Tim Russert Has Died

According to the New York Times, he died of a heart attack. He was 58. Much too young.

Well That Takes Care of That

After much Strum und Drang surrounding TNR’s decision to have their Environment and Energy coverage be “powered by BP”, they’ve gotten rid of the tag and BP’s logo is now relegated to a mere banner ad. Although I don’t think that the placement of the ad  had any signifigant implications for their coverage, it certainly looks a lot better, which is important because hopefully more people will take a less jaundiced view of TNR’s environmental reporting, which I think has generally been quite good.

TNR and BP

There’s a lot of controversy surrounding The New Republic’s new Environment and Energy blog, which is “powered by BP.” The basic argument for why it’s bad for TNR to have an entire “channel” devoted to environmental, and especially climate change and energy, issues that is sponsored by an oil company is twofold. The first, and most obvious concern, is that British Petroleum’s sponsorship will influence TNR’s coverage of climate change issues. After all, oil companies are some of the chief villains, and even if you don’t want to cast it in such stark terms, some of the most important players in the climate change debate, and so any honest journalism surrounding climate changehave to keep a keen eye on oil companies. I don’t think this will be much of a worry for TNR’s environment writers, especially because one of them is Brad Plumer, whose honesty and commitment to quality journalism is something that no one needs to worry about.

The second concern is both more subtle and more worrisome. The concern is that, in the words of Sam Boyd, “BP will have an easier time lobbying against climate change legislation if it is perceived as supporting environmental causes — a perception that will only be increased by sponsorships like this. Making a company with such a checkered history look good is in and of itself a bad thing.” So the question becomes, in the struggle to get a. accurate information and good analysis about environmental issues out in the general public and b. to actually effect public attitudes and even legislation about climate change, is BP’s very obvious sponsorship of TNR a net positive or a net negative?

On the first count, I think we can say that it’s a net positive. I have no reason to believe that TNR’s environmental coverage will be meaningfully affected by BP’s endorsement; after all, plenty of companies with an interest in their own media coverage sponsor and advertise all over the place and yet there’s still plenty of critical journalism about those very companies. There’s generally a pretty strong divide between the business and production side of magazines, and I don’t feel comfortable impugning the honesty of the TNR crew without good reason. Whether the blog, due to the BP sponsorship, can actually achieve the second goal is more debatable. Is the marginal effect on BP’s reputation by sponsoring TNR (and thus their ability to either lobby legislation their way or avoid negative scrutiny) overwhelm the marginal increase in good journalism that TNR will produce that could lead more people to, say, endorse alternative energy investments or a carbon tax? I think at least that more good journalism, and more coverage in general, of climate change issues can only help, but clearly BP wouldn’t so aggressively be greenwashing themselves if they didn’t think it was good for their bottom line.

In defense of TNR, it’s worth pointing out that any public pressure against fossil fuel producers would be directed against all of them, not just BP or any individual company, so it’s unclear what BP gains by trying to brand itself as the green oil company. A carbon tax would be applied to all of them.

Defending The Press Embargo

Despite my nearly impossibly high levels of what scholars would call “privilege”, I have an innate, visceral aversion to markers of class or hierarchy.  Maybe it’s the Jewish-Socialist in me or something, but few things piss me off more than a hereditary royalty, who by sole virtue of their birth get a whole bunch of shit that not even their parents, grandparents or great grandparents earned.  The fact that so many royals turn out to be rather average folks, rather than endear me to them, just makes them look pathetic.

There is one saving grace, however,  particular to the British monarchy. That’s the strong tradition of royals who are one-off from the royal line serving in the military.  Although it would be nice to see Prince William on the front lines a la Prince Hal in Henry IV and Henry V, I am actually quite happy that the current Prince Harry managed to serve in Afghanistan for ten weeks like a normal soldier.  This shows that even within an institutions as hysterically unjust and anachronistic as the monarchy, they are aware that they essentially suck off the fat of the land and should “give something back.”  Sure, I oppose the mandatory military or community service of regular 18 year olds, but royal ones should be in the shit as much as possible.  And so I must say that the British press did something truly patriotic by not reporting on Harry’s service for ten whole weeks.  This allowed him to serve without endangering his fellow soldiers.  It’s not like there’s some compelling reason why the public has to know that Prince Harry is serving while he’s still doing it.  And since the info is out now, we can get all the pictures and interviews we want.

