<p>“I have always heard that people on the right are more familiar with views on the left than the other way.”</p>
<p>I think I am pretty well versed in the views on both the left and the right - which has nothing to do with having to know the talking head personalities on either side. </p>
<p>ZM, did I say anything about him being or not being a Democrat in my post? I’m confused. </p>
<p>He defines himself as a conservative. Repeatedly. He even wrote a whole article about how he was NOT on the left. He has far more conservative positions than liberal ones. </p>
<p><em>shrug</em> It’s whatever. I don’t really care. He has nothing to do with this situation. </p>
<p>I thought Lauten’s remarks were in bad taste and should never have been posted. She knows how to apologize, though. I’m sick and tired of people apologizing “if [they] offended anyone.” If you do something offensive, and you want to apologize, you should admit that people were rightly offended by your action, instead of weaseling around with “if.”</p>
<p>WRONG: “If I offended anyone by saying that [politician]'s baby looks like it was hauled out of the dumpster…”</p>
<p>RIGHT: “I’m deeply ashamed by my remarks about [politician]'s baby. I apologize to [politician], [politician’s spouse], and all the other people who read my ill-considered remarks. I should have known better, and I do know better.”</p>
<p>Yes. And–“it won’t happen again.”</p>
<p>“Both. Mainstream is synonymous for the left.”</p>
<p>This is news to me, so I had to look this up, too. </p>
<p><a href=“MAINSTREAM Synonyms: 27 Synonyms & Antonyms for MAINSTREAM | Thesaurus.com”>http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/mainstream</a></p>
<p>No mention of “left” anywhere. </p>
<p>It is definitely not synonymous for “the left” except in some people’s imagination. </p>
<p>Maybe colleges should incorporate a mandatory course on ethics (with a section on how to apologize) into their journalism/media/communications curricula. After all, even B schools teach ethics. </p>
<p>“Most consider the mainstream media to be more aligned with, and conversely, less critical of the democratic party than the republican party, Hence, the mainstream media is considered left-of-center.”</p>
<p>Yes, I know that. Doesn’t mean it has any basis in fact. </p>
<p>Oh please. This one I know something about. It has basis in fact and most people who work in media are pretty frank about the fact that if there’s any leaning going on it’s left leaning. The aim is no leaning but that’s not realistic since it seeps into what to cover at all let alone how to cover it. And, the internet has changed everything.</p>
<p>better?</p>
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<p>Most colleges are left-of-center too. Maybe “left-of-center” is the new middle.</p>
<p>I see the mainstream media trying to give equal time to differing viewpoints, even when they are not represented equally. Climate change is a good example of this. </p>
<p>Andrew Sullivan is hard to pigeon-hole: he’s a British conservative (which probably does make him left-of-center here, but not in Britain, where he was born). For goodness sake, he wrote his PhD thesis on Michael Oakeshott, one of the most important conservative thinkers of the last century.</p>
<p>On social issues, though, he’s definitely a Libertarian - a gay Catholic man who is married to his partner and extols the virtues of legalized marijuana. </p>
<p>And yeah - he had a weird obsession with the Palins. </p>
<p>I think we all can agree with the position that everyone needs to leave famous people’s kids alone and to be less critical when they do something we may not like because we wouldn’t even KNOW about these things if their parents weren’t famous. </p>
<p>Calling Andrew Sullivan an important lefty because he used to appear on msnbc (he doesn’t now, and hasn’t for quite a while) is like calling James Carville a Republican because he appears on Fox. </p>
<p>I don’t understand the tendency to say this or that random lefty/righty said X, therefore that is a left/right opinion. If someone is an official spokesperson or an elected official, there’s a case. </p>
<p>And that was Lauten’s problem: she was an official spokesperson for a Congressman. That Congeessman may very well have been as outraged as most of us are. </p>
<p>I agree that belittling of the children of politicians should be generally off-limits… but there is also a qualitative difference between circumstances such as a teenage pregnancy vs. remarks about the physical appearance or demeanor of the children. I mean, I’d assume that if Malia turned up pregnant, there would be commentary - it wouldn’t make it right, but I’d hardly expect that it would be ignored in the media either. Similarly, if a child of a politician engages in conduct that is arrest-worthy (such as Jenna’s underage drinking in college) – that’s newsworthy. Someone is going to report it-- and a certain level of commentary may be appropriate, though there should be lines drawn even there. </p>
<p>Bu my point is I don’t think it makes sense to draw a direct parallel between those situations. One fits in the realm of kids acting like kids, where as the others are things that would be BFD’s within the family, so likely to attract attention outside. </p>
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<p>newsworthy maybe…but since few among us (or our kids) can throw stones in that regard, making a big deal out of it is silly.</p>
<p>“Maybe “left-of-center” is the new middle”</p>
<p>No, the middle is shrinking into non-existence. And, it’s very easy to see this by the fact that people can list who they think is a reputable news source and who they think is biased junk. And, no-one watches much network news at all. In the good old days everyone started with the same 30 minutes of information and quibbled around the edges. The divisions are much extreme now and people actually refuse to believe stuff because of where it’s reported. It’s more information so overall a very good thing but the average news consumer can’t always tell what’s real news and what’s advocacy journalism and what’s basically a PR piece they found online somewhere. </p>
<p>Also, no-one reported that the Obama girls were making over it faces. That was obvious to anyone who watched. This woman was fired for posting a stupid outburst on a Facebook page where she was representing her employer. It could have been anything and isn’t really political excepting that was the topic. Social media outbursts are trouble a lot.</p>
<p>I agree that making a big thing about it would have been silly, and I think that while it was discussed pretty widely, no one saw it as a major deal. Note that no one accused them of not caring about their country because they drank too much. There were a bunch of things that didn’t make it into the newspapers, and that’s a good thing. Children/teenagers have a right to make mistakes and grow up like the rest of us did. </p>
<p>I was mostly confused by the “dressed to go to a bar” comment. The outfits were modest and ordinary, with a lot less skin showing than I see on lots of teenage girls headed to class. Lauten must be going to some really tame bars.</p>
<p>To be fair, this woman only lasted seven month with another representative here in Illinois 3 1/2 years ago. Their statement regarding her employment with them was very carefully crafted. </p>
<p>Perhaps she should read the writing on the wall - but honestly, I think she’s done in anything PR.</p>
<p>Can I throw something out there? I wonder if she was drunk when she made the comments…I’ve known more than a few smart and successful people who imploded because of inappropriate actions or comments fueled by booze. It’s the only explanation for why someone in her position would do such a thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up in rehab.</p>