When it comes to the combined idea of politicians and credibility, we're reminded of the old George Carlin jokes about "jumbo shrimp,", "business ethics" or "plastic glasses.". While the two ideas are not completely mutually exclusive, we can certainly understand how many Americans see the idea of a credible politician as something of a rare species. Many of the people on Capitol Hill who were screeching with righteous indignation for Congressman Anthony Weiner to resign (even though he did nothing illegal) still have little to say about Congressman David Vitter's solicitation of prostitution (which IS a crime), even several years later.
Take a look around - even the former main conductor of the "Straight Talk Express" seems to have once again singed his own credibility, after taking his tongue for a walk right into the tinder-dry thickets of arguably racist comments.
We admit that there's a lot of evidence that speaks again John McCain being a racist, not the least of which is the Senator's adopted daughter, Bridget. Still, a long-time veteran of the political process like McCain should know that just one unguarded or poorly phrased statement can be misconstrued, inflated, and come to dominate the news cycle. Even things not specifically stated - like McCain's adoption of a daughter from Bangladesh - can be twisted to make a political figure appear to be something they're not, as Karl Rove did to McCain back in 2000.
Unfortunately, just being aware of the pitfalls of a media environment that is constantly salivating for more juicy content isn't enough to protect someone from sometimes triggering a media feeding frenzy - which is exactly what Senator McCain has done over the last few days.
At a press conference last weekend, Mr. McCain made some comments about both wildfires and immigrants that - frankly - may have appeared racist to people who only saw clips of the press conference, or even read his main quotes. Those comments could easily be interpreted as inflammatory by a media consumer who isn't fully informed about the problems that affect the Senator's home state of Arizona, or even those who may not have seen the entire press conference.
The problem with Sen. McCain's credibility on this issue is that his media assistants seem to have forgotten how charged and primed the media environment surrounding his state is, with respect to any racial comment. The fallout created by SB 1070 still hasn't been settled, nor have the immigration challenges facing border states. These are all things that Mr. McCain is well aware of.
Sadly, in today's media environment, facts cannot always extinguish the blaze of inflammatory comments taken out of context in a 140-character world. That may have once been the case - and we still believe wholeheartedly in basing our viewpoints on facts. But going on the Today Show and saying that he was, "…puzzled ... that there should be any controversy," didn't help Mr. McCain's credibility. In fact, it may have hurt him, as some people now see him in the same light that they see Grandpa Simpson - old and out of touch.
We have family in Arizona - and we understand that what the Senator was saying may have some embers of truth to it. After all, fires in the desert are used for all the things he said immigrants use them for - as signals, to keep warm, and as diversions - by both immigrants and citizens alike.
The real burn for Mr. McCain - not to mention his staff - seems to be the inability to put out this kind of media firestorm.
Public figures take note: when you spark a flame with an offhand, easily misunderstood comment, apologize, and walk away. You may indeed have the facts on your side, but as one of our staff members has been known to say, "Do you want to be right, or do you want to get your message across?"
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Justice, Inc.
The golden rule was on full display in Washington, DC yesterday, right across from the Capitol Building, and just down the street from the Library of Congress - but it may not be the golden rule you're thinking of.
In case you missed it, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday made a decision to throw out a long-struggling, class action employment discrimination lawsuit against the country's largest retailer, Wal-Mart. The decision was not the slam dunk that media outlets on either side are claiming it was.
The court was unanimous in saying that the lawyers for the plaintiffs had sued Wal-Mart using the wrong part of the law, one not concerned with monetary damages. That's the part of the story you'll hear crowed about in the right-wing media, when it comes to this story. Sadly, it was the failure of the lawyers for the former Wal-Mart workers to properly navigate the labyrinth of legal tangles that led to that 9-0 decision - which had nothing to do with the key part of the case.
The real meat of the decision was the 5-4 ideological split, which said - in short - that class-action lawsuits that seek money from employers for discrimination in the workplace are non-starters in the eyes of the Supremes.
As Columbia University law professor John Coffee said in the LA Times, this ruling "… largely eliminates the monetary threat facing big employers [if they decide to discriminate]… if there is no money relief at the end of the road, there is no incentive to bring the suit."
We've understood for quite some time now that the Roberts Court has been overly friendly to corporations, big businesses, and the wealthy, while treating the concerns of those the court is supposed to focus upon - the unjustly afflicted or unjustly accused - as annoying, uninteresting, or unworthy of justice.
Just to add insult to their injury to the justice system, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court also ruled, in a separate case, that states have no duty to provide legal counsel in civil court matters, "even if that individual faces incarceration," due to the circumstances of their situation.