It sure looks dangerous, from a liberal, freedom of the press angle, to see journalistic organizations deliberating not reporting something because the government wants them to.  But this Prince Harry situation  isn’t going to push us down the slippery slope, and if it does, we’re already too far down it anyway.  So, bravo British press!

Reporting in the Middle East

New York Times: Top Hezbollah Leader Commander Killed in Syria Bombing”

 Al-Jazeera: “Hezbollah Mourns Senior Leader”

The Myth of Balance - Bitch and Bastard Edition

One of the most pernicious foibles of mainstream political coverage is their desire to establish superficial balance in their reporting.  Because of their commitment to a specific vision of “objectivity”, they can’t just say that one party or faction is particularly malicious, instead, they must find examples of superficially similar actions on both sides and then call it a wash.  Jake Tapper indulges in this noxious practice, breathlessly reporting that, at a Clinton campaign event, a questioner refered to the President as “”George the bastard.” While it would be surprising if Clinton used this language, this certainly isn’t something to devote a lengthy post to, right?

But Tapper is a balanced, objective reporter, and so he draws some BS equivocation.  He implies that because Clinton didn’t loudly denounce her supporter as a horrible defamer, and merely “smiled and laughed mildly before regaining her composure” she’s a horrible hypocrite.  That’s because John McCain behaved similarly when he was asked at a campaign event, “”How do we beat the bitch?”  McCain didn’t call out the questioner for being a misogynistic asshole and instead pointed to a recent poll showing him beating Clinton by a few points.  Tapper, who seemingly can not distinguish between bad words that start with “B”, comments, “McCain was hammered by the Left for his response to that language being used about a colleague. How will Clinton’s response be received?”

What’s so frustrating about this is that surely Tapper knows that “bastard” as used in the context is nothing in comparison to McCain’s supporter calling Hillary a “bitch.”  In case Tapper isn’t aware, media and popular depictions and discussions of Hillary Clinton are often tainted by a horrible sexism that portrays her ambition and tendency to be steely under fire — necessary skills for a politician — as her being a “bitch.”  The reason such language is so offensive isn’t just because it’s inaccurate and demeans Clinton, but because it’s the type of language that is so often used to demean ambitious, successful women in all fields.  The phrase “bastard”, while certainly not polite, isn’t exactly an enforcer of patriarchal and backwards social attitudes, it’s just a rude put-down of an untrustworthy male.  They aren’t the same, and Tapper is just displaying how much of the media acts as accomplices and enablers of this sexism by pretending the two phrases are at all equivalent.

What Could Have Been

The New Republic has an article looking at the process by which William Kristol became a Times Columnist.  Of course, he wasn’t the only named bandied about by Arthur Sulzberger and Andrew Rosenthal.  The article reveals a few others who were considered, and it’s almost sad to see what would have been:

So, last fall, Sulzberger and Times editorial-page editor Andrew Rosenthal prepared a list of some 25 conservative writers. According to a person with knowledge of the search, the names included Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, The Atlantic’s Ross Douthat, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Max Boot and three Weekly Standard staffers: senior editor Christopher Caldwell, associate editor Matthew Continetti, and the magazine’s editor and founder, Bill Kristol.

Krauthammer is just as singularly hawkish, if not more so than Kristol, but at least can write well and has the capacity to occasionally write an interesting, out of the box column like those he’s written on intelligent design or religion in the GOP primary.  Max Boot is too a neocon’s neocon, but he’s also a UC Berkeley alumnus who has a pretty good knowledge of military history and would have more to say on foreign affairs than “omg, teh surge iz worken!”  Matthew Continetti has an amazing first name, is a good straight-political writer and, because of his youth, would have been a interesting pick. Caldwell and Douthat, in my mind, are the class of conservative commentary.  Not only are they both not orthodox conservatives, they both have the capacity to, like David Brooks, write columns that aren’t just reflecting the short term political situation or whatever controversy happens to flare up.

