Campaign coverage often gets bogged down in trivia—inconsequential polling data, the latest “off message” comment by an associate, and so on.
But then there are the “gaffes,” when politicians say something that we’re told means a lot more than it might seem. Barack Obama’s 2008 comment about small-town voters clinging to their guns and religion was one. In 2000, Al Gore was a Media Gaffe Machine: Love Canal, internet inventing, etc. Most of them didn’t check out, but that’s not what matters. Gaffes are elevated when reporters think they reinforce something about a politician.
In 2000, NPR‘s Cokie Roberts said it best when she explained why certain stories matter more to journalists: “The story line is Bush isn’t smart enough and Gore isn’t straight enough.” Thus, anything that could feed that story line got more attention.
The 2012 campaign season is just getting started (ugh), but it’s not too early for media to spot a Very Important Gaffe. Barack Obama, in fact, delivered one on Friday when he said this:
The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we’ve created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government—oftentimes, cuts initiated by governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don’t have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.
This is mostly accurate, and made perfect sense in a conversation about private sector employment and public sector jobs. But obviously saying any part of the economy is “doing fine” is bound to attract criticism. The Romney campaign pounced, and the comment became an official “gaffe.” From the Boston Globe came the all-encompassing headline, “President Obama’s ‘Private Sector’ Gaffe a Possible Window to Soul Like Other Recent Gaffes.” Later in the day Obama tried to send out a second, clarifying message, and surrogates were dispatched to try and clean things up. The comment was still part of the conversation when the Sunday shows rolled around.
The point is gaffes don’t just “happen.” A political rival takes note, sure; but a gaffe is a gaffe when reporters say so. This one, according to Washington Post reporter Dan Balz, was “a major gaffe.”
In a sense that’s true—because journalists decided it was. But some reporters prefer to believe they’re observers of—and not active participants in—a political campaign.
The media attention to this event started to attract some criticism—which inspired Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza to write a piece (6/11/12) titled “Why Obama’s ‘Private Sector’ Gaffe isn’t Going Away.” Cillizza opened by stating his “unpopular opinion: Political gaffes matter.”
Well, that settles it.
As Cillizza sees it, Obama’s defenders are saying, among other things, that this was a “single out-of-context statement.” He responds this is “true, but “missing the point.” As he explains, we live in a media world
where even the smallest comment can be amplified into a national headline in minutes. Is there anyone paying even passing attention to politics who hasn’t seen the Obama clip five times at this point—which, by the way, is less than 96 hours after he said it? Answer: no.
To hear Cillizza tell it, this is a big deal because Obama’s political rival thinks so. “You can be sure that the Romney campaign isn’t finished making political hay from Obama’s gaffe.” And that hay-making “can be amplified.”
The question is: Who amplifies all this hay? Cillizza writes somewhat passively about a media system that can make a headline in minutes, but someone decides it’s headline-worthy. In many cases, it’s the very same people who decide that a White House’s drone kill list is of little importance. But elite media choose which gaffes are gaffes. (Also: George W. Bush told reporters on two different occasions that the Iraq War happened in part because Saddam Hussein was not allowing weapons inspectors into the country–even though Hussein had let weapons inspectors back in and their inspections were major news every day in the weeks before the war. This was not a “gaffe” of any sort.)
Instead of honestly acknowledging the media’s role in defining gaffes, Cillizza actually downplays what journalism can do with this aside:
(Yes, any claims that Romney makes in ads will—and should—be factchecked by the media. But if you think that media fact-checks sway people more than scores of TV ads, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.)
So journalists are the powerless figures in the corner, churning out their inconsequential fact checks. For Cillizza, this particular gaffe fuels a narrative:
The problem for Obama is that his remark plays directly into the story that Republicans are trying to tell about him—that he is a big-government liberal who thinks the answer to all problems is expanding the federal bureaucracy and who lacks even a basic understanding of how the private sector works.
This narrative doesn’t much resemble Obama’s tenure, which has seen declines in the public sector workforce, the rejection of a public option in the healthcare law, and so on. It is, nonetheless, the story that Republicans are telling. If only there were someone around to do a factcheck.
What’s interesting, if that’s the right term to use, is the lack of attention paid to the rest of Obama’s remark.
Governors like Walker in Wisconsin aren’t slashing social programs and busting public sector unions because of fewer funds from the feds. They’re doing it as part of a nationwide campaign coordinated by ALEC to choke the life out of any sense of gummint responsibility for the welfare of any segment of the population save the rich.
