Wilshire & Washington: Obama’s Trip Abroad, McCain’s Portrayal in the Media and Editorial Judgement

Join Ted Johnson, Maegan and I — along with guests Greg Mitchell and David Horsey — for a discussion on Obama’s trip to Afghanistan and the Middle East, McCain’s portrayal in the media and the judgement of the news media.

[Updated with Player Archive] Wilshire & Washington Live Now!

Join us for a half-hour of conversation with Greg Mitchell, Editor in Chief of Editor & Publisher and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist David Horsey, plus the political chatter of the week.

David Horsey Joins us on Wilshire & Washington this Wednesday Morning

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve worshipped at the altar of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Seattle PI editorial cartoonist David Horsey for some time.

Today, he brought us this particularly apropos cartoon given Barack Obama’s calls to draw down troops in Iraq and move them to Afghanistan:

Horsey will be our guest, along with Greg Mitchell, Editor in Chief of Editor & Publisher. Should be a really fantastic show. Be sure to join us.

Impressions from Obama’s Address to Netroots Nation

Parts I liked:

• When Obama subtly tipped his hat to the 24,000-member group on his social network that actively disagrees with him about his FISA vote.
• His recognition of just how important bloggers are by encouraging us to reach out to our readers.
• His acknowledgement of disagreements he’s had with the blogosphere.

Parts I disliked:

• How subtle Obama’s hat tip to the anti-FISA group was. He should have mentioned that My.BarackObama.com is a place for debate and discussion, not just support and fundraising.
• The partisanship. I know he’s the Democratic nominee and he has to tow the party line to a certain degree. I expect it, but I still hate it. I’d love to see him regularly mention the names of some Republicans he likes and respects.

What do you guys think?

[Via Maegan Carberry.]

It’s Time for Some Campaignin’

I know Andy says that Barack Obama is nearly impossible to make fun of — unless you’re Dave Chappelle, that is — but JibJab has sure done a great job:

JibJab - Time for Some Campaignin'

Andy points out however, that the funniest part of the video “by far” is when Hillary hits Bill with the frying pan.

Wilshire & Washington: Dr. Karen North, Online Communities, the New Yorker Cover & Obama’s Faith

Join Ted Johnson, Maegan Carberry and I for an interview with Dr. Karen North, head of the USC’s Annenberg Program on Online Communities and former White House staffer on Science and Technology policy. We discuss Barack Obama’s online communities, the New Yorker Cover, and the Newsweek cover story on Obama’s faith.

Nation’s Comedians Terrified Of Barack Obama Presidency

“A thousand points of light.” “Read my lips.” “I did NOT have sexual relations with that woman.” “Lockbox.” “Presidenting is hard-work.”

The last few Presidents and Presidential candidates have provided tremendous amounts of fodder for the nation’s comedians, from Dan Akyroyd’s Nixon to Will Ferrell’s ‘Dubya’. The Clinton impeachment paid for an extra house for Jay Leno, while Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report took off under George W. Bush’s comic misspeaking (”Thank you, your Holiness. Awesome speech.”).

But alas, there is fear of comedic recession, if not depression, in Hollywood, for it seems the nation’s comics cannot find anything to make fun of about Barack Obama.

Obama isn’t “a comical figure,” said Mike Barry, who started writing political jokes for Johnny Carson’s monologues in the 1960s. The editors of the New Yorker tried this week to poke fun at Obama, but the joke fell painfully flat.

What is there to make fun of exactly, about Barack Obama. There’s none of Clinton’s womanizing, Nixon’s foul play, Gore’s monotonous droning, or Bush’s dyslexia. He has no catch-phrases like “The Gipper”, “lock-box”, or “A thousand points of light.”

There is a course, plenty of potential material in the first African-American Presidential candidate who happens to have a white Kansas mother (and somewhat racist white grandmother) and a black Kenyan father, grew up on food stamps and then went to Harvard. The only problem is, there’s only one comedian capable and willing to make hilarious jokes that heavily based on race.

That would be the man who put on skits involving a black KKK member, a black time-traveler who shoots white slave-owners, a game show called “I Know Black People”, and a guest spot called “Ask A Black Dude.” Unfortunately Dave Chappelle is temporarily retired, or crazy, or both. So it looks like, unless Mr. Chappelle decides to make a fourth season of The Chappelle Show (”I’m Rick James, bitch!”), it could be a long, laughless eight years.

Obama Needed to Comment on New Yorker Cover

Michael Crowley argues that Obama campaign is responsible for much of the petty drama now circulating about the New Yorker cover pictured above.

Had Obama simply shrugged it off, instead of having his spokesman brand the image “tasteless and offensive,” I don’t think this story would have blown up so dramatically. It’s the man-bites-dog conflict, the internecine liberal feud, that makes it so sexy to the media–and particularly an outlet like Fox. No tart comment from the Obama camp, no breathless daylong exposure (or far less of it, at least.) I’d say that by denouncing the cartoon the Obama campaign magnified the reach of that image tenfold.

That argument would scarcely have flown in the pre-blogosphere days, and now it’s not even plausible. MSM reporters trying to get a rise out of a candidate will ask about such things, and bloggers routinely chatter on about images less than half as incendiary. Case in point:

I would hope that — at least in private — the Obamas have not lost all sense of humor. Barack and Michelle strike me as the kind of couple who would have a good chuckle over such a cover were they living in less intense times. But publicly, they have to take a stand on imagery like this. We live in an era where some people are so misinformed that they believe Larry Sinclair’s bizzarre rant.

