There’s an email circulating that starts off with another of those typical “the media won’t tell you this” lines. In this particular case, the accusation is that the story “doesn’t have the shock effect.”

But as usual, there’s a little more to it than that…something that the “they” who composed this email really don’t want you to know.

The story centers on a statue of an American soldier, apparently grieving at the loss of a fellow soldier and being comforted by a young child. According to the email, the statue, which will eventually be shipped from Iraq to a military museum in Texas, was created by an Iraqi artist named Kalat.

This Kalat, the story goes, had suffered the torturous existence of being forced by Saddam Hussein to make “many hundreds of bronze busts of Saddam that dotted Baghdad.” The email then reports that Kalat was so grateful for “the Americans [sic] liberation of his country” that he melted three of the busts to create this memorial to fallen American soldiers and worked on the statue for many months.

Out of the goodness of his heart.

The email then asks and answers its own question:

“Do you know why we don’t hear about this in the news? Because it is heart warming and praise worthy. The media avoids it because it does not have the shock effect.”

Or so “they” want you to believe…while they deliver this little call to action: “But we can do something about it. We can pass this along to as many people as we can in honor of all our brave military who are making a difference.”

A quick visit to myth-busting website snopes.com, which, curiously enough, is the kind of place these self-appointed media-condemning “truth” spreaders never seem to bother to go, tells a somewhat different story about this Kalat and his artistic creation.

The website declares it a case of “real photograph, inaccurate description:”

“…the accompanying text is very misleading. The Iraqi sculptor was not ‘forced by Saddam Hussein to make the many hundreds of bronze busts of Saddam,’ he did not produce the memorial shown because he was ‘so grateful that the Americans liberated his country,’ and the monument was not his idea. Members of the U.S. Army paid the sculptor, who had previously worked on a few other Saddam statues, to create the work pictured according to a design of their choosing.”

And believe me, the tall tale only gets better — or worse, depending on your point of view — from there. Why did this Kalat really agree to build the statue, and how does he really feel about American soldiers? Read it for yourself…but be warned: the “they” who created this email certainly don’t want you to know!

I certainly have no problem with “supporting the troops” and honoring the men and women of our military. But there’s a big difference between paying tribute and spreading propaganda.

What’s on their agenda? What are they trying to get you to believe, despite what the apparent facts are? And why would they make false accusations while demanding the “whole” truth?

Why won’t the media really report this story? Maybe because it’s inaccurate, exaggerated and just plain false. Sometimes the media does gets it right.

I had an interesting dinner conversation the other night with a co-worker. We were talking about the 40 anniversary of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination in California, and we realized that this November 22nd will be the 45th anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas.

We discussed all of the JFK conspiracy theories, and my co-worker asked me if I thought there had been a conspiracy to kill JFK or if I thought Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. I said that I believe a conspiracy was definitely possible, but that I didn’t think it was the level of conspiracy that movies like Oliver Stone’s JFK depicted.

I mentioned a quote from Walter Cronkite about Stone’s depiction of the events, which he had called a “bill of goods” that unsuspecting young people had fully bought into. Cronkite said, in effect, that if there had been that level of conspiracy from all angles of our government, organized crime and foreign powers, there is almost no way that by now, someone wouldn’t have come forward and spilled the beans, making every detail public.

Imagine the big book deal. Imagine sitting on that couch with a teary-eyed Oprah.

The co-worker then said something interesting: “I think bits and pieces of the truth have gotten out…they’re just small enough that they don’t get a lot of notice by themselves.”

That got me thinking about conspiracy theories in general. How can a piece of the puzzle about what some regard as one of the greatest murder mysteries of the 20th century go largely unnoticed? By making the murder itself the subject of so many conspiracy theories.

A conspiracy theory, in essence, makes even true facts easier to dismiss as fiction because it is assumed that what is really the truth is only part of the conspiracy theory itself. We see it every day.

So when some former gangster comes forward and says he was friends with Jack Ruby and Lee Oswald, and that he hosted a meeting of the two in his apartment in Dallas three days before the murder, it’s easier to write him off as being one of the “nutjob” conspiracy theorists than to take the time to try to verify his story. There have been plenty of nutjobs who have come up with their own reasons of why that shooting happened (as well as who pulled the trigger). (I made this scenario up, but I’m sure it has probably happened at some point.)

But what if his story is true? We could be missing a major piece of the puzzle, because we’ve been conditioned by the conspiracy theorists to believe nothing. So we don’t believe him, either.

Here’s another example, on a subject that’s everyone’s favorite: global warming.

