TWO SILOS: Vice President Harris slimed in a cab!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2024

A new Martian culture at Fox: As you may already know, Stranger in a Strange Land is a highly regarded science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein.

Don't get us wrong—we've never read it! But one thumbnail describes it like this:

Stranger in a Strange Land 

Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians.

[...]

Stranger in a Strange Land won the 1962 Hugo Award for Best Novel and became the first science fiction novel to enter The New York Times Book Review's best-seller list. In 2012, the Library of Congress named it one of 88 "Books that Shaped America."

Did Heinlein's novel really "shape America?" We have no idea—that said:

Heinlein's main character—a person named Smith—is technically human but culturally Martian. With surprising frequency, an observer can seem to be dealing with something like that when he watches an array of primetimes "cable news" shows on the present-day Fox News Channel.

We're often surprised by the behaviors, and by the views, of the people Fox puts on the air. Consider an exchange which occurred last weekend on the primetime "cable news" program, Fox News Saturday Night with Jimmy Failla.

Failla was once a New York City cabbie. Today, he's a comedian who hosts his own Saturday night primetime program on Fox.

Last Saturday, his program included a videotaped segment in which he was back to driving a cab. More specifically, he was shown driving the Fox News Channel's Lisa Kennedy Montgomery (stage name, Kennedy) through the streets of Gotham as the pair of "cable news" stars gossip and degrade the culture and chuckle.

In our view, Failla and Kennedy each seem a bit "Smith-adjacent." To watch their peculiar conversation, you can start by clicking here.

The segment starts with the two Fox stars directing sexual insults at Kamala Harris. (By now, this sort of thing is quite common on Fox.) 

The insults are triggered when Kennedy, in the back seat of Failla's cab, offers this portrait of Harris:

KENNEDY (10/5/24): She's a bland, overcooked piece of chicken.

FAILLA: Yeah.

KENNEDY: Like, doesn't have any flavor. The texture is kinda gross. but you can pour teriyaki sauce on it and serve it over rice.

Somehow, that portrait of the sitting vice president seems to trigger Failla. He instantly mentions Willie Brown, and things spin downhill from there. 

At this point, the pair enjoy some smutty musings in which they imagine aspects of the candidate's relationship with Brown in the mid-1990s. While they're at it, they throw in some smutty talk in which they imagine aspects of her dating relationship with Montel Williams, which apparently tracks to the late 1990s. 

On what manner of Martian meat doth such lifeforms feed?  We began to think of Heinlein's cultural alien when this smutty exchange occurred:

KENNEDY: Great move on her part, though...Just like a total hooch! 

FAILLA; Oh, yeah!

KENNEDY (musingly): A part of me, like—I respect it. 

FAILLA: Yeah.

KENNEDY: Very ahead of her time. She put the "head" in "ahead of her time."

FAILLA (laughing): She was several heads ahead of her time. Several heads ahead of her time.

KENNEDY: (Cackles knowingly)

FAILLA (thoughtfully): Yeah, that's her. (Pauses) "We shouldn't talk about that." That's what they'd tell us.

Just so you'll know, Kennedy is 52 years old; Failla is 47. We say that so you won't think they're a pair of angry 14-year-olds angrily rebelling against "what [the adults] tell us."

As we've noted, the practice of directing sexual insults at Vice President Harris is now quite common on Fox. Over at the New York Times, a finer class of the better people insist that there's nothing to look at as this culture takes form.

As we watched this segment on Saturday night, what we've shown you already struck us as culturally Martian. But we really began to think about Heinlein's character from a distant land when the astonishing Kennedy, arrayed in the back seat of Failla's cab, somehow came up with this:

KENNEDY (continuing directly): If the sexual stuff before you're elected doesn't matter, then don't talk about what happened with Trump and E. Jean Carroll, or Trump and the Access Hollywood tape.

FAILLA: Yeah. How about that?

By now, you may think we're making this up. Go ahead—look at the tape.

The strange ruminations continue briefly from there. But for our money, we've already entered a very strange land.

Who on earth is the 52-year-old human woman who analyzed the situation in the manner shown?

For reasons we've never understood, she's been in the public eye roughly forever by this time. This comes from the standard thumbnail:

Kennedy (commentator)

Lisa Kennedy Montgomery (born September 8, 1972), referred to mononymously as Kennedy, is an American libertarian political commentator, radio personality, author, and former MTV VJ. She is a commentator on Fox News Channel, a primary guest host of Fox's Outnumbered and The Five, host of the podcast Kennedy Saves The World on Fox News Radio and a columnist for The Daily Mail...She hosted Kennedy on the Fox Business Network from 2015 to 2023.

[She] was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and raised in Lake Oswego, Oregon, a wealthy suburb of Portland...She attended Santa Monica College before transferring to the University of California, Los Angeles on an academic scholarship. She later completed a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 2005.

Kennedy interned as a DJ at KROQ radio in Los Angeles as a teenager. She was known on KROQ as "the Virgin Kennedy."

[She] began her career as a VJ on MTV in 1992. She hosted Alternative Nation from 1992 to 1997. By 1995, she had become such a recognizable cultural figure that the sitcom Murphy Brown introduced a new character named McGovern, modeled after her.

From Murphy Brown to Willie Brown, she has just kept moving along!

For ourselves, we were always puzzled by Kennedy's presence as an MTV VJ. We don't recall any specifics, but we recall being puzzled by what the appeal might be.

At any rate, Kennedy's career has traveled on from MTV, through a great many twists and turns. According to that same leading authority, she's always trended in the way she put on display last Saturday night:

At the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards, Kennedy was involved in an on-air verbal altercation with host Roseanne Barr over a fellatio joke involving Rush Limbaugh.

Way back in 1986, we knew Roseanne a bit, if only briefly. We thought she was strikingly sharp, and we liked her a lot. 

We were sorry when she headed down that road. Kennedy remains on that road today, on prime time "news" shows no less.

Back to what was said in the cab:

Kennedy is 52 years old. She is said to hold a degree in philosophy from one of "the finest schools."

Somehow, though, also this:

She apparently can't discern a difference between 1) a jury-adjudicated incident of sexual assault, described by one judge as equivalent to an act of rape; and 2) her own imagined accounts of imagined consensual acts—imagined acts she imagines happening a very long time ago.

To Kennedy, this all seemed to be the same thing. To Failla, this all seemed to make sense. 

As we've noted, sexual insults directed at Harris are now standard fare on primetime shows on this "cable news" channel. Finer people at the Times (and at other orgs in Blue America) seem to feel there's nothing to look at as this culture takes hold. 

We humans often think we understand the basic cultural landscape within which we're leading our lives. At such surprising times as this, we sometimes flash on what Thoreau said, in paragraph 2 of Walden:

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

Failla and Kennedy may have been speaking "sincerely" last Saturday night. But if they were, it seems to us that they were speaking from some very distant land. 

On what meat have these two stars fed? On what meat were they raised? What explains the culture which has surfaced on the Fox News Channel and is now broadcast every night? 

What explains the thinking of the people who put these two on the air? What explains the culture within which the loftier tribunes of Blue America insist that there's nothing to look at as these Martian-adjacent figures toss their musings around?

Tomorrow: We expect to return to Charlie Hurt's invented account of Harris's interview with Stephanie Ruhle.

On Friday, it will be back to that pair of front-page pieces from the New York Times—though knowing how way leads on to way, an Earth-dweller can never be sure.

Music Awards supersede 60 Minutes!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2024

Bill Whitaker gets something right: How weird! But does it matter that 60 Minutes aired on Monday night, not on it's time-honored Sunday?

Was the audience smaller as a result? We have no idea.

That said, CBS made the obvious move. It bumped its election year "interview with the candidates" edition of 60 Minutes in favor of Sunday night's broadcast of the American Music Awards.

Let's face it! Within our failing civic culture, the Music Awards are the bigger deal—and everyone knows how this works.

We thought that schedule shift was remarkably strange. That said, Bill Whitaker asked a very basic, obvious question during his delayed interview with Candidate Harris last night. 

In fact, he asked the question three separate times! His first attempt went like this:

WHITAKER (10/7/24): You recently visited the southern border and embraced President Biden's recent crackdown on asylum seekers. And that crackdown produced an almost immediate and dramatic decrease in the number of border crossings. If that's the right answer now, why didn't your administration take those steps in 2021?

What explains the policy at the southern border during those first three years? We don't know if Vice President Harris even agreed with the border policy, but our public discourse is so juvenile, so underfed, that large swaths of American punditry act as if the policy there was somehow hers—as if she was the sitting president.

