Why This Matters

A few more news items that haven't been covered extensively enough for my tastes, so here we go...

- A recent CNN poll shows more people polled disagree with President Obama on important issues by a 51-48 margin. The poll has a 3 point margin of error.

Why This Matters: Although the margin of error is the same as the margin of difference, the real issue at hand is that the President is failing to impress people anymore with his hopeity-change talk. With almost a full year under his belt as President, voters are taking a hard look at the man and not liking what they're seeing. Obama may be a great campaigner, but he's sucking as a leader.

- Former Vice President Dick Cheney took the Obama Administration to task for its policy regarding the war in Afghanistan. Cheney admonished the Administration, accusing it of "dithering" while soldiers die in the field waiting for the President to make a decision on how to proceed.

Why This Matters: Put aside the partisanship for a moment and take a hard look at what Obama's done on this front. If you're being honest, you'll see that he hasn't done much, if anything. With our military in Afghanistan fighting a war that Obama has called "the right war," indecision or even apparent indecision is harmful on so many levels. Cheney may have pulled out a word that hasn't been used much recently, but it perfectly describes the Obama Administration's ineptitude on Afghanistan.

- At a Democratic fundraiser, President Obama took a swipe at Republicans, saying "sometimes they do what they're told." As far as Democrats are concerned, Obama said they were "an opinionated bunch" that are "thinking for yourselves." Naturally, Republicans and conservatives shot back, rejecting Obama's claims.

Why This Matters: The easy thing to do in this case is take it at face value and attack it, but there may be a another reason Obama made the statement that has nothing to do with Republicans. Quite possibly, he was sending a signal to his own party to unite. During an earlier section of his speech, Obama said Democrats "were their own worst enemy" due to their diversity because it undercuts party unity. Right now there are a number of people on the Left who want to punish the "blue dog Democrats" for standing up to the President on his health care reform idea. As badly as Obama needs health care reform to pass, he needs his party's Congressional contingency to come together to save it. And the fundraiser gave Obama the perfect opportunity to ask for it to happen.

- Meghan McCain got in some hot water recently after a photograph of herself in a low-cut tank top was posted on her Twitter account. Critics called her a "slut" while supporters of all political stripes gave her praise for being proud of the way she looks.

Why This Matters: First off, Ms. McCain is attractive and has some nice...assets. Having said that, she wants to be taken as a serious commentator and future shaper of the GOP, but she's doing all the wrong things to get to that point. Sex may sell, but it will only take you so far. She needs to focus and hone her writing skills to find her voice. Otherwise, she'll be disregarded as a vapid Maureen Dowd wannabe. You know, like Maureen Dowd is today?

- Congress is starting work on a "net neutrality" bill that will force internet providers to treat all material coming across its bandwidth equally. Democrats cheer the measure, citing that artists will get more of an audience for their work, while Republicans worry about this being the first step towards controlling the Internet.

Why This Matters: Both sides are being a little too simplistic here and a lot too inaccurate. Forcing internet providers to treat all content the same may elevate some, at least in the short term. However, some sites will see traffic reduced to the point where it may no longer be worth their time to use their bandwidth, and they'll fade away. Others will see their services scaled back, thus inviting loss of customers. And what happens to the artists who get elevated, but then have to fall back in line with the rest of the traffic who will have the same amount of usage they do? You're inviting the death of the Internet as we know it if you support the "net neutrality" proposal.

As for those who think "net neutrality" will signal government control of the Internet, think again. Remember, these are the same group of morons who can't get their figures straight when it comes to the economy. Controlling anything more than a MySpace page will be beyond their capabilities. Even if Congress passes "net neutrality" the government isn't smart enough to enforce it across the board. The Internet is too vast for any government bureaucracy to effectively manage. Heck, the Obama White House had trouble getting hooked up to the Internet! You think they have the savvy to be Internet Czars?

That's all for now.

Strange Bedfellows

It's not often that I agree with columnist and DC press fixture Helen Thomas, but recently she made a great amount of sense. The Hill reports that Thomas was asked in an interview with MSNBC about the rising tensions between the Obama Administration and Fox News. She said, "They can only take you down. You can't kill the messenger."

