Although the major news media are ignoring it, a recent news
release on Al Gore’s energy consumption is propagating madly through smaller publications
and right-wing blogs. The point of the press release, from the right-wing think tank Tennessee Center for Policy Research, is that the Gore family consumed an enormous amount of energy--more, not less, than last year. And he’s a big old hypocrite.
I don’t have a problem with pointing out the huge carbon
footprint of Gore, who preaches responsible energy use and conservation. But the gleeful furor
over his hypocrisy is self-indulgent and not very useful.
Authenticity is important. Being honest about who you are is
the basis of trust. Unfortunately, we’re not very objective in considering
claims of authenticity. And the media don’t give us the information we need
even if we want to work a little at informing ourselves. Instead, they pass along a lot of junk without vetting it.
Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti calls the race
between Barack Obama and John McCain an authenticity contest. Obama just
lost big points for reneging on his promise to have a publicly funded campaign. Now he’s foregoing the $85 million he’d get in order to jump onto unlimited
fundraising bandwagon.
That’s a concerning precedent. How should we think
about changes people make in the face of new—or newly understood—reality? The
ethical question here is does the need to change the path of American
government for the greater good outweigh the need to follow a high-ground decision and be true to your beliefs? And
the strategic question is can you win if you try something different, or do you
need to stick with what seems to be proven?
I think Obama should have stuck to his guns. That would inspire
people who want to send Mr. Smith to Washington, and right now there are a lot of us. But does that make him a hypocrite--or a realist?
Of course, McCain is no more authentic that Obama. He has
history as a chameleon, and he’s counting on people having short memories about
his views on taxes, immigration, oil, special interests, and more. What lets
him get by as "the candidate with character" is the failure of the press to
report as critically on the facts behind McCain's claims.
That, and our willingness to believe that being a prisoner of war improves someone's character. I know a few POWs, and I will tell you that many are terribly harmed by their experience. Nobility isn't an assured outcome here.
Wonderful and outrageous journalist Matt Taibbi indicts his
own profession for cowardice in telling the truth and being authentic:
Courage is a willingness to face real risks—your neck, or at the
very least, your job. The journalist with courage would have threatened to resign rather than repeat
George Bush's justifications for invasion before it began. I don't remember anyone resigning
last winter. The journalist with courage would threaten to quit rather than do a magazine piece
about an advertiser's product, his fad diet book or his magic-bullet baldness cure. It happens
every day, and nobody ever quits over it.f journalists had courage, they would form unions and
refuse to work for any company that made decisions about editorial content
based on the bottom line, on profit?
But even if the press did its job with courage, that would
leave us responsible for thinking harder about claims, slogans, and more. The responsibility
for finding the truth behind the constant repetition of inauthentic information
is ours.
Here’s an example of what happens when we don't take responsibility. On June 3, Tabbi was in New Orleans covering McCain.
. . . here in the Big Easy, John McCain has chosen this
moment to mount his first general-election attack against the Great Satanic
Liberal Enemy — who, as luck would have it, turns out to be a Negro
intellectual from Harvard who's never served in the military. And this is
supposed to be a bad year for Republicans?
He interviewed someone named Ron about McCain’s assaults on Obama, which were heartily received by an adoring crowd. It makes for uncomfortable, and telling, reading.
Ron
says his problem with Obama is the integrity thing. "He exaggerates too
much," Ron says. "He's not honest."
"OK,"
I say. "What does he exaggerate about?"
"Well,
like that time he was saying he had a white mother and a white
grandmother," he says.
I
ask him how this is an exaggeration.
"Well,
he was saying . . ." he begins. "As if that qualifies him to . .
."
Despite
my repeated prodding, Ron seems unable or unwilling to say aloud exactly what
he means. Finally, his friend Mary, a grave-looking blonde with fierce anger
lines around her eyes, jumps in, points a finger and blurts out one of the
all-time man-on-the-street quotes.
"Look,
you either are or you aren't," she says.
"And
he aren't," Ron says, nodding with relief.
Being
authentic doesn’t just mean being who we are if we are not very thoughtful or
well-informed. It means being trustworthy. To accomplish that, we need to try
harder to be better than those we deprecate. Thinking for ourselves requires the courage to discover that we may be wrong sometimes.
Addition: David Brooks wrote a great column about Obama's complexity today. ". . .I have to admit, I’m ambivalent watching all this. On the one hand,
Obama did sell out the primary cause of his professional life, all for
a tiny political advantage. If he’ll sell that out, what won’t he sell
out? On the other hand, global affairs ain’t beanbag. If we’re going to
have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of
Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly
opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside. . ."
