From Secrets To Socialism To A Shit-Eating Grin

"Let’s address [the birther's] motives for a moment. Are some of those demanding the full state records engaged in a futile quest to prove Obama is not a U.S. citizen? Are they on what the editors call 'the hunt for a magic bullet that will make all the unpleasant complications of [Obama’s] election and presidency disappear'? Sure they are. But not everyone who wants to see the full state records falls into that category. I, for one, have very different reasons for being curious.

WHO IS THIS GUY?

Before January 20 of this year, Barack Obama had a negligible public record. He burst onto the national scene what seemed like five minutes before his election to the presidency: a first-term U.S. senator who actually served less than four years in that post — after a short time as a state legislator, some shadowy years as a 'community organizer,' and scholastic terms at Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard that remain shrouded in mystery. The primary qualification supporters offered for Obama’s candidacy was his compelling life story, as packaged in 850 pages’ worth of the not one but two autobiographies this seemingly unaccomplished candidate had written by the age of 45.

There may be perfectly benign answers to all of this. But the real question is: Why don’t the media — the watchdog legions who trekked to Sarah Palin’s Alaska hometown to scour for every kernel of gossip, and who were so desperate for Bush dirt that they ran with palpably forged military records — want to dig into Obama’s background? 



Who cares that Hawaii’s full state records would doubtless confirm what we already know about Obama’s birthplace? They would also reveal interesting facts about Obama’s life: the delivering doctor, how his parents described themselves, which of them provided the pertinent information, etc. Wasn’t the press once in the business of interesting — and even not-so-interesting — news? 



And why would Obama not welcome Hawaii’s release of any record in its possession about the facts and circumstances of his birth? Isn’t that kind of weird? It would, after all, make the whole issue go away and, if there’s nothing there, make those who’ve obsessed over it look like fools. Why should I need any better reason to be curious than Obama’s odd resistance to so obvious a resolution?"

Andrew C. McCarthy, asking many of the same questions I do - not about Obama's birth, but about his entire emergence as a political figure - with the help of America's mainstream journalists, which doesn't exactly include The National Review

"You may have heard of the lunatic fringe contingent that thinks that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and thus not eligible to be President of the United States according to the Constitution. They're incredible cranks, cooking up all manner of dire conspiracy theories about a doctored birth certificate and birth documents, all full of dark plotting, aided and abetted, of course, by the 'liberal' press."

Orac - my favorite increasingly idiotic scientist - who thinks the label "liberal" (when referring to the American press) is so off-the-mark he must put it in quotes, on Respectful Insolence

"The preponderance of journalists are Democrats.  And socialism, with its idyllic, 'progressive' programs, has formed an increasingly important role in Democratic policies. Who wants to investigate a possible dark side of your own party’s plank?

We’ll get to that.  First—why are most journalists Democrats?

Unsurprisingly, self-selection plays an important role in choosing a job.  People choosing to do work related to prisons, for example, commonly show quite different characteristics than those who volunteer for work in helping disadvantaged youths.  Academicians have very different characteristics than CEOs—or politicians, for that matter.  

Harry Stein, former ethics editor of Esquire, once said: 'Journalism, like social work, tends to attract individuals with a keen interest in bettering the world.' In other words, journalists self-select based on a desire to help others. Socialism, with its 'spread the wealth' mentality intended to help society’s underdogs, sounds ideal.

Most journalists take a number of psychology, sociology, political science, and humanities courses during their early years in college.  Unfortunately, these courses have long served as ideological training programs—ignoring biological sources of self-serving, corrupt, and criminal behavior for a number of reasons, including lack of scientific training; postmodern, antiscience bias; and well-intentioned, facts-be-damned desire to have their students view the world from an egalitarian perspective.  Instead, these disciplines ram home the idea that troubled behavior can be fixed through expensive socialist programs that, coincidentally, provide employment opportunities for graduates of the social sciences. Modern neuroscience is showing how flawed many of these policies have been—structural differences in the brains of psychopaths, for example, help explain why remedial programs simply helped them become better at conning people. 

Academics in the social sciences tend to give short shrift to the dramatic failures and corruption within US educational system or unions. (Think here of the Detroit Public School system, or the National Education Association, whose former officers have written: “The NEA has been the single biggest obstacle to education reform in this country. We know because we worked for the NEA.”)  Instead, because of their ideological biases, professors often emphasize that corporations are the bad guys, while unions and the government—at least the type of government that supports higher paychecks for social science professors and jobs for their students—are good.  This type of teaching makes the Democratic Party and its increasingly socialist ideals seem naturally desirable, and criticism about how those ideals will supposedly be met less likely. (How many social scientists predicted that the billions spent on busing and the Projects would worsen the situations they were meant to solve, as ultimately happened?)  It’s no wonder that journalists enter the profession as Democrats, then keep their beliefs intact through all-too-common tendencies to conform. "

-- Barbara Oakley, telling us why much of today's journalistic community cannot be trusted - and with lots more supporting links in the original article - from Psychology Today.