I’ve gone back and forth on Kristol.  I think that a good op-ed page needs to have some conservative voices, and despite David Brooks’ Bush and Iraq cheerleading, one gets the feeling that he was designed to soothe liberals into thinking he’s an OK dude.  Both Caldwell and Douthat have these qualities as well, but they are both such good and interesting writers, that their choice would have probably been lauded across the political spectrum.  Kristol, on the other hand, has called for the Times to be investigated for treason and, more importantly, just isn’t that good of a writer, both of which should have been enough for him not to get the job.

Another interesting thing this article gets at is how the Kristol pick was largely a panic move by the Times.  Because the right wing media, led by the Weekly Standard, had been relentlessly hammering the Times‘ pre-Iraq war coverage, they lurched right and “Judith Miller’s credulous front-page pieces on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction began appearing with increasing frequency.”  The right wing media had so effectively “worked the refs,” constantly lambasting the Times, that Sulzburger and Rosenthal felt compelled to throw out a piece of red meat and hire one of their most vociferous opponents.  Say what you will about liberal bias in the media, but left wing pressure has never forced the Times to hire an unabashed, Times-criticizing leftie like Eric Alterman, and likely never will.

This one line, from a former Times staffer, captures the mood best:

 ”My personal opinion is it’s an appalling choice,” a former veteran Times staffer said of Kristol’s appointment. “Not because he’s been wrong about so much, but because he called for prosecuting the Times for treason. You’re entitled to your opinion, but, in all due respect, go fuck yourself.”

When Someone Great is Gone

While it may seem like accepting an offer to be the Post’s online campaign editor in January of an election year is a pretty obvious move, I must say that I’m a bit disappointed that Garance Franke-Ruta isn’t blogging these days. Although she was often criticized (including by me) in certain sections of the blogosphere for both supporting Hillary Clinton and arguably being intellectual dishonest in criticizing the other candidates, it was undeniable that she really knew her shit when it came to writing about gender and the media.

Her discussion of the “secondary conversations” that women have with other women about politics was genuinely illuminating, and in wake of Clinton taking New Hampshire in the face of massively negative and sexist media coverage, I really want to know what she has to say. If you look back at some of her old posts, she seems downright prescient about the nasty turn campaign coverage took after Iowa. While there’s no doubt that I would disagree with much of what she would be writing, I certainly think that the blogosphere would be better off with her writing freely about Clinton and the media than with her writing boring campaign stories and working behind the scenes.

PS - What does it say about me that when writing about a working journalist, I refer to her in the past tense like she’s not around anymore? The blogosphere really is its own little world…

Which Conventional Wisdom Will Emerge? AND Steven White is Blogging Again

While I’m not exactly feeling great following the New Hampshire results, in the darkness, there is some hope.  Hope’s name is Steven White, who after a long hiatus, seems to be, for now, blogging at a reasonable pace again.  His  random thoughts on the pre-New Hampshire polling are all worth reading.  I want to highlight one point he makes about how polls aren’t just descriptive devices, but can shape the public discourse in very influential ways:

Pollsters need to start being more self-aware of how polls themselves because part of the campaign, in addition to second-guessing assumptions about where undecided voters will eventually break. The media is perhaps the real culprit though, because polling results necessarily explain the scene before those poll results become part of public discourse. If the way the poll results are debated in public discourse in itself changes public opinion, the value of public opinion research on time-specific things like primary elections becomes moot.

