Speaking as a Democrat, I thank you for this stance. Can we hold you to it?
Absolutely. I WILL NOT, under ANY circumstance, vote for John McCain in either the primary nor the general election in 2008. I just can’t do it.
A Hillary or Obama Presidency will revive, energize and victorize the conservative movement. Had there been no Jimmy Carter, there would have been no Reagan in 1980. Had there been no Bill Clinton, there would have been no 1994 victories.
Very good points on the disconnect between “Conservative” and “Republican” made, upthread. From the opposite side of the aisle I don’t think either of the ideological cores can really say that they have a record of the corresponding party truly pushing the whole ideological package once they attain power.
Of course, I don’t really fault the parties at that - you CAN’T succesfully get elected/run the country by being an uncompromising ideological hardliner on every single issue. Heck, you should NOT be an uncompromising ideological hardliner on every single issue, all issues are not created equal. When the chips are down a real political official from either ideological camp may have to decide that, for instance, getting most of your national security policy approved is worth making substantial concessions on environmental policy and splitting the difference half-way on taxes/welfare and forget about anything dealing with who’s having sex with whom; or shuffle the order of the priorities until you get the one that you can actually pass. You do need to have core values that you will not sell out and positions that are not negotiable, but you need to pick your battles and not waste your efforts just to make a point.
People at the ideological hard core on both sides must understand that what they can expect is to have the greater mass of the parties, the electorate, and society, gradually shift in their general direction, with ocassional periods of alternance and oscillation in the other, and they may NEVER get ALL they want. In that sense, movement conservatism has actually been quite succesful in keeping the political spectrum of the USA quite to the conservative side of virtually the rest of the industrialized west, be it by rightward motion or by restraining leftward trends. It’s unrealistic for followers of either ideology or party to expect the Rovian “permanent majority” concept, and they should NOT desire that… because that way you get the situation of 20th Century Mexico’s PRI, paying lip service to the Revolution while only serving its own continuance in office. Alternance is good, as pkbites recognizes. (“victorize”??? that a word?? 
)
BTW it’s kinda funny that you hear “conservatives” rail against “the establishment”… OK, then so what is it that the “conservatives” are trying to conserve,? Somethind that existed, a myth of what existed, or an ideal of what that which existed should have becomel? 'Cause either the something was never there, and what you want is to now establish** it**, or it used to be there and now it has changed and you want to go back to it, which still means you are not conserving but restoring. (And I lean to thinking it’s the first case!)
One of the things seen in the unsatisfying choices in the GOP primary was that the three putative frontrunners basically had one single “conservative turf” that each “owned”, but was sorrily lacking on the rest: Mac is StrongDefenseMan, Mitt is BigBusinessMan, Huck is EvangelicalMan, but once you move on to some other issue, they’re all over the blasted landscape. Rudy had a similar problem, other than 9/11 his real record was cleaning up NYC (both aesthetically and crimewise) and that’s something that may take a results-oriented pragmatist who does not particularly care if along the way you cut corners. Fred? Waited too long, by the time he got in it looked like a desperation move to get anyone but the other guys.
Now, insofar as the Limbaughs of the world, he’s on record at expressing relief after the '06 election defeat of the GOP at how he would no longer be obligated to “carry their water” (his own words). He’s well aware that the best thing that could happen to him would be another Democrat presidency, so that he can rant and rail in full force w/o having to hold his fire because the alternative is worse.
Oh, the conservative movement does have a definite content, one that holds independently of whether it is aiming to “conserve” or “restore” or “create” or what.
I think I introduced “establishmentarian,” so let me clarify that I did not mean this in some hackneyed hippie “fight the Establishment, man!” fashion. I meant specifically the established party hackery system, which stacks the deck against anyone (probably on either side of the aisle) who won’t play the game of sucking up, going to the right schools, rising through the party machinery, etc. In this sense, an “establishment” candidate of the left would have gone to a Seven Sisters school, formed politically strategic alliances, swotted his/her way from policy internship here to staff clerkship there, etc. An establishment candidate of the right would be from a political family, with vast and lucrative business experience, etc. Neither is anything very fresh or new.