I’ll start with a clip from January 2, 2007, of the Today show in which Willard Scott appeared on the set in New York with Meredith Viera:

Here, in case you miss something, is a transcript of what is said:

SCOTT: Well, listen are you a globing — a global-warming fan? Do you believe in global warming?

VIEIRA: I’m not a fan. No. No, sir.

SCOTT: Well –

VIEIRA: But I — something’s going on, ’cause it’s warm here.

SCOTT: Well, now, wait a minute — that’s it; it’s warm here. From Savannah [Georgia] all the way up to Boston, we’re having unheard-of warm weather, but ask the folks out in Denver and Colorado –

VIEIRA: That’s so.

SCOTT: — the coldest winter they’ve had in years. So it all depends on which side of the Mississippi you’re hanging your hat.

When Media Matters, a watchdog organization that describes its goal as “comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” Yet when it posted the clip on YouTube, it gave it this headline:

“Willard Scott Denies Global Warming”

Trouble is, he didn’t deny that global warming exists. He merely pointed out that while it’s hot on one side of the country, it’s cold on the other; he suggested that it is easy to characterize hot weather as part of global warming, but that when you’re dealing with particularly cold weather, the concept of global warming isn’t necessarily rolling off your tongue.

Does Willard Scott personally believe in global warming? Maybe he does or maybe he doesn’t. The answer isn’t clear from that snippet. If anything, he believes that the hot weather Viera describes isn’t solely a result of global warming, particularly when it’s not being felt uniformly everywhere.

But one might hope that a “watchdog” group designed to weed out “misinformation” wouldn’t feel the need to resort to hyperbole to make its points. Even on its own website, the group posted a headline not quite on the mark:

“Willard Scott suggested weather ‘in Denver and Colorado’ casts doubt on global warming”

Again, it isn’t really what he said, but it’s possible to assume that he’s saying something along those lines. It’s also possible to assume that he’s saying that these two weather extremes aren’t necessarily clear examples, like, say, melting polar ice caps are. But we’re not in Willard’s head, and he doesn’t elaborate there, so the best we can do, one way or the other, is assume. And that shouldn’t be a valid base for criticism.

On the other hand, it’s easy for people like Scott to make a statement about global warming because there are so many global warming enthusiasts out there who tend to want to make everything about global warming. Here in Charleston, it’s 88 degrees outside as I type this post. The high today is 93. That’s hot. But we’re just days away from the start of summer, so it’s supposed to be hot.

But the environmental conspiracy theorists, those so quick to point to every little symptom as that pesky global warming again make easy for the rest of us to roll our eyes and dismiss what they’re saying.

In essence, conspiracy theorists who are a little “over the top” about making their case, tend to make the rest of us blind to the elements that may genuinely be true, just because we’re so tired of hearing about the constant “worst-case scenarios.”

Somehow, I don’t think that helps their argument.

I went to Outback the other night and while there, I overheard a conversation at a table had been created to accommodate a large crowd that was probably a little too close to my own.  The conversation held an important lesson about conspiracy theories and how easy it is to go off half-cocked on assumptions.

The person who caught my attention was dressed in a set of scrubs and was apparently a hospital employee or at least worked in the medical profession in one capacity or another.

At one point, he started talking about hypertension and heart disease.  It was an odd topic for this person to bring up, since he sat there eating a Bloomin’ Onion, that famous appetizer that happens to be one of the most calorie-loaded treats you can find at any restaurant.  In any event, I heard him say that the way to beat heart disease comes down to just taking an aspirin every day.

“But they don’t tell you that,” he said.

Who is they?

Surely he doesn’t mean doctors!  I know of plenty of doctors who advise their patients to take a baby aspirin every day to reduce the risk of a clot, and thereby, heart attack and stroke.

Surely he doesn’t mean the drug manufacturers themselves!  They run commercials that come right out and tell you that their aspirin is a good regimen for heart health or that their aspirin can save your life if you take one at the start of a suspected heart attack.

Maybe he has never been told this, so he assumes that no one else has.  Still, it’s a reckless statement for someone in the medical profession to make, because it implies that anyone can get by with a clean bill of health by just popping that one daily pill.  That is clearly not the case.  But he didn’t tell his associates that piece of information.

So what’s his motive?

Over at The Blue Voice, Dave asks an interesting question about people who call others “Conspiracy Theorists:”

“So why is it the minute someone suggests that the people who own and control EVERYTHING–the land, the labor, the resources–might pursue their best interests at our expense they are labeled a “[Conspiracy Theorist]?” Instantly we are lumped in with the crop circle and black helicopter crowd.”