(That formulation controls the world on the Fox News Channel. Even here, Whitaker keeps asking Harris about "your administration." He never asked her if she agreed with President Biden's border policy in real time.)

For three solid years, President Biden failed to explain his policy at the border. We regard that vast silence as a vast derogation of duty—and it has saddled Candidate Harris with a policy question which is easy to formulate and very hard to explain.

At least, it seems to be hard to explain. When Harris didn't attempt to do so in her first exchange with Whitaker, he asked his question again:

WHITAKER: But I've been covering the border for—for years. And so I know this is not a problem that started with your administration.

HARRIS: Correct. Correct.

WHITAKER: But there was an historic flood of undocumented immigrants coming across the border the first three years of your administration. As a matter of fact, arrivals quadrupled from the last year of President Trump. Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did?

With that, he had posed his question again. Again, the candidate failed to answer.

At this point, Whitaker asked for the third time. According to the CBS transcript, the full exchange went like this, continuing from above:

HARRIS (continuing directly from above): It's a longstanding problem. And solutions are at hand. And from day one, literally, we have been offering solutions.

WHITAKER: What I was asking was, was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place?

HARRIS: I think—the policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem, okay? But the—

WHITAKER: But the numbers did quadruple under your—

HARRIS: And the numbers today—

WHITAKER: —under your watch—

HARRIS: —because of what we have done, we have cut the flow of illegal immigration by half. We have cut the—

WHITAKER: But should you have done that—

HARRIS: —flow of fentanyl—

WHITAKER: —should you have done that— 

HARRIS: —by half. But we need Congress to be able to act to actually fix the problem. 

Three remains the magic number. At that point, having asked his question three times, the CBS newsman moved on.

Question: As vice president, did Harris agree with border policy over the first three (plus) years?

We don't know the answer! Given the way our politics works, it would be hard for her to say that she had disagreed with the policy decisions even if she actually had.

Whitaker asked an obvious question. In fact, he asked it three times.

That obvious question remains unanswered—and this may hand the White House to Candidate Trump. Again, we think President Biden's years of silence constitute a major derogation of fairly obvious duty.

We Blues were still hailing the greatness of Biden's presidency right up to the time when he had to withdraw from the campaign. We humans tends to defer to tribal leaders, Blue folk as well as Red.

At any rate, how about them American Music Awards? Life inside a failing society can be major fun in real time!

Still coming: To this day, Harris is routinely accused of bungling an interview with Lester Holt about the southern border. 

That interview took place in Guatemala City in June 2021. But did Harris bungle the famous interview, or is it possible that the bungling actually tracks to Holt?

(We can't link you to a transcript of the interview. As best we can tell, and if so all too typically, no such transcript exists.) 

TWO SILOS: Ruhle asked Harris some sensible questions!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2024

But then, along came Hurt: With apologies for the delay caused by last week's connectivity meltdown:

As we noted yesterday, a New York Times "Political Memo" appeared online on Thursday, September 26. The lengthy piece had been written by Rebecca Davis O'Brien, a highly accomplished, experienced journalist and a good, decent person to boot. 

Two days later, Davis's piece appeared on the front page of the newspaper's print editions Times. O'Brien's lengthy memo involved Candidate Harris's interview style. Headline included, its nugget statement read like this:

POLITICAL MEMO
Harris Has a Lot of Strengths. Giving Interviews Isn’t One of Them.

[...]

In her dizzying ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket, Ms. Harris has proved to be a disciplined and effective debater and a tireless campaigner, nimble and energetic in rallies. But one-on-one televised interviews with journalists have long been a weakness in her political arsenal.

As we noted yesterday, we tended to agree with each part of that assessment. We thought, and we continue to think, that Candidate Harris does have a lot of strengths. Also, it seemed to us that her early interviews, few as they were, hadn't been especially strong. 

As happenstance had it, Harris had sat for a new, high-profile televised interview one day before the "political memo" appeared. She had spoken with MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle, whose first question went like this:

RUHLE (9/25/24): Madam Vice President, you just laid out your economic vision for the future. But, still, there are lots of Americans who don’t see themselves in your plans. For those who say, "These policies aren’t for me," what do you say to them?

Was that a softball question, or was its premise—Lots of Americans don’t see themselves in your plans—possibly slightly awkward? 

Had Ruhle lobbed an easy opening question? We could teach it flat or round! For the record, there is no doubt that Ruhle will be voting for Candidate Harris this year, not for Candidate Trump. But her background is in business and economic issues, and her next four questions went like this:

RUHLE: Over the last four years, there have been tremendous economic wins. And you have just laid out a big plan. But, still, polling shows that more—most likely voters still think Donald Trump is better to handle the economy. Why do you think that is?

[...]

RUHLE: Then let me ask you about taxes, because lots of people will say, "I don’t like Donald Trump, but he cut my taxes. He didn’t just cut corporate taxes. He cut individual taxes."

Now, that expires next year. And there’s some people confused, saying, "I don’t know what’s going to happen next year."

Under a Harris administration, at what income level should someone expect their taxes to go up? And that state and local tax deduction that’s currently capped and matters to a lot of people in blue states, are you going to lift that cap?

[...]

RUHLE: [When it comes to] expanding that child tax credit—or you mentioned housing before, giving that extra money for a first home. If you can’t raise corporate taxes, or if the GOP takes control of the Senate, where do you get the money to do that? Do you still go forward with those plans and borrow?

[...]

RUHLE: Bill Gates just said it this week. If he was in charge of taxes, he would have paid more. But how do you find that line to make sure corporations are paying their fair share, but they’re not leaving our country?

For the full transcript of the interview, you can just click here.

Were those questions easy or hard? Plainly, they weren't "gotcha" questions—but the questions were thoroughly substantive, and they were perfectly proper. 

To all intents and purposes, "issues" are no longer a serious part of (what's left of) American campaign journalism. For whatever reason, Ruhle was asking about basic policy issues this day.

The interview ran just over twenty-four minutes. For MSNBC's full videotape, you can just click this.

By our count, Ruhle posed sixteen questions to Candidate Harris that day. You've just seen the questions with which she began—unless you were watching Charlie Hurt, who appeared on the Fox News Channel one night later and told several million American citizens something entirely different.

Before Helene washed our Internet connections away, we ourselves had started to answer this question:

Who is Charlie Hurt?

Today, we return to that question. Back on September 29, we showed you this basic overview from the leading authority on the fellow's career:

Charles Hurt

Charles Hurt (born 1971) is an American journalist and political commentator. He is currently the opinion editor of The Washington Times [and] a Fox News contributor...

[...]

Hurt was The New York Post's D.C. Bureau Chief and news columnist covering the White House for five years.

From 2003 to 2007, Hurt covered the U.S. Congress as a reporter for The Washington Times before leaving to join The New York Post. In 2011, he rejoined The Washington Times as a political columnist. In December 2016, Hurt was named the opinion editor.

National Review editor Rich Lowry described Hurt as, "an early adopter of Donald Trump populism." Hurt has written numerous opinion pieces lauding Trump since the 2016 election.

The New York Post and the Washington Times and the Fox News Channel oh my! There is no question that Hurt tilts right—but as we also said at the time, Charlie Hurt, like everyone else, has a perfect right to his views.

For the record, we also said that Charlie Hurt seems like the nicest guy in the world. The problem here is quite different:

Hurt seems like a very nice guy—and as with everyone else, he's entitled to his political views. But as a major American journalist, is he entitled to the mockery he directed at Harris that night—mockery he based on a pile of invented "facts?"

As a major journalist, is Hurt entitled to invent a pig-pile of bogus factual claims? Is he entitled to broadcast those bogus claims to millions of people? 

Journalistically, we'd say the answer is no—but then, we're talking about the Fox News Channel, an entity we would regard as a cancer on the democracy, imperfect thought our democracy has been.

In fairness, Hurt may not have known that he was making absurdly false claims this night. But absurdly false claims are a basic part of the grain which is stored inside the Fox News Channel's silo.

Nice guy that he may seem to be, Charlie Hurt misstated the facts, in a ludicrous fashion, before millions of viewers this night. Elsewhere, this sort of thing could get a journalist fired. On the Fox News Channel, behavior of this type is a basic part of the game. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Over at the New York Times, you won't be apprised of such facts. Journalists at the New York Times seem happy to live within their own silo. They will virtually never report or discuss what's happening over at Fox.

