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Media bias?
02 Oct 2008 10:48 pm
Soledad O'Brien polls the 32 "persuadables" by asking them to indicate, by a show of hands, who they thought won. She calls the vote for Biden "overwhelming". The magic of Tivo allows us to freeze frame and count: 11 or 12 for Palin, 12 or 13 for Biden (some people are hard to see). Thanks, Soledad, for giving credence to everyone who thinks women are bad at Math.
and what about the 8 votes you're missing? if they went Biden's way 21 to 11, Soledad would be correct
I saw that too. To be fair about 6 put up their hands for Palin after a couple beats. Watch it again at full speed.
Biden did better, but the fact that she didn't bomb was beyond most everyone's expectations, and I think a solid cause for celebration to the McCain camp. I think it will mean that most people will forget about this debate and put less emphasis on the VP candidates' relative readiness, which could only help McCain.
Thanks, Soledad, for giving credence to everyone who thinks women are bad at Math.
This isn't debatable. Women's inability for math is a well-documented, thoroughly proven scientific law, written into the fabric of the universe like the speed of light or gravity. It just is.
Yes a snap judgment on a bs handraising poll is more than enough reason for me to get all information elsewhere...
She was well prepped to deliver polished... or at least fluent responses. But Biden continued to the work of painting McCain/Palin into a corner with Bush/Cheney.
The debate will help to staunch Republicans' concerns about Palin -- George Will might just vote McCain after all. But it reinforces the McCain camp's basic problem, which is that they have to distinguish themselves from the past eight years.
Sending out a steady stream of words is not the same as being "fluent." She talked a lot, but most of it was obvious memorized talking points that became more and more repetitive as the night went on. I can just hear the coach telling her to come right out and say she wouldn't answer questions. But of course, that is cover for not being able to answer them.
When people read the transcripts tomorrow and follow the flow of the discussion they will see just how badly she did.
that damned media bias!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWZbydwEByA
Anyone going to check the blogs to see how many factual errors and how much BS Biden fluently produced?
Spewing numbers isn't the same as being right.
Media not covering Biden's Lebanon gaffe.
First he said Hezbollah was kicked out of Lebanon.
Biden's suggestion of moving Nato forces into Lebanon is not practical.
Nato is seen as a puppet of the U.S in the middle east and that idea of moving nato into lebanon has long been rejected.
Sounds like a good idea but the UN blue hats are the only thing the shia in Lebanon will agree to.
This was discussed two years ago and Nato and Hezbollah were both against it.
Did you see Frank Luntz' focus group? They gave the last debate to Obama.
This one was...all Palin...all the time.
Here's something else odd about those "uncommitted" voters. Joe Biden is apparently as good as he thinks he is.
See, conservatives, this is why you guys are losing: no self-critical apparatus. Every conservative is just saying "she won, she won!" rather than trying to soberly grade her performance. Meanwhile the three polls I've seen show Biden comfortably winning. You guys aren't going to solve the problems in your ideology if you're constantly refusing to confront problems.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/23/biden.earmarks/index.html
Obama and Biden voted to keep the bridge of nowhere funding instead of for an amendment where it would have gone to a bridge in louisiana damaged by katrina.
Some hypocricy to keep mocking Palin about this with Biden's record.
As an Andrew Sullivan reader stated:
"She didn't poop her pants. So basically she did great!"
She didn't win the debate, she couldn't even piece together an answer about the position for which she is running.
When not losing is winning, there isn't much to your campaign (Liberals know this from Kerry).
When people read the transcripts tomorrow - Charlotte
Yah right. Fewer Americans will read debate transcripts tomorrow than will field-dress a moose.
"Media bias"????
Are you even trying at this point? That is a serious, legitimate question.
Back to sniveling about the media, again? What a victim!
I thought you were supposed to be an "economics blogger".
Biden's suggestion of moving Nato forces into Lebanon is not practical.
That was actually the plan, but our NATO allies all talked a big game and then didn't commit to it. Lebanon accepted this situation as long as US troops weren't used. It didn't happen so long ago that you wouldn't get called out on this.
She didn't answer the question about same-sex couples. Not completely.
