2008 Cut Along the Bias
posted by February 13 at 14:34 PM
onI’ll readily admit that the mainstream press has a pro-Obama slant. But this Jeff Zeleny/John Sullivan article for the New York Times shows that Obama knows how to work the narrative (yeah, Josh, narrative)—while HRC falls into his traps.
Say you want some substance?
Speaking before a crowd at a Wisconsin auto plant, Senator Obama delivered a blistering critique of his Democratic and Republican rivals on Wednesday, blaming Washington for the economic crisis that has gripped the nation.“We are not standing on the brink of recession due to forces beyond our control,” Mr. Obama said. “The fallout from the housing crisis that’s cost jobs and wiped out savings was not an inevitable part of the business cycle, it was a failure of leadership and imagination in Washington.”
Mr. Obama opened his campaign for next week’s Wisconsin primary inside a General Motors plant in Janesville, one day after General Motors Corp. posted a $38 billion loss, the largest ever for a U.S. auto company. He criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was signed during the Clinton administration, and offered a series of plans to inject more jobs into the economy.
[ … ]
In his speech in Janesville, Mr. Obama proposed creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to invest $60 billion over 10 years and create nearly 2 million new jobs in the construction field. He said the program would be paid for by ending the Iraq war. He also renewed his call to create an energy plan to invest $150 billion over 10 years to establish a “green energy sector” to add up to 5 million jobs in the next two decades.
One paragraph later:
Mrs. Clinton, speaking before an enthusiastic crowd on Wednesday morning in McAllen, Texas, also struck economic themes, saying she offered solutions for voters’ financial struggles while Mr. Obama offered “rhetoric.”
Say you want some rhetoric?
Mrs. Clinton hailed two of her “heroines” from Texas, former Rep. Barbara Jordan and former Gov. Ann Richards, and sought to tap their legendary gusto as she looked ahead to the Texas primary and her fight for the nomination against Mr. Obama.“They taught me about courage and determination,” she said. “I can hear their voices saying, ‘you keep going, you give the people a real choice about the future that awaits.’”
I’m not saying her whole speech went like that—if it was even remotely like the stump speech we heard at Pier 30 last week, it had a surfeit of policy. But if you’ve been attacking your opponent for using bland words of uplift, and then he abruptly changes course while you’re caught cribbing his style… it gives reporters an irresistible opening:
In El Paso, even her most boilerplate remarks were rewarded with wild hooting from the audience.
HRC needs to get nimble, quick.
Comments
I'm glad someone's finally talking about transportation infrastructure development on a national level. And who would've thunk it - the candidate who "doesn't have specifics".
"(yeah, Josh, narrative)"
Oh no you didn't Annie Wagner!
Uh-oh, he's going after NAFTA. That way he can destroy three economies, not just one.
GM isn't in trouble because of NAFTA. They're in trouble because they're stupid, and can't compete. Forcing the prices of their vehicles up a few thousand dollars isn't going to help them compete more.
I ... don't get it. You've quoted the article out of sequence, and the article in question didn't seem to have much of a slant either way. The only thing I took away from the article was that Obama is anti-NAFTA, which is kind of too bad, because I'm a dem who supports free trade. (I'm also anti-subsidy. I think Carribean sugar should be able to compete with corn syrup.)
Also, speeches are speeches....they are meant to rally, inspire, elicit emotion and pride. That's the point. Obama and Clinton are equally detailed in their plans online and in debates--if anyting Hillary is "better" in debates at sticking to rhetoric and soundbites and not getting mired in details and explanations.
Arduous, free trade IS anti-subsidy. There's no reason on earth one family should be importing slave labor into the US to harvest sugar cane at a benefit to no one but themselves and at the cost of destroyed foreign economies. The US should be trying to prove that it means it when it talks about free trade, not trying to undercut it.
@4: Only the last quote is out of sequence. If you don't see the bias, you don't see it. But "boilerplate" and "hooting" are judgmental words, and that barrage of Obama policy followed closely by HRC's "rhetoric" comment is structured so as to raise questions about her conclusion. These are NYT reporters; they're not incompetent.
HRC on trade (sorry, it's a long one):
man i'm getting tired of this blah blah over tweedledee & tweedledum.
both with be adequate. both will sell us out. both won't end the war quick enough. both won't be able to get health care passed.
