The media’s response to Obama’s remarks about the mosque is a beautiful parallel to their response to the Arizona immigration bill.
The AZ bill said that it would apply only in limited circumstances. The media reported that it was a profiling law. AZ explicitly eliminated profiling. The media reported that it was a profiling law.
Obama said Muslims had a right to build a mosque. The media reported that he supported building it. Obama said he supported the right to build. The media reported that he supported building it.
It is not just freedom of religion that cannot choose whom it protects. Freedom of the press is stuck too.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It’s not what you say that counts it’s what people hear. At a function marking Ramadan Kareem, in front of a Muslim group, referencing a sensitive issue “O” said”I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.” What did the audience hear!
ReplyDeleteYou are correct. The press did not report what “O” said. They reported what he communicated. In addition the press seldom noted that he was addressing a Muslim group which does change the flavor of his remarks.
Wayne, you are either too rational (yes, I said that) or too naive re: Obama's comment. Saying that he favors the RIGHT to build is virtually the same as saying he supports building, certainly in the minds (emotions as well) of the vast majority of the electorate. Since when is democracy based upon reason alone? Should it be? What are the pitfalls of strict logic when it comes to the democratic process. I admire your logic but think it "unreasonable".
ReplyDeleteI was talking about the appropriateness of the media’s handling of the two cases. Whether Obama should have entered that field in that way is another matter. (I will say no - later.)
ReplyDeleteI agree that the media should report what the audience hears. But they should report that as what is heard. They should not report it as what is said. When they describe the difference between the two as “parsing his words”, then they are confusing the two.
I think that there is a big difference between supporting a right to an activity and supporting the activity itself. I think that anyone who has ever been a member of a church which was building a new house of worship knows the difference between supporting their right to do it and supporting their doing it! Seriously though, I support your right to burn an American flag as an exercise in symbolic free speech, but I would never recommend it.
To your point about media coverage. After O’s later comments that he was commenting on the RIGHT to build not the WISDOM to build the media is now reporting WITH PRECISION on his comments. So let’s give them credit for that.
ReplyDeleteAs for O’s statement that he would NOT comment on the WISDOM of building the mosque I offer this quote from Dante - “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality”
To stay above the fray on this one is the equivalent of voting “present”
I think I can understand how the media got confused on this one. I'll take it as self-evident that, as Wayne said, many people can appreciate the difference between supporting a right to an activity and supporting the activity itself.
ReplyDeleteBut I have not heard a single person, either before or after O's comment, contend that Muslims do not have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else. Nor have I heard a single person contend that that right does not include the right to build a place of worship on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. The entire debate, at least that I have heard, has been about supporting or opposing the activity -- not supporting or opposing the right to the activity.
So when O appeared to enter this debate but talked about the right to build the mosque, rather than what everyone else was talking about, he created a straw man by implicitly mischaracterizing one side's position. There's only one reason for O to do that: he's on the other side. And the "other side" supports building the mosque there.
So I can why the media reported that O supports building the mosque there.
Yes they are "parsing" it better now. But that is like closing the barn door after the horse is long gone. As you said in the first comment it is what people hear that counts and they have already heard what the media told them.
ReplyDeleteI like the Dante quote. I’m not sure how long you have to have gone before you have “maintained” your neutrality, but it is still pretty early in this case. These folks have not even raised any money yet. In any event I’ll call your quote with: “Discretion is the better part of valor.”
Comment 6 was goes with comment 4. This one goes with 5.
ReplyDeleteI was disappointed to see that Newt Gingrich claims that they don’t have a right to put it there. According to politico: Gingrich then went on to claim that “we would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor.”
“There is no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center,” he said.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41112.html#ixzz0x7dWy2cn
By choosing this particular analogy Newt seems to go all the way to saying that the 9-11 terrorists represent Islam.
Newt's comment is disappointing. Nazis DO have the right to protest next to the Holocaust Museum. And the Japanese have the right to put up a site near Pearl Harbor. And the KKK has a right to march in the streets of Skokie, Illinois.
ReplyDeleteI think Charles Krauthammer is reading this blog, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/19/AR2010081904769.html.
I don't think that the Japanese government has a the right to put up something next to Pearl Harbor.
ReplyDeleteSo if the Japanese government attempted to rent a billboard that is visible from the entrance to the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center parking lot, and that billboard said something to the effect of the Americans killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor deserved to die, you think Congress would have the constitutional authority to pass a law prohibiting that billboard? What if, instead of the Japanese government, it was an American citizen who rented the billboard?
ReplyDeleteAn American is, of course, different. But I would think that a foreign government would not be able to do anything inside any country without the permission of that country's government. In this case probably it would be the Executive Branch that would refuse. Broadcasting into a country could not be prohibited.
ReplyDelete