William Katz: Urgent Agenda
SNIPPETS, our daily collection of short items and comments, is here.
---------------------------------------------
Our next subscription drive will start next week.
--------------------------------------------
Answers to last week's "Current Question" are here. The new "Current Question" is here, in the right-hand column.
--------------------------------------------
OUR AUDIO COMMENTARIES HAVE BEGUN. TO LISTEN, GO HERE.
(A new commentary for today has been posted.)
MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2008
INEXCUSABLE
Posted at 6:02 p.m. ET
James Taranto at the excellent Best of the Web Today, rips apart the AP's inexcusable attempt to label Sarah Palin a racist. I'd like to report that the AP story was a new low in campaign coverage, but there are challenges to that position every day, so let's not award any prizes yet.
Palin had accused Obama of "palling around" with Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, who are unrepentant about their role in the sixties radical group, Weather Underground. Douglass Daniel of the AP charged that Palin's statement "carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret." Taranto:
Reader, Mr. and Mrs. Ayers are persons of pallor. What could possibly be racist about Palin's criticizing Obama for associating with a couple of despicable characters who are white? This question brings us into the weird world of Douglass Daniel's imagination:
Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?
In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.
Daniel does no reporting to back this up. He accuses Palin of racism because in his mind, terrorist implies Muslim, Muslim implies dark-skinned, and dark-skinned implies black.
And...
...it seems his claim is that her speech was racist because it somehow called attention to Obama's race. To be sure, there are people who are prejudiced against Obama because he is black. Shame on them. People like them used to have a lot more influence on elections than they do now, both because they were more numerous and because in many parts of the country they disfranchised blacks (including through terrorism!).
Yet we'd venture that there are voters who are troubled by Obama's palling around with terrorists irrespective of his, or anyone else's race. Does the public not have a right to know because some part of the public may be racist?
Apparently not, according to the AP, which has not withdrawn or apologized for the outrageous story.
October 6, 2008. Permalink 
UPDATE AT 4:01 P.M. ET: The market rebounded strongly, probably driven by bargain hunters. Tentative figures show it closed down about 300 points.
Further update at 4:19: The final figure will be about 370 points.
POLLS
Posted at 3:20 p.m. ET
All trackers for the day are out. Gallup, the last to report, shows Obama up eight, 50-42. Gallup notes that both McCain's and Obama's percentage has remained relatively stable for ten days.
All trackers show Obama up six to eight points. A new Democracy Corps poll shows him up only three, but that is the outlier.
As noted earlier, the results are irrational. McCain is being blamed because he is a Republican, even though the evidence points to the Democrats as those who contributed greatly to the financial crisis by refusing to legislate proper oversight of the mortgage mess. The public tends to blame the party in the White House for the economy.
The continuing turmoil can only hurt McCain, no matter what he does, and his campaign remains unimaginative. A star has been born in Sarah Palin, and there is already buzz about her for the future. I love her, but let me caution that political figures subjected to this much ridicule often have difficulty getting traction. We should recall that even Ronald Reagan had difficulty convincing the Republican Party to let him have the reins in 1980. He had been subjected to career-long ridicule over his movie-actor past, even after having served two terms as governor of California. And he was seen by many, even within his party, as a big of a crackpot. He was not.
One striking thing about the polls: Only one, Rasmussen, has Obama at more than 50 percent - has him at 52 - demonstrating that the polls are no great endorsement of Barack Obama. It's an "anti" vote that we're seeing.
It's important to remain committed and optimistic. There are many political lifetimes to go before election day. One never knows what can turn this race around, including the perception of a foreign threat. At the same time, wise political players are always planning. If the worst should happen in the election, what do we do next? How do we position ourselves? How do we deal with an increasingly toxic press, which has essentially collapsed as an independent institution?
The Reagan Revolution was based on decades of thought, articles, arguments, plans, and the development of a coherent philosophy.
We still hope to win this election. We will fight. But we will also plan, and write.
October 6, 2008. Permalink
UPDATE AT 2:49 P.M. ET: The market is now down 730 points. Have a nice day.
UPDATE AT 11:37 A.M. ET: The stock market is currently down 424 points.
UPDATE AT 10:54 A.M. ET: From The New York Times: Wall Street stumbled again on Monday as the banking crisis expanded its grip on the world economy, sending stocks sharply lower around the world and pushing oil prices below $90 for the first time since February. The Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 300 points in early trading, falling below 10,000 for the first time since 2004.