I'm reading some Feingold subtext in that line about NAFTA. There have been several articles in the Wisconsin media about Feingold's superdelegate vote being up for grabs (he's anti-NAFTA and listening for Clinton or Obama to say it too), and now Obama says this in Feingold's hometown where people are seeing their industry's jobs sent to Mexico.
Huh. Seems like it can be easier to get endorsements from dead people.
@6, sorry you misunderstood me. I agree completely with you. I am anti-subsidy, and I know that's redundant with saying I support free trade, but I've heard a lot of people who think corn subsidies are bad but also think NAFTA is bad so I was underscoring that point.
"HRC needs to get nimble, quick."
you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. how old are you, 17?
seriously, she has an amazing career and is more nimble and intelligent than you could ever dream of being.
she is both a quick-thinker and extremely steady in her character - just look at the attacks she has been taking the high road against for 16 years.
have some respect.
@9-- "He criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was signed during the Clinton administration, and offered a series of plans to inject more jobs into the economy."
I think Feingold's wait is over?
@12: I think HRC is very smart, and I respect her. I'm really using her name as a shortcut for her campaign, which got caught making a flimsy accusation which may not hold up for long. And I'm 27, but I don't see what that has to do with being able to read and interpret a newspaper article.
Um, the reason our trade balance is so bad is (a) because our net savings is below zero, because we spend every penny we create and then some, and (b) because our massive government debt is owned by the Chinese, who are our biggest trading partners, and who are artificially propping up our currency so their investment in us doesn't go into the toilet. Neither of these have fuck-all to do with NAFTA.
If Clinton or Obama want to get serious on the economy, they're going to have do something about the deficit. That money that's currently going into the war doesn't need to pay for new programs, it needs to NOT BE SPENT, since we don't actually have it in the first place.
NAFTA sucks balls... for so many reasons I can't even begin to name them here.
FIGHT! FIGHT!
The way Hillary twisted way from responsibility for all the bad in NAFTA while trying to own what was good is certainly, uh, nimble. Not just nimble. Positively elastic.
I almost feel pity for the lows that Hillary is stooping to to try and salvage her campaign.
She's becoming more of a pathetic joke every day.
I almost feel sorry for her.
Almost.
But not really.
NAFTA sucks balls... for so many reasons I can't even begin to name them here.
Looks like Sdizzle is the one lacking substance. How about putting some meat in that argument?
I love how Hillary says that the Clinton administration "inherited" NAFTA. What does she mean by that? OK, it was in the works for years before Clinton came into office but he pushed for its ratification and signed it into law.
If NAFTA was a bad idea, or a good idea badly implemented and without protections for workers and the environment then Bill Clinton had no obligation to sign it just because the Bush administration handed it to him. Clinton could have said "OK, free trade is a good idea, but there are problems with NAFTA that we need to resolve." but he never did, he was as gung-ho for it as anyone in the Bush administration had been. Hillary Clinton was similarly silent. If she feels that NAFTA doesn't have enough enforcement mechanisms than she has no one to blame but her husband, but rather than do that she tries to blame the Bush administration. Nice attempt at dodging responsibility Hillary, but you have no one to blame but Bill (and yourself since you were first lady and that's apparently part of your 35 years of experience) for it.
Then there's Hillary's whining about not being able to get agricultural products into Canada. Boo fucking hoo for New York's heavily subsidized farmers. Hillary ought to shag her ass north of the border and ask Canadians how they feel about the US imposing tariffs on Canadian softwood imports. Tariffs that were ruled illegal by both the WTO and the NAFTA panel, decisions which the United States chose to ignore.
Given the USA's shitty track record of saying one thing and then doing another thing when it comes to international trade agreements it doesn't surprise me one bit if the Canadians, or any other country said "let's look out for ourselves".
I'm so bored with everybody pretending that this is still a race. Obama has won.
Can we move on to either the general election or RTID II, please?
@21: I can't believe you're giving up so easily! Tejas! Ohio! Pennsylvania!
Just out of curiosity... for the NAFTA/anti-subsidy proponents.
Do you think national health care is a subsidy?
There was a time when the US was talking about going after Canada on the basis that their health care system was an unfair subsidy.
annie- Bah humbug. It's all over but the shouting. My guess: she'll win OH and PA, but by small margins, and by the convention the superdelegates won't matter.
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