Roundup: Media's Take

November 30, 2004

Why Is Television Dominated by Shows Set in the Blue States?

Paul Farhi, in the Washington Post (11-28-04) ... TV dramas and sitcoms for years have extolled blue-city living, and marginalized, condescended to or simply ignored just about everywhere else. Even the fact that TV shows are made in Los Angeles and the business of network TV is conducted in a few square blocks of Manhattan does not explain the blue-centric nature of entertainment television. Where do TV sitcom writers set their stories when they want to signal

November 30, 2004

US Presidents Haven't Always Gotten Along with the Leaders of Canada

Kathleen Harris, in the Toronto Sun (11-28-04): THEY'VE BEEN golf buddies, duet singers and insult-hurling arch-enemies. Canadian Prime Ministers and American Presidents have enjoyed -- and endured -- a necessary relationship that swings from cordial to confrontational through history. While Canada and the U.S. have long been considered "best friends," there was no love lost between former PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau and then-President Richard Nixon

November 30, 2004

Why 1968 May Not Have Been a Factor in the Election of 2004

Christopher Caldwell, in the London Financial Tmes (11-27-04): When Bill Clinton published his memoirs last spring, he presented his life as but one episode in the great cultural drama that "broke up" America in the 1960s. That break-up explained pretty much everything. "If you look back on the 60s and think there was more good than harm, you're probably a Democrat," Mr Clinton wrote. "If you think there was more harm than good, you're probably a Republican.

November 29, 2004

The Republican Steamroller May Lose Its Steam

Todd Purdum, in the NYT (11-28-04):FOR some Democrats this year, the prospect of President Bush's re-election with larger Republican majorities in both houses of Congress seemed to presage not just continued one-party dominance of Washington but a new and threatening one-party dominion over the life of the nation itself."If President Bush is re-elected, we will be close to a tipping point of fundamental change in the political system itself," Robert Kuttner wrote las

November 29, 2004

WSJ: Who Says the Cabinet Needs to Reflect Different Views from the President?

Bret Stephens, in the WSJ (11-29-04): Although the administration of William Henry Harrison isn't the most acclaimed in American history, it did contribute one intriguing idea to the theory of executive government. According to historian John Baker of Louisiana State University, "Harrison had agreed that executive decisions would be based on a majority vote among members of the cabinet, with the pre

November 29, 2004

Norman Solomon: Now We're Pointing Fingers at Iran?

Norman Solomon, in his Media Beat column (11-28-04): [Norman Solomon is co-author, with Reese Erlich, of “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You.” His columns and other writings can be found at www.normansolomon.com.]Top officials in Washington are now promoting jitters about Iran’s nuclear activities, while media outlets amplify the message. A confrontation with Tehran is on the second-term Bush agenda. So, we’re encouraged to obliquel

November 27, 2004

David Horowitz: How the Democratic Party Became the Party of Appeasement

David Horowitz, in a speech at Georgetown University on October 14, 2004, reprinted at FrontPageMag.com (Nov. 26, 2004): ... [H]ow [did] the Democratic Party [get] to the place where it is a party of appeasement in the approach to war and a saboteur of the war when it is underway. How did the Democratic Party get to the point where its leaders would break a fifty-year tradition of bi-partisanship in foreign poli

November 27, 2004

Eric Alterman: When Presidents Lie

Eric Alterman, in the Nation (Oct. 7, 2004): If history teaches us anything, it is that Presidents cannot lie about major political events that have potentially serious ramifications--particularly those relating to war and peace--with impunity. In almost all cases, the problem or issue that gives rise to the lie refuses to go away, even while the lie complicates the President's ability to address it. He must

November 24, 2004

Present Alleged War Crimes Compared To Past Atrocities

Janet Albrechtsen, The Australian, 24 Nov. 2004 Alleging war crimes where none may exist is morally repugnant and legally wrong 'HE'S f---ing faking he's dead. He's faking he's f---ing dead," screams a soldier. The video then shows a US marine with his rifle at the ready. A shot is fired at an Iraqi leaning against the wall of a mosque. Blood splatters the wall. A voice says:"Well, he's dead now." Is it a war crime? Many have rushed to judgment answ

November 24, 2004

Requirements For Presidential Eligibility Examined

Jonathan Turley, USA TODAY, 23 Nov. 2004 It is the most glaring contradiction in our Constitution: a nation of immigrants that excludes anyone who is not born in the United States from becoming president. While long criticized, it went largely unchallenged until Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California and his fans discovered that he couldn't become"The Presinator" because of his Austrian birth. It is hardly the stuff that inspiring constitutional move

