Why They Got it Wrong.

Clinton? Not Obama?

Chris Mattews' Harball intro and analysis read like the Superbowl previews:

So what can we expect to see tonight? Let‘s go to the numbers. Let‘s start with the Democrats. The latest Suffolk University poll has Obama leading by 5 points in New Hampshire. He‘s up 9 points in the American Research Group poll, and the Reuters/Zogby poll has him up 13 points. That‘s Obama in the lead. The Real Clear Politics Web site, which averages the numbers together, has Obama at 38 percent, Clinton down at 30 percent, an 8-point spread, Edwards a distant third at 18 percent, Bill Richardson all the way down at 6 percent.

On the Republican side, the Suffolk poll has Mitt Romney leading by 4 points in New Hampshire tonight, but other new polls show John McCain with the lead. He‘s up by 7 points in the American Research Group poll, up by 9 points in the Reuters/Zogby poll. The Real Clear Politics average on the Republican side has John McCain leading by 4 points at 32 percent to Romney‘s expected 28 percent. Huckabee‘s down at 12 percent. Giuliani and Ron Paul are in single digits.

We go first to NBC‘s Lee Cowan, who‘s covering the Barack Obama campaign. You‘re at the headquarters. What can you report, Lee?

LEE COWAN, NBC CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, you know, this campaign had promised all along that it was going to get a big turnout, especially among the young voters, just like they did in Iowa. And we do know that turnout has been so big in some places that they actually ran out of ballots and they had to call the secretary of state to bring in more ballots to some of those places. So it seems as though the turnout is certainly in their favor.

This campaign never particularly looked at the poll numbers of late, though. They say they focused a lot more on the size and the enthusiasm of the crowds that they‘ve drawn over the last couple of days. What we‘ve seen here is crowds that are anywhere between twice to a third bigger than what we saw in the last couple of days leading up to the Iowa caucuses. Almost every place had an overflow room. We‘re talking thousands of people in these rallies, not necessarily hundreds of people. And that‘s what made the campaign feel relatively confident. Again, the senator himself says, Look, we haven‘t won anything yet. He‘s being cautious, but he says they feel pretty good.

MATTHEWS: You know, Lee, it used to be said of Barack Obama—and you can fill us in on this—that he would walk into a room to incredible applause, and then leave the audience a bit lower than he found it or entered it. Now, I mean, I was at one of those events this weekend. I can tell you that I saw, heard and felt the excitement of that room growing and growing and growing throughout his appearance. Is that the sense you get or can report on his appearances the last several days?

COWAN: Yes. I mean, I think it‘s fair to say that a while back, some of the speeches were perhaps a little academic. Perhaps he fell into that professorial mode that was talked about a lot. And you‘re right, he didn‘t sometimes end up on a crescendo.

They sound like they're gushing over a crush or something. But, that's not fair, because nowadays men are allowed to show their feelings (isn't that why they wear hankies in their left breast pockets of their suit jackets?), but Hillary Clinton cannot.

What happened?

Here's the answer: Nothing happened. We weren't listening to you.

America's citizens were talking amongst ourselves. We tuned you out.

I thought the titled click reference to the word journalism might shed some insight into why the media are so off base -- most of the time: because they try to ask questions and answer them at the same time, before they finish the question. They're so quick to state what they think they know, when it is their duty to let us in on the information for us to learn and judge for ourselves. Time and time again, the media give us a pie to eat and tell us how we like it, before we've taken a bite.

Well, without being violent, except in metaphor, they all deserve Boston Creme Pies for a facial -- or maybe they've wiped it off their faces already.

They were not journalists. They were entertainers, talking amongst themselves, telling us what no one can truly predict: The future. Instead of beaming proudly that an American could vote for a black candidate, they should have moved on to actually discuss the differences in the health plans between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And Edwards, for that matter. Instead, the media was frantically finding how many ways or how to count how much they loved the Super star. The uber President. The One and Only. They anointed Obama before everyone else got to vote, thinking that somehow the media represent us, the voters. The media represent themselves, and America reminded them. They don't do their jobs anymore and the definition of their profession has steadily declined.


Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This jour·nal·ism /ˈdʒɜrnlˌɪzəm/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[jur-nl-iz-uhm] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

1.	the occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing, or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a business.

2.	press1 (def. 31).

3.	a course of study preparing students for careers in reporting, writing, and editing for newspapers and magazines.

4.

writing that reflects superficial thought and research, a popular slant, and hurried composition, conceived of as exemplifying topical newspaper or popular magazine writing as distinguished from scholarly writing: He calls himself a historian, but his books are mere journalism. (My emphasis. Yep. That's about right)

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Lawyers take Continuing Legal Education Classes. Doctors take Continuing Medical Education courses. Journalists? They just keep getting published and published -- and they still don't learn their lessons. In one of his humbler moments, Chris Matthews sought advice from a real journalist, Tom Brokaw, about how to do it right next time, in effect:

BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to do?

MATTHEWS: Yes sir?

BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.

MATTHEWS: Well what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.

BROKAW: No, no we don’t stay home. There are reasons to analyze what they’re saying. We know from how the people voted today, what moved them to vote. You can take a look at that. There are a lot of issues that have not been fully explored during all this.

But we don’t have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed. And trying to stampede in effect the process.

Look, I’m not just picking on us, it’s part of the culture in which we live these days. I think that the people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us if we don’t begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding, in many cases, as we learned in New Hampshire when they went into the polling booth today or in the last three days. They were making decisions very late.

The above was copied from www.thinkhttp://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/08/live-new-hampshire-primary-updates/

Tom Brokaw, I haven't watched you for decades -- please come back. I'll watch you every day for the rest of my life. Please. Come back.

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Betting Addictions and the Media -- Gambling with America's Future

I would be ecstatic about the American election process if only the media could be forced out of the equation. Media -- the very corporations that everyone excoriates, jumps on the first front runner, and tells the rest of us what's happening in the race to judgment. And we end up losing. If one can show me how allowing lotteries helps America's children get a better education, I'll shut up. But for now, in my own Puritan way, I'm against betting. You'd do better to throw your money on the casino floors (as I do in Las Vegas so someone wins, even if it is only a quarter that the lucky sucker finds!).

I am one who always eats her words, and I'm smacking already. I called Lou Dobbs an idiot or something to that effect, but his insight into the mendacity of the media in calling who is the "front runner" in an interview with always-serious-always-monotone Wolf Blitzer was astounding. Again, today on NPR Radio, another journalist lambasted the media for not doing its job to keep the electorate informed about issues, instead of nervously looking at 200 polls to determine who was in first place. Here's a great website written by someone who must do his/her work full-time. It explains the truth behind the Iowa caucus and
the would-be Obama juggernaut and how the media and journalists totally ignored the facts, instead, waiting for the Jeopardy wheel to spin, taking bets on where it would land so they could announce it first.

We are a youth oriented culture, and God Bless them, as they are the nation's future. However, they want everything so quickly, and the media is feeding into that need for quick answers to tough questions, doing us all a disservice. We might be headed into another prolonged mess - this time domestically. Corporations like the status quo and I would not be surprised if the support of handsome and articulate youthful and hopeful Senator Barack Obama -- isn't a strategy to make him the front runner, to be beaten by hawk Senator McCain -- so the war can continue forward..... but I sound like a conspiracy kook, and do not wish to but it so easily surfaces in my mind as to who is the real threat... and it's not Obama. It is the media and the buzzword which explains their attempt to control the world: "vertical integration," explained in the titled hyperlink above. Businesses use it all of the time in branding their products, but when a news source becomes enmeshed in the practice, that's the end of our democracy as we know it (not that we can recognize democracy anymore, anyway). Maybe President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who succumbed to the mandate against his Presidential status for life, should come to the U.S. to teach us how elections work.

Hey, I can take the news, but my problem is that the wrong chefs are in the kitchen, cooking up a recipe that ultimately, can only be distasteful. Or am I just getting older now, and realize that there is no such place called Camelot, no matter how we might try to conjure up a minority cast for the leads?

