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2008-08-19 18:23:59 UTC
Media Mash: Crashing an Obama Book | CNN: Getting as Bad as Fox
Posted by The Masher, AlterNet at 6:29 AM on August 19, 2008.
A new book about Obama is a welcome antidote to anti-Obama propaganda, and
CNN does the right's dirty work for them.
Chelsea Green, the independent, opportunistic Vermont book publisher, is
crashing a new Obama book -- Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis
and the Power of a Transformative Presidency by Bob Kuttner, co-founder and
editor of the American Prospect -- to launch at the DNC next week in Denver.
The new book has the goal of encouraging Obama, should he get elected, to
rise to the challenge of the multiple crises the country faces, particularly
with the economy in deep trouble and the poor and middle class increasingly
in crisis. But the book also has the potential to serve as an antidote to
The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality by Jerome
Corsi, a book that has been thoroughly discredited for its numerous
falsehoods as well as its author's track record, which includes a slew of
bigoted posts on the conservative website Free Republic and co-authorship of
a discredited book attacking Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 presidential
campaign. Nevertheless, despite a critical examination by portions of the
media, the Corsi book has received tons of publicity, and because of right
wing bulk buying and heavy promotion on right wing talk shows, it debuted at
the top of the New York Times best-seller list.
In contrast, an excellent book by Cliff Schecter, The Real McCain: Why
Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't, which
documented a large number of little known but disturbing facts about
McCain's political career, didn't remotely get the exposure in the corporate
media that the Corsi book is getting. But there is still time to build a
larger audience for this book. Buy it here.
Kuttner is a veteran economic writer and successful publisher of The
Prospect, a consistently sharply written and insightful inside-the-beltway
voice for progressive policy advocacy. As Kuttner explains in the book,
transformative presidents have been leaders who rose to greatness in moments
of extreme crisis, and who took themselves and the Republic to places that
seemed impossible -- Lincoln, Roosevelt, and the LBJ of the civil rights
era:
Now it is time for the wheel to turn again. Barack Obama has both the
national moment and the raw material to be a transformative president. A
46-year-old freshman senator, an African-American no less, does not decide
to pursue his party's nomination against a universally presumed certain
nominee unless he has an unerring sense of timing, confidence, and a feel
for the broad stroke. Obama has exceptional skill at appealing to our better
angels, and a fine capacity to be president-as-teacher. He inspires, as only
a few presidents have done. But Obama will need to be a more radical
president than he was a presidential candidate. Radical does not mean
outside the mainstream. It means perceiving, as a leader, that radical
change is necessary, discerning tacit aspirations and unmet needs in the
people, and then making that radical change the mainstream view for which
the people clamor.
Chelsea Green will be distributing several thousand advance reading copies
at DNC events as well as coupons for a special early discount in welcome
packets to 15,000 convention-goers. The coupons are redeemable on Amazon.com
and the book will be printed on-demand by BookSurge, part of the Amazon
group of companies. The title will be available to order on Amazon.com as
soon as coupons are distributed on the first day of the convention, August
25.
This is not the first time Chelsea Green has rushed out timely and
provocative books. George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant! (2004) and
Naomi Wolf's The End of the America (2007) were both published as original
trade paperbacks to promote an activist, progressive agenda and became New
York Times best-sellers. (Disclosure: Don Hazen, Executive Editor of
AlterNet, wrote the introduction to Don't Think of an Elephant!)
Margo Baldwin, publisher at Chelsea Green, says:
The point is not to publish another Obama book; the point is to change the
political conversation similar to what we did when we published Lakoff and
Wolf. A President Obama holds great promise for this country but he needs to
be challenged to step up and risk a bold, progressive agenda. The economic
situation is dire. If he tries to play safe, he's finished. Bob Kuttner has
brilliantly outlined the steps he needs to take to be that transformative
leader. Now it's up to him -- and to us -- to make sure he takes up that
challenge.
