelical Christians, thereby weakening the separation of church and state and drastically reducing American technological competitiveness;
o Delayed the development of countless medical advances in the name of extremist political and religious ideologies;
o Through its relentless disregard for the Constitution, federal laws, international treaties, ethical standards, and long-followed traditions, provoked ill will and disrespect toward the government of the United States within the country and around the world;
o Refused to accept scientific evidence and silenced government-employed truth-tellers, which not only obstructed evidence of the growing consequences of global climate change, but increased the harm done;
o Enlisted the support of telecommunication companies, government agencies, and the Democratic Party to institute illegal invasions of privacy in violation of the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and against the citizens of the United States in a fear-based campaign whose intentions include the consolidation of power in the hands of the central government;
o Reversed the national policy against the torture of prisoners, which was instituted by George Washington, while violating the principal of habeas corpus, international law, and the Geneva Convention;
o Allowed the United States’ infrastructure story to decay to third-world standards in some cases, by deficit spending, tax cuts, and ideologically-based priorities at odds with the national interest;
o Introduced ideology-based factors into the hiring of Justice Department officials who are paid by, and expected to serve impartially, all Americans;
o Committed other atrocities (see “Bushed”) too numerous to mention?
Choose one of the following two responses:
· Yes
· No
(Feedback) If “Yes”: Congratulations, you have passed the IQ test, and patriotically fulfilled your obligations as a U.S. citizen. You have monitored the misconduct of your government, used your critical thinking skills and reasoning ability to analyze the actions of the elected officials in your employ, and concluded that the Bush administration is responsible for the greatest moral, economic, political, and military decline in United States history. You possess a set of moral principles, to which you hold your government accountable. You have a conscience. You are not mislead by the widespread malpractices of mainstream journalism, which has enabled the Bush administration in its dismantling of the American ideal. Your “Yes” translates to a vote for Barack Obama for president. Make a commitment to ensure that at least three additional people in your circle, who may otherwise not vote, or vote for John McCain, also vote for Barack Obama. You are obviously well aware of the stakes.
(Feedback) If “No”: Incorrect. You have flunked the IQ test, and failed to fulfill your obligations as a U.S. citizen. Unless you are mentally ill, have a learning disability, or have lived in a coma for the past seven years, your lack of awareness of the misdeeds conducted in your name by the Bush administration is inexcusable. You possess no active moral or ethical standards. You demonstrate a willful, defiant, and reckless disregard for reality and its consequences. Instead, like as a typical authoritarian, you cling to a reality you wish to be true in spite of absolute evidence to the contrary. As such, you represent an unshakable commitment to ignorance. Your answer suggests a vote for John McCain. You are the problem America faces, not the solution.
by Chaz Kent
Yeah, right. Like I’m gonna waste my time working on some political campaign. Politicians are all corrupt. There’s no difference between the two parties. They’re both owned by corporate interests. Who also own all the voting machines, by the way. Diebold controls the elections.
It’s all about media spin anyway. I did think Obama had some good photo ops on the “world tour” thing. He’s got some good image people. Laying the wreath at the Holocost Memorial will probably win some Jewish votes. He should do what Hillary Clinton did and say he’ll launch a nuclear attack on Iraq. People say she was amoral and manipulative, but he’s no better. He’ll say anything to get elected. Just because he can give a big speech doesn’t mean anything. He needs to visit more of those white trash diners and eat kielbasa. For God’s sake, eat the kielbasa! Those people won’t vote for anyone who doesn’t eat kielbasa! Otherwise, he just comes off as another upper class elite. And if I was his campaign manager, I would have him work on his bowling! Working class people expect their politicians to eat crappy food and be good bowlers. It’s about winning elections.
I saw “The Dark Knight” at the midnight show the night it opened. I wanted to see if Heath Ledger’s performance was as great as all the hype made it sound. It was okay. He overdid the tongue click thing. I didn’t like what they did with his hair. Bottom line for me – not enough special effects. And then there was the whole thing with Christian Bale assaulting his mother and his sister. They probably staged it to get more publicity for the film.
