Pleonastic Ephemera

9.10.2004 posted by William 14:15 link

I'm linking to today's Note, a daily publication written by reporters and producers for ABC News' vaunted political department. The Note is long and often overblown, but also an excellent source of coverage of the nitty-gritty day-to-day action of the campaign and also of astute analysis of the role of the media and the campaigns' manipulations thereof. The first half of the first section (the part entitled "News Summary") of today's issue is highly recommended. Excerpt: "...if nothing changes in the race as it now stands — with President Bush winning a decent-sized victory — much of the talk [after the election] will be about the greater technical proficiency of the Bush-Cheney effort. "In fact, even if Kerry wins, there will be much talk about the discipline, focus, success, and, yes, shamelessness of the BC04RNC team: "Avoiding a nomination challenge; merciless distribution of message of the day; deflection of any serious discussion of the war in Iraq, health care, jobs, or the tax burden; installing a White House press secretary willing to use the podium for political purposes but not respond directly to any hard questions; making the race not about the incumbent's record but the challenger's, all the while claiming to want to focus on "the future"; and the wielding of national security as the ultimate political trump card." It also discusses the media's inability to cut through the Bush machine, which I think is a serious failure on their part. EJ Dionne's column today touches on a related issue: "Why is it that what Bush told the American people before the war is no longer a live issue?" Where are the hard questions about the gross miscalculations that Cheney repeatedly proclaimed about the number of troops needed to occupy Iraq, the way American troops would be treated and viewed by Iraqis, the length of time American soldiers would need to be in country? How and why has this election been allowed to be diverted to unimportant questions about the behavior of the candidates 35 years ago, and even more unfortunately, simplified to a dick-sizing match about who is "tough" enough to take on terrorists, a question so dumbed-down that just the asking of it makes dozens of dubious assumptions.