A NEWSLETTER FROM DAVID CORN |
A NEWSLETTER FROM DAVID CORN |
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How the Media Aid and Abet GOP Hostage-Takers |
By David Corn May 27, 2023 |
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office to discuss the debt limit on May 22, 2023. Alex Brandon/AP |
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Imagine I come home and find a crazy man in my house. He is holding a full gas can and a lit match. “If you don’t sign over the deed,” he screams, “I will burn this place down.” I refuse, and we enter a standoff for days. Neighbors gather around my home. The police arrive. It is a major scene. The media show up. The newspaper and TV reporters see this as a big story and slap it on the front page and lead the evening news with it: “Two local residents caught in fierce negotiations. If their talks don’t succeed, a house will go up in flames.”
That seems to be the general media framing of the debt ceiling debate in Washington, DC. In horse-race style, much of the press has covered this episode as a political battle of two opposing forces: President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. And there’s been much breathless and up-to-the-minute reporting of the ins-and-outs of the deliberations between the White House and the House Republicans, with each side treated as equal partners in this tale of high-stakes politics.
Earlier this week, the New York Times front-paged a report on how McCarthy was “attempting a difficult balancing act” in the negotiations, trying to cobble together a budget deal that would win enough Republicans without alienating the most extreme members of his caucus, who—thanks to the agreement that landed McCarthy in the top House post—could easily boot him out of the speakership. Meanwhile, Politico focused on Biden’s negotiating stance, noting he has “prioritized deal-making through much of the debt ceiling talks, laboring to work across the aisle even at the risk of alienating the liberal wing of his own party.”
There was nothing wrong with these stories in and of themselves—and by the time you read this, there may be a permanent deal, a temporary deal, a preliminary deal, or a framework for a preliminary deal—but this coverage underplayed the core element of the story: GOP radicals, by refusing to sign off on raising the debt ceiling so the US government could pay bills already accrued (many of which were the results of what Congress voted for), were threatening to trigger a financial crisis and blow up the US economy.
The lead of the Politico article did convey the danger at hand: “The nation stands on the precipice of an unprecedented financial calamity, testing whether the president’s theory of governance can continue to work.” But it did not attribute responsibility for this potential crisis. And it seemed to suggest that Biden would be to blame for this catastrophe—if his theory were crap.
Much of the media has dutifully reported on the disasters likely to occur if the US government defaults on its debt. NPR noted the S&P could plummet by 20 percent, interest rates could soar, and a recession could strike. CBS News reported that financial markets could be in chaos, Social Security checks delayed, Medicaid and Medicare disrupted, and the housing market frozen. The Economist pointed out that “a surge in unemployment” and “panic throughout the global economy” were possible. The New York Times published an explainer that detailed a variety of catastrophes that could ensue.
But none of these stories highlighted the culprit responsible for the doomcasting: the House Republicans. They described the horrific consequences of a default as one would those of a hurricane or some other natural disaster. Yet in this case, the potential destruction is clearly human-made—and teed up by a particular set of humans.
Both-sidesism is deeply ingrained within political journalism. Though Donald Trump has pushed mainstream outlets to reconsider this approach—after all, only one side attempted to overturn an election and incite a violent insurrectionist assault on the US Congress—it remains the default position. (Pun intended.) Consequently, the to-default-or-not-default drama is cast as a face-off between two political factions, not as an act of political terrorism mounted by a band of extremists. Where is CNN’s Countdown to the Disastrous GOP Default Clock? (The network is certainly not going to do that these days, now that it has pivoted toward a more chummy relationship with the Rs.)
Earlier this week, Jonathan Weisman, a savvy political reporter for the New York Times, tweeted, “From my experience w/ past debt limits, @SpeakerMcCarthy's problem & the nation's is a huge chunk of the GOP doesn't believe a default will cause any problems. They think it's all liberal claptrap. They want their cuts & they don't care about consequences.” |
That’s true. But shouldn’t that be the dominant story of the moment? Ignorant and cavalier Republicans threaten to cause economic meltdown. And does this problem arise in part because this crisis is mostly presented as two-sided budget negotiations and not as the (nightmare) tale of one extremist party playing chicken with the economy? The Republicans even admit that’s their game. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has openly described the GOP strategy as hostage-taking. (See Dumbass Comment of the Week below.)