 

Here's more of the background concerning what happened that night:

As noted, the interview with Stephanie Ruhle took place on Wednesday, September 25. A full transcript was published by MSNBC. MSNBC also posted a videotape of the entire session.

There was no doubt about what had been said—unless you were watching Fox News. One night later, Hurt appeared on the primetime "cable news" program, Gutfeld!

In the program's initial segment, the program's host and his four guests staged a pseudo-discussion of the Harris/Ruhle interview. Along other insults to the American project, Hurt was soon saying this:

GUTFELD (9/26/24): Charlie, it seems to me that she didn't answer a single question. But would the campaign regard that as a success?

HURT: Oh, I think without a doubt. I think that "First, do no harm" is definitely their motto here. But I mean— You know, Trump used to talk about making Biden take a drug test. He should start ordering a drug test for this woman.

Nice guy that he seems to be, Hurt quickly suggested a drug test for "this woman." For the record, this followed the host's earlier claim that Candidate Harris seems to be "a wine drunk." (For our report on that topic, click here.) 

As we've routinely noted, this is the kind of garbage can this channel opens each night. Immediately after his suggestion, Hurt's factual breakdowns started to occur. 

His flagrant misstatements came thick and fast. Soon, this manifest journalistic flyweight—a typical Fox News Channel performer—was telling the public this:

HURT: And then she sits down, Stephanie Ruhle...sits down and does this interview with her, and the first question was about, Had you ever worked, actually, at McDonald's? 

We've already shown you the actual text of Ruhle's first five questions. But then again, this was the Fox News Channel, engaged in its ongoing "revolt of the masses."

Will Candidate Harris win this election? We have no idea! But as we survey what's left of our floundering nation's public discourse, an unconnected line from Frost frequently floats through our heads:

The Road Not Taken 

[...]

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence...

Our floundering nation has taken itself very far down a very bad road. It will take ages to tell that story, if it ever gets told at all. 

Most likely, it will also take ages to find our way back up that road, assuming we're able to do so.

Part of that story involves the Fox News Channel and other such Red American orgs. Part of that story involves the supreme, self-protective silence maintained by the New York Times (et al).

Those two highly influential news orgs inhabit two different (landlocked) silos. It's going to take a very long time to tell you the story of those two silos—and when we do, you can be sure that the news won't travel far from here.

Candidate Harris seems like a wine drunk! President Biden should make "this woman" take a drug test!

 

Judged by any traditional journalistic standard, those assessments were offered by a pair of defectives. Over at the New York Times, and also inside similar silos, the finer people have agreed that we the people must never be told about what happens over on Fox News.

It will take ages to tell that story. We're planning to take our own sweet time as we try to do our best.

Tomorrow: Charlie Hurt continued to speak. Also, he comes from good stock...

Tapioca from the Times!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2024

Eating cake all the way down: When JD Vance initially said it, we reported what he had said.

He said it at an Atlanta rally. As we noted in real time, this is what he said:

VANCE (8/3/24): Eight years ago, Donald Trump had everything—fame, fortune, family, friends. He gave up the easy life so we could get our country back.

He traded everything he had for unjust persecution—for slander and scorn from the fake news, all for this country, for you and me.

They couldn't beat him politically, so they tried to bankrupt him. They failed at that, so they tried to impeach him. 

They failed at that, so they tried to put him in prison. They even tried to kill him.

They even tried to kill him? It was such a remarkable statement that we quickly transcribed and posted it. We did so in real time. 

We posted the transcript on August 5, then again on August 7. The background, of course, was this:

On July 13, a 20-year-old man had tried to kill Candidate Trump. It still isn't clear why he did that. He had no known accomplices.

By August 3, Candidate Vance had come up with a better way of telling the story. "They" had tried to kill Trump, he now said. He seemed to be referring to the same people who had "tried to impeach him."

(For the record, Trump was impeached, two times. He was impeached by the House, but he was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.)

Back to August 3! In Vance's telling, it almost sounded like Democratic office holders had tried to kill Candidate Trump! In our view, it was an extremely reckless thing to say.

It was a remarkable thing to say. At news orgs like the New York Times, they let the comment go.

Over the weekend, comments like that were suddenly back in the flow.

As is and was his perfect right, Candidate Trump staged a rally at that same site in Butler, Pa. late Saturday afternoon. On this occasion, Candidate Vance was a bit more circumspect—a bit less suggestive—as he floated his charge again:

VANCE (10/5/24): Just look at everything they've done to President Trump. First they tried to silence him. When that didn't work, they tried to bankrupt him. 

When that didn't work, they tried to jail him.

And with all the hatred they have spewed at President Trump, it was only a matter of time before somebody tried to kill him.

Candidate Vance went back to the "they" just a few minutes later. But in this, his nugget statement, he only said that "somebody" had tried to kill Candidate Trump. 

To appearance, Vance was rolling his language back. For a link to his speech, see below.

Did "they" try to kill Candidate Trump that day, or was it a single young man? Others who spoke at Butler this weekend returned to the slippery word "they."

That included Eric Trump. As for the principal, Candidate Trump said this:

TRUMP (10/5/24): Four years ago, the entire world respected us. They respected us more than they've ever respected us, and now they laugh at us. We can't have them laugh at us, can we?

Above all, you deserve leadership in Washington that does not answer to the lobbyists, to the bureaucrats or to the corrupt special interests, but that only answers to you the hard-working citizens of America, which there are a lot of them. We have a lot of them.

We have a lot of them!

Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot. And who knows? Maybe even tried to kill me! But I've never stopped fighting for you, and I never will.

Who killed Davey Jones? In this case, it may have been the people who impeached then-President Trump and who indicted him later!

So the messaging went, all over again, this time from Trump himself. 

To our own imperfect eye and ear, Candidate Vance seems to be a modern-day "Manchurian candidate." To our own eye and ear, Candidate Trump has long seemed to be disordered, in what is likely a clinical way.

That said, the messaging here is ancient and very powerful. At this point, we find it hard to believe that Candidates Harris and Walz will be able to overcome the power of this eternal messaging, though of course it may be that they will.

Candidate Vance floated this messaging back in early August. We transcribed and posted what he said, and the whole story died right there.

This morning, atop the front page of its print editions, the New York Times has begun to push back with a big bowl of warm tapioca.

In our view, the Times is taking the classic wet noodle to the classic knife fight. The tapioca-adjacent piece appears beneath this headline:

TRUMP REIGNITES QUESTION OF AGE WITH RAMBLINGS

In fairness, the report was surely written before this weekend's events. But in our view, the Times report is a great big bowl of highly self-protective tapioca. It's an imitation of human life, an imitation of journalism.

In our view, the Times has finally started to fiddle while Rome continues to burn. Putting it a different way, the finer people at the Times have decided to let their subscribers eat cake.

In our own post from earlier today, we started a series of reports which will appear under this heading:

TWO SILOS

All week, we'll be looking at what emerges from the silo housing the Fox News Channel. We'll also look inside the silo which houses the New York Times.

In our view, a classic "revolt of the masses" is being driven from the one location. Inside the other structure, a highly pampered royal court is letting us the people eat cake while "our democracy," limited though it always has been, rather plainly continues to burn.

In our view, people at Fox have had plenty to criticize, to complain about, in the past few years. That said, and borrowing from the early Dylan, we would ask you this:

But oh, what kind of revolt is this, which goes from bad to worse?

To watch the Manchurian speak: To watch Saturday's speech by Candidate Vance, you can just click here.

The candidate spoke for seventeen minutes. His remarks about the way "somebody" tried to kill Candidate Trump can be seen at the 8-minute mark.

At the 3-minute mark, you can also see the candidate saying this about the events of July 13:

VANCE (10/5/24): I believe as sure as I'm standing here today that what happened was a true miracle. And on that day, America felt the truth of scripture: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

I truly believe that God saved President Trump's life that day. 

Do you believe that Vance believes that? For ourselves, we have no way of knowing if he does. We have no idea.

We have no idea! But primal impulses are being evoked as this ancient messaging is advanced—and on this morning's front page, it seems to us that Blue America's New York Times has taken its fiddles out.

Can Candidate Harris overcome this ancient, primal messaging? In our view, the feckless tribunes of Blue America have arrived at the scene extremely late, and some are selling tapioca pretty much all the way down.

TWO SILOS: When is word salad more like a meringue?

MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2024

Out of one silo, this: Let the word go forth to the nations! In large part, we agreed with the views expressed in a recent front-page piece by the New York Times' Rebecca Davis O'Brien.

