Friday, August 6, 2004

Interview with an Editor

Here's an interesting chat with one of the better editors of comic books, Mike Gold.

• Posted at 11:11 PM · LINK

Book Report

One of my favorite political sites on the Internet — because they give it to both sides and play fair — is Spinsanity, run by Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan. In their spirit of utter honesty, I should confess that Ben has become a pal of mine but I was praising his site in my weblog before we ever met. I am only continuing that praise as I recommend a new book by those three folks, All the President's Spin, which is subtitled "George W. Bush, the Media and the Truth." It's a meticulously-researched, non-hysterical examination of statements that have been made by or about the current administration. As you might expect from the title, there are hundreds of examples where the authors quote Bush, Cheney, Powell or someone of that sort, then offer what seems like pretty solid proof that the statement is at least misleading and perhaps utterly wrong.

But this is not exactly a hit book on Bush — though anyone who wants to believe that he and his staff are honorable will probably think as much. There are plenty of places where Ben, Bryan and Brendan correct misstatements and misquotes of what Bush said, or point out the factual inaccuracies of his opponents. The cumulative effect creates a book that, to me, makes a pretty strong argument that no one who is currently front and center in the political world is above mangling the truth, and that the press does a spectacularly poor job of catching them when they do. (Equally appalling are the many cited instances where reporters either misquoted or excerpted a real quote in a way that distorted its meaning.) Since I like the website and agree with the premise of this book, I am happy to give it a glowing recommendation. Hell, I'll even go so far as to post this link via which you can order it from Amazon and — again, making full disclosure — give this site a small commission on the sale. This is a book with more integrity than anyone quoted within its pages.

I must add that it fueled an amazement that I have had for a long time about politics and the media. There's a saying in show business that some flops hurt you and some don't. In the same way, in the game of running for or serving in public office, there are some misstatements that harm and others that never embarrass their speakers. When Bill Clinton said that he'd tried marijuana but "didn't inhale," or when Al Gore said something that could be misinterpreted as "I invented the Internet," those quotes stuck. They went into the public vocabulary and were cited by their opponents not only as lies but as proof that there was something fundamentally, pathologically wrong with the men.

I thought those statements were, at worst, sloppy phrasing, something every public figure is guilty of from time to time. (You all saw Bush the other day saying, "Our enemies...never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." He didn't mean exactly what he said and Gore wasn't making the claim that his foes were able to convince many that he'd made.) I think political figures do lie or deceive, more often that we like to think...but somehow, Clinton and Gore got nailed for more-or-less accurate statements, and a lot of outright fibs went unreported. The Spinsanity book chronicles a lot of them, all more significant and clearly untrue than Gore's supposed "lie" that he was the model for the character in Love Story. Why do some untrue statements hurt and others don't? Beats the heck outta me. Anyway, order All the President's Spin and see if you can figure it out.

• Posted at 9:14 PM · LINK

Another Daily Show Gush

As you may well be sick of seeing me assert here, I think the smartest, cleverest show currently on television is The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. In the past, I have directed many of you to the Comedy Central website to view clips from the show...which I do despite the fact that said site is difficult to navigate and filled with banner ads that try to leave invasive cookies on your computer. It's also not easy to link to specific clips. When the site was shut for a while the other day, I hoped they were installing a new, more user-friendly layout but it was not to be. The main change they made seems to have been to switch most of their online videos from Real Player format to Windows Media Files...and it's still awkward to get to a clip and hard for me to send you directly there.

Nonetheless, I recommend making the effort for several clips from The Daily Show and its show-within-a-show election coverage, which they call "Indecision 2004." Many of the segments featured on this page are "web only" features, including a couple of pretty funny Lewis Black tirades you'll see nowhere else. A lot of so-called "real" news people seem to be increasingly uncomfy with the sentiment that a satire/spoof news show does a better job of covering things than they do. But in some ways, it's true.

Speaking of Lewis Black...one of the funniest things I've seen on TV in the last few weeks was his diatribe against government officials who want to criminalize the use of "certain words" on the airwaves. I can't figure out an easy way to link directly to it so go to this page and view the clip entitled "F.C.C. Crackdown." It's worth the trip.

• Posted at 3:06 PM · LINK

Another Website to Visit

My pal Bob Greenberger is a first-rate editor in the world of comics and a wise presence in many others. For some reason, he has thrown common sense to the breezes and joined the ranks of us webloggers.

• Posted at 1:52 PM · LINK

Watching the Vote

Not that I don't think things can't change a lot but I've been eyeing the various "electoral breakdown" maps around the Internet. The two I check most often are this one (which skews a bit Liberal) and this one (which trends Conservative). [WARNING: If you check both, note that the former uses blue for Democrats and red for Republicans, whereas the latter is the opposite.] At this very moment, the Liberal site has Kerry at 280 and Bush at 258, whereas the Conservative count has Kerry at 296 and Bush at 206. Interestingly, that's with the Liberal site putting Florida's 27 electoral votes in the Bush column and the Conservative site putting them in Kerry's. That shows you how arguable some of the polls can be...and how no one can properly count Florida.

• Posted at 10:04 AM · LINK

One More Thing...

I left this out of my previous piece on Ralph Nader. Every poll out there shows him with staggering negatives. The American Research Group survey, f'rinstance, has him with a 10% favorable rating and a 76% unfavorable rating. That's about how Saddam's polling these days.

Now, I certainly think it's possible to be in the right and to rack up a huge unfavorable rating. There's almost something heroic in sticking to your principles in spite of such numbers. I just don't think it's realistic to expect to accomplish much that's constructive.

• Posted at 9:26 AM · LINK