Give "Spin" a Chance

These have been difficult times for Republican “spinmeisters.” How do you “spin” it when President Bush weighs an issue like insurance company profits vs. health care for little kids and comes down proudly on the side of the insurance companies? Or when Vice President Cheney declares himself a fourth branch of government, accountable to no one?

Not that Tony Snow and his Fox TV adjunct press office isn’t up to the task (though the Cheney disclaimer was so weird that Snow sent out the blonde ditz, Dana Perino, to stifle questions with a smile and a giggle). On most issues where the Administration is totally at odds with common sense or decency, the response is either to blame Bill Clinton or suggest the questioner isn’t supporting our troops.

The latest “spin” heroes for the GOP have been true believers Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, shining lights of what the right-wing calls journalism (as it is practiced at both Fox News and the Weekly Standard). Kristol recently wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he claimed the Iraq war was a great success, causing sane people to cry and the blogosphere to crash and burn.

Not to be outdone, Barnes wrote a story in the current Weekly Standard titled “An Unusually Effective Minority” in which he praised the Republican minority in Congress for bringing representative government to a halt. “Democrats are stymied, foiled and frustrated. Republicans have hindered or obstructed them at almost every turn” wrote an admiring Barnes. He concedes, almost in passing, that polls show “Democrats are more popular than Republicans, and their stand on most issues is preferred.” But the point is those issues that people want are going nowhere, thanks to the Republican opposition!

Next to blocking efforts to get our troops out of an Iraq civil war, Barnes writes that congressional Republicans have had their greatest success in killing Democratic bills that expand funding for stem cell research, making it easier for workers to join unions and allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices.

Nothing is more important to this dogged GOP minority than maintaining the Bush tax cuts for the very rich. This dedicated effort to widen the gap between rich and poor is attracting world-wide attention.

In a recent issue of the London Observer Paul Harris reports that in 1985 the U.S. had just 13 billionaires--now there are more than 1,000. “America’s super-rich have returned to the days of the Roaring Twenties. As the rest of the country struggles to get by, a huge bubble of multi-millionaires live in their own world of private education, private health care and gated mansions. Their world has a name: ‘Richistan’. There, every dream, but the American Dream itself, can come true.”

That’s the world the Republican minority in Congress that Fred Barnes admires so much is working to preserve and maintain.

Surely someone in Karl Rove’s office must worry how that “success” is going to play in the 2008 elections. Blocking Democrats in Congress from passing legislation that people want is going to take a lot of spin, or as Ricky Ricardo would say to Lucy, someone’s got some ‘splaining’ to do.

Hush Rush?

While much of the world lives in dread of further horrors in Iraq, Darfur and the specter of no more Harry Potter books, Bill Buckley’s National Review worries that government just might shut up right-wing talking heads that rail on radio. On a recent cover is a photo of Rush Limbaugh, his mouth pasted over by duct tape. Inside is a heart-wrenching article deploring Democratic Party attempts to bring back the hated Fairness Doctrine.

For those of you too young to remember, from the earliest years of radio, there was a Fairness Doctrine.

Then came the Reagan era and it, along with labor’s right to organize and other democratic landmarks, was repealed.

Soon the airwaves were dominated by the outraged cries of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Bill Bennett. Later, cable gave us a whole television network of such ‘fair and balanced’ nonsense.

The question is what part of ‘fairness’ do conservatives not understand? How onerous was the doctrine’s demand that listeners should hear both sides of a controversial issue?
Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said recently “it’s time to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.” California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate rules committee, agrees. “There ought to be an opportunity to present the other side. Talk radio is overwhelmingly one-way.”

Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence, a former radio talk-show host himself and a real “ditto” head, is sponsoring the Broadcaster Freedom Act which would permanently take away from the FCC the authority to re-impose the Fairness Doctrine. Pence said he had a terrible vision of the future that guided his action: “The American people need to know that a future Democrat president could appoint members to the FCC and issue executive orders that could bring back the Fairness Doctrine.”

The horrors of that are too disturbing for conservatives to even contemplate.

By the way -- the National Review cover story on “fairness” (or the lack of it) was penned by Byron York, a frequent right-wing TV pundit best known for a fabulous head of lacquered hair that wouldn’t dream of allowing John Edwards’ $400 barber to touch it.

"Heidi" Joins "Days of our Lives"

I and two billion of my closest friends tuned in as Al Gore presided over the Live Earth concerts on NBC.

All of us were asked to sign up by text or online for a pledge to plant trees and vote for green-minded politicians and nowhere in the fine print were any petitions nominating “Al Gore for President”.