I’m not referring specifically to Dave in this definition, nor do I recall ever singling him out as one. But since he used the collective pronoun we in his question, I’ll assume that he has been classified that way by others, and I’ll address the situation with that understanding.

When I do refer to “conspiracy theorists,” here’s what I have in mind: someone who analyzes any action until he finds the worst possible motive for that action, and who then insists that this motive must have been the one that caused the action.

After Katrina, rapper Kanye West looked at the suffering caused by the FEMA fiasco and said that George W. Bush hated black people. That, to me, is a conspiracy theory.

It ignores the facts that local and state emergency management officials failed in a major way in evacuating their own people, ignores the fact that FEMA itself suffered major failures, ignores the fact that not all black people are Democrats, ignores the fact that people other than blacks were trapped there, ignores the possibility that the Bush’s failure to micro-manage the rescue efforts might have been caused by him either not grasping the serious of the situation or placing too much trust in everyone else — or both — and assumes instead that Bush intentionally inflicted pain and suffering on those survivors because he must have thought they were all black.

You’ll note, hopefully, that I’m not arguing that Bush doesn’t hate black people; he may or may not. What I am saying is that you have to ignore a great deal of material to leap to that conclusion and be so sure that it is the only possibility.

When it comes to such theories that involve the current president, it’s amazing to see two different versions of the same man begin to emerge. One minute, Bush is a bumbling fool who can’t navigate his way out of the proverbial wet paper bag; the other, he’s a mastermind racist who commits genocide under the clever guise of failing to kick his own emergency management agency’s butt into higher gear to get help, all the while assuming that the constant pictures being beamed into everyone’s living rooms of the shocking conditions would go unnoticed.

Either he’s an idiot or he’s brilliant. Either he lucks into everything that goes his way because he hasn’t the brain power to successfully execute a plan on his own, or he’s a genious who occasionally plays dumb to stay under people’s radar while carrying out an incredibly well-thought-out plan that seeks to accomplish his secret goals while making him appear incapable of having thought said plan up to begin with.

The only way he can be both, it seems, is if you’re a conspiracy theorist, at which point he bounces back and forth to whichever one supports the conspiracy du jour.

As an example in that post, Dave displays a cartoon parody that takes a page from the old ABC Saturday morning series, Schoolhouse Rock. It points at media conglomerates as being evil, truth-hiding monsters who intentionally keep you in the dark to pad their own pockets. (The media is always a favorite target.)

It’s true that less diverse ownership can create more opportunities for a major corporation that has an agenda when it comes to influencing public opinion. Conspiracy theorists who argue about the “evil” media stop right there, right after they remove that pesky conditional word, can. They don’t mention the flip side of the coin: that larger media outlets generally have more money, and are able to provide more coverage, hire more people, and afford more extensive coverage of stories that are important to your community than smaller, “mom and pop” operations usually can. They don’t even seem willing to consider that possibility. It’s ironic that people who criticize the media for their alleged universal bias seem incapable of being impartial.

I once worked for a station that was purchased by one of those big conglomerates. I worked there for years before the big dogs arrived, and stayed for several years afterwards. The changes I saw were profound: the size of our news operation more than doubled. We got new equipment — much better equipment — that allowed us to do more stories in the community. We were encouraged by our new owners to get out into the community more, to become more involved and make note of more diverse opinions in our audience. We began doing more market research, something that was cost-prohibitive before, to see what our viewers wanted our newscasts to be. When severe weather, specifically hurricanes, threatened the coast, we had MORE resources, not less, because we suddenly had more sister stations from which we could borrow more facilities to get the stories told. And local charities had access to grants the big company offered in cities where it held properties, so that the community was able to benefit from corporate donations. Even corporate matching for charites we as individuals chose to donate to was better than when the station had been owned by the smaller company. More than it ever had been before, the station became a good “corporate citizen” and was able, thanks to a new owner with deeper pockets, to better serve the interests of the community.

Not once in all of this change, was there the demand from our corporate office to ever “spin” a story in a manner that would make some corporate concern be portrayed more favorably. Not once did I ever hear or see anyone from the corporate level step in to guide coverage towards one side or away from another. Not once. When it came to day-to-day coverage of news, they didn’t get involved. Their headquarters was located out of state, and their philosophy — as it should have been — was that we knew our market better than they did, and we were empowered to act accordingly.

I think that most people realize that no one can always be completely trustworthy. When it comes to the media issue, I’d never say that the media is perfect or that conflicts of interest do not arise. I do say, from having worked on the inside, that they don’t happen nearly as often as some would have you believe. The fact is that there are many, many dedicated people working in this field, usually in thankless jobs, who care about doing the right thing. It is a supreme insult to them to group them into the same category as those who don’t (just as it is offensive to Dave to find himself grouped into the category of UFO enthusiasts).

