Tread lightly on the things of earth

I am absolutely flabbergasted:
Media admits Dean “scream” was a cheer in the midst of a roaring crowd.

Small step though this is, and late in coming, I still appreciate it because I expected no acknowledgement at all from the media that anything wrong was done.

ABC News and Diane Sawyer have aired a mea culpa concerning the media’s hyperplay of Howard Dean’s “primal scream” speech following the Iowa caucuses on Monday, January 19. Read what I’m talking about at ABC’s The Dean Scream: The version of reality that we didn’t see on TV (alt article), and watch the video (alt video).

After my interview with Dean and his wife in which I played the tape again — in fact played it to them — I noticed that on that tape he’s holding a hand-held microphone. One designed to filter out the background noise. It isolates your voice, just like it does to Charlie Gibson and me when we have big crowds in the morning. The crowds are deafening to us standing there.

But the viewer at home hears only our voice.

So, we collected some other tapes from Dean’s speech including one from a documentary filmmaker, tapes that do carry the sound of the crowd, not just the microphone he held on stage. …

Dean’s boisterous countdown of the upcoming primaries as we all heard it on TV was isolated, when in fact he was shouting over the roaring crowd.

And what about the scream as we all heard it? In the room, the so-called scream couldn’t really be heard at all. Again, he was yelling along with the crowd.

This glimmer of integrity on the part of Diane Sawyer and ABC News — and I’ll assume it’s indeed integrity instead of anything less savory — makes my day. Not just because I’m a Dean fan but also because this tidbit sets me dreaming of a world in which mainstream media coverage actually is fair and balanced (or at least in the F&B ballpark) instead of superficial, repetitious, and often therefore misleading, sometimes to the point of slander.

This piece along with Diane’s lame-questioned but good-natured — and surprisingly compelling — interview with Howard and Judy Dean last Thursday (transcript and video links) has me prepared to wipe Diane’s slate clean, to give her a fresh chance. Hey, it feels great to do this! Hmmm …

Now if Bill Maher revokes his “new rule” that says — as a result of the TV version of the scream speech — that Uncle Howie is the “creepy guy,” then I’d really be a happy man. :-)

Update: To the objection that the TV version is what matters, I say, No — the real life version — of just about everything — is what really matters. Getting real is essential for engaging and solving the intractable social problems before us. Just playing a politician on TV doesn’t cut it.

Dr. Dean meets my realness criterion, and more important, his campaign is inspiring further realness to bloom in people all around the country. It’s this inspired realness — this hope, this talent, this engagement, this passion — among hundreds of thousands of us that’s even now changing the fabric of our country.

Is there steam enough in this to win? I don’t know. Is there enough to make a difference? Oh, yes.

Wow, I had almost forgotten I can dance to this vision thing. I’ve been sitting too long.

2004-02-01 update: Magnanimous as I was trying to be above, it’s still important to point out that the deliberate escalation of this “scream” nonevent into a national scene preoccupying the airwaves was attempted character assassination. It was a broad jump from fact into manufactured fancy that actually accomplished more character assassination per datum than I remember ever seeing before, kind of an Olympic gold in irresponsible journalism, which is itself fascinating in a perverse sort of way.

As Krista Pollitt at The Nation memorably puts it —

This, after all, is the same media that managed to make a major scandal out of the Scream, a moment of campaign exuberance of zero importance (especially when compared with — for example! — Bush’s inability to speak two consecutive unscripted sentences that are not gibberish, his refusal to read newspapers, and the fact that much of the world thinks he’s a dangerous moron).

[originally via Dean for America]

I have never before in my 4+ decades of life been this engrossed in — and nervewracked by — political caucuses and primaries like today’s in New Hampshire. I have never before given significant sums of money to any political candidate (mine’s going to Dr. Dean). I have never before felt that the soul of our country is at stake.

This, my friends, is turning-point time, a time you’ll remember to your grandkids.

Let discernment abound. Let deliverance begin. Yeeeeeeaaarrrrrgh!

2004-01-28 update: Final results, according to CNN —

Kerry, won 39 percent of the New Hampshire vote, compared to 26 percent for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, 12 percent each for Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and 9 percent for Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

My #1 practical reason why declaring Kerry the nominee is premature:
Hardly any of my African American brothers and sisters — many of whom like to vote Democratic, as I do — have had a say in choosing the Democratic nominee. (Only two states have participated so far, and neither has many “Black or African American persons” according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2000): Iowa, 2.1% and New Hampshire, 0.7%.)

My #1 personal reason why declaring Kerry the nominee is premature:
I still want a candidate I can vote for with knowledge and enthusiasm (for Dean), not one for whom my vote — while still a certainty — is really a vote against someone else (for Kerry against Bush).