November 24, 2004

Greeks Upset By The Bisexuality Of Stone's Alexander

Elinda Labropoulou, The Independent (London), 23 Nov. 2004 GREEK LAWYERS are threatening to sue the Hollywood makers of the new film Alexander the Great for depicting the king as bisexual. Oliver Stone's casting of Colin Farrell as a bottle blond has sparked a backlash from traditionalists."This is pure fiction and not a depiction of Alexander," said Yiannis Varnakos, a lawyer. He is demanding that the film-makers add an opening credit stressing that the Hollywood

November 24, 2004

The Relevance of Richard Hofstadter's Keen Insights into American Conservatism

Gary Silverman, in the London Financial Times (Nov. 20, 2004): ... Richard Hofstadter, a US historian whose works are required reading for anyone trying to understand the election, called it the "paranoid style in American politics". Hofstadter's insight was that US conservatives have little interest in conserving. They are people who feel they have been cheated out of what was rightly theirs, or what they imagined to have been theirs. " America had b

November 21, 2004

NYT: Innocents Lost in the Crossfire of War

Peter Steinfels, in the NYT (Nov. 20, 2004): World War II saw a breakdown of this kind of traditional distinction between enemy forces and civilian populations. The civilians were finally judged to be as liable to direct attack as the former. The bombings of Germany and Japan were extended not only to hit traditional military targets, but also to wreak widespread death and destruction on civilians in hopes of breaking the enemy's morale. That wartime collapse of an anci

November 19, 2004

A Review Of Clinton's Library

Suzi Parker, Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA), 17 Nov. 2004 The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park here is, in a word, Clintonesque. Like the presidency it will portray, like the man himself, Bill Clinton's new presidential library is a mix of substance and flash, dusted with scandal, wrapped in drama, and boasting a roster of celebrities at its opening this week. At $ 165 million, the glass and steel structure in an old warehouse

November 19, 2004

Powell's Loyalty And Moderation Praised

Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY, 16 Nov. 2004 [Editor's Note: The original piece in USA Today is much longer.] Traveling around the world in the past few months, Colin Powell would occasionally come to the back of his plane, where reporters sit, to reflect on the long arc of his career and marvel at how a poor boy from the Bronx rose to become the nation's chief diplomat. The conversations were nostalgic, almost wistful, and often dealt more with the promise of

November 19, 2004

Powell's Service Examined

Sonni Efron, Los Angeles Times, 16 Nov. 2004 [Editor's Note: The original piece is much longer.] A year ago, more than 100,000 anti-American demonstrators stomped through the streets of London as President Bush met with Prime Minister Tony Blair about the troubled aftermath of the Iraq war. But at a nearby hotel where U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was scheduled to speak, people who said they despised Bush stood waiting, hoping to win Powell's aut

November 19, 2004

Editorial Retrospective On Colin Powell

Unsigned, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 16 Nov. 2004. For four years, Secretary of State Colin Powell lent his hard-won credibility and stature to an administration that largely ignored his counsel in world affairs. He let himself be used as the public face for policies that in private he opposed and that, in some ways, directly contradicted much of what he claimed to believe in. And tragically, in a historic speech before the United Nations that will be reme

November 19, 2004

GOP's Margin Of Victory And Its Precedents In U.S. History

Ronald Brownstein, Los Angeles Times, 15 Nov. 2004 Amid all the postelection tumult, it's easy to lose sight of what President Bush did -- and did not -- accomplish in his reelection victory this month. Bush didn't build as commanding a presidential majority as some coverage has suggested, but he did significantly strengthen the Republican hold on Congress. One key question for the next four years is whether he can use that strong position on Capitol Hill to buil

November 19, 2004

Lines Of The Culture Wars Redrawn

Linda Feldmann, Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA), 15 Nov. 2004 Observed one way, the 2004 election result wasn't all that different from 2000: Almost every state went the way it did four years ago, and the popular vote was still relatively close. Even the voters' ranking of undefined"moral values" as the top election issue is nothing new. In the 2000 and 1996 elections,"moral/ethical values" (again, without definition) rated as the No. 1 election issue in the Los Angele

November 17, 2004

Arafat's Legacy: What He Succeeded in Doing

Kareem Fahim, in the Village Voice (Nov. 17, 2004):... Arafat led the movement for another 36 years, until he died last week in a Paris military hospital. That he had never achieved an independent state was viewed by a spectrum of observers as proof of his failings as a leader. Arafat had seen his legacy differently. "We have made the Palestinian case the biggest problem in the world,&