That Dear Misleader would earn his nick via his aversion to calling a spade a spade, and that the corporate media doesn’t consider this worthy of a factcheck, let alone tagging it as a “gaffe”, speaks volumes about the parameters of effecting change through the political system, and the complicity of the corpress in ensuring the efficacy of those limits.
Gaffes are important, especially when the candidates themselves don’t handle them well. Elizabeth Warren (whom I would vote for) should’ve handled the Cherokee controversy with ease. The New England Genealogical Society acknowledged in mid-May that there’s no firm evidence of her great-great-grandmother being Cherokee and Warren still can’t address it. Now it’s hurting her chances.
I think gaffes do matter in media coverage … to an extent. It depends on the situation. I think it does with Warren and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. The point is good candidates know how to address controversies effectively. That’s a reasonable expectation I would want from any elected political official, especially in U.S. Congress. The media should highlight them whether we agree (or FAIR agrees) with their politics or not.
Political campaigns are targeted at a politically passive atomized public, reachable largely through media campaigns. Political campaigns have much in common with programs such as Rush Limbaugh’s, in that the issues must be contentious in order to stimulate interest, all to the end of selling a product to a targeted audience stimulated sufficiently to become engaged in the presented narratives to purchase the products being sold, whether these products are powders to keep personal nether regions dry, or candidates who sell hope of relief to economic distress.
The stimulation of interest may be perceived as an entry into the examination of a public good, but this public good, if it arises at all, will be conditional to its use as a support of a very private good, be it the fortunes of Limbaugh, or the interlocking corporate directorates that finance both Republican and Democratic candidates.
The corporate media will present information that supports a narrative constructed to achieve an end desired by the corporate media, rather than a broadly inclusive discussion of pertinent matters that facilitate the public choice of an end that serves a public good.
I still say that the Commercial Major Media are more there to conflate issues to the point where you can’t talk to the average person because they are too busy running themselves into the ground and not by choice. They only have ‘sound bites’ to digest and Limburger is the Modern Day McDonald’s putting out tiny bits of fact wrapped with the greasy, slimy lies that make it go down quick, and come out the bottom even faster for better recycling. Pretty soon the only thing on the media market is per-digested lumps of decayed matter.
So instead of being able to come up with solutions, the common man just plays the “One Note Opera” (Me, me, me, me, me……) over and over. It brings to mind the line from Me Phi Me – Creed “We help you up the Mountain side, because your in bad shape/ But think of how much quicker we would all reach the top, if we didn’t have have to carry your weight.”
Agreed. This was not a “gaffe.” Such a description trivializes this monumental story.
A public figure who speaks extemporaneously, and has his words endlessly parsed out all the time, can expect to make the occasional stumble.
The question is always whether the stumble says something inadvertantly honest about the public figure, something perhaps he’d rather not have the public hear. When President Obama accidentally referred to… was it Estonia when he meant Eritrea? …that was a silly meaningless slip of the tongue.
When he referred to “Polish death camps” instead of “Nazi German death camps IN Poland,” that was an understandable bit of lazy shorhand lots of us use all the time. No big deal for American voters. Well, non-Polish American voters.
But when, in the midst of this economy with the private sector barely hanging on by its fingernails and government borrowing gone utterly berserk, he said that the private sector is doing “fine” and the problem is that we’re not spending enough tax money on government employees, THAT is meaningful. That showed us where his head really is. It was a moment of terrible candor that opened a curtain for all to see.
One of the president’s supporters said that what he really MEANT… what he SHOULD have said… was something more like “the private economy is strugging but the real problem is all the government workers who are being let go.” That wouldn’t have set off the firestorm but it means essentially the same thing. This president’s philosophy and world view really are at odds with the vast majority of Americans who think our job creation mechanism, the private sector, is crippled and government has become more of a burden than a help to the economy. The “private sector doing fine” line just summed it up better than any his previous comments have.
Incidentally, the inartfulness of the comment was first seized upon by REPORTERS who watched or attended the President’s conference, not the Romney campaign or right-wing opinionators, although both have certainly been making hay of it since. It was simply SO gross, and so rich in context, that it was impossible to miss.
Gaffe?
A “gaffe” is something trivial like the “Estonia” or “Polish” dustups.
This was a peek into the heart of the president’s philosophy, and it ain’t pretty.