Obama can’t afford to have things like this taken out of context.

Eulogy For The Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment was conceived in 1789 as a series of constitutional amendments, and was born on December 15, 1791. Proud father James Madison said it was one of his favorites, although the First and Second Amendment generally got more attention.

The Fourth Amendment started growing in importance and prominence, however, when the Supreme Court adopted the exclusionary rule in Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914), prior to which all evidence, no matter how seized, could be admitted in court. A few decades later, the Fourteenth Amendment helped bolster the importance of the Fourth Amendment with Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961) where the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment is applicable to the state governments by way of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In the early part of the 21st century, the Fourth Amendment grew concerned, after its brother, the Eighth Amendment, was exiled by the Bush Adminstration. Not long after, the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments were tied up, gagged, and locked in Dick Cheney’s basement.

In 2003, an official memo in the Bush administration stated “… our Office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations”. Given that the NSA was involved in domestic military operations, this was, in essence, a death threat against the Fourth Amendment.

A few years later, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, signed by President Bush today, not only legalized the secret warrantless surveillance program the president approved in late 2001, it also gave the government new spying powers, including the power to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications.

Since then, the Fourth Amendment has gone missing and has been declared dead by White House Press Secretary Dana Perino. The ACLU has argued that the Fourth Amendment is not in fact dead, and it’s just scared and has gone into hiding.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit today to stop the government from conducting surveillance under the new wiretapping law, arguing that gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked power to intercept Americans’ international e-mails and telephone calls. The case was filed on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and human rights, labor, legal and media organizations whose ability to perform their work - which relies on confidential communications - will be greatly compromised by the new law.

In the meantime, several other Amendments, including the First, Seventh, and Fourteenth, have hired bodyguards and 24-hour security forces, and the Twenty-Second has said he is considering cancelling his quadrennial appearance this coming November.

Online vs. Offline Activism

There’s a great debate going on right now over online youth activism. Many are calling for millennials to shut down our computers and protest in the streets. Others still say that Netroots activism is more powerful.

What do you think?

Karl Rove is a Despicable Scumbucket

I hope they hold him in contempt and hang him high for skipping out on Congress.

Executive privilege my right testicle!

The Politics of Change is Sometimes the Politics of Compromise

Gail Collins writes quite astutely:

You liked Barack because you thought he could get us past the old brain-dead politics, right? He talked — and talked and talked — about how there were going to be no more red states and blue states, how he was going to bring Americans together, including Republicans and Democrats.

Exactly where did everybody think this gathering was going to take place? Left field?

A lot of erstwhile Obama supporters are losing their hard ons for him in the post-primary articulation of specific policy proposals. The thing is, a lot of people were hearing what they wanted to during the primary and are now only just realizing that they don’t agree with Senator Obama on every little thing.

The bottom line here is that Obama was never a radical leftie. He’s always been a pragmatist, a centrist. Why do you think so many conservatives crossed the aisle to support him?

Jesse Jackson Still Thinks He Speaks for Black America…How Quaint

He accuses Barack Obama of talking down to black people and then says that he’d like to castrate him:

What I think is so funny here is that Jesse Jackson with his politics of victimhood, still thinks he somehow speaks for black people in America. Rev. Jackson, I think it’s clear that black Americans can speak for themselves. It’s high time you stopped waving around black America as if it were a voting bloc you could command rather than a community of individuals with a shared ancestry and a diversity of perspective.

This clip shows just how irrelevant Jackson and his ilk are becoming in American politics.

Jackson has since apologized for the comment.

[Updated] Wilshire & Washington: James Boyce, Fred Graver and the Obamas on Access Hollwood

Join Ted, Maegan and I live as we interview Democratic Strategist James Boyce and Remix America founder Fred Graver and discuss the political news of the week.

Wilshire & Washington: Official Launch Tomorrow at 7:30 Pacific

Join Ted, Maegan and I at 10:30 a.m. Eastern / 7:30 Pacific.

Our guests will be Democratic strategist James Boyce and Remix America founder Fred Graver.

The Obamas on Access Hollywood

Seems like little Malia Obama takes after her dad when it comes to being well spoken. She’s quite articulate, especially when you consider that she’s only 10.

Should Future Presidents be Allowed Rove-like Advisors?

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) thinks not. He’s calling for legislation that would apply the same stringent rules to the White House that members of Congress must follow when it comes to political staff:

“Why should we be using taxpayer dollars to have a person solely in charge of politics in the White House?” Waxman said in an interview. “Can you imagine the reaction if each member of Congress had a campaign person paid for with taxpayer dollars?”

I’m not sure I agree.

The White House is a political entity to a much higher degree than Congress. Politicking is the single most effective tool a President has to get his or her agenda addressed. Personally, I feel that the Bush administration took the politicking to an obscene degree. Rove’s antics definitely hit below the belt. But that unfortunate history shouldn’t abridge a president’s right to have political advisors serving in the administration.

A more moderate tack might be to require that taxpayer dollars only be used to compensate White House political staff whose primary role is to push the president’s current agenda. Other staff who focus on reelection could be paid with money from the president’s reelection coffers.

Of course, this whole problem would be much less problematic if all campaigns were run solely with government funds.

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