New Media Alliance - Thomas Lindaman

By Thomas Lindaman

The recent stories about Hillary Clinton’s campaign spending money like a lonely male Lotto winner at a strip club have given us a new look at the woman who would be President. We already suspected that she wasn’t ready to run the country, but the ways she’s spent campaign cash have pretty much solidified it. Seriously, $1300 for Dunkin’ Donuts? That’s what Michael Moore spends for his pre-pre-pre-post-pre-post-post-pre-post-post-pre-post-pre-mid-morning brunch, for the love of Pete!

Yet, I can’t help but feel sorry for Hillary at this point. You read that right, folks. I feel sorry for Hillary Clinton. And, surprisingly, the straitjacket is very comfortable. And the men in the nice white coats bring me all sorts of wonderful drugs!

Seriously, I’m wincing as each new story about Hillary and her campaign comes out because it’s becoming clear that her campaign is the worst one a Democratic candidate has ever run without hiring Bob Shrum. Overspending, bad post-Super Tuesday strategy, awkward lines about “35 years of experience” and “change you can Xerox,” and Bill’s ill-advised and ham-handed forays into racial politics notwithstanding, Hillary seems to have counted on being granted the Democratic nomination by virtue of…well, being Hillary.

Part of this expectation stems from the fact Hillary has never had to run a campaign in a competitive race until now. In 2000, her chief competition, Rudy Giuliani, dropped out due to cancer, leaving Rick Lazio to pick up the pieces, but not the Senate seat. Then in 2006, the Republican who ran against Hillary had less of a chance than John McCain does of being caught in a sex scandal. Okay, bad example, but Hillary has been pretty much untouchable in her Senate races. Now, with Barack Obama making waves like Michael Moore doing a cannonball into the ocean, Hillary’s finding out the hard way that she’s not nearly as untouchable as she has been.

Perpetuating this problem has been the people Hillary’s campaign has been hiring. Get this. Democratic media consultant Mark Penn has already received $3.8 million from the Clinton campaign…and is owed even more. And when you consider over the stretch of the past 11 caucuses and primaries as of the date of this writing that I’ve tied Hillary without spending a dime, we can see how well that money’s been spent. Combine with this the legion of yes-men surrounding Hillary, but not really offering sound advice, and you have a candidate dangerously disconnected with the American people and reality. And when you consider the Democrats ran Al Gore and John Kerry, that’s saying something.

At this point, it looks like there are more people looking to make as much money off the Hillary campaign while it’s still viable than there are people willing to help it success. And, yes, that includes Bill. For 8 years, Bill was the center of the political universe as President, and he’s never let that go. So, when Hillary started her campaign, it was his chance to get out in front of the people and press the flesh. And he was meeting people, too! Seriously, though, Bill was brought on to try to rekindle the Clinton magic and have it rub off on Hillary. (Is it just me, or does just about every phrase imaginable turn into a sexual innuendo when you talk about Bill Clinton?) As it turns out, even Bill had ulterior motives when stumping for his wife, namely to get himself back in front of people who love him. And to score with women, and not in the political sense, if you know what I mean.

This is why I feel sorry for Hillary. In spite of everything she’s pulled, lied about, lashed out at, and hid from, she’s still human. Or at least, I think she’s human. I mean, I haven’t done DNA testing on her to be certain, but I’m making a reasonable guess here.

In Greek tragedies, the protagonists always had a fatal flaw that would eventually come back to bite them in the back side. In this case, Hillary’s Achilles’ Heel was the fact that she made Howard Hughes look gregarious while on the campaign trail. We never really got to see the “real” her. Granted, that’s like wanting to see Pamela Anderson’s real breasts, but it’s still pretty important. Voters need to feel a connection to a candidate for them to truly get behind them. With some voting blocs, she had that connection, but not because of anything she did. Rather, it was because of identity politics or the prospect of getting Bill back in the White House to stick it to the Republicans. That sort of support proves to be a mile long, but only as deep as the memoirs of Hillary supporter and former porn actress Jenna Jameson.