The other thing that really bothered (scared) me was her answer to the branch the V.P. belongs under.
“I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are.”
Wasn't one Dick Cheney enough?
I think if you really listened to her, very little made sense.
I mean if you can understand that response at all.
sus, what are you talking about? No, she didn't answer the same sex question well, but then again, she didn't suggest that the constitution required that same sex couples be treated the same, but differently, as Biden did. Incoherence at its height. And then he screwed up the constitution again, saying that the vice presidency is described as part of the executive branch in Article I of the constitution. Obviously he's never read the document, or he'd have noticed that while the powers of the vice president are set out in Article I, those powers are legislative, as Article I is about the legislative branch.
he'd have noticed that while the powers of the vice president are set out in Article I, those powers are legislative
He clarified this later saying that the Constitution is very clear that the only legislative power the VP holds is to vote in the Senate in the case of a tie. Read the book John Adams and you'll see what the founders intended a VP to do there. What he was getting at is the Vice Presidency of Dick Cheney was a departure from the Constitution and he would bring the legislative powers of the VP back in line.
If you're worried about people thinking women are bad at math, what you want to look at is the Bethany MacLean op-ed in the NYT today arguing that "we are all to blame" for the housing bubble and resulting financial crisis. Check this out:
"But if you sold your house over, say, the last five years, you got an inflated price because of the proliferation of credit made possible by the Street’s practices.
"If you bought a house, then you got a lower mortgage rate than you would have if it weren’t for Wall Street."
So let's think this through. The buyer got a lower mortgage rate. But because mortgage rates were so low, the seller got "an inflated price" -- i.e. the buyer paid more.
And hence the buyer profited from this...how?
Two people profit from the situation. First, the real-estate agent, who got a higher commission because the price of the house was inflated. Second, anyone who used the value of the house to take out a line of credit, or just a larger mortgage than they might have, and spent the money on other stuff. But homebuyers didn't profit from having lower rates; that was canceled out by higher prices. They profited from having access to credit for other purposes.
I've been wondering if Megan was born of a wealthy family. I was not, but I am also a graduate of the University of Chicago, so, though I admire the pedigree that Megan constantly flourishes, I doubt that she has any idea about the struggles of the middle class; and I have been nothing less than repulsed by her contempt for "the common folk" (cf. Mencken quote about the common people deserving it good and hard -- a quote not unfamiliar to me, but all the more despicable given its provenance from a would-be fascist homebody).
Why are we taking this person seriously? Ask where here money comes from (does she worry about that?).
Probably the reason the Palin hands were slow to be raised is because the pro-Palin people couldn't get them off their genitals quick enough.
I've despised Soledad O'Brien for about 4 years now. I was stuck in some nasty conference center in Conshahawkin, PA and CNN was running as we were having breakfast. She came on to report that the coalition had just killed Uday and Quusay Hussein, and that slag actually seemed SAD about it. She was worried that nobody had read them their rights! It took a company of infantry and multiple ATGW strikes to get into their house/bunker
"See, conservatives, this is why you guys are losing: no self-critical apparatus. Every conservative is just saying 'she won, she won!'"
Umm can you actually name conservatives that said that? I mean besides Pat Buchanan. Most conservatives I've seen have been fairly even. Check Douthat here or the people at "Culture 11." The National Review seems to be saying she won, but at least one of them says she won because she tied.
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmE3NDk5NzM3OGFhMDdjOGM2OTlmNTlkZGIwYmJhYTQ=
I think she exceeded expectations and I actually thought she did better at foreign policy than I thought policy for her. Still she dodged many questions and tended to repeat stock phrases. I think McCain is still going to lose.
Is that better?
I meant "than I thought possible for her." I'm glad I'm not running for VP.
while we're nitpicking, chances are she polled the audience beforehand, counted them properly, and then had them 're-enact' the poll for the camera.
“I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are.”
This is true isn't it?
The vice president is President of the Senate.
So if they chose to exercise this power they could sit in every session of the Senate and for instance rule on points of order and probably have their voice heard. In addition to voting in the case of a tie.
It is not much but the VP could constitutionally take a larger role in the day to day operation of the Senate.