UPDATE AT 10:46 A.M. ET: Two new trackers are now out. The results are grim. Battleground, which is erratic, has Obama up seven. It had him up three on Saturday. Hotline has Obama up six. It was seven yesterday. Sarah Palin didn't make a dent in Obama's lead.
COMMENT: The results are irrational. They're not so much a vote for Obama, whose support is actually quite thin, but a rejection of the GOP. The economy now dominates everything, and every day of bad news helps Obama. McCain is being blamed for things that, by any objective standard, can be laid at the doorstep of the Democratic refusal to reform the mortgage markets. But the public can't react intelligently to what it isn't being told.
UPDATE AT 9:34 A.M. ET: The Rasmussen tracker, just out, shows Obama up eight points, 52-44. "This is the highest level of support ever recorded for Obama and is his largest lead of the year." If the Rasmussen poll is accurate, the vice-presidential debate had no measurable effect on the race. We await the other three trackers, published later today.
UPDATE AT 8:01 A.M. ET: Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Stocks tumbled around the world, the euro fell to a 13-month low against the dollar and oil dropped below $90 a barrel as the yearlong credit market seizure caused bank bailouts to spread through Europe. Government bonds rallied.
THE ELECTION
Posted at 7:33 a.m. ET
I'm reminded of the famous David Low cartoon, published in London's Evening Standard, on June 18th, 1940, just after France fell to Hitler. You've probably seen it. It depicts the defiance of the British people, but also depicts an understanding of their situation:
"Very well, alone."
That pretty much tells the story of the McCain campaign. If they win this fight, they must do it alone. Usually, a campaign can get at least part of its story out through the mainstream press. In this election, we are faced with a level of press corruption so great that, in my view, it threatens the future of the nation itself. I am not given to extreme statements, but, for reasons I will discuss at another time, I believe that to be true,
Voters do not get their news directly. They get it through media. If you want to know what that can do to a nation, simply look at what people in Muslim countries are told by their press every day, and how it distorts their world view.
Walter Lippmann once called news "the picture in our heads." The media creates an image for us. Our decisions are based on that image. If the image is reasonably correct, we can decide wisely. If it isn't, we cannot.
In this campaign, it is impossible for McCain to get his message out through the media because major press organizations simply add the Obama talking points to many stories, making McCain into a liar, or even worse. Consider the AP's outrageous contention, posted over the weekend, that Sarah Palin's accurate charge that Obama has associated with a known terrorist, is tinged with racism. Say what? What does racism have to do with that? Bill Ayers, the T-guy in question, is quite white. It is an example of the kind of journalism we're getting these days.
Jim Geraghty, of NRO's Campaign Spot, notes:
Palin is bringing up Barack Obama's long connection to William Ayers... okay.
I don't doubt that not enough Americans know about Obama and his ties to Ayers, and what an unrepentant domestic terrorist and SOB Ayers is. But that message is going to come up against a media that is hostile, determined to downplay the ties and/or willing to lie. (What the heck got into CNN lately? The past few weeks, they're getting things 180 degrees flat wrong, again and again, about easily verifiable facts and the mistakes always benefit Obama. When all the mistakes point in the same direction, one suspects they're not really mistakes.)
No, not really mistakes. When people feel they're possessed of a higher truth, they're willing to play many games with the lower truths.
So the McCain campaign must run alone in this last month before the election. Just ignore the press. Speak over its head.
But how? There's a limit to money.
Tomorrow night, McCain debates Obama. The gloves must come off. He must make Obama the subject of the campaign - the Obama we don't know. He must completely ignore press criticism, and even go after the press in speeches, citing, by name, some particularly outrageous examples of bias.
I've suggested before, and will again, that McCain and Palin run a whistlestop campaign across the country, even inviting voters to come aboard at stops, and meet the candidates.
This last month will have to be retail politics at its best. Eliminate the middle man, the biased media. It can be done. Truman did it. Reagan did it. The press didn't hate Reagan, but reporters privately laughed at him. The public didn't.
Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel, was once asked about press criticism of Israel's defense moves, which often involved military strikes. Didn't the criticism bother her? She replied, "I'd rather have a bad editorial than a good obituary."
