Why did Obama stay in Rev. Wright's church?

DontTreadOnMe wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
DontTreadOnMe wrote:
umm, i'd have to disagree that obama is getting a pass. i actually think that he's getting nailed a little harder than mccain.

On A2K? I don't think so. Look at the results of the poll, though I am surprised that there are as many as there are who think Wright is a problem for Obama.

no, i mean in the media. they keep bringing it up.

IMO. . .

You can't expect the media to pass up the chance to show those juicy sound bites of Jeremiah Wright though no matter how biased they may be. Smile

But as I said in my post to Nimh, their sympathies are clearly with Obama on that. If you listen carefully, most of the reports are carefully worded to take as much heat off Obama as possible. They can't ignore it though and retain any integrity because the internet community isn't going to let it drop and you can be sure that the Clinton machine has and will continue to use it for whatever advantage they can get out of it. They don't have to be up front about that--they just have to know what strings to pull to keep it on the surface.

For better or worse, talk radio and the internet community phenomenon have revolutionized the media dynamics in this country. The television networks and newspapers can usually no longer opt to shelve a story that might be unfavorable to somebody they like. Also, it is also harder for them to cherry pick (or manuacture) what facts they use to support or criticize people because they will be called on it. Dan Rather has an interesting war story about that.

Who knows. Maybe all this will actually restore some semblance of respectability to the media as they are forced to actually do better journalism than they have done for some time now. I noticed awhile back that CNN was doing a much better job at providing more balanced and less obviously slanted news reports and commentary and voila! Their ratings have been steadily improving.

There is a lesson in that for the NYT and other prominent media outlets.

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Foxfyre wrote:

If you listen carefully, most of the reports are carefully worded to take as much heat off Obama as possible.

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step outta line, the men come, and take you away

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nimh wrote:

...Dont you remember the flack he got for saying something superficially positive about Reagan?....

what i thought was weird about "the flack" was that yeah, people glommed onto the reagan remark (which i thought was pretty accurate) and totally ignored his comment that the republicans had had all the good ideas for 15 or so years.

i thought that statement was the important one. and also wondered what those "good ideas" were.

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nimh wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
If you listen carefully, most of the reports are carefully worded to take as much heat off Obama as possible.

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step outta line, the men come, and take you away

amen. and cool that you know that song.

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nimh wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
If you listen carefully, most of the reports are carefully worded to take as much heat off Obama as possible.

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step outta line, the men come, and take you away

Not fair, nor responsive to what I said. My obsevations are not out of fear. My observations arise out of once being a lifetime media watcher (and one time member of the media.)

Nor is what I said inaccurate. Obama is the media darling of the day whether you like it or not, and that means that news reports involving him will be phrased to favor him as much as possible.

Hillary once enjoyed the same phenomenon. She is no longer the media darling of the day and cannot count on that kind of media support.

Even George W. Bush once briefly had the nod in the high approval ratings following 9/11. They faded quickly since he is after all a REBUBLICAN and therefore the ideological enemy.

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Even George W. Bush once briefly had the nod in the high approval ratings following 9/11. (fair and accurate enough) They faded quickly since he is after all a REBUBLICAN and therefore the ideological enemy. (foxfyre dogma)

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Foxfyre wrote:

(and one time member of the media.)

Yes, you mentioned that before. I understand that it's hard to be specific without risking your own privacy, and there's very good reason on a forum not to want to risk it - I have problem with the same thing sometimes. But roughly what kind of work did you do? I think I saw you mention sometime that you used to write or edit for a church's parochial newspaper or something like that - or did I totally misremember that?

Foxfyre wrote:

Hillary once enjoyed the same phenomenon. She is no longer the media darling of the day and cannot count on that kind of media support.

Even George W. Bush once briefly had the nod in the high approval ratings following 9/11. They faded quickly since he is after all a REBUBLICAN and therefore the ideological enemy.

Oh I dont know, I dont think the American people are at all the kind of sheep you appear to make them out to be here. It's not like, oh the media tells them to dislike someone so they do.

So if Bush's approval ratings have fallen to record depths, I have trouble buying the explanation that it's just because of how the media manipulated Americans into thinking he's bad. After all, Ronald Reagan was a Republican, and his ratings never fell so deep. I think it's because Americans can recognize a bullshitter when they see one.