IMHO, the MSM narrative is enormously important in our discussion. Ann Althouse has discussed in detail the Couric interviews of Palin and Biden which, by their different standards of inquiry, lead to our present frame. What disturbed me is, admittedly, unrelated to that frame. A while back we had a discussion of McCain's 'dementia.' Where is the discussion of Biden's unresolved grief and loss and emotional vapidity as revealed by his inappropriate crying in the debate? These emotional restrictions would seem to be more important than an ability to produce the greater number of clauses from 'No Child Left Behind.'
My understanding is that the chair is not permitted to participate in the debate as an advocate for either side; the chair is supposed to be a neutral arbiter. That's why you see them hand off the gavel to someone else when they want to speak on a bill. And since I'm pretty sure only Senators are permitted to speak in debate on the floor of the Senate (unless some special dispensation is made), the VP would not "have their voice heard" in the normal course of events other than making procedural statements. That's why they never show up in the Senate except when there is a close vote that the administration feels is important, because it's a waste of their time; and with the new "60 votes" threshold, you're probably not going to see very many more such close votes.
Like I said in another thread, the whole genesis of this newfound interest in the VP's "legislative" functions is due to Cheney's wish to avoid being subject to the records requirements of the Executive Branch. Before Cheney, there was simply no question whether the VP was part of the Executive Branch. Palin may have grandiose plans for how she would drive the President's legislative agenda as VP, but she wouldn't do it by participating in floor debates and proposing amendments and serving on committees. Her power would be entirely dependent on the President's approval and delegation of executive authority, just as it has been with Cheney; and I have a feeling that McCain would be much less willing to cede that authority, even over Palin's "domestic portfolio," than Palin and her supporters imagine.
Michael:
I dunno. I'm guessing most people who'd lost their wife and daughter in a car wreck, and then found themselves discussing it in public years later, might get a bit choked up. It sure didn't seem out of line or unreasonable to me.
--- "Before Cheney, there was simply no question whether the VP was part of the Executive Branch." ---
Yeah...thats just why the VP's staff and offices are paid for out of the LEGISLATIVE procurements rather than the EXECUTIVE.
Look - it doesn't take a Constitutionalvscholar to see that the VP has a role in both the Legislative and Executive. However, whereas his active role in the Legislative is spelled out in the Constitution (President of the Senate), his role in the Executive is basically at the whim of the President. The President can have him do lots of things, or nothing, in terms of Executive duties. By contrast, there is nothing that Harry Reid could do if Cheney wanted to sit in the Senate each day and preside over it. It is his Constitutionally mandated duty after all. So all this hogwash about it always been only an Executive position is just that...hogwash.
It really jumped out at me the moment she said it. She asked for the show of hands for Biden and I looked and said "about half" then watched as she quickly asked about Palin and just immediately said "Biden wins" while people are still putting up their hands.
I used my Comcast DVR (no Tivo for me, alas) and easily counted 14 hands for Palin (had to go slo-mo for two of them, as they were obscured). It was hard to see about three members of the audience (one was obliterated by a CNN graphic), but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say they were all pro-Biden. 18-14 split is not overwhelming.
I think she had her narrative and was going with it, but to be charitable, it may have been the fact that the Biden "voters" were mostly bunched right in front of her, while Palin's were more scattered to the edges.
I remember O'Brien being the most skewed of the CNN lot during the Obama/McCain debate. What I can't tell is whether she just has a bias or if her interviewing prior to being on-camera shows her something that isn't going on when the lights hit her focus group.
responding to megan's original observation....
i was watching with some friends and it was so obvious everyone immediately noticed (most of us are obama supporters)
we rewound and freeze framed each show-of-hands request, there were 13 for Biden and 14 for palin --could not see people on wings to be fair but were not a lot more -- then solidad says, "well, obviously obama won by an overwhelming majority..."
someone needs to call her out on that, really misleading and dishonest. it really changed my opinion of her objectivity
No VP from Adams to Garner exercised an iota of executive power or authority, except in cases of succession to the Presidency. All of them exercised legislative power. So, if it is true that "[b]efore Cheney, there was simply no question whether the VP was part of the Executive Branch," the utterly unquestioned answer was, "No, the Vice-President is not part of the Executive Branch; his office is purely legislative in character."