This can - and likely will - open a huge can of worms for certain people caught in the gears of our legal system. Those people, once accused and arrested, if caught in the system, could then be punished not for their own failures but the failures of the system. Each time the system fails them, they - not the system - could be given an additional charge, but they won't be provided with legal counsel any more.
As the bipartisan Constitution Project noted Monday, the ruling "undermines the fundamental fairness of our justice system, putting Americans in danger of losing their liberty simply because they cannot afford a lawyer."
If this sounds eerily close to the skewed legal system Europeans often faced under unjust kings and other aristocratic rulers - one of the very reasons Europeans escaped to America in the first place - you're right.
The golden rule that we mentioned earlier, that the U.S. Supreme Court was displaying Monday, isn't the one in the Bible.
It's the rule that he or she who has the gold, makes the rules.
As history proves, that rule often works, for a time. As history also proves, that rule only works as long as they who have the gold can stay alive long enough to use it.
That version of the golden rule may be what our legal system is turning into - but don't call it a justice system.
Justice doesn't look anything like this.
In case you missed it, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday made a decision to throw out a long-struggling, class action employment discrimination lawsuit against the country's largest retailer, Wal-Mart. The decision was not the slam dunk that media outlets on either side are claiming it was.
The court was unanimous in saying that the lawyers for the plaintiffs had sued Wal-Mart using the wrong part of the law, one not concerned with monetary damages. That's the part of the story you'll hear crowed about in the right-wing media, when it comes to this story. Sadly, it was the failure of the lawyers for the former Wal-Mart workers to properly navigate the labyrinth of legal tangles that led to that 9-0 decision - which had nothing to do with the key part of the case.
The real meat of the decision was the 5-4 ideological split, which said - in short - that class-action lawsuits that seek money from employers for discrimination in the workplace are non-starters in the eyes of the Supremes.
As Columbia University law professor John Coffee said in the LA Times, this ruling "… largely eliminates the monetary threat facing big employers [if they decide to discriminate]… if there is no money relief at the end of the road, there is no incentive to bring the suit."
We've understood for quite some time now that the Roberts Court has been overly friendly to corporations, big businesses, and the wealthy, while treating the concerns of those the court is supposed to focus upon - the unjustly afflicted or unjustly accused - as annoying, uninteresting, or unworthy of justice.
Just to add insult to their injury to the justice system, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court also ruled, in a separate case, that states have no duty to provide legal counsel in civil court matters, "even if that individual faces incarceration," due to the circumstances of their situation.
This can - and likely will - open a huge can of worms for certain people caught in the gears of our legal system. Those people, once accused and arrested, if caught in the system, could then be punished not for their own failures but the failures of the system. Each time the system fails them, they - not the system - could be given an additional charge, but they won't be provided with legal counsel any more.
As the bipartisan Constitution Project noted Monday, the ruling "undermines the fundamental fairness of our justice system, putting Americans in danger of losing their liberty simply because they cannot afford a lawyer."
If this sounds eerily close to the skewed legal system Europeans often faced under unjust kings and other aristocratic rulers - one of the very reasons Europeans escaped to America in the first place - you're right.
The golden rule that we mentioned earlier, that the U.S. Supreme Court was displaying Monday, isn't the one in the Bible.
It's the rule that he or she who has the gold, makes the rules.
As history proves, that rule often works, for a time. As history also proves, that rule only works as long as they who have the gold can stay alive long enough to use it.
That version of the golden rule may be what our legal system is turning into - but don't call it a justice system.
Justice doesn't look anything like this.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Right Track, Wrong Track
As we pointed out over a month ago, when one of the many Tea Party groups announced its endorsement of Nebraska Republican Attorney General Jon Bruning for the current U.S. Senate seat held by Democratic Senator Ben Nelson, such backing may not have been the kind of boost that outsiders may have thought it was.
In our travels since that announcement was made, we've heard more than a few comments from conservative readers - and even read a few letters to the editor at different newspapers - that support our claim that Mr. Bruning's choice to side with the insane right will only hurt his chances against Ben Nelson.
It's quite obvious the Attorney General/Senate Hopeful hasn't paid heed to the voices we've been hearing. Last week he signed the ridiculously named "Contract from America" that a second, different Tea Party group is promoting.
That Bruning signed a document pushed by an opposing Tea Party group from the one that previously endorsed him only shows us that he's clueless about the differences between the two factions. It also displays to us - as well as his opponents in the Republican primary race - that he feels desperate enough to "prove" his current supposedly conservative credentials that he's willing to beg for the approval of nearly any far-right political group. That Mr. Bruning has a history that proves his less-than extreme conservatism may also have something to do with his maneuvers.