But before you think I’ve gone completely soft here, I have to say that I don’t completely feel sorry for Hillary. The reason is that each and every one of these mistakes Hillary and her campaign have made is a choice. Hillary’s campaign is choosing to spend a million dollars a month on bad advice. The campaign chose to believe the nomination would be wrapped up by Super Tuesday. The campaign chose to spend all sorts of money to make Hillary look Presidential in the early states, which is leaving her short of money now. But instead of learning from the mistakes, she continues to make them. That’s the sign of someone not ready to be President.

Let me leave you with a final joke. What’s the difference between Hillary’s campaign and the Titanic? The music was better on the Titanic.

By Thomas Lindaman

Today is a day of celebration in Kosovo, as the ethnic Albanians declared independence from Kosovo this past weekend. World reaction has been mixed. Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States have all supported the move towards independence, while Russia, China, and Spain have all rejected it. That should make us feel pretty good that we’re on the right side of this situation, right?

Not so much, at least not in my case.

It wasn’t so long ago that American-lead NATO forces went into Kosovo to try to drive out Serbians who were accused of “ethnic cleansing” and other atrocities against the ethnic Albanians there. Our actions lead to Serbian troops being driven out of Kosovo and the eventual unseating of Slobodan Milosevic. At the time, it was generally thought that we were the good guys, a sentiment many share today when (or rather if) they remember the Kosovo situation.

There’s one tiny problem with that line of thinking, however. It doesn’t quite match up with reality. One of the justifications given for going into Kosovo was the existence of mass graves, proving that the Serbs were killing the Albanians. Yet, when journalists and others went to Kosovo to review the magnitude of the “ethnic cleansing,” they didn’t find any of the mass graves that we said were there. In fact, two American journalists came back and admitted that they moved what few bodies were there to give the impression that there were more bodies than there actually were.

So, if there weren’t any mass graves as had been thought, why would American forces have been put into harm’s way? You can thank Bill Clinton for that. Conventional wisdom has it that we went into Kosovo to divert attention away from impeachment proceedings pertaining to the Monica Lewinsky affair (if you’ll pardon the expression), but it’s only part of the equation. There was a story from a major news magazine from January 1998 that showed Clinton as obsessed with his legacy, including a statement to the effect that he wanted to go to war so he could be seen as a great President.

Also, Kosovo gave Clinton a chance to appear to be a world leader instead of a fluke. At NATO’s 50th anniversary celebration, it’s been reported that the reaction of world leaders to Clinton was rather cold, as though they didn’t really consider him to be that great. Consider, also, that it was European countries who wanted NATO to go into Kosovo in the first place, accusing Milosevic of being “the next Hitler.” With that, Clinton had the perfect scenario to take action. Kosovo allowed Clinton to go to war, impress the Europeans, and push aside his impeachment.

Yet, as international as Clinton wanted to be, he was woefully inept on the world stage, especially when it came to handling the Middle East and international terrorism. Whether it was treating the first World Trade Center bombing as a criminal affair instead of a matter of national security or forcing Secretary of State Madeline Albright down the throats of Middle Eastern countries, Clinton’s foreign policy was not about doing what was right for the country, but what was right for him personally. This short-sighted approach to policy made it possible for our actions to inadvertently help al Qaeda, but I’ll talk about that later.

There are other troubling aspects to our Kosovo exercise that didn’t get as much media play as others. For example, Slobodan Milosevic was detained at an airport in Europe in January 1999 and was not allowed to speak to his lawyer. America knew it happened and allowed it to occur without so much as a raised eyebrow. From a country that fought a war or two to protect the rights of individuals, this is utterly disgusting.