Of course, the term is not a hundred percent objective, and just as with “moderate” or “change” everyone will claim it or disclaim it as is tactically useful (McCain’s supporters do when they call him a maverick, others call him an old Washington hand who’s risen through the ranks by typical buttonholing and politicking). I raised the term in reference to Ron Paul who – if the Republicans could agree on nothing else – was seemingly a leper to the party machinery. Buchanan had the same issue – popular (populist) messages, arguably stated too strong to be the platform or candidate as such, but triggering such a revulsion among the Student Council/Exter/CFR/RNC types that he needed not just to lose, but to be banished to outer darkness.
Not coincidentally, perhaps, the next election he aligned himself with the black socialist candidate Leonora Fulani – odd bedfellows indeed, but both seemingly frustrated by the hegemony of the process-and-power-obsessed machinery of both party’s “establishments.”
pkbites writes:
“Victorize”???
He must be quoting a Dubya speech.
When I posted that yesterday I wondered how long until someone would detect that lingo! 
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
wipes tears of laughter from his eyes, and then points to the Halperin memo and the forged National Guard documents of the last Presidential election
I don’t know which is funnier - the fact that you people post this preposterous bullshit, or that you actually think anyone serious believes it.
Regards,
Shodan
This is a subject where you honestly don’t know what you’re talking about so you’d do better to stay out of it. Suffice it to say that you could not be more wrong. My mother was a political journalist for over 20 years. Journalists and editors care about two things – newsworthiness and accuracy. As long as a story is newsworthy and they can prove it’s true, they don’t care where it lands politically, especially if it’s big… That is a fact. I grew up around those people. I hung around the newsroom, we had editors and reporters and local TV news anchors at the house all the time. The right wing fantasy of liberal media cabal might just be the biggest pile of shit they’ve ever perpetarted and that’s really saying something.
The Halperin memo was entirely proper and professional, by the way. All it said was not to impose artifical symmetry where none was warranted.
The Bush ANG document – not properly vetted obviously (which, by the way, has never been proven to be forged), but the content of the document and the substance of that story were still true.
Here’s an example of what atruly agenda driven memo to a newsroom looks like.
Well, that assumes that in 2012 the electorate will decide that Hillary/Obama were miserable failures. What if in 2012 it turns out that Hillary/Obama are popular and the electorate decides we need more of the same?
I suppose from your point of view, a liberal president is doomed to be a failure, so a liberal presidency is automatically a commercial for conservatism. But that didn’t happen with Bill Clinton, did it?
George Bush did the exact opposite, he’s convinced lots and lots of people that conservatism must be wrong. He’s a walking talking advertisment for liberalism.
Well yeah, it did. How else did we get Bush?
I guess we could attribute that to Lewinsky. But I’d argue Lewinsky was an excuse, not a reason, to usher in a supposedly conservative regime. I could see how a Hillary or Obama White House could do the same thing. If they screw up in one area that is stereotyped as liberal, even if it’s a relatively minor screw up, it could catalyze a political turn around just like Bill’s philandeering did.
Everytime someone’s critiqued the media, though, your response has been along the lines of: (a) oh, well, that was the exception that proves the rule; (b) oh, that wasn’t the media, that was the tabloid media; (c) oh, well, they got it right eventually (true on WMD, by the way; true on Jayson Blair; no more the inspiring); but (d) overall, these people are experts with no agenda.
(1) assuming they are the “authority” to whom we should “appeal” (is there a fallacy lurking somewhere therein?), the fact that they write “truly” about subject (A), and that the story is “newsworthy” (no value judgments involved in that determination, I guess?), the fact that they are aware of, or writing about, or emphasizing, (A) rather than (B), is an exercise, not of infallible expert journo-robot genius, but of . . . discretion, informed by . . . predispositions.