But on the other hand, one has to consider the fact that with more scrutiny than ever before, it’s increasingly harder for abuse to occur. Not impossible by any means, but certainly more difficult. Part of that is because of competition itself: if one media outlet doesn’t report on the transgressions of its corporate owner, you can bet that media outlet’s competitors will. Why? Because it plays right into good graces of the conspiracy theorists who can then say, “Hey, look at what Station X or Newspaper Y didn’t tell you!”

Who ever said it was a good idea to trust blindly in one particular media institution? You shouldn’t put all of your eggs in one basket. If you want to stay informed, unfortunately, some amount of work is required on your part. No one said it was supposed to be easy, you know.

Also missing is the consideration that even a mom-and-pop operation could unfairly influence the spin of stories. In this day of the countless media watchdog groups who are champing at the bit for the chance to accuse a major media company of bias, it’s conceivable that a smaller company might be able to slip bias into a story and not have their action be noticed.

A conspiracy theorist doesn’t want to hear any of that. Instead, a conspiracy theorist would simply look at me and claim that I’m “brainwashed” and that this is why I can’t see what’s so obvious to them.

Conspiracy theorists also hate the rich because they suspect that the rich have as their primary motivation your own financial ruin. I don’t understand that. Do you think that Donald Trump gives a damn how much money is in your checking account? If he does, it’s probably only to the extent that he’s competitive enough that he wants to make sure he has at least a cent more than you do. But if the average rich man could be rich and still have all he wants, don’t you think he’d be just as happy if no one was living below the poverty level? Perhaps my view of the rich is too self-centered; but if so, it’s no worse than the labelling of them as heartless, cruel monsters who want everyone else to suffer.

Then there are conspiracy theories about health treatments. Some people believe that the cure to every conceivable illness not only exists, but is being hidden by the drug manufacturers (and/or the government) so that they can profit on medical research. Well when you think about it, that argument really doesn’t make sense, either. If one terminal illness is cured, the patient lives longer. If the patient lives longer, sooner or later, he’ll come down with another illness…or even another course of the same one. (Haven’t we all had the common cold more than once? Haven’t you heard of people fighting cancer that has come out of remission?) The drug companies can make their profits as they keep charging him for cures of the endless series of maladies he’ll endure before he finally dies, sometime around age 215, when even the greatest medical secret ever stumbled upon can’t do the trick.

You get the idea when it comes to the conspiracies. Now consider the way some conspiracy theorists argue their point. Note the language that follows Dave’s initial question:

“You might want to question the wisdom of such an assumption. Ask yourself a simple question: Who benefits from your ignorance? Who benefits? Who benefits from you ignorance of history? Who benefits from your ignorance of corporate welfare?”

Who will your ignorance benefit? What problems will your ignorance cause? A conspiracy theorist always thinks everyone else is ignorant. Only conspiracy theorists know what’s really going on. Anyone who can’t or won’t agree is either a fool, blind or conditioned to accept everyone else’s word without thinking for themselves. Sorry, but I’m not going to automatically side with someone who attempts to use grade school peer pressure to make me conform my thinking to fit their ideals. Why would anyone?

Yet language and wordplay is a big part of the conspiracy theorist’s strategy.

If Dave feels that he has been considered a “conspiracy therorist” for his beliefs, I’ll use him as an example and point out that he once asked, “When will you find the courage to admit that the War in Iraq was wrong?”

It is a very cleverly-constructed question. In fact, it might remind you of that old joke, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” That is a joke question because it’s a no-win scenario: either you’re a wife beater who may have reformed or you’re a still-practicing wife beater.

There’s a very important difference in Dave’s question, however. If you don’t side with him, you’re a “coward” because you lack the courage to admit the truth he wants you to admit. If you do side with him, you’re somehow “courageous” for having done so. So it isn’t a “no-win” scenario, but a “one-win” and that win happens, not by coincedence, when you believe what he wants you to.

Also very much a part of conspiracy theories is the use of “pet names” for the “bad guys” being bashed. That’s why, in political blogs that always vilify the opposing party, George W. Bush is often referred to as “Shrub,” why Donald Rumsfeld is “Rummy,” and why Bill Clinton is “Slick Willy.” The hope is that you’ll jump on the bandwagon more easily if you are provided easy access to cutesy nicknames. Again, it’s a very juvenile, schoolyard thing to do, but it’s quite common.

