ABCDE OUTLOOK sunday, november 14, 2010 INSIDE
Eye on the tiger Leonardo DiCaprio on how to save the big cats. B2
BOOKWORLD,B6-8 For God and country Three new books explore the American way of worship. B6
Rise of the machines Kevin Kelly on tech’s evolution and what Ted Kaczynski got right. B6 Labor days A history of unions, starring John L. Lewis, Karen Silkwood and Ronald Reagan. B7
The case against news we can choose
BY TED KOPPEL T
o witness Keith Olbermann — the most opinionated among MSNBC’s left-leaning, Fox-baiting, money- generating hosts —
suspended even briefly last week for making financial contributions to Democratic political candidates seemed like a whimsical, arcane holdover from a long-gone era of television journalism, when the networks considered the collection and dissemination of substantive and unbiased news to be a public trust. Back then, a policy against political
contributions would have aimed to avoid even the appearance of partisanship. But today, when Olbermann draws more than 1 million like-minded viewers to his program every night precisely because he is avowedly, unabashedly and monotonously partisan, it is not clear what misdemeanor his donations constituted. Consistency? We live now in a cable news universe
that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly — individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable. The commercial success of both Fox
News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel PatrickMoynihan’s oft-quoted observation that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts. And so, among the many benefits we
have come to believe the founding television continued on B4
Ted Koppel, who was managing editor of ABC’s “Nightline” from 1980 to 2005, is a contributing analyst for “BBC World News America.”
5
ONE& DONE
BY DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN AND PATRICK H. CADDELL
P BY RUBY BRIDGES
n the morning of my first day of first grade at a new school, 50 years ago Sunday,U.S. mar- shals knocked on my family’s door. They had been sent by
resident Obama must decide now how he wants to govern in the two years leading up to the 2012 presidential election. In recent days, he has of-
fered differing visions of how he might approach the country’s problems. At one point, he spoke of the need for “mid-course corrections.” At another, he expressed a desire to take ideas from both sides of the aisle. And before this month’s midterm elections, he said he believed that the next two years would
involve “hand-to-hand combat” with Republicans, whom he also referred to as “enemies.” It is clear that the president is still
trying to reach a resolution in his own mind as to what he should do and how he should do it. This is a critical moment for the
country. From the faltering economy to the burdensome deficit to our foreign policy struggles, America is suffering a widespread sense of crisis and anxiety about the future. Under these circum- stances, Obama has the opportunity to seize the high ground and the imagina- tion of the nation once again, and to galvanize the public for the hard deci-
sions that must be made. The only way he can do so, though, is by putting national interests ahead of personal or political ones. To that end, we believe Obama
should announce immediately that he will not be a candidate for reelection in 2012. If the president goesdownthe reelec-
tion road, we are guaranteed two years of political gridlock at a time when we can ill afford it. But by explicitly saying he will be a one-term president, Obama can deliver on his central campaign promise of 2008, draining the poison from our culture of polarization and ending the resentment and division
The problem we still live with O
the president of the United States, they said, to take me to school. I was 6 years old, and I had no idea who these men in uniform were. Nor did I know what would happen that day as I became the first black student to attend William Frantz Public School in New Orleans — and one of the first to integrate an elementary school in the South. Our friends, family and neighbors had
been at the house that morning, helping my mother getmeready. I was wearing a white dress with white bows. Many people who have never met me or who didn’t see me that day might remember that outfit, too: It’s in Norman Rock- well’s painting “The ProblemWe All Live With,” in which I am perpetually the 6-year-old girl in a white dress and pigtails. The problem Rockwell alludes to has
been part of our history since the first enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas more than 400 years ago, and it is one that each of us still confronts. Even today, the painting reminds me of my purpose in life. That purpose can be found in the shell of the William Frantz school building in New Orleans’s Upper
LICENSED BY NORMAN ROCKWELL LICENSING , NILES, ILL. Norman Rockwell’s “The ProblemWe All Live With,” inspired byRuby Bridges.
NinthWard. The building has sat empty since the devastation of Hurricane Ka- trina five years ago. Before the storm, the school was predominantly black — the school that I integrated by force, under guard by federal marshals, slowly re- turned from being mixed-race to being segregated, by economics and demo- graphics this time. Now, I want to make a new school in
its place, a school that will stand for integration and equality in education. I have a lot of work to do to get to the
first day of school at a revitalized Wil- liam Frantz, but it is no less daunting than the obstacles thatmetmethere five decades ago. That morning, we drove the 10 blocks
or so to my new school with the mar- shals, friends and family members walk- ing behind the car. It seemed like a very important day. No one told me: You are making history. I was just told to behave. By the time we got to the school, a
bridges continued on B5 Ruby Bridges lives in New Orleans and runs the Ruby Bridges Foundation, dedicated to educating children on social justice issues. BOOKREVIEW
Will the Indian Ocean define the 21st century?
BY SHASHI THAROOR I
n1410, near the SriLankan coastal town of Galle, Chinese Admiral Zheng He erected a stone tablet with a message to the world. His inscription was in three languages
—Chinese, Persian andTamil—and his message was even more remarkable. According to Robert Kaplan in his new book, “Monsoon,” the admiral “invoked the blessings of the Hindu deities for a peaceful world built on trade.” A Chinese sailor-statesman calling
upon Indian gods as he set out to develop commercial links with theMid- dle East and East Africa:There could be no better illustration of the cosmopoli- tanism of the Indian Ocean region, centuries before the word “globaliza- tion” had even been coined. Zheng’s travels 600 years ago stand
as a reminder of the economic potential of the vast Indian Ocean, which washes the shores of dozens of countries, large and small, from South Africa to Singa- pore. These nations straddle half the globe, account for half of the planet's container trafficandcarry two-thirds of its petroleum.
MONSOON The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power By Robert D. Kaplan Random House. 366 pp. $28
But Kaplan is particularly interested
in the ocean’s strategic implications. His premise is that the Greater Indian Ocean, from the Horn of Africa to Indonesia, “may comprise a map as iconic to thenewcentury as Europewas to the last one” and “demographically and strategically be ahubof the twenty- first century world.” This makes the Indian Ocean “the essential place to contemplate the future of U.S. power.” Perhaps that is what President Obama did last week as he flew from India to Indonesia, the vastness of the Indian Ocean beneath. After laying out his thesis, Kaplan,
the author of influential books on the Balkans, the American military and the “coming anarchy” of the post-ColdWar world, launches into what he most enjoys — travel. He is a geographic determinist: For him, geography ex-
monsoon continued on B2
Shashi Tharoor is a member of India’s Parliament and the author, most recently, of “The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cell Phone: Reflections on India in the 21st Century.”
K
EZ BD
myths about the Federal Reserve B3
wants to be a great president, Obama should not seek
reelection in 2012.
If he
REUTERS
that have eroded our national identity and common purpose. We do not come to this conclusion
lightly. But it is clear, we believe, that the president has largely lost the con- sent of the governed. The midterm elections were effectively a referendum on theObamapresidency. And even if it was not an endorsement of a Republi- can vision for America, the drubbing the Democrats took was certainly a vote of no confidence in Obama and his party. The president has almost no credibility left with Republicans and little with independents.
obama continued on B4
Patrick H. Caddell, who was a pollster and senior adviser to President Jimmy Carter, is a political commentator. Douglas E. Schoen, a pollster who worked for President Bill Clinton, is the author of “Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement Is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System.”
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