BuzzMachine
by Jeff Jarvis

October 31, 2004

TV makes us smarter

: Steven Johnson is working on a book I can't wait to read (and will soon) because it echoes a screed I've been shouting for years: TV and popular culture are the best proof of our taste and intelligence. For the first time, he writes about what he's writing here.

It's just me trying to marshal all the evidence I can to persuade the reader of a single long-term trend: that popular culture on average has been steadily growing more complex and cognitively challenging over the past thirty years. The dumbing-down, instant gratification society assumption has it completely wrong. Popular entertainment is making us smarter and more engaged, not catering to our base instincts.

In sync?

: Anybody else watching Saturday Night Live? (And my condolences if you are.) I just caught most of Eminem's performance and call be crazy but it sure did look to me like he was lip syncing -- moments before Weekend Update made lame jokes about last week's Ashlee simpson sync scandal.

Anybody ready for some forensic TiVo work?

: Rex Hammock reports immediately in the comments:

Jeff, the 14-year-old in my house and I both agree that he was lip synching...or he's a ventriloquist.
Methinks we have a new sync scandal!

Another newspaper circulation scandal

: The New York Times messes up a circulation report -- in a report on Daily Kos (which I disdained here).

The paper quoted NZ Bear's site saying that 500,000 individuals visited Kos daily. NZ Bear wrote to the paper asking for a correction, saying that the number is actually a count of "visits" and that individuals can account for multiple visits each day. The Times refused to make the correction. Go see the Times editor make a fool of himself in emails Bear publishes.

Bear is absolutely right and The Times is absolutely wrong. And I say that with the authority of an Internet executive who has dealt with these issues for 10 years now and as a founding member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation online committee that officially defined exactly these measurements with the Internet Advertising Bureau.

A "visit" is and always has been a bogus number because it counts only a session, not a unique user (and it gets even more complicated with a site is handled by multiple servers or when a user refuses cookies but I won't bore you with that). See the IAB definitions here if you dare. Further, as Bear says, these numbers come from Sitemeter, which is not very sophisticated at dealing with spiders and such. So there is no doubt that the number is inflated if The Times is trying to express audience.

All The Times editor had to do is pick up the phone and call NY Times Digital to find this out.

The choice between two styles, no substance

: John F. Harris in Sunday's Washington Post gives us a smart and even balanced analysis of the leadership styles of Bush and Kerry.

It leaves out one judgment critical to deciding between the two: competence. There are plenty of questions about both men on that scale and if you believe neither can afford to lose the war against America, then that's what it's really all about; that's the real gamble.

Nonetheless, here's a view that's close to the mark:

Back last summer, John F. Kerry made an observation that struck him and his partisans as so self-evidently true it could hardly be disputed. The Democratic nominee said the U.S. intervention in Iraq so far has done more to recruit terrorists than to defeat them.

President Bush reacted with a disdain and disbelief that no one who heard it could doubt was genuine. "I don't think they need an excuse for their hatred and their evil hearts. You do not create terrorists by fighting back; you defeat the terrorists by fighting back."

Or these days, you'd think Bush would say, you defeat the terrorists by fighting first. But I interrupt:
There, in that exchange, was the 2004 election in miniature. There are two leaders who agree the world is a dangerous place, but disagree radically about the nature of history's test and the brand of leadership it demands. A mind that sees complexities and unintended consequences? Or one that understands the primitive nature of a new war, and is prepared to match the enemy's determination with his own?
A fair description, I thought. And it continued:
The result is a campaign in which the people on different sides of the fault line seem to be living in alternate realities, unable to agree on even basic facts. One group perceives Bush as one of the great visionaries of recent U.S. history, another as one of its most extravagant failures.
Again, I'd add competence as a layer: Was the aftermath in Iraq competently executed by Bush? Can Kerry do it any better? Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. In this roulette wheel, you choose between red and blue.
Bush and Kerry, according to some scholars of leadership, both have a rhetorical problem: Their style of speaking often highlights the defects rather than the advantages of their different approaches.

James MacGregor Burns, a presidential biographer..., said many of the successful presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, have been improvisers. But Kerry, unlike Roosevelt, has not been able to articulate that his occasional shifts rest on a "set of broader principles," he said.

The result is what Burns regards as an unfair perception that Kerry is motivated by "expediency and shiftiness."

Renshon believes that Bush suffers from the same problem in reverse. The biographer strongly rejects the view held by many Bush critics that the president is simply not very intelligent, but acknowledges that he is not drawn naturally to the details of policy in the fashion of Clinton or Kerry.

Bush is "much more interested in leadership than governing," Renshon said. But with his guttural style, "he does not articulate his premises well."

But, of course, some presidents can do both. Clinton did. I was not his fan but I could agree that Reagan did. I'd sure take that choice over this one.

: And I'd take that election-eve analysis over what I've read so far in the Sunday Times.

Thomas Friedman, who has not regained his stride since his leave and since he started doubting the Bush Iraq strategy he once enthusiastically endorsed, now writes a cloying column endorsing Bush -- Bush the senior -- and arguing without daring to say so that Kerry is Bush Sr.'s actual heir. Talk about damning with faint praise.

And Frank Rich, who has not recovered from leaving the theater beat, still tries to turn politics into a play:

No president has worked harder than George W. Bush to tell his story as a spectacle, much of it fictional, to rivet his constituents while casting himself in an unfailingly heroic light. Yet this particular movie may have gone on too long and have too many plot holes. It may have been too clever by half. It may have given Mr. Kerry just the opening he needs to win.
If only the candidates could sing and dance.

: See also Todd S. (for snotty) Purdum, below.

Post: +1
Times: -3

The two-for-one vote special

: My parents spent two hours Friday waiting to vote in Florida. Oh, those Florida retirees: They just can't resist an earlybird special.

Moving day

: Rebecca MacKinnon has a new blog.

October 30, 2004

But you already knew that

: Yes, you already knew that John Dvorak was an utter ass who, like any brat, acts up when he's desperate for attention. He's desperate again, and so he writes that blogs and the internet and the people and anybody on earth except him is wrong about everything. So there.

Information revolution notwithstanding, the Internet will prove to be the undoing of society and civilization as we know it. It may not happen today, but it will happen sooner than we think....

I used to think that everyone was entitled to his opinion, but no longer. Most opinions are worthless....

Almost everyone on the Net is anonymous. When you see someone on the street handing out a flyer, it is usually not hard to determine whether he or she is a lunatic. Not so with the haughty blogger who, by hiding behind a good online template, is actually taken seriously. A blogger who stays hidden long enough may even become famous. I know, not every blogger is a whack job—but that's the point. How can you tell?

The same way you can tell that a columnist is a whack job: Follow the links to all the sane people who say so.

Wackies out of the woodwork

: I'm getting nutty email from people promising all kinds of killer last-minute revelations against one of the candidates. I won't dignify their insanity with details. But get ready for notes of desperation in these last few days. Hell, even bin Laden's joining in.

Snot The New York Times

: Todd Purdum on Sunday gives us an incredibly condescending, insulting, snotty analysis of the dirty, rancorous campaign we've had: He says that all the vile bile must be OK because voter registration is high.

In short: Mud amuses the masses.

Well, Mr. High-fallutin' Journalist, could it be instead that voter registration is high because citizens actually care about what is happening in our country and there are crucial issues to care about -- even if big media concentrated instead on the mud? Apparently not.

Somewhere along the way between the big money and the big lies, the Swift Boat slash attacks and the farrago of "Fahrenheit 9/11," a conventional wisdom congealed that this was an awful campaign: too much heat, too little light, so much wrong, not enough right. It was long, costly, raw and nasty - and that means no good.

Oh, really?

Then why is voter turnout projected to be at its highest in at least 12 years, and perhaps in the last 36? Why are millions of first-time registrants expected to flock to the polls on Tuesday, or cast absentee ballots or vote early? Why have both candidates raised large amounts of small donations, often over the Internet? Why are Republicans vowing to out-knock Democrats in the door-to-door ground game that the Democrats pioneered?

Did you ever think, sir, that you had a direct and causal role in the polarization you lament and in the mud that has brought this campaign down? You concentrated on the horse-race instead of American life. You kept calling us polarized when, in fact, we're not. You egged on the combatants by writing about them.

A little campaign remorse, sir? Take it up with your East Side shrink.

Of course, no Times analysis of what's wrong with us, the rabble, would be complete without a swipe at blogs:

If the Internet has been the source of vicious blogs and half-baked rumors, it has also often been a worthy watchdog on the mainstream media, a direct route to the candidates' records and official Web sites and a means of instantly checking their half-truths and evasions through nonpartisan outlets like FactCheck.org at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Center.
And paper is a source of many vicious columnists and half-baked stories. But paper's OK in the end, eh?

