US Elections

What would have been a better way of handling this issue? In his Washington Post column, E.J. Dionne advocates a proposal that would require religious groups to inform employees if they were not covering birth control and describe “alternative ways for enrollees to access” low cost contraceptives. Under the circumstances, I think this would have been a better solution. but there’s no denying the unfortunate and frustrating truth that it would have made it more difficult for many women to access reproductive health services.

I firmly hope that the Catholic Church changes its stance on birth control in the near future, and I remain cautiously optimistic that they will, given that the vast majority of Catholics use contraceptives. However, until they do, I’m not sure the coercive response of the Obama administration is the best course of action. It’s never easy resolving these cases in which such fundamental principles come into conflict with one another, but there are times when liberalism must be tolerant of practises that are somewhat illiberal in themselves. I believe this is one of those times.

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That was a moment, perhaps, when Mr. Obama might have given one of his trademark orations to an anxious public, an opportunity to lay out the different dimensions of the economic crisis in a way that had eluded his predecessors. You could have imagined Mr. Obama’s explaining then that the country had to respond in two related but distinct ways: first by spending hundreds of billions of dollars in the short term to avoid a depression, and second by making a series of large-scale investments over time that would modernize the foundation of the economy.

Of course, the President has spoken exactly in this way, though perhaps not in one of his "trademark orations." Suggesting the President give a paradigm-shifting speech is a favourite device of political commenters who wish to give the administration some advice. It rather ignores what Obama's most memorable speeches have been about. Career highlights such as his inaugaural address, his keynote speech to the Democratic Convention in 2004, or his 2008 race speech in Philadelphia were not persuasive arguments for specific policy approaches, but were instead descriptions of Obama's vision of America; its ideals, and what it can be. He has been so successful an orator because he has been able to describe America's ideas in a left-of-centre way that resonates equally with centrists. That doesn't mean he's a slouch at talking about policy, but Bai's complaint misses what distinguishes what Obama has and has not been able to do with his speeches.

I wonder if a recession actually is the time to be separating out short term and long term investment the way Bai suggests. Though both approaches are necessary, few people at the moment are interested in anything that doesn't address the immediate problem of their being too few jobs and too little demand. (And some people believe spending is the wrong approach to take anyway, whether in the long or short term.) Compare the situation with Australia's in the mid '00s. In those years, the Australian economy was overheating as it began butting up against the limits of its capacity. As a result, voters were quite amenable to politicians' suggestions of long term investment, and proposals like the "education revolution" were part of the reason Labor won power in 2007.

By contrast, America in its current slump does not want to hear about what will happen down the road. It wants to hear about what can happen today. And though it may be a touch confusing, that means arguing that, in effect, "stimulating the economy today and reordering it for decades to come are basically the same thing." In terms of doing what's right for America's, they are. In a bad economy, there are limits to how good a message can be.

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What frustrated me most was the total misuse of the word "censorship."  The Obama Administration has been accused of censoring the Fox News Channel, something that is manifestly untrue.

Ok, so strictly speaking, the word is accurate, if  and only if you take the meaning of "censor" to mean to admonish or criticise, a literal if rarely-used meaning. And I suppose, if you take that meaning, and that meaning alone, one could accuse the Obama administration of censoring Fox News.  But it's hard to imagine anyone seriously making the argument that when someone hears "Obama Administration censors Fox News", they think the administration simply criticised them. The problem, of course, is that few would understand the meaning of the word in that way, especially in the realm of politics.

"Censorship" isn't a word devoid of meaning or context.  Used the way it has been by much of the press in this situation, to "censor" is far more likely to mean to suppress or delete information.  This practice, of course, is one of the oldest forms of political oppression.  For many, censorship is associated with totalitarian rule, with the suppression of democracy, with silencing the minority, or just silencing unwanted voices.  And the Obama administration has not silenced Fox News

Yes, the Obama administration called Fox News a partisan organization.  Yes, they openly acknowledged they would not treat them the same way as a straightforward news network. That might not by wise, but it's not censorship

 The White House did not censor the Fox News Channel. They did not rob them of their first amendment protection.  They did not prevent the Fox News Channel from attending White House press conferences. They even promised to continue providing White House staff to be interviewed on the Fox News Channel, though possibly not as frequently as the network would prefer. 

And the Fox News Channel has certainly not been silent.  The ferocity with which they've condemned the White House is evidence enough of their continued freedom.  There's no talk, anywhere, of limiting the Fox News Channel's voice.  There is no ban.  There is no suppression.

There are certainly interesting issues to talk about around the so-called "war on Fox", but using the term "censor" in these discussions is both misleading and dangerous.  So lets call it what it is or, more accurately, what it isn't: the White House has not censored the Fox News Channel.

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