(Note: This report has been delayed by one week due to last week's breakdown by our Internet Service Provider.)

When her piece appeared, O'Brien became the latest Times reporter to describe the state of play of the presidential campaign. She did so on Saturday, September 28, in a lengthy front-page report which appears online beneath this headline:

POLITICAL MEMO
Harris Has a Lot of Strengths. Giving Interviews Isn’t One of Them.

Online, this "Political Memo" had appeared on Thursday, September 26—two days earlier.

When that headline appeared, we agreed with its pair of assertions. We still agree that Candidate Harris has a lot of strengths. As of September 26, we also agreed that "giving interviews" hadn't recently seemed to be one of them. 

We agreed with large parts of O'Brien's overall assessment! We'd call this her nugget statement:

In her dizzying ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket, Ms. Harris has proved to be a disciplined and effective debater and a tireless campaigner, nimble and energetic in rallies. But one-on-one televised interviews with journalists have long been a weakness in her political arsenal...

We agreed with that list of strengths. We also tended to agree with O'Brien's statement about that one weakness, though we aren't sure that this possible weakness stretches back into the past.

We also agreed with the trio of statements which follow. These are the sorts of observations O'Brien makes before her lengthy, front-page memo seems to go off the rails:

As a presidential candidate, Ms. Harris has largely eschewed such interviews.

Plainly, that was true at that time. Also, we largely agreed with this:

The avoidance appears to reflect a nervousness that is palpable from the moment Ms. Harris takes her seat across from an interviewer.

We thought we'd seen that nervousness too! For us, it seemed strangely inconsistent with the impressive self-assurance Harris displays when she delivers her speeches.

We definitely agreed with the following statement—but then, we regularly watch major programs on the Fox News Channel:

It has opened her up to mockery from her opponents and detractors.

There was no possible doubt about that! As of late September, Harris was being mocked and derided around the clock on Fox News Channels programs for this alleged shortcoming, both real and vastly embellished. 

We agreed with all those statements by O'Brien. This additional assertion also seemed to be true:

[The avoidance of interviews] has also led to grumbling in the news media, where it is an article of faith that somebody seeking the presidency should be willing and able to answer questions from nonpartisan journalists about her plans for that role.

Plainly, some such grumbling had occurred. Imaginably, some such grumbling could now be found right there in O'Brien's memo!

For the record, O'Brien's a good, decent person. She has done a lot of good work during her career. 

(Inevitably, she graduated from Harvard, in the class of 2006. She worked at the Wall Street Journal before coming to the Times in 2021.)

O'Brien's a good, decent person. We agreed with many points she initially made in her front-page profile of Candidate Harris's interview style—but then, her lengthy front-page piece seemed to go off the rails. 

In our view, her profile suddenly seemed to go sideways. This raised a question within our minds about the state of our nation's political journalism, to the extent that some such creature can still be said to exist. 

The New York Times is Blue America's most important news org. For denizens of Red America, the most significant "news org" would likely be the aforementioned Fox News Channel.

These news orgs almost seem to inhabit landlocked versions of two different Americas. The Fox News Channel seems to inhabit a silo inside Red America. The New York Times often seems to live in a silo too—but in that case, the silo is Blue.

Can a divided America "long endure?" As we noted on Friday, Lincoln seemed to think the answer was no.

He stated that view in 1858, when the nation was "half slave and half free." In our view, a similar problem exists today, when we're half Red and half Blue.

This week, we'll take an initial, limited look at the work which emerges from within those two influential silos. With respect to O'Brien's piece, we started out in general agreement—but soon, we encountered the highlighted part of this fuller passage:

...[O]ne-on-one televised interviews with journalists have long been a weakness in her political arsenal. She often winds her way slowly toward an answer, leaning on jargon and rehearsed turns of phrase, using language that is sometimes derided as “word salad” but might be better described as a meringue.

Candidate Harris is sometimes derided for "word salad"—but her language is more like "a meringue!" So it now said in the New York Times, with no real attempt to explain what that foofaw might mean.

It isn't a salad, it's more a meringue! For us, this bit of pseudo-analysis raised an obvious question:

On what type of mystery meat doth this one major silo feed? On what meat does it feed as it produces the very odd stew we met as this memo continued?

Now for a bit of full disclosure:

At the time this Political Memo appeared, Harris was being derided, around the clock, for what was being described as her "word salad." Around the clock, as if by mandate, that was happening within that other silo—the silo containing Fox News.

In fact, large parts of O'Brien's memo now almost seemed to be cadged from within that other silo. Here's one question we'll be asking as our rumination continues this week:

To what extent are these two silos truly apart and distinct? To what extent might a certain type of melding perhaps occur?

Tomorrow: Over in Red America's silo, a gong-show from Charlie Hurt

SATURDAY: Information has (largely) ceased to exist!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2024

"There is no cure for human:" Especially since Donald J. Trump's birther days on the Fox News Channel, it has become a basic tenet of modern anthropology:

There is no cure for human.

So the scientists say. 

In fact, those birther days extended over a period of several years. Thirteen years after Trump's onslaught started, a second phenomenon has become clear:

Information has (largely) ceased to exist within our failing discourse.

Information plays little role in what's left of our public discourse. At present, it's frequently nothing but Storyline—Storyline all the way down. 

It's Storyline all the way down! Or so it seemed on Fox & Friends Weekend as the gang kicked off this morning's program, with Pete Hegseth on the scene in Butler, Pa., site of last month's "miracle."

Credit where due! On this occasion, the trio of friends were not asserting that "our lord and savior, Jesus Christ" saved Candidate Trump that day. 

As we noted in this report, that's what the friends persistently said in real time. Just a guess:

Someone on the corporate end may have told them to stop. 

At any rate, by 7:05 this morning, Hegseth was describing the "religious sense" on the ground as rally-goers arrived in Butler—the sense that "a miracle" had occurred that day. 

Needless to say, rallygoers are free to hold such beliefs. We aren't saying that Hegseth's account of that feeling was inaccurate

That said, it was the interview with Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Michigan) which occasioned anthropologists to restate their dire assessments. Specifically, we refer to the performance by co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy at 6:45 a.m.

First, a word of praise! To our eye and ear, Rep. Moolenaar didn't come across as a propagandist as he spoke with Campos-Duffy today. 

He almost seemed like a bit of a throwback. His thumbnail reads like this:

John Moolenaar

John Robert Moolenaar (born May 8, 1961) is an American politician and former chemist serving since 2015 as a U.S. representative from Michigan, representing the state's 2nd congressional district since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2003 to 2008 and the Michigan Senate from 2011 to 2014.

Moolenaar was born on May 8, 1961, in Midland, Michigan. His family is of Dutch ancestry. He graduated from Hope College in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry. He later earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University in 1989.

In theory, chemists are required to traffic in facts. 

That said, Campos-Duffy isn't a former chemist. When she interviewed Moolenaar, it seemed to us that she was working, live and direct, from approved tribal Storyline.

At present, Moolenaar is chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. In theory, it was in that role that he was being interviewed this day.

First, though, a different point of alleged concern! By now, this matter had been fact-checked within an inch of its life, but Campos-Duffy still didn't seem to have heard.

In the face of the tremendous damage caused by Hurricane Helene,  she'd heard that "they" had "raided FEMA!" In fairness, she was just taking a guess!

CAMPOS-DUFFY (10/5/24): Congressman, great to have you here today. So tell us about this money that was spent—I guess they raided FEMA—to give it to illegal immigrants. What do you know about it? What should Americans know about it?

Campos-Duffy was just guessing! She was guessing about the way "they raided FEMA," thereby helping illegal immigrants and undercutting hurricane relief.

Had someone actually "raided FEMA" in the manner described? By now, the claim had been fact-checked within an inch of its life, but it remained a talking-point of the day on this gruesome "cable news" program.

By clicking here, you can see what Rep. Moolenaar calmly and sanely said in response to Campos-Duffy's request. As he spoke, he didn't start churning Storyline—so Campos-Duffy broke in with a second prompt.

In fairness, she was still just guessing:

CAMPOS-DUFFY (interrupting): Yeah but, I guess what I'm asking is, do you have knowledge that FEMA funds were raided in order to give to illegal immigrants?

"I have not seen specific evidence of that," the congressman now said. At that point, Campos-Duffy gave up and moved ahead to a topic involving China.     

Had FEMA funds been raided to assist illegal immigrants? As of this morning, the claim had been fact-checked a million times, but it seemed to be one of the mandated points on this "cable news" program.