You’re right. This was not a “gaffe.” It was much bigger than that.
gaffe or no, Obama’s comment is certainly correct about about a certain sgement of the “private sector”. Namely the 1% who drink at the government trough while exhorting struggling citizens to “pull themselves up by theri bootstraps”. So much for the impostion of “Big Guvmint”.
“The private sector is doing fine.”? If so, what (deficit) “cliff”, why Bush tax CUT$ and AUSTERITY, Barry?!
By all means keep running down President Obama who does fight for the middle class and fairness. He gets no cooperations with nothing but right wing anti-American hate thrown at him by the GOP. President Obama does not need wishy washy people who think any republican might be better. They sure won’t. He needs people who will fight the dishonesty and ruthless agenda against him and against the country. President Obama is just one man who needs more people fighting along with him to get jobs back and to get the economy moving forward. It won’t happen with the ruthless Bush policies reinstated and those very people are the ones Romney is surrounding himself with every day.
I hate being held hostage by a non thinking public.
for those of us who are progressive, what difference does it make what obama says or not? he’s shown himself to be in the pockets of the one percent from the time he took office with his decisions on almost every issue from appointments to israel to war ,health and on and on. fool me once ,shame on you but fool me twice, shame on me. the answer to obama and mitt is resistance,rebellion and revolution!
Much like beauty in the eye of the beholder, a gaffe is a gaffe in the ear of the listener. And for the 1%, everything is, generally, fine. It seems to me, the President feels he’s done a good job. The only problem is, there is no shortage of Main Street Democrats who aren’t so sure about that.
I wonder whether Obama gets off easy (what would the press be saying if we had a liberal in the White House) or is being constantly jumped on because he is a centrist pro-business Democrat who happens to be African-American…
I heard the speech, and the minute he said that I moaned and said “how stupid” to my companion at the time.I needed no one to tell me it was a boner.This election comes down to a simple one two punch.Mitt believes we can do better by getting off the backs of business and the private citizen to allow the recreation of wealth.Using that well spring of American ingenuity and entrepreneur spirt that will reignite this economy.Obama wants to take from the rich to pay for……to pay for…..well honestly to pay for just about anything his mind can come up with.One is a positive message of a bigger and better America.One is a smaller and less America -built on gov redistribution,class envy and licking the remaining crumbs from the table.Do the math.This was just a stupid thing to say from a man who believes the private sector is holding its own.The private sector is holding ON…..till he is gone.The public sector have a faction that have been so depressed by this methodology that they have begun to actually believe they cant exist without government collusion and subsidized job support.The growing part of them know he(Obama) is a job killer.They are holding on too.
too. support.
Wow… what a raft of incredible horse pucky!
What is WALL STREET doing?.. and how ARE they? Isn’t THAT- the DOW- our national “how’s biz” metric? Been looking pretty good, lately.
And, does “private sector” include “The unemployed?” I don’t think so! I mean, do business owners consider them “part of our retinue”? HELL NO! They’re part of the Public, until the private sector Hires them… (at which point they become members of Both sectors). Give me a break, spin-doctors… ^..^
The real problem is a news-consuming public that would rather thrive on “gaffes” than to demand clear, concise reporting. The problem behind all of that is an educational system that does not teach critical thinking. The problem behind that is a culture that devaluates individual responsibility to learning more than drill/rote facts. Whine all you like about a cynical, disengaged media (and we should), but be sure to look in the mirror if you want a good view of the culprit who allows all this to happen.
It was a gross, stupid error on Pres. Obama for saying that things in the private sector were fine. They are better in some areas but over all fine? Not a chance. He should have been very specific on that. He lowered his guard and this is what happens.
The shelf life of these things is, at maximum, about two weeks or so. It doesn’t matter who says it, either. Like the bin Laden execution, it’ll all be utterly forgotten by Voting Day. So, relax. And please, Democrats, stop wringing your hands about how the Pres “is only one man,” and that sort of nonsense. He’s the President, and the head of a huge party that is behind him, all the time. Yes, the Republicons are lunatics and liars and assholes. I’ve known this long before you suddenly noticed when they started picking on our President. I’m supposed to not criticize a politician because his enemies are miscreants and crazy right-wing fools? I’m not a lock-step, key-in-the-back apparatchik of the party; so what? I’m not going to fall in line for a politician who’s doing things that I abhor. If this upsets you, too bad. If that sociopath Romney wins (and he may well win–the Republicons are going to lie, cheat, and steal), I still have to go to work, and the sun will still rise in the East. Maybe Obama’s loss will cause liberals and Democrats to start fighting for things that used to matter to them. Apparently, if Our Guy Does It, it’s all good; if their guy does it, it’s war crimes and outrages.
