The Poor Know Times are Tough

I didn't watch all of John McCain's speech Thursday night. Greater minds than mine will decide if he convinced the American public that the best people to clean up the mess Republicans have left this country in are....Republicans! In the meantime,, as people slog their way out of St. Paul and prepared for the 60 day fight to come, I've been observing how America's slumping economy is hurting people on the ground. It isn't pretty.

New York City is supposed to be in better shape than the rest of the country as far as economic health goes. The mortgage mess has hurt, but not as badly, and city government prepared for the downturn by trimming its sails a bit. Yet twice during the past month, I've seen evidence with my own eyes that people, just plain folks, are struggling.

I wait for the bus after work on a midtown Manhattan corner. Usually the wait is about ten minutes. Three weeks ago, I saw a couple who looked like typical New Yorkers walk up to a box of fast food chicken left on top of a mound of garbage. I didn't give it a second thought until I saw them empty the box's contents into a bag they were carrying. Now maybe they were collecting scraps for a family pet. I didn't think so at the time, but that's certainly possible. But then they got on the same bus I was riding, and didn't have money for either fare (they ended up riding for free). As they got off the bus in front of a fast food place, they began looking through the mound of garbage bags sitting outside. Keep in mind this couple didn't look like the typical "down and out" New Yorkers. They looked just like you and me.

Then, night before last, I saw an elderly woman at the same bus stop. This lady was dressed well enough to be mistaken for one of those Park Ave. matrons you read about in magazines. She was digging through a plastic bag full of garbage from a nearby restaurant. I realized after a minute she was collecting rolls that had just been discarded. Again, maybe she was going to feed pigeons the following morning. But then, after walking halfway down the block, she returned. She dug into a different garbage bag, and retrieved some other items, which I couldn't see. Then she walked to the corner, and began rummaging through the garbage can there before heading out of my sight.

After witnessing these two incidents, I've concluded there are more people living at the margins in our society than any politician would care to admit. I'm not sure there's any solution to the problem of hunger at a political convention. Speeches and applause don't feed anyone.

I wonder how those people I saw are feeding themselves today?

Was Palin Really That Good?

Sarah Palin had her night in the spotlight at the RNC. Predictably, the last thing I heard before changing the channel was from a cable network commentator gushing, "A star was born tonight"! Oh really? I found Gov. Palin's speech to be nothing less than a passionless, scripted, superficial string of half truths, outright falsehoods, and rehashed attacks on Barack Obama.

She spent nearly the first ten minutes of it introducing her family, which may have been to lower her unfamiliarity quotient. Then then droned on and on, pausing for applause that seemed clearly manufactured. She mentioned foreign countries without once mentioning world leaders. If she spent the previous 48 hours rehearsing a speech she didn't write, it showed.

As for her attacks on Obama, those too rang hollow. She said he wants to expand government, hinted he'd rather be president than achieve "victory" in Iraq (she, like her GOP colleagues, never say what victory is), and attacked his vision as a "cloud of rhetoric". Yeah, but at least there's a reasonable chance he wrote his own speech. She mentioned Al-Qaeda, but never Osama bin Laden, her party's most glaring and continuous failure. And still, through all this, most media acted like she walked on water in St. Paul last night.

That's because many of my colleagues in the press had been rocked back on their heels by McCain campaign attacks. All those pesky questions about vetting, teen pregnancy, earmarks, support for the "bridge to nowhere", all the stuff we liberals in the media ask about to the exclusion of focusing on Sarah Palin's son, who's about to be deployed to Iraq. Or her love of mooseburgers. When the media is attacked, it often backs up and fawns over the attacker. So it was last night, and probably through the news cycle today.

Sarah Palin can't hide forever, though. Soon she'll actually have to talk to the media, even if it is Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. Soon we'll learn if all those lessons about Kim Jong Il and Nicholas Sarkozy and Hugo Chavez actually stuck in her mind.

Is Sarah Palin the real thing? You tell me.

Fact and Opinion, Do You Know the Difference?

I was doing a little channel surfing, and came across a C-Span show where Michel Martin, host of the NPR program "Tell Me More" was talking to a group of young people. She was making a point that more adults ought to pay attention to, something that's been bothering me ever since I saw an ad for Rush Limbaugh which referred to him as America's most trusted anchorman. There is an increasingly blurred line between journalism and punditry. In fact, as Michel Martin told those youngsters, shows like "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" are treated by some as actual news programs.

This of course perplexes the hosts of both these programs, as that was never their intent. They're comedians, not journalists. But where does it end? Some have taken issue with MSNBC's decision to allow Keith Olberman to anchor their coverage of the political conventions. Olberman's regular show is full of opinion, and it's often a joy to watch. But does that make him an anchor? MSNBC isn't the only culprit here. Fox News seems to have deliberately blurred the line between news and opinion, with its newspeople often making no bones about where they stand on certain issues.

Yet what fascinated me about the discussion I saw on C-Span was my own situation. I was trained as a journalist, meaning I was to keep my own opinion out of the stories I covered. Back in the day, our politics could be discerned primarily by the stories we chose to cover, that is, stories the mainstream media ignored. Still, for the past quarter century, I've been paid to express my opinion, to inform, to analyze, and tell people where I stand. In other words, I'm a journalist and commentator. There are times I'm not comfortable with wearing both hats.

However, take a look at CNN's Lou Dobbs (full disclosure- I've been on his show). He began as a business reporter, and has morphed into something very different (and far more lucrative). And one supposes there's nothing wrong with that.

Or is there? Do you know the difference between a journalist and a commentator? Can one person do both?

Bristol Palin's Pregnancy: Off Limits?

The conventional wisdom is nothing is off limits in a political campaign. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin must know this. That's why she and Sen. John McCain will try to ride out the media storm created by the revelation that her 17 year old daughter Bristol is pregnant. Sen. Barack Obama says his campaign won't make an issue of Bristol's situation. He doesn't have to. The media will do it for him. Suffice to say this will be the most closely watched teen pregnancy this side of jamie Lynn Spears. She's going to marry the father, a self described redneck and hockey buff named Levi Johnston.

That's all well and good, but the question the McCain campaign must now answer is whether his choice for vice president was properly vetted beforehand. There are rumors the timeline of his choice and the issue of when he knew about the pregnancy make a thorough vetting unlikely. There's the added question of the probe into Gov. Palin's alleged abuse of authority in hiring a top police official who wouldn't fire her former brother in law. The public is being asked to believe McCain knew about both these things, but decided to go forward anyway.

Back to Bristol Palin. One reason why this story won't go away is her mother's position on birth control (she's against it) abortion (against, even in the case of rape), and sex education in schools (not a big fan). Yes, one can say children should be off limits in a political campaign, but remember Bristol's pregnancy was revealed in part to stop rumors that her recently born brother was actually hers. Maybe the 24 hour cable news operations will actually respect the couple's right to privacy from here on. Maybe the blogosphere has better things to do than follow this thing right through to the election.

Both possible, but unlikely. In a couple of days, Hurricane Gustav will be off the front pages and breaking news blurbs. The Republican National Convention only lasts a few more days. Then the real race for president starts.

Will the media leave Bristol Palin alone? You tell me.