In fairness, Campos-Duffy was only guessing when she offered Moolenaar his prompts. But even on this religious day, the congressman—a former chemist—failed to perform as desired. 

In fairness, there was no talk from the friends this day about the way "our lord and savior" had performed the miracle in Butler. That said, attraction to Storyline on this particular "cable news" program comes close to being a form of religious devotion.

Information is dead, the experts all say. In fairness, devotion to Storyline can also be seen on MSNBC programs, but the impulse is extremely strong on Red America's "cable news" channel.

There is no cure for human, we're persistently told. Also, it's hard to return to information once the critter named Tribal Storyline has arrived on the scene and has taken control.

Blue America, Red America!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2024

Fox News takes the hand-out and runs: The ironic old bromide goes like this:

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

The current instance calls for a bromide adjustment. The question would now be this:

Who are you going to believe, Paul Krugman or Jesse Watters?

At issue is a basic question about the current state of the economy. We'll let the economics professor go first, with this passage from his latest New York Times column, which we just saw today:

Why Trump Is Lying About Disaster Relief

[...]

...At this point, Trump’s campaign rests heavily on made-up stuff. And he clearly seems to believe that he needs new material, because the old material seems to be losing some of its effectiveness.

Before I get into the disaster relief issue, let me note that Trump has been a true innovator in political dishonesty...[He has] constructed a whole dystopian fantasy world, trying to persuade voters that America is a nation with a collapsing economy overrun by violent immigrants.

In reality, America has low inflation and low unemployment, and the average worker’s purchasing power is higher than it was five years ago. Yes, some Americans are struggling, but that was as true when Trump was president as it is now.

"The average worker’s purchasing power is higher than it was five years ago!" Or at least, so Krugman says—but we're a bit suspicious because of yesterday's pronouncement by Watters.

According to the leading authority on his career, Krugman was "the sole winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences" back in 2008. On the other hand, Watters served, for many years, as the snarky "man-in-the-street" interview sidekick for Bill O'Reilly.

Based on that experience, Watters is now the anchor of the Fox News Channel's weeknight lineup. When the channel had to show Tucker Carlson the door, they decided to fill the 8 p.m. slot with Jesse Watters Primetime. 

Watters also serves as a regular cast member on The Five, the highest rated program in all of "cable news." 

On that show, he tends to engage in silly towel-snapping with fellow savant Greg Gutfeld. Did we mention the fact that this journalistic garbage can is the most heavily watched of all "cable news" shows?

We've already shown you what the Princeton / MIT / NYU professor said about purchasing power. Yesterday afternoon, on The Five, the other fellow said this (some early towel-snapping included):

WATTERS (10/3/24):  For the last four years, wages have gone nowhere and prices have gone up. Yet, take-home wages—

Yet, she says Bidenomics is working. Now she has to know that Bidenomics isn't working because she gets briefed by her economics team. She has to know because she reads the newspaper—we assume. 

So she knows Bidenomics isn't working, and she goes and tells the voters it's working. So she's lying about how the plan is working...

On Fox, it almost always turns out that "she's lying." It's one of the mandated claims.

As you can see if you click that link, the silly savant went on from there at considerable length. But you can see our conundrum.

Professor Krugman has now said this:

The average worker’s purchasing power is higher than it was five years ago.

Almost surely, we would have believed it! But we'd already seen Watters say this:

For the last four years, wages have gone nowhere and prices have gone up. 

We're guessing that Krugman is right about this, and that Watters is wrong. But for four hours each morning on Fox & Friends, then for eleven more hours starting at 5 p.m., people like Watters are dragged on the air to say such things on Fox.

Just a guess: Most people who watch the Fox News Channel assume that Watters knows what he's talking about and is making accurate statements. Over at the New York Times, but also on MSNBC, the finer people from the finer backgrounds just keep averting their gaze from what transpires on Fox.

Over here in Blue America, our tribunes keep trying to earn our way out. 

As part of that never-ending project, everyone gives Fox free rein. No one wants to talk about Fox.

Fox takes the hand-out and runs.

DEBATE: Can a nation survive half Red and half Blue?

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2024

Gutfeld!, plus Swamp Beast Sightings: As far as we know, there were no moderators at any of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. 

There were no two-minute answers, and there were no one-minute responses. Given the attention spans of the day, the candidates spoke at great length.

For the record, a seat in the United States Senate was at stake. According to an ancient version of the History Channel, the seven debates operated in the manner described:

Lincoln‑Douglas Debates

Lincoln and Douglas met in seven debates between August and October 1858, located in different congressional districts around [Illinois]. In all, they traveled over 4,000 miles during the Senate campaign. While Lincoln traveled by railroad, carriage or boat, Douglas rode in a private train fitted with a cannon that fired a shot every time he arrived in a new location.

Each debate followed the same structure: an hour-long opening statement by one candidate, an hour and a half-long response by the other candidate and a half-hour rebuttal by the first candidate. Despite their length and often tedious format, the debates became a huge spectacle, attracting crowds of up to 20,000 people. 

Thanks to the many reporters and stenographers who attended, and new technologies such as the telegraph and the railroad, the candidates’ arguments drew national attention, and would fundamentally alter the national debate over slavery and the rights of Black Americans.

The History Channel posted that account in 2009. As of today, the channel has largely amended the product it chooses to televise. 

It has dumbed its broadcast offerings way down, apparently in a nod to public demand. 

(For the record, it used to call itself The History Channel. In 2008, it renamed itself History, full stop.)

Historical offerings are way down on the History Channel! On basic cable, the channel's product is largely built around fanciful claims about ancient visitations to Earth and modern-day UFOs.

Also, the channel airs Mountain Men and Ice Road Truckers. In such ways, we the people are served!

Back to the subject at hand:

Back in 1858, tens of thousands of people were willing to stand around listening to lengthy orations. Along with the telegraph and the railroad, another technology—"Pitman shorthand"—apparently played a role in the way these famous sessions affected the national discourse. 

(You can read about the role of those technologies simply by clicking here.)

As we've noted in recent weeks, an additional new technology—the rapid spread of the TV set—led to the occurrence of the Kennedy-Nixon debates more than a century later. Today, our discourse is dying under the weight of a new set of technologies—under the weight of the "democratization of media."

A bit earlier in that same 1858, Candidate Lincoln had posed an important question in his House Divided Speech. According to this account, the rail-splitter opened with a quotation from the New Testament, then stated his own basic point:

LINCOLN (June 16, 1858): "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. 

A government could not endure half slave and half free! Today, the question has taken a turn. We'd say it now goes like this:

Can a very large modern nation survive half Red and half Blue?

More specifically, can a modern nation survive with its means of mass communication half Red and half Blue? Because that's the arrangement under which our failing discourse—rather, our imitation of a discourse—now sputters and stumbles ahead.

Example:

It's as we noted yesterday. On Wednesday evening, an angry fellow went on the Fox News Channel and said what we show you below.

For the record, his show is a propaganda show. Every weeknight, he wedges such statements into his reliable stream of misogynistic remarks.

On Wednesday evening, millions of people saw him make the following statement. He behaves this way, in prime time, on this "cable news" channel each night:

GUTFELD (10/2/24): As usual with these debates, it was a clear three-on-one. Of course, an immediate theme was climate change, which according to all of the polling of U.S. voter concerns ranks somewhere below toenail fungus and right above the WNBA standings. 

But that didn't stop Norah [O'Donnell] from declaring a global warming consensus:

O'DONNELL (videotape): Governor [Walz], your time is up. The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the earth's climate is warming at an unprecedented rate. 

GUTFELD: So I guess that decides it, right? Norah has spoken, but still, the implication is utter [BLEEP]. There is no correlation between man-made climate change and extreme weather. In fact, the incidents of hurricanes have gone down, not up, in the past century.

But who cares, right? To expect Norah to know the science is like expecting P. Diddy not to have baby oil.

STUDIO AUDIENCE: [Laughter, applause]

Let's be clear! According to this very strange man, the following is true:

O'Donnell's implication was utter [BLEEP]...There is no correlation between man-made climate change and extreme weather.

As we've noted in the past, this fellow refers to climate change as one of the "major hoaxes." None of the stooges who sit on his panels ever question or challenge his various behaviors and claims.

As our flailing society devolves, the History Channel now gives us Ancient Aliens—and the Fox News Channel airs that. For the record, as best we can tell, the following is true about hurricanes:

The incidence of hurricanes seems to be largely unchanged over time. The severity of hurricanes, and the damage which results, is apparently vastly increased over the past hundred years.

