In this column, Danny Westneat slams our current campaign:
This is the 10th local or national election I've covered as a journalist, dating to 1990. It's the shallowest, most platitudinous campaign I've ever seen.
And then blames — I'm not making this up — campaign consultants:
Why is our politics so vacuous? The blame goes around, from the nabobish press like me to the superficiality of TV. A top culprit is political consultants, who have market-tested and focus-grouped candor right out of modern campaigns.
But I think he takes far too little credit for these developments himself. Take, for instance, this bit from the middle of his column:
So let's take another crisis that's not so complex. Since Ross Perot famously went on TV in 1992 with his budget flip charts, the national debt has more than doubled, to nearly $9 trillion. The yearly budget is chronically in the red, even without paying for Iraq.
I believe the decision to wage war, cut taxes and boost federal spending — all at the same time — will go down as the most irresponsible act of government of our lifetimes.
Now that is superficial and, as it happens, we have the evidence to show that it is superficial in a David Broder column, printed just three pages after Westneat's. Broder summarized the grades that eleven independent economists gave the Republican Congress in a National Journal article. Here's the key section:
Short-term fiscal policy grades averaged out at B-minus. Gramley and Sinai gave it an A and A-minus, largely because the tax cuts had stimulated investment and productivity. Five others put it down around C, because so little revenue growth was channeled into reducing budget deficits.
In other words, these eleven economists, collectively, think that the Republican Congress did pretty well on the overall budget. (Though the economists think the Congress did worse in most other areas.) Danny Westneat is perfectly entitled to believe that Allen Sinai, for instance, knows less about economics than Danny Westneat does. But I hope he will forgive me for saying that not many of us would agree with that assessment.
And I am sorry to say that I have to go farther than just that harsh judgment. If Westneat wants to be a little less platitudinous and not entirely vacuous, he should call up a few of these economists and ask them why they don't share his views. Without that kind of simple check on his own ideas, I am afraid I will have to say that his column is frivolous and another cause of the very thing he says he is opposed to.
But this column is hardly the worst recent example of our frivolous press. It was, after all, our "mainstream" media that chose to make the Foley scandal one of our biggest issues this year, not campaign consultants. (Although it is certainly possible that Democratic operatives fed the scandal to reporters.) You can find many more examples of "mainstream" media frivolity in a set of four Thomas Sowell columns, which you can read here, here, here, and here. (I would especially recommend the first column to Mr. Westneat.)
I would love to see "mainstream" journalists such as Danny Westneat be less platitudinous, less often vacuous, love to see them be less frivolous in their reporting. But I don't expect to see that happen in my life time, which is one of the reasons I chose to put up my own web site, and why I contribute to this one.
Finally, it is possible that Mr Westneat is not familiar with many of the recent examples of frivolity from our "mainstream" media. If you have some examples that you think he should know about, please add them in the comments below. (Two hints for those having trouble thinking of examples: Plame and Katrina.)
(Yes, Mr. Westneat did misuse his invented word, "nabobish" A nabob originally meant "a governor in India under the Mogul empire", but has been extended to mean a "person of wealth and prominence". His usage is so far from either meaning that I am not sure what he intended to say.)
Posted by Jim Miller at October 19, 2006 01:44 PM | Email ThisMy first thought that Mr. Westneat's comment is a reference to Spiro Agnew's famous comment about the "nattering nabobs of negativism" when refering to the press.
"Nattering nabobs of negativism" is one of the most popular turns of phrase associated with U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who served under Richard Nixon until resigning in October 1974, after pleading no contest to charges of tax fraud. Agnew, who had a particularly acrimonious relationship with the press, used this term to refer to the members of the media, whom he also deemed "an effete corps of impudent snobs."
According to the Congressional Record, this term was first used during Agnew's address to the California Republican state convention in San Diego on September 11, 1970. In context, it was used together with another well-known Agnew alliteration: "In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club -- the "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history."
Although this phrase is often credited to Agnew himself, it was actually written by William Safire, the legendary columnist for The New York Times, who was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Some of Agnew's other pearls were actually written by Patrick Buchanan, another White House speechwriter at the time.
Or perhaps he meant "naybob," a corruption of nabob. A "naybob" is someone who has a negative disposition or disagrees with everything. (From Wikipedia).
Posted by: Obi-Wan on October 19, 2006 02:19 PM(By the way, you may be interested in
this post of mine on those Agnew speeches, and talk radio, and bloggers.)