There is one wisp of common sense in the story and it comes from this man:

This election "has all sorts of loaded issues from the real world, especially the war," said Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. "I don't think even people who are undecided feel neutral. They feel torn between a president they don't really want to re-elect and a candidate they're not sure is big enough to be commander in chief in wartime."
I'd say we're pretty much united in not liking either candidate and not liking the way the campaign has been executed and in not liking the way it has been covered... but we, the people, still know that this is an important time in our history and we have a responsibility to act.

Give us credit for that, Todd S. Purdum, give us credit for caring.

October 29, 2004

Vroom

: GM has a blog and, apparently, a home for blogs. This is the kind of enthusiast area that will work well in blogs.

Bin Laden remixes Fahrenheit 9/11

: The eerie thing about the bin Laden tape is how he remixes Michael Moore -- remixes as if in a Cuisinart. I swear the guy saw Fahrenheit 9/11 and picked up the themes for his latest wacky show -- even the fixation with that goat book. It's so nutty that if he weren't such an evil murdering slime, it would almost be funny. Or it would sound like another 527 ad.

What's also strange is that it's hard to see exactly how he wants to influence the election. Though it may seem he's trying to defeat the President, taunting Bush and America may only serve Bush. And that may be his goal: These cult nuts feed on having enemies and Bush is his ideal enemy.

I'll add this: Kerry had better not use this as an opportunity to say, "See, Bush didn't get bin Laden." Here's what the two candidates said today:

BUSH: Earlier today I was informed of the tape that is now being analyzed by America's intelligence community. Let me make this very clear. Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I'm sure Senator Kerry agrees with this. I also want to say to the American people that we are at war with these terrorists, and I am confident that we will prevail.

KERRY: In response to this tape of Osama bin Laden, let me just make it clear, crystal clear, as Americans we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. They are barbarians, and I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes, period.

I was about to post this when I saw another Kerry comment:
In an interview with WISM in Milwaukee, Mr. Kerry also took the opportunity to suggest that Mr. bin Laden remained on the loose because of the Bush administration had bungled the campaign against terrorism.

"He didn't choose to use American forces to hunt down Osama bin Laden," Mr. Kerry said, referring to efforts to catch Mr. bin Laden in the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. "He outsourced the job" to Afghan fighters.

And here's a later report from the Washington Post:
Richard Holbrooke, a foreign policy adviser for Kerry, said on CNN that the tape was a reminder that Kerry would be more aggressive in pursuing bin Laden. "How can this grotesque mass murderer be out there on worldwide television more than three years after 9/11?" he demanded. "Why haven't we captured him, if the Bush administration was going to be so effective in the war on terror?"

Kerry himself, in a television interview, complained that Bush "outsourced" the hunt for bin Laden and said, "We are paying the price for it today" -- before he made his more circumspect statement. Bush joined the fray later in the evening, calling Kerry's remarks "shameful" at a rally in Ohio....

Bad timing, Johnny, bad timing. We must be united against bin Laden as we were united against Hitler. Listen to your own statement, man. Keep on this track and it will backfire on you.


: Bin Laden snippets:

Contrary to what [President George W.] Bush says and claims -- that we hate freedom -- let him tell us then, "Why did we not attack Sweden?"
Sweden? Sweden? Where the hell did that come from? Is the guy sitting in New Jersey watching Ikea commercials? What does Sweden have to do with anything? Does he have the same brain fever Arafat has?
I wonder about you. Although we are ushering the fourth year after 9/11, Bush is still exercising confusion and misleading you and not telling you the true reason.
Echoes of F9/11.
And as I was looking at those towers that were destroyed in Lebanon, it occurred to me that we have to punish the transgressor with the same -- and that we had to destroy the towers in America so that they taste what we tasted, and they stop killing our women and children.
This is the one part of the tape that sounds like himself: He would think in such sick, sophomoric symbolism.
We found no difficulties in dealing with the Bush administration, because of the similarities of that administration and the regimes in our countries, half of which are run by the military and half of which are run by monarchs. And our experience is vast with them.

And those two kinds are full of arrogance and taking money illegally.

The resemblance started when [former President George H.W.] Bush, the father, visited the area, when some of our own were impressed by America and were hoping that the visits would affect and influence our countries.

Then, what happened was that he was impressed by the monarchies and the military regimes, and he was jealous of them staying in power for tens of years, embezzling the public money without any accountability. And he moved the tyranny and suppression of freedom to his own country, and they called it the Patriot Act, under the disguise of fighting terrorism. And Bush, the father, found it good to install his children as governors and leaders.

More shades of F9/11: the obsession with the Saudi connection, the allusions to the American monarchy. It continues:
And we never knew that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his people in the two towers to face those events by themselves when they were in the most urgent need of their leader. He was more interested in listening to the child's story about the goat rather than worry about what was happening to the towers. So, we had three times the time necessary to accomplish the events.
There's the ultimate 9/11 moment, of course: the goat book. Of course, it's ridiculous to say that bin Laden and Atta could have been stopped in a matter of minutes. But he wants to feed F9/11's contention that those minutes mattered.

: UPDATE: Richard Starr reminds me that Bin Laden vacationed with his rich family in Sweden. Thanks. It still looks as if this comes from a fevered brain, though.


: BILL MAHER UPDATE: Maher tonight says the tape won't affect the election. "Americans know: Osama bin Laden does not pick our President. The Supreme Court does."

: Maher says some of the stuff in the bin Laden tape "I swear to God could have come out of the Democratic National Committee or a Kerry speech." Maher starts to read; Gen Wes Clark interrupts -- sensibly -- and doesn't want to seem by silence to be agreeing with that. Maher reads some of bin Laden's statements and the audience -- amazingly -- applauds! Maher: "Sometimes you can agree with an evil person. I mean, Hitler was a vegetarian." What the F has become of us? A studio audience is applauding a mass murderer?

It gets worse. Gen. Wes says: "If George Bush had done his job before 9/11 we never would have had the strikes of 9/11." Man, I'm glad I never supported him. It ain't that simple, General.

Maher: "I don't know why the Republicans get a mulligan on 9/11. The Democrats wouldn't have." Oh, crap.

: By the way, the last Maher show before the election is a dud of duds. Kevin Costner, political pundit?

: UPDATE: Joe Gandelman has the summary of who says what on the bin Laden tape.

Stuck at O'Hare. Back later.....

It's later now... Back on my beloved couch.... I was greedy and stupid at the airport: Had a reservation on the 4p flight; meetings started and ended early; got to the airport at noon; used them newfangled machines to switch to the 1:30p flight but it only puts you on standby. Not good enough for Jarvis, I say to the woman: I want a seat. She switches my ticket. I go through security (extra security because I'd just switched flights and that flags you for screening but I don't mind... really, I don't). Get to the gate and find out that the 1:30 is canceled. And I gave up my seat on the 4p. Arrrgggghhhh. Amazingly, though, my cell phone rang and it was a recorded voice from United saying that I'd already been rescheduled onto the 4p flight again. No fuss. So I sat and waited for four hours, my penance for getting greedy. Sat next to an 8-month-old (and her mom) on the way back and the kid was good as gold. It's Friday. I'm home. Sigh.

Nevermind

: Russell Beattie, who would have been a great hire, decided not to interview at Google:

So, I had an interview scheduled with Google today and I just cancelled it. I had a phone interview a week or so ago and today was when I was supposed to go down for the famous four hour Google-grilling and I just decided that I really didn't want to subject myself to it. I highly doubt I'd get a job there anyways if they were judging me on my technical background (no PhD) and I suck at those puzzles they give you. Like I'd know what "the first ten digits prime in consecutive digits of e" even is. But honestly, I just decided that I wasn't that enthusiastic about working there enough to even bother playing along just to see.

You can read it in my criticism of the Google SMS stuff that I'm not particuarly bullish on Google services and innovation going forward. I like Google Search and I like Blogger, but everything else they're doing is disjointed. They're slowly creating a mess of services with no real cohesive plan and it's just not compelling to me. Orkut, GMail, Froogle, Desktop Search, etc. are all in beta and have no common thread or business plan. How many logins do I need? How is any of this stuff going to make money? Orkut even uses Microsoft tech on the back end, is that a joke? I compare Google to Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo and it seems like amateur hour over there. No excuses that they're younger, I don't think their problems have anything to do with that.

And besides, the options would suck.

Prediction thread: Place your bets

: OK, who do you think will win -- by how much, in which states....?

Will it be decisive? Will it go to the Supreme Court again? Will it go to Congress?

I don't care who you care about. I only want to see predictions, whether you like them or not. For history....

Arabs for Bush

: The Guardian says Bush has support in odd ports:

President Bush's election campaign received support from an unusual quarter last week when Hasan Rowhani, head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, said that four more years of George W would be good for Iran. Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was asked about the Bush-Kerry contest at a meeting with journalists a couple of weeks ago (before he was taken ill) and replied: "It makes no difference."

In London, the consensus among Arab ambassadors - though they don't say so publicly - is that keeping Bush in the White House would be preferable to starting afresh with Kerry....

