Saturday, May 16, 2009
Fear of special interests
David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s campaign manager, who continues to organize and try to raise money, popped into my inbox this morning to ask for $25 to fight the healthcare swiftboaters:
We knew healthcare reform would face fierce opposition—and it’s begun. As we speak, the same people behind the notorious “swiftboat” ads of 2004 are already pumping millions of dollars into deceptive television ads. Their plan is simple: torpedo healthcare reform before it sees the light of day by scaring the public and distorting the President’s approach.
He doesn’t come right out and name the “same people”, though, and it reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to explore. Public discourse of special interests usually is very vague. Politicians are chickenshits about it—all but the most liberal. So are the media—all but the most liberal.
As an example of a media outlet that won’t come right out and say who’s working behind the scenes, take MSNBC. It’s playing to the current leftward mood in the air, and making some interesting choices for new programs, ramping up the rhetoric as the clock approaches midnight, like a pop radio station that rocks harder after 7 p.m. But you know what MSNBC could never afford to do? My pet pipedream format for telling what forces are really operating in the public sphere.
I see it as a TV news program, but it could be a blog or a magazine or a comic book or an on- or offline radio program. It’s organized around issues and interests and it tells the truth about businesses and other organizations who lobby for issues on all sides (sometimes there are more than two sides, contrary to all popular wisdom).
The format is really simple: This is the issue; these lobbies are for it because x; these lobbies are against it because y; these groups are silent because z. I think such a structure would tend to tease out truth.
It would be so refreshing. When have you ever known an interviewer to ask “Who’s lobbying you for this, and why do they say they want it, and why do you think they really want it?” Never happens. Is there a gentleman’s agreement that it would be just too gauche? I think there must be. You didn’t see Dick Durbin getting complimented on his courage when he said banking interests own the Senate. Rather the opposite; I sensed commentators looking the other way, nervously, as though Durbin had a tail of toilet paper spilling out from the back of his pants.
If the issue is energy, the oil companies don’t get to come on or send their surrogates to tell about their commitment to wind power, because they’re not very committed to it. That’s why MSNBC would never make this show. The network depends on energy and pharma advertisers with their messages calculated to persuade me how much they care about saving the planet and about people who can’t afford their prescriptions.
Instead of a format like my pipedream, we get vagueness all around. We’re fed an illusion of the inside story with tales of the maneuvers of elected officials and their staffs, but rarely hear details about the influence of special interests, only amorphous generalities. I’m hungry for some blunt talk. I’d watch or read, and so would others who’d like to know what actually happens in Washington and other centers of power.
(I wonder if many Obama supporters are still responding to donation pleas. I was moved to give my little bits during the campaign, but feel slightly put off by the appeals now.)
—but I couldn’t recall another such partnership. Pairing public interest internet outlets with mainstream media on certain big stories could be one answer to the big whining question that always arises out of discussions about the decline of newspapers: “Who’s going to do the important, time-consuming investigative legwork? [snort!] Bloggers?”