The passing of Tim Russert is a sad event in American Government. The media’s job is to challenge politicians on their words. No one does that better then Tim Russert. In fact, few do what Russert did. We are entering a dangerous age of journalism, and therefore, politics and government.

The pace of media has quickened. I am in radio, so you’d think that all I’d need to do is confer with sources and read as much as possible to prepare for the show. But as we enter this age, I need to write blogs, post podcasts, record and edit video. They all have to be different, and the content needs to be fresh. All of this takes time. It takes time to create, organize and promote YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook pages. It takes time to map things out, write out bits, record and edit them. The uploading takes forever.  But it all is necessary because other news outlets do it. You have to compete to remain relevant.

There are less people to do these things, because the media business sucks. A reporter, radio personality, or TV producer has more and more to do. As a result of all of this, the more time a media person spends on the content delivery, the more watered down the content becomes.  The pay is shrinking, so the quality of person behind the reports is lessened.

Today’s media will have less time to prepare for interviews. There are fewer reporters with less time to ask hard questions.

Because of the large amount of work to do, and the amount of information to process, many members of the media choose the angle of the story based on their conversations with the other members of the media, not the subject of the story. That is why you hear the same story angle in almost every major media’s (TV, Newspaper, Radio) report. The reporters all fish for a good sound bite. Some members of the local media don’t like that Abdul and I play the entire press conference. Guess Why? It exposes the lack of tough questions, and shows the fishing they do.

The subject (Politician, Movie Star, Sports Figure) are happy to oblige because they want to get on with their life. They don‘t need to prepare for any sort of tough question, because the reporters will all ask the same thing. They just need different versions of the sound bite. If they flip-flop, who cares! The reporters won’t notice, and the listener/reader/viewer is too busy to care.

So you turn to blogs and other forms of “new media” for a different point of view. They are advocates for their cause, and tailor their information to the message.

In fact, Advocacy Journalism will start to dominate the old media because it’s different. There is something that resembles humanity in their reporting. It doesn’t insult the listener/reader/viewer’s intelligence.

I’ll let you comment on the end result of all of this. (Actually, aren’t we seeing it? Isn’t our government dramatically failing us?)

Tim Russert was loved because he was a human being. He didn’t insult the viewer’s intelligence. He was prepared. He was everything a journalist should be, and something modern media should aspire to be.

Ronald Reagan did not believe in third parties. He believed that a person should choose a party that most closely identifies with a person’s beliefs and values. For myself, that is the Republicans. But what happens when a party loses its way? The Republican sins of big government are too numerous to mention for the last eight years. The largest sin is hypocrisy. Because while they commit their sins, they admonish and preach.

Ths occurs in two ways:

1. Larry Craig, Mark Foley, and David Vitter. Enough said.

2. “We are the party of limited government.” Then they vote on every spending bill they possibly can. Bush did not veto a bill until it was time to protect the unborn.

Then came Ron Paul. A person who walks the walk in addition to talking the talk. But because he opposes the war, he is considered a radical and his supporters kooks. But many Classic Liberals, Libertarians, and thinking Conservatives flocked to his message. They are hungry for their party to actually do what it says.

Freedom is the buzz word of the Bush administration and the current Republican Party.

But try to open debate on the party platform or the party talking points, and you are immediately shut down. Try to vote for a candidate that is not the party’s chosen candidate, and they will remove you ability to make that choice. Delegate status removed. Party Chairmen replaced. Rules illegally changed.

Freedom.

So what is a grassroots or regular member of a party supposed to do when their party loses its way? There are a couple of things they can do. A member of a party is punish it by sitting out elections. Large-Scale losses in a party cause a purging of the establishment. When John Kerry lost big in 2004, many of the Clinonistas were tossed out of the DNC. They were replaced by the more radical Howard Dean section of the party.

Or they can switch to a third-party. To you disillusioned Republicans, take a look at the Libertarians. There are more of us moving to a party that actually will practice what it preaches. Third-Parties aren’t as much fun as the big two. There is not as much free pizza, the signs are not as flashy, and the T-Shirts aren’t as nice. But maybe democracy and good government are not about those things.

P.S. The Democrats have the same shenanigans going on.

Here is a letter from a listener, with my response below. If you have any agreements, disagreements, comments or questions, please email me at cspangle@newstalk1430.com. I’d love to have an argument with you.

