The Daily Grind
THE DAILY GRIND -- COMMENTARY
So much news, so little time to write about it all. The green “revolution” in Iran and criticism of the President’s response, North Korea, its continuing missile/nuclear threats, and those American journalists sentenced to hard labor for allegedly illegally crossing the border from China (seriously, who really believes they did anything wrong, even if Laura Ling told her sister Lisa by phone that they did?), health care reform efforts, the resurgence of hate crimes with the murder at the Holocaust Museum, and the flair up over gay rights have all dominated the headlines the past few weeks… not to mention all the spilled ink and used minutes over the faux-feud between Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and David Letterman and her surprise pre-July 4th resignation announcement. For now, I’m only going to write about two of these issues. I’ll tackle Michael Jackson’s death and the way it knocked nearly all these stories off the front pages in a separate post.
On Iran, there has been much debate over what the President said and hasn’t said about the ongoing turmoil there. How much should he say? Some GOP conservatives said he should take a stronger, more vocal stance in support of the demonstrators. Other conservative commentators, Peggy Noonan and George Will among them, said along with some on the left that being more vociferous or getting more involved would only allow the Iranian government to claim the U.S. is “meddling” in its internal affairs. Of course, the Iranian government has already made that claim. It’s what leaders there reflexively do with anything concerning the U.S. However, there’s no evidence to back up that claim. The people on the ground also seem to know, as Noonan put it, that of course, America is on their side. No definitive statement to confirm it was really necessary. If they didn’t know they have America’s attention and support, all those signs the protestors waived would have been in Farsi.
It would be risky for the U.S. to get directly involved or even have its President give the appearance of getting involved because it would call into question the legitimacy of the movement and give the ruling Mullahs even more reason for a violent clampdown, not that they needed one as has been clear with the bloody clashes that we’ve seen in the days and weeks since the election. The pictures have been disturbing, none more so than the video of the woman named “Neda” seen walking in the crowd in one scene and then lying in a pool of blood, dying in the next. It’s fine for the U.S President, lawmakers and everyday Americans to condemn the violence very vocally. In fact, they’ve done so at every opportunity. But, the U.S. government can’t be seen as having a hand in this fight because that would lead to the demonstrators being viewed as “tools” of the U.S. government. The protesters know this is their battle and that any support from outside governments must be quiet and traceless in order to be effective. Plus, the U.S. doesn’t exactly have a good track record when it comes to deep involvement in internal conflicts in Iran. We (the U.S. and certainly its media) have also demonstrated a stunning lack of understanding of some of the cultural nuances in that part of the world over the past few decades. Has it occurred to anyone that the President’s Nowruz remarks a few months back coupled with his speech in Cairo last month may have already signaled with a wink and a nod the U.S. support called for so heartily? In that part of the world, the subtle and non overt actions can be the more effective path to take.
I can’t believe I’m about to write about the faux-feud between Governor Sarah Palin and David Letterman, but I am. Make no mistake. This was a drummed up feud that brought a lot of publicity for both sides, and both sides benefited because cable news and the chattering pundit class just wouldn’t let this story go. Neither would talk radio. Letterman has gotten the last laugh, having mined Palin’s sudden resignation announcement of jokes night after night. Yes, Letterman’s joke was crude, rude and not particularly funny but it was no worse than many others that had been told by different comedians about Palin’s daughter, Bristol. Letterman said he was referring to Bristol, not Willow. His mistake was in not stating who he was speaking about, and his apology was necessary since Willow was the one photographed at the baseball game.
Contrast the brouhaha and demands for an apology in the Palin-Letterman feud with the near radio silence on another controversial and frankly racist remark made by a South Carolina GOP activist a few weeks ago. Rusty DePass, who upon learning a gorilla had escaped from a local zoo, said it was probably just one of Michelle Obama’s ancestors. What century are we living in that someone would say something like that about a black woman, given the sordid history of referring to blacks as “apes”, “monkeys” “chimps”, and the like? When that woman is the First Lady of the United States, it is all the more remarkable that the only place where any real discussion of this story took place was in the liberal and black blogospheres. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall this being discussed hour after hour on cable news as the Palin-Letterman feud was. If you were offended by what Letterman said, shouldn’t you be equally offended by this remark? As I understand it, DePass apologized twice, not that it was widely covered by cable news or talk radio. It wasn’t. The only prominent conservative, at least that I saw, who wrote about it was Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post. She wrote about it as if it were covered to death and said that DePass paid too high a price for his actions because he lost his job. Maybe the story has been widely covered in South Carolina, but DePass hasn’t become a household name as a result of this. Cable news and media in general can’t just arbitrarily decide one controversial remark is worthy of massive coverage while another is not when two prominent people are involved.
COMMENTARY
A busy news week with stories that left me feeling sad (Monday's Metro train crash that killed 9 people, and the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson) and at least one story that left me feeling bewildered (l'affaire de Sanford). Where to begin?
