Birther Pangs

CNN's Anderson Cooper vs. an Obama birther, Texas GOP state Rep. Leo Berman. Cooper wins, to put it mildly.

Ellmers' Glue

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for this paste wad contest between CNN's Anderson Cooper and Renee Ellmers, the Palin-backed Republican candidate in North Carolina's second congressional district who's trying to rescue her sagging campaign against Rep. Bob Etheridge with a commercial equating Muslims with terrorists.

I don't think Cooper did as well as Sullivan suggests. He didn't push hard enough when Ellmers refused to rule out the possibility that Cordoba House's Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf himself was a terrorist. Then he let her get under his skin by accusing him of being anti-religion. Near the end, she goes right over the top by saying that the residents of her district are "Christian people," insulting every non-Christian in North Carolina and the country. Lamely, Cooper just asked if she wanted Muslims' votes. I'd say that's a big no. Jews need not turn out, either.

Afterward, Cooper whined about how mean she was. It was a tie until then, but when you have to get the last word after your subject's camera's been turned off, it means you lost. What the confrontation makes you understand is that if a person has no shame and is willing to say whatever is necessary to win and get power, you can't argue or reason with her. Cooper may believe it's his job to stay neutral and get the facts. But at what point does the obligation to speak truth against ignorance and prejudice take precedence? What if she had said her district consisted of "white Christians"? We'd demand that he denounce her as a bigot. Isn't what she did say also false and incendiary and therefore just as bad?

RCP says the district's still leaning Etheridge's way, but this year, no one can tell.

Nixbamian

Odd to have Nixon administration and campaign veterans such as Lamar Alexander and Karl Rove calling Obama Nixonian. As a matter of fact, the charge manages to disserve both Presidents.

As MK notes in a comment here, President Nixon's media strategy was more discerning than most remember. That being said, as Joe Conason reminds us, RN's aides John Dean and Chuck Colson accumulated the names of his administration's critics for what became known as the enemies list. Dirty tricks were never justified. But Conason doesn't point out that President Nixon had inherited a war that was much more complex and costly than Afghanistan while trying to govern in a far more hostile global, political, and media environment. While Nixon critics like to say that his abuses of power were sui generis, so too was the poisonous temperament of his times. Obama's party controls Congress. Nixon's did not. Obama has Fox overtly against him. Nixon had most reporters and editors voting against him and some, at least, subtly prosecuting political agendas. Obama has tea parties. Nixon had firebombings, riots, efforts to shut down Washington, and Kent State. In his book In the Arena, Nixon took responsibility for inculcating a corrosive us-vs.-them mentality in the White House. Few if any of his often vicious ideological critics ever did the same.

By the same token, Conason is right that Obama's public posturing against Fox News isn't comparable to the Nixon administration's behind-the-scenes efforts to punish media adversaries for their perceived bias. In at least one sense, though, nothing has changed. Some who were put on the enemies list are still bragging about it. In the same spirit, most Fox personalities are cheerfully brazen about promoting Obama's demise. They make an incredibly tempting target, and now that Obama and his aides have aimed and fired, Fox couldn't be happier as it totes up its bolstered ratings.

Anderson Cooper probably compared Obama to Nixon to avoid the charge that CNN wasn't being fair and balanced. I don't think he believes it for a second. The media don't have it anywhere near as bad as they did under Nixon, and Obama doesn't have it anywhere near as bad as Nixon did.