Chris,

Thank you for the great work you do and your commentary on the show. I am sure you have your hands full and a guy writing in to semi challenge you on something is the last thing you need. I promise this isn’t Larry.

This morning you mentioned and I apologize for not having the text on this. I believe you were asked if we pulled out of the Middle East or Iraq that “they”, radical Islam would stop hating us. Your answer was yes.

The United States has been hated by this group for our support of Israel. Additionally they don’t like us, as you correctly stated, because of our involvement in their world. However, as long as we support and recognize Israel, as I feel we should, radical Islam will continue to target us even if we removed ourselves 100% from any Arab country. I do agree with you that foreign policy present and past has stirred the pot, could it be or have done better, hind sight is always 20/20.

Unfortunately it is difficult to rationalize with those that are irrational.

Thank you again for the work you do, you make my commute from Greenwood to Carmel enjoyable every morning.

Best Wishes,

Brent

My Response:

Brent,

While I was once firmly for the war, I have changed my views on our foreign policy. I don’t believe that we should have invaded Iraq. We invaded a sovereign for nothing. It was clearly not a war for oil, as the left said. Some Libertarian-minded thinkers see this as an imperialistic war. Other than debt and the loss of our service men and women, what have we really gained? We didn’t get new lands to tax. We aren’t directly in control of their government. They have no resources to trade at the moment. (Oil production can’t really be counted yet.)

This was a sovereign nation not invading another for its land or bounty, but for security. The Bush doctrine is essentially that if we go in to Iraq and confront al Qaeda directly, their “soldiers” will rush to Iraq to fight us there. That is precisely what has happened.

But what the right, and the Bush Administration, seem to think is that the Islamic Radicals will run out of men to send in to fight. There are a billion Muslim men to fight. The Germans ran out of men, and had to invade other countries to supply the army ranks. The terrorists can always recruit more men to fight. And the more involved we become in Middle Eastern affairs, the angrier the populations in those countries become.

They never hated us because of our freedom. They probably don’t hate us because of our culture. They DEFINITELY hate us because we meddle in their governments for our own purposes. And now their hatred is deeper because we are killing their countrymen, their brothers, their sisters, their fathers, and their friends. Yes, our support of Israel puts us on their radar screens, but it is not the reason for 9/11. Bin Laden is angry that we have military bases in Saudi Arabia, the home of Mecca and Medina. He believes our presence in his holy land profane.

The more countries we invade, the worse the terror threat will become. The answer is not more militarism in the Middle East, it is less. They will not stop hating us if we leave the Middle East. It is not a cure-all. But it would stop the inflammation. Radical Islam and terrorism is not a disease America can cure. It will now be with us always. Unfortunately, the more we try to treat this disease, the more aggressive the disease will become.

Thanks for listening,

Chris

You’d think Scott McClellan was at Hitler’s birthday party over the weekend. The cries of, “I don’t know this man!” are coming from every Conservative corner. You’d think Scotty clicked his heels, raised his hand, and yelled, “Heil!”

A caller this morning said that this book should never have been able to be written. I then commented that maybe it should be burned! A joke of course, but meant to finish that line of thinking. Every book should be able to be written. It is up to the reader and book buyer to decide whether or not they will read or buy it.

A listener wrote me, and said that I as rude and disrespectful to the caller when I said that throw-away line. Was I wrong? Please comment. I don’t think I was.

Books shouldn’t be written. Lines that expose dangerous thinking should not be spoken. Pundits who disagree should lose their radio and television shows. Dissent should be silenced. This is un-American, and there is nothing wrong with pointing that out.

Onward:

-Bill O’Reilly had it right tonight: McClellan said Bush mishandled Katrina. Right. Bush used propoganda to sell the Iraq war. Right… Scooter and Turd Blossom conspired over the Valerie Plame case. Forgive me if I am bored. No big story here.

- Here are the story lines in the McClellan story:

On the left - The biggest liar in the administration after Bush, Rove and Cheney was McClellan. Now he is a great truth teller.

On the right - This is not the faithful soldier we knew, so it has to be that the publisher wrote it. They found McClellan, seduced him with 30 pieces of silver, and he put his name on it.

Either way, this is a dangerous man that should not be listened to.