The little guy cited one of those apparent facts, forgot to mention the other. Within Red America, this sort of thing transpires every night—and over here within Blue America, our big news orgs and our own cable stars uniformly avert their gaze.

(Is Hunter Biden banging or f*cking Jill Biden yet? Even when this cable star raises that question—we've recorded him doing so three separate times—Blue America's journalists act like there's nothing to look at.)

This very strange person will even do that! Can a society—can a modern nation—expect to survive this way?

Regarding the moderators at Tuesday's debate (Norah O'Donnell, Margaret Brennan), they'd been imported from CBS News, an outpost within Blue America. They decided to take a pass when the candidate from Red America blew off an important question in the manner shown:

O'DONNELL (10/1/24): ...President Trump has called climate change a hoax. Do you agree? 

VANCE: Well, look, what the president has said is that if the Democrats, in particular, Kamala Harris and her leadership, if they really believe that climate change is serious, what they would be doing is more manufacturing and more energy production in the United States of America, and that's not what they're doing. 

So clearly, Kamala Harris herself doesn't believe her own rhetoric on this. If she did, she would actually agree with Donald Trump's energy policies...

Does Candidate Vance believe that climate change is a hoax? When he failed to answer that basic question, the moderators simply agreed to move on.

We chatted with O'Donnell very briefly a long time ago, in the mid-1990s, when she was completely unknown. We've always admired the way she pushed back against Chris Matthews in 1999, on several occasions on Hardball, until she finally seemed to give up.

She went on to a large career. On Tuesday night, she didn't return to Candidate Vance to restate her unanswered question. 

He had chosen not to answer; she chose to let it go. The same thing happened when the candidate refused to say who won the 2020 election. 

Unlike in 1858, we do have moderators today. But in a nation which is half Red and half Blue, they may have been told that they need to behave like potted plants when candidates function like that. 

Yesterday, the candidate finally answered the second question! As we noted yesterday afternoon, the candidate has now said that Donald J. Trump did win the 2020 election.

In Red America as well as in Blue, our news orgs are largely ignoring this remarkable statement. Can a large modern nation expect to endure under these rules of the game?

We'll close with this illustration:

Tonight, the channel still known as the History Channel will give us the people this:

History Channel, October 4, 2024
7 p.m.: The UnXplained: Deadly Cults
8 p.m.: The UnXplained: Monsters Among Us
9 p.m.: The UnXplained: The Golden Age of Pirates
10 p.m.: The Proof Is Out There: Swamp Beast Sightings, Martian Conspiracy, and Transparent Mexican Sea Monsters

Monsters and pirates and cults oh my! At 10 p.m., we'll be rewarded with Swamp Beast Sightings and Transparent Mexican Monsters. 

In a somewhat similar vein, a certain "cable news" channel will be giving us Gutfeld! at that same time! Millions of people may be told that climate change is a hoax, with basic facts carefully sifted. 

Speaking of the unexplained:

Over here in Blue America, our "news orgs" and our "favorite reporters and friends" will all be averting their gaze! 

Nothing to look at, these giants will say. Let's take a look at the polls. 

Candidate Vance finally answers the question!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2024

Yes, his running-mate won: We bring no expertise to such matters, but we'll stand by the speculation we've offered in the past:

In all likelihood, you can't grow up the way JD Vance was forced to grow up and emerge from those years fully well.  That's our way of building a framework around the answer the candidate has finally bestowed on the world.

Did Candidate Trump win the last election?  Mediaite is providing the tape as Vance clearly says that he  did. At that site, Alex Griffing provides the play-by-play of this strange man's belated claim:

JD Vance Says Trump Won The 2020 Election...

GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance was grilled by comedian Jason Selvig about who actually won the 2020 presidential election in a clip posted to X on Thursday.

Selvig, who is best known for his comedic man-on-the-street interviews, asked Vance repeatedly if Donald Trump won the 2020 election—a hot topic surrounding Vance after Tuesday’s debate in which Vance said he would have helped in Trump’s “alternative electors’ scheme to overturn the election.

“Who won the 2020 election? Could you just answer? Did Donald Trump win?” Selvig asked Vance as he walked.

“Yes,” Vance clearly replied.

“He did win?” shot back a surprised Selvig. Vance then added, “Yep.”

Selvig followed up, "So will you, will you concede?”

“Will you concede if your opponent gets, if your opponent gets more votes, will you concede?” Selvig pressed.

“I really feel bad for you, man,” Vance replied as Selvig again asked, “I just want to know if your, if your opponent gets more votes, will you concede?” Vance then walked into a room without answering the question.

Our lord and master Candidate Vance feels sorry for Jason Selvig? Under the emerging circumstances, we feel sorry for the whole human race!

You can see the tape of the exchange at the Mediaite post. Over at The New Republic, Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling provides her report of the matter, and provides the Selvig tape, under this headline:

JD Vance Finally Answers That Crucial V.P. Debate Question

We bring no psychiatric expertise to this particular matter. But our current imitation of discourse is littered with the behavior of people who grew up in very unusual circumstances—in ways which may conceivably wreck the soul and damage the human heart.

A final guess: 

Viewers of the Fox news Channel won't be told about any of this. We expect to have more in the next few days about some of the things those neighbors and friends already aren't being told about events out here in the world.

At Tuesday evening's debate, Vance wouldn't answer the question when Tim Walz asked. When Vance refused to answer several questions, two moderators from CBS News decided to take a pass.

Were we humans built for life in this modern "democratized" world? Later on, we'll answer your questions about the frequency of hurricanes—about what Greg Gutfeld angrily several million viewers on last evening's Gutfeld! show.

As we noted this morning, there he went again! Gutfeld—he's 60 years old!—routinely tells viewers that climate change is a "major hoax." All across Blue America, our major news orgs, our beloved journalist stars, all agree to avert their gaze as such lessons are taught.

At Tuesday evening's debate, two moderators kept taking a pass. The New York Times takes the same approach every day of the week!

DEBATE: Is warming "a hoax," the way Trump says?

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2024

Candidate Vance takes a pass: Did Candidate Vance ever back a national abortion ban?

Yesterday afternoon, we asked that question. This morning, we still aren't sure. 

That said:

In this morning's New York Times, Lisa Lerer discusses that very point in a News Analysis piece. We'll delay our comments on President Lincoln to show you part of what she says:

NEWS ANALYSIS
Vance Smooths Edges to Remake Trump’s Record

[...]

Mr. Vance benefited from moderators who agreed at the start to not spend time correcting false claims uttered on the stage, which allowed him to continue largely unfettered by facts or past positions.

At one point, Mr. Vance falsely claimed he never backed a national abortion restriction, saying he supported “a minimum national standard”—a phrase used by anti-abortion proponents to describe a 15-week federal ban. His comment went unchecked.

Sad! In the statement in question, Vance didn't say that he "never backed a national abortion restriction." He said that he "never supported a national ban"—and no, that's not the same thing.

Lerer is an experienced journalist, but that isn't what Vance really said. For the record, it isn't hard to report what he actually said. CBS News provided this largely accurate transcript, and videotape exists.

Something apparently seized Lerer—or then again, who knows? Maybe her editor adjusted the copy she had composed. Somehow, though, the actual statement got misparaphrased, in a way which reinforced the larger storyline of her piece.

For the record, we agree with Lerer's larger claim about Candidate Vance. We think he did proceed, all through the debate, "largely unfettered by facts."

In our view, it's even worse than that. In our view, Candidate Vance seems to be "an unusually good [misstater]," to borrow from a stronger statement by Senator Bob Kerrey in 1993. 

In yesterday morning's report, we showed you the way Candidate Vance responded when he was asked a direct question by Candidate Walz. Vance offered "a damning non-answer," Walz said. 

We agree with that claim—every word.

We agree with that claim about Vance's refusal to answer. Then too, consider what the gentleman said when he was asked about a famous alleged hoax:

O'DONNELL (10/1/24): Senator [Vance]. I want to give you an opportunity to respond there. The governor mentioned that President Trump has called climate change a hoax. Do you agree? 

VANCE: Well, look, what the President has said is that if the Democrats, in particular, Kamala Harris and her leadership, if they really believe that climate change is serious, what they would be doing is more manufacturing and more energy production in the United States of America, and that's not what they're doing. So clearly, Kamala Harris herself doesn't believe her own rhetoric on this. If she did, she would actually agree with Donald Trump's energy policies...