“Mitt believes we can do better by getting off the backs of business and the private citizen to allow the recreation of wealth.Using that well spring of American ingenuity and entrepreneur spirt that will reignite this economy.”
Bullshit, as Ed Kilgore notes:
“Mitt Romney will go to extraordinary lengths to talk about anything other than the actual agenda he has embraced at the demand of a conservative movement that would have otherwise found a way to deny him the nomination.
He’s not going to point out for us that 90% of his economic talking points are identical to those of George W. Bush, or that the 10% that isn’t places him distinctly to the right of W. ”
———–
“(Obama) is a job killer”
More bullshit…thanks for playing.
Dick, first…… if you can’t see that the pressure Obama has put on business has not helped to create jobs,and has in fact hurt.Well Im at a loss
As far as Mitt speaking with a forked tongue to get the nomination well geez say it aint so Joe.Much less than Obama, but absolutely yes it is there.Moving forward it is his show now.As far as being right of Bush…THANK GOD THANK GOD!Bush was no conservative.And every economic mistake he made was due to NOT acting like a conservative.I can go chapter and verse.Mitt will be better than him by a country mile.And as far as Obama who’s only economic idea is to print money,borrow and take money(only from those who make over 250 thou)….Well those two are not even on the same planet.
I wonder do you think Obama will tell his children that when they someday get a credit card they should run it up high as they can?Someone will pay it.Maybe someone with more money than them.Or maybe they can print it.Or Borrow it from someone….Why are morals and ethics present in liberal households but absent from their stays in government?
Tim how is Mitt a sociopath?I mean we may be on the same page.Personally I think anyone running for the job of president is cracked.Hell Mitt could of been a soap opera star.Obama…a singer :)What in the hell drives a man to go through the cauldron of a campaign ,followed by job that has more tension than a hairstylist who does pre wedding up- do’s, is beyond my understanding.There is a psych term for it somewhere.
If you can’t see that the pressure Obama has put on business has not helped to create jobs,and has in fact hurt.Well I’m at a loss
Quit peddling bullshit.
Dick you can’t have it every way.Either Obamas policies have helped ,or hurt business.What figures are you seeing that would show you things are getting better?
Jobs losses slowed dramatically starting in Augest of 2009 and private sector job creation has been positive since March 2010.
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/bikini-graph-June-2012-private-sector-only.jpg
Like it matters, Dick, that you have the facts. You could patiently explain to m.e. that the world is indeed round, but if that goes against his irritable mental gestures (e.g., typical Right-wing nonsense), he’s simply going to tell you that the Earth is flat, and anything else is a liberal lie.
Dick come on now for the love of God be real.You can’t twist the numbers in any positive way except to say the free fall has stopped/slowed.Even Obama knows he can’t run on positive economic news.Look around you.Unemployment is horrific.Worse than even the numbers allow.Reminds me of the guy who says last week I had no food and was starving.Today I have a slice of bread.
Tim….are you arguing anything good in this economy?You say because i mention the terrible state of this economy that I am showing “irritable mental gestures”.Wow.Ok whatever…
“You can’t twist the numbers in any positive way except to say the free fall has stopped/slowed.”
Quit peddling bullshit.
Quik Quiz:
Compared to Jan 2009:
Is job creation up or down?
Is GDP up or down?
Are corporate profits up or down?
Is corporate pay up or down?
Is the stock market up or down?
Is manufacturing up or down?
Is the auto industry up or down?
Pegg ….Gather all those questions and put them under one heading.ECONOMIC INDICATORS.Or how about STATE OF THE ECONOMY.Or of the NATION.All are dismal. NO dismal really does not cover it.How about horrific.After four years this economy is yours.I pray and hope Obama tries to get up there and ask the questions you just put forward.As if that is an indicator of something good happening.He will get laughed off the stage.He says he needs more time.Well I look forward to him having many many years of good health.All the time in the world in fact..As a private citizen.
Obama derangement troll is Obama derangement trolling.
Kind of the opposite T. Roll .Like the majority of Americans, I am trolling…….for a new president!