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Suggested 2008 Resolutions for Cable Media Outlets

1. CNN - You're international, but for you, that means, British. I don't see American newscasters in the U.K., so why are they on your shows all of the time? The fact of an accent doesn't make your station anymore interesting or trustworthy. Hire born and bred Americans; they can handle international news, too. Your outsourcing of presenters from the U.K. suggests that you sound insecure. If you really want to copy the U.K., spend less time on fluff and give the news straight, with proper grammar. And it's nice to see some of your news anchors back on the beat -- so they can reconnect with the people they interview, instead of making news themselves. But you're hiring quite fetching young male presenters (And I approve). Lou Dobbs should just run for office and be done with it. He cannot articulate his views in a spontaneous educated manner and should just read the friggin' prompter.

2. MSNBC - You have sex on the brain and you need to get it out of your system, so you can take it off of ours'. You're turning into FOX TB - yes, it's catchy but not something that actual yields any intellectual value to human discourse, except kinky intercourse. What's with the jail fixation? Someone seems nostaglic for Shawshank Redemption, and in so doing has not redeemed your cable news outlet as a hard-hitting legit news source. The flirting on air (Contessa Brewer], the DOCK BLOCK - rhymes with another block of the penile sort, and Chris Matthews Puritans Rule hardball show only bounces back and makes you all look like you need lessons in Journalism 101. CNBC - good, always good. Tim Russert - out. Reliable Sources on CNN - half-way in, if the anchor starts giving credit to the source of his "ideas."

3. Fox News - What can I say except that you're the most transparent news station of them all. You're red, dead, and that's enough said. You are the quintessential show for high school Americans who like to be on a team when they watch the news. You're rooting for the right-wing guy and you're proud of it. But stop saying you're fair. You're as fair as a casting agent in Hollywood. You put on those who succumb to your view of the news. O'Reilly needs to be lobotomized so he can learn something -- but at least you hire Americans. Your international news is the equivalent of going to Puerto Rico to get a good assignment. But you don't care anyway, it's all about the red, white and blue. And just why are those black dudes on in the morning --- and only in the morning? But I could be wrong, because I rarely watch you.
Oh, and the Red Eye guy -- kinda kinky, but he's not bad. Entertaining, almost.

Anyway, have a Happy News Year! Here's NOT looking at you as much this year!!

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The Politics of Martyrdom

I could handle Chris Matthews on the day of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, mainly because he was sobered by the turn of events in Pakistan. His voice wasn't shrill, he spoke in a more measured manner - he sounded like a journalist. No doubt, he was worried as much as we all should be about the turn of events, which are likely to have a profound effect on our nation's future for the next year or two especially. Nonetheless, I was concerned about the media's jump to the conclusion that it was "al Qaeda," within several hours of the incident, mainly because as intelligent as we think our intelligence community is, it is still filtered by beliefs and concepts that are alien to the average American which has to interpret the information. So I set out to ask the question of whether Benazir Bhutto had imposed upon herself the tragic fate (in my eyes) of martyrdom for which so many Muslims are known. So I looked in my Introduction to Islam book that I bought months ago at a Border's check out stand (it was cheap and cheerful, and I was waiting in line --- (yeah, sucker). Anyway, it's index made no mention of martyrdom. And the reviews were no good - no more impulse buying anymore.

I'm trying to figure out if Ms. Bhutto was a non-proclaimed martyr who gave her life for the cause of her people, but, perhaps also because of a religious belief that she, too, might have held, that she would be bestowed with wonderful blessings (I am not sure what a woman earns as a martyr so I cannot state what glory, if any, meets her in giving up her life). But if martyrdom is the culture (in the way that kamikazi's were in the Japanese tradition, or the Death Penalty is in ours), perhaps suicide bombing is just something we Westerners can't fathom. Nor can we understand the fearlessness with which she marched to her end.

