Winning the Sound Bite War

Democrats aren't very good at getting their side of things covered by the media. The Republicans are much better at it. Why is that? I can think of several reasons:

Dems assume that people really do think about what they see, hear, and read.
Most people, to paraphrase Robert Heinlein, can't think, don't think, won't think if they can avoid it, and those few who do think, logically, consistently, and intelligently are responsible for all the progress of the human race.
A highly cynical statement, to be sure, but more true than not. Most people just don't know enough about politics or policy to be able to think logically, consistently, and intelligently. They simply accept what they hear the most often, stated with the most certainty. Republicans do that stuff really well. Democrats don't. Dems tend to think that if we say it once, everyone will recognize the reasonableness and agree. Wrong. Way wrong.

Edward R. Murrow has been spinning in his grave for so long it's a wonder he doesn't achieve liftoff.
The media no longer consists of journalists. It consists of news readers and writers who see it as their job to get a quote from each side, repeat it, and then go on to the next story. So far as these folks are concerned, all political positions and policies are equal. This applies even if one position is based on verifiable facts and the other is based on pure smoke. They no longer see it as their job to sort out the facts from the fictions. So much for journalism. And then, there is Fox News. They don't even pretend to care about facts. But then, they're not really a journalistic organization.

Dems don't use all their opportunities to get in front of the cameras.
The result is that if you look at who's being interviewed on the Sunday interview shows and who's getting face time on the nightly news, Repugs outnumber Dems about 2 to 1. Dems need to get in there with some simple, easily digested talking points and keep repeating them until they become accepted truth. Don't think this can be done? Repugs have pretty much convinced the country that "government isn't the solution, it's the problem". Does anyone even think about this? Not so much. It's simplistic idiocy, but it's become accepted truth. Should Dems indulge in similar idiocy? No, but they do need to settle on some central themes and repeat them over and over and over and. . . .

Oh, and while we're at it, can we scrap the media we have and start over? Maybe Murrow can stop spinning.

Activist Courts-Then and Now

Remember when SCOTUS decided that the people incarcerated at Guantanamo couldn't be prevented from speaking to a lawyer? Remember how the Republicans yelled "Activist judges!"? And just generally went bonkers about how the court was legislating rather than interpreting? Remember that?

Well, last week the SCOTUS decided to throw out 100 years of precedent and declare that corporations, that's right, corporations are "persons" within the meaning of the 1st amendment to the Constitution and therefore entitled to free speech rights, and therefore entitled to shovel as much money as they want into political campaigns. Welcome to the Corporate States of America. Has there ever been a more activist court decision than this one? As a lawyer, I can't think of one.

I know, I know, it's not as if corporations didn't already use their money to buy friends and influence lawmakers, but if you thought it was bad before, you ain't seen nothin' yet. And the Repubs think it's just fine. At least they did until somebody pointed out that the ruling is not limited U.S. corporations. Venezuela owns CITI. They do business in the U.S. Isn't it nice that Hugo Chavez will now have the ability to purchase his very own congressmen and senators? And China. They own shares, in some cases controlling shares, in several U.S. corporations. They don't want any competition in developing alternative power sources? The solution is simple, purchase several congresscritters who will always vote against developing such sources. Is anyone noticing a slight problem here?

The President has talked to Chuck Schumer about getting some legislation to mitigate the damage this ruling is going to do. Let's hope they can get it done quickly.

Here we go!

Well, this is interesting. I've been reading blogs for years now, mostly lurking, commenting only when something particularly catches my interest. Now I'm going to see if I can really do this myself. Maybe. Could be a total debacle. I guess we'll see. Anyway, welcome aboard.