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The american voter dosent always recognize a bullshitter until after they have elected them. Bush is proof positive of that fact. He also preached change in Washington and he sure did keep his word!

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nimh wrote:

I think it's because Americans can recognize a bullshitter when they see one.

maybe not right away, but once all of the smoke and mirrors are removed, yes. unfortunately, they realized it too late to get rid of his dumb buttsky in 2004.

and as far as reagan goes, on his worst day, he was still a hundred times better than bush. he wasn't perfect, but still better than what we got now.

okay. now i'm depressed...

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DontTreadOnMe wrote:

what i thought was weird about "the flack" was that yeah, people glommed onto the reagan remark (which i thought was pretty accurate) and totally ignored his comment that the republicans had had all the good ideas for 15 or so years.

i thought that statement was the important one. and also wondered what those "good ideas" were.

Thats not quite what he said though. Mind - I didnt at all like what he did say. I didnt agree with it, and it turned me off. But that said, he didnt say the Republicans had had all the good ideas - in fact, he didnt say the Republicans had good ideas at all. He said Reagan managed to drill into a wide-spread popular yearning for change and new hope, and used the way he benefited from that to really change the country. Not necessarily for the better, but he did change the country, while Bill Clinton didnt.

Here's the full quote:

"I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that you know Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the 60's and the 70's and, you know, government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. And I think people just tapped into - he tapped into what people were already feeling, which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want you know a return to that sense of dynamism and you know, entrepreneurship that had been missing, alright?"What I dont like at all here is how he goes on about "all the excesses of the 60's and the 70's" and how "government had grown and grown", which certainly seems to legitimise the conservative talking points and small government ideology. Hardly the kind of thing to say if you want to usher in a new era of progressive government, is it?

I was really disappointed in that, it made me doubt just how committed he was to progressive politics beyond just, you know, political reform and such postmaterial issues - it doesnt exactly makes him sound like a New Dealer.

But on the other hand, he doesnt actually say any of the Reoublicans' ideas on how to solve the problems of the time were good. Reagan played into this desire at the time for "clarity, optimism, dynamism and entrepreneurship"; in short he knew how to harness this desire and use it, not just to win the elections but to forge a radical change in American politics and society. But there's no indication here that Obama agreed with what that change entailed; and Soz reminded us at the time that he has written at length elsewhere about the damage Reagan's policies wrecked on those who were less well off, on disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Just that he acknowledged that Reagan was a very skillful politician who succesfully managed to bring a drastic change about thanks to a popular yearning for change.

I wish he hadnt said it, for sure. Just wanted to set the record straight that he never said "that the republicans had had all the good ideas for 15 or so years".

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i agree with him on the initial thought. reagan did change the trajectory. in that he was accurate. like you, i didn't dig the "excesses" thing. those "excesses" are in many ways at the core of changes that created the landscape where he can run for president. along with hillary.

also, my bad. he didn't say "good" ideas;

Quote:

...he tapped into what people were already feeling, which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and you know, entrepreneurship that had been missing, alright?

don't know where he got that notion at all.

...And the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I mean, there's - I think it's fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.

i don't think it's fair to say that dems had no ideas. in any case, following the socalled republican revolution, the dems had not a chance of passing much of anything.

i'll say this; i disagree with some of obama's ideas (or whatever), but i do believe that he's put some thought into his concepts.

what i need to hear from him though is more solid details about how he's going to effect all of this change. i seriously don't think that there's gonna be all that much cooperation from the republicans. it's not like they're any less committed to their core beliefs than democrats.

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nimh wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
(and one time member of the media.)

Yes, you mentioned that before. I understand that it's hard to be specific without risking your own privacy, and there's very good reason on a forum not to want to risk it - I have problem with the same thing sometimes. But roughly what kind of work did you do? I think I saw you mention sometime that you used to write or edit for a church's parochial newspaper or something like that - or did I totally misremember that?

Foxfyre wrote:
Hillary once enjoyed the same phenomenon. She is no longer the media darling of the day and cannot count on that kind of media support.

Even George W. Bush once briefly had the nod in the high approval ratings following 9/11. They faded quickly since he is after all a REBUBLICAN and therefore the ideological enemy.

