Pelosi: Cleaning House and Hanging Up New Curtains

While looking up information about first woman Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, I came across many blogs that discussed her fashion sense, standpoints on issues, and her seemingly hard demeanor and her attempts to use humor. I was curious if her treatment in the media was similar to that of Hillary Clinton, seeing as she is a powerful government official.
While researching what other House members and what the general public thinks of Pelosi it was interesting, but not surprising to read some of the comments that others had said of her. The most memorable and most audacious came from our President George W. Bush, whom on learning of her appointment said “"in my first act of bipartisan outreach since the election, I shared with her the names of some Republican interior decorators who can help her pick out the new drapes in her new offices”. What?? The first woman ever elected to be the Speaker of the House, and the President is referring her to an interior decorator? Joke or not, I found this to be incredibly demeaning to women as well as a representation that our government is still a “good old boys” club, no matter how many women are making history. While researching the comment further, I was reminded of some of our topics we have discussed earlier. One was the unmediated blogs’ reporting of news that the mainstream media didn’t, the press’s portrayal and analysis of female politicians in relation to men and Pelosi’s attempts at humor in her communication.
The blogosphere definitely had much more focus on the comment made than anything in the mainstream media. I didn’t even know it had been said until I actively sought out information on Nancy Pelosi. Offended bloggers for the most part were Democratic or Liberal leaning, but even some Republicans touted this as one of George W’s biggest gaffes. Not only was it mentioned in blogs, but some newspapers also offered critcism in opinion editorials, to read one of these click here, which is very similar to the blog reactions, here. It is hard to try and guess what reason that the mainstream media, for the most part ignored this statement. Was it because people took the statement as an attempt at humor, or in a male dominated press industry was it just not seen as that big of a deal?
Pelosi’s portrayal in the media is also extremely different than that of men, which might also be attributed to the male dominated press. Even the Associated Press has stooped as low as saying, “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., arrives on Capitol Hill Nov. 8, 2006, in Washington dressed in an Armani aqua blue-grey pantsuit [.]” I honestly do not see any relevance whatsoever to what she is wearing and her new job. There would be a lot more head scratching and puzzlement if the AP had reported that Bush looked dashing in his new Kenneth Cole suit. A male politician would never have to worry that his fashion choices were going to be the subject of intense media scrutiny. A feminist blog also criticizes the AP’s reporting here and a picture of the talked about pantsuit. But, unfortunately the more I researched her troubles, I found that Pelosi is definitely not the only woman who has had to face this issue. Both Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice have recently been under pressure for their appearance choices, with the former being reported as having millions of surgery done to be less “hideous”, and the latter being called a “dominatrix” because of her shoes. On the day Rice was sworn in as National Security Advisor, The New York Times, reported that “her dress size is between a 6 and an 8”. It’s an entirely different media relationship when you are a woman in power. I found these examples to be interesting because it is a lot different to know a theory of women are treated, but to actually see how it occurs, made me realize how ridiculous it is.
Although usually described as “tough” and a “hard liner”, Pelosi has also made attempts at the use of humor in her speeches and actively tries to destroy the old myth that women aren’t funny. References to her humor are very reminiscent of Ann Richards. There is a hint of self deprecating, feminist, and superiority humor in her communications. While giving a speech and the crowd grew too loud, she quipped, “'Am I going to have to use my Mother of Five Voice to be heard?'". She has even admitted to using sexist humor in a deliberate attempt to make a point. This was evident in her pun to CNN, saying "Maybe it takes a woman to clean House." Interestingly enough, the excerpts that I just inserted were from a generally feminist leading website and they are VERY critical of Pelosi’s use of humor. Which I didn't really understand as I found it to be particularly effective.
In general I found Pelosi to be a very compelling public figure and I hope, though doubt it will happen any time soon, that she is given more respect in the mainstream media, that the press in general treats women and men politicians the same, and a greater acceptance of her usage of humor. After all, while the humor may not have even been the greatest joke, she could’ve just been trying to avoid being called “un human” like Hillary.

Do Weblogs = Communication?

