Na Na Na Na, Ha Ha Ha Ha

The discussion you’re having with Mr. Tapper about “angles” seems to me problematic. It looks like a journalist can pick any angle he wants, but has to stay consistent with it. The angles themselves, it is assumed, do not lead to bias. Fully worked through, the angles act like prompts, questions that can be asked potentially of any candidate or issue or whatever. But TV news can’t possibly fully work through an angle: hence, Mr. Tapper’s comment above looks like an indictment of Hillary and nothing more. That’s all the “news” we have time for.

Roughly speaking, the way around angles is by providing tons of information, so much that even while the journalist is providing “here’s how I see the situation,” a careful thoughtful audience can construct their own arguments for why something is. But I might be thinking wishfully.

How about one?

And, no, I don’t mean the health care plan that “covers everyone” versus the one that “makes it affordable to everyone.” We’ve gotten that particular bit of subtlety, thanks. So how about some details on how each would like to renegotiate NAFTA or other trade agreements (I’ve heard no specifics from either candidate about how we can level the playing field yet benefit from more open markets), on what job-creation initiatives they are proposing (beyond the de riguer infrastructure investment), their positions on a weak/strong dollar, stances on net neutrality, on the bolstering of our funding for Social Security obligations (beyond, or instead of, raising the salary cap), how would they combat poverty, what about bankruptcy reform, how about a fulsome response to McCain’s judges speech (is the Republican really repudiating the Berger Court’s achievements wholesale?), electoral reform, enhancing civic responsibility, countering anti-democratic trends in Russia, supporting human rights in China, revitalizing poverty relief and hunger problems across the globe. I haven’t even gotten to global warming or homeland security (where are they on FISA? what’s their definition of torture–good to know since the president gets to decide under McCain’s watered down legislation).

Or we could talk about religion, race, hypocrisy, and guilt by association some more. Whatever.

Or we could talk

Tapper reports that in finetuning her campaign, Rodham Clinton has settled on the image of working class hero populist. Seems accurate to me. As for Tapper’s search for an angle, her ridicule of the idea of taking advice from policy experts as a form of elitism on Stephanopoulos on Sunday qualifies as a news hook.

You are right that Terry Moran’s follow-up profile of Obama was lame, but as Tyndall Report has observed–see Obamania Down the Drain–Obama received such a drubbing Obama during April that the slack he was given by Moran was hardly par for the course

I’m a fan and I watched your piece again - this time not interrupted by my daughter asking me to explain why you were saying those things about Hillary Clinton - but I stand by what I said here: This was a nonstory with troubling timing. You project Hillary as if she were on the floor of Wall Street and say as if an accusation that she’s a multimillionaire who says she’s fighting for the working man. I repeat: What Democrat — what candidate from either party, for that matter — does not fit that exact biographical and rhetorical categorization especially while in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan?

broadcast “news” is an oxymoron

that said, some real journalist is investigating how the clintons made all that money. won’t be on abc or cnn = but it will be news.

and…um…seriously, your level of objectiveness is approaching faux news

Our look at how Sen. Clinton has re-packaged herself went way beyond her being a multimillionaire now talking about helping the middle class.

We talked about the gas tax her husband raised that she rails against, the trade deals she worked to pass that now she rails against, her painting Obama as an elitist who doesn’t know the vakue of $20.

We went into how Sen. Clinton has taken millions from Wall Street and was on the cover of Fortune with a headline “Business Loves Hillary” while on the trail she bashes Wall Street.

How she has supported gun control and yet she’s attacking Obama for that very issue.

And how she is now railing against “elite” opinion opposing her gas tax, by saying elite opinion always favors steps that hurt a majority of the American people.

Your readers can watch it here >

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=4792192

All the candidates are millionaires, so that puts them all in a different class from me and the vast majority of Americans. But this latest, reluctant disclosure by Clinton shows just how ultra-wealthy she is when compared with Obama’s readily disclosed income from the same time period.

So who do I think has a better chance of being “in touch” with working class Americans? Not Clinton, although she’s doing a good job of selling that line on the campaign trail right now.

Here’s what I think — “Clinton Playing the Class Card”:
http://www.knightopia.com/journal/?p=899

I’d love to know your thoughts.