Disliking Bush is one thing, but working up enthusiasm for Kerry is another - and there's little sign of that in the Middle East.

Exploding radio

: Viacom plans to sell some of its radio stations and Billboard says it's because of the loss of Stern. Watch broadcast shrink and shrink. [via IWantMedia]

Squeaky Fromm blog

: I'd like to see some independent verification of this but Steve Outing links to a 23-year-old Charleston Live Journal blogger who says she said nasty and apparently threatening things about the President and got a visit from the Secret Service.

At 9:45 last night, the Secret Service showed up on my mother's front door to talk to me about what I said about the President, as what I said could apparently be misconstrued as a threat to his life. After about ten minutes of talking to me and my family, they quickly came to the conclusion that I was not a threat to national security (mostly because we are the least threatening people in the entire world) and told me that they would not recommend that any further action be taken with my case.

The future of news

: I had a great time at Kathleen Matthews' class at Harvard's Kennedy School yesterday. Before we started, she showed me a survey of her students showing how few go to networks for news. More big-media folks teaching find the same thing:

"None of my kids read a newspaper, none of my students, but they always knew what was going on in the campaign," Abramson said. "So I was just curious. Why were they so up on everything? They were saying, 'The Daily Show, The Daily Show.'"

Hunt said he polled his students -- "news junkies" -- and got a similar result. Only three students watched network television news on a regular basis, but he said 24 of his 28 students watched The Daily Show.

Blogtoos

: What are Wonkette's tattoos?

Explosives

: The biggest lesson of our new news world is that news doesn't end when it's printed or aired. That's when it begins. That's when we hear other evidence and questions and perspective. News takes time.

So deciding to come out with the "missing" explosives story so close to the election borders on the obviously irresponsible, for there is no way that we are going to get perspective, let alone truth, on this in such a short time. So half-truths end up affected the election.

That's why it was particularly irresponsible for 60 Minutes to plan to release this story two days before the election. But even a week before does not give enough time to figure out what happened and what matters.

Today, we have video showing explosives in the bunkers. We have pictures of trucks at the bunkers. And we have the Washington Post essentially saying that the "missing" explosives are a nonstory because we've known that lots of explosions have been missing.

The 377 tons of Iraqi explosives whose reported disappearance has dominated the past few days of presidential campaigning represent only a tiny fraction of the vast quantities of other munitions unaccounted for since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government 18 months ago....

Against that background, this week's assertions by Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign about the few hundred tons said to have vanished from Iraq's Qaqaa facility have struck some defense experts as exaggerated.

"There is something truly absurd about focusing on 377 tons of rather ordinary explosives, regardless of what actually happened at al Qaqaa," Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an assessment yesterday. "The munitions at al Qaqaa were at most around 0.06 percent of the total."

Retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, who served briefly as President Bush's adviser on counterterrorism and has criticized some aspects of the administration's performance, said yesterday he considered the missing-explosives issue "bogus."

The real issue is whether the "insurgency" was adequately anticipated, whether stray weapons would be used against us, and whether we had enough troops. But that's not a story of one weapons dump. That's a bigger story that has already been covered.

Again, the real story here is the story of this story.

October 28, 2004

When news is history

: Arrived in Boston. Couldn't find a local paper anywhere: sold out; collectors' editions. Just passed by the newsstand at Harvard Square and saw a guy walking proudly down the street with a handful of Globes as if he'd just snagged the last Tickle Me Elmo at Toys R Us on Christmas Eve.

The good PDF

: The Personal Democracy Forum has launched its ambitious new site here under the leadership of Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry. Go take a read.

Forbidden visuals

: Did we really need to see Arafat in his PJs?

Snot The New York Times

: Two stories in The New York Times really got under by blogger's craw this morning as I flew up to World Series Town:

In the Circuits section, they chronicled the rise of cat-blogging (without getting the essential joke that these folks are making fun of those who make fun of bloggers as folks who just put up pictures of their cats). The lead:

In the vitriolic world of political Web logs, two polar extremes are Eschaton (atrios.blogspot.com), a liberal, often anti-Bush site with a passionate following, and Instapundit (www.instapundit.com), where an equally fervent readership goes for hearty praise of the Administration.

It would seem unlikely that the two blogs' authors could see eye-to-eye about anything. Yet Eschaton's Duncan Black (known as Atrios) and Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds have both taken part in a growing practice: turning over a blog on Friday to cat photographs.

Vitriolic? Vitriolic? I'll show you vitriolic!

That makes us look like a bunch of frothing nutjobs. It is essentially condescending and insulting.

Then this Jim Rutenberg story in the news section wrote about bloggers dogging big media on issues of accuracy and fairness. Well, good, about time. But this, too, paints us as more of an angry mob than a sensible bunch of people who happen to be citizens and voters and newspaper readers. By making us look so angry, it marginalizes us as cultish.

Journalists covering the campaign believe the intent is often to bully them into caving to a particular point of view. They insist the efforts have not swayed them in any significant way, though others worry the criticism could eventually have a chilling effect...

The harshest criticism comes from sites with openly political leanings....

But the most personal critiques originate among the political blogs - especially from the left - run by individuals who use news media reports for their often-heated discussions.

Many sites urge visitors to personally call reporters and news organizations and send e-mail messages, which can number in the hundreds daily....

The New York Times is also a favorite target of critics of all political persuasions. The paper came in for particularly harsh criticism on conservative sites this week for its article about the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives from an Iraqi military complex....

On a Web site named after Adam Nagourney, The Times's chief political correspondent, contributors mix crude personal insults with accusations that Mr. Nagourney and other Washington-based reporters are too easy on Mr. Bush.

The NBC anchor Tom Brokaw recently likened the tone of the Internet coverage of the CBS National Guard report, presented by the anchor Dan Rather, to a "political jihad." In an interview last week Mr. Brokaw said CBS News had clearly made mistakes. But, he said, "I think there were people just lying in the Internet bushes, waiting to strike, and I think that particular episode gave them a big opportunity."

Add up those bits and we look like a hate squad going on attack.

Well, Mr. Rutenberg, think there might be another angle to the story, eh? Perhaps it's that big media is messing up and has had no check for too long. Perhaps it's that once-passive readers now have their own press and have something to say and it's time for you to listen. Perhaps if you try hard to open your eyes and read your own story again, you might smell a bias here -- against the public you supposedly serve.

The whole world is watching

: Seth Godin has an intriguing post (of course) on the notion that behavior changes when you know someone is watching.

Technology allows the world to watch. Seth wonders whether rudely stupid, stupidly rude clerks in a store would be such bozos if there were cameras on them -- that is, if they knew they were being watched.

What are weblogs and the internet doing to irritate the powerful in media (see the next post, above) and politics and business but enable the people to watch?

We can take pictures of you if you're behaving like a bozo. We can take video of you. We can write about it. We can put it on the internet for all the world to see.

Please, no

: NBC and ABC are each making miniseries based on the 9/11 Commission report.

Please, no.

There are so many reasons not to:

It's too soon.

It's exploitive.

It's another effort to enshrine the 9/11 Commission report as gospel. It isn't.

There hasn't been a decent miniseries in decades and the thought of turning this national tragedy into network kitsch is unbearable. From one story:

Yost, who also created and executive produced the NBC police drama "Boomtown" and worked on the elaborate HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" and "Band of Brothers," acknowledged that he had taken on a highly ambitious project that would take at least a year to research and develop. Most of the specifics about the project, including the number of hours, narrative approach and how it would be scheduled, have yet to be hammered out.

"I know I'll be crying every day that I work on this," Yost said. "It's an incredibly emotional story and an incredibly compelling story. It's an incredible honor and a responsibility, and I don't take it lightly, but it is one that I am eager to take on."

From another:
NBC Entertainment prexy Kevin Reilly said he wanted to create a "cultural event" for TV in the vein of "Roots" and "The Day After."
You offensive twit, 9/11 already is a "cultural event." We don't need a network to make it that.

The future of blogs

: Go read the rest of Glenn Reynolds good two-part column on the future of blogs.

The Daily Stern: FCC assignment desk

: I put in a Freedom of Information request to the FCC asking to get the whopping 159 complaints that led them to decree that Fox had corrupted America by suggesting sex on its Married by America. I have heard no reply.

I'm serious, FCC. I'm a reporter, too. I want to see those "complaints." I expect I'll find more work by Xerox than by the citizenry.

On Stern this morning, he raised another good story: Michael Powell said during Stern's phone call with him that the FCC had investigated and found Viacom to be in some conspiracy with Janet Jackson to expose her breast. But Janet Jackson said she did this on her own. So why is Viacom being fined and not Jackson? If there is no proof of this conspiracy, then the FCC's fine is clearly a punitive political action, not the result of regulatory investigation.

So a good reporter should file an FOI request for the investigation files on the Janet Jackson case.