The biggest and best news from New Hampshire? — The record turnout (“estimated at about 200,000, compared to the previous high of 168,000 in 1992”). This level of voter participation is a good sign, an early data point in what I hope becomes a trend: the more we citizens participate, the more vital and representative is our democracy, no matter which candidate we elect to the White House.

Yesterday I was peering into what’s behind this week’s tidal wave of Democratic candidate Howard Dean criticism and merrymaking. As ABC News put it —

Dean’s guttural yells Monday night punctuated his poor finish [in Iowa] and raised questions about his political judgment and temperament. …

A humbled Howard Dean, saying “I have my warts. I sometimes say things that get me in trouble,” argued Thursday that voters will see through his flaws and rally to his troubled presidential candidacy.

I have a scream. Dean’s post-caucus Iowa speech on Monday night, variously called his “barbaric yawp” or “primal scream” speech, is here (Real video). I see fatigue-induced goofiness, maybe, but crazy? Nearly every football game I’ve ever been to is crazier than this. Looks like everyone there was having fun.

Why is it not “presidential” for Dean to coach and rev his tired supporters after a disappointing finish in Iowa, but is “presidential” for Bush to look and sound like — let’s face it — a total effing moron illiterate on national TV?

We’re being way too gullible to what the media tubesters tell us. Most of us can think for ourselves, so why the hell aren’t we?

As Dr. Dean said later about the event, “I was giving everything to people who gave everything to me.”

[2004-01-24 insert: Remixes of this event have become an Internet phenomenon. What started as ridicule has become a vehicle for getting the message out — cool! Some remixes are funny, and this one, You’ve Got the Power (MP3 audio, 3.9MB), is outright inspiring. See DeanGoesNuts.com for more.]

I am one voter — a Christian voter in the U.S. South — who likes this passion and this whole-person commitment. I’ll spit out lukewarm in a heartbeat, just like someone else I know.

So why do I find this campaign hot? Because I want my country back. I want hope, not hopelessness. Cooperation, not division. Straight talk that doesn’t insult my intelligence, not secrecy, empty promises, and lies. Compassion, not disdain for everyone who’s different. Responsibility, not the wanton squandering of lives and resources. In particular, fiscal responsibility, not the saddling of our children and our children’s children with debt. Faithfulness, not the blasphemy of associating God’s name with behavior God abhors.

What a difference a day makes —

Dr. Judy in the house. Last night Diane Sawyer interviewed Howard and Judy Dean on Primetime Live (transcript and video links). The realness, warmth, and candor conveyed in this interview confirms my longstanding discernment that Dr. Dean’s campaign is where the grace falls. If God indeed guides our paths, rescuing us from ourselves — and of course I think he does — then this is where I sense he’s busiest. And where he’s smiling.

[2004-01-24 insert: Naturally now I can’t help but wonder if this wacky remix phenom might be another case of “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Joseph, Gen. 50:20). :-) ]

We may yet derail what’s going on — and/or I could be <gasp> wrong about its details — but this burst of sunlight gets me back to knowing that we are being cared for.

2004-01-29 update: For my notes (and links) concerning Diane Sawyer’s surprise mea culpa — an apology of sorts for contributing to the media’s gross misrepresentation of this speech — see blog entry If Howard screams in a crowd, can anybody hear it?.

Last June I was seeing my main blog as a place to put my thought-out, essay-like entries (baked), and my sideblog as a place to record interesting links I’ve been reading along with some quick top-of-the-head commentary (half-baked).

My thought-out emissions here in the main blog can’t be hurried, apparently; days pass between them. Looks like I’m on hiatus when I’m really not.

In contrast, I drop stuff into my sideblog all the time. If you’re coming by here anyway, then by all means please visit there, too, to see what’s gone on lately. :-)

Evolution is good. Maybe the more active blog needs to be the main one. Hmmm.

[Brigadoon is a story set in a Scottish highlands town that comes to life for one day every hundred years. Its inhabitants don’t notice anything unusual about this because they’re in it. That is, people’s perception of time passing is relative to where they are. I daydream that the experience of eternity is something like this.]

I’ve been watching Crossfire for several weeks now. But not because I particularly like it or its often absurd reduction of important issues to 15-second soundbites and 30-second “debates.” Instead I’m watching it to hone my swordsmanship against aggressive, content-free arguments like those skillfully wielded by Tucker and Bob. You know the kind, logically unsound but forcibly presented, and thereby convincing to many people. Straight from their ass to my blade, so to speak.

Last week Tucker interviewed Martin Sheen and Rob Reiner on the campaign trail in Iowa where they were stumping for Howard Dean. I like both guys a lot; Martin for his acting skills and commitment to Christian social justice and pacifist causes, and Rob for being articulate and making funny and incisive movies.