Let's start with the Metro accident. I'm a regular Metro rider who takes the train at least once a week, and the accident Monday has made me scared to ride. I fell in love with the Metro system when I started coming to DC regularly in the mid-1990s while I was still in graduate school to look for a job here. It was the fastest and easiest way to get around the city for someone who didn't really know her way around. It made being here easy.
When I finally got a job and moved here, I still took the train. Until this week, I never questioned the safety of it. Over the course of this week, I've learned that the National Transportation Safety Board repeatedly warned Metro to reinforce or replace the 1000-series train cars, but Metro didn't do so. All the officials I've interviewed or heard speak this week have said nothing was done because of the cost. Hundreds of millions of dollars would be needed to replace the 300 or so 1000-series cars. That's certainly a lot of money, but nine people are dead and we reported this week that some train operators are worried for their safety because of those cars.
What's the long-term cost to the system and the city if people are afraid to take the train and decide to drive their cars? What if tourists begin to believe the system's not safe and they opt to either bring their cars to the city (adding to the pollution), or decide that if they can't rely on safe public transportation they won't visit DC at all? None of those options are good ones for the city and long term might actually cost more than developing a solid plan for replacing the older train cars with newer ones. No one's saying replace them all at once, but even in this economy, someone has to come up with a plan for dealing with the problem. No one can say with certainty that an accident like the one on Monday can't happen again, and the next one could be worse. Imagine if those trains had collided somewhere in downtown DC underground at 5pm on a weeknight. The death toll would likely have been much higher.
Some changes have been made following the accident. Trains are being operated manually for the time being, and those older 1000-series cars are being placed in the middle of the trains instead of at either end. It's a temporary fix. The long term problem must still be addressed, or regular metro riders will permanently lose faith in the system... An expensive prospect the city definitely can't afford. Now to the case of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. The Federal News Tonight Friday Panel took up this issue during this evening's show. The news conference he held will go down in history as an unusual example of a politician laying it all on the line, the good, the bad and the very, very ugly. Since Gov. Sanford (who was a Congressman at the time) called for then President Clinton's resignation over the Lewinsky scandal in the late 1990s, it's fair game for others to now call on him to step down. Like Clinton, Sanford may ultimately hold on to his office. But, he has to understand that staying in the public eye serves only to remind the public that he's yet another member of the political party that espoused family values while producing a number of "boys who behave badly".
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I spoke with Marsha Ralls, CEO and Publisher of Children's PressLine about her efforts to recruit young people in the Washington, DC area to learn about and become journalists. It's a fascinating program I hope can teach middle and high school students the value of reporting on their communities.
Ok. I confess. I love the Food Network. I don't watch a lot of television, even though I work in news. However, one of my favorite things to do, especially when I'm visiting my parents in Kentucky, is to watch the Food Network with my Mom. Paula Deen is one of our favorites, so getting to interview her today was quite a treat! She donated food to the Capital Area Food Bank today and wanted to spread the message that with the tough economic times, all food banks are in need of donations because they're supplying more people with food.
Yes, it's kind of a gushing interview, but I don't get to do many of those. It was a great interview for a Friday! Enjoy!
The first part of my vacation was spent as a participant in the Aspen Institute's Socrates Society Weekend. Again, more on this event in another post. Getting to Aspen wasn't especially traumatic, given an early morning departure from Dulles and a plane packed... with virtually every seat filled.
However, the return trip was much different. First, I tried checking in online the night before my return to Washington. The airline had no record I'd flown through Denver, so my return trip had been canceled. I discovered this when I called the airline's 800-number. I was holding my boarding pass for that flight as I spoke to the very nice operator and asked him exactly how then would he explain my presence in Aspen. Seriously folks, in the post 9-11 world, how do you not have a record of someone who got on a plane at Dulles? After nearly half an hour on the phone and on the Internet, the operator and I solved the problem. I printed my boarding passes for my next flights and hoped my trip home would be fine.
The next day, my flight from Aspen to Denver was uneventful. My flight from Denver to Dulles was another story. It was delayed. No reason given other than an "aircraft delay". The gate area was overflowing with people, so there was no place to sit, except on the floor. When the delay ended more than an hour later and boarding began, the pilot of the plane actually came out of the cockpit at one point and told passengers to hurry up and take their seats so the plane could leave. Is it just me, or does it take a special kind of nerve and chutzpah for a pilot to tell passengers to hurry up after his airline has just kept them waiting for well over an hour?
We've had numerous stories on Live Tonight and Federal News Today concerning the struggles of the airline industry. Passengers are now being charged for their baggage. Some airlines now charge extra for meals, for the exit row, and the list goes on and on. I realize the cost of doing business is going up, and if you want to travel you have to pay more. Fair enough. But is it asking too much for the airlines to remember that they are dealing with human beings who deserve to be treated with at least a minimum amount of respect? There are rays of hope. The only bright spot in my adventure in Denver was the one very kind gate agent who changed my seat assignment when I inquired about it. She didn't charge me for doing so even though she could have.