And while you're at it, file an FOI request for the complaints against Stern and Jackson. Here I know you will find that they come from only a few sources with a lot of Xeroxing. It's not the people standing up as one -- hell, it's a tiny proportion of people in any case -- but instead an organized pressure group.

Is it government's job to respond to every pressure group with a Xerox machine? If so, the libertarians should be about ready to dismantle government by now. And Area 51 should be opened. And we'd be out of the UN....

These are good stories. Any real reporters out there?

Podcasting

: Feedburner has started a service to create Podcast feeds. Which is nice... except I don't understand it. Step-by-step, please.

Glass blogs

: I hate it when I think of the right answer after the TV lights are off. Last night on Capitol Report, John Hinderaker went on about how The New York Times is a front for the Kerry campaign and then said the difference between him as a blogger and big media is that he gets his facts right. He repeated it again. And what I should have said is: John, don't make the same mistake The Times -- and 60 Minutes and the rest of big media -- make, acting as if you get everything right, putting yourself up on a pedestal. For it's a mighty steep fall off it.

Ready for their close-ups

: MSNBC is going blog-crazy on election night:

MSNBC Political Analyst Joe Trippi will be joined by Ana Marie Cox of "Wonkette" and John Hinderaker of "Powerline" for up-to-the-minute analysis of what's happening on the web from the MSNBC Bloggers' Cafe at "Democracy Plaza." Online, the MSNBC blogging team, led by Trippi, will produce four live blogs for MSNBC.com, covering every key aspect of Election Day. MSNBC's Bloggers' Cafe at www.TV.MSNBC.com will host Chris Matthews' Hardblogger which will cover all things Presidential while Keith Olbermann's blog, Bloggermann, focuses on Senate, House and gubernatorial races, and key state propositions. Joe Scarborough's blog, Congressman Joe, will put the media in the spotlight. Dan Abrams' blog, Sidebar, will cover voting issues and the legal angles surrounding the election. Each blog will showcase not only Trippi's blogging team and MSNBC talent but will introduce new contributors to MSNBC.com-- Citizen Journalists. The Citizen Journalists will be viewers and netizens helping us document this historical day through their own personal blogging. The Citizen Journalists will report from their areas on what they personally see happening at the polls and on the streets on Election Day.
[via LiveRemote]

Whereabouts

: I'll be in the city without Rs (but with a pennant) today to talk with a class run by Kathleen Mathews (of D.C. TV fame); then onto Chicago to talk citizens' media with a certain big ad agency. Blogging where wi-fi allows.

October 27, 2004

The Arafat surprise

: Not to work too hard to find the local angle, but if Arafat dies before Tuesday, what does it mean to the election? I'd say it pumps another point to Bush. Anything that puts the focus on the Middle East and instability benefits him.

Sell blogs short!

: Mary Meeker sees money in blogs. Get the pins out now. Her report here.

Top 10 blog moments?

: Someone has asked for examples of the top moments of blog influence in politics and the presidential campaign. Obvious starting nominees:
: Howard Dean and MeetUp
: Trent Lott
: Rathergate.

What else? Please leave lots of suggestions in the comments....

The story of the story is the real story

: Just got booked on CNBC's Capitol Report (again) tonight, this time with (whew) John Hinderaker.

The topic: the reverse October surprise, the story of the missing explosives in Iraq. My take: The timing and placement and motive behind this story is every bit as significant as the explosives, missing or not. Of course, this smells like a campaign ploy. Media must recognize that it is used all the time; it is spin alley. And so the story of the story of explosives is the real story.

And, of course, it could have an impact on the election. Dick Morris said in the NY Post today:

Ultimately, this is not a contest of two men or two parties or two ideologies for supremacy. It is a battle of two issues — the War on Terror vs. domestic policies. And the outcome depends on whether America feels we are at war or at peace. Do we need a wartime leader or a peacetime president?
I wouldn't go quite that far, but he's not far off. I'm sure a lot of voters are leaning toward Bush because of security but if they see a critical mass of questions on the competence of the securing of Iraq, they may lean against.

When the New York Times and 60 Minutes decide to do this story -- just as when the LA Times decided to run its last-minute koocheekoo story on Schwarzenegger before his election -- they must realize the active and direct role they are playing in the campaign. If it's news (which is debatable in both cases, it appears) do you still run it? OK, yes. But media also has to recognize that their acts are news as well -- and so, there's all the more need for transparency. The Times should let us know where this story came from and talk to both sides about the impact. Not to do so is to do half a job of reporting.

What do you think? Join in with comments....

: Says John Podhoretz today:

John Kerry has seized on a New York Times/"60 Minutes" report about 380 missing tons of high explosives in Iraq and the administration's supposed dereliction in failing to secure them.

It's hard to fault the Times for pursuing the story aggressively. In an official document sent to a U.N. agency two weeks ago, the Iraqi interim government said the explosives had disappeared during the looting that followed Saddam Hussein's fall in April 2003.

That official Iraqi communication makes the story news, no matter the source or the motive behind the document being leaked.

The problem is that the story drew unsupported conclusions about how the explosives had disappeared while the United States military should have been guarding them.

And that's why it's a late hit — designed to do maximum damage to the president's re-election effort and designed as well to give John Kerry a weapon to use against George Bush in the closing days of the campaign.

For that reason, the Times spun its own story, even though the evidence that its conclusions were unsupported is right there in the story itself.

Hyper about hyperlocal

: Mark Glaser writes about a topic dear to my heart: hyperlocal citizens' media.

Podcasting on the air

: As I told you last week, WNYC's Brian Lehrer show was planning to do a show on podcasting. And they're doing it this morning with Adam Curry at 10:40 (you can listen to it later on their stream).

Questioning power

: Howard Stern said this morning that the only reason his call to Michael Powell yesterday (transcript below) is making such big news today is that journalists no longer ask tough questions.

He's all too right.

TV especially thinks toughness (and balance) come from getting people from two sides on the air to yell at each other.

Last night, I was on CNBC's Capitol Report again with right-wingnut Bob Kohn -- Ana Marie Cox and I were expecting smart and reasonable blogger John Hinderocker instead. This time, instead of getting into a fussfest with Kohn, I decided to just make fun of him. He started going at it with the host, Gloria Borger. I shouted: What, did I walk into Crossfire here? I said that he, like John Kerry, was humorless. At the end, I begged him to say just one bad thing about George Bush, just for the balance and entertainment. I took my cue from Jon Stewart: Make a joke of the fools.

When Powell went on Ronn Owens' show on KGO, a condition was that he would not take phone calls. Get that: A government bureacrat who works for us, the people, refuses to talk to the people. What isolation! What arrogance! What crap!

Ronn, to his credit, took Stern's call anyway. And Stern got in the questions he could, before he was cut short. There was no yelling, no shouting, no sputtering.

A citizen with a grievance finally got to question someone in power.

These days, that's news.

The problem with a future of citizens' media, distributed media is that it will get harder and harder for us, the people, to question power. We the people don't have the access (which makes me regret that I didn't attend Always On just so I could ask Powell questions of my own about his First Amendment hypocrisy or that two years ago at Foursquare, when I did ask Powell a question about copyright and Larry Lessig I should have asked about Stern). The journalists are supposed to do it for us and they have the access but they get scared of pissing off power. They wimp.

The problem media today isn't that it's biased. Or that it's unbiased. The problem is that media stopped thinking like a human being and asking the questions human beings would ask.

The other day, I saw a WNBC morning show "report" on yoga for little kiddies and their too-rich, too-indulgent, too-stupid parents who'll pay $400 to have their infants stretch to relieve their terrible tensions (like what, not getting candy when they want it from nanny?). I wanted to shout at the TV. But more than that, I wanted the "reporter" to say to these people: Are you nuts? Do you really think this is worth 4 cents? Do you think this makes a bit of difference to a kid? Don't you feel like fools? But, no, of course the "reporter" just gives us the yoga nuts' PR spin and leaves it at that. No confrontation. We do that on Crossfire. That's what TV says.

Jay Rosen complains, properly, about TV reporters going to spin alley at political events. The problem is, TV is spin alley.

This isn't a matter of left or right, of bias or objectivity. It's a matter of common sense: When reporters lose their common sense, they lose their humanity and their credibility and their usefulness.

They need to remind themselves that they are asking questions on behalf of the rest of us who don't have the chance to. Howard got to ask a few questions of power yesterday. He should not have had to. Reporters should have beaten him to it.

kerrysign.jpg

Swing state

: A week or two ago, I reported that I saw few campaign signs in my neck of the woods and fewer Kerry signs. That is changing. Maybe New Jersey is a swing state afterall. Mind you, to see anything Democratic in my county is cause for calling the cops in: clearly outsiders, you know. But Kerry signs are popping up next door to Bush signs and this morning, I found this big sign put up by a neighbor.