McCain must start thinking in those terms. Don't worry about press hatred. Relish it. Bill Kristol today quotes Sarah Palin this way:
I asked at the end of our conversation whether Palin, fresh off her own debate, had any advice for McCain. “I’m going to tell him the same thing he told me. I talked to him just a few minutes before I walked out there on stage. And he just said: ‘Have fun. Be yourself, and have fun.’ And Senator McCain can do the same.” She paused, and I was about to thank her for the interview, but she had one more thing to say. “Only maybe I’d add just a couple more words, and that would be: ‘Take the gloves off.’ ”
Senator McCain, she's the best man you've got. Listen to her.
October 6, 2008. Permalink
NOTE AT 5:57 A.M. ET: Eagle-eyed reader Gregory Koster caught a whopping error in the final piece I posted last night, called "Sarah." I made reference to the famous Liberty Magazine poll of 1936. Of course I meant the Literary Digest poll. The error has been corrected.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2008
SARAH
Posted at 8:01 p.m. ET
A reader alerts me to a column on Sarah Palin by the excellent Michael Goodwin of The New York Daily News. It reveals the mindset of a certain class of people here in the northeast.
There's a famous story about Pauline Kael, the movie critic. After the 1972 Nixon blowout of George McGovern, Kael commented that she couldn't understand how Nixon had won since she hadn't known anyone who'd voted for him. Her world was this narrow little place known as Manhattan.
In 1936, Literary Digest conducted a poll showing that Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, the Republican presidential nominee, would easily defeat President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But it was a poll weighted in favor of those who had telephone service, and those running it never realized that many hard-pressed Americans, Roosevelt supporters, didn't have telephones.
Ah, that "world view" problem again.
Michael Goodwin writes:
The changes are coming so fast we hardly take notice. Is America really going to elect a black President? Two years ago, that was unthinkable. Now it's very likely as Barack Obama has seized the momentum 30 days from the election.
But before we sprain our shoulders patting ourselves on the back for our color-blind, bias-free selves, let's acknowledge that certain prejudices are far from taboo. In fact, in some quarters they are ascendant and celebrated.
I'm thinking of the overt, outrageous prejudice that infuses some of the contempt on the left for Palin. Scrape away the surface excuses and much of it is because she is a Republican. And an anti-abortion one at that. How dare she!
Indeed. How dare she be "different." We celebrate diversity, dearies, but we do have our limits.
That the bias comes from people we think of as sophisticated makes it disappointing, but not surprising. After all, contempt for Republicans is the only socially acceptable prejudice remaining among many educated people today.
A celebrated retired journalist, a man I've long admired, was surprised when I told him I hadn't decided whom to vote for. "You're too smart to vote for John McCain," he said, thereby insulting 50 million Americans.
And...
George W. Bush appointed the first two black secretaries of state, but does anyone on the left regard him as a racial trailblazer? When I raised that question to another liberal, she dismissed the idea, saying Bush "never thought about race."
That exchange took place three years ago, but I still can't grasp her logic. How does she know what Bush thought? Why would it be more important than what he does?
A similar blind spot toward the political "other" explains much of the contempt for Palin. If she were a Democrat, her unusual life would be spun into a compelling narrative that would make her the darling of the coastal elite.
Well, maybe. First she'd have to produce a Wellesley or Princeton degree, or explain in an essay why she went to one of those...state schools.
Yes, I know there are many legitimate reasons to vote against her and McCain. And I am not arguing for a second they should be supported, least of all because of her gender.
But couldn't we all at least acknowledge Palin's moment and what it means for America?
Apparently not. She must lose, the liberal narrative goes, because she is unqualified, case closed.
Some day, we will look back with disgust at the abuse Palin has taken and wonder how it could happen in this great nation, circa 2008.
Spare me. We already know the answer.
Yes we do. What a disgrace.
October 5, 2008. Permalink
UPDATE AT 6:35 p.m. ET: ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Barack Obama's allies warn that John McCain's attacks on the Democrat's character will lead to the political equivalent of mutual assured destruction: fire your big weapon at your own peril.
Several Obama surrogates said his supporters may start reminding voters of McCain's ties to Charles Keating, a convicted savings and loan owner whose actions two decades ago triggered a Senate ethics investigation that involved McCain as one of the "Keating Five."
COMMENT: I thought that The One is above this, something pure, from Heaven. Apparently, he's just another politician, willing to play rough when needed. Imagine what it will be like to criticize him when he has the power of the presidency behind him.