Albatross, thanks for you comment. The problem I had with that instance is that it seemed to be tenuously at best related to the subject that was being addresed by Palin, challenging economic circumstances in a family; so it wasn't so much his emotion but that he brought it in. He also cried in discussing his father and his son. And if his son is handled anything like Al Gore Sr's son was handled in VN he ought to be pretty safe.
Umm can you actually name conservatives that said that?
Jay Reding called this a blowout victory for Palin.
Ah, Soledad... You and Campbell Brown are the penultimate Bimbettes. Nancy Pelosi is the Bimbo.
No one can win a non-debate debate, so designating the winner is a feckless exercise in propoganda.
I'm still waiting for The Senate's A-Number One Bull Goose Foreign Policy Expert (a/k/a Joe Biden) to tell us when, exactly, the US and France kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon.
I thought Pelosi had conclusively settled the question as to female math skills with that first house vote on the bailout bill?
She was also counting all the members of the CNN crew off-camera. With them at 100% for Biden, along with Soledad, then yes, it was overwhelmingly for Biden.
--most people who'd lost their wife and daughter in a car wreck, and then found themselves discussing it in public years later, might get a bit choked up. It sure didn't seem out of line or unreasonable to me.--
It certainly was out of line. Biden was responding to the very grounded response Palin gave which shows that she simply is middle class, in contrast to his position in the 'collection of princes in their own mind' that is the U S Senate. He was straining to break from his real status -thirty five year Washington insider.
So to do that he has to recall that he lost his wife? Thirty five years ago? Yes, in reality that was the last time he was one of us - in the middle class. It doesn't make him a bad guy, but it didn't help him connect.
See in association to this concept his portrayal of himself as a constant customer at Home Depot. Right! In paint stained ragged blue jeans. And
see him talking about visiting a neighborhood diner "Katie's Diner, which apparently closed a decade and a half ago.
Our elected leaders laudably try to connect to us middle class every election, but over the years have come to screw us for the 3.5 years intervening - see the bail out bill.
Not surprised that CNN would assist them in showing how our dear leaders are one of us and that we love them so.
And of course, Biden has the Bosniak vote all sewn up!
Albatross:
What's out of line is that he was the one who brought it up, out of nowhere.No one in the McCain campaign (or any of his supporters AFAIK) has ever implied that he couldn't properly raise his children because he was a man.
It was a canned story told so he could show his emotional side. He probably thought it would help him.
Liberalrob,
Does the Constitution say that the Vice President can't take part in Senate debates?
Constitutional "scholar" Biden (and liberalrob) need to go back to school.
Wow, no one remarked on JordanT's observation at 2:09 on Oct. 3:
"Read the book John Adams and you'll see what the founders intended a VP to do there. What he was getting at is the Vice Presidency of Dick Cheney was a departure from the Constitution and he would bring the legislative powers of the VP back in line."
Since when has any liberal given a damn about what the founders' intentions for the Constitution was? If they cared, we wouldn't be suffering through the incessant calls for a "Living Constitution".
Since when has any liberal given a damn about what the founders' intentions for the Constitution was?
Since Bush started to torture people, increase the size of government, spending of the government and debt of government a lot of conservatives have jumped ship from the Republican party. The Republican party no longer stands for any conservative ideals and where have they stood up for the Constitution in the last 8 years?
Does it say that he can? All it says is he is the "presiding officer" and presiding officers are not empowered to speak in debate other than to enforce the rules. (He is allowed to be ON the floor, just not to speak for the record as an advocate.)
It seems to be at the very least a long-standing tradition that only Senators are allowed to speak in debate on the floor.
In my opinion, much of the media is at least partially responsible for stoking the flames of hyper-partisanship in this country. However, in the final analysis, it is we, the voters, who have a responsibility to see through the "so thick you can cut it with a knife" biases of journalists and reporters, and still make the most informed and objective decisions possible about the candidates and the issues on Election Day. Unfortunately, I fear, many of us are not up to the task of becoming the informed citizenry.
www.doctorwascher.com