I was struck by how all this came together. I’ve helped put together enough conventions to know that if anything can go wrong, it will. Microphones and air conditioners fail and third-tier politicians scheduled to keynote fail to show. Yet, here were satellite feeds from seven continents featuring super-rich rock stars with no sense of accountability who through some miracle showed up and performed when and where they were supposed to and between songs said all the right things about the desperate need to conserve energy and protect forests.

Political consultants had to be salivating at the stage this gave Al Gore. Had he been a serious candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008, those same consultants never would have allowed him to share a platform with out of control entertainers who at any moment may grab a crotch or shout obscenities.

What is even more remarkable is that Live Earth was telecast by NBC. This is the same network that earlier in the week cut away from an epic quarter-final tennis match at Wimbledon between Justine Henin and Serena Williams.

The two tennis icons were tied at one match apiece when NBC told viewers the network would now join the soap “Days of Our Lives.” This is the same network that in 1968 cut away from a New York Jets-Oakland Raiders game with the Jets leading 32-29 with only 65 seconds to play, so that viewers could see the TV version of the classic children’s story “Heidi”.

In those 65 seconds, the Raiders scored 14 points to win, 43-32 and the millions of fans who missed it raised such a ruckus that never again would any network make such a decision. The fact is that the NFL has clout and uses it to bludgeon networks into submission.

By contrast, professional tennis, even with its charismatic stars and enthusiastic fan following, is constantly bullied by networks and sponsors, even during its biggest grand slam events. Can you imagine a World Series or Super Bowl where the network is still in commercials when play on the field has resumed?

Happens to tennis all the time.

At the recent Take Back America Conference in Washington, 3000 grassroots progressives were in a joyous, euphoric mood. For a quarter-century they had been on the periphery of American politics, but not now.

Having led opposition to the Iraq War, liberal Democrats have the most to crow about as their party basks in dreams of winning the White House and electing a filibuster-proof Congress next year. Think how far they had come from the Reagan landslides, how their issues of the war, social and economic justice, and universal health care, now lead the national debate. And along the way, the progressive push had taken the sexism out of party politics.

Liberal Democrats have fought long and hard for gender equality, so you can imagine the excitement as the 2007 Take Back America conference got underway: their party’s two most prominent leaders are women.

Hillary Clinton leads all Democratic candidates for the 2008 Presidential nomination.
Nancy Pelosi is the first woman ever elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.

So how did conference participants celebrate this triumph?

They booed them both.

I’ll confess that two of the great loves of my life are the Democratic Party and the New York Yankees and I don’t know which aggravates me more. I’ll leave it up to Joe Torre and Steinbrenner’s checkbook to get the Yankees back on track, but I can’t ignore Democrats booing Nancy and Hillary. When liberals got infatuated with Ralph Nader in 2000 it cost Al Gore the election.

I’m a great admirer of Robert Borosage who heads up Take Back America. As he told the fifth annual conference in his opening remarks, “The right has failed. Their policies are bankrupt. They still dominate the Republican Party, but they are well on their way to turning it into a minority, regional party of white exclusion. This is our time.”

I could not agree more, and one of the reasons the Democratic Party is stronger today and more effective than in decades is because of leaders like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. Liberals and moderates may disagree and show their discontent by stamping their feet or raising their voices but it won’t be “our time” if Democrats tear themselves apart on how to end the Iraq war. Pelosi doesn’t have the votes to bring home our troops, but even those who booed her at Take Back know how superior her leadership is to Denny Hastert. And Hillary has spent a lifetime of public service on behalf of families and children, promoting the progressive agenda. Labor has no better friend—she is a strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act (which the conference took a break to lobby for on Capitol Hill) declaring “to rebuild our middle class we need to restore a level playing field for unions and give them a meaningful opportunity to organize.”

Understandably, Democratic divisions on the war delight and give hope to the GOP opposition. Playing their favorite “patriotism” card, right-wing media enjoys distorting what the boos were all about. The National Review reported that the boos began after Clinton said, “The American military has done its job.” Fox News said she was booed because she said she supports the troops. The jeers actually came after she said the Iraqi government was to blame for the continued violence.

Republican friends of mine concede that 2008 is an election they can’t win – that Democrats have to lose it. Which we have a talent for doing. Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia political pundit, asked “how can the Democrats blow this election with all their built-in advantages?” He answers his own question (as Larry is prone to do): “Everything depends on whether Democrats consider the big picture prior to voting.”

The big picture is the need for Democrats, whether liberals or moderates, to understand they are the political mainstream in this country. A Pew Foundation study shows 54% think government should help the needy, and two-thirds want government to guarantee health insurance for all. That’s why Democrats need to Take Back America. That’s the big picture.

So when Democrats boo and jeer other Democrats, I want to respond like Ronald Reagan: “There they go again…”