Women Demanding Answers

Oct. 1, 2008
Posted by Jay Livingston

A month ago, I commented that US journalists seem reluctant to press politicians for answers. They ask a question, the politician gives an evasive response, and on to the next question. Or they will allow the politician to speak in generalities rather than insist on specifics.

During the Obama-McCain debate, poor Jim Lehrer couldn’t get either candidate to say how he’d scale back his proposals given the straitened economic circumstances he was sure to inherit. Lehrer was too polite to say point blank, “Here’s the question. Are you going to answer it or not?”

For some reason, it seems to be mostly women who are willing to speak bluntly and demand answers. It took a stand-up comic on a chat show for women (Joy Behar on The View) to tell McCain to his face that some of his ads were lies. And it was Campbell Brown, questioning a McCain adviser, who demanded specific examples of Sarah Palin's commander-in-chief decisions.

Here’s Katie Couric trying to get Palin to say whether human activities are the cause of global warming.



Here’s a transcript in case the video doesn’t play:

Couric: What’s your position on global warming? Do you believe it’s man-made or not?
Palin: Well, we’re the only Arctic state, of course, Alaska. So we feel the impacts more than any other state, up there with the changes in climates. And certainly, it is apparent. We have erosion issues. And we have melting sea ice, of course. So, what I’ve done up there is form a sub-cabinet to focus solely on climate change. Understanding that it is real. And …
Couric: Is it man-made, though in your view?
Palin: You know there are - there are man’s activities that can be contributed to the issues that we’re dealing with now, these impacts. I’m not going to solely blame all of man’s activities on changes in climate. Because the world’s weather patterns are cyclical. And over history we have seen change there. But kind of doesn’t matter at this point, as we debate what caused it. The point is: it’s real; we need to do something about it.

At another point, Couric asks her which newspapers and magazines she reads. Palin is deliberately vague, but Couric asks twice for specifics.



Transcript:

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?
Palin: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.
Couric: What, specifically?
Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.
Couric: Can you name a few?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, “Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?” Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

Palin’s supporters have been claiming that the press is out to get her. If they are, asking her questions and letting her speak for herself may be the best strategy.

Who's Calling Who a Nazi?

September 29, 2008
Posted by Jay Livingston

Brendan Nyhan excoriates Tony Blankley for a Washington Times article accusing the mainstream press of being propagandists for Obama. Blankley writes:

This is no longer journalism — it is simply propaganda. (The American left-wing version of the Volkischer Beobachter cannot be far behind.)

This is the kind of editing one would expect from Goebbels' disciples,

(Volkischer Beobachter was the official Nazi newspaper. Goebbels was the Nazi Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda .)

We can be outraged, but we can’t really be surprised. It’s Godwin’s law:

As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a
comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

It applies to other media, not just Usenet. Maybe it was Blankley, or maybe it was Rush ("feminazi") Limbaugh, or maybe it was my memory of William F. Buckley, Jr. on Firing Line, but I have the impression that people on the right are quicker on the draw here – more likely than liberals to whip out their Nazi weaponry. So I did a quick Google search pairing Nazi and Hitler with a few politicians. I figured that attacks on liberals would be more likely to invoke the big baddies.


I don’t know how Google’s algorithm works. I suspect the recent references carry more weight, hence the landslide victory for the current candidates, McCain and Obama. Even so, attacks on Obama were more likley to mention Nazis and Hitler than were attacks on McCain.

The big surprise was Bush. Only a relative handful of Internet writers paired him with the Third Reich. As recently as May, Bush himself was comparing Obama to those who had appeased the Nazis, so even though Bush was the one linking Obama to Nazis, articles about this incident would have turned up in a “Bush and Nazi” search.

In general, though, the data support my idea. Obama v. McCain, Gore or Kerry v. Bush. And former VP Al Gore, who hasn’t been in office or run for anything for eight years, still gets more Nazi/Hitler references than does current VP Dick Cheney.

Senator Obama and John

September 27, 2008
Posted by Jay Livingston

Maybe to Senator Obama it’s not a lot of money.
I don't know where John is getting his figures.
A lot of people might be interested in Senator Obama's definition of “rich.”
John, it’s been your president . . .who presided over this increase in spending.
Senator Obama still doesn’t quite understand.
And so John likes – John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007.

And so it went in last night’s Presidential debate.

“If my 76 year old mom is any indication,” wrote a commenter on a conservative blog, “Obama lost Florida tonight. She was very put off by Obama calling McCain ‘John’ over and over, while McCain never deviated from referring to ‘Senator Obama’.”

Obama’s choice of names for his opponent had to have been deliberate. As that last example shows, he called McCain “John” when he referred to him in the third person and when he addressed him directly. Had the Obama campaign run focus groups, done research? Were they afraid that calling him “Senator McCain” would be too deferential to the “experience” that McCain is making so much of? They must have known about the Floridians and thought it was worth the risk.

But where is the cutoff point? I’m old enough that I’m still surprised when people I don’t know at all, people much younger than I am, start right off addressing me by my first name. The telemarketer offering me new services, credit card reps I call about a problem with by bill, tech support in Bangalore. Machines too. I log in to some website where I’ve registered, a bank perhaps, and “Hi Jay, pops up cheerily on the screen.

Younger people apparently take this first-naming for granted and don’t give Obama’s use of “John” a second thought. Perhaps they are even put off by McCain’s formality, as though he were lecturing Obama on manners. (One focus group found McCain to be “condescending,” while Obama was more “caring.”). But where, between the twentysomethings and the septuagenarians in Florida and elsewhere does the preference shift from first name to Senator?

Filling in the Blanks

September 26, 2008
Posted by Jay Livingston

Sociology is about the social situation, about context, and how it shapes what people do, what they feel, what they see. The micro version is words. Show people cards with incomplete words

• S _ O R T
• R _ C E
• P O L I _ E
• S _ Y

Sport, Race, Police, Shy. That’s easy. Except if it’s an Asian woman showing the cards, people are more likely to see Short, Rice, Polite, Shy (why not Soy?).*

Which word you see depends on the cues in the immediate situation. It also dpends on your background, your expectations, your interests. Here’s a magazine whose graphics department thought they could afford to hide a few letters.


Those of us who do a lot of sewing would see instantly that the magazine is Butterick. But try showing it to your students. Or colleagues. They might fill in the blanks using a schema from some other (what’s the mot juste here?) background interest.

Me, I’ve just gotten the pattern for my Halloween costume. I figure I'll finish the basting next week, but the facing is going to require a lot of backstitching, and I just don't know how I'll manage.

* Gilbert, Daniel T. and Hixon, J. Gregory, “The trouble of thinking: Activation and application of stereotypic beliefs.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 60 (491, 509-517).

Hat tip to Doug at Photshop Disasters.