Then, there’s the whole “ethnic cleansing” and mass graves talk. Whenever people mention Kosovo, one of the points that keeps coming up is how Milosevic was killing Albanians in mass graves. Yet, when journalists and investigators went to Kosovo, they couldn’t find any mass graves. Furthermore, two American journalists came back and said they moved bodies for photographs to give the impression that there were more bodies in the graves than there were.

But at least we brought peace and stability to the region after we drove out the Serbs, right? Nope. As soon as we drove out the Serbs, the same rapes, murders, and “ethnic cleansing” went on as before, this time with the Albanians doing it. And with NATO troops doing nothing to stop it. A story that came out after we “won” in Kosovo showed that Serbs pelted NATO troops with rocks and snowballs to protest how badly they were now being treated by the Albanians.

I don’t bring up this information to bash Clinton’s actions. Instead, I do it to establish a pattern that I’ve seen come up time and time again in discussing Kosovo with others, a pattern that is again at work with Kosovo’s declaration of independence. We don’t have the whole story because no one’s bothering to do the digging to find it out. Oh, we have a story, but it’s one that has been scrubbed for public consumption and has a ton of lies designed to keep our attention away from the truth.

Here’s a statistic that probably won’t make the evening news and hasn’t even been referenced in the foreign press. Most of the ethnic Albanians are Muslim. The Serbs, on the other hand, are predominantly Christian. Now, consider the fact that Kosovo has a 90-10 split in favor of the Albanians. We’re supposed to believe the Serbs were the ones who were oppressing the Albanians?

But let’s bring this discussion into the current day. Although Kosovo has said it will make concessions for the Serbs in Kosovo, I can’t help but think the old animosity will rear its ugly head as soon as nobody’s looking, just like it did after the US bailed out of Kosovo with a “victory.” The fighting between these two groups have been going on for centuries, and the Albanians declaring independence from Serbia won’t change that. I sincerely hope I’m wrong in that analysis, but I don’t think I am.

Now, consider the fact I mentioned earlier about the Albanians being mostly Muslim for a moment. What isn’t so well known by many Americans is that al Qaeda had connections in Kosovo when we were there in the 90s. In fact, Kosovo was a major hub for drug running for al Qaeda. By running out the Serbs, who were fighting to shut down al Qaeda’s drug trade, we helped the terrorists who came after us on our soil, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq. And it’s a good bet that there are some Albanians who will be more than happy to give our enemies safe haven, which may give them an ideal spot to hit Eastern Europe, where some of our staunches allies in the world right now are.

And France, Germany, England, and America don’t even see it.

One of the reasons we may not see the danger just yet is our attachment to the concept of independence. Americans value freedom and independence like no other country in the world because we were founded on the notion of man being free. So, when a country declares independence, we feel our chests swell a bit because we’re reminded of what makes America great. However, we should not let these feelings cloud our judgment, as they appear to have done with us. Whether it’s optimism, ignorance, or suspension of disbelief at work matters not. What matters is that we look at Kosovo’s independence with from as wide a perspective as possible.

As much as I like independence, I also understand the costs involved. Let’s say for example that Kosovo is allowed to be independent, but things start to go wrong for them, like their economy doesn’t take off like expected. When you have a number of negative experiences without much to speak of on the positive side, people will look to anyone who will deliver hope and success. It happened in the former Soviet Union. It happened in Germany after World War I. It’s happening in America right now. And it may happen in Kosovo. In each of the cases I mentioned (save for America right now because the jury’s still out on it), the change lead to something catastrophic. Whether Kosovo winds up the same way is yet to be seen, but given what we’ve seen out of Kosovo in the past decade, I can’t say I’m overly optimistic.

For the sake of the world, I pray I’m wrong.

By Thomas Lindaman

As any faithful reader of old Superman comics will tell you, one of Superman’s nemeses was Bizarro. For those of you who have lives, Bizarro was a backwards version of Superman from a planet known as Bizarro World. On Bizarro World, everything was the opposite of the way things were on Earth. Up was down, good was evil, Air America was successful. In other words, it’s what would happen if Congress took over the world.