They say politics make for strange bedfellows, and for once I agree with Thomas. (I'll give you a moment to get the thought of Helen Thomas and me in bed together out of your head before I move on. Okay...there.)

I can't speak to her motives, whether it be giving Obama and his staff some advice or sticking up for Fox News, but I can speak to her message. The Obama Administration going after Fox News is a major mistake for a number of reasons. Sure, it may get the Leftist base fired up, but to the rest of us, it smacks of desperation and fear. Obama's the most powerful man in the world, and he's threatened by a cable news network? Please.

What makes this strategic blunder worse is the fact that it's been done before, and it never worked out well for the President who went after a member of the media or the media in general. Richard Nixon squared off against the Washington Post and wound up having to resign in disgrace after Woodward and Bernstein exposed the Watergate break-in. Bill Clinton went up against Rush Limbaugh and wound up losing control of Congress in no small part because of his attacks on Limbaugh.

Not only do the attacks on Fox News make Obama look bad, they take focus away from his message. If a recent CNN poll is to be believed (and I'm not saying it should be), more than half of Americans polled disagree with the President's actions. That may be because they think he's doing too much or too little, but the point is still the same: Obama is losing people. With health care reform, the possibility of another stimulus package on the horizon, cap and trade, and other larger issues on his plate, Obama's focus should be on getting out his message. Fox News is not the only news source, nor does it control the bulk of the American viewing audience. With the number of sycophants in the media, Obama should have no problem getting out his message, so it's not Fox News's fault.

That's right, kids. It's Obama's fault that his message isn't getting out. And now that he's choosing to focus on a single cable news network, he's choosing to make the same mistake that Nixon and Clinton made.

For whatever reason, Helen Thomas got this one right, and I'll give credit where it's due.

A Bipartisan Poster

CNN: The World Leader in...What?

The past couple of days has been filled with the story of the "Balloon Boy." There was wall-to-wall coverage on major networks, including CNN. Even after the "Balloon Boy" was found and the story may not be as true as we thought, CNN, the world's leader in news...continued reporting on the story...during one of its main news blocks.

Is it just me, or has CNN become a shadow of a cable news network? There was a time when you could count on CNN to report breaking news that meant something. Today...not so much.

Part of the problem is the nature of what they do. They are a 24 hour news station, and with that comes the need for a constant stream of stories to keep things fresh. Repeating the same stories in a short time span will drive away viewers, so in order to retain viewers, CNN made a Faustian deal to cover more "fluff pieces." At first, it provided a nice balance to the hard news CNN covered on a regular basis. As time went on (and other cable news networks came up to challenge their supremacy), CNN's balance of hard news to soft news got more and more skewed until...you guessed it, Wolf Blitzer covering the "Balloon Boy" story, even after it had became harder to take it seriously.

And with each passing minute of "Balloon Boy" coverage, it gets harder to take CNN seriously. How the mighty have fallen.

Mistakes A-Plenty

The hot story in sports and politics this week has been Rush Limbaugh's failed attempt to be a part-owner of the St. Louis Rams. Normally, I wouldn't bother with something like this, but there are a couple of angles to the story that haven't been covered that much, if at all.

First, there's Limbaugh's past. Granted, some of the quotations attributed to Limbaugh by CNN and MSNBC were fabricated. Having said that, though, there's a part of me that thinks that he bears some responsibility for creating the environment on which the Left attacked him this week. One thing I've learned in doing commentary is that you don't want to give your critics ammunition with which they can attack you. The more inflammatory quotations from this past week may have been false, but there are other direct and real quotations from Limbaugh that can be spun into sounding racist. And given the Left's love of blatant dishonesty when it comes to conservatives (see Media Matters for a plethora of examples), it was only a matter of time before the Left used Rush's quotes, both real and fake, against him.

In this case, Rush forgot the idea that within each stereotype there is a kernel of truth. Has Rush made racial statements that went over the line or could be seen as going over the line? Absolutely. With that truth already in place, it wasn't tough to create statements that play to the stereotype the Left has created about Rush and about conservatives in general. When that happens, even people who might not think Rush is racist would have second thoughts about him.

