Moments Of Clarity

Not to belittle the title phrase, which refers to that "Aha!" moment in the life of an alcoholic when she realizes that her life is out of control and something needs to be done, but I did, indeed, have such a revelation reading this yesterday. I read Somerby's Daily Howler pretty much every day. Somerby's obsession with news coverage of education issues sometimes ventures in to territory so unfamiliar that I feel lost in the weeds. His basic assumptions, however, I find refreshing, even bracing. Those are, first, that the mainstream national press - I think this should be very clearly stated - in the persons of those journalists on certain elite beats at our national newspapers and on cable and network television news so often bungle and dumb down our discourse - for whatever reason or reasons - that the cumulative effect, over time, has been disastrous for all of us. I don't necessarily buy his every stated claim, including his now shop-worn one that the press gave the White House to George W. Bush. All the same, his more basic premise, that our public discourse, including the information we need from those sources upon which we rely most for information to make choices in our public life has degenerated to a point that our discourse is, by and large, unintelligible, is, I think, sound.

More recently, he has hammered MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. His criticisms of Olbermann's evident misogyny toward candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, for example, on view pretty much nightly during the 2008 primary campaign (and after) was more than frustrating. Other television personalities, like Tucker Carlson and Chris Matthews, expressed similarly woman-hating tropes toward Mrs. Clinton and were quite rightly taken to task for them. Olbermann, however, received far too much of a pass. Except from Somerby.

More recently, both Olbermann and Maddow have been criticized for what he very often terms their "clowning". By this, he means their many and varied attempts to get laughs from information, often misrepresented by the hosts. Quite often this takes the form of disparaging, insulting attacks on those whose political views are vastly different than theirs. My own viewing of both these personalities has led me to the conclusion that, by and large, he is correct in his criticisms. I know this is shocking; we liberals are supposed to support "the only two liberals on TV", right? Well, first, I wonder just how "liberal" either one is. Second, while it was nice, back years ago during the waning days of George W. Bush, to hear Olbermann pontificate about this or that member of the Administration who should resign, it became too much over time.

Last week, Rachel Maddow sat down with Jon Stewart for an interview that took up the entire show. In yesterday's commentary on the interview, Somerby highlighted some parts of the interview that got cut. What got cut is surprising, and made me stop and really think.

STEWART: Now, that to me doesn’t seem like, “You may be technically correct.” I would be surprised if, you know, Barack Obama then wouldn’t fall under that rubric. He’s, he’s—extraordinary rendition still goes on. Or, you know, there are things that are going on at Bagram Air Force Base. You know, things are happening in the world that under that same definitions— Is it as clear-cut maybe as “Yeah, yeah, water-boarding? Sure, I did that! Happy to do it again.” Maybe not. But you know, Franklin Delano Roosevelt interned 120,000 Japanese-Americans. Is he a war criminal? If you say he’s a war criminal, is that kind of an incendiary thing and kind of a conversation ender? So I view it as something that is done for emotional impact, something that should be discussed, but discussed in a way that takes into context other presidents, what war really is, others that have been accused of war crimes, what they are.

Is George Bush Saddam Hussein? Saddam Hussein’s a war criminal, he’s got rape rooms. Now I know that Bush had the Lincoln Bedroom and some other rooms, but I don’t think he had rape rooms. Do you know what I mean?

What made me stop and think? Why, he's right. I have mused quite often that I dreamed of major figures from the Bush Administration going on trial in The Hague for war crimes. Yet, all the policies the Bush Administration carried through, with the possible exception of torture, continue under Pres. Obama. Worse, in some way, is the fact that his election, at least in part, was about ending those abuses of power. One of his first acts as President was a pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. That stain has yet to be wiped away. Indeed, Attorney General Eric Holder has decided that criminal trials for detainees cannot go forward because of complaints from New York politicians; that moving detainees from Cuba to prisons in the US cannot move forward because of complaints from politicians, including here in Illinois, who are terrified of having these folks in SuperMax facilities on US soil. This kind of political cowardice is inexcusable.

Intellectual honesty compels me to accept some things that, until now, I hadn't really wanted to see. First, if Bush is guilty of war crimes for certain acts that clearly violate standards of conduct set down in international law, then Pres. Obama is too. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, yet I think it is, to quote Lenin, a scrap of paper and no more.

Yet, Stewart's point is greater than that. His satirical take on our news and public discourse is, in fact, a plea to dial it down a notch or two. We can disagree without, as he puts it, being tribal. We all seem to have lost any sense of commonality, of common purpose, of being Americans together, trying to figure it out as we go as best we can. Instead, each side sees its partisan and ideological opponents not as those differing in means, but fundamentally opposed to certain core values that are, for lack of a better phrase, essentially American.

This is not to get misty eyed over the possibility of political opponents sitting down and hammering out working compromises on important policy matters. Rather it is to admit the ways I have contributed to the poisonous atmosphere of so much of our talk about our public life and do a mea culpa for that.