It strikes me as a somewhat less-than-honest form of debate. And when I see such game-playing, I start asking a few questions of my own. I wonder why such tactics are even necessary. And I wonder about the agenda of the people who are so determined to get you to side with them.

Dave, for example, is anti-capitalist: he’s said so. He’s pro-labor unions: he’s said so. He’s a proponent of anarcho-syndicalism: he’s said so. Is it so unreasonable to wonder, while Dave is questioning the motives behind every action those who don’t side with him take, whether Dave himself might be capable of downplaying any negatives associated with his sides of the issues? Understand: I’m not saying he does, I’m just asking whether it would or wouldn’t be reasonable to ask.

If he’s going to raise the question of bias or dishonesty or unfairness, it seems to me that it’s perfectly fair to apply that question right back to him at least once in a while; otherwise, we must conclude that those who question others should automatically be exempt from their own questions.

The fact is, of course, that we’re all capable of spinning a story in a manner that makes our own position look better than someone else’s. Think about those times you told a friend or co-worker about a rude employee you encountered at a grocery store, or the driver who cut you off this morning, or the telemarketer you told off last night when she interrupted your dinner. Can you honestly say you never embellished such a tale just a bit?

The people I call conspiracy theorists take this a step farther, by identifying the worst-case scenario then insisting that it is common practice, and by twisting the facts so far as to make their position look like the only reasonable position anyone in their right mind could possibly take, which is illogical: if that were true, the masses would already be on their side and there’d be no “all-powerful” opposition to debate about.

Thinking if something has the potential to be bad, or if something has been bad before, then it must be bad, and as bad as it can possibly be, all the time, doesn’t make sense to me. No one is all good or all bad: there are degrees of each.

I’m willing to have an open mind and watch for problems on a case-by-case basis. Some would say that makes me the unreasonable one.

You have to decide which sounds more reasonable to you and act accordingly.

The photo says a great deal, both in what some of us see and what some of us refuse to see. Study it for a minute before you read on. I’ll get to it eventually, but just look at it and think about what is contained in that image.

I had been working on a piece about Hurricane Katrina and the notion of who is to blame for more than a week. I’ve been reading different blogs…on AOL, Blogger, LiveJournal, Xanga, and other blog hosting services. I’ve read a mountain of news articles linked in those blogs. And, working in television, I have the advantage of seeing multiple stories that the rest of you might have missed.

I would read someone’s attack on someone, and I’d make note of it.

There are those who are still harping on Cindy Sheehan, whom they refer to as a “hero” because she had the “courage” to speak out against the president. They demand that others show the same “courage” and, at the same time, fail to realize that they are using intimidation tactics that they’d call propaganda in a heartbeat if it was used on them. And of those I’ve read who heap praise on Cindy Sheehan, not one of them – not one — has called Herbert Shughart a hero. He had the “courage” to speak out about his son’s death in a war he didn’t agree with to a president he didn’t feel was fit for the job. Sheehan is a hero, Shughart is someone conveniently forgotten.

They embrace people like Kanye West, because he was “bold” and “spoke the truth.” It doesn’t matter to them that people who would have given money to support the effort he was supposed to be helping were turned away because of his remarks. All that matters is that he slammed Bush. If it cost money that would have gone to relief efforts for the very people he was speaking out about, well, that’s a small price to pay for such a nice jab. It doesn’t matter that he could have waited until the next day, or even until after the concert was over, when they’d raised the money they were there to raise, to get people riled up enough that they closed their pocketbooks. What’s important — the only thing that is important, apparently — is that he spoke out, period.

There are some entries that insist on blaming one single person, President Bush, for everything that has happened.

Some base this entire line of reasoning on the fact that Bush was on vacation when the storm hit. They ignore numerous facts to get to this conclusion. Here’s one: Bush declared a state of emergency two days before the storm hit. Here’s another: Bush called Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and pleaded for a mandatory evacuation before one was issued. How do we know this? Easy. Blanco, a Democrat, said so at the press conference on Sunday, the day before the storm made landfall. Bush called for a mandatory evacuation before there was one, and did so while he was on vacation.

But it’s still Bush’s fault, and Bush’s fault alone, right?

Then there was the battle for power behind the scenes, (link may have expired) a story that no one wants to acknowledge happened, and one that no one wants to imagine could have happened: Bush could have taken control at the federal level of Louisiana’s National Guard. Rather than simply doing so, he consulted with Louisiana officials who rejected the idea. Why? The primary reason wasn’t that she thought her state’s authorities could do better, according to a source within the state’s own emergency operations center. MSNBC reported:

“The [Bush] administration had sought control over National Guard units, normally under control of the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request, noting that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. State authorities suspected a political motive behind the request. ‘Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,’ said the source, who is an adviser and does not have the authority to speak publicly.”