I was thinking about this recently when pondering over why people saw Hillary Clinton and John McCain as the frontrunners for their respective party’s nominations. (Okay, so it was more like yelling and cursing than actual pondering, but you get the idea.) Neither one has the ideological stuff to be considered a true Democrat or a true Republican. So, why would these two non-traditional politicians be so popular with the traditionalists in their respective parties?

We’ve become Bizarro World.

Let’s start with Hillary Clinton. She’s voted in favor of the Iraq War (even though she’s come out later and said she’s against it now, kinda-sorta), which doesn’t put her on Cindy Sheehan’s Christmas card list. She’s in favor of at least some tax relief for middle and lower class people. She’s a feminist icon who has let her husband, Bill, walk all over her and has kowtowed to the traditionalists who want her to be more ladylike. By all standards, Hillary Clinton should be falling so far behind in the polls that Dennis Kucinich would look like William the Conqueror.

John McCain isn’t much better. He’s voted against the Bush tax cuts. He’s called for closing down Gitmo. He’s supported amnesty for illegal immigrants. In fact, on just about every “conservative” issue, McCain’s been on the other side with the mathematical certainty only equaled by the likelihood that at some point during the day Ted Kennedy will be drunk. Look up the definition of RINO (Republican In Name Only) in the dictionary, and you’ll find McCain’s picture.

None of this explains the “why,” though. Personally, I think it has everything to do with the make-up of American society right now. To say Americans are indecisive and intellectually inconsistent is like saying the Miami Dolphins had a bit of a slump this season.

To that end, Hillary Clinton and John McCain represent the kind of Democrat and Republican many Americans want them to be. Instead of having strong convictions that won’t be compromised except under the most extreme of circumstances, they’re both squishy and will let circumstance dictate their positions. And if our convictions are anything like our waistlines, we’re not much better. Most of us know deep down inside that we’re walking contradictions at best, so in our minds, by not demanding more of our political leaders, we’re protecting ourselves.

But that kind of protection has a price. (Usually, it’s somewhere around $49.95.) By not dealing with the reality of a situation, we risk inventing a false reality that prevents us from taking the action we need to take to remain safe. It’s like those anti-bacterial hand lotions that people use. We think we’re protecting ourselves against illness when, in fact, we may be hurting ourselves by killing off the “good bacteria” in and on our bodies. Then, when a flu bug that your body isn’t ready for hits you, all the anti-bacterial lotion in an obsessive-compulsive’s medicine cabinet won’t help you.

Now, apply this to the Presidency. A wishy-washing, indecisive, contradictory leader can be considered popular and competent if we’re all holding him or her to standards so low an ant could limbo under it. But if there’s a major crisis, like…oh I don’t know…Imadinnerjacket deciding to nuke Seattle just to prove he doesn’t have nuclear weapons, those qualities we liked about the leader become hindrances. And nothing will make your approval numbers sink more than watching a major American city known for grunge music, professional sports teams who choke like Mama Cass around ham sandwiches, and Starbucks be turned into a Grande Nucleo-Latte.

At times like these, we need strong leaders. The economy is shaky, terrorists still want to kill us for being Americans, and somewhere down the road, Jennifer Lopez will put out another CD. Who do we want to lead us through these times: someone who has an internal GPS formed by principle, strength, and moral courage, or someone whose principles, strength, and moral courage is tested by that age-old question “paper or plastic”? I can’t speak for you (mainly because I don’t know what all of you sound like), but I’m going to go with the first option. I may not agree with where we’re going, but at least I know there’s a map being used so I can get the heck back to where I started from.

With people like John McCain and Hillary Clinton, you’re lucky if they can lead you across the street to a neighbor’s house without heading through Nebraska, Timbuktu, and every Shoney’s east of the Mississippi. Although I do have to say Shoney’s has a pretty good breakfast buffet, so it might not turn out to be completely bad after all.