October 26, 2004

The Daily Stern: Howard Stern v. Michael Powell

: Michael Powell appeared on my Ronn Owens' KGO Radio show in San Francisco and Howard Stern called in to give him a proper piece of his mind. Many good readers sent me a link to the stream but because they said it would go down Wednesday, I transcribed the entire Stern/Powell segment. Stories here, here, and here.

Stern went after Powell for getting his job because of his father. Powell whined "unfair." Stern said, no, it's fair and relevant because broadcasters who've devoted their lives to this industry now answer to this First Amendment hypocrite.

Stern pushed Powell on fining him and Viacom over Jackson but not fining Oprah Winfrey because she's beloved. Powell denied saying that (his aid did say it) and said the Winfrey case is still open.

Stern called the fines and the FCC's holding station renewals hostage "racketeering."

At the end, Powell admitted as the conversation continued without Stern that there's worse on other stations.

My old friend Ronn (I used to appear on his air once a month when I worked in San Francisco) blew it by cutting Stern off at the end to get to commercials. This was news and they should have gone at it for the rest of the show. The transcript:

Stern: Ronn, hi.

Owens: Is this who I think it is?

Stern: Yeah, and I want to say hi to the commissioner and a friend of mine told me the commissioner said he was going to be on the show....

The commissioner has fined me millions of dollars for things I have said and consistently avoids me and avoids me and I wonder how long he will stay on the phone with me.

Owens: Go ahead and ask your questions.

Stern: Hi, Michael, how are you?

Powell: Hi, Howard, how are you?

Stern: Does it make you nervous to talk to me?

Powell: It does not....

Stern: All right, so well, I've got about ten zillion questions for you because you honestly are an enigma to me.

The first question being: How did you get your job? It is apparent to most of us in broadcasting that your father got you your job. And you kind of sit there:

You're the judge, you're the arbiter, you're the one who tells us what we can and can't say on the air and yet I really don't think you're qualified to be the head of the commission. Do you deny that your father got you this job?

Powell: Well, I would deny it exceedingly. You can look at my resume if you want, Howard. I'm not ashamed of it and I think it justifies my existence. I was chief of staff of the antitrust division, I'm an attorney, I was a clerk on the court of the United States I was a private attorney I have the same credentials that virtually anyone who sits in my position does and I think it's a little unfair that just because I happen to have a famous father and other public officials don't that you make the assumption that is the basis on which I sit in my position.

Owens: Caller already asked this question so move on....

Stern: So out of all the people that sit on the commission, you were moved to the head of the class. I don't buy your explanation but OK.

You know, the thing that amazes me about you is, you continually fine me but you're afraid to go to court with me and I'll explain myself if you give me a second:

Fine after fine came and we tried to go to court with you to find out about obscenity and what your line was and whether our show was indecent, which I don't think it is. And you do something really sneaky behind the scenes. You continue to block Viacom from buying new stations until we pay those fines.

You are afraid to go court. You are afraid to get a ruling time and time again.

When will you allow this to go to court and stop practicing your form of racketeering that you do by making stations pay up or you hold up their license renewal?

Powell: First of all, that's flatly false.

Stern: It's not false. It's true.

Powell: I'm afraid it is. There's no reason why Viacom or any other company who feels that they have been wrongly fined can't sue us in court. We have no basis whatsoever to prevent them from going to court.

Stern: You're lying. I've lived through your fines, Michael. And Mel Karmazin came to me one day and said, Howard, we're gonna have to pay up some sort of cockamame (sp?) bunch of fines that we don't we're wrong because we can't get our paperwork done. We are finding it increasingly difficult to boy radio stations. I know you're not telling the truth. And I question why you are selected to be one who is the FCC commissioner....

I'm going to Sirius satellite radio....

Owens: That's the question I was going to ask. Now he's going to go to satellite. One of the things that I read is that there are people who said cable TV, satellite radio, that ought to fall under the aegis of the FCC that content there...

Stern: Nobody's saying that... That's not going to happen. Michael knows that. This is the guise of the public airwaves. Michael's a Republican He knows that the marketplace....

Owens: By the way, weren't you appointed by Clinton?... No, no, no, no, he was appointed head of the FCC by George W. Bush.

Powell: Howard, the only thing I would ask is that if we're going to be fair is that the commitment to the indecency provisions is not Republican or Democrat. I have Democratic colleagues on the commission that argue for license revocation... You know the Congress just debated indecency fines in the United States Congress. It passed the Senate 99 to 1. There aren't 99 Republicans and one Democrat. It was bipartisan.

I mean, I think you have a right to be concerned about the ways that the indecency fines are done but rather than attack me personally, you can challenge the regime. But the entire commission has voted on those fines. The commission has a statute that it's required to enforce and I think that it's a cheap shot to say that just because my father's famous I don't belong in my position even though I've served longer than any commissioner in decades on the commission.

If you don't think the commission should have any rights to draw limits, I think that's a respectable position but it doesn't happen to be the law.

Stern: Well, Michael, it's not a cheap shot to say that your father got you your position and I'll tell you why:

Guys like me who came from nowhere out of nothing and worked their way up and committed themselves to broadcasting and making a career of broadcasting have to answer to you.

And it is a question as to how you got to where you got to. And let's face it: You got to where you got to, you got to the head of the class the way George W. Bush got out of the draft.

And it's completely fair to question because you're the guy sitting there telling me I'm guilty of saying something and Oprah Winfrey isn't. And I wish you'd address that.

Owens: We talked about Oprah, I brought it up...

Powell: One point I would make, Howard, if I could.

Stern: Make the statement that you made originally, which was that Oprah is, I guess, a beloved figure and Howard Stern is not.

Powell: No, I don't know when I made that statement. I think Ronn might have made that statement. I don't think I ever made that statement. Indeed my argument was, we're going to enforce things fairly regardless of the noteriety of the personality involved. I mean the only thing I would say, and I respect your opinion, is that you personalize it about answering to me. You're answering to the commission if anybody. All of these fines are voted by five members, Republicans and Democrats alike, and they have been unanimous. The only dissents in these cases have been from the Democrats who argued for even stricter fines and enforcement. So I don't mind having an honest debate about the role of the commission in indecency. I think as a public institution we're responsible to do that. But I don't think I have been personally the one that you're answering to.

Stern: Of course you are. Listen, Michael, if I were a friend of George W. Bush you know he'll give you the word and you'll back off from me....

Powell: Well...

Owens: Well, give him the chance to say know if that's the case.

Powell: I think that's just ridiculous.

Stern: Why don't you fine Oprah Winfrey, then?

Powell: That case is still at the commission. I mean, if we don't, then you can ask that question. But until we resolve it, I don't think it's fair to ask that question. And to be perfectly honest, you know, I've been chairman for four years and I think we've had fines against your station twice and I don't think we have made any particular crusade of the Howard Stern show or you.

Stern: Yeah, OK, Michael, that's why I've received the largest fines in history and I've said the exact, identical thing that Oprah Winfrey said and you said she's beloved and I'm not....

Owens: Howard, I got some bills to pay. I'm thrilled you called.

Stern: Ronn, wait a second, let me say one last thing:

I invite Michael onto my show, which he won't come on. Number two, I've been respectful, I hope there's no sort of retribution as a result of my phone call, which I believe Michael's capable of. I've been the victim of it. You can call me crazy, you can call me nuts, Michael knows what I'm talking about. I've been slammed. I've been not allowed to go to court over this thing and prove my innocence and I don't think a court would have found me indecent at all. I'm not here to set upt he commissioner. I called because a friend of mine told me two hours ago that Michael Powell was going to be there and there's about ten zillion questions and maybe you'll ask this after I get off the phone:

Janet Jackson -- do you really think that...

Owens: We talked about it. Next question.

Stern: What do you mean next question?

Owens: Because I asked him about Janet Jackson, pointing out the absurdity that if you're going to get upset about anything it's the ripping off of the bra, what's the big deal about the nipple.

Stern: Not only that why would you blame Viacom for Janet Jackson going up there ripping off her shirt at a live event and then not fine people for using the F word and the S word during live events. What's the difference? You really think that Les Moonves sat in a room and conspired with Janet Jackson....?

Powell: Can I answer part of that? ...

Owens: Answer that and then, Howard, honestly, I got to go.

Stern: Why do you have to go, Ronn?

Owens: Because they're paying for this thing and I've already cut out one commercial cluster.... Let him answer the question then.

Powell: Just two quick things. I don't think we've been inconsistent. He says we do Janet Jackson but we let people say the F word. One of the most controversial decisions this year was we let Bono say the F word ... I think we have been consisten across that line. Second what the order found on Viacom: Viacom is a big media conglomerate and it includes MTV and MTV produced the programming and it was our conclusion after investigating that it was not just a sort of passive...