And while this power struggle was going on, people were dying. Should Bush have taken control immediately at that point? Damn right! It is his fault if he didn’t take control from a state whose leadership was more worried about getting blamed than helping their own citizens. And if, even for a moment, it was actually true that the fear of being blamed took precedence over the life of a single citizen, those state officials don’t deserve their jobs. I don’t know how anyone could possibly defend leaders who put the fear of being blamed ahead of the lives of their constituency.

Now, that picture. There are at least 200 buses shown in that image. I think the actual total comes to just under 210, but I might have counted one or two twice. Remember that 18-year-old who took a bus, loaded it with 100 people and drove them to safety? Those 200 buses, packed with 100 people each, could have gotten 20,000 to safety. But they sit in a parking lot — a flooded parking lot — in New Orleans.

Forget that FEMA conducted a big experiment they called Hurricane Pam in 2004, which predicted the impact ofa major hurricane hitting New Orleans. Forget that the damage estimates are strikingly similar to what happened because of Katrina. Put out of your mind the notion that state and local authorities saw in this exercise that roughly 20% of New Orleans’s citizens would be unable to evacuate. And for heaven’s sake, please don’t bother to consider the fact that New Orleans’s own disaster plan states:

“Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving assistance.”

Two hundred buses sit in a flooded parking lot. That picture should make you as mad as hell. At least twenty-thousand were stranded at the convention center for days with no food or water. Do the math. (And that’s assuming that the each of the buses made one single trip: they could have made more than one trip before the storm hit if the operation had begun soon enough.)

Who would know better — who could possibly know better — how many people in their own city or state would be unable toget themselves out? Somebody could have taken those buses and gone to those poorest neighborhoods and loaded people up.

Forty years ago, Hurricane Betty woke people up to the dangers ofa hurricane in a city so prone to flooding. For forty years, New Orleans had time to designate drivers and a method of comandeering those vehicles that would leave no question about what needed to be done. But the buses sit in that flooded parking lot.

And it’s still Bush’s fault, and Bush’s fault alone, right?

Some of those who insist that Bush is the only one to blame want people to explain to them how anyone could be so blindly in support of Bush that they would think he isn’t to blame. “Explain it to me,” someone said the other day over at Blogger, I think it was. (There have been so many.)

What is so telling is that they do not ask anyone to explain how someone could be so blindly opposed to Bush that they won’t look anywhere but him when they look for someone to blame, no matter what happens.

All some people seem to want is to have people agree with them on their political bias. That’s all. If you do agree, they think you’re “courageous.” If you argue, they’re waiting with more talking points to make their case, no matter what you have to say. You’ll never convince them that they’re not even trying to see the big picture. And for some of them, anyone who disputes their position is automatically regarded as making a personal attack, no matter how well-intentioned or rational their counter-argument might be. I’ve played this game before with different people in different locations in the Blogosphere.

I’m tired of playing it.

I could go on and on with examples and counter examples showing weaknesses on all levels. And in all candor, my friends, before a conversation last night, I would have.

But then I talked with a friend of mine named Eric. He happens to agree with me that not only does finger pointing accomplish nothing in terms of helping people who are still stranded, but that it’s ridiculous to think that one person could be responsible for such a massive failure.

Then, he said something extraordinarily profound…so profound that I wish I’d have come up with it first:

“This is a chance for us to really see who we are.”

And so it is.

Some of us do see who we are. Some of us are quite alarmed at what we as a nation have become: a group of petty screamers who don’t give a damn about anyone else or anything else except winning a political argument. It isn’t about who died, or even how many died. It’s about making our candidate or candidates look good. It’s about making sure our political agenda comes out smelling like roses while our opponent’s agenda is dragged through the flood waters. It’s not about a logical argument or even considering both sides of a coin. It’s about a witty comeback.

Witty comebacks don’t solve problems. And they certainly don’t prevent the same thing from happening again.

Eric, who happens to be black, also points out that comments like West’s and the photo captions to which West referred, (captions that portray black looters as “looters” and white looters as “finders”) merely point out that all of those terrible prejudices we keep telling ourselves we’ve managed to eliminate are just as strong as ever. Neither of us deny that West has valid points in some of what he said; we agree that the way to help those people who needed relief wasn’t to bring up those points right that minute. Think we’ve made progress in race relations? Think we’re a kinder, gentler nation? You’re living in a dream world.

Would that reality were that pleasant.

