Last week the spotlight was on Barack Obama and whether he’s a liberal democrat who’s moved to the center or a centrist in sheep’s clothing. Most of the major news outlets—the LA Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal—covered what was described as Obama’s flip-flop, or near apostasy, on everything from campaign finance reform and trade to guns and the death penalty.
Tonight on GRITtv our weekly media roundtable examines what the media missed and why their coverage of Obama’s move to the right reveals a much deeper misunderstanding of the candidate and his politics and perhaps of American politics in general. Rinku Sen, publisher of ColorLines magazine and President of the Applied Research Center, says Obama may be a liberal democrat but he has never characterized himself as a left candidate. Find out here why the corporate media must decide whether Obama is a centrist or a crazy left-winger.
Also joining us are Herb Boyd, National Editor of The Black World Today, and David Lombino, city editor of the New York Sun. They discuss why Nader is talking to the Rocky Mountain News and how John McCain, a well off white man, became the underdog in this election.
And Election Day. Not 2008 but 2004. Laura interviews filmmaker Katy Chevigny, whose documentary film “Election Day” premiers on PBS tomorrow night. The film brings together the stories of American voters in a portrait of the U.S. election system that we haven’t seen before. These are the stories of everyday voters. Eschewing the kind of horse race coverage and amplification of the red blue divide favored by the mainstream media after 2000, “Election Day” provides a snapshot of the people who make our democracy work.
In this interview, Chevigny discusses how the film was made—all of the footage was shot on one day—whether problems encountered in 2000 and 2004 have been solved, and what needs to be done to improve the way we vote in this country.
Finally, a short video from Chris Hume’s Red State Road Trip #2, a report from the American News Project on the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment, and Toshi Reagon sings Heartbreak Hotel at grand275. All that and more on GRITtv.
There’s something deeper to Obama and his flip-flops we’re missing
then? I better go listen. I haven’t suspected anything deep from him yet… .
By Nettle on June 30th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I don’t see that anyone would say Obama wasn’t running as the candidate of the Left. which has curiously become synonymous with “progressive voters” despite our best efforts.
The Left, as an understanding, has moved so far to the right in the past twenty years its possible Obama could be considered a candidate of “The Left”, and they certainly trotted in behind him during the campaign to the chagrin of many of us, but c’mon. Those of you who say you’re “progressives” but now saying give Obama a break for his crappy views on everything – give us a break. Sure we may have to vote for the guy but there are better.
By Nettle on June 30th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Lots of posts here? The intent of the second amendment is stated by Jefferson. Read it….. BTW, the SJC’s ruling concerning the death penalty for pedophiles is wrong! Pedophiles who rape and torture children should be put down like rabid animals. Many Americans and Iraqis have died at the hands of fabricating fascist in the WH. Maybe they should meet the same fate as Saddam and pedophiles???
By JamesJoyce on July 1st, 2008 at 6:18 am
My response to Rinku Sen is that Nader has never cozied up to Arab Americans and made it seem that he was running as an Arab American. Maybe he should, but he hasn’t. Obama on the other hand has definitely made himself a black candidate. He has not shied away from identifying with black America. So when Obama starts ignoring the issues facing them, as he has been, it sure seems that he feels he already has their votes and can take them for granted. And it’s not as if he’s just ignoring them either, really, he’s actually voicing ideas that seem against the better interests of the black community, such as his opinion on the death penalty, on whom the death penalty is disproportionately used. And to defend him using the excuse that he’s always been pro-death penalty, far from making him seem more consistent, it makes you begin to wonder if the “centrist” garbage he’s been spewing to supposedly get votes really isn’t the way he really feels. You can’t have it both ways: either he’s taking bad positions in the short term to get elected and we should look at it strategically or a lot of liberals and progressives are fooling themselves. I tend to believe the latter.
By badbart on July 1st, 2008 at 11:03 am