Bulletin boards, a good way to communicate or not? With the growing popularity of the Internet, its only a matter of time before things such as weblogs take off. It becomes another channel for the people to state their opinions. It becomes a way for people to learn more about the issues and to discuss them.
However, the concern I have is the fact that these people are now just screen names and alias’ rather than actually people who can communicate face- to- face. All sorts of people can and do post on political blogs. People are not as afraid of being confrontational when no one has to see their face or know their identity. You are just another anonymous source on the internet. No one can find you unless you want to be found. No one can challenge you unless you want to be challenged. I am hard press to call this communication. Communication involves sending and receiving messages. There is nothing to say this is happening here. Granted, there are responses to what is posted and there might be some elements of interaction, but there is no listening, there is little agreement, and there is little convincing of an opposing side. I think back to the Rogerian Arguments and I see the problems that were being addressed there coming out all too clearly in the Political Bulletin Board. There is judgment and defensiveness instead of listening. Instead of addressing important issues and thinking of ways to improve them together, there is complaining and ridicule and gossip. I don’t think the appeal of discussion board has as much to do with the sense of community as it does an easy access to state your opinion and argue with someone else’s opinion. I don’t see anyone trying to solve the problems today. It does nothing for communication in politics.
Now, granted, I realize that each bulletin board has some type of mediator who decides what should be posted and what should not be posted. As seen by the two discussion boards brought up in class, Talking Points Memo is put on by John Micah Marshall and Daily Kos is put on by someone with the alias Kos. Marshall has put his name and picture out there for people to see. That is admirable because he is taking some sort of responsibility for what is posted by showing his face, it the face of who to blame for those who find his weblog to be controversial and who is praised for his contributions to politics.
One thing I did notice was that most of the responses were posted on a website different than the political blog. What the blog provide was the link to a different website to where you could read more on the situation and post a response. The political blogs themselves seemed very exclusive to me, which has a lot to do with the moderator and his choices. A posting here made by a Paul Kiel provides a link to another discussion board. Here is where you can find numerous responses to the ad with the coffin draped flags ( http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/ )which raised a lot of controversy. However, there are none on the original blog, Talking Points Memo. Now granted, this could be unique to just this blog but it does show a lot about that particular website moderator. Maybe he doesn’t want a public response to each posting in order to maintain his exclusiveness. Or maybe Paul Kiel is a member of many different websites and put his article wherever he wanted.
Another thing that stood out to me in these blogs is the amount of postings these sites get everyday and even every hour, even though the majority of TPM were put on by Marshall himself. Some might be in response to something posted previously but if you are not on top on your web postings game, you will be easy over looked. Another reason why this is not communication. The topics move to swiftly and to rapidly for anything to be accomplished.
However, it was interesting to see the differences between political blogs. Daily Kos consisted of much lengthier posting than Talking Points Memo, they are both weblogs but both extremely different.
Therefore, these weblogs can not be considered communication. It is merely another outlet for people to complain and harp over the issues or gossip over the latest political news. But I do believe that bulletin boards have great potential in politics if their focus could be slightly redirected towards resolution and listening to what each other are saying. Maybe then, people will take more of an interest in politics.

Chocola/Donnelly Debate: Spin-Doctors @ Work

As we have learned debate is a very important part of the political process. Within the debate-sector of politics, however, we’ve learned that almost more important than the actual debate itself is the analysis that goes on post debate. The spin-doctors on both sides want to make it seem as though their candidate won, focusing on their candidate’s best moments & strengths as well as attacking the opposition.

After doing the Chocola/Donnelly debate exercise in class, I was looking at each of their respective websites wanting to see if the ‘professionals’ got some of the same impressions we did. Of course, both Donnelly and Chocola’s websites had postings announcing each candidate’s victory in the debate. On Chocola’s WEBSITE the headline after the first debate was “Chocola Crushes Donnelly…” Clearly, Chocola’s team of spinners, we’ll call them, was hard at work trying to spin the debate in his favor pointing out Chocola’s strengths and Donnelly’s weaknesses. My favorite part of this article is when it makes reference to the eye contact (an important non-verbal!) that we addressed in class. Brooks Kochvar (Chocola’s chief of staff) said, “While Chocola looked voters in the eye and told them exactly where he stood on the issues important to them, Donnelly evaded on every single one.”

Likewise, shortly after the first debate, a posting on Donnelly’s website was entitled “Joe Donnelly Won the First Debate!” This ARTICLE, however, doesn’t seem to spin the debate in Donnelly’s favor the same way Chocola’s camp did for their candidate. This article merely cites that students at Rochester High School (where the first debate was held) “voted 6-5 that Joe out-performed his opponent, Chris Chocola.” This article doesn’t really play up Donnelly’s strengths, and doesn’t pick on any of Chocola’s weaknesses. Also, I’m not sure how much faith people will put into a poll of high schoolers, most of whom aren’t old enough to vote. There is, however, another ARTICLE on Donnelly’s cite that also refers to the first debate. This article, again though, doesn’t really successfully spin the debate in Donnelly’s favor. This article seems more like the work of a media analyst as it is fairly objective throughout.

I am confused as to why, on Donnelly’s website he wouldn’t have an article about the debate more like the one found on Chocola’s only tipped in his favor. It’s interesting to see that the spinning and analyzing post-debate really is almost as important, if not more, than the debate itself. In these regards I think that Chocola’s spinners do a much better job to get people to believe that their candidate did win the debate. Donnelly’s camp didn’t seem as concerned with this. I'm not sure if this hurt him or not, and I haven't yet heard much about the other debates, but I can't wait for election day when this race will finally be done so we can have our televisions & normal commercials back!