Public assemblies, American style

The Obama Administration has been the occasion for numerous Tea Parties and Town Hall Meetings, which are different species of the genus public assembly.  How they are seen and understood depends a great deal on one’s point of view. As American government is based on the consent of the governed, it is perfectly appropriate and even necessary that public officials be chosen in periodic elections and that the people be free to express their views publicly. While the design of the Constitution is to avoid rule by the people in their collective capacity, relying rather on elected representatives, the First Amendment explicitly guarantees the right of the people to assemble peacefully for redress of grievances.

In our nation’s history, not a few of those public assemblies have been considerably less than peaceful, whether they were in opposition to taxes on whiskey, Jay’s treaty with Great Britain, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, abolition of slavery, the Civil War draft, industrial lockouts, World War I, racial segregation, the Vietnam War or the Iraq War.

Peaceful protest should always have the full protection of the law, and violent protests should be suppressed. The difficulty is that those rioting invariably see themselves as greater in authority than public officials, and the latter sometimes sympathize with the rioters’ goals, if not their means.

It is not surprising that the widespread Tea Parties that protested the record levels of taxing and spending by the Obama Administration should be viewed favorably by Republicans and unfavorably by Democrats. By the same token, the Town Hall Meetings called by the President and a number of Democratic Congresspersons and Senators are looked upon by Republicans as stage-managed affairs, lacking legitimacy.

So some Democrats supportive of Obama showed up to put a damper on the Tea Parties, and evidently more persons–of both parties–critical of the President, particularly his health care plan, have shown up at the Town Hall Meetings. Both parties clearly seek to establish their viewpoint as the authentic voice of the American people and the opposing view as merely a minority faction.

Although I welcomed the Tea Parties and look upon Democrat Town Hall Meetings with suspicion, I cannot say that I am pleased that more and more citizens are taking their grievances so noisily into public places and meeting halls. A major contributor to this development is the rise of Big Government, which treats opposition to its goals and methods as essentially illegitimate.

Fortunately, this year’s protests lack the violence that characterized the radical left’s opposition to the War in Vietnam, when both public officials and private citizens were targeted for bombs by the likes of the Weathermen, of which Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dorn were members.

It is always a challenge for politicians to deal with tumultuous assemblies with a combination of good humor and firmness, granting the legality of the protest but seeking to defuse its passion and restore civil discourse. Politicians slandering citizens angry over the government’s less than candid explanation of its programs are pouring fuel on the fire.

This present situation is not unlike that of medieval Europe, ruled by monarchs and priests, in which ordinary people had no say and whose only form of protest was armed rebellion. It is only when citizens finally won the right to elect their leaders that the frequent resort to mob violence was no longer necessary.

But the longer that large, intrusive and costly bureaucratic structures dominate our lives, and render citizens powerless, the more those otherwise not inclined to angry outbursts will feel compelled to vent their spleen at the persons they chose to make their laws.

Far better, though, that we take advantage of constitutional structures that enable the people to vote for or against those persons they believe do–or do not–have the best interests of the nation at heart.

Democrats have long believed that, just as they have a monopoly on holding public office, they alone have reason to protest, even violently, if they feel strongly enough. Republicans more commonly look upon public office as a temporary calling and reluctantly take part in public protests.

And while leading Democrats have attributed base motives to Republican protestors (special interests, Ku Klux Klan members and even Nazis), the latter have not gone beyond labeling Democrats (accurately) as big taxers and spenders, socialists and petty tyrants.

We have an opportunity to restore government by the people in the 2010 Congressional elections and the 2012 Presidential election. That’s where the protests will really count.

Blue Dogs perpetuate Democrat racism

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. - Karl Marx While not in the habit of quoting the father of "scientific socialism," I know a good Marxian quotation when I see one–and boy does it ever apply to the current follies in Washington, D.C. Governing parties in America are always unstable coalitions which, in the Democrats’ case is not surprising, given the racist legacy which is at the core of their being.

There is much talk these days about the Blue Dogs in the Democratic party who have slowed the Obama Administration’s rush toward socialized health care. Although the Democrats have solid majorities in both houses of Congress, and therefore theoretically have the votes to pass any bills they wish, approximately 50 Democrat members of the House of Representative are haggling over the cost, the funding and the coverage of so-called Obama Care.

