Kucinich and the Media

[davidswanson]

When I worked for Dennis Kucinich's presidential campaign in 2003, he routinely won the most applause at debates but was minimized or entirely left out of the next day's stories in the corporate media. This meant that peace, and fair trade, and single-payer healthcare were left out too. At one debate at the University of New Hampshire, Kucinich pushed back.

Ted Koppel of ABC opened the debate with questions about endorsements. The second round of questions was about standing in the polls. The third was about the campaigns' bank accounts. One had to wonder when, if ever, the debate would touch on, you know, what the candidates intended to do if elected. Kucinich cut Koppel off, saying:

"I want the American people to see where media takes politics in this country. We start talking about endorsements, now we're talking about polls and then talking about money. When you do that you don't have to talk about what's important to the American people."

The applause for this was so intense that the other candidates on the stage started joining in the media bashing. Kucinich had briefly changed the narrative from a horse race to a demand for decent political reporting.

That's what he should have done on Wednesday when he flipped to support a disastrous health insurance bill. Rather than talking about the legitimacy of the presidency, Kucinich should have talked about the illegitimacy of the current narrative in the corporate media.

The major corporate news outlets, and all the smaller outlets that follow their lead, and all the partisan outlets that obey the White House, have created a false story that was clearly turning Kucinich's own constituents against him. According to this story, of the dozens of Democrats and over a hundred Republicans not committed to voting for the insurance corporation bailout bill, only Kucinich's vote mattered, so the blame would go to him if it failed, just as Ralph Nader alone was blamed for Al Gore losing the election that Gore won in Florida in 2000.

Kucinich was to be blamed for denying people healthcare by opposing a bill that makes the healthcare system worse. Now he'll be credited with helping to provide people with healthcare, even though he's done the opposite. I think he gave in to the power of a false narrative, and that he ought to have said so. When Kucinich fought with us for impeachment, and John Conyers refused to act, Conyers admitted that his greatest fear was of media hostility. When Kucinich pushes to end wars, other congress members tell us they cannot afford to challenge media nonsense about "supporting the troops." The corporate media now run our government, and need to be called out.

I don't think Kucinich flipped because of money, either direct "contributions" or money through the Democratic Party. I think, on the contrary, he hurt himself financially by letting down his supporters across the country. I don't think he caved into the power of party or presidency directly. I don't think they threatened to back a challenger or strip his subcommittee chair or block his bills, although all of that might have followed. I think the corporate media has instilled in people the idea that presidents should make laws and that the current president is trying to make a law that can reasonably be called "healthcare reform" or at least "health insurance reform."

I don't excuse Kucinich flipping his vote. I just want to find the right explanation for it. There may be many factors I'm unaware of. But I have no doubt that with real freedom of the press in this country it wouldn't have happened. This sad incident is not an argument for ending the two-party system. That argument has been made overwhelmingly for many years. We must end that system. Nor is this an argument for campaign finance reform, although we won't survive long without that either. Nor is this an argument to give up on Dennis Kucinich, since we would clearly have a dramatically better Congress if we had 10 others as good as him. Kucinich's cave in is most clearly an argument for media reform and for progressive investment in truly independent media.

[ProSense]

1. Interesting

I don't excuse Kucinich flipping his vote. I just want to find the right explanation for it. There may be many factors I'm unaware of. But I have no doubt that with real freedom of the press in this country it wouldn't have happened. This sad incident is not an argument for ending the two-party system. That argument has been made overwhelmingly for many years. We must end that system. Nor is this an argument for campaign finance reform, although we won't survive long without that either. Nor is this an argument to give up on Dennis Kucinich, since we would clearly have a dramatically better Congress if we had 10 others as good as him. Kucinich's cave in is most clearly an argument for media reform and for progressive investment in truly independent media.

Summary: Dennis Kucinich failed and destroyed democracy.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted sub-thread

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[Name removed]

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[madrchsod]

12. ...dennis destroyed democracy?

i did`t know that....well thanks for the information. i was clearly wrong because i thought bush actually did a really good job in his 8 years as president.

oh well ya learn something new everyday!

[ProSense]

23. "he hurt himself financially by letting down his supporters across the country. "

Well, the OP seems to beleive he hurt himself. And the last paragraph of the OP is to my point.

[EFerrari]

25. Your "point" is off topic. The OP is about the media

even though you use it predictably to attack Dennis.

[robinblue]

40. "destroyed democracy" what a bunch of bull.

[apocalypsehow]

42. I like your summary of this logorrheic OP better than mine.

:-)

[bigtree]

3. I think his support indicates his faith in the political system (in his party)

. . . and signals his belief that the process of health reform won't end with the present legislative effort.