One emerging explanation for why Hillary did so well is because the media had anointed Obama and was so relentlessly critical of McCain.  Some are even suggesting that New Hampshire voters didn’t want to follow Iowa’s and the media’s lead — because they’re hearty, independent New Englanders, or something like that.  But, of course, had the undecideds broke to Obama, instead of Clinton, it would have been a sign of just how potent Iowa momentum is.  What really seems like the best explanation is that Clinton stepped up her game in the debate and the last few days of campaigning and was able to sway a lot of undecided voters, and especially women.

The really interesting takeaway from Clinton’s victory from a media perspective issue is the “humanzing moment.”  When it was relentlessly reported, many bloggers saw it as another sign that the media was sexist, biased against Clinton and focusing on trivial issues.  But when Clinton’s campaign chief is pointing to that moment as one of the causes of her victory, and Clinton herself obliquely referenced it in her victory speech, what are we supposed to think of the humanizing moment now?  Did the media help Clinton by playing the clip over and over?  Did the media’s focus on it, and the subsequent sexist undertones, turn women against the media, and thus for Clinton? It seems like all these scenarios are plausible, and we’ll never actually know the explanation for Clinton’s victory.  But that’s the weird thing about campaign reporting: an explanation will emerge and become the dominant conventional wisdom, and then will shape the race until the next primary, and then it will all change again.  Campaigns are weird.

Hillary’s Moment

Since I was on the West Coast and wanted to liveblog the debate, I had to listen to it off the WMUR audio-only feed.  So when I heard the “defining moment” of the debate when Clinton got “angry”, I absorbed it differently than everyone else.  What I heard was Clinton defending her record against Edwards’ attacks in a very forthright but slightly exasperated way.  I thought her listing off of programs and accomplishments, while intrinsically not as effective as Obama’s inspiring oratory and vision, played to her strengths — extreme knowledge of policy detail and good preparation. And it all sounded good.

But apparently those watching the clip saw something else, they saw her mini-speech feeding “into the worst stereotype about her” which is the fact that she’s a woman who can be assertive sometimes.  The CW was that this moment was bad, and perhaps campaign-ending bad. But I have to agree with Mickey Kaus and Dana Goldstein: the reason this moment played so badly for Clinton, that she could be described as flashing a “Medusa look” as Mike Crowley said, was probably because she’s a woman, and people don’t respond well when women get confrontational.  What makes this doubly offensive is that in debates, the media tends to reward male candidates for being confrontational, especially those who are considered “tough” like Giuliani or McCain.  But when Clinton forcefully and specifically defends her record, she’s “alone, angry, and lecturing.”

While it would easy to chalk up all of this negative reaction to sexist double standards, part of it is definitely that Clinton isn’t playing from a position of strength, so everything she does looks weak and ineffective, especially compared to Obama, whose debating style seems perfectly suited for a front runner.  Add on the fact that much of the media really does not like Clinton, and it’s just about impossible for her to do anything in the debate without getting more criticism.  For example, had she not forcefully defended her record and gone after Obama and Edwards, the same peanut gallery would have criticized her for not being aggressive enough in response to Edwards’ criticisms.  “Why didn’t she defend her record and talk about her experience…”

Dog, PhD

I went to Barnes and Noble today to pick up a book for school, and I was browsing in the “Social Sciences” section, and while there were plenty of books by Jonathan Kozol and Thomas Sowell, one book stood out in particular.  That book was You Can Run But You Can’t Hide by none other than Duane Chapman, better known as “Dog the Bounty Hunter.”  That sound you hear is Emile Durkheim going 8000 RPM in his grave.

W. Thomas Smith

I won’t try to give a recap of the entire controversy, but Thomas Edsall has a good one, and from the right, Malkin. This incident, where a NRO blogger made up stories about 5,000 Hezbollah fighters entering a Christian section of Beirut, which according to other journalists in Lebanon would have been an international news story and could have easily incited violence, is, of course, obviously will be compared with the Beuchamp/TNR snafu.