People are so stupid. I heard some guy the other day talking about the news media, and how they’ve “abdicated their responsibility to the American people” by accepting anything they’re told without question, and how there should be some kind of oversight on the media. All these guidelines and ethical standards. I’m like, “That’s working real well with lawyers.”
Cassie and I are climbing Kilimanjaro next month. I’m not really into Africa, but I want to see it before the glacier melts. We booked it through some company that supposedly helps starving kids in the Rift Valley, blah, blah, blah. Like they’re not shaking us down for every cent they can, to line their own pockets. It’s so crass and cynical.
I’ve got to get a Starbucks. They’re closing something like 600 stores. They won’t announce which ones. I heard there’s some kind of online promotion to get people to say why there’s should be kept open. Brilliant marketing. Starbucks can even make money out of downsizing. Who cares? Maybe I’ll have to walk an extra 10 steps to get a mocha latte. Whatever.
by Ellis Dean
Let me begin by acknowledging the obvious difficulties of a dirty business. Regardless of your political persuasion, it can’t be easy to be a politician. Hair-splitting and hedging, however distasteful to anyone with a high regard for truth, are the hammer and saw of a politician’s toolbox.
My complaint today is directed toward a politician whose premise is “change,” and who in the past year achieved an unprecedented level of support and success based in part on the courage to think more and shade less. The origin of my interest in his presidential candidacy was his opposition to the invasion of Iraq – an idea that was self-evidently catastrophic at the time, except for the 75% of the easily-fooled among us who bought the big lie. (You’ll find many of them today in SUVs commuting to their adjustable-rate-mortgaged homes in the exurbs.)
Obama was not fooled, and it was no coincidence that he survived the Democratic primary process at a time in which most peoples’ eyes had been opened to George Bush’s decision to start an unnecessary war at the expense of America’s real security needs.
Regarding those real needs, I first donated to Obama’s campaign in August, 2007, the day after he announced his willingness to breach Pakistani sovereignty if necessary to root out the criminals responsible for the 9/11 murders. He was criticized at the time by many of the same politicians who voted the wrong way on Iraq.
Obama thereby managed to raise my hope for positive change by demonstrating clarity of thought and a willingness to state position that ran counter to the chronically-incorrect convention wisdom. By the time he released his January, 2008 position on FISA (the Bush administration’s attack on the Fourth amendment), Obama had earned my enthusiastic support. His words were clear and unequivocal. No hedging, no difference-splitting:
“No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people – not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed…laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient…. The American people will not permit the abuse of power – and demanded that we reclaim our core values by restoring the rule of law…. I share your commitment to this cause, and will stand with you in the fights to come.”
I could not have expressed the uncompromisability of the U.S. Constitution better myself.
I attended the Democratic caucus in my state in support of Senator Obama, and donated twice more to his campaign. I was convinced that he, unlike any other politician I’d seen in memory, was the anomaly we desperately needed. I fumed at Hillary Clinton and the Rovish final stages of her campaign. I shook my head at the hopeless blunders of John McCain’s campaign and I exhaled in relief when it became clear that Obama would be the Democratic nominee and therefore, in this year of reckoning for the Republican party, the next President of the United States.
And then, in a single, unprovoked and unnecessary move, Barack Obama wadded up my enthusiasm like a hamburger wrapper and tossed it out the window. He equivocated on his unequivocal words about FISA. He voted to pass a “compromise” version of the law in which immunity was granted to those who had already violated the Fourth amendment. And he weaseled in explaining why:
“Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I’ve chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention – once I’m sworn in as President – to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.”
In doing so, Obama did not simply betray the Constitution, the rule of law, or my personal expectation that he was anomalous. He betrayed countless others who supported him and worked for him, based on, among other things, his clearly-stated position on FISA. I don’t know if he realizes the disillusionment his betrayal has caused among many of his most ardent supporters, but that is the lingering reaction among those I’ve spoken to.