Of course, it’s not only the media’s fault. The Biden White House tried and failed to establish GOP recklessness as the dominant narrative. President Biden initially declared he would not negotiate with these terrorists. But then he did, and the White House messaging operation failed in pinning the blame for the crisis squarely on the Republicans. Should the sh*t hit the fan, there was no telling who would be seen as more at fault by the public—Biden or the Republicans. This open question and Biden’s sense of responsibility brought him to the negotiating table.
As of Friday afternoon, it seemed a deal to avert a default might be within reach. It would likely entail some budget cuts that impact government programs for middle- and low-income Americans. The GOP position literally was this: We will allow the US government to pay its bills—which includes those run up by the Trump administration and a Republican Congress—and avoid an economic calamity, if you stick it to Americans who need help.
Whatever the outcome, the point remains: The Republican assault on rational governance—and the party’s penchant for chaos and destruction—was not sufficiently emphasized within the political media. That strengthened the hand of the hostage-takers in this episode and showed them that they can engage in political terrorism with little cost. What might that mean for the future?
Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com. |
Kissinger at 100: Still a War Criminal |
One of the great mysteries of life is how some people get away with horrific wrongdoing—again and again. Of course, we, as a country, have been witnessing that directly these past seven years with you-know-who. But the fellow I have in mind right now regarding this huge riddle is Henry Kissinger, who today hit the three-figure mark and who for decades has been hailed as a foreign policy genius, despite the blood-soaked résumé he developed during his years of service in the Nixon and Ford administrations.
To mark his centennial, I wrote a piece this week noting that we should forget about the birthday candles and, instead, count the dead. That is, the civilians who were killed in secret bombings, military coups, brutal invasions, and dirty wars that he instigated or encouraged. Here’s a brief accounting:
Chile: Nixon and Kissinger plotted to thwart the democratic election of a socialist president. The eventual outcome: a military coup and a military dictatorship that killed thousands of Chileans. Argentina: Kissinger gave a “green light” to the military junta’s dirty war against political opponents that led to the deaths of an estimated 30,000. East Timor: Another “green light” from Kissinger, this one for the Indonesian military dictatorship’s bloody invasion of East Timor that yielded up to 200,000 deaths. Cambodia: The secret bombing there during the Nixon phase of the Vietnam War killed between 150,000 and 500,000 civilians. Bangladesh: Kissinger and Nixon turned a blind eye to—arguably, they tacitly approved—Pakistan’s genocidal slaughter of 300,000 Bengalis, most of them Hindus. Do the math: The body count could be as high as 1 million dead, as well as tens of thousands tortured.
Though various publications and think tanks have been praising Kissinger on this occasion, I wrote, “As he enters his second century, there will be no apologies coming from Kissinger. But the rest of us will owe history—and the thousands dead because of his gamesmanship—an apology, if we do not consider the man in full. Whatever his accomplishments, his legacy includes an enormous pile of corpses. This is a birthday that warrants no celebration.” I remain mystified why most within the commentariat and the foreign policy elite don’t see it this way. If you have an answer, let me know.
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Dumbass Comment of the Week |
There was a lot of saying the quiet part aloud this week. When Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who’s running the House Republicans’ investigation of the Biden family, was asked whether his probe—which has yet to produce any new evidence of wrongdoing—has had an impact, he said, “There’s no question. You look at the polling. And right now Donald Trump is seven points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward. Joe Biden is trending downward…The American people are keeping up with our investigation.”
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Oops. The House GOP has been on a crusade against what it calls the “weaponization of government”—meaning the supposed abuse of government agencies by the Democrats and liberals to pummel, censor, and undermine Republicans and conservatives. Well, who’s rubber and who’s glue? Here Comer was admitting he’s deploying his committee to bolster Trump and taint Biden ahead of the 2024 presidential election. That sure sounds like the weaponizing of government for political purposes.
This remark was reminiscent of a comment House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made in 2015 about the never-ending Benghazi investigation(s) the GOP orchestrated: “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.” Yeah, we all see what you were doing.
Ditto with Gaetz and the debt ceiling fight. The far-right firebrand publicly proclaimed his support for the Republican measure that tied raising the debt ceiling to spending cuts that would hurt low-income Americans: “I think my conservative colleagues for the most part support Limit, Save, Grow, and they don't feel like we should negotiate with our hostage.” |
This was an acknowledgment that the GOP was happily taking Biden and the economy hostage by threatening a default that could cause a financial crisis that leads to economic chaos and job losses. Playing chicken with Americans’ livelihoods and retirement security: It’s hard to be more extreme—or irresponsible—than that.