There is next to no resemblance, however. Beauchamp was doing narrative, first person reporting, and his only goal was to disclose his experiences of the war. Smith, on the other hand, was playing the role of a “real” journalist, informing his readers of developments in Lebanon. The fact that he was credulous enough to believe “reliable sources within the Cedar Revolution movement, as well as insiders within the Lebanese national security apparatus” and then report a major story (the 4,000 gunmen entering Christian Beirut) that no other journalist was aware of indicates that Smith is simply a lying, irrevocably biased and unprofessional individual.

He’s made it very clear that he hates Hezbollah, and moreover, doesn’t care that is stupid actions (like stealing a Hezbollah flag) probably endangered journalists. And while there is no problem with hating Hezbollah — especially as an ex Marine — it’s clear that he did everything to portray Hezbollah in an agressive, threatening life, at the expense of accuracy.

The contrast with Scott Thomas is clear. Franklin Foer, in his latest dispatch on the issue, admitted that the stories were impossible to verify, and thus he couldn’t stand by them. Smith’s stories, on the other hand, were fabricated and Kathryn-Jean Lopez was informed that Smith’s work was fishy six weeks ago. The fact that she still claims that he is a “reliable” reporter is pretty shocking.

PS - David Kenner, a journalist based in Lebanon, called out Smith’s BS weeks ago. Glenn Greenwald has probably the most complete summary of the entire issue.

Centrism for the Sake of Centrism: Energy Edition

Robert Samuelson’s column documenting the newfangled political power of oil producers is supremely frustrating. It isn’t all that novel an insight that energy producers are geopolitically powerful, but we’ll let that slide. What’s bewildering are his policy predictions:

Here is what we might do: Raise fuel economy standards for new cars and trucks; gradually increase the gas tax (possibly offset with tax cuts) to induce people to buy those vehicles; expand oil and natural gas production in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. These steps would, with time, temper the power of oil producers while also checking greenhouse gases. But many liberals, conservatives and environmentalists oppose parts of a sensible compromise. The stalemate hurts mainly us.

Samuelson is using the oldest trick in the centrist columnist hat. Combine one part liberal proposal, one part conservative proposal and insist that because both sides would object to the hybrid, you must not only be correct on policy grounds, but also superior. Samuelson’s proposal, however, is just too transparently constructed in artificial this way to past the smell test . His first two ideas are surely good ones that I support, but expanding oil production in the Gulf and Alaska is a red herring. He identifies structural reasons for why oil demand will only continue to rise — the growth of China and India. It’s hard to see how the addition of 4.3 billion barrels from ANWR will do much to address the long term increase in demand that is causing the high oil prices that give Venezuela and Russia increased geopolitical leverage. Samuelson also ignores that little thing called climate change, which when considered, makes the quixotic search for domestic oil even more pointless. But Samuelson doesn’t care, he can’t ever just endorse the liberal policies — sensible columnists don’t do that. The stalemate hurts all of us.

Odd Alliances

Garance points out that Fox News uses a lot of T&A to get viewers.  As part of his increasingly Ahab like quest to destroy FNC, Robert Greenwald of Outfoxed fame has started a petition to allow for “a la carte” pricing and availability of cable — which means that cable consumers only purchase the channels they want, instead of a whole package.  For example, you would be able to just buy ESPN, CNN, MSNBC and the History Channel without having to get Fox News.

What’s odd about Greenwald and (apparantly) Garance’ support for a la carte is that there’s one group that has been pushing for this reform relentlessly — the Parents Television Council.  The PTC is a laughably conservative group that “grades” TV shows for how straight, prudeish and nonviolent they are.  For example,  American Idol gets a green light, while Family Guy and House both get redlighted.  Garance even adopts the PMC’s language, describing Fox News as “smut.”

I’m not surprised we’re opposed on this issue, or if not on the issue of a la carte specfically, the treatment of “smut” generally.  Afterall, I’m just an “adolescent libertarian.”

McMegan had a good post explaining why a la carte hasn’t taken off and isn’t likely to.