Rob said something that has stuck with me —

The difference between Republicans and Democrats [is] Republicans know they’re right. Democrats entertain the possibility they might be wrong.

This seems profoundly true to me. True enough, in fact, that I doubt either party’s partisans would disagree much. Spend a couple of days watching the news and those around you through the lens of this observation, and see what you think.

I’ve realized Rob’s observation touches on one of my deepest convictions:
Those who always know they’re right can never be truly wise.

Why? Because the only way to always be right in this world is to deny all evidence that challenges that rightness.

And that, brothers and sisters, ain’t wise. It’s behavior that reminds me of the inhabitants of Lineland in Edwin Abbott’s Flatland — the Linelanders are self-satisfied and rather militantly unaware of the larger 2-dimensional universe around them. (And so on outward through the dimensions.)

Give me someone any day whose intent is good, who tries, makes mistakes, corrects, and tries again — with tenacity — over someone who always knows what’s right for themselves and for me and says to hell with me if I disagree.

I just watched the Bill Moyers NOW episode that’s been sitting on the TiVo since December 26: James Forbes, Jr., Speaking to Power.

(The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Jr. is the senior minister at Riverside Church in New York City.)

The whole piece was profoundly moving to me. Here’s a place, a pastor, and a people whose worldview and inclusive understanding of faith provides a community in which I could immerse myself. I felt like a lonely man catching a glimpse of home. I wept.

In a snippet of a sermon (captured in episode’s transcript) I see one of the gentlest pastors I’ve ever observed speaking truth to power more forcibly than almost anyone else I’ve observed:

Dr. Forbes: When Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, one of the temptations was the devil took him on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and said to him, all this I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. [Matt. 4:8, NIV]

I fear that the ideology informing the present policies of the nation are coming from some people who took the devil up on it, who said, “You elite, you handful of people with your special interests, if you act quickly all the kingdoms of the world, their oil, their land, their money, their resources, I will give it to you.”

Jesus said no. But somebody helping to set policies in this nation got duped by the devil and said yes! And the policy is moving in that direction.

I think this succinctly explains the Bush Administration, its ambitions for empire, and its disregard for life and all that is holy. Someone in it said yes.

Now we outside it must assert our responsibility as followers of Jesus and say no. (I will boldly say no on Election Day.)

Interesting that Riverside is “affiliated with the American Baptist Churches and the United Church of Christ.” This tells me the word “Baptist” in a denomination name no longer conveys anything meaningful. I went to a Southern Baptist funeral a few months ago where I experienced the most fear-drenched church service I think I’ve ever been to.

In sharp contrast, this NOW episode’s depiction of Riverside Church shows a hope-drenched place of welcoming, scripturally-aware, Spirit-led people of all colors, stations, and gifts that looks to me like the coalescing Kingdom of God on earth.

Now. Where is Riverside’s spiritual kin in Memphis?

2004-01-11 update: Wow, this NOW program motivated me more than anything else has in the last six months — I went to church today, visiting Grace-St. Luke’s in Memphis because it’s listed in The Center for Progressive Christianity network directory (as I had noted back in August).

Welcoming place, that. More to learn …

Katydid splendidly nails my own perceptions of — and motivation for supporting — Howard Dean as president:

I love Dean on paper, on the internet, and in stump speeches, but there have been times on TV that I have cringed and wondered if he was up to the task at hand. But the depth of the support behind him, and the depth of his ideas, hold him up above the rest and he will be difficult to beat. I have come to the realization that I am Dean all the way, no matter what he says, because I trust him and his instincts. It’s very strange, because he no longer has to sell himself to me. It’s the materiality, all that he brings with him. I want all of it, so I want him, no matter what.

Yes, where by materiality I assume K means what I’d say as substantiveness, and wherein I note such trust doesn’t come easily to me and I don’t place it lightly — but after hundreds of hours of research I find that trust has arisen.

Thanks, Katydid.

2004-01-05 update: Outlandish Josh makes a similarly astute observation (as he’s good at doing) about why Dean supporters tend to stay onboard:

The other thing that Dean’s supporters have [besides empowerment] is consensus. Since they’ve been interlinked and empowered since the get-go, they’ve talked through almost everything.

This is not something that we’ve seen in a long long time, and it’s the heart of Dean’s “teflon” status. People who get on board remain on board because their support is based on rational conversations they’ve had and are continuing to have among themselves; and they’re always reaching out to others. Dean’s roots are a 500,000 strong rapid response team, and the campaign is making brilliant use by trusting their responses and ideas.

2004-01-20 update: After Dean’s unexpected third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses last night, the assertion above — and the reasoning behind it — is about to be put to the test. I know I’m not going anywhere. The race has certainly become more of a nail-biter now, which may turn out to be a good thing for the process: more attention, more vetting, more participation.