Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 44

Happy 50th Birthday, Daisy!

What's perhaps still known as the most notorious political campaign attack ad on TV aired just once before being pulled--fifty years ago tomorrow.  We are speaking, of course, of the 1964 ad for LBJ that pictured a little girl pulling a daisy about to be obliterated by a nuclear attack--thanks to GOP candidate Barry Goldwater.   It became known as The Daisy Ad.  But as my book The Campaign of the Century makes clear--the first use of the screen to destroy a candidate happened 80 years ago, with fake newsreels produced by none other than Irving Thalberg hitting the radical and frontrunning candidate for governor of California, Upton Sinclair.

AP On New Wendy Davis Memoir

The AP got an early copy of Wendy Davis's upcoming memoir and reports that she reveals she once had an abortion--for good reason, but one still wonder if it will hurt her in current race for governor. 

Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who became a national political sensation by filibustering her state's tough new restrictions on abortion, discloses in her upcoming memoir that she had an abortion in the 1990s after discovering that the fetus had a severe brain abnormality.

In "Forgetting to be Afraid," Davis also writes about ending an earlier ectopic pregnancy, in which an embryo implants outside the uterus. Davis says she considered revealing the terminated pregnancies during her nearly 13-hour speech on the floor of the Texas Senate last summer — but decided against it, saying "such an unexpected and dramatically personal confession would overshadow the events of the day."

Bureau 'Reviled,' No Kidding

In this new interview, Ethan Bronner, the former NYT  bureau chief in Jerusalem defends the coverage from there under his tenure and by extension today, when it is more biased than ever under Jodi Rudoren.  Like others at the Times, he resorts to, basically, "we're criticized heavily by both sides so that means we are being fair."   It's like the long-standing journo argument for giving both sides on any issue equal play and that makes it not just balanced but fair and accurate.  Bronner adds that at one time it was mainly Jews complaining about coverage but now, thanks to the damn internet, they now hear equally from Palestinians and the "strong lobby on the other side."

And who is to blame?   No, not the heroic Times reporters, but the readers, who don't want accuracy and fairness but merely having their own views bolstered.  Of course, that's partly true, but for Bronner, it's the entire story.  "I don’t think I added to the misunderstandings. The one depressing conclusion that I did draw was that people were not actually looking for information: They were looking for a reaffirmation of their own beliefs." (And see interview with Rudoren.)

And he complains about being heavily criticized when it emerged that his son had signed up for the IDF--while Bronner still served as bureau chief.  Naturally this was all just another "perfect example to smack us over the head with"--as if there was no other reason for Palestinians to feel NYT coverage was biased.  He reveals that he hoped the could hide his son's move from the world, a gross journalistic ethical sin (not that he admits it):

When my son told me he was going to join the army, I knew it wasn’t a good thing for me. But he was 20, and I felt I should allow him to live the life he wanted to lead. I figured it might get out eventually, but he was only there a year and four months, and I was crossing my fingers it wouldn’t get out too quickly. Amazingly, within five weeks of his joining, it got out. And I got emails from the Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss. And it fed into this anger and this belief that the Palestinian point of view had been underrepresented in American media. And this was the perfect example to smack us over the head with.

 And then there's this revealing exchange:

Did anything positive come out of being watched so closely?

I didn’t like it, but I can’t deny there is a certain rush. There is something slightly thrilling about everybody yelling at you; suddenly every word you write is being pored over and looked at it. As writers, we write to be read.

Doubts About U.S. vs. ISIS

As you know, McClatchy reporters (then with Knight Ridder) were among the few that seriously questioned to Bush evidence on WMD and Saddam.  Now one of them, Jonathan Landay, and another stellar longtimer there, Hannah Allam, warn that Obama's plans to combat ISIS revealed today promises many years of military and other U.S. involvement. "Even limited success for this new effort, analysts say, hinges on an unenviable to-do list for the Obama administration: foster cozier relations with Iran, gamble on the so-called 'moderate' Syrian rebels, strong-arm Iraq’s Shiite Muslim leaders into power-sharing with the Sunni Muslim minority, and persuade Sunni-ruled nations in the Persian Gulf region not to undermine the whole effort by striking out on their own."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/09/05...
James Risen (above left) the heralded investigative reporter--possibly heading to prison thanks to the Obama anti-leak offensive--recently joined Twitter, just in time to raise necessary questions on his feed about the current media push for war, of some kind, against ISIS.  He says it reminds him of the run-up to the Iraq war in certain ways (and for more of that, see my timely-again book on Iraq and the media).  I've been raising questions myself for weeks.   Here are some of his tweets from the past few days at @JamesRisen:

