Remember Vincent Foster, the Clinton confidant who committed suicide after a series of Wall Street Journal editorials criticized his role in the administration? In a torn-up suicide note, he famously lamented that, in Washington, "ruining people is considered sport."
The Obama presidential candidacy elevated the sport of vilification to new heights. Opponents branded Obama with all sorts of labels - socialist, communist, fascist, Nazi, Muslim - in an effort to end his Presidential aspirations. They were, of course, unsuccessful. (By the way, I include "Muslim" in this list as an example of opposition efforts to damage Obama, even though it is wrongheaded to consider the word derogatory.)
The sport of vilification has one goal - taking down an opponent. It does so by obscuring truth and promoting false and often scandalous information. Unlike most sports, it has no rules. And, as the Vincent Foster case so vividly demonstrates, it can be extremely, and is inherently, destructive.
Unfortunately, vilification is a sport that won't go away. With the 24/7 media blitz that now prevails, there is no escaping it. Television personalities, particularly on Fox and MSNBC, play at it full time. In the guise of news reporting and editorializing, they attack those political leaders with whom they are not aligned, offering insults, sarcasm, and often, downright lies, to a public that for the most part knows what it wants to believe and tunes into the station that offers it to them. And, for the media outlets and personalities that engage in it, it is a highly profitable business.
Many of the lies are so ludicrous, or so easily contradicted by file footage of previous statements by the same pundits who broadcast them, that they are almost amusing. Jon Stewart and his team on "The Daily Show" do an outstanding job of matching the current attacks with the prior commentary and exposing the lies for what they are. While some may criticize Stewart for leaning left, he can be, and often is, as critical of Democrats and liberal shock jocks as he is of those on the right. Unfortunately, the people who could most learn from Stewart's political comedy are least likely to watch it.
But most of the time, there is nothing funny about the hateful, false information that dominates the airwaves. This week I tuned into a radio sports show that too often strays from the sports news that it is good at and instead spends time advancing a right-wing political agenda. The hosts were criticizing the efforts to build a mosque near Ground Zero. They were not content to limit their focus on the most difficult issue of how the location of the mosque might affect those people who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks. Rather, they attacked Islam, suggesting that the Muslim world wants to destroy America, and that the building of the mosque represents part of their plan to do so. It was shameless vilification of an entire culture of faith, shared by more than a billion people, which even President Bush described as a religion of peace. It is not the first incident of hate-mongering that the talk show hosts have engaged in, but it did mark the last time I will tune in to their program (which I only did when I wanted to hear the latest sports news).
In our era of extreme partisan politics, it is refreshing from time to time to see the press correct the extremists. I saw an example this morning that prompted this post. By way of background, last night my wife and I hosted a dinner with a few of our friends whose political affiliations are different from our own. Two of the guests began talking about how Obama has a socialist agenda, the goal of which is to have the government take over private business. I made it clear that I did not agree with such accusations, and pointed out that many people on the left view Obama as a centrist who is too willing to compromise with his political opponents. Sure, Obama envisions a bigger role for government than his immediate predecessor and his opponents, and yes, some of his policies raise legitimate concerns for taxpayers and business interests. But pushing through an agenda of stronger government regulation does not make him a socialist (especially, some would say, now that we've seen what a period of very little regulation hath wrought). Because we are all friends and did not want to let politics get in the way of a pleasant evening, we dropped the discussion.
This morning I felt vindicated when I saw this piece on The Economist's website. It says that, in light of the U.S. Government's decision to sell its interest in General Motors, Obama is owed an apology by those who call him a socialist and contend that he is trying to bring private enterprise under government control. It's not the first time in recent days that the Economist, which can hardly be accused of liberal partisanship, has injected a voice of reason into a heated and ill-motivated debate (the other I have in mind is the debate over the mosque), and I applaud it for doing so. We need more voices in the media and elsewhere who seek to bring truth to light, fairly and without regard to who will be hurt in the process. We have no need of conservative or liberal television, radio and internet personalities who seek to profit by engaging in the sport of ruining people, by deluding the public into believing false information, and by advancing a political agenda built on a foundation of lies. And we as a people need to make a greater effort of separating fact from fiction, and exercising discernment in our political discourse.
The Obama presidential candidacy elevated the sport of vilification to new heights. Opponents branded Obama with all sorts of labels - socialist, communist, fascist, Nazi, Muslim - in an effort to end his Presidential aspirations. They were, of course, unsuccessful. (By the way, I include "Muslim" in this list as an example of opposition efforts to damage Obama, even though it is wrongheaded to consider the word derogatory.)