UPDATE AT 1:17 P.M. ET: The Gallup tracker just released has Obama up seven. It was eight yesterday. Statistically insignificant change, but more evidence that the vice-presidential debate had no effect on polling.
UPDATE AT 12:55 P.M. ET: The Hotline tracker, just published, shows Obama up seven, unchanged from yesterday. Again, the vice-presidential debate seems to have had absolutely no effect on voter preferences.
UPDATE AT 9:40 A.M. ET: Rasmussen's tracker is out for Sunday, reporting Obama up seven, up from six yesterday. Two of the three days of the polling for this report occurred after the vice-presidential debate. That debate has apparently had zero impact on the vote, and Republicans must now concede that Sarah Palin, although wonderful for the GOP base, will have the usual minimal vice-presidential effect on the election.
Rasmussen is unusually blunt about the situation facing McCain:
One way of understanding the difficult challenge now facing McCain is to consider the relatively small group of persuadable voters who could still change their mind. The Republican hopeful would have to win nearly 80% of those votes to pull ahead in the race. That’s especially challenging because most of those voters are currently leaning towards Obama. In other words, while the race is not over, McCain needs a significant--game-changing—event to win the White House. Simply doing what he’s been doing a little better will not be enough.
The only predictable game-changing events are the two upcoming debates - and there's no reason to believe McCain can make any progress through them. His first performance against Obama was lackluster.
We fight on, and must. But this is Obama's to lose. He is on track for a landslide victory in the electoral college. Imagine - this egotistical young man with not a major public accomplishment to his name may be overwhelmingly elected president, and carry both houses of Congress with him. And the same press that largely created him will be covering him, and covering for his mistakes. A terrifying moment.
STEALING IT FAIR AND SQUARE
Posted at 9:23 a.m. ET
We've been warning for months at Urgent Agenda that two factors would have an inordinate influence in this election - extreme press bias and widespread voter fraud. We've written extensively about the press bias, and will again. We turn our attention to voter fraud, and an excellent piece by John Fund that lays out the problem:
Our nation may be on the brink of repeating the 2000 Florida election debacle, but this time in several states, with allegations of voter fraud, intimidation and flawed voting machines added to the generalized chaos that sent Bush v. Gore to the Supreme Court for overtime.
"If you think of election problems as akin to forest fires, the woods are no drier than they were in 2000, but many more people have matches," says Doug Chapin, editor of the nonpartisan Electionline.org.
For example:
The issue of photo ID has become symbolic of the clash of values on election standards. Supporters say it is bizarre that most states don't require a photo ID to vote, at a time when one is needed to buy an airline ticket, rent a video or cash a check. A Rasmussen Research poll found 82% of Americans believed voters should show photo ID, including 70% of Obama voters. But liberal groups insist that even laws that allow voters to use a paycheck or utility bill as ID discriminate against minority voters and could lead to "profiling."
Maybe we should let people in baby carriages vote on grounds that they're really 21 but have grown slowly.
But when voters are disfranchised by the counting of improperly cast ballots or outright fraud, their civil rights are violated just as surely as if they were prevented from voting. The integrity of the ballot box is just as important to the credibility of elections as access to it.
Where did John Fund get a strange idea like that? Probably from Karl Rove.
Party machines in Hawaii and south Texas intimidate critics and journalists as they harvest votes from illegal aliens and the dead. A left-wing "community organizing" group called ACORN has seen its employees frequently convicted of voter registration fraud. This year its employees are under active investigation in several states. Perhaps one reason for ACORN's go-for-broke behavior is that Barack Obama used to be a lawyer and top trainer for the group.
There he goes again. Guilt by association. Just because he did a little honest work for these folks...
Even after Florida 2000, the media tend to downplay or ignore stories of election incompetence, manipulation or theft. Allowing such abuses to vanish into an informational black hole in effect legitimizes them.
Sad to say, but I'm afraid that's the point. Much voter fraud occurs in inner cities, and there are those who will charge "racism" against anyone who looks into the problem.
If the race tightens, this may be a very big story on election day.
October 5, 2008. Permalink
FACTS? ANYONE?
Posted at 8:15 A.M. ET
The great Tom Sowell asks, "Do facts matter?"
He's referring, of course, to a political campaign in which facts seem to have become luxuries, and out of reach for some.
The current financial bailout crisis has propelled Barack Obama back into a substantial lead over John McCain-- which is astonishing in view of which man and which party has had the most to do with bringing on this crisis.
