Right-wing trumpets are making a horrific racket across a ravaged political landscape. For now, hope is barely audible. Progressives seem like fledglings without feathers, weakly tapping from inside thick shells. Four more years sound like hell.

Words from Bertolt Brecht resonate: “… A smooth forehead betokens / A hard heart. He who laughs / Has not yet heard / The terrible tidings.”

Grief, fear, despair, rage — only the emotionally deadened would have none of it. Bush’s victory is a huge defeat for humanity. The consequences will be extremely grim.

Ideological fanatics have extended their control over the Executive Branch while increasing their domination of Congress. The “leaders” who lied the country into war are plunging ahead with escalating carnage in Iraq. Soon they’ll take action to make the Supreme Court more authoritarian — threatening abortion rights, freedom of speech, basic legal protections for defendants and other civil liberties. A theocratic stench is in the air…

Read the full column.

The day before the election, I visited Albuquerque and Las Vegas. Up close, I saw hundreds of people involved in vigorous get-out-the-vote efforts. Most were young; they seemed very idealistic. These Americans had an opportunity to make a difference, and — brought together by labor unions and such groups as the MoveOn PAC — they took it.

Watching the election returns scarcely 24 hours later, I kept an eye on the results from New Mexico and Nevada. The vote tallies were close in both states because of such activism; otherwise, the Bush-Cheney ticket would have won easily.

On Wednesday, as the pundits kept chattering on television, I thought about how far removed the TV studios and newsrooms tend to be from the active idealism of the grassroots. All over this country, literally millions of people cherish the belief that what they choose to do can make a difference. A big difference….

Read the full column.

At the moment, history seems to be holding its breath. The reporters, pundits and pollsters all agree: The presidential race is a dead heat.

Despite the magnitude of what’s at stake, the vast majority of daily reporting has a fragmented quality. Yet the sum is immensely greater than the parts.

Journalism is potentially a terrific clarifying force. During the days and weeks ahead, we’ll see whether the news media are up to the challenge. The signs are not encouraging. So far this election year, under the guise of being evenhanded, the standard news reports just give us snippets of information, misleading assertions, speculation, claims and counterclaims.

The battle between George W. Bush and John Kerry is much more than a struggle for power. It puts to the test our capacity for democracy. Voters are supposed to choose the president. But this essential right is under dire threat. That’s the big story — the GOP elephant in the national living room…

Read the full column.

“There He Is, Mr. America…”

Less than two weeks before Election Day 2004, the ABC television network cancelled Miss America. Fifty years after it premiered on national TV, the famous “beauty pageant” has fallen on hard times. Last month, the annual show drew just 9.8 million viewers, the smallest audience ever.

“The pageant has changed, but not for the better,” commented an editorial in a New Jersey newspaper, the Asbury Park Press. “Eliminating most of the talent portion of the competition from this year’s broadcast was a mistake. Trotting the contestants out in string bikinis rather than one-piece suits probably did more to alienate traditional viewers than attract new ones.”

Despite this year’s modernizing make-over, the Miss America pageant is a throwback to the 1950s, the decade that launched it onto the nation’s TV screens — an era when sexism was inseparable from supposed Americanism. Women were reduced to competitors in bathing suits who could sing and flash their shiny white teeth while they briefly made conversation. Perhaps subtly but pervasively, the spectacle was an exercise in humiliation.

These days, we shouldn’t burn a lot of calories patting ourselves on the back. In 2004, television routinely features a steady flow of rigid gender roles — as a close look at an array of commercials attests — and the use of women’s bodies to sell products is standard media operating procedure…

Read the full column.

We’re at a moment in history when progressives must work together — not with a false kind of unity that papers over differences, but instead with a candid kind of unity that recognizes and fights for a vital common goal. Our collective task is to kick George Bush out of the White House.

The thousands of African-American women and men lining up at early-voting sites in Florida are sending a profound message across this country. After nearly four years of “Hail to the Thief,” we
have a chance to oust the Bush-Cheney gang. We’re depending on each other…

Read the full column.

With the presidential debates now behind us, the struggle for the White House will tilt even more toward decentralized media battles for electoral votes. Between now and Election Day, vast resources will go toward spinning local news coverage in swing states while launching carefully targeted commercials on radio and television.

For the Bush campaign and its allies, the media endgame will include these components:

* Smearing John Kerry

For months already, paid advertisements and interviews with pro-Bush operatives have portrayed Kerry as a betrayer of American troops in Vietnam. President Bush gained a temporary lead in the polls thanks largely to deceptive commercials aimed at discrediting Kerry’s bravery under fire. Next came a fierce propaganda assault on the most laudable actions of Kerry’s life — his antiwar efforts as a Vietnam veteran…

Read the full column.

More than any other events on the campaign trail this year, the debates have drawn intense public interest. Viewers are eager for something more than the carefully packaged junk that usually passes for political coverage — the nonstop media mix of countless photo-ops, canned speeches, evasive interviews, calculated sound-bites, programmed national conventions and manipulative TV commercials.

There’s a lot wrong with the debates, especially the narrow range of views. But on the plus side, with no editing and no TelePrompTer, the contenders are on their own for 90 minutes. After watching a debate, people have gotten a look at the core of a presidential campaign’s artifice — the candidate himself.

The exalted media persona of George W. Bush thrives on edited snippets along with scripted speeches and rousing deliveries of one-liners in front of adoring crowds. And the hunkered-down, hunched-over gravity of Dick Cheney is unaccustomed to direct challenge. But the debate format has forced both men to come down from their pedestals.

Bush and Cheney have been stumbling when confronted with information about their deceptions on Iraq. Their biggest enemies are memory and videotape…

Read the full column.

PORTLAND, Ore. — More than any other month of the last four years, October will be filled with reporting about polls. And many stories about them will be as puzzling as a recent Associated Press dispatch that focused on the latest surveys about the presidential race in this hotly contested state.

“One poll conducted by an East Coast research firm gives Democrat John Kerry a 7-point lead over President Bush in Oregon,” the AP wire reported. “Another gives Bush a 4-point lead.” While observers scratch their heads, the battle for Oregon’s seven electoral votes continues.

Four years ago, Al Gore carried Oregon by a razor-thin margin. The results may be just as close this time around, so the men on the Republican and Democratic tickets — especially Dick Cheney and John Edwards — keep flying in for their quick sound-bites and photo-ops…

Read the full column.