The Frosts

While I find the attempted right wing smear job on the Frost family it highly distasteful, what’s far more important is just how wrong the Malkin and her ilk.  The Frost family isthe best example for why we need programs like S-CHIP. They own a small business, pay their taxes, and have kids with preexisting medical conditions (both were in a horrible car accident) so it would be almost impossible to get affordable private insurance, especially buying as individuals.  What the right wing smear mongers did was expose this to all of us.  And while I don’t endorse the borderline harassment, there could have been some real journalism here.

If the Frosts had actually been, say,  crack dealers on the side who were enrolling in S-CHIP because they couldn’t declare their crack income and thus appeared to be poor for tax reasons, then the bloggers would have done their job.  It would be a reasonable line of attack if the kid the Democrats trotted out as an example of why they needed to pass a piece of legislation was actually an example of why not to pass the bill.  Of course, it turned out the kid is the perfect anecdote for why expanding S-CHIP is a good idea.  And so not only did Malkin reveal herself, once again, to be an indecent human being, but more importantly, she was just wrong.

Check out Jon Cohn for a much more in-depth take on the entire situation.

The Columbia Follies

One would think that after the entire Ahmadinejad incident, Columbia could get a break and just go trying to educate their students without a huge media event taking away their attention.  One would be wrong:

 A hangman’s noose was found hanging on the door of a black professor’s office at Columbia University Teacher’s College on Tuesday morning, prompting the police to start a hate-crime investigation.

Detectives with the New York Police Department’s hate-crime task force were investigating whether the noose, which was discovered on the fourth floor of the college at about 9:45 a.m., was put there by a rival professor or by a student who was angry over a dispute. Colleagues of the professor identified her as Madonna Constantine, 44, a prominent author, educator and psychologist. Ms. Constantine is a professor of psychology and education at Columbia and has published several books on race relations, including “Addressing Racism” in 2006 and “Strategies for Building Multicultural Competence in Mental Health and Educational Settings” in 2007.

While it is awful this type of lame racial intimidation is happening at a place like Columbia, the fact that I’m blogging about it and that it is on the front page of the Times website exposes one of the weird tics of the Times being the paper of record.  That tic is the nation reads about anything and everything about Columbia.  From Ahmadinejad, to the Minutemen controversy, to the tenure decisions in their Middle Eastern Studies department, Columbia is always a national news story.  Add on the fact that the Sun and the New York Post seem to have multiple reporters dedicated to exposing every bit of anti-Israel or biased wackiness that comes out of Columbia and one would think that the university was the most important in the universe.  Just another side effect of our New York-DC centric media universe.

Evidence of the Hack Gap

Why isn’t the fact that the Nixon Center employed Alexis Debat, a fabulist who plagiarized an entire interview with Barack Obama in a French journal, all over the left wing blogosphere. I think Yglesias mentioned it a few weeks ago, but imagine if, say, a liberal journalist/think tanker, say, Phillip Longman or Robert Wright was committing similar crimes against the profession? Would Little Green Footballs or Powerline ever stop? They would be demanding the blood of the entire New America Foundation before they stopped. This entire affair is just another example of the great Hack Gap between the “liberal” media and its partisan, conservative counterpart. Though there are left wing blogs that are totally willing to relentlessly attack their opponents on the right, the conservative blogosphere has an entire apparatus to chase down these greatly magnified examples of media malfeasance.

While it’s always fun to smear the Nixon Center and ABC News by association with this faker, he’s genuinely fascinating. The way he managed to continually make things up, have pretend interviews, be a trusted expert and analyst for American news all the while having little credentials besides saying he was in the French Ministry of Defense and a fabricated PhD from an internet university. The real question, however, must be, how different is Debat from the rest of us? How different is he from the whole cadre of the Defense and Intelligence “experts”? Maybe not so much.

Liberal vs Conservative Youth

From Megan McArlde and Pax Americana comes news of the America’s Future Foundation’s college blogger contest.  The judges are a bunch of conservative/libertarian internet luminaries and the prize is $ 10,000 for the best conservative college blog.