***
People in the TV biz know full well that when they repeat right-wing talking
points, especially in headlines, they are both reinforcing the conservative
frame and legitimizing the concept, no matter how absurd or outlandish. But
they do it anyway. They think it titillates the audience. It's the political
version of 'if it bleeds it leads.' Of course Fox News does this framing
automatically, repeating over and over every negative stereotype about Obama
they can generate or repeat from talk radio, the White House, etc.
CNN entered a new bizarre framing zone when they repeated a fabricated
message from a campaign ad aimed at McCain's conservative base, when they
took the opportunity to question whether Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ.
The ad is called The One, and it is an attack on Obama's celebrity, but the
secondary message appears to be about his candidacy as the Anti-Christ.
Dave Edwards and Nick Juliano write about CNN's behavior on Raw Story:
Just so we're clear: Barack Obama is in fact not the Anti-Christ, sent here
to feed on the souls of the innocent, resume Satan's reign over earth and
bring about the apocalypse as foretold in Revelation.
Not. The. Anti-Christ.
That such a subject is even speculated about in any but the most backwards,
unreconstructed segments of American society -- let alone on a 24-hour cable
network -- is a testament (no pun intended) to the depths to which political
debate has fallen. But there was the caption on CNN Friday in big bold
letters: "OBAMA THE ANTICHRIST?" ( This video is from CNN's Newsroom,
broadcast August 15, 2008.)
Apparently a not-insignificant number of Americans, after viewing John
McCain's Web ad The One, with its Messianic overtones -- come away thinking
that Barack Obama has been sent from Hell to Earth to turn its citizens
against God. For inspiration, some of these people seem to be drawing from
the fictional Left Behind series, which posits a dystopian future where the
Anti-Christ comes to Earth as a charismatic politician.
So, yes, this is the media terrain in which CNN travels. The Masher thinks
it is time for those Fox Watchers at Brave New Films to start a new project
and document some of the horrors of CNN .
The Masher reveals inner secrets and social linkages, while exposing the
media misbehaviors of the corporate bad guys.
Posted by The Masher, AlterNet at 6:29 AM on August 19, 2008.
A new book about Obama is a welcome antidote to anti-Obama propaganda, and
CNN does the right's dirty work for them.
Chelsea Green, the independent, opportunistic Vermont book publisher, is
crashing a new Obama book -- Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis
and the Power of a Transformative Presidency by Bob Kuttner, co-founder and
editor of the American Prospect -- to launch at the DNC next week in Denver.
The new book has the goal of encouraging Obama, should he get elected, to
rise to the challenge of the multiple crises the country faces, particularly
with the economy in deep trouble and the poor and middle class increasingly
in crisis. But the book also has the potential to serve as an antidote to
The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality by Jerome
Corsi, a book that has been thoroughly discredited for its numerous
falsehoods as well as its author's track record, which includes a slew of
bigoted posts on the conservative website Free Republic and co-authorship of
a discredited book attacking Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 presidential
campaign. Nevertheless, despite a critical examination by portions of the
media, the Corsi book has received tons of publicity, and because of right
wing bulk buying and heavy promotion on right wing talk shows, it debuted at
the top of the New York Times best-seller list.
In contrast, an excellent book by Cliff Schecter, The Real McCain: Why
Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't, which
documented a large number of little known but disturbing facts about
McCain's political career, didn't remotely get the exposure in the corporate
media that the Corsi book is getting. But there is still time to build a
larger audience for this book. Buy it here.
