TheCenterLane.com

© 2008 – 2024 John T. Burke, Jr.

2009 Jackass Of The Year Award

Comments Off on 2009 Jackass Of The Year Award

December 31, 2009

Well, it’s that time once again!  The 2008 competition brought us a robust field of candidates, probably because it was an election year.  This year, I’ve decided to ignore the one-event wonders and stick with nominees demonstrating a consistent pattern of jackass behavior.  The isolated exhibitions of foolishness illustrated by Richard Heene’s “balloon boy” hoax and Janet Napolitano’s “the system worked” gaffe, just don’t rise to the level of an award-winning honor.  I’m also avoiding individuals categorized as “the usual suspects” — the media darlings who are already getting beaten-up in the 2009 retrospective shows.  That list includes such notables as Tiger Woods, Carrie Prejean and “The Undiebomber” (Umar Mutallab).

This year I have narrowed the competition down to two people.

In just a few short weeks, our first nominee will be celebrating the anniversary of his inauguration as President of the United States.  During his early days in office, he enjoyed an approval rating as high as 69 percent, according to Gallup.  By early December, Gallup reported that his approval rating had taken a 22-point drop to 47 percent.  At that time, Rasmussen Reports revealed that not only had the President’s approval rating dropped to 48 percent — his disapproval rating actually reached 52 percent! On December 9, Quinnipiac University published the results of a poll conducted during December 1 – 6.  The results gave the President a job approval rating of only 46 percent, and those disapproving Obama’s performance amounted to 44 percent.  The Ipsos/McClatchy Poll taken during that period, disclosed that the President received his highest “unsatisfactory” rating on the issue of “jobs and the economy” with 45 percent giving the President an unsatisfactory grade (D or F) while only 36 percent gave him a satisfactory grade (A or B) and 19 percent gave him a C.

Many commentators have pondered over the reasons for President Obama’s decreasing approval ratings.  I have previously discussed the subject here, here and here.  In doing so, I found the criticism of Obama’s performance as expressed by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns, to be particularly insightful.  In his December 27 posting, Mr. Harrison posed a question that has obviously been on the minds of many disappointed Obama supporters:

The question is this:

  • Did President Obama sell out (i.e. he was a good guy but has been corrupted in short order) or;
  • Did Obama find out he couldn’t change the status quo so easily (i.e. he was a good guy who was naive about the President’s real power)or;
  • Did the President simply bamboozle us (i.e. he was a bad guy who tricked the electorate with his silver tongue)?

Mr. Harrison contended that the foregoing inquiry is actually irrelevant because it involves ascribing an intent behind the President’s behavior, when we should be looking at either motive or outcome.  Mr. Harrison eventually focused on a recent op-ed piece by Ross Douthat of The New York Times entitled:  “The Obama Way”.  Obama’s track record of broken campaign promises, including “no more trickle-down economics” and those documented on The Obameter, is something that obviously weighs on the minds of dispirited Obama supporters.  Ross Douthat explained how the President’s leadership style is itself a broken campaign promise:

He’s a doctrinaire liberal who’s always willing to cut a deal and grab for half the loaf.  He has the policy preferences of a progressive blogger, but the governing style of a seasoned Beltway wheeler-dealer.

*   *   *

It’s also puzzling because Obama promised exactly the opposite approach while running for the presidency.  He campaigned as a postpartisan healer who would change the cynical ways of Washington — as a foe of both back-room deals and ideology-as-usual.  But he’s governed as a conventional liberal who believes in the existing system, knows how to work it and accepts the limitations it imposes on him.

*   *   *

The upside of this approach is obvious:  It gets things done.

*   *   *

The downside, though, is that sometimes what gets done isn’t worth doing.  The assumption that a compromised victory is better than no victory at all can produce phony achievements — like last week’s “global agreement” on climate change — and bloated, ugly legislation.  And using cynical means to progressive ends (think of the pork-laden stimulus bill or the frantic vote-buying that preceded this week’s Senate health care votes) tends to confirm independent voters’ worst fears about liberal government:  that it’s a racket rigged to benefit privileged insiders and a corrupt marketplace floated by our tax dollars.

Ross Douthat’s conclusion implied that it’s still too early determine whether Obama’s political approach will ultimately result in success or failure.  By this time next year, the mid-term elections will be over.  If the careers of many Democratic politicians are over at that point, we will then have to assess whether President Obama’s leadership style helped to bring them down.  As a result, we will have to defer to next year’s competition before deciding whether our new President rates the title “Jackass of the Year”.

