Tag: al gore
How The New York Times Covered (White Male) Veeps Before Kamala

How The New York Times Covered (White Male) Veeps Before Kamala

Reprinted with permission from PressRun

For anyone not convinced that the Beltway press is using a new double standard to cover Vice President Kamala Harris, and has subjected her to an unprecedented level of scrutiny, the proof is in the print.

Here is a sample of New York Times headlines from the daily’s coverage of white, male VPs, taken from their first year in office:

• “The Education of Dan Quayle

• “Cheney Ever More Powerful As Crucial Link to Congress

• “Speaking Freely, Biden Finds Influential Role

• “Amid White House Tumult, Pence Offers Trump a Steady Hand

And then there’s the Times’ recent Harris entry: “Kamala Harris’s Allies Express Concern: Is She an Afterthought?”

In the Times’ view, the white, male VP’s were “steady hands” with “influential” roles who were busy getting an “education” and “speaking freely.” Impressive, right? Harris, the first woman VP and first person of color in that historic role, might be an “afterthought” who, according to the Times article, is “falling short” and “struggling to define herself.”

There’s nothing subtle happening here, folks.

The Times’ recent take-down of Harris was the latest from the genre, as the press piles on. The Beltway media aggressively agrees there’s something wrong with the vice president, even though she’s fulfilling her duties exactly as she’s been asked to, and has represented the United States honorably on the global stage.

Still, there’s something not quite right, the media’s theater critics agree, as they put her vice presidency under the microscope in a way that’s never been done before. It all runs counter to how the press, and specifically the Times, covered previous VPs as they navigated their first year in office.

Just take a look.

“More than any vice president before him, Mr. Cheney has emerged as a supreme power broker within the Bush administration and between the White House and Capitol Hill,” was how the Timestoasted Dick Cheney’s arrival as VP in May 2001, in a puff piece that read like it was written by his communications staff: “As President Bush's consigliere, Mr. Cheney helps connect the dots for the administration as he zigzags all day long from hot-button issue to high-level meeting, discreetly imparting advice whenever his boss asks or needs to know.”

The newspaper’sMike Pence valentine from 2017 (co-written by Maggie Haberman) was just as effusive, as the Times tried to use Pence’s role in corralling votes for the GOP’s health care initiative at the time as the centerpiece of his administration involvement. But the White House lost that vote in spectacular fashion.

Can you imagine the Beltway coverage if Harris had served as a point-person for a crucial House vote and then lost it? I guarantee you the Times wouldn’t soon run a gentle piece describing her as “an effective wingman” the way the newspaper did with Pence after the White House’s botched health care vote.

According to the Times’ telling in 2017, Pence was practically running the West Wing, “sounding out lawmakers for inside information, providing the president with tactical counsel, quietly offering policy tweaks during negotiations.” That’s because Pence possesses “shrewd political intelligence,” according to the Times reporters, who made sure to harvest lots of glowing quotes from Pence’s pals for the piece — “He’s doing exactly what he should be doing.” This, while the newspaper today portrays Harris as a possible “afterthought.”

We’ve seen this trend for decades. Soon after Dan Quayle was sworn into office, the Times swooped in with a loving profile informing readers that the 42 year-old Republican was devouring serious biographies of historical figures. “The Vice President was particularly struck by the description of Napoleon's military technique in Charles de Gaulle's discourse on war,” the Times reported, stressing Quayle was “keen on self-improvement.” And this was after Quayle had blurted out as VP, “What a waste it is to lose one's mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.''

For the record, the exception to the Times’ white, maleVP rule was its relentlessly negative coverage of Al Gore, which began before he was even sworn into office.

Today, Harris continues to be hit with bad press — The Atlantic has dismissed her as “uninteresting” and “having a hard time making her mark on anything” — even though reporters can’t find substantive defects in her job performance. “Exasperation And Dysfunction: Inside Kamala Harris' Frustrating Start as Vice President,” was the shrieking CNN headline for a recent 5,000-word hit piece that failed to detail meaningful exasperation or dysfunction.

Part of the eagerly negative coverage stems from the media’s beloved Dems in Disarray storyline, where the party has to be perpetually portrayed as being undone by internal strife. It’s also fueled by the media’s need to create drama so they can present current events with a dramatic arc, as a way to keep news consumers tuned in. Reporters are frustrated by the No Drama Biden approach to governance and have taken it upon themselves to create conflict.

Harris has become a favorite prop in a way that white, male VP’s were never used in the past.

A Presidential Loser Can Still Win — But Will Trump?

A Presidential Loser Can Still Win — But Will Trump?