There was another instance this week of a Republican saying what he’s really thinking. At a GOP state convention, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster remarked, “I look forward to the day that Democrats are so rare, we have to hunt them with dogs.” Was that a tad violent? And perhaps a bit racist, given that once upon a time South Carolinians hunted Black people who escaped bondage with dogs? A McMaster spokesperson insisted that the gov was just joshing and that “everyday South Carolinians understand that it’s a joke.”
I don’t know how this happened, but somehow Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) developed the reputation as a reasonable Republican. Yet she often is as out-there as any other conspiracy-theory-pushing GOPer. Last month, she was a finalist in this contest for insinuating—without, of course, offering any proof—that Joe Biden was connected to a prostitution ring. This week she was claiming the Durham report proved Trump’s baseless claim of a Deep State conspiracy against him: “We saw the Durham report recently, where we saw folks of the [Obama] administration really target [Trump] without any evidence.”
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That’s not what the dud-of-a-report said. Durham found no such wrongdoing. His big-whoop conclusion was that the FBI should have launched a preliminary investigation instead of a full investigation. And that was merely an opinion, not an accusation of improbity or unlawful conduct.
Pat McCrory, a former Republican governor in North Carolina, is one of the leaders of the No Label outfit that has raised millions to run an independent candidate for president in 2024. The group takes a pox-on-both-parties stance, but much of its money has come from Republican donors, corporate interests, and Trump-friendly billionaires, leading many to suspect this is an effort to draw votes from the Democrats and help the GOP ticket. Explaining his outfit this week, McCrory compared the BLM protests to the January 6 insurrectionist riot. He went on to say, “Right now, the two political parties are in their corners, not realizing that they’re putting our experiment—which is still an experiment—at risk.”
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Really? Only one party backs a candidate who refused to accept confirmed election results, tried to overturn that election, and then incited violence in an effort to retain power. McCrory’s absurd invocation of a false moral equivalence between the parties not only bolsters suspicions about the No Label crew; it wins McCrory this week’s prize. Keep an eye on these guys. They may be up to no good. |
Now I know why some journalists become travel writers. It’s great fun to explore new places and then write about them. You also get to write off a lot of expenses. And, perhaps best of all, people relish reading dispatches from faraway lands. I’ve received wonderful reactions to the reports of my recent trip to South Africa and Namibia.
Pat Jacobson responded to the issue about my visit to Etosha National Park in Namibia, where I spotted a sign noting that a US government agency had provided financial support to the park, where lions, giraffes, zebras, elephants, rhinos, and many other animals roam:
I loved this article, and I too had wondered about the thank-you signs about American investment, when I was there in early 2018. I spent two months in Southern Africa, including three weeks working my way across Etosha and another couple of weeks traveling through Chobe National Park in Botswana. I loved the fact that poachers could be shot on sight! The animals and people were wonderful!
I had spent several days in Windhoek at the beginning of the trip and was especially taken with the revolutionary museum. I had worked at the United Nations for a year in 1968-69, and I worked with many of the SWAPO and ANC leaders—kept in touch with two of them for many years after that. They were both memorialized in the museum. It was very emotional for me to reach closure on that old part of my life. Thank you for taking me back to that piece of my history.
Laura Laughlin emailed:
Loved the story on US support for development in Africa. I’m surprised when reminded of the good George W. Bush supported and the lives he saved fighting the spread of AIDS. I nurse the resentment I feel regarding the reduction of abortion rights and his support for outlawing homosexuality in our areas of influence in developing countries. I needed the reminder that few world leaders leave a legacy of all good or all bad. Like all humans, they are a mixed bag. Think I’ll go for a walk now. Do a little people watching and fall in love with my city neighborhood again.
Rob Zeller wrote:
Thanks for the tour of Etosha National Park. At 8,600 square miles Etosha sounds huge, but I needed something I knew to compare it to. It turns out that it’s about the size of my New Jersey, which clocks in at about 8,700 square miles. That means Etosha has a very large area for the animals to call home.
Etosha is one of the largest national parks in Africa. The animals there have plenty of space.
Alison Rose Parker, reacting to Elon Musk winning Dumbass Comment of the Week for his antisemitic remarks about George Soros, had this to share:
Good Lord, what are these people going to do when George Soros passes away? He's going to be 93 in August. He's got far fewer years ahead of him than behind him. Do they have an understudy list of who their next Big Scary Rich Jew will be? (Also, the idea that Jews secretly run the world is obviously repugnant, but it's also absurd: If we did, things would be a lot better.) I suspect they will come up with someone.