Our second nominee is the so-called “Supreme Leader” of Iran, Ali Khamenei.  Khamenei decided to rig the June elections to ensure that his tool, the equally crazy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would be re-elected.  The resulting public outrage was escalated by Khamenei into a bloodbath.  Since that time, Khamenei’s ham-handed tactics in attempting to squelch opposition have only made things worse.  A recent New York Times editorial entitled “Iran’s War on Its People” put it this way:

Iran’s leaders are so desperate to repel a rising tide of popular unrest that even Ashura — which marks the death of Shiite Islam’s holiest martyr — is no longer sacred.

The anniversary, which fell on Sunday, is supposed to be a time of peaceful commemoration.  Even during war, Iranian governments have honored the prohibitions against violence during a two-month period surrounding Ashura.  Tehran’s current rulers have proved again that their only belief is in their own survival.

On Sunday, the police opened fire on a crowd of protesters, reportedly killing at least 10 people, and arrested hundreds more.  Government forces are also believed to be behind the assassination of Ali Moussavi, nephew of the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi, the leading candidate in June’s fraudulent presidential election.

*   *   *

The government still appears to have firm control of the main levers of power, including the brutish Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia.  But Ayatollah Khamenei — who helped lead the 1979 revolution against the shah — should not ignore the echoes of history when protesters defy the death blows of security forces and chant “Death to the dictator” on the streets of Tehran.

Al Jazeera’s Teymoor Nabili reported that Baqer Moin, London-based analyst and Ayatollah Khomeini biographer, explained that Iran’s opposition party, the Greens, would still settle for modest reform, if the regime would compromise.  Nevertheless, Mr. Nabili’s report quoted other sources who expressed concern that the upcoming anniversary of the revolution could be “the next potential spark”.  Will the Supreme Leader negotiate?  Based on his record over the past six months, there is no reason to believe that he will.  His strategy of cracking down on the Greens with more deadly repression is exactly the approach that could lead to the regime’s demise.  Mr. Nabili added this insight to an already gloomy picture:

A contact in Iran tells me that, given the arrests over the past two days, the trend points to the possibility that the regime is slowly tightening the screws, and that before then we might see martial law and the arrest of Mousavi and/or Karroubi/Khatami/Rafsanjani’s daughter (Rafsanjani himself is still beyond the pale, it would seem.)

Brilliant plan, huh?  Another Al Jazeera report revealed that the Iranian government’s desperate actions are a sign of weakness that could ultimately lead to the end of Khamenei’s days as “Supreme Leader”:

Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former member of the Iranian parliament, told Al Jazeera that the government faced a fundamental crisis.

“They can’t control the events so they made the Ashoura incidents as a scenario that could give [them] enough confidence to crack down on the [Green] Movement,” she said from Massachusetts in the United States.

“They think that if they could use more violence, they can stop the movement … if this strategy continues I think we could see the collapse of the government.”

After George W. Bush overthrew the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, many commentators expressed concern that this development could bring about an era of Iranian hegemony in the Middle East.  Nevertheless, Iran’s relentless efforts to create a nuclear arsenal and the craziness of its Supreme Leader, who would likely detonate an atomic bomb in Israel if he had such a weapon, have apparently made the Iranian people more than a little uncomfortable with their government.  The events since June could only serve to underscore fears that the Khamenei regime would attempt a nuclear strike on Israel, resulting in a retaliatory move that would wipe Tehran off the map.  The Iranian people are obviously not going to sit on their hands and wait for that to happen.  Al Jazeera’s Teymoor Nabili provided us with some insight on the current mood of the Iranian protesters:

To outside observers, though, the protestors have defied expectations.  Their continued willingness to make themselves targets has been a surprise; now it seems as if they are willing to take it even further, protesting not only against the election result but against the very essence of the regime.

Although it may be too early to celebrate the demise of the Khamenei regime, the time is certainly right to honor Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, with TheCenterLane.com‘s Jackass of the Year Award.   Congratulations, Jackass!



wordpress visitor


CNNFail

Comments Off on CNNFail

June 15, 2009

Back on January 16, 1991, it seemed as though anyone with cable TV was glued to their set, watching the beginning of Operation Desert Storm.  As the coalition forces began their aerial assault on Baghdad, most American reporters were pinned down at the Al-Rashid Hotel.  As it turned out, CNN was the only news service able to communicate with the rest of the world during that time.  Bernard Shaw, John Holliman and Peter Arnett gained instant fame as CNN’s “Boys of Baghdad”, providing non-stop coverage of the invasion from Room 906 of the Al-Rashid.  The event helped establish CNN as a “top tier” news organization.  CNN’s coverage of this event became the subject of a documentary film by HBO, entitled Live From Baghdad.