Reprinted with permission from Roll Call

When you lose something precious, something valuable — the big prize — you don't have to get stuck with the "loser" label forever. Life and politics are full of examples of broken hearts and smashed dreams, and also examples of those who managed to rewrite their legacies in meaningful ways that benefited themselves and society.

Donald Trump has proved that he is not the kind of person given to reflection or remorse and would seem the last character capable of earning redemption. He slinked out of the White House on Wednesday, burdened with grievances, two impeachments and "what-ifs," beating an early retreat before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in. But it's not too late for him to learn something he has not so far in his 74 years.

Though he predicted four years ago that an America without his leadership would crumble, it was Trump who brought a vision of "American carnage" to life. The lasting image is of his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol, attacking democracy itself, and of a COVID-19 death toll passing 400,000, Americans mourned not by him but by Biden and Harris on inauguration eve with a solemn and soulful service the country needed.

But Trump's Wikipedia entry doesn't have to start with the word "disaster," not if he looks away from his red-carpet exit to pay attention, even with his notoriously short attention span, to how others have conducted themselves when confronted with power and influence slipping through their fingers.

Second Acts

The person Trump often mocked for choking "like a dog" in his defeat by President Barack Obama in 2012 now has the upper hand as the leader of the Senate's "I told you so" caucus. Though he still may get hounded at airports or on planes by rowdy louts, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney stands as the only Republican to vote to convict on one article at Trump's first impeachment.

That, and his simple acknowledgment in November that Biden won, almost makes the memory of his sought-after endorsement by citizen Trump in 2012 and his early attempt to gain a spot in the Trump Cabinet fade. Now that Romney's presidential hopes are in the rear-view mirror, he clearly sees burnishing his legacy on the road ahead. And, perhaps, he simply believes in the Constitution.

Al Gore certainly has built a legacy that is so much more than being the candidate on the losing end of the 2000 presidential election decided by the state of Florida and a Supreme Court decision that is still argued over.

After Gore, as vice president, presided over the tallying of the electoral count that declared George W. Bush the new president, brushing off the objections of some allies, no one would have blamed him for going off the grid forever. But anyone who had listened to his eloquent speech of concession, urging the country to move forward, would have known that was not to be his last act.

Gore turned to his passion: climate change, the environment and the effects of global warming. The film "An Inconvenient Truth" turned his wonky slideshow into a rivetingdocumentary that spread his ideas to millions and won two Academy Awards in the process. He was honored, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

That Nobel honor was also awarded to former President Jimmy Carter in 2002for "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

After a crushing landslide loss to the Ronald Reagan juggernaut in 1980, Carter returned to Georgia, but his global influence continued as he traveled the world to spread the gospel of democracy, monitor elections and play key roles in diplomatic negotiations.

The work of the Carter Center in Atlanta, founded to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering, is credited with important global health achievements, including assisting in the near elimination of Guinea worm disease, a painful and debilitating scourge that once plagued millions.

Remember how many folks wanted to dismiss another Georgian, Stacey Abrams, as a "loser" after her 2018 defeat for governor against Brian Kemp, an election he also conveniently oversaw as Georgia's secretary of state? When Abrams dared say she was more than qualified to be picked as Biden's running mate, many called her everything but "uppity" for daring to put her hat in the ring.

Nobody's snickering now. We were reminded of how Abrams lives rent-free in Trump's head when he used her name as a taunt in attempting to force Georgia officials to change the presidential results — by finding or tossing votes — in those infamous phone calls that may come back to legally haunt him.

After Abrams came some 55,000 votes shy of becoming the nation's first Black female governor, she continued to organize and strategize, seeking to expand the franchise to all Georgians. She had already launched the New Georgia Project, now ably run by Nsé Ufot, after the Supreme Court gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. After her defeat, she founded Fair Fight to counter voter suppression efforts and mobilize voter participation.

That involvement by Abrams and so many other grassroots organizers, many of them African American women, helped deliver the former Confederate state of Georgia to Biden and sent two Democratic senators to Washington.

Now other states and the Democratic Party want to clone her.

Turning A Page

Like Carter and so many of the country's leaders, Biden has relied on his faith to see him through unimaginable losses, both political and personal. Expect to hear quotes from Scriptures and hymns in the next four years.

Many in an exhausted and ailing country and around the world soaked in Biden's declaration in his inauguration speech that "democracy has prevailed." With the help of all Americans, the new president promised to write "the next great chapter" in the American story, one of "hope, not fear."