Stern: Michael I know I'm going to get cut off. I absolutely don't take this personally. I don't think you personally hate me. I think that what you are doing is dangerous to free speech. I don't think just against me. I think things have gotten way out of control. I am not personally vindictive. I'm happy to be going to satellite radio. I welcome the move. I think it's a sad day, though, when the markeplace no longer determines what is indecent. I think that there's tremendous hypocrisy that you allow late at night with teenagers calling into Love Line talking about blatant sexual acts. There's a complete double standard here when it comes to me and morning radio when it's probably the only time of day that parents listen with their children, 6 to 10 in the morning. I think there's a lot of inconsistencies and I'm going to ask you while you're still in office and, who knows, Bush'll probably win and you'll be there a while....

Owens: Awright, on that note, Howard, let me go...

Stern: Ronn, take a good look at this with the commissioner. Ask him about the billion dollars of computer equipment and he knows what they're talking about. And good luck to Michael Powell and good luck to all of you.

[Stern is off]

Powell: Well, you know, I think it's interesting. Howard has an argument and his argument is that there should be no limits on what he should be able to do on the radio. And if there are going to be limits, someone's going to have to define them and someone's going to have to enforce them.

Owens: He's kind of the poster child, though. The truth is that you go to some major markets and there's going to be some morning zoo that's going to be worse.

Powell: Oh, I think, absolutely...

Earlier posts (not a complete list) here.

Boss blogs

: Seth Godin gives good advice to CEOs wanting to jump on the blogging trend train:

Here's the problem. Blogs work when they are based on:
Candor
Urgency
Timeliness
Pithiness and
Controversy
(maybe Utility if you want six).

Does this sound like a CEO to you?

Short and sweet, folks: If you can't be at least four of the five things listed above, please don't bother.

The same advice holds for big media blogs, advertiser blogs, brand blogs, PR blogs, politician blogs....

Blogs are the printing press of the people. The elite already have their press.

'The lesser of two risks'

: Andrew Sullivan writes the endorsement he thought he'd never write: for John Kerry.

The phrase "lesser of two evils" often comes up at this time every four years, but this November, I think, it's too cynical a formula. Neither George W. Bush nor John Kerry can be credibly described as "evils." They have their faults, some of which are glaring. They are both second-tier politicians, thrust into the spotlight at a time when we desperately need those in the first circle of talent and vision. But they are not evil. When the papers carry pictures of 50 Iraqi recruits gunned down in a serried row, as Stalin and Hitler did to their enemies, we need have no doubt where the true evil lies. The question before us, first and foremost, is which candidate is best suited to confront this evil in the next four years. In other words: Who is the lesser of two risks?...

So we have two risks. We have the risk of continuing with a presidency of palpable incompetence and rigidity. And we have the risk of embarking on a new administration with a man whose record as a legislator inspires little confidence in his capacity to rise to the challenges ahead. Which is the greater one?...

This is how I, too, compute Kerry's stand on the issues that matter most to me:
Kerry has said again and again that he will not hesitate to defend this country and go on the offensive against Al Qaeda. I see no reason whatsoever why he shouldn't. What is there to gain from failure in this task? He knows that if he lets his guard down and if terrorists strike or succeed anywhere, he runs the risk of discrediting the Democrats as a party of national security for a generation. He has said quite clearly that he will not "cut and run" in Iraq. And the truth is: He cannot. There is no alternative to seeing the war through in Iraq.
Damn, I hope we're right about that.

Pushing that evelope

: Ana Marie Cox was just on FoxNews (again) and anchor David Asman asked her what's hot on Wonkette today. Dangerous, Dave. She came back and said she quite liked a headline on CNN this morning: "Clinton pumps base from the stump." Sly, evil grin. Nervous sweat.

Happy holidays

ramadan.jpg: It probably shouldn't have, but I have to say that seeing this billboard on I-78 on the way into work gave me a start. On the one hand, yeah, sure, it's a sign of our multifaceted culture, our chunky stew, our steaming melting pot that we have a Ramadan billboard on the way to Newark airport. But then again, as unPC as this is to say, it is also a reminder that many who plotted the attacks on America live right here in New Jersey; the terrorists are our neighbors. Of course, I'm not saying that Muslims are terrorists. But terrorists are Muslims these days and they launched their attack on 9/11 only a stone's throw from this billboard. And seeing this, I wondered what would happen if somebody put up a "Holy Easter" or "Blessed Passover" billboard in Baghdad or Riyad or Tehran or.... You get the idea. I suppose what I should do is look at this billboard and be thankful for living in this open, welcoming, tolerant, modern, protective, wise place and not in any of those....

Issues2004: 30 issues in 30 seconds

: Fred Wilson quite properly busts me for dropping the Issues2004 ball. I dealt with the issues that mattered to me most (see the list on the right of the home page or follow this link) but intended to come back and at least touch on the rest. I didn't. My bad. If you want a good and comprehensive discussion of many issues, see Brian Lehrer's 30 Issues in 30 Days on WNYC). I have the time to give them only short shrift but here goes:

: Judicial appointments: Yes, Chief Justice Rhenquist having thyroid cancer brings this issue to the top of the heap. And it's pretty obvious that judicial appointments are the biggest thorn in this tiger's paw when it comes to thinking of voting for Bush. There are so many issues that matter to our daily lives that I do not want in the hands of a right-wing court -- many having to do with strict interpretation (how's that for spinning?) of the separation of church and state as it affects efforts to legislate one side's morality regarding abortion, homosexuality, marriage, science, and religious freedom. This is the wisdom of the founding fathers; this is how they get us to think past just one issue. Ideology matters and it matters most for the Supreme Court. See Fred Wilson's post today.

: The deficit: Yes, these are extraordinary times, with a downturn to deal with and a war on -- and I mean the war on terrorism and Islamic fascists (take your rhetorical pick) more than just the war in Iraq. So it's not easy to balance the budget. But we should at least try. And I don't trust either guy on this. Bush cynically lowered taxes without responsibly cutting spending. Kerry has not made clear how he'll pay for his promises. We need responsible budgeting especially now that we are intertwined with the world economy and we, the voters, need to start demanding it.

: Gay rights: For them. Period.

: Death penalty: Against it. Period.

: Freedom of speech: For it. Absolutely.

: Abortion rights: Leave it the way it is.

: Stem-cell research: It's not abortion and efforts to tie this research to the abortion fight are cynical and ultimately destructive of important science that can save lives. Supporting this research is very much about maintaining a culture of life.

: Social Security: This isn't a simple one-liner (well, none of them is). We need to reexamine what our national goal is: If it is to maintain a national pension scheme, then, yes, I see sense in allowing us to invest our own. If, on the other hand, it is to assure a safety net for our elders, which I certainly support, then we need to look at this as a tax funding an entitlement. We're trying to mix the two now. This potato is too hot for any politician to handle. And so I say give it to the 9/11 Commission. No, I'm serious: Take a bunch of respected political yesterdays and make them grapple with it and come to consensus and fight for it so the politicians can blame them.

: Immigration: I don't believe the rest of the world has an inalienable right to come here (hell, Canada gave me trouble about moving there once). That's the way the world works. I also find efforts to give noncitizens local voting rights ridiculous; citizenship means something, damnit. Further, immigration is a security issue these days. So I'm not the most open regarding immigration and believe it is OK to judge immigration on two scales: humanity (allowing refugees to come, keeping families together) and self-interest (bringing in smart technicians and students is good for America). I also think we can't keep on giving amnesties and neverminds, for then our immigration laws become meaningless. If the laws don't work -- and in many ways, they don't -- then we need to fix them and not work around them.

: Israel: I support Israel and its right to be a nation. Yes, I believe the world has a special obligation to assure the security of Jews after everything that happened in the last century. Though I may sympathize with the Palestinians' right to have a nation, I abhor their tactics of terrorism -- especially today -- and so I do not believe we should deal with them until they stop murder for political gain.

: Gun control: The founding fathers didn't say which arms. Yes, we must have controls on certain people and certain weapons and you can scream at me all day long -- don't bother -- I will still say this. I am a First Amendment absolutist but I do think we can restrict people from yelling "fire" in a crowded theater or jeopardizing troops in war by giving their positions. Similarly, I understand the right granted by the Second Amendment but believe any reasonable soul has to agree that keeping weapons out of the hands of nuts and restricting weapons intended only for murder on a large scale is necessary. All others belong to the NRA.

: Trade: We're part of the world and need to have open trade. There isn't a lot of choice about that these days.

: The environment: Yes, it matters. But I also see too much thrown in under this PC tent. In my town, building ball fields becomes an environmental issue. I like the environment more than I like environmentalists.

: The draft and national service: No. Serving our country has many definitions and working for government, armed or unarmed, is only one of them.

So that's my list. It's short shrift, as I said, but in the interest of continuing the Issues2004 discussion.... join in....

How (not) to win friends and influence voters

: It wasn't hard to guess what would happen when I wrote this post yesterday about what I think Bush should have done in his first term and what he could have done to win a landslide this time around.

Keep in mind that I'm a lifelong Democrat talking about how I might have voted
for Bush -- even me, even Bush.