The fact that U.S. intelligence assesses that ISIS poses no current threat to the US is repeatedly ignored by politicians and the media.

This does remind me of the late 2002- early 2003 pre-war period.

War fever in America always seems to develop in pretty much the same way. Over and over again.

For American hawks, the dateline is always MUNICH, September 30th, 1938 --

After 13 years of GWOT, you would think the fact that Islamist groups debate near enemy/far enemy would at least be discussed here.

America marched blindly into Baghdad. And now seems intent on a rerun.

Risen To the Occasion

James Risen the heralded investigative reporter--possibly heading to prison thanks to the Obama anti-leak offensive--recently joined Twitter, just in time to raise necessary questions on his feed about the current media push for war, of some kind, against ISIS.  He says it reminds him of the run-up to the Iraq war in certain ways (and for more of that, see my timely-again book on Iraq and the media).  I've been raising questions myself for weeks.   Here are some of his tweets from the past few days at @JamesRisen:

The fact that U.S. intelligence assesses that ISIS poses no current threat to the US is repeatedly ignored by politicians and the media.

This does remind me of the late 2002- early 2003 pre-war period.

War fever in America always seems to develop in pretty much the same way. Over and over again.

For American hawks, the dateline is always MUNICH, September 30th, 1938 --

After 13 years of GWOT, you would think the fact that Islamist groups debate near enemy/far enemy would at least be discussed here.

America marched blindly into Baghdad. And now seems intent on a rerun.

Shawn 'Translates' Pro-Israel Ad

Wallace Shawn is a well-known actor and playwright (not to mention son of famed New Yorker editor William "Mr." Shawn.  He's also been speaking against Israel's massive attack on Gaza in recent weeks, and now has topped himself with a "translation" at the Hollywood Reporter for an ad they ran backing the assault using an revised old quote by Golda Meir.  The ad was signed by some top Jewish studio exec and aimed at other Jews in the industry, or so Shawn (one of them) notes.  Here's his full response:

Over the decades, I’ve done quite a bit of work as a translator from various languages, and sometimes when I get home from work, I just can’t stop. Yesterday, for example, I saw an ad in The Hollywood Reporter. It was in English, but its meaning was not immediately obvious at all, so I felt an overwhelming impulse to translate it.

The ad featured a statement that former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir had made in the 1950s about “the Arabs,” but the ad (which leaves out the words “the Arabs”) suggests that “her haunting words” are “as current as today’s headlines. She could have been talking about Hamas.” The quotation, as it appears in the ad, is as follows: “We can forgive [them] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them from forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with [them] when they love their children more than they hate us.”

My quick personal translation of this would be: “When we kill the children of Arabs, the Arabs made us do it. They hate us so much, they are so angry, that they do things that enrage us and make us kill children. If they were decent people who loved their children, they would set aside their hatred and stop provoking us, and we would then stop killing the children.”

Sometimes a translator feels compelled to argue with the text he’s just translated, particularly when, as in the case of this ad, one is confronted by a photograph of the author that makes one vividly feel her presence. In this case, I can only say that despite her wise and thoughtful and grandmotherly face, Golda Meir can be interpreted as saying here that she plans to kill the children of Arabs up until the moment when, in her sole judgment, the Arabs stop feeling “hate” and become sufficiently unprovoking and pacified.

Applying her remarks to the present day, as the signers of the ad suggest we should do, the ad seems fundamentally to be saying that it ought to be up to the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to decide when the current killing ought to stop. I have to say, I feel that this ad, directed to members of the show business community, perhaps especially to Jewish members of the show business community such as myself, takes as its premise a false view both of history and of the present situation.