Trump has set the bar for acceptable behavior so low he would not have to do much for people to give him a little bit of credit for helping write a new chapter, perhaps by joining others in that exclusive club of former presidents who find more in common when they are no longer rivals and can do so much good.

Though Trump has reportedly floated the idea of a third party, dragging QAnon cultists, dead-enders, white supremacists and others raging against America along with him, even he has to know — and his dispirited farewell gave a hint — that's a losers' game. Heck, even Mitch McConnell knows it.

But one glaring and important lesson, lived out in examples that are plain to see, would be the hardest for the Trump everybody knows to absorb — winning doesn't always have to be about "you."

Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Charlotte Observer, as national correspondent for Politics Daily, and is a senior facilitator with The OpEd Project. Follow her on Twitter @mcurtisnc3.

CQ Roll Call's newest podcast, "Equal Time with Mary C Curtis," examines policy and politics through the lens of social justice. Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Al Gore, George Bush presidential debate

Why Bush v. Gore Still Matters In 2020

Reprinted with permission from ProPublica

Twenty years after the Supreme Court decision known as Bush v. Gore effectively decided a presidential election, it's back on the country's mind. President Donald Trump, who is lagging in polls amid a surge in COVID-19 cases and refuses to commit to leaving office quietly should his bid for reelection fail, has said he believes the Supreme Court will intervene in the upcoming election to hand him a second term. He cited that role to justify rushing the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, who was sworn in as a justice on Monday and could potentially break a 4-4 tie. Lawyers representing the president's campaign and the Republican Party have taken to citing Bush v. Gore frequently in preelection court filings. And the case's echoes are only underscored by the presence of three current justices — Chief Justice John Roberts, Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh — each of whom worked for the Republicans in the 2000 ballot recount battles in Florida that culminated in the historic Supreme Court decision.

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Donald Trump’s Astonishing Lies About Vietnam

Donald Trump’s Astonishing Lies About Vietnam

When politicians talk in private, they regularly use a cruel shorthand. For example, a candidate who is uninformed, unreflective and uncurious is often branded a “lightweight,” as in, “He is so lightweight he could tap-dance on a souffle.” Conversely, a “heavyweight” would be a politician of some substance, some political clout and personal gravity.

Al Gore — the Democratic presidential nominee who won 543,895 more votes than George W. Bush in 2000 but ended up losing the election in a 5-4 Supreme Court split decision — was regularly dismissed for being so unexciting that his favorite color was beige. The line at the time was, “Al Gore is so dull that his Secret Service code name is Al Gore.”

That was cute but inaccurate. I once asked then-Sen. Gore of Tennessee why he — almost alone among his Harvard 1969 classmates — volunteered to join the U.S. Army to go to Vietnam. Gore’s answer was revealing: “I come from a small town (Carthage) of 3,000 people. I concluded that if I didn’t go, somebody else would have to go. And I knew just about everybody else who was going to have to go in my place…For me, that sort of reinforces the sense of community and nation that is at the root of why you have a duty to serve your country.”

Gore also knew Charles Holland, Walter Pope, James Stallings, Jackie Underwood, and Roy Wills. Like Gore, all five came from Smith County, Tennessee. Their names can today be found on the wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a place Al Gore visited.

What brought this all to mind was the television interview President Donald Trump did with Piers Morgan of Good Morning Britain during his D-Day trip. Asked about his own avoidance of military service during the U.S. war in Vietnam, Trump answered: “Well, I was never a big fan of that war, I’ll be honest with you. I thought it was a terrible war. I thought it was very far away.” Trump added, “At that time, nobody had ever heard of the country.”

Trump was referring to the summer of 1968, when he, as a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, had just lost his student deferment from his country’s military draft. There are only two possible explanations for what he said: Either, now in his eighth decade, he is losing his memory, or he really is a compulsive liar.

Take the manifest untruth “at that time, nobody had ever heard of the country.” In 1968, there were 540,000 Americans fighting in Vietnam. May, graduation month, was the deadliest month of the entire war; 2,403 Americans lost their lives. That year, the American death toll reached 30,857 in the war, which became the longest in American history while “nobody had ever heard of the country.”

Both of President Lyndon Johnson’s daughters’ husbands were fighting in Vietnam. There were 221 major student demonstrations against the war on 101 campuses. Columbia University was closed by anti-war protests. Johnson, facing serious anti-war challengers in his own party, announced he would not seek renomination. All this occurred while “nobody had ever heard of the country” where Americans were fighting that long, divisive war. President Trump’s trousers are combustible.

Herodotus, the Greek historian, was right, as we are forced, 25 centuries later, to learn again: “Character is destiny.”

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

IMAGE: A section of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.