By Thomas Lindaman

I was chatting online with a friend of mine watching CNN’s coverage of the South Carolina Republican Primary when my friend mentioned something said by one of the political experts they had. One of the experts said, hopefully with tongue planted firmly in cheek, that John McCain and Fred Thompson are working together to weaken the other candidates. Yeah, because as we all know, Thompson is secretly a liberal Republican who is only acting like a conservative Republican to undermine Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.

For the people who believe CNN is the epitome of fine political reporting and analysis, that was sarcasm.

Is it just me, or have the media done a horrible job covering this election? Reading the online newspapers and magazines and watching the cable news coverage has been more painful than watching any of the recent “American Pie” sequels, but with many more exposed boobs. I know journalistic standards have declined in recent years, but there’s a big difference between declining and devolving. And from where I sit, the New York Times is only a couple steps up from the Weekly World News as far as journalistic quality.

Part of the reason is what the media do every time there’s a national election. In order to generate interest in the coverage, the media love to set up a horse race mentality. Which candidate is ahead? Which candidate is starting to fall back? Which candidate will be turned into glue at the end of the election?

Take the recent coverage of Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, for example. After coming in third in Iowa, reporters were wondering if Hillary would keep going. Likewise, after a first place finish in Wyoming and two second place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, these same reporters said Romney had to win Michigan or else he’d drop out. And in both cases, the talking heads and political experts nodded in complete agreement. One tiny problem, though: Both Clinton and Romney were leading in the delegate count when the “experts” were saying Clinton and Romney were done! That’s like calling for a retreat when you outnumber the opposing army 1000 to 1. Then again, that’s the way the French Army does business…

Another reason for the bad media coverage of the election so far is because of the nature of the business itself. Being in the media, even as a special correspondent, can be highly competitive and bitter. It’s like divorce court except that the people who don’t get on camera don’t have to give up half their stuff to the one who does. Once one gets “discovered” as a reliable source of information, it gets frightfully easy to create a psychological echo chamber where they stroke their egos like Pee Wee Herman at a double feature. And with analogies like that, it’s no wonder I don’t have a problem with people asking me to appear on camera for political analysis segments.

The other reason I can think of for the declining media coverage is us. Most Americans today don’t want to take the time to stay on top of the political ins-and-outs because we have more important things to do, like being entertained. I’m surprised we haven’t seen the following exchange on a cable news network:

ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN’s coverage of Election 2008. I’m Antonio Cabrera, one of the top 16 finalists on the fourth season of “American Idol.” Tonight, we’ll be discussing the candidates’ plans for illegal immigration, but first let’s go over to Carmen Electra, who will give us the latest poll numbers. Carmen?

CARMEN: Thank you, Antonio. We talked to a bunch of people and of those people surveyed, Mitt Romney still leads the rest of the candidates in the “Candidate I’d Most Like To Have a Three-Way With.” Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go visit my new boyfriend, Thomas Lindaman, so I can strip and sexually pleasure him for a week.

Okay, so I made that last part up. Sue me.

The Founding Fathers intended for our government to be interactive, which means we have to do our homework. Relying on the media right now to do our homework for us is like cribbing off the dumbest kid in the class: you may get the occasional correct answer, but it will be completely by accident if you do. Most likely, the media won’t get any better at reporting and analysis because they have no desire to get better, so it’s up to us to get smarter about the process. I know it can be boring, but it’s what we need to do.

At least until the new season of “Survivor” starts. Then, all bets are off.

By Thomas Lindaman

January 3rd came and went…and the political world didn’t end! Oh, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd both dropped out of contention for the Democrats after the Iowa Caucuses, but they weren’t exactly lighting up the Democrat side that much. Besides, in Biden’s case, I think he was just copying Dodd’s strategy.