The broad outlines of the terrible history of the Jewish people over the centuries is relatively well-known to many of us. But unfortunately, many members of the show business community are not very aware of the tragic history of the Palestinian people. And yet the fact is that in my own lifetime (I was born in 1943) the Palestinian people have been expelled from their land and subjected to unceasing and unjustifiable torment, including a brutal occupation and, in Gaza, a regime in which an entire population has been placed on a starvation diet.

Anyone who learns more about what has happened can’t help but realize that the anger of the Palestinians cannot be ended by killing their children. That is a fantasy. Human beings simply aren’t made that way.

There Are No Truths Outside

I prefer Dylan's "Gates of Eden" to Biden's "Gates of Hell."   Here's bootleg version.  Original was flip side of "Like A Rolling Stone" I bought in '65.  Another bootleg here that may be with George Harrison in '70.

Uppie Meets FDR

Near the end of August in 1934, in the depths of The Depression, one of the world's most famous novelists and socialists, Upton Sinclair, swept the Democratic primary for governor of California.  Leading one of America's greatest grassroots movements,  EPIC (End Poverty in California), he appeared headed for victory in November.  To derail him,  Republicans and big business Democrats created the most extreme dirty tricks seen in the U.S. -- and also went out and invented the modern political campaign, for the first time turning a major race over to a new breed of political consultants and "spin doctors."  Hollywood took its first all-out plunge into politics (and it's never been the same).   And the saintly Irving Thalberg ordered the first "attack ads" for the screen, precursor of today's TV-based campaigns.  The amazing, often rollicking tale, was told in full for the first time in my book, The Campaign of the Century, winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize.  Here's an excerpt for this day 80 years ago.

September 4, 1934:  Sinclair Meets FDR at Hyde Park

Logs crackled in the fireplace. The President occupied a large leather
chair in his library; a block of documents a foot high rested on the table
before him. "You see how far behind I am in my work," Franklin
Roosevelt said.
 
"Actually," observed Upton Sinclair, sitting directly across from him,
"we all marvel that you're so far ahead with it."
 
"I cannot go any faster than the people will let me," Roosevelt said.
 
"The people of my state," Sinclair responded eagerly, "will soon let
you know what they are thinking!"
 
A servant brought two glasses of iced tea, then exited, leaving the two
men alone. The President had rejected Jefty O'Connor's idea of having
someone monitor the meeting. Since there were only two parties to this
discussion, Roosevelt could afford to trust Sinclair. His visitor might
actually keep his vow of secrecy; and if he didn't, FDR could always
say that Sinclair recalled a particular statement or detail wrong. Whom
would people believe: Franklin Roosevelt or Upton Sinclair? There
would be no transcript, no third party, for Sinclair to appeal to.
 
Still, it wouldn't hurt to flatter Sinclair. The President was not above
it—in fact, he was famous for it—and this fellow was known to take
flattery to heart. FDR told Sinclair that he admired his work. When
Franklin was a child, his mother used to read “The Jungle” to him at the
breakfast table.

"And it spoiled your lamb chops?" Sinclair offered.
 
"Yes," the President said, throwing his great head back in a hearty
laugh.
 
The story, of course, was suspect, since Roosevelt, at the time “The
Jungle” was published, was married and a student at Columbia Law
School.
 
It was time to get down to business. Sinclair was determined not to
settle for vintage Roosevelt. He had come to Hyde Park for political
effect, but now that he was here, he discovered he was intensely curious
about FDR. Was he a wise man, learning by his own blunders, or a blind
man groping his way? He wanted to know how much the President
really knew about conditions in California—and how familiar he was
with the EPIC campaign.