It raises the question: Do facts matter? Or is Obama's rhetoric and the media's spin enough to make facts irrelevant?
Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who for years-- including the present year-- denied that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis.
It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats who for years refused requests from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It was liberal Democrats, again led by Dodd and Frank, who for years pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans, which are at the heart of today's financial crisis.
Pay no attention. Pay absolutely no attention. This is propaganda of the far right, secretly written by Joe Lieberman's cousin.
We also hear that it is the free market that is to blame. But the facts show that it was the government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend to subprime borrowers, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of legal action by then Attorney General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who was getting loans and who wasn't.
Then there is the little matter of Franklin Raines, who made $90-million at Fannie Mae, and, despite sudden denials, is an adviser to Barack Obama.
Who in Congress defended Franklin Raines? Liberal Democrats, including Maxine Waters and the Congressional Black Caucus, at least one of whom referred to the "lynching" of Raines, as if it was racist to hold him to the same standard as white CEOs.
And more...
Obama has been the second-largest recipient of Fannie Mae's financial contributions, right after Senator Christopher Dodd.
But ties between Obama and Raines? Not if you read the mainstream media.
Facts don't matter much politically if they are not reported.
The GOP is asleep, its usual situation:
The media alone are not alone in keeping the facts from the public. Republicans, for reasons unknown, don't seem to know what it is to counter-attack. They deserve to lose.
They sure do, if they can't wake up and get the facts to the American people. But it's been reported that McCain fears being seen as "racially insensitive" if he lays the truth on the table - as if large numbers of African Americans would vote for him to reward his "sensitivity."
And finally...
But the country does not deserve to be put in the hands of a glib and cocky know-it-all, who has accomplished absolutely nothing beyond the advancement of his own career with rhetoric, and who has for years allied himself with a succession of people who have openly expressed their hatred of America.
Tom Sowell argues it better than the McCain team...which is one reason why McCain is being so badly beaten.
John McCain, call Tom Sowell. Chat a bit. You'll learn how it's done.
October 5, 2008. Permalink
"What you see is news. What you know is background. What you feel is opinion."
- Lester Markel, late Sunday editor
of The New York Times.
SUBSCRIPTIONS:
Subscriptions to URGENT AGENDA are voluntary. Why subscribe to something you're getting free? To help guarantee that you'll continue to get it at all. Subscriptions sustain us. Payments are through PayPal and are secure, but you do not have to sign up for a PayPal account. Credit cards are fine.
FOR A ONE-YEAR ($48) SUBSCRIPTION, CLICK:
FOR A SIX-MONTH ($26) SUBSCRIPTION, CLICK:
IF YOU DON'T WISH A SET SUBSCRIPTION, BUT PREFER TO DONATE ANY OTHER AMOUNT TO SUSTAIN URGENT AGENDA, CLICK:
SEARCH URGENT AGENDA:
POWER LINE:
It's a privilege for me to post periodic pieces at Power Line. To go to Power Line, click here.
To link to my Power Line pieces, go here.
THE CURRENT QUESTION
This space will regularly raise questions that relate to the news, but transcend daily headlines. The idea is to stimulate talk about basic issues. Our last question asked:
Last week we asked,
How should Sarah Palin be used for the remainder of the campaign?
You can view the answers here.
What should the conservative strategy be in dealing with an Obama presidency?
If you'd like to send us your thoughts, click:
response@urgentagenda.com
(Please stay within two or three paragraphs. We try to print every reply, if space allows. Place your name at the end of the message if you wish your name published. This question will stay up through Sunday.)
CONTACT:
YOU CAN E-MAIL US, AS FOLLOWS:
If you have wonderful things to say about this site, if it makes you a better person, please click:
applause@urgentagenda.com
If you have a general comment on anything you see here, or on anything else that's topical, please click:
comments@urgentagenda.com
If you must say something obnoxious, something that will embarrass you and disgrace your loving family, click:
despicable@urgentagenda.com
If you required subscription service, please click:
service@urgentagenda.com
FAVORITE SITES
Power Line
Faster Please (Michael Ledeen)
OpinionJournal.com
Hudson Institute
Bookworm Room
Bill Bennett
Red State
Pajamas Media
Michelle Malkin
The Weekly Standard
The New York Sun
Real Clear Politics
The Corner
City Journal
Gateway Pundit
American Thinker