Author: Norman Solomon
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Nader’s Game of “Chicken”
By Norman Solomon Ralph Nader won’t receive more than 1 percent of the vote nationwide on Election Day, but he’s already the winner in a spectacular game of “chicken.” After the vast majority of former allies jumped off his electoral vehicle, Nader kept flooring the accelerator — while scorning them as “scared liberals” who “lost…
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Democracy Requires Real Journalism
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…
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The Presidential Pageant
“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,…
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The Brave Posturing of Armchair Warriors
Soon after the American death toll in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark, I thought of Saadoun Hammadi and some oratory he provided two years ago. At the time, Hammadi was the speaker of Iraq’s National Assembly. “The U.S. administration is now speaking war,” Hammadi said. “We are not going to turn the other cheek. We…
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Rove’s Brain and Media Manipulation
I just saw a horror movie — “Bush’s Brain” — the new documentary based on a book with the same name by journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater. The book’s subtitle is “How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential.” I’ll spare you the grim details. What matters most now is that Rove’s long record…