You might think that people would come in and convincingly try to push me over the edge. You might think that. But I didn't.

Some -- but not all -- of the comments were vituperative and venemous; so were some of the links (get a load of this inane and infantile spit-sputtering).

That, sadly, is what is going on across America in this final week.

Now I'm not exactly an undecided voter, as I've made clear, but let me give some advice to both sides:

This is no way to win friends and influence undecideds.

And it is a failing of both sides. Whenever I said anything civil and respectful about Bush or supported the war in Iraq in the last year, I got self-appointed Democratic PC police coming after me with two-by-fours yelling that I wasn't Democratic enough. Now I dare to say something critical about Bush and the execution of the aftermath in Iraq and I'm getting bashed from the other side.

The biggest lesson of this election -- of all elections -- is the same lesson for both sides:

Your guy is not perfect. Far from it.

So to defend him as if he were perfect and error-free lacks credibility for you and your side, whichever one that is.

If you think that the state of things in Iraq is good then I don't trust your definition of "good."

If you think that that the other guy is a decisive decision maker, then I don't want to be around you when it's time to decide what to order from the Chinese restaurant.

No, it's far more credible and convincing to admit the errors of your guy's ways and then say how he's still better. I don't mean to repeat the theme of my sermon last Sunday, but, heck, even God makes mistakes. So do politicians.

So I'd be much more comfortable if Bush and the Bushies said, yes, we didn't anticipate the ability of the terrorists (the so-called insurgents, if you prefer) to disrupt Iraq and murder their own people and we need to change our assumptions and increase our resources and force to make sure we get this in hand. I'd be much more comfortable if Kerry and the Kerryites said, yes, we flip-flopped on this war but we're there now and we need to assure we'll bring peace and, you're right, it was pretty damned dumb to say that we'd rely on the French and Germans and that we'd put it to a world test and -- while we're at it -- that terrorism could ever be just a "nuisance."

But instead, this is like an argument between Yankees and Red Sox fans who don't want to convince the other side, they only want to yell.

And that's fine for baseball. And it's fine for blogs and comments and forums.

Except don't forget: There are people you can convince. You have to try. You have to know how. And spitting in their faces while calling them idiots and insisting that your guy is perfect is no way to win an election.

October 25, 2004

Here's how Bush could have had a landslide

: Or to put it another way: Here's how Bush could have had my vote -- and if he'd managed to get the vote of a lifelong Democrat, a Bill Clinton Democrat at that, then he could have gotten millions more unexpected votes and he would have run away with this election. But he's not. Why? Well, he coulda, shoulda....

1. He should have called Iraq a one-year war (at least), not a one-week war.

He should have known that this would not be as simple as overpowering Saddam's limp military. He should have known that only when we had installed democracy in Iraq could we declare victory. He should have put in sufficient resources to do that while better securing the lives of Iraqis and our soldiers. He should have managed our expectations and should not have declared victory.

Of course, others would say that he should not have invaded Iraq. But in this speculation, I'm not trying to make him into Howard Dean. I supported getting rid of Saddam and bringing democracy to Iraq and the Middle East (in what was once known as the Tom Friedman doctrine). But like many others who supported this move, I'm disappointed, dismayed, distraught, distressed -- pick your dis -- at the administration's inability to win the peace.

James Wolcott also imagines what the stage would look like now if we had squashed the so-called insurgency. Wolcott does so to make a different point than I'm making here but it's a wrenching what-if:

Suppose there had been no Iraqi insurgency, no al-Sadr popping out from behind the curtain or Saddam loyalists prepped for guerrilla war, no car bombings or beheadings or roadside explosives.

Or an insurgency so feeble and scattered it was swiftly squashed and swept up.

Just imagine how different things would have been over the last year, how different they would be now.

Bush would have been completely vindicated for invading Iraq, despite the non-discovery of WMDs....

France, Germany, the other nations that opposed the war--they would have been rhetorically shunted forever into the dustbin of Old Europe....

Over a 1000 Americans would still be alive, as would countless thousands of Iraqis. Thousands more would have escaped grievous wounds....

The US economy wouldn't be bleeding billions of dollars now and into the indefinite future. The economy would have lifted itself aerodynamically out of recession by now and restored much of the job loss of the previous years.

Oil would be in the $30-35 range as Iraqi oil flowed through the pipelines and infrastructure was repaired.

The United States would have been able to be poised to launch strikes against Syria or Iran from secure bases of action in Iraq, as the stage was set for act two of the war against the Axis of Evil.

President Bush would probably boast an approval rating in the 60s or 70s, and coasting to a landslide reelection against a Democratic candidate served up for sacrifice until Hillary could run in '08....

2. He should have served the center.

Hey, if Bush can become an interventionist and nation-builder, it's not so damned far-fetched that he could have become a centrist, or at least played one on TV.

After his unvictory in the last election, he should have gone to the center in an effort to really win the next time. And after 9/11, he should have owned the center to make himself the president of all America in this time of need. He even could have used that to protect himself on the right: Gee, he could have grinned, I'm too busy saving America and civilization and democracy to waste time trying to stop gay marriage or stem-cell research or even abortion. He could have appointed someone respected instead of John Ashcroft. And a little less talk about talking with God would have helped, too.

That's it. It's that simple: If Bush had done those two things, there would have been millions of voters (like me) who never would have thought of voting for him before 9/11 but would have considered it afterwards. He would have had a landslide and a real mandate. But that's not going to happen.

treo650-box.jpgLust
The Treo 650 will be announced today. I want it now.

Guest stars

: Glenn Reynolds has Ann Althouse and Michael Totten blogging with him today while he travels. Megan McArdle will be joining in.

Q & Q

: Jay Rosen and I were each interviewed by Tom Brook for a piece on the BBC this week about declining trust in media (damn: I forgot to mention Andrew Gilligan). I gave soundbite. Jay came out of it with an outline for a friggin' curriculum with lots of questions about the new media universe that don't have answers yet. He asks us all to hit the comment button and help see what ties all his questions together.

I say it's about control: If you give us, the people, control of our media -- and government and markets -- we will use it (see Jarvis' First Law of Media). If we do not think we have control, then we'll turn into passive spuds. But once we do have control -- whether from the remote control or the TiVo or our blogging tools -- everything changes: We demand to be part of the conversation. We compete with the once-powerful. We question their power. We establish new relationships of trust.

Exploding TV

: By the latest count, the Jon Stewart CNN segment has had more than 1.4 million views on iFilm -- not to mention all the BitTorrent distribution. Welcome to the future of media: A distributed network is more powerful than a centralized network. And the people you once called viewers are your best marketers (if you have anything worth marketing).

: Just noticed that iFilm calls this all viral video. Good title.

: Is there any way to get a count of how much something (namely: the Stewart segment) is seen in BitTorrent? I assume that's complicated by (a) the distributed nature of the thing and (b) the fact that there could be multiple Stewart copies. But in the future, if I wanted to distribute something via BitTorrent, what is the current ability to track views? Anybody?

: Here's where you can get the latest counts on iFilm's clip: It's over 1.5 million now.

New wine, old skins

: I get amused when old media folks try to view citizens media under their old-media rules -- as when they try to analyze traffic based on the old rules that only the big survive. Frank Barnako at Marketwatch did that last week.

And today, he makes fun of PR blogger Steve Rubel and VC blogger Fred Wilson for endorsing presidential candidates. Says Frank: "The idea of a blogger making an endorsement, as if he carried any weight, was presumptuous."

Wrong analysis, Frank. Bloggers aren't trying to act like big media (and, by the way, the idea of a newspaper editorial writer carrying weight is also presumptuous, don't you think?). This is instead about transparency so your readers can judge what you say in context. Here, I called on bloggers to say where their votes are going just for that reason. In fact, it would be helpful if some reporters would do likewise. Frank: You made fun of two bloggers who are endorsing Kerry but you didn't make fun of anybody endorsing Bush. Until we know where you stand, then we are put in a position of reading into what you say and some will think that you're a Bush man. See what I mean? It's about transparency.

Also don't forget that blogging is a personal medium. It's not just about publishing content, the old-media way. It's about conversation. Steve and Fred are telling their friends what they think, the way you might over beers in the bar. This is not about trying to imitate the institution of journalism; this is about being human. And the institution of journalism would do well to imitate this.

: Steve Outing also posts on Rubel's endorsement and wonders whether making a political endorsement (or statement) on a business blog could affect the blogger's business.

: And while I'm chiding Frank, here's one more. In the same column, he pooh-poohs iPodder for being difficult to use and not having shrink-wrapped documentation. It's too new. It's an experiment with a new platform; it's not done yet; of course, it's not ready for prime time. That's like seeing the first browser and complaining, "Ew, what an ugly gray; I'm never coming back here again."

October 24, 2004

Sermonizing

: Not that you should care, but I put up downloaded MP3 and streaming MP3 and Real recordings of my sermon this morning; text here.