[EFerrari]

4. Precisely. The corporate media fosters authoritarian followers.

And today, they believe they got what they needed because their leaders say so.

And I don't mean people who have rational arguments for this bill while admitting its problems. I mean the people that rationalize its problems and attack those who don't buy into the fiction.

[Ignis]

6. Here's a rec, but this needs to be kicked.

Grab a boot and join in! :kick:

[EFerrari]

7. Yep. This will be the most useful post to come out of this conflict today.

:kick:

[madrchsod]

8. as soon as his presidential platform was announced he was finished.

the american public wants a public option and they did`t get it. obama sold the public option to the insurance,phrama,and hospital syndicates for his next presidential campaign.

dennis had no choice, knew he had a losing hand and he folded...

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

9. He did not give up his vote for nothing.

Look into what his district or Ohio gets through earmarks in the near future. I have another thought but that goes to tinfoil hat land.

Russ Feingold's Wisconsin is getting high speed rail. Bernie Sander is getting his health clinics and an increase in medicaid funds for VT.

[Duval]

10. Exactly! It was almost funny the way the media

has latched onto Kucinich as "the one" who determines whether HCR succeeds or not. However, it really isn't funny. When we finally get freedom of the press back, a lot of things will change.

[earth mom]

11. In my book, Dennis sold out.

Interesting too, that he changed his vote after his "private plane ride" with Obama.

I'm sure Kucinich won't be riding in small planes ever again. :tinfoilhat:

[EFerrari]

14. He did better than anyone else in the sewer that is DC. n/t

[earth mom]

17. I don't say it lightly because Dennis was one of my heros.

I'm very disappointed by it all.

[EFerrari]

18. Understood. n/t

[dionysus]

53. !

:cry:

[Nikki Stone1]

13. We don't know what he was told or how he was threatened: this WH plays hardball

and they must REALLY need his vote. Usually, they leave him alone. Their defamation of Dennis shows how desperate they really are.

[JHB]

16. Well, they play hardball against other Democrats...

Throwing the Republicans into disarray by attacking them for lockstep voting and blanket support for Bush criminality took a back seat to playing "bipartisanship" softball with the Elephantville Bums.

[Nikki Stone1]

20. True

Good catch

[Egnever]

50. BS

Obama stood in front of the house republicans and shot down their bullshit on national television then he went back and did it again. The idea obama is playing footsie with the pukes while bashing dems is stupid.

[JHB]

51. How many times do we have to learn "once or twice" doesn't move the debate?

It was nice to see that, but he could have had the entire Democratic leadership making an issue of the obsructionism and Sovietesque party-line voting pattern of congressional Republicans every time they got time on camera or space on an op-ed page, day in and day out for an entire year. That's the sort of full-court press the Republicans use to drive the debate over policy in their direction, and it's something Obama actively avoided in the name of "bipartisanship".

And let's not forget repeating Clinton's big mistake: not moving forward with investigation and prosecution of criminality under the previous administration. How many nanosecods of good will did that buy them? The Republicans certainly understand the value of associating their opponents with criminality -- how many times did Democratic candidates and officials get indicted on exaggerated or entirely trumped-up charges timed to that voters would see the headlines shortly before elections? We have real things to investigate and prosecute republicans for (including those very abuses of the DOJ), things that would have congressional Republicans scrambling to distance themselves from, but instead all we get is "looking forward".

This isn't Monday morning quarterbacking, either. The Republicans have been pretty damn blatant about their strategyall along, and it's the same way the acted under Clinton and Bush. It takes more than a scolding or two to break that.

[Better Believe It]

54. Exactly. They only play hardball against progressives, never against conservative Dems or Repubs

[puebloknot]

15. Good overview of why Kucinich "flipped." He doesn't flip easily ...

... so although I'm disappointed at one level, we need him in the Congress, *almost* any which way we can keep him there.

Dealing as a "purist" with an uneducated electorate can mean spitting in the wind, in some cases. This way, he lives to fight another day!

Thanks for this!

[happy_liberal]

19. I always thought that was a bit bizarre

"of the dozens of Democrats and over a hundred Republicans not committed to voting for the insurance corporation bailout bill, only Kucinich's vote mattered"

but Kucinich seemed to play along with them

[Prism]

21. He disarmed their talking points

What we really need to understand about what is happening right now is that we are watching a party acting out in the purest desperation to date. With a tanking economy, two wars, and the biggest majority in forty years, these politicians decided Health Care Reform was going to be their #1 project.

