Ahmed and the Clock

Let’s see if we can explain what’s happening here. We all know the story by now, I’m sure, with opinions divided right along predictable lines. Kid builds (or didn’t, there seems to be some question about this) a clock, brings it to school in a briefcase to show his teachers, most of them say good work, one decides it looks like a bomb, hilarity ensues. Lots of media attention, the President tweets about it, people lose their freakin’ minds. As it happens, the kid is muslim, which lends a delicious spice to the proceedings. Lots of lecturing about how we’re all terrible people because we assumed the muslim kid had a bomb just because he’s muslim. Don’t tar everyone with the same brush, yadda yadda yadda.

Maybe I can explain the backstory here. Bear with me.

So you’re walking down a busy street in the city. Lots of people walking your way, lots of people walking the other way. Everyone is wrapped up in whatever errand they’re on, not paying too much attention to anyone else. Every now and then a guy wearing a purple shirt walks past you. You barely notice. Then a guy wearing a purple shirt punches you in the face, yells “Everyone should wear purple shirts!” and disappears up the street.

Stunned, you wonder what the hell that was about, chalk it up to a lone nut, and resume walking. Nine more guys wearing purple shirts walk past you. You barely notice.

The tenth guy wearing a purple shirt punches you in the face, yells “Everyone should wear purple shirts!” and disappears into the crowd. Concerned with your throbbing jaw, it scarcely registers on you that both guys who’ve punched you were wearing purple shirts. But as you resume your walk, you do begin to notice how many purple shirts you see. Most of them walk right past you.

And then the eleventh guy wearing a purple shirt punches you in the face, yells “Everyone should wear purple shirts!” and runs off.

Now you’re paying attention. As you once more resume your walk, you look at every purple shirt you see, wondering if you’re going to get punched in the face. Twelve or fifteen purple-shirted guys walk past without a hint of trouble. You being to relax and think about strange statistical aberrations.

Then the sixteenth guy wearing a purple shirt punches you in the face, yells “Everyone should wear purple shirts!” and runs off.

Now you’re angry. It seems that anyone wearing a purple shirt might punch you in the face. So you’re vigilant. You watch for purple shirts. When you see one, you give that person a wide berth. You begin to notice that every now and then someone wearing a purple shirt punches a random passer-by in the face, yells that everyone should wear purple shirts and runs off. You start to try to warn people to watch out for guys wearing purple shirts. Most dismiss you as a nut yourself. A few berate you for making assumptions about purple shirts. One or two get very angry and tell you they normally wear purple shirts themselves but today is laundry day and their purple shirt is in the dryer.

You start to doubt your premise yourself. Maybe it is just one of those weird things that happens.

Then a guy wearing a purple shirt punches you in the face.

Now you’re mad. You look even more carefully for purple shirts. When a guy wearing one comes your way, you raise your fists, ready to fight. The guy in the purple shirt looks at you like you’re crazy and goes out of his way to avoid you. You watch him go, just in case, and from behind you a guy wearing a purple shirt punches you in the back of the head. He asks you why you hate purple shirts and runs off.

So as you continue up the street, you keep a careful eye out for guys in purple shirts and you ready yourself to react any time you see one.

People call you crazy. They tell you you’re a horrible person with an unhealthy fixation on purple shirts. They point out that people wearing other colors occasionally punch someone in the face. You try to tell them that that happens a lot less often than someone wearing a purple shirt punching someone in the face but they tell you you’re wrong and refuse to listen to you any more.

Now a kid wearing a purple shirt comes down the street, his hands clenched into fists. What are you supposed to do?

Unexpurgated

Hmmm. That interview Sarah Palin did with Charlie Gibson a few days ago, the one that the Obama supporters keep trumpeting as demonstrating how unready to be President the Governor is, how ill-informed and out-of-touch . . . remember that? Turns out it goes a bit differently if you read the unedited transcript.

Gotta love our "unbiased" press.

Hat tip - Teflon at MoltenThought.

Unexpected Loss

Unhappy news from NBC. Tim Russert has died. Initial reports had the veteran newsman falling victim to a sudden heart attack, but later statements are adding a question mark to that theory.

This is a great loss to the news media. Russert was even and dogged when interviewing politicians of any stripe. His Sunday show, Meet the Press, is required viewing for anyone trying to follow national politics and government affairs.

In an era of ever-increasing polarization and partisanship, Russert spoke from the center. He'll be missed.

What Good Is The Truth If Nobody Knows It?