Soon the candidate discovered that the President had either read “I,
Governor” or had been well briefed on the EPIC plan. They discussed
EPIC's effect on unemployment, capital investment, and inflation. Sin-
clair finally found a detail Roosevelt seemed unfamiliar with—the so-
called EPIC tax. Companies or utilities strapped for cash could pay their
state taxes in the form of goods and services. This would provide materi-
als (such as lumber and steel), as well as heat and electricity, for public-
works projects. Roosevelt leapt right in, as if, Sinclair observed,
firecrackers were going off in his head.
 
"Yes, it could be that way," he said, "but what if you did this ..."
Roosevelt asked questions, and before Sinclair could respond, FDR
took the answers right out of his mouth. This was the President's own
mind working, Sinclair discerned; he wasn't following a script.
Sinclair started off in another direction.
 
"Yes, that's important," FDR said, cutting him off. "I was just talking to
 someone about it yesterday."
 
Finally the old muckraker laughed. "I see you don't need me," Sin-
clair said. He would have understood if Roosevelt had responded to any
particular point by saying, "I couldn't support that," or "You're right,
but I can't say so right now." But the President never fell back on these
staples of political obfuscation. If Sinclair was causing FDR any embar-
rassment, the President was doing a good job of concealing it.
 
This seemed an appropriate moment for Sinclair to urge his new
friend to ignore reports about a third-party EPIC campaign for presi-
dent in 1936. Roosevelt cheerfully informed his guest that he was itching
to get back to writing and suggested that it might not be a bad idea for
them to trade jobs for a while.
 
The two men had been scheduled to meet for sixty minutes, and the
hour had long passed. It was now early evening, and the sky outside was
darkening. The butler brought another tray of iced tea. Sinclair didn't
know the proper etiquette. Should he rise, apologize for keeping the
President so long, and leave? Or wait for FDR to terminate the conver-
sation? The longer the discussion, the better it would appear for Sinclair;
afterward he could use it as a yardstick of presidential interest and
support. The meeting continued.

After a lengthy discussion of production for use, the President star-
tled Sinclair with a revelation. "My advisers tell me that I have to talk
to the people again over the radio and explain to them what I am doing,"
he said. "I am going to give that talk in two sections." The first speech
would concern "general problems"; the second, unemployment. FDR
seemed to suggest that he would deliver a fireside chat endorsing pro-
duction for use sometime around October twenty-fifth—two weeks
before Election Day.
 
Sinclair could hardly believe his ears. Ratification of his most impor-
tant platform plank—the whole basis of the EPIC plan—would be
almost as valuable as an endorsement of his candidacy.
 
"If you will do that, Mr. President," Sinclair said, barely able to
contain his gratitude, "it will elect me."

(Note:   FDR, under pressure from aides, never did endorse and ultimately worked out a deal with his opponent.)

Judy Miller x 10

This has got to be greatest hyped threat of the year for war, courtesy of Paul Bedard at, natch, the Washington Examiner.  "Former top government officials who have been warning Washington about the vulnerability of the nation’s largely unprotected electric grid are raising new fears that troops from the jihadist Islamic State are poised to attack the system, leading to a power crisis that could kill millions."

And from old reliable Frank Gaffney:   

“By one estimate, should the power go out and stay out for over a year, nine out of 10 Americans would likely perish,” said Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

At the afternoon press conference, Gaffney dubbed the potential crisis the "grid jihad."

Silver Threats and Galling Vetos

Nate Silver is back in the forecasting business with his first full 538 look at the midterms and it's bad news for the Dems--he gives the GOP a whopping 64% chance of taking the Senate (the Wash Post today put it at a less scary 52%) with 1 in 4 shot at rising to an unbearable 54 seats.

The reasons for the GOP advantage are pretty straightforward. Midterm elections are usually poor for the president’s party, and the Senate contests this year are in states where, on average, President Obama won just 46 percent of the vote in 2012.1 Democrats are battling a hangover effect in these states, most of which were last contested in 2008, a high-water mark for the party. On the basis of polling and the other indicators our model evaluates, Republicans are more likely than not to win the six seats they need to take over the Senate. This isn’t news, exactly; the same conditions held way back in March.

An equally important theme is the high degree of uncertainty around that outcome. A large number of states remain competitive, and Democrats could easily retain the Senate.