Yet, to hear some people out there, the Iowa Caucuses are some sort of monstrosity that threatens the fabric of our democracy. (Of course, if we had a democracy, we might have a reason to be worried.) People from California to Florida, New York to Los Angeles, have questioned why Iowa gets to go first in the nation and have had some not-so-nice things to say about the Hawkeye State in the process. Californians have even said that they should go first in the nation because of their size and, thus, political significance. Since Californians are the ones complaining the most about the Iowa Caucuses, the majority of this column will address their complaints about them.

One of the major complaints from politically minded Californians is that Iowa doesn’t represent the racial diversity of the nation. To them, Iowa is predominantly white, culturally homogeneous, and out of touch with the rest of the country. That’s as may be, but those same descriptors could be used to talk about another part of the country, one that’s equally white, homogeneous, and out of touch.

That’s right. I’m talking about Beverly Hills.

Furthermore, since when is a state’s caucus or primary required to reflect the racial and cultural diversity of the country? Race and culture play some role, but the larger role will be played by political ideology. For example, right around Berkeley, I’m pretty sure there’s a greater than average concentration of white kids who think socialism is the best socio-economic system out there (so long as Mommy and Daddy keep sending the tuition checks). Applying California’s exclusionary mindset in this case, the entire city of Berkeley, California, could be discounted from the California primaries because it doesn’t reflect the ideological leanings of this country. Then again, I’m thinking the California Republican Party wouldn’t have any complaints about that.

Another common complaint is that it’s not fair that a small state like Iowa has so much power over the process because many campaigns shut down if they don’t fare well in Iowa. The argument here is that Californians go so late in the primary season that they don’t get the same choices Iowans get, so in order to be fair in their minds, they should go first so Californians would have a wider field from which to choose. With this election, though, I’m thinking it’s like choosing between a dog poop sandwich and a bear poop sandwich.

The main argument against this notion is campaign cash. Say Hillary Clinton wants to run a 30-second television spot in Sacramento, the capitol of California. It’s going to cost more to run the ad in Sacramento than it will in Des Moines, the capitol of Iowa, because Sacramento is so much bigger. Same thing with radio and print ads and mass mailings. In short, if California were to go first, it would cost campaigns more to accomplish the necessary tasks to run for President. Some smaller, lesser-funded campaigns would either skip California altogether or fold up shop because they couldn’t spend the money to be competitive, which means…Californians would pretty much get the same choices than if those candidates dropped out after the Iowa Caucuses.

The other knock against this argument is political. You have to wonder if the Californians complaining about the potential field of candidates being whittled down after the Iowa Caucuses support second and third tier candidates. If you do, God bless ya. If not, you’re a flaming hypocrite (or you will be if you spontaneously combust). Supporting the candidacy of someone like Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel to participate in California’s primaries without giving them your financial or volunteer support is like a doctor saying he can remove the tumor from your brain, but he’ll have to cut off both legs to do it. But as Governor Schwarzenegger might opine in this case, “It is naht a toomah!” (One hundred Bottom Line points if you got that joke. Two hundred if you got that joke and are ashamed to admit it.)

Personally, I think the main reason some Californians have a problem with the Iowa Caucuses being first in the nation is because of ego. Some online commentators have said Iowa should “get over themselves” and let someone else go first for a change. The problem with that view is that Iowans by nature aren’t egotistical. We get the job done without a lot of fanfare and then move on to the next job. Granted, not all of California is the Bizarro version of Iowa, but when you consider that the entertainment industry, an industry notorious for having so many ego trips it gets frequent flyer miles, is based in California…let’s just say that Californians should be the last ones to tell Iowans to “get over themselves.”

Simply put, the bulk of the arguments some Californians have made against the Iowa Caucuses being first in the nation are bogus. Granted, it’s only a minority of Californians who are making the waves in the first place. Most of the rest of them are just surfing on them. So, for now, let’s just leave the Iowa Caucuses as first in the nation. It’s not going to hurt anything if we do. Besides, after California gave the nation Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, and Dianne Feinstein, I think they owe us big time.