Then they failed. And failed. And failed again. They gutted and jettisoned just about every major liberal policy point from the bill in the hopes of having a major political accomplishment under their belt.

But nothing was doing.

The longer this dragged on, the less they could afford to have it fail. Remember, last summer the President declared he wanted a bill by the end of August. This was to be a quick, brutal bull fight. But then the matadors became far bloodier than the bull, and the crowd began to wonder if the fight would ever end.

Reading the news articles from the past two or three weeks, you'll see the same theme over and over - very sudden, very real fear that the signing ceremony might not come to pass. In the midst of crises unprecedented in contemporary America, a possibility suddenly loomed that the Democratic Party was about to have its biggest initiative crash and burn.

Should this fail, the Democrats would need a very good explanation and scapegoat for a bloodbath in November.

Enter Dennis Kucinich.

People would have to be blind not to notice the vitriol aimed at Kucinich, the coordinated talking points, the scores of duplicate posts being astro-turfed all over cyberspace and the media in an attempt to paint Kucinich as The Villain of Health Care Reform. Not the President who couldn't lead a parade if his life depended on it. Not conservative Senators who gutted every scrap of real reform from the bill. Not the health care industry who found so many welcoming ears at the White House.

Kucinich and Progressives. The evil political sorcerers who would enslave us all.

Objectively, such a view is at all odds with reality. But in the heat of the political moment, the meme seemed viable. People like having villains, and the Republicans are so much in the minority now, that constantly pointing at them was wearing thin. The American people do not care nearly as much about the Republicans when Democrats have these kinds of majorities. The excuses weren't viable.

Kucinich did not want to be the excuse. He didn't want to be the bill-killer. He didn't want to be the one the party could use to place their massive, inexplicable, inexcusable failures on the progressive wing of the party. He didn't want to give them that ammunition.

So he didn't, and now it is all on this President and Congress. It is now on the conservative Democrats. It is now on the corporate friendly elements of our party. They will rise or fall on their own. They will spend the next two decades polishing this turd, especially after the fury of 2014 when mandates kick in. But there isn't enough lemon-scented Pledge in the world to take the stink off that dull little ass-brick this Congress and this President just dropped on the American peoples' heads.

For now, Kucinich has stepped out of the line of fire. He is not helping the conservaDems in the slightest. They're just not bright enough to understand it. Right now, they're working furiously to find a new villain.

[Ignis]

27. Very good points that deserve their own OP, IMHO.

:thumbsup:

[inna]

48. Very good post.

:thumbsup:

[bluedawg12]

55. They turned on the guy

who could not take being portrayed as the the obstacle to HCR, for the rest of his career - nor did he need to. When your own party turns on you to make you the fall guy - well, step aside and keep working on quietly.

"Kucinich did not want to be the excuse. He didn't want to be the bill-killer. He didn't want to be the one the party could use to place their massive, inexplicable, inexcusable failures on the progressive wing of the party. He didn't want to give them that ammunition."

And why should he or would he, if in the long run nothing was going to change or be re-written.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. I volunteered for DK's campaign in Minnesota in 2004

I heard him speak in front of 800 in St. Paul in August 2003.

I heard him speak in front of 1600 a couple of months later and 2500 a while after that.

I heard him speak at a dinner of the National Lawyer's Guild and saw the kitchen staff at the rented hall come out and ask to have their pictures taken with him and tell him how much they agreed with what he said.

I was there on caucus night 2004 when he won 17% of the vote in Minnesota entirely on the basis of grassroots campaigning.

I know why the DLC hates him even more than they claim to hate the Republicans.

[G_j]

24. Buncombe county NC, DK won the primary in 2004

all grass roots

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. And he won a county in Iowa (the one Decorah is in), thanks to

grassroots campaigning with the assistance of volunteers from Minnesota.

On the other hand, he did poorly in Madison, WI but very well in Ashland and Viroqua, again, due to grassroots campaigning.

[arcadian]

29. It's too bad Kuchinich didn't have a Kennedy's good looks.

He would be unstoppable.

[cyclezealot]

32. Too often good looks gets goof balls elected.

Gov. Goodhair Rick Perry has celebrity draw they say, but he is dumb as a rock. Ever hear Kucinich wow his audience. He has star appeal way in excess of any Hollywood blow dried, idiot. .

[arcadian]

35. Yeah,

My comment was really about how the media choose our politicians based on beauty contests.