This has not stopped Democrat spokesmen from denouncing Republicans for all the "lies" they’ve been telling about the estimated trillion dollar program that Obama claims will save the taxpayers money. But if we take a longer historical perspective than the first few months of his administration, we will recall that when the Democrats ruled Congress between New Deal and Great Society days, northern and western liberals shared power with white southern racists.

The only difference is, now the racists are primarily outside the South, and come in both black and white. For years the dream of full equality for former slaves and their descendants was stalled by Democrat apartheid south of the Mason-Dixon line, even with the ascendancy of liberal Democrat politics. As long as northern Democrats did not challenge racism and southern Democrats did not oppose Big Government, the party kept its majority.

Civil rights legislation proposed by the Eisenhower Administration was watered down by a Congress dominated by two Texans, Senate majority leader Lyndon Johnson and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. When Johnson became president he saw the advantages to his party from the 90 percent black vote in metropolitan areas outside the South. His embrace of Civil Rights legislation came at the corrupt price of converting the idea of equality of opportunity to, as Johnson put it, "equality as a fact and equality as a result."

As black columnist Star Parker has so often written, liberal Democrats have switched to black racism and bringing blacks onto what she astutely calls "the government plantation" of perpetual dependency and missing out on full citizenship.

Back in 2006, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer devised a clever scheme in which they ran moderate Democrats in traditionally Republican districts. Their object was to gain a House majority, enabling her to become Speaker and Hoyer to become majority leader. All the candidates had to do was to speak and act like Republicans (pro-life, fiscally conservative, etc.) so that Republicans unhappy with their party would feel comfortable voting for a Democrat.

The strategy worked. But when Barack Obama became president and sent costly and intrusive stimulus, cap and trade, and government health care bills up, the relatively less liberal newcomers began to show signs of independence. Currently, they have prevented passage of any sort of health care bill by the time of the August recess, as planned.

Of course, this independence is tenuous. The House leadership controls the committee assignments and is not above abandoning the Blue Dogs when they run in their party’s primaries next year. Thus, it is premature to declare that these worthies will do anything more than delay bad legislation, shave off a few billion dollars here and there, or kill controversial provisions.

Nevertheless, the irony is rich. Whereas in the mid twentieth century white and black liberals needed white racists to keep control of Congress, how black and white racists need Democrats that look like Republicans to maintain and expand their Big Government plantation that keeps minorities down with what former President Bush called "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

Of course, President Obama does not consider himself a racist, for he means to make members of all races dependent on federal largesse and regulation so that no one gets too far ahead of anyone else.

As long as we "spread the wealth around," as he revealingly said to Joe the Plumber last fall, everyone gets to be on the plantation. There may be some overseers around to keep uppity folks under control, but no one said that commandeering the lives, liberties and properties of 300 million people was going to be easy.

Cronkite better before he was anchorman

The recent passing of CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite was the occasion for considerable media navel gazing, most of which either waxed nostalgic or sought to channel his luster. The best commentary was by Dorothy Rabinowitz at the Wall Street Journal. Rabinowitz agrees that Cronkite was a major force in broadcast journalism, but her more nuanced analysis recalls the days before Cronkite became famous and signed off every night with the portentous judgment that "that’s the way it is, [fill in day and date]." Millions of people hung on every word "Uncle Walter" uttered with such authority, which he ultimately abused. (More below.)

As much as Rabinowitz is willing give Cronkite kudos for his dedication to getting facts straight, she admires more, as do I, the journalist who, in World War II, not only rode in a B-17 Flying Fortress above Germany but was also in uniform "wielding a machine gun at the enemy." Less hazardous, but surely patriotic, was Cronkite’s willingness, along with other TV network commentators such as NBC’s Chet Huntley, to narrate documentaries showing the evil of communist regimes.

My favorite was "Revolt in Hungary," in which Cronkite chronicled the desperate attempt of Hungarian patriots to drive the Russians out of their country in 1956, along the way indicting the United Nations and the United States for inaction.

By the time Cronkite assumed his lofty network perch, journalism had succumbed to the conceit of "neutrality," which forbade its practitioners from taking sides between the country which secured their freedom (and everyone else’s) and regimes which crushed it.

Hence, it was only a mild surprise when, after three years of America fighting the Vietnam War with a combination of World War II tactics and presidential micro management, the enemy in 1968 launched its Tet Offensive, Cronkite concluded that the war was unwinnable.

President Lyndon Johnson was reported to have said that "If we’ve lost Walter," then we’ve lost the American people. But Cronkite was wrong. Tet temporarily overran our positions but culminated in a massive defeat–and the virtual extinction–of the Viet Cong.

