....LMB: "Pointless Campaign Follies"....

January 24, 2004

The past few days, the media have had guns a-blazin' on two fairly insignificant happenings in the world of Democratic politics.

Well first, let's mention the part that does matter. Just about every pundit and commentator predicted that Howard Dean would easily win the Iowa caucus, followed by Kerry and Gephardt. They were really, really wrong.

The point I want everyone to take away from this is "the media doesn't know what they're talking about." All sorts of commentators make predictions about how certain events will come out, they're frequently wrong, and then they live to predict another day. These guys need warning labels: "Accuracy Rating 24%" or whatever.

Now, onto the fluff.

1) The Dean Yell

Probably everyone with a TV has seen it. At the end of post-Iowa caucus speech, Howard Dean started talking real loud and excitedly, and then let out some sort of whooping yell. It was pretty funny to watch, and of course became fodder for late night comedy talk shows. But then it got picked up by real live pundits who claim to have real live political knowledge about real live politics. They began to debate the meaning of this excited yelling, how it would be interpretted by voters, and some pundits even proclaimed that this yell had ruined Howard Dean's political career.

He was giving a speech before a number of his supporters after a disappointing result. He gave them a fiery pep talk to boost their spirits and hold on to their allegiance. He sounded silly to everyone else, and maybe even to those supporters. This wasn't high tea with the duchess, it was a rally, it's okay to be rowdy. But the media seem hell-bent on talking about the speech and its damage, and they more they do, the more credibility this stupid idea gains. Nuff said.

I'll also post a link here sent to me by reader Gary, that shows video of Dean's speech from an amateur videographer at the rally. From this fellow's viewpoint, in the midst of boisterous, raucous fans, Dean's speech doesn't look so out of place (or, if you're on the Dean Smear Team, it makes it look like his supporters are crazy and unpresidential too).

Gary's email also included a first-hand account from someone at the Dean rally. This account argues that Dean was yelling for a reason: the thousand or so members of the audience were cheering and talking so loudly that Dean needed to yell to be heard. And when the professional TV people used their tech to to filter out the crowd noise, it made Dean like the lone yelling fool.

2) Clark and Moore and "Deserter"

Wesley Clark is campaigning to be the Democratic presidential candidate. Film/trouble maker Michael Moore supports Wesley Clark. In a message to his fans, Michael Moore called George W. Bush a "deserter", referring to a period between 1972-1973 where Bush was enrolled in the Texas Air National Guard, but did not report for duty. And at the Democratic Presidential debate on January 22, moderator Peter Jennings tried to trap Clark, asking a question that essentially said "Bush wasn't a deserter, and unless you denounce the lying Moore for his scummy act, we will drag you through the gutter." Clark sidestepped the trap, saying that Moore could say whatever he wants, and that Clark didn't know much about these allegations.

The whole next day, the news focused on the way that Clark dodged this question, and tried to pin him down, and force him to repudiate Moore for his lying smear. And it looks as though Moore might have been technically incorrect: when you leave the military during active duty, you're a deserter; when you leave during inactive duty, you're Absent With Out Leave (AWOL). So Moore probably should have said that Bush was AWOL, not a deserter.

But the fact remains, that there is about a 12 month gap in Bush's service record while in the national guard. Moore has created a page on his site which reprints many articles which support the AWOL claim, you can judge for yourself.

But Clark is not in any way responsible for what his supporters say. Why is the press pretending otherwise? One possibility is that the press, being forgetful or having never looked into the issue in the first place, thinks that these are spurious allegations made by a scoundrel about our honorable President-in-Chief. Blogger skippy describes this exchange between CNN's Wolf Blitzer and former Clinton official Jamie Rubin. Wolfie interrogates Jamie about the "deserter" claim, and Jamie catches Wolfie by surprise by turning the tables on him:

wolf asked jamie directly: "do you believe it?"

jamie fired back: "i haven't looked into it either. have you?"

imagine! asking a journalist if he has researched the facts about a point he's making!!

wolf, taken aback for a second, could only mumble "i'm asking the questions here." meaning of course, no, he hasn't done any investigative work into the very issue he's bandying about to try to trip up candidates.

Which probably explains exactly what the issue at hand is here. When a politician makes a public mistake-- they misspeak, they say something offensive, they contradict themselves, they have ethical lapses-- that's news. And it's a kind of news that reporters can manufacture themselves and then ride for days and weeks, if they can trick the candidates into making such a mistake.

Bastards.