Oh I dont know, I dont think the American people are at all the kind of sheep you appear to make them out to be here. It's not like, oh the media tells them to dislike someone so they do.

So if Bush's approval ratings have fallen to record depths, I have trouble buying the explanation that it's just because of how the media manipulated Americans into thinking he's bad. After all, Ronald Reagan was a Republican, and his ratings never fell so deep. I think it's because Americans can recognize a bullshitter when they see one.

My media background I've probably mentioned elsewhere: I majored in journalism in college and worked mostly as a reporter for newspapers and television prior to going to work for private organizations doing, among other things, communications and public relations. Those jobs required writing and editing local and regional publications, hosting a weekly radio program, among other things, and some of that required frequent contact with area media sources, so I kept my hand in.

I did not say that the media tells people to like or dislike anybody and that was also not included in anyting I said. Nor did I say or infer that it was the media that caused Bush's poll rating to drop. (Do liberals drink a special brand of water or something that makes them see things that aren't there in what people write?)

I do say there is a very definite leftish tilt to the mainstream media that can and does color what gets reported and how it is reported. Therefore a Democrat is more likely to receive more gentle or careful treatment than will a Republican. (Also, in my opinion, the candidate of whichever party the media likes best will receive better press than will his/her opponents.) I don't even know that all the media does this consciously, but it is verifiable by every independent study that I've seen over the last 20-30 years. Some do better and/or worse than others. The latest information I posted on that is found HERE.

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Foxfyre wrote:

...I did not say that the media tells people to like or dislike anybody...

but if you had, i would probably agree that it was a fairly accurate statement. my opinion is based on my experience in the music and film&tv industries.

fox news demonizes nearly everyone who's not in lock step with the hard right. msnbc, keith oberman in particular, are less than even handed with clinton. or just about anyone who isn't in lock step with barack obama. davis gregory seems to be the one there who has a relatively unbiased show these days.

oddly enough, i've drifted back towards cnn. they're not completely unbiased, but closer to it than the others at this point.

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DontTreadOnMe wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
...I did not say that the media tells people to like or dislike anybody...

but if you had, i would probably agree that it was a fairly accurate statement. my opinion is based on my experience in the music and film&tv industries.

fox news demonizes nearly everyone who's not in lock step with the hard right. msnbc, keith oberman in particular, are less than even handed with clinton. or just about anyone who isn't in lock step with barack obama. davis gregory seems to be the one there who has a relatively unbiased show these days.

oddly enough, i've drifted back towards cnn. they're not completely unbiased, but closer to it than the others at this point.

Now see there you go. Fox 'demonizes nearly everyone who's not in lock step with the hard right?' You simply can't say that with any authority DTom no matter how much I love you. It simply is not true. Please look HERE

By the way, Obama was on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this morning. Check your local cable channels for re-airing times if you missed it.

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Foxfyre wrote:

DontTreadOnMe wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
...I did not say that the media tells people to like or dislike anybody...

but if you had, i would probably agree that it was a fairly accurate statement. my opinion is based on my experience in the music and film&tv industries.

fox news demonizes nearly everyone who's not in lock step with the hard right. msnbc, keith oberman in particular, are less than even handed with clinton. or just about anyone who isn't in lock step with barack obama. davis gregory seems to be the one there who has a relatively unbiased show these days.

oddly enough, i've drifted back towards cnn. they're not completely unbiased, but closer to it than the others at this point.

Now see there you go. Fox 'demonizes nearly everyone who's not in lock step with the hard right?' You simply can't say that with any authority DTom no matter how much I love you. It simply is not true. Please look HERE

By the way, Obama was on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this morning. Check your local cable channels for re-airing times if you missed it.

can only go by what i've observed foxy.

but here's something interesting for you. we have a local morning show, good day l.a. i'm not sure that it airs out of the area or not. although it's a fox affiliate, the personalities who chair it are less than enthusiastic about bush and alla that. but then consider the market. soo..

occassionally chris wallace beams in to hype an upcoming this or that. and when it comes up, he's yucking it up along with them about whatever flap is going on in bush world.