Naturally, liberals applauded Cronkite for his negative judgment, for it was theirs too. Conservatives, of course, were critical not only because he was wrong but because he had departed from the canons of "objectivity."

But I don't credit the "objectivity" that Cronkite himself said he was stepping away from in 1968. There is no obligation to avoid drawing conclusions from facts available, although one may be in error. Cronkite was in error, but he had not, merely by stating his opinion, stepped away from objectivity. There is no point in gathering facts just for their own sake.

The "obligation" is self imposed by journalism, not out of any lofty regard for the truth but in order to obtain advantages by appearing to be above the fray. First, the objective pose gets more readers, listeners and viewers than any partisan truth. Second, it provides some protection against political or legal challenges. Third, neutral objectivity is an imitation of the natural and social sciences, which also claim to be unbiased.

The journalistic version, which also involves a method known as who, what, where, when, etc., is always questionable. Concealing partisanship by careful selection of facts is a tried and true tactic.

Cronkite and many others jumped to conclusions about the Tet offensive because it fit in with their anti-war sentiment. Had he paused until the effects of the offensive were clear, he might not have been so mistaken. His rush to judgment was never recanted, of course. Once liberals gave up on the war, they turned with a vengeance on President Nixon for having the audacity of trying to clean up the mess they left behind.

As to Cronkite's alleged professionalism, I think it's more appearance than reality. Support for the freest nation in the world and commitment to freedom for all peoples is real objectivity, not that pious, phony, above-it-all neutralism that disgraces modern journalism. Facts are the basis for drawing reasonable conclusions, but they do not exhaust objectivity. Good citizenship requires repairing to the true principles of republican government, the "laws of nature and of nature's God."

We won't care to win wars or preserve our nation unless we ground ourselves in the objectivity of the principle that all men are created equal and free. There is no neutrality between good and evil, or right and wrong, however much people may disagree about them.

What is the future for newspapers?

In recent years several major metropolitan newspapers have gone out of business and more have cut back considerably on their coverage. The reason is a decline in readership and advertising revenue, mostly because of the popularity of the internet but also because of reader dissatisfaction. Advertising provides the bulk of newspaper revenue, while subscriptions and street or other sales lag far behind. However, the larger the circulation, the larger the market for products or services advertised in the newspaper, so readers and ads are inextricably connected. A decline in circulation leads to a decline in advertising. As one who grew up with newspapers and believed that they were here to stay, it is a shock that this can no longer be taken for granted. The truth is, many people who do not read newspapers give no indication that they will ever do so. Does this mean that newspapers are doomed?

Maybe, maybe not. But a friend asked a question of me the other day which made me wonder if the alternative to the newspapers going the way of the dodo bird is lurking in the shadows. My friend asked: "Is there a possibility that with the evaporation of ad revenue, the print media will drift back toward express partisanship?"

My answer was "Yes." Let me explain why. Originally, newspapers were not very profitable and many fell by the wayside. Whig (or Patriot) newspapers competed with Tory (or Loyalist) newspapers during the American Revolution and later divided over the wisdom of establishing a national government. After the people elected their first national Congress and president in 1788, newspapers turned to political parties for subsidies, as well as government printing contracts. The most prominent were the Gazette of the United States, a Federalist organ supported by Alexander Hamilton, and the National Gazette, a Republican newspaper supported by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. These and other more or less intelligent, wide-ranging and often mud-slinging publications dominated the political and journalistic landscape until the Civil War. But technological changes made possible a change in the character of the newspapers, although how much is a matter for debate.

The introduction of the high speed rotary press in the 1830s reduced printing costs and enabled publishers to give up party patronage. Editors’ partisanship replaced party loyalty. Newspapers sold for as little as one penny and attracted many readers who were less interested in national politics than they were in local developments, especially crime and scandal. The audience had expanded beyond political partisans. The invention of the telegraph in 1832 and the subsequent establishment of the Associated Press in 1848 made it possible to provide wider coverage by many newspapers sharing a few correspondents at sources of news around the country. The price for mass circulation newspapers was the foregoing of overt partisanship in what came to be called news pages and the open presentation of political opinions on the editorial page (while reaping the benefits of large circulation and heavy advertising). The price for the wire services was the need for correspondents carefully to tailor their accounts to newspapers with varying political opinions. The device of choice was the inverted pyramid in which the more important news appeared first and the less important was placed further down in the article, making it simple to edit due to limited space.