You want someone to blame? You wonder how we could have government agencies so bogged down in red tape (so they won’t get accused of wasting a single tax dollar) that they end up almost unworkable and unable to do what they were designed to do? You want to know how we reached a point at which state and federal authorities argue over who should be in charge of a disaster response because they are worried about who’ll end up in the doghouse?

You want to know who is to blame for making our governments — local, state and federal — so preoccupied with looking good that they’re practically paralyzed…while our fellow Americans, old and young, rich and poor, black and white are dying in the streets of an American city?

Go look in the mirror.

That’s where it starts. That’s where it ends. And yes, I include myself in that statement.

“This is a chance for us to really see who we are.”

Do you like the view?

Keep arguing over who you want to blame, and if it somehow makes you feel good to blame just one single person, when it’s perfectly clear to others of us that there were massive failures at every single level, go for it. If you consider it a sport, go have fun. Enjoy yourself.

I’ve had enough.

“The art of conversation lies not only in saying the right thing at the right time, but in leaving unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”
– John Charles Daly

There is a lot of wisdom in the words of the late Daly, a news moderator and host of the original “What’s My Line?” on CBS. Last night’s NBC telecast of a concert raising money for relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina was one of those tempting moments. Unfortunately, hip-hop artist Kanye West failed to follow the advice.

The program was executed much like the concert for victims of the Indonesian Tsunami. Celebrities appeared two at a time in between musical performances. West was paired with comedian Michael Myers, whose apparent level of discomfort grew exponentially as West went into a political rant about the media coverage of and the government’s response to victims in New Orleans.

As reported in The Washington Post, here is West’s sometimes rambling rant as broadcast live:

“I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, ‘They’re looting.’ You see a white family, it says, ‘They’re looking for food.’ And, you know, it’s been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I’ve tried to turn away from the TV because it’s too hard to watch. I’ve even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I’m calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help — with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way — and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us!”

When it was again Myers’s turn to speak, he nervously fumbled through his next line and turned to West (who undoubtedly hoped West would follow the script the rest of the way through).

West didn’t. East coast viewers heard this additional statement from West, which was cut from the West coast tape-delayed broadcast:

“George Bush doesn’t care about black people!”

I can understand the frustration to a degree, but since I’m not black, many would argue that I can’t possibly comprehend what West and many other blacks are feeling in this country at this point. I wouldn’t presume to debate that.

West has the right to speak his mind, and his celebrity status certainly gave him a tremendous platform last night to voice his opinion.

That isn’t the point.

There is a proper time and a proper place to make such a statement. A concert designed to raise money is supposed to unite everyone for a common goal, not further divide by playing the race card.

By not resisting that tempting moment, West turned off some viewers who were looking for ways to help. A friend tells me that the telephones in his NBC affiliate’s newsroom lit up immediately after the remarks aired. One viewer, he told me, said she’d just donated $500 to the Red Cross and would never send them another penny. Such comments were also heard, apparently, at Red Cross call centers.

Of course, my friend took time to explain to the angry viewer that the Red Cross had nothing to do with selecting talent for the concert, that NBC likely had West there because he offered to perform as most of the other celebrities on hand did, and that even NBC didn’t realize he was going to go off-script in the live event. He told her not to hold West’s comments against the Red Cross.

NBC issued a similar statement later in the evening:

“Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks. It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person’s opinion.”

And in NBC’s defense, CBS News reports that though the broadcast was on a slight delay and censors were listening for profanity that would need to be “bleeped,” those censors weren’t following along word for word on scripts and therefore didn’t realize that West’s entire monologue was an ad-lib.

There’s an old saying in television newsrooms: for every viewer that calls to complain about something, there are at least another 10 who feel the same way but don’t call. At times, that ratio is an extremely conservative estimate.

How many people who hadn’t yet donated money to the effort were turned off by West’s rant? I can’t understand how people who seem to believe that there are no wealthy Democrats…that Republicans have all of the money. But for people who genuinely do believe that, I can’t imagine how a statement like West’s could be expected to encourage those with the means to actually give…which is what they were supposed to be there for.

I wonder how much money West cost relief efforts by not resisting that “tempting moment.” I wonder if he’s proud of himself.

In the final analysis, there are plenty of white people stranded there as well. Some of them had the means to evacuate but didn’t. At this point, even if their bank account is 100 times that of the average poor person in New Orleans, they’re no better off at all: rich and poor, black white, homeowner andand homeless, all are sitting in a mess with no power, no food, no water, waiting for help to arrive while their city is dying — literally — around them.

Last night shouldn’t have been about race, income, Republican, Democrat, or any other labels you’d care to throw around.