In his rationalization, he appears to count on the fact that those he stiffed will overlook the betrayal in the absence of a better option. And he does have luck on his side again this year, facing weak opposition as he did in his 2004 Senate campaign. So from a “how many votes does this cost me?” calculation, the FISA flip may not make much difference. In fact, some in the mainstream press (always eager to avoid an original thought) have wondered whether this is Obama’s “Sister Souljah” moment. I guess it is, if you equate Constitutional rights with a race-baiting rap artist.
But what he did lose was the passion of many of his most enthusiastic supporters. Like me, many now will not contribute to his campaign or work for him. This may already be hitting his campaign where it hurts the worst – in money and credibility. Like a betrayed spouse, even if the marriage survives, the cheatee will never see cheater in the same way again.
by Ellis Dean
Rocky Mountain News media critic Jason Salzman wrote a column recently about media critics, in which he proposed a Code of Behavior for Media Criticism. I think the idea is worth considering since, at least since the Nixon administration, critics have furthered partisan agendas by demonizing the messenger. If nothing else, his Code is food for thought, as is the sobering (and conceivable) notion that Denver may someday have no daily newspaper service at all.
However, I am frankly more concerned about the state of journalism itself these days. I agree that bloggers and talk-radio hosts are “dependent on mainstream professional journalism”, but American citizens—voters—are even more dependent on the quality of information they receive from the press. In the face of this desperate need, journalism is a profession in disrepute – to the extent that it even considers itself a profession.
I can think of no more significant example of the catastrophic consequences of journalistic negligence than the almost-universal complicity of the mainstream media in accepting and supporting the Bush administration’s deceptions prior to and since the beginning of the Iraq war. Scott McClellan’s recent comments about the media’s role as enablers of the war caused a brief round of self-reflection, after which journalists like Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams declared themselves innocent of any dereliction of professional responsibility (in spite of tape demonstrating confident support of the invasion by the likes of Brokaw, Williams and the now-sanctified Tim Russert). On the print side, Judith Miller’s unconscionable reporting (among others’) further enabled the manipulation of American public opinion in favor the war.
It is no wonder that in survey results last year, “the press” ranks next-to-last in a ranking of institutions in which U.S. adults have confidence (barely beaten out for last place by Congress). First, a profession whose single most fundamental purpose is the discovery and communication of truth, overlooks contradictory evidence and supports, without question, the biggest foreign policy catastrophe in modern American history. It then judges itself to be without blame, in spite of the revelation of even more undeniable evidence of the criminal malfeasance that led to the invasion. These are actions that demand the low regard in which this profession? craft? occupation? is held.
The Iraq disgrace is only one of many journalistic failures in recent years. And yet I am aware of no widely-established professional standards for journalists. I am aware of no formal processes (other than libel suits) for the review of journalistic incompetence, or for the disciplining or removal of professional credentials in cases of journalistic negligence. I am aware of no widely-established standards for the credentialing of journalists. Using Colorado as an example, the qualifications for styling hair are significantly—shamefully—higher than those for practicing journalism.
Perhaps that is one reason why journalists seem less well-respected than hair stylists. Regardless, it seems to me that the best way to disarm critics of journalism has less to do with standards for critics than with standards for journalists themselves. A group with so little respect for itself has no right to expect better from others. As long as journalists ignore (or in some cases, ridicule) the need for the kind of professional standards that most occupations embraced in the last hundred years, they should be considered of a kind with such archaic tradespeople as blacksmiths and barrel makers.
In the meantime, when I hear journalists wince from the words of critics, and worry about the future of their jobs, my sympathy is muted. I shift my attention to bloggers like Bill Moyers, Chris Hedges, and Glenn Greenwald for a whiff of the truth I so seldom seem to catch from mainstream journalists. And although I dread the day when no newspaper arrives on my driveway, my first thought that day will not be of the critics, but of the journalists themselves whose negligence had so much more to do with their own demise.
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