It’s long been remarked that conservatives spent the last 30 or so years building a movement of think tanks, foundations and media to promote young conservatives for careers in government and media as well as their ideas.  Liberals, to say the least, have been far, far behind in this institution building.  My hypothesis, which was initially put forth by Todd Gitlin, is that liberals and leftists were content with being disproportionally represented in universities and academia and then thought that academic and intellectual influence would translate to political, policy and media influence.  Well, that hasn’t happened, and even as liberals are supposed to be dominating the internet, no foundation whose mission it is to promote young liberals in media and government is having a contest where I could win ten Gs.  George Soros, Ron Burkle, David Geffen, can one of you get on this?

Campus Progress is certainly a step in the right direction for promoting young liberals in the media, but we need many more organizations like them.  Where’s our John Olin, Pete Coors or Richard Scaife?  Most importantly, where’s my contest?

The Liberty University Debate Lie

Radar Magazine, while otherwise eviscerating Jerry Falwell U as the “Worst Christian University in America,” repeats the media popular canard that “the debate team won the national championship last year.” This has come up in other accounts, that Liberty’s debate team was ranked #1 in the country and had thus “beat Harvard.” This is a huge misrepersentation based off fudging what being ranked first in the country in debate actually means.

The first thing to understand is that ranking college debate programs is an inherently misleading, fuzzy enterprise. The way policy debate works is that teams of two compete against each other. At tournaments, a team of two is the winner - not the school. The Copeland award, given at the end of the college debate season, is given to the best team, not the “best” school. So then, by what metrics is Liberty better than Harvard, and all other schools?

One way to evaluate what school is the best is to look at the number of teams they send to the big, end of the season tournament - the National Debate Tournament - the rough equivalent of the NCAA basketball tournament. Well, in 2007, Liberty sent one team, which finished 3-45 in the seven eight preliminary rounds and didn’t advance to the elimination rounds (the equivalent would be not getting out of group play at the World Cup). They finished 51 out of the 78 teams. An Emory team won the tournament, defeating an Oklahoma UMKC (OU lost in semis, my poor memory - mz) team in the final round. Schools that sent multiple teams were Harvard, Emory and Dartmouth with three teams each, and about ten others with more than two.

So why is Liberty the number 1 team in the nation? It’s because they simply have the largest amount of teams, and thus accumulate a high ranking for sending the most teams to every tournament at the novice, junior varsity and varsity levels. Their ranking isn’t indicative of their success in debate, just that they win a lot of small, uncompetitive tournaments and send many teams to them. At the varsity level, the Liberty program is fairly mediocre, and certainly not deserving anywhere near the amount of attention they get. A Liberty team has never won a single varsity level tournament and has consistently ranked in the 40s-60s among varsity programs. Saying that Liberty is the number one debate program would be like claiming that (if this were allowed) a basketball team with more people and that played against mostly Division II opponents was better than Florida.

This deliberate misrepresentation has been noted and deconstructed before, but it’s good to remind people that the inspiring story of the little Christian school beating Harvard at debate is just a lie.

Looking For Some Examples

Steven White, Whippersnapper™, responding to my defense of TNR, reiterates Kathy G’s point - that when they do go all counter intuitive, it genuinely enables the implementation of noxious conservative policies:

And that’s sort of the dark side, if you will, of the magazine: Despite its degree to which it is continually interesting and worth reading, all too often the higher-ups hire people to write things that really shouldn’t be written in any magazine left of The Weekly Standard. And whenever some crazy, wingnut idea gets into the pages of TNR, suddenly it’s “bipartisan” or “moderate” instead of just crazy.

Can Steven White, Kathy G or anyone who reads this blog give me an example of a bad policy during the Bush administration whose passage or implementation was otherwise not going to happen or was in doubt but then TNR ran an article or editorial endorsing said policy, and that article pushed the policy over the edge and insured its passage or implementation?

And as a side note to Kathy G’s jeremiad, since when did welfare reform and NAFTA being bad become mainstream liberal ideas? Gosh, I used to think those were the two keystone achievements of the Clinton presidency…