Tuesday, April 29, 2008

A Normative Wolf in Positive Clothing II


From the upcoming Wilder Voice
By Patrick Hung and John West

If you've been alive at all for the last week, you know about Rev. Wright's little speaking tour and the media's reaction. Because I'm tired, frustrated, and too full of scorn for our Responsible media, I think I'll let others speak for me. Tristero, over at Digby's Hullabaloo, writes:

On its front page, The New York Times has just compared Jeremiah Wright to a snake (and it's downhill from there). I sincerely doubt anyone can find over the past 7 years, say, a similar characterization of a white religious leader of Wright's stature in the news sections of the Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, or any other mainstream daily newspaper, including the Wall Street Journal.

Did even a phony like Randall Terry "wriggle" into the spotlight recently when he exploited the hapless Schiavo family? When was the last time anyone can recall the late, unlamented Jerry Falwell described this way by the New York Times? Or Pat Robertson? Or James Dobson? Was John Hagee, McCains bff who loathes Catholics so described?

Now, why do you think that is? It's not because they're conservative. The mainstream media is respectful to all religious leaders. Except when they're black. [emphasis his]


If you're curious, and don't have a blood pressure problem, the Times article mentioned is here. Greenwald, in a unsually short and sarcastic post, titled "Why the Jeremiah Wright Story Deserves More Attention", writes:

I think the most important thing to note about the Jeremiah Wright Story is that we're a Nation plagued by exceedingly few significant problems; blessed with a quite healthy political culture and very trusted political and media institutions; composed of a citizenry that is peacefully content with its Government and secure and confident about their future; endowed with a supremely sturdy economic foundation free of debt and other grave economic afflictions; vested with the ability to command great respect and admiration from the other nations of the world; emancipated by the burdens of war and intractable conflicts which have toppled and destroyed so many other great nations of the past; and, most of all, we're becoming freer and more prosperous by the minute.

Not only that, but we have an extremely impressive, serious and honor-bound ruling imperial class devoted to the preservation of all of these blessings.

So it isn't as though we really have anything else to talk about besides Jeremiah Wright. There are some countries in the world -- probably most -- which have so many big problems that they could ill-afford to devote much time and energy to a matter of this sort. Thankfully, the United States isn't one of them. I believe it's critical that we keep that in mind as we discuss him for the next seven months.


I also what to note that Obama's issues and outlook don't really match up with Rev. Wright's issues and outlook. If we're going to imagine Wright the Falwell (or Hagee) of the left, then we need to understand this difference. Bush, McCain, and the rest of the Right Wing actively solicet support from these people and try to show how their issues and outlook matches up. This, of course, is much different than Obama's situation, but this didn't stop Chris Matthews from being a blowhard:

So I'm saying, these associations, fair or unfair, birds of a feather, it's the way people think.

Here we have that old bugbear: a normative statement hiding in a positive one. Does Matthews really think that the American public is so stupid that they'd rather have 24-hour Wright watch instead of substantive converage on--I don't know--issues: like our troops dying in Afganistan and Iraq, like our economy, like the food shortage, like Darfur...? I suppose he might think that, but, in reality it's because that's what he believes not because of any insight into America's values.


Furthermore, these things are issues because the media makes them issues. Where did Matthews get the idea that this is important? Probably from other media talking heads. I doubt that he can read the American people's minds. So his bizarre assumption that this is important is just another reverberation in the echo chamber. And my soul dies a little bit.