Comments on: The Independent Vote Yesterday

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:13:16 +0000

I almost forgot…

If one wants interesting and thought provoking philosophical, economic, and sociological commentary from a perspective further left than the political mainstream then I just have to recommend The Eclectic Radical. It’s something different, most of the time.

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:10:01 +0000

If one wants ‘establishment progressive’ and ‘establishment conservative views’ then The American Prospect and The American Spectator, respectively, do a fairly good job of sampling ‘official’ opinion on the left and right. The people who write for them typically share the general platform and views of the hard base of each party.

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:07:20 +0000

Yahoo News Opinion is a good source for a wide variety of professional op/ed stuff on both sides. They tend to tilt slightly conservative, lots of stuff by Buchanan, Bozell, Mona Charen, and Linda Chavez. Now that Robert Scheer doesn’t write so much stuff for them they are a little less numerously represented on the left, but Scheer’s stuff was nearly uniformly bad. Ted Rall, Cynthia Tucker and some other writers write good, smart liberal stuff from a decent range of liberal perspectives. They also aggregate content from Christian Science Monitor (always interesting and with a fascinating mixture of liberal and conservative views on various issues) and several other sources in addition to their own stuff.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:08:01 +0000

There’s so many political sites and publications that if I were to make a list at a different time I might come up with totally different selections considering how hard it is to narrow down.

In terms of liberal thought, there’s also Washington Monthly (including the Political Animal blog) and Think Progress.

The Atlantic is also excellent–both magazine and its selection of blogs. They tend more towards liberal views but also contains conservative views. Ambinder is good for general political coverage. Andrew Sullivan is worth reading. He can sometimes be off the wall (regardless of side considering some of his attacks on John Kerry as well as going overboard on Sarah Palin at times). Despite this he comes up with excellent items which often transcend the usual left/right divides (considering that he doesn’t fit in well with either). Megan McArdle has many good posts on economic issues from a more libertarian perspective. Yglesias, who left the Atlantic a while back, has a good blog for liberal perspectives.

The Moderate Voice gives a variety of views from left, right and center.

It is harder for me to recommend blogs on the right as my perspective on them is different from those who read them. I prefer those which differ from hard line right wing thought such as Secular Right. Little Green Footballs has been notable recently for being conservative while chastising the right for some of their nuttiness. Hot Air might be a good one to get the more hard line conservative view, occasionally even taking a more sane approach (from my perspective) than some of the other conservative blogs.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:32:38 +0000

Hmmm, ok, I’m (still) in no position to argue with a “homegrown” on political bias, so please help me out here. Which of the following websites would adequately cover my needs for a fair spread in political perspectives:

I currently favor:
- Politico (all around I guess)
- Real Clear Politics (all around I guess)
- TNR (all around I guess)
- Wall Street Journal (for rightwing bias)
- New York Times (for leftwing bias)

I sometimes read:
- Foreign Affairs
- Huffington Post
- National Review
- The Commentary
- Daily Kos
- Politifact
- Salon
- CSmonitor

It would be really nice to get some advice on this.

By: » Embracing One’s Meandering Cat Liberal Values

» Embracing One’s Meandering Cat Liberal Values — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:41:13 +0000

[...] The Independent Vote Yesterday [...]

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:47:58 +0000

I must add that, while he is certainly no where as far to the left as you, and no where as far to the left as the right wing claims, I would still consider Obama a liberal by American standards. You might be right that he is center-right by international standards.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:43:52 +0000

I didn’t get into the questionable job which the broadcast media does here, but I have in other posts. CNN does a mediocre job of reporting the news, but they make an attempt at actually reporting news. Despite their faults, this is far superior nationalistically to Fox which is a propaganda source. There is a difference between CNN which is does a poor job but is still news as opposed to Fox which is not a true news outfit.

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:34:53 +0000

‘It is a division between those networks which attempt to do real journalism, and Fox which distorts the news for partisan reasons.’

This is not totally true. I don’t know if I would describe what most of the networks do as ‘real journalism.’ Every now and then they make the attempt, but generally they fall short. Proper journalistic objectivity is the reporting of the facts and the debunking of lies.

Sure, Fox primarily reports lies and debunks facts, so I don’t consider them even close to journalists.

However, the other networks tend to ‘repeat information’ more than they ‘report facts’ and their deunking of lies is inadequate at best. Their efforts to remain ‘neutral’ frequently mean they are afraid to debunk any false information or too strongly report facts that might be too unpleasant, for fear of being accused of ‘biased reporting.’

I’d say the biggest advantage conservatives have in the media today is not that they have their own propaganda network. It’s that the rest of the media inevitably gives too much of the garbage bounced around on Fox airplay as legitimate news for fear of being left out of something. They repeat something because Fox said it, rather than report the facts.

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:26:31 +0000

‘It is the same issue for politicians as with the news media. The GOP has moved so far to the right that to some centrists are seen as left as they are so different from the other side.’

This is primarily possible because of the news media. They insist on describing the most moderate conservatives as ‘moderate’ and the least conservative of the moderates as ‘liberal’ as if the words mean nothing.

I’ve noted before that I have a lot of respect for President Obama and think that he is a good president in the balance. I’ve also noted that he is a long way from being liberal.

By the standards of the media today, I’m practically a Eurocommunist.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:05:23 +0000

Eclectic,

It is the same issue for politicians as with the news media. The GOP has moved so far to the right that to some centrists are seen as left as they are so different from the other side.

By: Brent

Brent — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:03:05 +0000

In that case I’d divide it up between real news (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN) and fake news (Jon Stewert, Colbert, and Faux News Network.)

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:02:05 +0000

‘The Republicans seem to want to move further right (i.e. Palin. Armey), and the Dems seem to want to push further left (i.e. Pelosi/Obama).’

The irony of this claim is that President Obama pretty much has been moving to the center his entire presidency. His campaign was never ‘left wing’ in the first place and he has made serious moves to the right on several issues since being elected, out of perceived necessity. Some of this is worthy of criticism and some is simply proof of pragmatism.

Nancy Pelosi is a liberal, yes, and she was a very liberal congresswoman for most of her career. She has tacked steadily to the center since becoming House Speaker, disappointing many of her constituents… as she represents a very liberal district and has moved well to the right of them in her leadership position.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:01:23 +0000

Plus it was the White House correspondent for CBS who, after Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, was saying that Reagan as opposed to Obama deserved to win it. Conservatives still think CBS is far left primarily because of 1) the Katie Couric interviews of Sarah Palin (which were all about Palin’s incompetence and not Couric’s views) and 2) David Letterman (who is not even part of the news department).

I agree there is a tendency to label things left vs right, and therefore since the mainstream media is so different from Fox some falsely divide it as Fox right, rest of networks left. It isn’t really a division between left and right. It is a division between those networks which attempt to do real journalism, and Fox which distorts the news for partisan reasons.

By: Brent

Brent — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:53:44 +0000

The media sure is not left of center. Faux is so far right that the rest are left of them by comparison. As Ron said, CNN–the Conservative News Network–has predominantly hired Republicans the last several years. Karl Rove used to call CNN his “go to” Network after Faux. Even CBS, which has been considered the most liberal, has moved pretty far to the right. They even considered picking people like Rush Limbaugh to “investigate” Dan Rather to appease the right.