I take the O’Reilly approach. There is not much of a story here.

Peggy Noonan on the dying GOP: http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

They are also - Hill leaders, lobbyists, party speakers - successful, well-connected, busy and rich. They never guessed, back in ‘86, how government would pay off! They didn’t know they’d stay! They came to make a difference and wound up with their butts in the butter. But affluence detaches, and in time skews thinking. It gives you the illusion you’re safe, and that everyone else is. A party can lose its gut this way.
Many are ambivalent, deep inside, about the decisions made the past seven years in the White House. But they’ve publicly supported it so long they think they . . . support it. They get confused. Late at night they toss and turn in the antique mahogany sleigh bed in the carpeted house in McLean and try to remember what it is they really do think, and what those thoughts imply.
And those are the bright ones. The rest are in Perpetual 1980: We have the country, the troops will rally in the fall.
“This was a real wakeup call for us,” someone named Robert M. Duncan, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the New York Times. This was after Mississippi. “We can’t let the Democrats take our issues.” And those issues would be? “We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives,” he continued. Why not? Republicans pretend to be conservative every day.

We spoke earlier this morning about disorganization amongst the Clintons, and I referenced this book:

Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House
Author: Gary Aldrich

Mike Kole, former Libertarian candidate for S.O.S., has a good blog on Operation Chaos.

Read it here: http://www.kolehardfacts.blogspot.com/

Here is a taste:

“OK, so it’s no dilemma for those who refrain from participating in Primary Elections on the basis of these elections essentially being the private business of the political parties, and not a genuine public function. The basis for this position in some areas?

All Indiana primaries are closed primaries. This means you have to choose either a Democratic or Republican ballot. For instance, there is no Libertarian ballot. There is no independent or non-partisan ballot. The “offices” being voted on include Precinct Committeeman and Delegate to the Party Convention. Primary info from the Secretary of State’s office.”

Click on the link to see Abdul on Fox News!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koVMl734YVU

Indiana has the pleasure of actually mattering in this Election year. Earlier in the month, Barack Obama visited Plainfield High School. Hillary Clinton visited Ben Davis High School this past Saturday. WXNT producer Chris Spangle covered both and here are his impressions:

Both gyms are of equal size. Both Schools opened space for overflow. Senator Obama filled the entire gym and the auxillary gym used for overflow two hours before the event. Senator Clinton did not have anyone in the auditorium used for overflow. She did not fill the entire main gym. There were at least 50 seats empty out. I’d estimate that 3,000 showed up for Obama, and 2,000 for Clinton.

Both candidates brought a proportionate amount of Indianapolis’s ethnic make-up. There were members of all races, colors, creeds, and religions at these events. Economically, Obama brought more middle-class and upper-class listeners. Clinton had more working-class and union members.

Crowd Reaction: Both crowds were very enthusiastic for their candidate. Surprisingly, Hillary’s crowd cheered more intensely. Could be the building, but they were louder and more fervent. The crowd leaving Obama’s event was more positive on the Senator, and more upbeat. I heard a mixed reaction from the crowd exiting Clinton’s event. Some were inspired, some were calling B.S.

Message: Obama was more a message of hope and unity. It was meant to inspire. Hillary’s was more intellectual. The speech was mostly that the G.O.P. has left the country a disaster, and asking the crowd to remember how wonderful it was under her husband. The job will be hard, but she is the only one to fix it. Obama was more upbeat, saying that while we have problems, they aren’t anything Americans can’t overcome. I won’t say Clinton wasn’t positive, but I did have a looming sense of doom if I didn’t take her advice and elect her.

Campaign Staff: The Obama event was very structured. Press had to register online the day before. Clinton had open press. Obama had three press agents there greeting the press, helping them set up. They also had student ambassadors to keep the press in their spot, and to assist with questions about the school. The two or three hours that I was there, I didn’t meet one member of the Clinton team. No one introduced themselves or asked if I needed assistance. Now, in fairness, the Clinton Camp is doing a lot of stops in a short amount of time, which needs a lot of logistical support and planning. That could have been why there seemed to be a lack of staff wandering around.

P.S.  Superdelegate Andre Carson spent a few moments with Barack Obama when he visited earlier this month. He also attended Obama’s speech. Congressman Carson was not present at Senator Clinton’s speech.