In my opinion, the model newspaper in that period and for many years thereafter was the New York Times, founded in 1851. Publisher Henry J. Raymond combined devotion to the Republican party with dedication to factual accuracy in both news articles and editorials, an example widely imitated until the present time.

Now, if the newspapers today have a hard time surviving because of the decline of readership and advertising revenues, it would not be surprising if they turned to partisan patrons. There is even talk of stimulus money for newspapers (in Connecticut and Illinois), which is possible (though undesirable and indefensible), but so far it is not happening. Turning to wealthy patrons would strike many as odious, inasmuch as the myth prevails that partisanship (or at least open adherence to a party) is incompatible with good journalism. Of course, it would be odious because of the identity of the particular patron (say, George Soros?), not because of patronage per se. It is also widely believed that money in politics is somehow a bad thing, even though the costs of campaigns are not cheap. At the same time, newspapers are exempt from the laws regulating campaign financing, reinforcing the myth of journalistic objectivity.

Of course, anything can be corrupted, but as long as every party is free (in a moral, as well as a legal sense) to support newspapers, and for newspapers to accept that support, there is no reason why this should not happen. But there is a major difficulty, caused by the general belief that politics as such is a questionable thing (the contribution of Progressivism), to be endured only because it cannot be stopped but not because it has any intrinsic worth (administration of the service state over party politics). I would not be surprised to see the overt newspaper-party link, if it took place, to resemble the bitter partisanship of the early party press, rather than the restrained partisanship of Henry J. Raymond. After all, if partisanship, as many believe, means to be governed only by one's ambition or interest, the case for accuracy and fairness is not compelling.

In other words, if something like the fact-value distinction (facts can be substantiated but values cannot) accompanies any shift to an openly partisan press, the obligation for accuracy may well be sacrificed to partisan advantage because of the belief that "values" need not be supported by fact and, perhaps more important, devotion to factual accuracy will be dismissed as just another value, not grounded in reality, which is "a blooming, buzzing confusion," as Walter Lippmann, the "Dean" of American journalism for many years, once put it. One man's fact is another man's scourge. (Not thy will, but mine be done.) There is an old rabbinical saying, viz., "What went wrong this time?" which reminds us that we are as apt to screw things up as we are to improve things.

"Objective" journalism has been a disguise for partisanship from its beginnings, but that doesn't necessarily discredit it. Partisans can be accurate and public spirited, and so-called independents can be inaccurate and mean spirited. Republicans (e.g., the old New York Times) used to dominate the press, although they had plenty of Democrat competition. The old sensationalist press was more often Democrat (e.g., Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst) than Republican, and the 20th century version of "responsible" journalism almost invariably favored liberal causes (e.g., the New York Times when the Sulzbergers took it over, but also the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Milwaukee Sentinel, the Kansas City Star, and the Denver Post). More conservative were the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, the St. Louis Globe Democrat, the Oakland Tribune, the San Diego Union and the Dallas Morning News.

Lippmann founded a new standard of objectivity that stressed cosmopolitanism in foreign affairs and non-partisanship in domestic affairs. The "ideal" for the journalist was not the statesman or public-spirited citizen but rather scientists and historians who ostensibly are neutral observers with no stake in political action. This has culminated in the presumption of moral equivalence between America and her enemies in news reporting and commentary, a point of view which seems to have taken up residence in the Obama White House.

As this summary indicates, the rise of liberal partisanship is not a recent development. The critics of the liberal press were vocal in the 1960s (e.g., Goldwater campaign), and even in the 1940s (e.g., Hiss case) and the 1950s (e.g., John Foster Dulles' "brinkmanship"). However, one's own partisanship is harder to acknowledge than the partisanship of those who disagree with you. In any case, the press is always partisan, the only question being what kind of partisanship and for what ends.

Sarah stumbles

Palin is admirable and wonderful in many ways. I look forward to big contributions from her as a conservative force on the national scene over the next 30 years. But her abrupt exit as Alaska governor fails the backbone test. Whether as a family move or a political gambit, it was poorly prepared and poorly presented. The seriousness, steadiness, toughness, and clarity we expect from national leaders were not evident. Gov. Palin seems suddenly cavalier toward the trust she undertook with her state in 2006 and with the nation in 2008. For the time being, in my book, she's much less a potential president. But 2012 and 2016 are a long time away. Backbone Americans will watch with keen interest to see where Sarah goes from here.