On Friday June 12, many of the world’s news services focused their attention on Iran’s presidential election.  Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was being faced with a serious challenge by Mir Hussein Mousavi, one of three other contenders for the post.  Mousavi’s supporters were highly organized and energetic.  They adopted the color green as their symbol and they began calling for a “green revolution”.  Al Jazeera reported that Yadollah Javani, political chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, had issued a warning from his website that any such revolution would be “nipped in the bud”.  This should have been a tip that the Revolutionary Guard had every intention of subverting the public will.

On Saturday, June 13, Iran’s state-owned news service, Fars, declared incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner, with nearly two-thirds of the vote.  A landslide of such proportions was completely unexpected, given the large turnout at rallies in support of the leading challenger, Mir Hussein Mousavi, as well as the recent poll, indicating that Ahmadinejad was leading his three challengers with only 34 percent of the vote.  As a result, many expected that a runoff election between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi would have been necessary.  Because of this claimed “landslide” victory, it immediately became obvious that the election had been stolen.  Juan Cole, President of the Global Americana Institute, wrote the following on his blog, Informed Comment:

As the real numbers started coming into the Interior Ministry late on Friday, it became clear that Mousavi was winning.  Mousavi’s spokesman abroad, filmmaker Mohsen Makhbalbaf, alleges that the ministry even contacted Mousavi’s camp and said it would begin preparing the population for this victory.

The ministry must have informed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has had a feud with Mousavi for over 30 years, who found this outcome unsupportable.  And, apparently, he and other top leaders had been so confident of an Ahmadinejad win that they had made no contingency plans for what to do if he looked as though he would lose.

They therefore sent blanket instructions to the Electoral Commission to falsify the vote counts.

This clumsy cover-up then produced the incredible result of an Ahmadinejad landlside in Tabriz and Isfahan and Tehran.

The public reaction on the streets of Tehran was documented for Slate by Jason Rezaian:

A feeling of dejection hung in the air for most of Saturday. Spontaneous street demonstrations early in the day were small and were quickly broken up by riot police on motorcycles.

As reality set in, people began taking to the streets en masse. Around 5 p.m. on the approach to Fatemi Square, where the Interior Ministry is located, I could see that the entire traffic circle had been closed to car traffic. About 200 riot police waited in the middle of the square. I headed down an alley, just steps away, where protesters had created a blockade of flaming garbage cans.

The demonstrators pushed aside a garbage can, opening a path, and rushed forward. Simultaneously, baton-wielding police charged. The protesters hurled rocks, and the police responded by beating everyone who couldn’t escape into one of the connecting alleys.

Citizens, nearly all on the side of the protesters, left their front gates open just a little to offer those of us fleeing the police an escape route.

The ensuing riots resulted in phone cam videos posted to YouTube.  Messages were sent out over Twitter under the hashtags: #IranElection and #Iran Election.

Many mainstream media news outlets had reporters “on the ground” in Tehran.  ABC News had Jim Sciutto there.  Mr. Sciutto sent a message out over Twitter at 9:20 on Saturday morning:

police confiscated our camera and videotapes.  We are shooting protests and police violence on our cell phones

Sciutto and other reporters whose equipment had been confiscated, began shooting riot videos on their phone cams.  Many networks, including ABC, MSNBC and Fox News began to broadcast these  …  but not CNN.  Many Twitter users, following the Iranian violence became outraged over CNN’s failure to cover the rioting.  As a result, they started a new discussion thread, using the hashtag:  #CNNFail.  Many of these postings criticized the quality of CNN’s limited reporting on these events.

Here were some of the messages I found on CNNFail:

Shazzy919 — ChristianeAmanpour:  “No indication of curfew or further forceful action” really????

ahockley — There’s currently a story on CNN titled “Do journalists Twitter too much?”

charlieprofit —  CNN just ran the same report aired earlier where they call some Iranian protesters Vigilantes

Robot117 —  My animosity toward CNN for their utter incompetence in reporting this news is growing

georgedick — CNN still referring to “The landslide win of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad”.   WTF.

In fact, ABC’s Jim Sciutto made the following comment on Twitter concerning CNN’s fiasco:

Did CNN Intl really just air pix of a water-skiing squirrel?  Anyone remember ‘Ron Burgundy’? 12:14 AM Jun 14th from web

A review of CNN’s website reveals that some of their coverage seemed like an attempt to legitimize Ahmadinejad’s “victory”:

The landslide defeat of Ahmadinejad’s leading opponent, Mir Hossein Moussavi, who some analysts predicted would win the election, triggered angry protests in Iran and other cities around the world.

*    *    *

Moussavi’s supporters say the election was rigged. But the huge turnout for Ahmadinejad’s victory speech Sunday leaves no doubt that the president carries plenty of support.

For all the ridicule directed against Twitter and its users, the CNNFail event will become an historical milestone for the moment when this communication medium finally earned some respect.