No one is being fooled by the actions of candidates like Mr. Bruning, or the actions of candidates like Mitt Romney, who facetiously claimed last week that he was unemployed. Their actions are pure pandering, and in a party that claims to be the bastion of general ethics, personal morals, and family values, those kinds of actions are a certain sign of being a complete and total hypocrite.
We have yet to figure out how a candidate from ANY political party, who claims to be representing a large group of people with high ethics and deep moral codes, will actually be able to win a general election in the fall of 2012 with a performance like this now, before the primary events.
The political atmosphere around the country is not what many in the major mainstream corporate media on either the right or left seem to have been pushing forth lately. Sadly, it was comedian Jon Stewart once again pointing out the media's bias this weekend on Fox - not that it has a liberal bias, but that it has a bias in favor of sensationalism. We saw that in the stories surrounding the Anthony Weiner media fiasco over the last three weeks.
What we also saw in the more legitimate stories about "WeinerGate" - more than once - was that some voters don't really seem to care about scandalous but not illegal actions by their elected officials. When asked many times, if they would vote for him again, or if he should step down, the majority of Mr. Weiner's constituents consistently said the same thing: that they didn't care what he did on his own time. He did his job for them better than anyone else, and he got them results.
That's what anyone who truly wants to run government like a business would say about the people they hire - that while they're at work, if they get the right results, they should be able to stay.
Meanwhile, likely Republican voters have made it clear in other polls; they don't really care what the beliefs of their 2012 presidential candidate are - just as long as he or she beats President Obama.
For a group of people who want to claim the mantle of the party of values, we've got to say: if that's the way you're going, your train is not heading in the right direction, in any way - politically, ethically, or on the track to winning it all in 2012 and beyond.
Leaders don't need to beg.
In our travels since that announcement was made, we've heard more than a few comments from conservative readers - and even read a few letters to the editor at different newspapers - that support our claim that Mr. Bruning's choice to side with the insane right will only hurt his chances against Ben Nelson.
It's quite obvious the Attorney General/Senate Hopeful hasn't paid heed to the voices we've been hearing. Last week he signed the ridiculously named "Contract from America" that a second, different Tea Party group is promoting.
That Bruning signed a document pushed by an opposing Tea Party group from the one that previously endorsed him only shows us that he's clueless about the differences between the two factions. It also displays to us - as well as his opponents in the Republican primary race - that he feels desperate enough to "prove" his current supposedly conservative credentials that he's willing to beg for the approval of nearly any far-right political group. That Mr. Bruning has a history that proves his less-than extreme conservatism may also have something to do with his maneuvers.
No one is being fooled by the actions of candidates like Mr. Bruning, or the actions of candidates like Mitt Romney, who facetiously claimed last week that he was unemployed. Their actions are pure pandering, and in a party that claims to be the bastion of general ethics, personal morals, and family values, those kinds of actions are a certain sign of being a complete and total hypocrite.
We have yet to figure out how a candidate from ANY political party, who claims to be representing a large group of people with high ethics and deep moral codes, will actually be able to win a general election in the fall of 2012 with a performance like this now, before the primary events.
The political atmosphere around the country is not what many in the major mainstream corporate media on either the right or left seem to have been pushing forth lately. Sadly, it was comedian Jon Stewart once again pointing out the media's bias this weekend on Fox - not that it has a liberal bias, but that it has a bias in favor of sensationalism. We saw that in the stories surrounding the Anthony Weiner media fiasco over the last three weeks.
What we also saw in the more legitimate stories about "WeinerGate" - more than once - was that some voters don't really seem to care about scandalous but not illegal actions by their elected officials. When asked many times, if they would vote for him again, or if he should step down, the majority of Mr. Weiner's constituents consistently said the same thing: that they didn't care what he did on his own time. He did his job for them better than anyone else, and he got them results.
That's what anyone who truly wants to run government like a business would say about the people they hire - that while they're at work, if they get the right results, they should be able to stay.
Meanwhile, likely Republican voters have made it clear in other polls; they don't really care what the beliefs of their 2012 presidential candidate are - just as long as he or she beats President Obama.
For a group of people who want to claim the mantle of the party of values, we've got to say: if that's the way you're going, your train is not heading in the right direction, in any way - politically, ethically, or on the track to winning it all in 2012 and beyond.
Leaders don't need to beg.
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