(Audio help: The MP3 file is 15 megs: sampling at 22; mono; 16 bit. Any tips on cutting that down? Any way to make it a streaming file?)

Progress?

: Well, how nice, I think: The Observer in London is doing a story on the progress of democracy, modernism, civilization, and rights in Afghanistan. The writer goes on about the public executions and bans on women in public he witnessed in the days of the Taliban. But then comes this amazing bit of apologia for the Islamic fascists who ruled that nation and played host to the terrorists who murdered my neighbors:

For all their failings, the Taliban brought security to many areas where there was none. Impositions that were shocking in the cities were not impositions at all in the vast majority of Afghanistan....

The Taliban's security meant that when, crippled by an enormous hangover, I left a wallet containing my passport and $1,500 on a bus, it was returned intact. It meant you could hail a cab and go virtually anywhere, provided you took the precaution of first checking in with the local warlord or Taliban official (often the same person). I slept in villages, military bases, the occasional fly-blown hotel, or in chai khannas, the roadside inns where tea and food (chai and khanna) are served to travellers. In one, just outside the town of Qalat on the road between Kabul and Kandahar, I woke at dawn to find everyone, guests and staff, lined up in the dust of the road for dawn prayers. I lay wrapped in blankets and watched them. It was an insight into the depth of local piety. Imagine a Travelodge on the M4 emptying into the car park for prayers at 4am. This was not fundamentalism or extremism. It was simply an expression of a faith that articulates every part of life....

No one in the West took much notice of the Taliban until they arrived in the capital and began imposing their infamous bans - on weather forecasting, representations of living things, leather jackets and 'Western hairstyles', pigeon racing, kite flying and most other forms of entertainment. Yet the reasoning behind this extreme rigour deserves understanding and even, controversial though it may be to say so, a degree of sympathy....

There was a perversely logical rationale behind the bans. The Taliban imagined the life they had lost as an idealised version of rural tribal society. That life, with its supposed purity and social justice, could be enjoyed once more if everybody followed the Shariat, the corpus of Islamic law, particularly where it intersected with local traditions that were threatened by change. And if people didn't want to, then for the greater good of all, they needed to be forced to.

Yes, how nice. And the Nazis made the trains run on time (even it was the concentration camps). And the communists supported the arts (except for the artists sent to the gulag). And the Khmer Rouge appreciated the value of country life (and death).

The nice side of the Taliban. Incredible.

Damning with faint endorsement

: The Washington Post endorses John Kerry... barely. Sunday's editorial praises George Bush to a surprising degree and criticizes its choice, Kerry, to a surprising degree. In the end, the paper, like the country, just doesn't much like the choice we have.

Half the nation is passionately for George W. Bush, the pollsters say, and half passionately for John F. Kerry -- or, at least, passionately against Mr. Bush. We have not been able to share in this passion, nor in the certainty....

We do not view a vote for Mr. Kerry as a vote without risks. But the risks on the other side are well known, and the strengths Mr. Kerry brings are considerable.

With friends like these...

: Last week's ambivalent endorsements here.

Next, the world

: First, Philadelphia vows to wi-fi itself. Next, San Francisco. Now the entire country of Taiwan.

orangeawarenesspin.jpgCan't tell a cause without a scorecard

: I don't know how, but I came across this handy-dandy chart decoding the colors of all the many ribbons we see these days not just on lapels but, magnetically, on the backs of every other car on the road:

Black: Anti-gang, Melanoma, Mourning, In Memoriam
Brown: Colorectal Cancer
Burgundy: Hospice Care, Multiple Myeloma
Dark Blue: Child Abuse, Water Quality, Crime Victim Rights, Arthritis
Gold: Childhood Cancer
Gray / Grey: Urban Violence, Brachial Plexus, Brain Cancer, Diabetes Awareness
Green: Ecology,Environment, Organ Donor, Ovarian Cancer, Missing Children,
Leukemia, Childhood Depression, Bone Marrow Donation, Lyme's Disease, Tissue Donation, Worker Safety, Lymphoma, Glaucoma,
Light Blue: Prostate Cancer, Scleroderma, Trisomy 18
Light Violet/Lavender: Hodgkin's Disease, General Cancers, Epilepsy, Rett Syndrome, Gynecological Cancer
Off Pink: Bone Osteoporosis
Orange: Racial Tolerance, Cultural Diversity, Feed the Nation, Highway Safety, Hunger, Leukemia, Lupus
Orchid: Testicular Cancer
Pearl: Lung Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis
Periwinkle Blue: Eating Disorders, Pulmonary Hypertension
Pink: Cancer, Breast Cancer, Birth Parents
Purple: Violence, Children with Disabilities, Domestic Violence, Pancreatic Cancer, Alzheimer's, Crohn's & Colitis, Cystic Fibrosis, Fibromyalgia, Leimyosarcoma, Lupus
Red: HIV/Aids, DUI Awareness, Substance Abuse, Epidermolysis Bullosa, Lymphoma
Teal: Ovarian Cancer, Substance Abuse
White: Right to Life, Alzheimer's, Adoptee, Diabetes, Student Sexual Assault
Child Exploitation and Abuse, Retinal Blastoma
Yellow: Come Home, POW/MIA, Support, Equality, Endometriosis, Adoptive Parent,
Suicide, Spina Bifada, Missing Children, Troop Support
I think mauve and taupe are still available. Causes, anyone?

: Thanks to commenter Andy: A car covering all the ribbon bases.

October 23, 2004

More Jon Stewart... and more Jon Stewart....

: Howard Kurtz has a very good page-one story in the Washington Post on the Jon Stewart phenom today (I'm quoted).

: Stewart is the subject of 60 Minutes tomorrow night, too.

: From Kurtz' story:

"Even I'm sick of us," says Ben Karlin, the show's executive producer. But "the media beast must be fed," he added, amused that the show is being hyped by the "pack journalism" it regularly ridicules.
: Law Dork Chris Geidner sees significance in Kurtz quoting bloggers alongside real newsmen about the fake newsman.
Although it shows great progress that The Washington Post cited three Web sites -- including two blogs -- in a front-page story, the "idea integration" is just beginning. Bloggers who wish to add to the public dialogue have a responsibility not to just become more "talking heads." As bloggers become more mainstream, there will be moments -- like Cox's MTV stint during the Democratic National Convention -- to become "one of them." And that's fine.

But it's important that we don't leave the ideas behind on our laptops. Jarvis, for example told Kurtz of Stewart: "He calls politicians bozos. And then he went over the next line on 'Crossfire' and called media guys bozos." Jarvis helped move the discussion he's been having on the blogs to the rest of the world.

Like Stewart, some of the top bloggers are having to deal with the question: What happens when your Web log, or "blog," project is legitimized (and loses scare quotes)? What changes? What stays the same?

Stewart, Cox, and Jarvis bring us no answers in today's Post, but Kurtz's article certainly highlights the questions.

: I will also note the irony that I praised Stewart for going after the yellers for yelling and then I appeared on CNBC's Capitol Report and faced a bozo nutjob and right-wing media conspiracy theorist Bob Kohn and what could I do but point my finger at him and raise the volume? But Stewart's lesson isn't to lower the volume. It's to be honest and call a bozo a bozo.

My sermon

: Once a year, I get hornswoggled into preaching a sermon at my little Congregational Church in Warren, NJ. If you're in the nabe, the show starts at 10:30 on Sunday. Here, if you choose to bear it, is the text of the sermon; I'll try to put up an MP3 later, if that works.

You'll be amused to know that I preach about mistakes... and Dan Rather... and George Bush... and more.

(Earlier efforts: six months after 9/11... a year after 9/11... and last year....)

How do I record MP3s?

: What's the best software to use to record MP3s off a microphone -- spoken word?
: Thanks for the advice. I just bought Super MP3 Recorder because I remembered using it before; it'll work.
: I plan to record myself giving a sermon (insert punchline here) tomorrow and put it up here if it's not too embarrassing.
: Yes, I should buy a Mac.
: Sadly, though, my iPod won't work because I got a mini; it won't record voice. That's a reason not to cheap out and buy the mini.

The Iraqi blogosphere is a year old

: Of course, Salam Pax started blogging more than a year ago. But I just realized that blogs started spreading a year ago this week when Zeyad started blogging and getting others to blog and it has grown from there. (Here is the wonderful email Zeyad sent me before he started blogging.) Since then, more and more bloggers have joined in with more perspectives and we have learned so much from these good people as they have shared their lives with us through a year of great possibilities and greater trials.

: I neglected to link to this remarkable post by Omar on his meeting with Kerry Dupont and Jim Hake of Spirit of America and other Iraqi media leaders in Jordan. They are doing great work together.

: Here is an update on the work of Spirit of America by the Wall Street Journal's Dan Henninger.

If the shoe fits...

: Manolo blogs....

Under a picture of a beautiful model without one shoe on, Manolo says: "Manolo says, you a