Here, I’ll give you an example: even the ombudsman of the Wash. Post. came out more than a bit red-faced when, ca. 1990, the paper devoted approximately seven acres of newsprint to the Earth Day celebrations, and the pro-Roe rally, but all of two stories to the (by all accounts) equally-well-attended anti-Roe commemoration.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/mediawatch/1990/watch19900501.asp
We don’t even need to posit conscious slanting, bias, or animus to explain the disparity or differing tone of the coverage, in the context of the below discussion by the ombudsman:
Elsewhere in the article he posited that while Post reporters likely knew participants in the NOW rally, it was debatable if any of them had ever met anyone who would attend the Right to Life rally.
So: Events A, B, C, occur. Reporter writes about event B. Interviews persons D, E, and F about B. D and F say x, E says y, Reporter judges that y is more “newsworthy.” Editor flawlessly fact-checks and confirms that B took place and F said y. Do you think that the editor grills the reporter as to what other events took place, or what other people said about the events, and why he chose to emphasize the ones he did, as opposed to the ones he deemed less relevant? On a daily deadline? Really?
(2) I can make it simpler than that, though. Anyone here ever been quoted in the media, or seen a media treatment of a subject on which you had specialized knowledge? Ever seen, as I did recently, a television reporter somberly intoning about environmental risks of natural gas drilling while standing in front of and gesturing at what any high-school dropout roustabout would identify as a pump-jack for crude oil?
If you were interviewed you, and they quoted you, did they garble, misleadingly paraphrase, or otherwise mangle what you said? Did they even manage to spell your freaking name correctly (my hit rate: they’ve spelled it correctly three out of four times – not bad!).
Read the corrections page one day. “Mr. Jones is not in fact deceased. We regret the error.” “The reference should have been to nuclear fusion, not fission.” Yes, I’m inspired now.
Yeah! Its just this kind of thing which is why you guys never win any elections!
As former newspaper reporter, I agree.
The perception of “liberal” bias in the media seems to be rooted in a popular misunderstanding of the culture of the profession. Journalists like to play Jack-the-Giant-Killer – to dig out the guilty secrets of the mighty and expose them to disinfectant sunlight. That’s the highest distinction you can achieve. It might mean investigating a corrupt corporation, a corrupt labor union, or a corrupt politician of any party or stance. That process might, on balance, be more useful to a liberal than a conservative agenda, but it does not make the reporters themselves – and certainly not their work product! – “liberal” in a political sense.
You’re referring to an example where the media failed to be critical of a Republican administration. If you want to argue for a pro-Republican bias, I’d agree with you to the extent that the media tends to be chickenshit about rocking the corporate boat.
What does the tablod media have to do with political bias? The tabloid media is irrelevant to the question. It’s non-political.
All accurate. Any “agenda” existys purely in the imaginations of Rush Limbaugh fans.
No.
The word is “accurately” or perhaps “truthfully.” “Truly” is not a journalistic word. That’s a word 13 year old girls use in their diaries.
Not as much as you probably imagine. There is a general calculus which is used.
Political predispositions don’t play into it. The calculus used to determine newsworthiness does not take personal political feelings into account. I know that’s hard for you righties to accept. It’s a central tenet of your faith that the “MSM” is out to get you, but the truth it’s that’s a pure sham foisted on you by people who want you to mistrust the media so that you’ll be easier to manipulate.
Who gives a flying fuck about an anti-abortion demonstration? How is that news? It happens every day. It’s really isn’t as newsworthy. Earth Day is bigger and Earth Day isn’t even political.
[quote]
(2) I can make it simpler than that, though. Anyone here ever been quoted in the media, or seen a media treatment of a subject on which you had specialized knowledge? Ever seen, as I did recently, a television reporter somberly intoning about environmental risks of natural gas drilling while standing in front of and gesturing at what any high-school dropout roustabout would identify as a pump-jack for crude oil?
If you were interviewed you, and they quoted you, did they garble, misleadingly paraphrase, or otherwise mangle what you said? Did they even manage to spell your freaking name correctly (my hit rate: they’ve spelled it correctly three out of four times – not bad!).