I'm not one to read or rely upon The Weekly Standard for my news, but when someone gets it right, they get it right. There's a piece in the 24 March issue called Saddam's Dangerous Friends by Stephen F. Hayes which lays out a somewhat more complete picture of the recent Pentagon report on the connection between the Saddam Hussein regime and al Qaeda than you'll find in the mainstream media. The report, titled Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents, is derived from analysis of some 600,000 documents seized in Iraq since the beginning of the war.

Not surprisingly, the left-leaning media got it wrong. They seem to have seized on some partial quotes from the report's executive summary which appeared to support the "Bush Lied" meme running rampant in the reality-impaired community and pretty much ignored the rest of the thing, which actually paints a quite different picture. Saddam's regime was quietly supporting various and sundry terrorist groups, some of which were offshoots of al Qaeda and some of which were allied with it. That's a wee bit different than the glib "No smoking gun!" headline so quickly and easily swallowed by those who already leaned that way, isn't it?

Anyway, read the piece and judge for yourself. I found it interesting and thought it should get wider attention.

Smokescreen

The Sunday talk shows today were all abuzz with the apparent dead heat between the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. At the moment, I'm still thinking Obama is going to take the nomination and the general election in November, but let's put that aside for now.

Interspersed throughout the commentary from various analysts and talking heads regarding what the Democrats are going to do to sort out their primary season before the convention, or indeed if they even can sort it out and avoid a convention battle, the name of John McCain was mentioned once or twice. The Republicans have of course already settled pretty conclusively on their nominee, and so the close match on the Democrat side is drawing all the press, since that's where the story is. One commentator even mentioned as a passing joke something along the lines of "Remember McCain? You know, the Republican candidate?"

And that's the point. Since there is such a close race between Clinton and Obama, and since there is so much fascinating stuff happening in that contest with the outcome not decided (and looking like it won't be decided until the convention), the Democrats are by default getting a huge share of media attention this year. Now, this could be a problem, but to be fair the story on the Democrat side is much more intriguing than on the Republican side. We've got the first serious woman candidate for President, and the first serious black candidate for the same office. Turnout in the primaries and caucuses so far has reportedly been extremely heavy. The Republicans are running their ten trillionth variant of "old white guy" for office, so even if McCain is a solid choice, he's - let's face it - boring. He's not really news, at least not at this point.

The question in my mind is whether this situation is serving the greater public interest. Is the intense interest in the contest on the Democratic side generating extra "push" among voters to go that direction come November? In other words, is the simple fact that the battle between Clinton and Obama is both amazingly historical and intensely interesting tilting the national playing field towards the Democrats in general?

Or is this simply an artifact of the mainstream press and its well-known bias towards the Left? The chattering class and its various offshoots are, in general, much more likely to vote Democratic than Republican, and so naturally lean towards talking about the Democratic race more than the Republican one. Eight years of George Bush following eight years of Bill Clinton seems to have drastically polarized the country, due not in small measure to the emergence of twenty-four-hour cable news, talk radio, and the blogosphere during that same sixteen-year period. True? The possibility that this is not actually the case, and is a smokescreen unconsciously thrown up by the patterns of the media elites, seems real to me. The media no longer just report the news, in many cases they make the news, and if they bend to the left, the reporting will follow. Things that are barely visible in "flyover country" assume an aspect of huge importance in the media because the media is driven by a small group of interrelated interests who mostly share some common political biases.

American news coverage seems to have fallen into a subtle trap. The elites are concentrated on the coasts and in a couple of other (mostly urban) areas. In this self-created echo chamber, they constantly hear their own beliefs and opinions reinforced by those around them, leading to the conclusion that that's how everyone must feel. The "silent majority" in that dismissed-with-a-wave "flyover country" are viewed as misinformed at best and dangerously naive at worst, and also thought to be a much smaller percentage of the population than they actually are.

I don't know where the truth falls in all this. Media coverage of the Democratic race is heavy because the Democratic race is heavily interesting this time. But the biases of the press are known, documented, and actually rather obvious. Will this impact the general election in the fall? Is "media momentum" going to translate into votes? I don't even know if this can be teased out of the tremendous mass of statistical data generated by all the polling associated with an election. Especially if no-one is looking for it.

I do know that voting is still the single most important responsibility we bear as citizens. So whatever your beliefs, whoever your candidate, make sure to exercise that responsibility, gentle reader. Find the fulcrum on which your personal choice tilts and make your decision.