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DontTreadOnMe wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
DontTreadOnMe wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
...I did not say that the media tells people to like or dislike anybody...

but if you had, i would probably agree that it was a fairly accurate statement. my opinion is based on my experience in the music and film&tv industries.

fox news demonizes nearly everyone who's not in lock step with the hard right. msnbc, keith oberman in particular, are less than even handed with clinton. or just about anyone who isn't in lock step with barack obama. davis gregory seems to be the one there who has a relatively unbiased show these days.

oddly enough, i've drifted back towards cnn. they're not completely unbiased, but closer to it than the others at this point.

Now see there you go. Fox 'demonizes nearly everyone who's not in lock step with the hard right?' You simply can't say that with any authority DTom no matter how much I love you. It simply is not true. Please look HERE

By the way, Obama was on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this morning. Check your local cable channels for re-airing times if you missed it.

can only go by what i've observed foxy.

but here's something interesting for you. we have a local morning show, good day l.a. i'm not sure that it airs out of the area or not. although it's a fox affiliate, the personalities who chair it are less than enthusiastic about bush and alla that. but then consider the market. soo..

occassionally chris wallace beams in to hype an upcoming this or that. and when it comes up, he's yucking it up along with them about whatever flap is going on in bush world.

And you see this as a problem how? You do know that Chris Wallace is a Democrat don't you? Or at least he was in 2006. I presume he has not changed his party affiliation.

The fact is that a whole bunch of us do not see Republicans as figurative monsters complete with tales and horns and do not think you have to trash the President in order to criticize his point of view or his policies. If you go by bloggers who hate Bush, it seems most think it is extreme to point out anything the President does right or give the correct information when he is falsely accused. Fox News beats everybody else in the ratings in almost every category because it does just that in a way you find in few other media outlets. It also reports good news about Democrats and leftwingers too when warranted. It certainly reports every verifiable negative that exists for the President or any other Republican and/or conservative too though.

In the more editorial commentary on Fox news, I haven't seen the President complimented on much for some time now, but he is treated fairly. Some can't seem to stand that.

And if you think Fox news 'demonizes everybody who is not right wing or Republican or whatever' based on what you have observed, you simply haven't spent very much time observing because that is simply an incorrect statement. You didn't look at the summary of that study I linked for you, did you?

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Did anyone watch Rev. Wright on Bill Moyers? ANYONE?

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Re: the "study" Fox linked;

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author.

So he got the results that confirmed his pre-conceived notion. What a coincidence.

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eoe wrote:

Did anyone watch Rev. Wright on Bill Moyers? ANYONE?

I did. And I sent the link to my mom, who loves him now. I know that the talking heads are saying that Rev. Wright being in the spotlight is not what the Obama campaign wants ("they want him to just go away") but I think it's good. For one thing, the more he is out there where everyone can see, the more people get the sense that he's not some kind of crazy radical cult leader. The smear only works as long as the definition of Wright as a nutjob holds, and that only holds when all that most people can see of him are the two second sound bytes played in constant rotation. Once the definition falls apart, which it will, then the guilt by association smear also falls apart. Also, with Wright out there defending himself, this becomes a conversation between the accusers and Wright, and not the accusers in Obama. This frees Obama up to stay on his own message.

Just my humble opinion, of course.

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FreeDuck wrote:

eoe wrote:
Did anyone watch Rev. Wright on Bill Moyers? ANYONE?

I did. And I sent the link to my mom, who loves him now. I know that the talking heads are saying that Rev. Wright being in the spotlight is not what the Obama campaign wants ("they want him to just go away") but I think it's good. For one thing, the more he is out there where everyone can see, the more people get the sense that he's not some kind of crazy radical cult leader. The smear only works as long as the definition of Wright as a nutjob holds, and that only holds when all that most people can see of him are the two second sound bytes played in constant rotation. Once the definition falls apart, which it will, then the guilt by association smear also falls apart. Also, with Wright out there defending himself, this becomes a conversation between the accusers and Wright, and not the accusers in Obama. This frees Obama up to stay on his own message.

Just my humble opinion, of course.

I'd have to agree with you, Freeduck. Unfortunately, I only saw excerpts but from what I did see, he appeared as a rational, reasoned, thinking human being, and I liked how he presented himself and his views. It leads me to conclude that the original comments were taken out of context and blown up, obviously deliberately. A rather transparent smear campaign.

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Why did Obama stay in Rev. Wright's church?

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