Tuesday, August 23, 2005

"Vacation" Update

Excellent article by Bob Cesca in the Huffington Post called Selfless and Unrelenting in the Face of ... Fun! which portrays the President's visit to Idaho as a trip to a luxury resort. We need to document more of this.

Friday, August 19, 2005

"Happy Birthday Social Security"

Just after his inauguration, the President began touring the country speaking about his plans to reform Social Security. This was the latest GOP attempt to scale back manditory contributions to this program, and given a chance to think about it, most Americans decided the program works well enough for people they know to leave it alone.

Last Sunday (the 14th) was the 70th anniversay of the establishment of Social Security and the Democrats threw a party! (Google has over 5,000 references.) There were cards to send your friends, events to attend, and speeches to listen to. Locally, I know of several parties that happened at senior centers.

I give this frame an A. Here's why:
  • Positive energy on a Democratic issue. Understanding issues is important, but there's more to life than thinking about bad stuff happening.
  • Connect people to family and community. This is really the Dems strong suit. The more we can connect people to the human family the more our positions make sense.
Suggestions for improvement:
My only suggestion is, "More"!

Larry Northern vs. Cindy Sheehan

On Monday, Aug. 15, Larry Northern, a neighbor of George W. Bush's in Crawford, TX, reportedly drove though a memorial that had been erected at "Camp Casey" -- the working name of Ms. Sheehan's encampment. The memorial was a field of white crosses, each bearing the name of a soldier killed in Iraq.

The left, already hard at work making Ms. Sheehan a True Democratic Icon (TM), are now working on making this encounter a perfect "Us vs. Them" tableau. One fine example here: Paul Begala writing at TPMCafe.

Notice that Begala uses the presence of crosses as a sign that the liberals are now turning to faith. Notice that a mom who lost one of her children in an occupation he chose is someone who has "given everything". Notice that Mr. Northern is a "right-wing thug" and a "gun nut."

I rate this frame F. Here's why:
  • It is a false belief that you can identify a liberal or a conservative by the symbols he or she associates with. There are Democrats who love NASCAR, who shop at Wal-Mart, and who love guns (Paul Hackett, Howard Dean, and John Kerry are among them).
  • Who among us when faced by people we don't know co-opting a symbol near and dear to our hearts for a cause we don't agree in doesn't long to take that symbol back?
  • Sheehan didn't react this way when encountering the same separation. There's the story of the soldier who came to confront her and after a private chat ended up hugging her.
Suggestions for improvement:

Let's honor her struggle. We have questions we want answers to too. Some of them may be her questions, but not all of them. It's not up to her to get the answers for all of us. Let's keep asking our questions in the most articulate, effective way we can and we may discover that we have more in common with the Larry Northerns of the world than we might have imagined.

"Fire Karl Rove"

I really want to see the end of Karl Rove. I want him out of the White House, away from the Republican party, and a safe distance from all despicable politicians everywhere. I have a fantasy that he'd be picked in one of those delightful detentions the administration is arranging with foreign governments... the ones where the charge won't stand up in a court of law here so the victim gets arrested in a country with a closed court system as a favor... Oh, anyway.

Karl Rove is one of a number of people who have been implicated in the publication of an undercover CIA operative's undercover name in a major US paper. Early in the investigation, the Administration assured the public that if the leak came from the White House, the leaker would be fired. This was probably overzealous spin on their part. Regardless of the event, the best line to take at the time would have been "they will be dealt with appropriately." You can promise a lynching, but there are many circumstances which make a lynching inappropriate.

Dems and progressives have been trying to sway public opinion by insisting the White House "Fire Karl Rove".

I rate this frame a C+. Here's why:
  • While it uses the President's image as a man of his word to get leverage, it focuses too narrowly on one person. Rove was the first person named by reporters who received the leak, he isn't the only one. And "Dump the White House Staff" is just impractical as a rallying cry.
  • By focusing so closely on Rove it reveals the degree to which he irritates those out of power. So this becomes a convenient excuse to get rid of a thorn. But the White House has no interest in winning the votes of people who have a problem with Rove.
  • Rove has been fired by two Bush administrations already. Once for leaking to Robert Novak. Clearly, firing him a third time isn't going to change anything.
Suggestions for improvement:

W. wanted his presidency to be in the same mold as Ronald Reagan's. Instead he's drifting closer to Richard Nixon's. Whether this turns out to be the "Iran-Contra Affair", a positive event for the GOP, or Watergate, which drove a generation of thinking voters to the Democrat column, has everything to do with spin. Focus on short-circuiting the spin.
  • At a time when we need foreign and domestic intellegence to be at full capacity, it destroyed the covert career of a dedicated, courageous, intellegent public servant.
  • It put her contacts at risk and compromised US intellegence sources.
  • It put her and her family at risk for retribution by foreign agents.
  • It was not essential to fighting the war on terror, it hampered our efforts to fight it more effectively.
Oh, and be especially wary of any puppy-dog-eyed agents of the administration testifying with cameras running.

"Vacation"

The president is on vacation at his Texas ranch. And war mom Cindy Sheehan has drawn attention to the vacation this year by camping out in the vicinity. (As I post, Ms. Sheehan is tending to her mother, who's had a stroke. You're in my thoughts, Cindy.) Democrats and Progressives are making hay of this by trying to make the case that a vacation is a time of leisure and during a time of war the president needs to be on the job.

I rate this frame a C-. Here's why:

It misunderstands the purpose of the vacation. By vacating Washington DC for a significant period each year, W. shows his solidarity with the legislatures of many rural states. These legislatures don't meet year round for several reasons:
  • Many members of the body are still tied to the land and need time away for farm or ranch-related tasks.
  • Many members of the body are proud that being a politician is a part-time job. When they work their "real job" they meet real people and are better able to represent their concerns.
  • A part-time body is seen as a more efficient body. It costs the taxpayers unnecessary dollars.
So, by taking his August vacation to "clear brush", "get out of Washington", and "meet with real people", the president is once again framing his image in ways that are comforting to his base. Attacking it as a vacation does not cause members of the base to pause.

Suggestions for improvement:
  • Attack it as a vacation of Leisure. (To do: Read a book [Very Hungry Caterpiller]. Go to church. Catch up with old friends [Ken Lay?])
  • Attack it as a vacation of Priviledge. Salon has called for calling the ranch an "estate" since it produces nothing.
  • Leave it alone. There are so many other important things to keep the focus on.