It should have been about fellow Americans who are suffering. And until all of them, every last one, have shelter, that’s all it should be about.

Are terror alerts a politically-motivated ploy to raise the president’s approval rating? That’s a question many Democrats are asking these days.

Most of Bush’s opponents don’t want to discuss what they’d like to see the current administration to do about the threat of terror if it can’t be allowed to raise a terror alert when it finds information that suggests a possible target or timeframe.

So far, no one has been willing to go on record saying that there is no threat of terror. No one has been willing to go on record saying that terrorists aren’t plotting new ways to infiltrate the United States. And while many seem to have myriad problems with the Bush administration’s color coding, few seem to have a clearly better alternative.

The same site that tabulates projected Electoral Votes which I mentioned in my last essay provides a link to a plot of President Bush’s approval ratings. Terror alerts and the other notable events have been plotted along with ratings gathered over Bush’s presidency.

It is suggested that an incumbent president’s approval rating is the best predictor of his re-election; presidents with an approval rating below the 50% mark generally do not get re-elected. At this writing, Bush’s median approval rating appears to be around the 47% mark.

But the reason for producing this graph is two-fold: not only does its author hope to offer these numbers as proof that Bush will not get a second term, he also hopes to show that Bush is strategically using terror alerts to boost his sagging approval rating.

Do the facts support his claim? Let’s take a look.

First, he suggests that every time there is a “dip” in Bush’s approval rating, a terror alert is announced. This isn’t entirely accurate. We don’t see sudden drops before terror alerts are raised that are steeper than general decline that is already occurring. It’s unquestionable that Bush’s approval rating has been declining for some time. But the rate of decline has been fairly steady if you remove the terror alerts from the picture. The low point shown before each rise is only a low point because the number then goes back up a bit. Otherwise, it would pretty much be a straight line headed in the same downward direction. There are no real potholes appearing here.

Second, he suggests that the terror alerts always raise Bush’s approval rating, justifying this continuing tactic. It’s not true. Many of the terror alerts do precede a brief spike in the numbers, but not all of them do. Some seem to have no effect at all. Also, there are occasional spikes that occur in the absence of an immediate terror alert, which means that they cannot be the sole cause of improved ratings for the president. Therefore, you cannot even assume that the terror alerts that do precede a riseare the only possible reason for that the rise.

Third, he suggests that as we approach the election, the number and frequency of terror alerts keeps growing. It is not entirely impossible to imagine that our election could be a time at which terrorists wish to strike in the hopes of altering the outcome. Also, this fails to consider the fact that as we dig deeper into the terror threat, it is inevitable that we will find more details about possible plans. The same thing occurs in medicine when a new test is perfected to successfully diagnose illness: more cases are generally found. This doesn’t mean that the number of cases are on the rise or that doctors are trying to scare the general public; it simply means that they have new tools that enable them to diagnose the problem more efficiently.

Fourth, the writer seems to miss one very obvious fact: despite the spikes that have occurred in Bush’s approval rating, none seems to be permanent. If, as he is trying so hard to prove, the Bush administration is issuing terror alerts to “boost” his numbers, it should be clear by now that the spikes are short-lived and that when an alert is issued without either a major arrest or a terrorist attack occurring, the numbers end up dropping lower than they were before the alert is issued. Does this sound like a strategy any team would use for long?

Fifth, he then adds:

“…for the record, we are not claiming that all these alerts are politically motivated. We are sure a considerable amount of these alerts were legit and caused by real and immediate information of potential threats. What is important to note is that many of these “immediate” terror alerts were later on discredited (in some cases they used old data, in other cases the announcements were less immediate and less urgent that we were lead to believe, as the press reported.) Those are the cases that could be interpreted as politically motivated, especially when they seemed to coincide with political news and events unfavorable to the administration.”

The conditional language, (”not all,” “could be interpreted,” “seemed to coincide”), means, in translation, that he could be completely off base. The facts the writer provides do not support the bulk of his case, least of all the notion that Bush is using terror alerts to “improve” his approval rating.

It comes down to this: you have to decide for yourself how seriously you want to take the threat when a new alert is issued. If you choose to assume that a new threat must be bogus because you feel Bush is a bogus president, so be it. But if an alert is issued and an attack occurs, you cannot then blame the government for not doing its part to warn you.

Many people seem so annoyed by even the mention of a terror alert these days that I am beginning to think they would like for this country to completely suspend all homeland security activities until Inauguration Day in January. That way, the possibility of the alert system being used as a political ploy would be impossible.

Of course, this election year, we are learning that virtually anything can be used as a political ploy…even a trio of Purple Hearts!