Kuttner is a veteran economic writer and successful publisher of The
Prospect, a consistently sharply written and insightful inside-the-beltway
voice for progressive policy advocacy. As Kuttner explains in the book,
transformative presidents have been leaders who rose to greatness in moments
of extreme crisis, and who took themselves and the Republic to places that
seemed impossible -- Lincoln, Roosevelt, and the LBJ of the civil rights
era:
Now it is time for the wheel to turn again. Barack Obama has both the
national moment and the raw material to be a transformative president. A
46-year-old freshman senator, an African-American no less, does not decide
to pursue his party's nomination against a universally presumed certain
nominee unless he has an unerring sense of timing, confidence, and a feel
for the broad stroke. Obama has exceptional skill at appealing to our better
angels, and a fine capacity to be president-as-teacher. He inspires, as only
a few presidents have done. But Obama will need to be a more radical
president than he was a presidential candidate. Radical does not mean
outside the mainstream. It means perceiving, as a leader, that radical
change is necessary, discerning tacit aspirations and unmet needs in the
people, and then making that radical change the mainstream view for which
the people clamor.
Chelsea Green will be distributing several thousand advance reading copies
at DNC events as well as coupons for a special early discount in welcome
packets to 15,000 convention-goers. The coupons are redeemable on Amazon.com
and the book will be printed on-demand by BookSurge, part of the Amazon
group of companies. The title will be available to order on Amazon.com as
soon as coupons are distributed on the first day of the convention, August
25.
This is not the first time Chelsea Green has rushed out timely and
provocative books. George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant! (2004) and
Naomi Wolf's The End of the America (2007) were both published as original
trade paperbacks to promote an activist, progressive agenda and became New
York Times best-sellers. (Disclosure: Don Hazen, Executive Editor of
AlterNet, wrote the introduction to Don't Think of an Elephant!)
Margo Baldwin, publisher at Chelsea Green, says:
The point is not to publish another Obama book; the point is to change the
political conversation similar to what we did when we published Lakoff and
Wolf. A President Obama holds great promise for this country but he needs to
be challenged to step up and risk a bold, progressive agenda. The economic
situation is dire. If he tries to play safe, he's finished. Bob Kuttner has
brilliantly outlined the steps he needs to take to be that transformative
leader. Now it's up to him -- and to us -- to make sure he takes up that
challenge.
***
People in the TV biz know full well that when they repeat right-wing talking
points, especially in headlines, they are both reinforcing the conservative
frame and legitimizing the concept, no matter how absurd or outlandish. But
they do it anyway. They think it titillates the audience. It's the political
version of 'if it bleeds it leads.' Of course Fox News does this framing
automatically, repeating over and over every negative stereotype about Obama
they can generate or repeat from talk radio, the White House, etc.
CNN entered a new bizarre framing zone when they repeated a fabricated
message from a campaign ad aimed at McCain's conservative base, when they
took the opportunity to question whether Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ.
The ad is called The One, and it is an attack on Obama's celebrity, but the
secondary message appears to be about his candidacy as the Anti-Christ.
Dave Edwards and Nick Juliano write about CNN's behavior on Raw Story:
Just so we're clear: Barack Obama is in fact not the Anti-Christ, sent here
to feed on the souls of the innocent, resume Satan's reign over earth and
bring about the apocalypse as foretold in Revelation.
Not. The. Anti-Christ.
That such a subject is even speculated about in any but the most backwards,
unreconstructed segments of American society -- let alone on a 24-hour cable
network -- is a testament (no pun intended) to the depths to which political
debate has fallen. But there was the caption on CNN Friday in big bold
letters: "OBAMA THE ANTICHRIST?" ( This video is from CNN's Newsroom,
broadcast August 15, 2008.)
Apparently a not-insignificant number of Americans, after viewing John
McCain's Web ad The One, with its Messianic overtones -- come away thinking
that Barack Obama has been sent from Hell to Earth to turn its citizens
against God. For inspiration, some of these people seem to be drawing from
the fictional Left Behind series, which posits a dystopian future where the
Anti-Christ comes to Earth as a charismatic politician.
So, yes, this is the media terrain in which CNN travels. The Masher thinks
it is time for those Fox Watchers at Brave New Films to start a new project
and document some of the horrors of CNN .
The Masher reveals inner secrets and social linkages, while exposing the
media misbehaviors of the corporate bad guys.