Witnessing Republican Disaster in Mississippi

May 16, 2008

Last weekend, I traveled to Mississippi's first congressional district, a bastion of Republican power that has been home to William Faulkner, Elvis Presley, and the scene of massive riots on the night James Meredith attempted to integrate the University of Mississippi. With the district in the midst of a hotly contested special election campaign, I probed the impact of a million-dollar Republican strategy to attack the insurgent Democratic candidate, Travis Childers, by linking him to Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

(See one of the GOP ads here).

See my Al Jazeera English report on Mississippi's special election

Web Journalist Says Web is Destroying Journalism

May 16, 2008

The Internet is destroying journalism, according to Internet journalist Joshua Micah Marshall, the award-winning founder of TalkingPointsMemo (TPM). In a Friday speech at a Harvard conference on the future of the web, Marshall said traditional reporters are "terrorized" by economic and competitive challenges, living with a mix of "denial and fatalism" about the future of their craft -- and their livelihoods. When openings for entry-level jobs are posted at Marshall's site, for example, he said applications come in from senior investigate journalists struggling to find a job. The industry changes are bad for journalists, Marshall argued, but good for journalism.

As traditional journalism breaks apart, a new form of open, interactive, networked and, most importantly, iterative reporting is thriving online. TPM is powered by an energetic band of readers and activists who participate in gathering news. Marshall calls it "intimacy" -- a collaboration between writers and readers -- and it clearly drives research, traffic and stickiness. In complex, long-term stories like the U.S. attorney scandal and the fight over privatizing social security, TPM tapped readers to gather information, interview congressional staff and upload evolving political intelligence. While readers may be motivated by policy or political goals, their work product can still be objective information. For social security, Marshall said readers built a better virtual list of politicians' stances than anything tabulated by the traditional media or the White House.

Open reporting can also diversify and democratize the sources that reporters use. Journalists come to rely on "professional sources," Marshall explained, both for expertise (they know something) and convenience (they know how to deal with the press and speak in quotes). Interactive media websites can draw on more sources with more niche expertise, even if they don't speak in quotes. So why should non-media people care?

Jim Webb Campaigns (Hard) for Vice President

May 16, 2008

In case anyone has missed it, the Jim Webb for Vice President campaign is up and running.

Few candidates actually announce that they are running for the No. 2 spot on their party's presidential ticket, and the Democratic senator from Virginia is keeping with the "Who, me? Running with Barack Obama? Do you really think so?" etiquette that defines vice presidential politics.

But Webb is running... hard.

Bush Defames Obama on Middle East

May 15, 2008

The Commander-in-Chief is now the Smearer-in-Chief. In Israel to celebrate the country's 60th birthday, President Bush chose to debase the event with the defamatory suggestion, made before the Israeli Knesset, that Barack Obama would appease terrorists by talking to Syria and Iran.

Obama moved quickly to call it a "false political attack" by a president whose failed policies have "strenghtened Iran.'"

I would go on to point out that when it comes to talking to Syria, Israeli leaders would seem to agree with Barack Obama and not President Bush. As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, Israel and Syrian negotiators met in secret from September 2004 to July 2006 and reportedly agreed on the main points of a peace agreement. And there have been reports of interest on both the Israeli and Syrian side to meet to conclude a formal agreement this year. The Bush administration has actively opposed these talks and has discouraged Israel from moving forward with final negotiations on a peace agreement. Obama might well ask the failed Bush Administration: Would Israel (and the United States) be in a stronger position vis a vis Iran, if it made peace with Syria?

Obama-Backing Edwards Elbows Aside Clinton

May 14, 2008

It was a weary and wistful Hillary Clinton who sat down with CNN's Wolf Blitzer and other network anchors for extended interviews in the middle of the day Wednesday. She knew that, no matter what she said, and how well she said it, it would not be enough.

Like the coronation march that her 2008 campaign was supposed to be, her latest gambit would be trumped by Barack Obama's juggernaut.

Yes, she had just been handed a face-saving landslide win by West Virginia Democrats, beating Obama by more than 2-1 in an honest-to-goodness swing state. But Clinton did not seem to be fighting very hard on a day when her senior campaign adviser, Harold Ickes, was disptached to Capitol Hill to reassure congressional supporter that the former frontrunner would remain in the race through June 3.

Of Course, Edwards Voted for Obama--and Now He's Set to Endorse

May 10, 2008

Appearing Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," former U.S. Senator John Edwards was pressed by co-host Mika Brzezinski to discuss who he had voted for in last Tuesday's North Carolina primary.

"You're saying that this candidate you voted for will be the candidate that you potentially endorse, that it looks highly likely, if I can use your words?" asked Brzezinski.

"I'd say that's very likely," replied Edwards.

It's Not Over for the Lady in the Pantsuit

May 13, 2008

"It's not over until the lady in the pantsuit says it is."

That's the line Hillary Clinton has been using for the last few days to describe her attitude regarding the calls for her to quit the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

And the lady in the pantsuit was saying Tuesday night that she would not be quitting the race for a bit longer.

Frank Rich's American Daydream

May 12, 2008

This Sunday, Frank Rich reported some of the most exciting news that has appeared on the pages of the New York Times in a very long time. According to Rich, Americans are on the verge of transcending the racial and cultural rifts that divided them for centuries. There simply aren't "enough racists of any class in America, let alone in swing states, to determine the results come fall," the former theater critic insisted. This statement is so inherently true that Rich did not even need to bolster it with actual statistical evidence.

Rich went on to announce that the rancorous street fights of the 1960's over militarism and civil rights have been neatly transmuted into "quieter social activism and grand-scale social networking." "The millennials' bottom-up digital superstructure," he wrote, has enabled economically marginalized ghetto dwellers and indignant campus radicals to air their grievances with the simple click of a button. So sit back in your Aeron chair, relax and blithely tend to your Facebook page.

McCain Had Better Hope Voters Think He's a Liar

May 9, 2008

O.K., let me get this straight:

Polls and anecdotal evidence tell us that Republican President George Bush is dramatically unpopular -- with approval ratings that have dipped into the low 30s or high 20s.

Polls suggest that Republican Vice President Dick Cheney -- Bush's running mate in 2000 and 2004 -- may well be the least popular elected official in the American history.

Clinton's Post-Mortem

May 9, 2008

It's perhaps a bit premature to write Hillary Clinton's political obituary, but that hasn't stopped members of the media from doing so. Yesterday Time magazine's Karen Tumulty published a pretty thorough list of "The Five Mistakes Clinton Made."

Analyses like Tumulty's tend to focus on the tactical errors committed by camp Clinton: they didn't devote enough resources to caucus states, didn't plan beyond Super Tuesday, didn't build a small donor fundraising base. All true, but focusing on the tactical errors alone obscures the substantive reasons why many Democrats turned away from Clinton's campaign.

The biggest factor that doomed Clinton, from day one, was Iraq. Her vote for the war and subsequent lack of apology cost her the support of a huge segment of the party that flocked to Obama (and, early on, Edwards) and tarnished her brand from the very beginning. That vote, more than any other, reflected the hawkishness, caution and calculation that soured many Democrats on Clinton and hurt her with young voters, new voters, independent voters, etc.