The sport of vilification has one goal - taking down an opponent. It does so by obscuring truth and promoting false and often scandalous information. Unlike most sports, it has no rules. And, as the Vincent Foster case so vividly demonstrates, it can be extremely, and is inherently, destructive.
Unfortunately, vilification is a sport that won't go away. With the 24/7 media blitz that now prevails, there is no escaping it. Television personalities, particularly on Fox and MSNBC, play at it full time. In the guise of news reporting and editorializing, they attack those political leaders with whom they are not aligned, offering insults, sarcasm, and often, downright lies, to a public that for the most part knows what it wants to believe and tunes into the station that offers it to them. And, for the media outlets and personalities that engage in it, it is a highly profitable business.
Many of the lies are so ludicrous, or so easily contradicted by file footage of previous statements by the same pundits who broadcast them, that they are almost amusing. Jon Stewart and his team on "The Daily Show" do an outstanding job of matching the current attacks with the prior commentary and exposing the lies for what they are. While some may criticize Stewart for leaning left, he can be, and often is, as critical of Democrats and liberal shock jocks as he is of those on the right. Unfortunately, the people who could most learn from Stewart's political comedy are least likely to watch it.
But most of the time, there is nothing funny about the hateful, false information that dominates the airwaves. This week I tuned into a radio sports show that too often strays from the sports news that it is good at and instead spends time advancing a right-wing political agenda. The hosts were criticizing the efforts to build a mosque near Ground Zero. They were not content to limit their focus on the most difficult issue of how the location of the mosque might affect those people who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks. Rather, they attacked Islam, suggesting that the Muslim world wants to destroy America, and that the building of the mosque represents part of their plan to do so. It was shameless vilification of an entire culture of faith, shared by more than a billion people, which even President Bush described as a religion of peace. It is not the first incident of hate-mongering that the talk show hosts have engaged in, but it did mark the last time I will tune in to their program (which I only did when I wanted to hear the latest sports news).
In our era of extreme partisan politics, it is refreshing from time to time to see the press correct the extremists. I saw an example this morning that prompted this post. By way of background, last night my wife and I hosted a dinner with a few of our friends whose political affiliations are different from our own. Two of the guests began talking about how Obama has a socialist agenda, the goal of which is to have the government take over private business. I made it clear that I did not agree with such accusations, and pointed out that many people on the left view Obama as a centrist who is too willing to compromise with his political opponents. Sure, Obama envisions a bigger role for government than his immediate predecessor and his opponents, and yes, some of his policies raise legitimate concerns for taxpayers and business interests. But pushing through an agenda of stronger government regulation does not make him a socialist (especially, some would say, now that we've seen what a period of very little regulation hath wrought). Because we are all friends and did not want to let politics get in the way of a pleasant evening, we dropped the discussion.
This morning I felt vindicated when I saw this piece on The Economist's website. It says that, in light of the U.S. Government's decision to sell its interest in General Motors, Obama is owed an apology by those who call him a socialist and contend that he is trying to bring private enterprise under government control. It's not the first time in recent days that the Economist, which can hardly be accused of liberal partisanship, has injected a voice of reason into a heated and ill-motivated debate (the other I have in mind is the debate over the mosque), and I applaud it for doing so. We need more voices in the media and elsewhere who seek to bring truth to light, fairly and without regard to who will be hurt in the process. We have no need of conservative or liberal television, radio and internet personalities who seek to profit by engaging in the sport of ruining people, by deluding the public into believing false information, and by advancing a political agenda built on a foundation of lies. And we as a people need to make a greater effort of separating fact from fiction, and exercising discernment in our political discourse.
This is such a well-thought-out, cleanly-worded piece. I'd love to see it published right alongside Glenn Beck in a major paper.
ReplyDeleteDon, thank you for a really thoughtful post. Have you noticed that the haters only attack, never providing constructive solutions?
ReplyDeleteAs H L Menchen once said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." We tend to get what we deserve because we reward behaviors that we would never allow our minor children to engage in, e.g., rumor-mongering, ignorant rants, character assassination, failure to do the right thing (vote).
ReplyDeleteAs any student of American history will tell you, however, this is nothing new; in fact, it was worse two centuries ago. What's different now is our ability to broadcast and rebroadcast crap 24/7.
Well said, Don -- I wish members of the "Dove World Outreach Center" in Gainesville, FL would read your post before they begin burning Korans in the name of peace.
ReplyDelete