While looking for quick answers, I came upon an article, which made me rethink the martyrdom "thing." It's a bit clunky reading at first, but the author does get into her stride and writes a very rational, yet passionately persuasive piece that opines that martyrdom has been so distorted by fanaticism that everyone has gone mad, as it were (my words). The author turns down the volume and explains that martyrdom can only be in defense of Islam (and nothing else). Written in 2004, the author writes about in martyrdom in the context of the Israeli/Palestinian crisis, arguing that the belief that martyrdom can be based upon politics is a distortion of the Qu'uran. She explains that the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians is about land more than it is about religion (at least to the author of the article) and that the Palestinian suicide bomber's sacrifice and rewards are not only misunderstood, but they are misplaced because of the misquoted source of the so-called rewards to be bestowed upon the martyr.

[B]eing a Lebanese Muslim Sunni woman, I know too well the meaning of challenging religious orthodoxy in an environment that often literally 'eliminates' dissent. I and others like me may be politically correct in the USA or Western Europe, but are indeed politically very incorrect in the Middle East. In any case, I don't care for being politically correct as much as I want and strive to be 'religiously' correct in the eyes of God. If some 'traditions' and interpretations, including Hadith, tell me things that contradict what is unequivocal in the Qur'an, I know as a Muslim that the Qur'an is the highest authority for Muslims. A case in point is the hadith oft quoted by religious clerics to encourage suicide bombers. According to that hadith, Palestinian 'Shuhada' or 'martyrs,' accepting the interpretation of the apologists, not only get 72 virgins but also get to guarantee heaven for their entire family. The above-mentioned verse (35:18) clearly states the opposite, saying that each individual is strictly responsible for his/her own acts on earth (see also 53:38 and 60:3).

I do not list the verses, encouraging you to click the link below to read the whole article, rather than my Cliff Notes simplistic version. Amina discusses the teachings of Prophet Mohammed (praise be upon him)(I write this so as not to offend anyone who might object to my using his name without adding the suffix that usually follows when His name is uttered)[ So much for my saying Jesus Christ when I get angry... I imagine I'll be roasting on a pitchfork for my occasional, -- I said, occasional, okay?-- blaspheme].

Back to the issue at hand -- apparently, there are the teachings of The Prophet (pbuh) that instruct the reader to only take His written words to heart, and not to attribute what He may have said while He was living. It sounds as though the Prophet understood well the perils of hearsay. Apparently Mohammad (pbuh) died a natural death, so one who "fights" or wages battle cannot do so on his behalf, but for God and nothing more.

I'm getting into dangerous territory here, even in paraphrasing, so I'll let you read the article. It is not for the intellectually faint of stamina - it is long, well thought-out, insightful, and worth reading.

I wrote this today to make my own case that, right now, the last thing I want to hear is pontification by Americans about a culture and a people we don't know or understand. You will not learn from the media except what they want you to learn. I will give credit for the effort to learn about what has transpired, but let's face it -- Pakistan was on the back burner (Barack Obama credits himself with the foresight of seeing this as the sleeping giant, or so he said -- so he must be given credit if that is the case). But truthfully, it's time to dialogue with those in the know, or to hear from those in the know, without the spin of interpretation by cable pundits and politicians. We need to hear from Muslims, Pakistani and Taliban supporters - to form our opinions ourselves.

I cannot understand anything except my experience, truth be told, and sometimes I need help interpreting that. So, this is a time when we who wish to understand the fate of our lives and world should not look to people whose job it is to have "something to say" to be the source of our education. Educate yourselves. This website: http://Mideastweb.org might be a good place to start.

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Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays!

Although I attend a Christian church, I do so for feelings of social inclusion more than my belief of all of the Christian tenets. I believe almost all religions tell the same story, part factual, part hyperbole. Like the game "Telephone", the facts always get lost in the retelling and by the last telling -- it's nothing like was intended. So, whether someone named Jesus was born on what day or not, it's more important to get what you can from the general tenets that the holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving bring: goodwill toward your fellow man, and loving family. If you're not so inclined, look at it this way: you're alive, you can read (at least blogs) and a majority of us in the U.S. have some form of food to eat (even the homeless, as they would be dead if they didn't -- that's not meant to sound callous).

Today, I have no intention of watching the news. And I'll tell no one in the media to shut up. But for C-Span, I will say May you live long and prosper, as it is only one of the facets of media that truly gives us the true "I saw it, I was there" news.

Merry Christmas!

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