Now, for the fabricated statements themselves. CNN, MSNBC, and any other media outlets who have quoted or shown the disputed quotations without doing the legwork before going to air with them have done a grave disservice to the journalism profession. Regardless of your political leanings, regardless of whether you like Rush, you guys have a job to do: report the news. Limbaugh attempting to be a part-owner of the St. Louis Rams is news enough, so why risk legal repercussions by embellishing the story with unverified quotations attributed to him? And, no, going in after the fact with a "we're still trying to verify the authenticity of the quotations" isn't good enough. You treated the quotations like they were gospel, and in doing so, you've painted yourself into quite a corner if you find the quotations are fraudulent. Is going after Limbaugh worth a libel suit?

But it goes beyond merely personal politics and a limited effect. Many media outlets are experiencing declining viewership/readership, due in no small part to the public not believing the media are telling the truth and believing that they're just grinding partisan axes. If the Limbaugh quotes are proven to be false and come from a Leftist source, the media as a whole may suffer, but none so much as the media outlets who ran with the quotations before verifying them.

Both sides of this situation have some decisions to make about how to proceed from here. But one thing's certain: mistakes were made from both sides, and it will take a Herculean effort to regain the high ground for them both.

Three Ways to Look at the Snowe Vote

Today's Senate Finance Committee vote brought one of the versions of the health care reform bill to the floor of the Senate. The vote itself was along party lines, save for one Republican who voted in favor of it: Olympia Snowe of Maine. This decision overjoyed, confounded, and angered many people, but I have a different take. Or, more precisely, three.

First, the Democrats will treat Snowe's vote like a banner proclaiming "We're bipartisan!" In actuality, however, it's more like a fig leaf than a banner because one Republican vote does not a bipartisan bill make. All it does it make Snowe look like a turncoat to the GOP. (Whether she is will be seen in the coming weeks, but we'll discuss that in a bit.) If the Democrats push through the health care reform bill without Republican help, the Snowe vote will not mean much and won't provide much cover. It will still be a Democrat-lead vote, and they'll get all the praise or blame.

In Snowe's case, though, her vote is understandable, given her state. As of this writing, over 60% of Maine residents favor some sort of health care reform with a public option. Snowe's vote is consistent with her state's principles and her own. Regardless of what happens with the final vote, Snowe has secured her position in Maine by doing what her state wants her to do. In that way, her vote is like an acorn (no, not that ACORN) because she hopes it will grow into a larger, stronger idea, one that will help everyone.

Then again, Snowe's vote to bring the bill out to the full Senate might be a blessing in disguise for Republicans. The longer the health care reform debate rages, the less likely it looks like it will pass. By getting the bill out to the Senate, Snowe may have helped defeat it because there will be more debate of it. More debate means more time spent on it. More time spent means less support as people either read the proposed reforms and get angry or they tune it out completely. So, what exactly does this make Snowe's vote?

Possibly the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Little Fish" or Big Problem?

I ran into an interesting tactic for Leftists who defend ACORN's activities: comparing ACORN to controversial high profile corporations like Goldman Sachs and Halliburton. After all, those big companies are guilty of taking far more money from taxpayers than ACORN, so why focus on the "little guy" when the "big guy" is still out there?

Simple. Because the "little guy" has broken the law on a number of occasions.

Here's just a partial list, as chronicled by Peter Roff of US News and World Report

• Engaged in tax evasion, obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting a cover-up of nearly $1 million embezzled by Dale Rathke, brother of group founder Wade Rathke;

• Committed investment fraud, depriving the public of the right to "honest services," and engaging in a racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce;

• Conspired to defraud the United States by using taxpayer dollars for partisan political activities;

• Submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service
  
  , and the U.S. Department of Labor; and,

• Violated the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act.

There are others, but these are bad enough.

To the Leftists who still think ACORN is a small fish, let me point something out to you. If you shoplift from a convenience store at the same time a murder is occurring on the other side of town, you're still guilty of shoplifting. If Goldman Sachs, Haliburton, or any other big company is guilty of crimes, I fully endorse investigating them and prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law.

And unlike my Leftist brethren, I hold ACORN to the same standard.