Once again, there was a flood of emails about old movies that might offend current sensibilities. I could do another entire newsletter issue (or two) with all of it:
Wyn Snow wrote:
Fascinating how some folks got upset by your piece that basically asked a question. My example is Casablanca, which became an instant favorite when I first saw it in my late teens (college). Later in life, when I watched Ilsa defer to Rick to decide what to do about their love and their life—yeah, that became cringey. And I can no longer watch it. OTOH, I don’t condemn it, either. There’s that whole “that was then and this is now” aspect. I first saw the movie in the mid-sixties, during the birth of women’s lib.
As for Captain Kirk instantly transforming females of all intergalactic species into sex toys—mostly I see that now as funny. Sure, there was a lot of sexist stuff on the show. But it also broke a lot of new ground. I gotta hand it to Gene Roddenberry for “adding a little color to the bridge”—which the producers okayed, only to discover he meant Lt. Uhura! He had people of all colors and backgrounds in the cast. Paul Baicich wrote in:
It reminded me of my recruitment to radicalism and socialist democracy in the late 1960s when I read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. I was truly moved...and convinced! Then I "listened" to the book—an audio-book—just a few years ago. Chapter 26 simply oozed racism, what with the Black strikebreakers living inside the huge meat-plant and spending the nights in front of bonfires with white Chicago prostitutes, writhing and cavorting in the darkness. See here. It was hard to take. But it actually gave me a different appreciation for the work... and the times. Still, the greatness of the book was lessened. But it was also a "lesson"!
Rodney Proctor focused on Gone With the Wind:
GWTW was one of my favorites for many years. As an unaware teenager descended from Confederate veterans, I was enamored with the Lost Cause, despite also identifying as a liberal Democrat. Now in my old age, I do find it difficult to watch, especially the way Scarlet takes advantage of Big Sam.
Thomas Pratt took issue with a reader who was so horrified by my article that he canceled his Mother Jones subscription:
I do not agree with Paul Kaplan. The subliminal damage of the films of other eras is still very much being felt today. An example is early Westerns always depicting Native Americans as villainous savages. Just because something racist, misogynistic, etc. was accepted in the film’s era does not excuse that behavior. I, as David said, do not think these films should be banned or burned but seen as examples of how Hollywood was extremely biased and quite racist in the early years and looked at as an example of how we should strive to change for the better.
Richard Taylor tickled me with this:
Reminds me of the William F. Buckley retort when an angry National Review reader wrote to him and stated, "Cancel my subscription!" Buckley wrote back, "Cancel your own goddamn subscription!" I do agree with your reassessment of old movies. I love old movies from the silents up through the 70s. One movie I tried to watch and stopped was Patton. Too cartoonish for me now at 68 years old. Don Bronkema gets the last word: The question for this nonagenarian ultra-radical is, Why watch any flick twice? Life is too short: Messor Gravis venabit!
I had to turn to Google’s Latin-to-English translator. That phrase means, “The grim reaper will hunt!” Which is a good sentiment for ending almost any debate. |
“Good morning, Moxie.” “Good morning.” “Did you sleep well?” “I don’t understand the question. Is there any other way?” |
Read Recent Issues of Our Land |
May 23, 2023: Is contextualizing old movies the same as canceling them?; the Citadel is a forgettable spy show; The Independent needed a rewrite; and more. May 20, 2023: Lions, rhinos, elephants, and soft power in Africa; more from Namibia; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Elon Musk); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.
May 17, 2023: My visit to a famous prison cell; more photos from Robben Island; and more. May 13, 2023: From the Our Land archives: Can you still watch your old favorite movies? May 9, 2023: From the Our Land archives: Call it what it is—the GOP is pushing for political apartheid. May 5, 2023: The big question about AI: who decides?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Jesse Watters); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more. May 2, 2023: President Joe Biden’s crusade; KCSN’s eclectic mix of new and old music; and more.
April 29, 2023: Of guns, God, and a clinging GOP; a useful idiot is gone from Fox; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Sen. Ron Johnson); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more. April 25, 2023: Tucker Carlson’s long con; Blacktop Wasteland and a helluva ride; and more.
April 22, 2023: Robert Kennedy Jr., we wish we hardly knew ye; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Fox News); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.
April 18, 2023: Go take a walk; comparing the Murdochs and the Roys; The Big Door Prize puzzles; and more. |
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Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com. |
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