But I probably should have explained further. Westneat believes the short term deficits, partly caused by tax cuts, are terrible, "the most irresponsible act of government of our lifetimes". The economists favor those same tax cuts and the resulting short term deficits.
The economists also believe -- as do I -- that we should reform our entitlement programs. In fact, I think we should have reformed them during the Clinton administration, if not before. But the social security issue works too well for Democrats for them to easily give it up, and so they have resisted even discussion of the subject of entitlement reform.
And our "mainstream", frivolous press has mostly let the Democrats get away with it, for years and years.
(It is, by the way, hardly unusual for members of Congress to have shorter term perspectives than many of us would like.)
Posted by: Jim Miller on October 19, 2006 03:04 PMCantwell is hammering her opponent as we speak on SocSecurity. Go figure, Mr. Fust.
And the tax cuts have made this a robust economy. I say to the Rs, "It's the economy, stupid!!" The Rs just don't get their big selling point. The tax cuts have resulted in a lot of investment that would not have occured otherwise and tax revenues are skyrocketing.
Posted by: swatter on October 19, 2006 03:41 PMThe big media frenzy over Bush's military service vs Kerry. Bush got an honorable discharge; Kerry did not. And it takes a lot not to get an honorable discharge. This isn't about quibbling who "really served" and who didn't. Both did military service through approved channels. And let's not mention the media gloss over about Clinton's not only being an antiwar protester, but he was actually looking to change his citizenship if necessary. A mark of a real leader.
Condi Rice becomes the highest ranking minority woman in a presidential cabinet and all the press could do was whine about her being a Bush puppet. This lady can verbally clobber any liberal moonbat foolish enough to take her on. Do you think the press would be cheering about her appointment, about how it is setting a great example for the girls of our country? Heck, no. Instead we hear the usual whining from Jesse, the NAACP and others about how wrong this all is.
Newt gets taken to task for his personal activities and about having divorce papers served to his ex-wife while she was ill, but Clinton can have at it in the Oval office and we are told it is none of our business. (And as one who had to go through a divorce many years ago, serving papers can be a real challenge, especially if the other party thinks hiding will make the divorce proceedings go away.)
Or how about the lawmaker in Olympia who used an outdated expression and the resultant uproar over the n-word, but it is quite ok for students of color to use it all the time in the halls of our public schools, on the street, in their songs, and on the bus.
And let's not forget the underage episode about the Bush twins. The press had a field day with that, but they sure were quiet about the antics of the Gore kids, like his son getting kicked out of a tony private school and getting arrested for DUI, etc.
And the MSM is wondering why the public views them with mistrust. Duh!
Posted by: Burdabee on October 19, 2006 04:01 PMIt think the Rs get it Swatter but the Mainstream (left wing) Media ignores the booming economy or does hand wringing pieces about how the only available jobs are at minimum wage. The last thing they'll ever admit is that cutting taxes increases revenues and stimulates job growth. For the media everything they do is about defeating the Republicans. We all know that if the Dems were in charge the media would be trumpeting the economy from every orifice.
Vacuous indeed.
Posted by: stu on October 19, 2006 05:04 PM/sarcasm
Posted by: TrueSoldier on October 19, 2006 05:40 PM"But there was one area where they said Congress failed and failed badly. That was long-term fiscal policy. There were five F's, three D's and no grade higher than a B-minus, for a composite grade of D. Speaking of the long-term liabilities of Medicare and Social Security, Gramley told National Journal, "Congress and the administration are not facing" reality. Behravesh called the response to those long-term deficits "quite irresponsible.""
Its the long term that matter. As it stands now, after 5+ years of Bush, and the GOP congress, we have $8.5 TRILLION in debt.
Who the hell thinks this is sustainable? At some point soon, the interest ALONE on this debt will eat up a majority of the national budget.
The problem is that NOBODY is willing to make the hard choices. The GOP has had full control over fiscal policy for 5+ years, and did NOTHING but make matters worse. Government spending (not including defense and homeland security is UP). So..they have proved fiscally irresponsible. Time to let the Dems have a turn. We need to either raise taxes, or cut spending or some combination of both. Period. End of story.
Posted by: Proteus on October 20, 2006 07:16 AMBill, I am picking nits here. By Republican, I didn't mean you. I meant those in charge of the campaigns; I see no literature or ads trumpeting the economy at a time the DOW went over 12,000.
Posted by: swatter on October 20, 2006 08:55 AM