O'Donnell asked a simple question. Candidate Vance took a pass.

He mentioned a different thing "the president has said," but he failed to respond to the important question he'd actually been asked. The candidate continued along from there, having chosen to avoid answering a clearcut question.

At that point, sad! As you can see by reviewing the transcript, O'Donnell didn't pursue the point. Having asked a basic question, she didn't seem to care when her question went unanswered.

Near the end of the session, that candidate's unfettered behavior was even worse. In this case, we're looking at a statement by Vance which we'd score as flatly false:

O'DONNELL: Let's talk about the state of democracy, the top issue for Americans after the economy and inflation...The governors of every state in the nation, Republicans and Democrats, certified the 2020 election results and sent a legal slate of electors to Congress for January 6th. 

Senator Vance, you have said you would not have certified the last presidential election and would have asked the states to submit alternative electors. That has been called unconstitutional and illegal. 

Would you again seek to challenge this year's election results, even if every governor certifies the results? I'll give you two minutes.

VANCE: Well, Norah, first of all, I think that we're focused on the future. We need to figure out how to solve the inflation crisis caused by Kamala Harris's policies. Make housing affordable, make groceries affordable, and that's what we're focused on. But I want to answer your question because you did ask it. 

Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020. And my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully in the public square. And that's all I've said. And that's all that Donald Trump has said.

That's all that Candidate Trump has said? In fact, Candidate Trump has angrily said, again and again, that the last election was rigged, was stolen, was fixed. 

It's a profoundly inflammatory claim. Just for the record, Candidate Trump made the inflammatory statement again last night!

"There were problems in 2020...That's all that Donald Trump has said?" We'd be inclined to score that statement as flatly false—but once again, the statement went unchallenged. At the start of the debate, Margaret Brennan had stated the rules of the road:

The primary role of the moderators is to facilitate the debate between the candidates, enforce the rules, and provide the candidates with the opportunity to fact check claims made by each other. 

For whatever reason, the moderators weren't going to fact-check the candidates! That said, and just for the record, on two occasions, O'Donnell and Brennan pretty much did. 

They did so very clumsily, attempting to work under cover of darkness. In doing so, they provoked fury on the Fox News Channel, "bringing the eternal note of [limited competence] in."

Are we the humans up to the task of maintaining a modern democracy? More specifically, do we possess the types of skills and impulses which let us assemble a respectable national discourse?

Speaking in Gettysburg, President Lincoln wasn't entirely sure. How viable was the American experiment? Here's what the rail-splitter said:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers [sic] brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men [sic] roughj;ly 18.5 million souls. are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

Can a nation like ours long endure? That isn't the exact question we're asking, but it's right there in the ballpark.

When Lincoln spoke, things were substantially different. At the time of the 1860 census, we were a nation of roughly 31 million souls. (Roughly four million of those people were enslaved.)

Today, our nation is massively larger. Technology is massively advanced. Today, when we hear America sing, misinformation is spilling out from almost every door.

In our view, Lerer (or her editor) misparaphrased something Vance said. With respect to a different topic, Vance himself flatly misstated what Donald J. Trump has said.

Also, Vance avoided responding to the question about climate change being a hoax. The moderators didn't try to make him answer the question he'd been asked.

Does Vance believe that climate change is a hoax? The candidate wasn't required to answer, and it gets worse than that.

Sad! Last night, viewers of the Fox News Channel were subjected to such prime time garbage as this:

GUTFELD (10/2/24): As usual with these debates, it was a clear three-on-one. Of course, an immediate theme was climate change, which according to all of the polling of U.S. voter concerns ranks somewhere below toenail fungus and right above the WNBA standings. 

But that didn't stop Norah from declaring a global warming consensus:

O'DONNELL (videotape): Governor [Walz], your time is up. The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the earth's climate is warming at an unprecedented rate. 

GUTFELD: So I guess that decides it, right? Norah has spoken, but still, the implication is utter [BLEEP]. There is no correlation between man-made climate change and extreme weather. In fact, the incidents of hurricanes have gone down, not up, in the past century.

But who cares, right? To expect Norah to know the science is like expecting P. Diddy not to have baby oil.

AUDIENCE: [Laughter, applause]

There is no such correlation! So it went at 10:06 p.m. Eastern [7:06 p.m. Pacific] on this primetime "cable news" show. 

(As we've noted in the past, the furious host of this "cable news" program routinely describes climate change as "a hoax.")

On our scorecard, that statement by O'Donnell was one of the several times when the moderators clumsily tried to smuggle in a lightly disguised fact-check. Instead of asking Vance to speak to the issue, she offered that statement—a statement we regard as accurate—then moved to the next topic.

This gave people like Gutfeld a chance to say that the event was "as usual three-on-one." We return to our original question:

As a species, are we humans up to the task of conducting a respectable public discourse?  Are we humans up to the task of conducting a discourse in a giant continental nation with technologies which put people like Greg Gutfeld on the air before millions of regular people?

Such as it ever was, can the American project long endure? President Lincoln posed that question two years before his death. For today, we'll leave our own question right there. 

In our view, Lerer has misparaphrased Vance. For his part, Vance refused to answer an important question. When he refused to answer, O'Donnell and Brennan took a pre-ordained dive.

The following evening, the Fox News Channel sent in the clown! Is there any reason to believe that we humans, under current arrangements, are actually up to this task?

Tomorrow: A very strange time at the Times

When is a national ban not a national ban?

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2024

Perhaps with a ban such as this: As we noted this morning, Candidate Vance still doesn't seem to know who won the last election.

This puzzling fact came to light during last evening's debate. Also, the candidate has been widely criticized for having made the highlighted statement in response to a question by Norah O'Donnell:

O'DONNELL (10/1/24): In the past, you have supported a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks. In fact, you said if someone can't support legislation like that, quote, "You are making the United States the most barbaric pro-abortion regime anywhere in the entire world." 

My question is, why have you changed your position?

VANCE: Well, Norah, first of all, I never supported a national ban. ...

The candidate continued at length from there. Especially within Blue America, he has been savaged for saying that he never supported a federal / national ban.

Why did Vance issue such a denial? O'Donnell didn't challenge his denial—but if she had, what would Vance have said?

We can't answer that question. Nor are we experts on the full roster of Vance's past statements on this topic. We can riddle you this:

When is a federal or national ban on abortion not a federal or national ban on abortion? Possibly, when it's a federal or national ban on abortion "after fifteen weeks."

As Blue pundits frequently note, the vast majority of abortions take place within the first fifteen weeks. Our question:

If someone proposes a ban on abortions after that, has that person actually proposed "a ban on abortions," full stop?

Has that person proposed "a ban on abortions?" We'd be inclined to say no, with clarifications to follow. 

Is that what Vance would have said if his denial had been challenged? We don't have the slightest idea!

In our view, the moderators behaved like potted plants during most of the evening, probably due to the agreement by CBS News that they wouldn't perform any fact-checking. Perhaps for that reason, O'Donnell never went back and questioned what Vance said.

What did Candidate Vance mean by the denial in question? We don't have any way to know. If O'Donnell had followed up, we'd all be able to evaluate what the candidate said.

In his list of fact checks for the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler scores Vance "disingenuous" for this particular statement. In this instance, we think Kessler may have gotten a bit out over his skis.

For the record, Kessler lists many other plain misstatements by Vance. Also for the record, we humans don't reason with spectacular clarity, especially at highly polarized times such as these. 

At times like these, we humans tend to want what we want! As the great anthropologist Gene Brabender once observed:

Where I come from, we only talk so long. After that, we start to hit.

For extra credit only: We recommend Kessler's fact-check of Vance's statement about the 320,000 allegedly missing children.

That claim has been all over the Fox News Channel. Candidate Trump likes to make it.

Newspapers like the New York Times agree to avert their gaze. All too often, our rapidly failing "national discourse" no longer runs on facts.

DEBATE: Who won the 2020 election?

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2024

One candidate still isn't sure: Who won the 2020 election? Based on statements made last night, one candidate still isn't sure:

CANDIDATE WALZ (10/1/24): I just think for everyone tonight, and I'm going to thank Senator Vance. I think this is the conversation they want to hear, and I think there's a lot of agreement. But this is one that we are miles apart on. 

It [January 6] was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen. And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say—he's still saying he didn't lose the election. 

I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?

CANDIDATE VANCE: Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation?

TW: That is a damning— That is a damning non-answer.

