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Category: Media (Page 12 of 16)

Barack Obama supports stronger dollar, Wall Street Journal cheers

August 8, 2008 /

This interesting news comes courtesy of the Wall Street Journal editorial page:

The underreported economic news of the week is that Barack Obama favors a stronger dollar. Even better, he thinks a stronger greenback would help to reduce oil prices.

That at least is what the Democratic Presidential candidate told a town hall forum in Parma, Ohio, on Tuesday. “If we had a strengthening of the dollar, that would help” reduce fuel costs, he said, according to a Reuters dispatch ignored by most of the media.

Barack Obama won’t get many cheers from the Wall Street Journal, but he’s completely right about the dollar. Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t stressed the dollar issue more. It’s hard to think of a more powerful symbol of American decline under George W. Bush than the destructive and embarassing devaluation of the dollar.

The value of the dollar and the turmoil in the Middle East are two important factors in the rise in oil prices. Yes, increased demand is also part of the problem, but everything costs more if the dollar declines in value, the the sabre rattling with respect to Iran and the fiasco in Iraq have also driven up prices.

Now we have some Republicans crowing that oil is down to $120 per barrel now that they are talking about drilling. That’s beyond ridiculous. The bubble in oil occured under the “watch” of a Republican president who promised to control oil prices.

Obama needs to pound this theme of the value of the dollar. It’s the easiest way to explain why we need a change.

Media, President 2008

Cable news hysteria

August 7, 2008 /

The media hit a new low last week when Dana Milbank of the Washington Post reported a Barack Obama quote from a second-hand source which portrayed Obama as a self-absorbed fool who has become completely full of himself. Unfortunately, the quote was taken completely out of context, as Obama was answering a question about the big crowds and explaining it wasn’t about him at all. It was actually a humble statement.

Naturally, before the entire quote was finally reported, the media went crazy. The “arrogance” theme became the talking point of the day on every cable channel. Anyone who thinks MSNBC is in the tank for Obama needs to watch this video from Talking Points Memo.

It’s hard to find a better example of what’s wrong with cable news. They need to fill 24 hours each day, and they need to keep this race interesting to keep the lofty ratings they generated during the Obama/Clinton battles. They’s jump on anything to create a storyline for the day. It’s pathetic.

Media, President 2008

David Gregory is incompetent

August 6, 2008 /

If NBC decides to hive David Gregory the Meet the Press gig after the election, all their leaders should be fired. I just watched him interview Rudy Giuliani, and his interview skills were pathetic. Giuliani was able to recite all his bullshit talking points attacking Obama, and not once did Gregory challenge Giuliani’s statements. He had some tough questions prepared regarding McCain’s flip on taxes, but he was totally incapable of challenging statements from Giuliani that were completely untrue.

Regardless of whether the guest is an Obama or McCain supporter, the interviewer should never let them get away with making false claims about the other side. Giuliani claimed that Obama had ruled out nuclear power (false) and that Obama was not being specific on his energy proposals (total BS).

Gregory just sat there and then moved on to the next question. He had his own list of questions for the interview, and all he cared about was getting through his own checklist. What a lame performance.

Media, President 2008

Useless Newsweek polls

July 12, 2008 /

Several weeks ago, Newsweek had Obama up by 15 points. Compared to other polls, it seemed way off based. As expected, the next Newsweek poll shows a much tighter race at 3 points, which is more consistent with other national polls. Of couse, Newsweek wonders what happened over the last several weeks. This fits into their narrative that Obama’s appeal might be fading.

They might want to take a look at the methodology of their poll. The weighting between Democrats and Republicans over the two polls were very different, along with weighting for other democgraphic factors. Naturally, if you include more Republicans in the second poll, you will show a much different margin.

This is a tough year to conduct polls, as the breakdown between Democrats and Republicans is very hard to predict. That breakdown has a huge impact on polling results.

What’s strange is that Newsweek would release polls with very different weightings and then draw conclusions from the poll that don’t take these weightings into account. This is another example where blogs do a much better job of reporting facts than the mainstream media.

Media, Polls, President 2008

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