[quote]
My mom used to get people calling her and whining that they’d been misquoted all the time. They’d curse at her and threaten to sue her for libel, the whole bit. They were always full of shit. She had every word they said on tape and every word was accurate. People forget what they say or (more often) regret what they say and want to take it back.
Hell, you see people in the TV media claiming they didn’t say shit even when it’s on video.
Usually, a reporter is not going to be able to use every single word of an interview and they try to quote relevant highlights, but the idea that quotes are cut and pasted to serve a political agenda are grounded in nothing but paranoid fantasy (and it happens to ALL politicians of every political stripe).
Yes, unintentional errors happen. So what? How does that prove political bias?
I would still like an answer as to how you think the media came to be dominated by all those evil liberals.
Please post it right now. I long to see that “calculus,” 'cause I did pretty well in calc. Oh, it doesn’t reduce so formulaically as l’Hopital’s Rule? That’s okay – just a brief summary of the calculus for newsworthiness will do.
For someone adopting “cynical” in his handle, this is breathtakingly naive.
Who came up with the calculus, by the way? Speaking of calculus, did they ever study actual calculus, or chemistry, or climatology, or economics, or constitutional law, or any of the many other subjects they essay to apply the “calculus” to? No? You say many of them were journalism majors, English majors, spent a lot of time drinking? I’m glad the calculus is so straightforward, then!
This is embarrassing. You don’t even recognize a political predisposition when you see one, and even announce one? Do people at Earth Day lobby for political change? Yet it “isn’t even political?” “Who gives a flying fuck about an anti-abortion demonstration?” Well tell me, who gives a “flying fuck” about a pro-choice or Earth Day demonstration, so as to render it, by contrast, “newsworthy?” The only answer you can proffer is “the calculus” or (more accurately) “I do.” Seriously, embarrassing.
Did I use the word evil? And if they are dominated by liberals, why do I care much the mechanism by which it happened (other than that we’ve ruled out that they are the only ones who are “well-informed” and know the magic “calculus.”).
BTW, as I suspect we’re a bit off topic as to the OP, I’ll revert to just saying: insofar as the MSM has shown a degree of comfort with any Republican, it’s been McCain. This alone (rightly or wrongly) could render him suspect in the media of the right.
Wow, that’s a lot of sarcasm and literalsim about one figurative word.
The “calculus” is not a written, dogmatic formula so I can’t “post it,” but the considerations involve public interest and (sometimes) whether a person can be conisdere a “public figure.” Political predispositions do not play a role.
[quote]
This is embarrassing. You don’t even recognize a political predisposition when you see one, and even announce one? Do people at Earth Day lobby for political change?[/quopte]
I have no idea. Do they? I though it was some kind of pro-environent thing.
Not really.
Not me, but at least the Earth Day thing isn’t political. And it isn’t like your precious anti-choice rally rally didn’t get any coverage. It just didn’t get as much as Earth day, probably because there was more public interest in the latter.
What’s embarrassing is your persistence in advocating a ridiculous conspiracy theory with the most specious and subjective kind of evidence and which I know for a fact is BS.
[quote]
Did I use the word evil? And if they are dominated by liberals, why do I care much the mechanism by which it happened[.quoyte]
Because in order to sell your conspiracy theory you need to explain how the cabal sustains itself. What keeps the conservatives out?
A claim I never made. I said they tend to be better informed than average. I didn’t say they were the ONLY ones, and you haven’t refuted that.
You can call any newsroom and ask them the criteria they use to detyermine newsworthiness. It’s not “magic,” it’s not a secret and it’s not even very interesting.
I don’t know why. In the last two elections, the media has been brutal to the Dem candidate and gentle as a lamb to Bush. If Hillary gets the nomination, I gurantee the media will savage her from day one and be nothing but reverential to mccain.
They do seem to like Obama, though (“First Black POTUS!” is a great story).