[Romulox]

26. Kuch is just another Ben Nelson to me, now. nt

[MuseRider]

28. All they ever had to do

was realize that they would not get any votes from the Right and craft a bill that was right for the people. Twist the arms of the few in the D party who wanted bribes and abortion control and added R Wing parts to it and then pass the sucker. We had it in our hands. Do they really think anyone would have cared that it was not bipartisan if it had really be a bill for the people? The Dems could have been real public heros but they blew it again.

Fools, panderers and complicit Dems and they scapegoated the one guy who was actually out front with the truth of the matter. All they had to do was craft it and vote it out. None of the rest of that was needed.

IMO this bill will never be reworked and we will be beholding to the Insurance Vampires for the rest of my life, probably yours and the score card for we the people will be worse and worse until we are all dead or living in the street. Seem extreme? Look at what is happening now and now they will have us, every one of us. There is no place for Insurance in true Health Care. It is not needed.

I understand there may be many reasons DK caved. I understand he might not think of it as a cave. Does he really think Obama will listen to him now since he did this? Really? He will be sadly disappointed along with the rest of the people (not me certainly) who depended on Obamas promises, thought he was real and honest and hoped for real people change but then I guess people change now includes the corporations.

I am terribly disappointed. I still agree with everything he said about this stinker of a bill. I hope he does not end up regretting it.

I keep saying that I will gladly eat my words that I have been saying about Obama since way before his primary win if proven wrong. I don't think I need worry about that any longer.

[Starry Messenger]

34. Good post MuseRider.

It's horribly fascinating to see which arms were left untwisted.

[MuseRider]

46. Thanks Starry Messenger.

It is very interesting and sad.

[bluedawg12]

52. It was over before it started.

"All they ever had to do was realize that they would not get any votes from the Right and craft a bill that was right for the people." +1,000!

[cyclezealot]

31. We worked in the Kucinich campaign in 03 and 07..

Talk about a confusing political world.. Likely, not only did Kucinch have his arm twisted by Obama , but Sen. Bernie Sander's offered DK a chat suggeting he vote yes..

[laughingliberal]

33. Great post!! Highly Rec! nt

[EFerrari]

36. Kick for the smartest post on DU today.

:)

[Ignis]

45. Make it a double.

:kick:

[spanone]

37. our media has been compromised. it's broken. it's politicized. dangerous.

[MuseRider]

38. David, this post

has been on my mind all day. Thanks.

Kick

[amborin]

39. emotional blackmail was the reason, imho

[KoKo]

56. Dennis didn't seem himself in his interviews. His voice was

halting and he looked like he was torn emotionally. I don't know what he was told...or if he got some kind of agreement on something he wanted in the bill. TPM said he was on the Hill today whipping up votes for the bill, and that was a surprise to TPM.

He was either threatened or got something that made a difference to him in a way that he felt he had to go along.

I still support him, but what was done to him on on the Blogosphere was cruel and it seemed that the Obama Administration had OP's running hard to discredit and demean him. That's why I think it's possible he was threatened in some way with loss of chairmanship of committee or something like that.

[apocalypsehow]

41. Shorter version of OP: he was against it before he was for it.

Oh, wait....

[Billsmile]

43. Progressive Gets Attention

Would just like to say it was nice to see a true progressive get a plane ride (special treatment) for a change. That's cool.

I contributed to Kucinich when he took his firm stand on this issue and I'll contribute again next time around.

If the Dems end up getting something slightly done for the people this time around (for a change) maybe they'll grow a pair for the next time around. Dennis Kucinich might be setting a good example for his go-along-to-get-along party mates.

[troubledamerican]

44. Demoralized

Farewell, Dennis

[Ean Juan]

47. I was expecting DK to get concessions in exchange for his switch

But he got nothing whatsoever, unfortunately. No P.O., no Medicare buy-in, etc.

[KoKo]

57. We don't know what he might have gotten. This bill is such a mess we

won't find out all the loopholes and changes until the fine print comes out after it's signed. Probably there were bribes and perks in there, too.

[change_notfinetuning]

49. This is not to let the media off the hook, but I do put more blame on the

electorate. We all have the same choices to educate ourselves, and millions of people, including many DUers, have the flick. The media deserves a good portion of the blame, but the majority of Americans really don't want to make the effort to be informed. For half of them, voting itself is too much trouble. And for those who do vote, a certain percentage will vote for the first name listed, for no other reason than it's first.

So while I would love to see media reform, the return might be not all that much. Getting those who don't vote to vote will do much more for our democracy than trying to sway the minds of those who already do. And the best media you can imagine cannot succeed without campaign finance reform, because only then, with those elected having to answer to the voters instead of contributors, might the public feel that their votes matter and make the effort to become politically literate.