Candidate Vance still doesn't seem to be sure who won the last election! Last night, he was given several chances to say who won. 

"I'm focused on the future?" That's what he said each time!

We thought we might establish the record about that election, at least as it's said to exist. For the record, the leading authority on the last election says it turned out like this:

Popular vote, 2020 presidential election:
Joseph R. Biden (D): 81,283,501 (51.3%)
Donald J. Trump (R): 74,223,975 (46.8%)

That's how it went in the popular vote. Here's the electoral college:

Electoral college vote:
Joseph R. Biden (D): 306 votes
Donald J. Trump (R): 232 votes

Nationwide, President Trump got over 74 million votes as he sought re-election. But he lost by 7.1 million votes—or so the record says.

That said, Candidate Vance still doesn't seem sure about who won that election! We'd say his pair of responses last night were part of the "After" in a classic "Before / After" picture—a classic picture which dates all the way back to the 1960 presidential campaign.

In recent weeks, we've been quoting from Theodore White's iconic book, The Making of The President 1960. It's a very famous book. It was written by a highly placed observer.

On January 6, 2021, a mob of people attacked the Capitol in the wake of the 2020 election. As Candidate Vance said last night, "It was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen."

Aas of today, millions of American citizens remain unconvinced about who won the last election. Just to establish a record, White offered this on the very first page of his famous book:

WHITE (page 3): On election day America is Republican until five or six in the evening. It is in the last few hours of the day that working people and their families vote, on their way home from work or after supper; it is then, at evening, that America goes Democratic if it goes Democratic at all. All of this is invisible, for it is the essence of the act that as it happens it is a mystery in which millions of people each fit one fragment of a total secret together, none of them knowing the shape of the whole.

What results from the fitting together of these secrets is, of course, the most awesome transfer of power in the world...Heroes and philosophers, brave men and vile, have since Rome and Athens tried to make this particular manner of transfer of power work effectively; no people has succeeded at it better, or over a longer period of time, than the Americans...

In 2017, in his inaugural speech. President Trump spoke about a mystery meat he described as "American carnage." Back at the dawn of the modern era, White was speaking from an attitude we might call American confidence, even American exceptionalism.

No one else had ever done it so well! A bit later in his opening chapter, White fleshed out his point of view as he described election night:

WHITE (page 10): ...As every citizen sits in his home watching his TV set or listening to his radio, he is the equal of any other in knowledge. There is nothing that can be done in these hours, for no one can any longer direct the great strike for America’s power; the polls have closed. Good or bad, whatever the decision, America will accept the decision—and cut down any man who goes against it, even though for millions the decision runs contrary to their own votes. The general vote is an expression of national will, the only substitute for violence and blood. Its verdict is to be defended as one defends civilization itself.

"America will accept the decision," however it may go. 

At the dawn of the modern era, White seemed quite sure of that fact. By tradition, that expression of national will would be defended, in this nation, "as one defends civilization itself."

That's what one observer thought at the dawn of the modern era. Those passages might be seen as the "Before" in a classic "Before and After" picture which was still under construction last night.

Before the modern era unspooled, bringing us to this precarious place, we the people were prepared to defend the electorate's decision "as one defends civilization itself." Just for the record, here's the way the decision turned out in that 1960 election:

Popular vote, 1960 presidential election:
Candidate Kennedy (D): 34,220,984 (49.7%)
Candidate Nixon (R): 34,108,157 (49.6%)

With respect to the electoral college, Kennedy won that vote, 303-219. Neither of the major party candidates won Mississippi or Alabama that year.

In terms of the nationwide popular vote, that election was very close. For better or worse, our last election wasn't. 

Candidate Biden won the 2020 election by 7.1 million votes. But Candidate Trump is still insisting that he won—sometimes he says he won by a landslide—and Candidate Vance still doesn't seem to be sure, or doesn't seem to be willing to say.

For today, we offer this as a "Before and After" picture of the current state of "our democracy," but also of the current state of our "public discourse." As far as that goes, do we actually have a public discourse at this juncture at all?

With regard to that second question, we could teach it flat or round.

At the dawn of the modern political era, Theodore White was completely sure that we the people would be (fiercely) willing to accept the outcome of a presidential election. In the weeks which followed the 2020 election, it began to seem that we were exiting that political era, bound for who knows where.

Candidate Trump may win again this year. No one knows where that outcome would take us, though the same is true if he loses.

That said, one of last night's candidates didn't even seem to know who won the last election! On the journalistic side, the moderators behaved like a pair of potted plants at various times as the evening proceeded. 

This is the shape of the national discourse we've somehow managed to create over the past sixty years. Through the interactions of a wide array of behaviors, this is the disordered business we almost seem to have chosen.

Tomorrow: What passes for a public discourse at the end of that era

BREAKING: Incomparable services restored!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2024

Provider rights the ship: People are suffering from the storm, but also around the world.

They're suffering; we were inconvenienced. We know there's a very large difference

With respect to the storm, it didn't seem that we actually had a storm around here. But our Internet and cable service disappeared (very) early on Sunday morning—and our (landline) phone went too!

Yes, it was an area outage, youthful agents of the (unnamed) Internet Service Provider assured us. But after visits to their facility Sunday at noon and Monday morning at 10, we were beginning to wonder if they were ever going to be able to right the ship.

At some time today, they did! We were elsewhere, helping medical practitioners advance the world's medical knowledge.

Before our services went away, we'd planned to spend the week examining some of the contents of a pair of silos. One is maintained by the Fox News Channel, one by the New York Times.

After recovering from our trauma, we'll start that work tomorrow. That said, the silence of the past several days led us to contemplate the future, in which we'll attempt to describe the state of play afflicting our nation in these latter days, deep inside the political era which started in 1960.

We don't know who the be president-elect will be by then. At present, we picture a new enterprise, at a different site, working under this title:

American Discourse, American Babel
Fox News Channel, New York Times

The Fox News Channel and the New York Times! They're a pair of very famous orgs, though they may not be well-known.

We're not saying that they're "the same;" we aren't saying they're "equivalent." We'd say they're each in control of a silo, and the wages of discourse by silo is the post-journalistic Babel which now belongs to us all.

Before the storm somehow washed us away, we'd reviewed some peculiar reporting at the New York Times. Tomorrow, we'll start this new block of work with a look at a Political Memo by Rebecca Davis O'Brien.

O'Brien's a good, decent person. On Saturday morning, her piece appeared on the front page of the New York Times' print editions.

We agree with many of her points—but on balance, the piece struck us as odd. Online, its dual headline says this:

POLITICAL MEMO
Harris Has a Lot of Strengths. Giving Interviews Isn’t One of Them.
Vice President Kamala Harris is a sharp debater and a tireless campaigner, but televised interviews are a weakness. Her professional experience may explain why.

We agree with some of O'Brien's basic points. On balance, though, her piece seemed puzzling, odd.

We'll start tomorrow with that Political Memo. We may cite the slightly peculiar remark Gail Collins recently made as she spoke with Bret Stephens:

Another Trump Acolyte Finds Himself in Big Trouble

[...]

Bret: I’m still where I was last week: waiting for Harris to persuade me to vote for her. What’s wrong with asking her to sit down for a one-on-one interview with a serious journalist who will ask some tough but reasonable questions about urgent public policy matters? The same, of course, should be done with Trump.

Gail: You know I’m not gonna tell you that Harris is doing enough serious interviews with national reporters. She’s not. Neither, obviously, is Trump, but we have a right to hold her to a higher standard.

Bret: I just want reassurance that she is up for the job.

Given the fuller way he's explained it, we aren't offended by Stephens' stance with respect to Harris. Quite a few people are. 

That said, did Collins mean what she seemed to say? Did she really mean that it's OK for a major newspaper to hold one presidential candidate "to a higher standard?"

Did she mean that the way its sounds? Probably not, but then again, there was that Political Memo just a few days later!

The so-called "democratization of media" has created a nation of silos. Do the mandated contents of one silo sometimes find their way into another?

We wondered when we read that Political Memo! Right there on the Times front page, very few nits were left unpicked, sometimes in ways which didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. 

We were left with a curious question. Has the other candidate ever been nit-picked, on the front page of the New York Times, in a way which could be compared to that? Has the Times ever beat the bushes, in a comparable way, about his "interview style?"

Full disclosure! We're sick of what we've been trying to do at this incomparable site. It's time to start with our flailing nation's recent history, but for now, we'll still go with this.

We'll start with O'Brien's Political Memo. Or the debate may wash things away! How's a Babel dweller to know?