You May Be Able to Get There From Here

Note: this is the first post in an on-going discussion of Carl Bernstein’s work, including “A Woman in Charge”.

This week, Carl Bernstein spoke at Indiana Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Bernstein addressed the dysfunctional state of contemporary politics and journalism. He focused much of his critique on media that lost an appropriate sense of newsworthiness, which he argues is the symptom of a deep problem, the acceptance of untruths, or what Stephen Colbert has mocked as “truthiness”. When the system- the exchange of power between the public, Washington, and the press– works, Bernstein says there is a demand for “the best, attainable version of the truth,” not indifference to it.

Today, Bernstein echoes the warnings of his 1992 piece in the New Republic, “The Idiot Culture”:

“We do not serve our readers and viewers; we pander to them … giving them what we think they want. In this new culture of journalistic titillation, we teach our readers and viewers that the lurid and the loopy are more important than real news,” he noted. Then, he charged that the media — “probably the most powerful of all our institutions today” — wastes that power by ignoring their responsibility to challenge, inform and educate people about what really matters.

Instead, “the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal. The consequence is the spectacle, and the triumph, of the idiot culture.”

But more than mourning the rise of the phenomenon, as he did in 1992, he says that we reached the apogee of a press culture submerged in celebrity culture, in news of the weird, maudlin, inane, and stupid. Along with this lament, Bernstein anecdotally discussed his treatment on a local new affiliate. He says the reports had little idea who we was and what his book about Hillary Clinton is about. Midway through the interview, “I thought, what the hell am I doing here,” Bernstein said.

Bernstein is not a purist about the content of news, he contends that there has always been quirky celebrity news, and that there is a place for this. But he says the dominance of such news, or lack of news, has lead to a state of journalistic dysfunction. A dysfunction that is partly to blame for the brokenness of the system during the Bush administration.

It’s the tragedy- a failed presidency unmindful of the real cost of war and contemptuous of checks and balance- of the last seven years that most troubles Bernstein’s analysis of a broken system. He does not blame the press, alone, for this problem, but suggests that if the real reporting that has been done on the Iraq war had an outlet, the war would be different or would not have happened. Bernstein also says that if real reporting was done on George W. Bush before ran in 2000, than he would not have been elected. This later accusation, while probably true, does seem to be a plug Bernstein’s latest book, “A Woman in Charge: the Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton”.

Salon has an interview with the director of the new Joy Division film,

Rock photographer Anton Corbijn discusses his intimate, eloquent movie about Joy Division, “Control,” and the band that inspired it.

Creative Commons has refreshed their look,

I found this interesting video earlier this week.

While one may come to a different deduction, it’s usually difficult to disagree with the metrics and parameters Chomsky uses to analyze history and society. But in the following video, Buckley seems to have little interest in earnest debate. He uses some of his characteristically esoteric words and tries to muddy the argument with aberrations.

In the past, I found Buckley to be witty and engaging. Here, though, he is disrespectful and acts like a common asshole (and imperialist).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYlMEVTa-PI]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9Samvw6Z08]

One of the candidate’s for mayor of Fort Wayne, Matt Kelty, is running his campaign on social conservatism, and outsiderness. His platform is sort-of an anti-goldwater conservatism: he offers the cutting of government spending and the lowering of taxes, but bulks at plans for actually getting it done; he is flagrantly religious and hereby maintains positions (anti-abortion) that are completely out of scope for an city official; he complains of government involvement in citizens’ live, but then argues for counter-libertarian social regulation.

Kelty has charisma with many voters. He’s found himself in substantial imbroglio, mostly due to the appearance of campaign finance crimes. Yet, he’s managed to down-play the charges and his possible wrong doing, and he’s maintained many of his supporters. Unfortunately, not much poll data available for Fort Wayne’s upcoming election, so his actually popularity with voters is hard to discern. Convention wisdom would argue that while he’s bring new voters to the polls and will remain successful with social conservatives, he will probably lose due the the legal questions. (He could be found guilty of felony campaign violations after the November elections). Interestingly, the election will almost certainly be a failure for the city’s GOP. The party has show conditional support for Kelty. Many of Kelty’s supporters are tired of the city GOP claiming that it is a good-old-boys party that is unresponsive to the city’s real needs.

With this background, I’d like to deconstruct and ammend one of the Kelty campain’s responses to his indictment on felony perjury and campain finance charges:

With the dust beginning to settle, I wish to address the charges against me.

We really hope that the dust is settling and would rather not address this topic.

I am innocent;

We have to say this, so we’ll be matter-a-fact about it. Actually, though, we cannot comment about on going legal proceedings. Our legal council has informed that campaign that “innocence” is the only part of the case that be discussed. So, please, no other questions, unless they relate to this campaign’s innocence.

my campaign financial reports have been filed correctly; I have spoken the truth.

Why would the campaign have incorrectly filed reports. Now a disingenuous, deceptive filing would be another matter. Really, we would try to be deceptive under the law. We were deceptive, yes, but it followed legal formality (or so I was counseled). Let’s work with this innocence thing some more, “I have spoken the truth”. Would a truth-speaker break the law? Do you know what truth means, what philosophical, religious power this word exerts. For thousands of years the world’s greatest minds have sought this elusive object, and I speak it.

The Allen County Election Board, which has jurisdiction on this issue, examined the matter thoroughly and exonerated me. The single vote against me came from a well-known Democratic political operative (and former chief of staff for Mayor Graham Richard) who resigned from the Common Cause governing board the day before it filed a complaint with the Allen County prosecutor’s office.

Two Republicans, with no legal authority, blindly exonerated me. And this matters because they understand truth. They are the board. This other partisan fellow is only an operative. Operative, if you are unfamiliar with the moniker, are these shadowy figures that derail honest, truthful politics. It’s commonly know that most liberals are operatives.

These politically motivated charges, resulting from the filing of a single form, have led to an assault on my reputation and good name by political opportunists.

I love the past exonerative: My good name and reputation are not damaged by information about my campaigning practices; charges have existed that seem to correlate with people thinking I don’t have a good name. The problem is with the charges, which are like a silent, ethereal plague. Clouds of charges assemble when stimulative by operatives, and then tend to hover over leaders of good reputation.

I take full responsibility for anything my campaign or I may have done or failed to do.

We will admit to innocence and truth. If any invisible transgressions have been committed it was only as a crime of omission, mistakes made in the fury of doings what is right and true. As real Americans know, sometime the colors red, white, and blue have and inter-blend and fade into unwholesome hues of beamured purple and pink. But this is only because of the strength of each color.

Yet only one side of the story has been reported, and when I have a chance to tell my side, I will be exonerated again. Meanwhile, know this: I am not a quitter. I will not back down.

The interest of this blog is to topically cover books and ideas. I also have interests, of more local scope, so I sometimes write about the city where I live, Fort Wayne, IN.

I’ve recently been (obsessively) reading most blogs that cover Fort Wayne politics. These blogs have a rather feckless, cocooned scope- with few bloggers look beyond the immediacy of issues to other contexts– so the reading is often feels unpurposed.  (some of the the blogs are infuriatingly ignorant and offensive; others are almost unintelligible; others are pretty thoughtful). There’s also this weird sort-of Midwestern sarcasm that occurs here- it’s unexpected to the reader and is hard to discern.

Another primary reason I’ll be writing more about this topic is my dismay over one of the city’s candidates for Mayor, Matt Kelty.