What Brokaw Got Right

On Sunday's Meet The Press roundtable discussion, Tom Brokaw (beginning at 45:20 of the video below) dared to speak his opinion, remarking

And a lot of this we don't want to talk about but the fact is on the Republican side a lot of people see the rise of an extraordinarily important new constituency in American politics- Hispanics, who will come here and will be Democrats. Also, when I push people a little harder, I hear "I don't know whether I want brown grandbabies." I mean, that's all a part of it. 

It's the intermarriage that's going on. It's cultures that are conflicting with each other and I also happen to believe that Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. It's one of the things that I've been saying for a long time. They ought not to be just codified in their communities but make sure that all their kids are learning to speak English and that they feel comfortable in their communities. That going to take outreach on both sides, frankly.

As I type this, "grandbabies" is being flagged, and like Spellcheck, I don't find the term in general use. However, your mileage may vary and it may be as common in your circle as it presumably is in Brokaw's.

Similarly, at the end of the video, Yamiche Alcindor is seen disagreeing with Brokaw, contending that second-generation Cuban-Americans in Miami typically speak English. That probably is accurate, though Alcindor refers to having grown up in Miami and presumably is less familiar with current practice there. Additionally, there are Hispanics in every state and the interest in assimilation in language and otherwise probably varies (though my experience some 1200 miles away is similar).

Unless more light than heat could be thrown onto the topic, that should have ended it. However, as long as we have politicians, we will have individuals prone to exploit remarks such as those of Brokaw. Politico reports

NBC News veteran Tom Brokaw apologized Sunday evening for comments he made earlier in the day on "Meet the Press" calling for Hispanics in the U.S. to “work harder at assimilation."

The comments from the former host of "NBC Nightly News" sparked a quick backlash both on social media and on set from PBS "NewsHour" White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, who joined Brokaw on the "Meet the Press" panel. Hours after his comments aired on NBC, Brokaw apologized for them online.

"I am sorry, truly sorry, my comments were offensive to many. The great enduring American tradition of diversity is to be celebrated and cherished," he wrote on Twitter, part of a flurry of posts backtracking away from his earlier remarks. "I am sorry - I never intended to disparage any segment of our rich, diverse society which defines who we are... Finally, I am sorry I failed to convey my strong belief that diversity - dynamic and inclusive is what makes America"...

Among those who voiced their displeasure with Brokaw online was Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), whose twin brother Julián Castro is running for president.

“.@tombrokaw, for a celebrated @NBCNews journalist who spent years chronicling American society you seem stunningly ignorant of the Hispanic community in this country. Unfortunate to see xenophobia pass for elevated political commentary @MeetThePress,” he wrote on Twitter.

But in what sense does he believe Brokaw is "stunningly ignorant of the Hispanic community?" If you assume it is because he is arguing (as did Alcindor) that Hispanics are anxious to learn English, think again. Politico adds "The Texas congressman also retweeted users who had their own stories of being hit or feeling unwelcome for speaking Spanish in the U.S."

Alcindor implies that Hispanics already are assimilating (at least in the matter of language), which is a facet of becoming fully American. By contrast, Castro suggests "they're not- and what's so wrong about that?" (He is, however, right about references to "Mexicans.") Brokaw, at least initially, believed otherwise.  Encouraging outreach "on all sides," he is concerned  "all their kids are learning to speak English and that they feel comfortable in their communities."

Brokaw's perception of language amongst second-generation Hispanics is highly questionable. However, he is right that cultures are "conflicting with each other" and that there are a lot of Americans- probably a majority of non-Latinos- who are wary of being outvoted as the concentration of Hispanics rises. Brokaw should have limited his remarks to that.

He is right, also, that only with probing do people typically evince sentiments they believe would prompt a charge of "racism."  Pretend they don't exist, and someday these voters might elect a guy who portrays immigrants as rapists, drug pushers, and criminals.

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Send Tom Brokaw A Copy Of The Constitution

Jack Shafer laments

I'm almost certain that a samizdat chapter of the Associated Press Stylebook exists that prohibits journalists from writing anything praiseful about Republicans—except when one dies or if the Republican’s name is John McCain.

Sen. McCain, who died this week, went to his grave festooned with a bundle of the most radiant tributes from the reporters who covered him. Taking to Twitter, the airwaves and print, journalists choked back tears to gush about how much the man meant to them.

Although offering many examples, probably the sappiest and worse was when

Sunday on MSNBC, anchor Kasie Hunt had to be restrained from throwing herself on his funeral pyre as she addressed him directly. “Sen. McCain, after a decade of trying to keep up with you in those marble hallways, I know the place that you so loved is going to be a lesser place without you,” Hunt said. “My hope for this Congress and this country is that remembering and honoring your life and legacy, sir, will inspire the best among us to serve as you did. Godspeed.”

But almost all of these instances are harmless, encomiums most easily analyzed by a skilled behavioral psychologist.

Not so the tweet from Tom Brokaw, who remarked

pres trump - you are commander in chief by law, duty bound to honor sen mccain
ignoring his death is a disgrace

— Tom Brokaw (@tombrokaw) August 27, 2018

Tom Brokaw was anchorperson and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004 and has an estimated net worth of $70 million. Still, he needs to be introduced to Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which reads "[t]he President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."

McCain served in the Armed Forces from 1959 to 1981. His commanders in chief included Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Though Brokaw argues that by President Trump's role as commander in chief, Trump is "duty bound to honor sen mccain," Donald Trump never was John McCain's commander-in-chief. During Trump's reign, John McCain was Senator John McCain.

Donald Trump is not "duty bound to honor" Senator McCain. It is not one of the functions the Constitution mandates of a President. Rather, he is expected as a matter of decency to recognize appropriately McCain's death, which he has failed to do.

Were we to accept the notion of the president as commander in chief of citizens, our First Amendment rights would be severely abridged. If President Trump had been the Commander in Chief of a civilian such as John McCain, he is Commander in Chief of all of us. And if he is your commander in chief, you are duty bound to obey him and refrain from criticizing him. Just ask General Stanley McChrystal.

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More Questions Than Answers

Amidst the awful and not-so-awful questions posed at Tuesday night's presidential debate in Nashville was this extraordinarily broad one from Tom Brokaw:

The three -- health care, energy, and entitlement reform: Social Security and Medicare. In what order would you put them in terms of priorities?

The question did bring this implicit admission from John McCain that he expects to cut Social Security and Medicare: "My friends, we are not going to be able to provide the same benefit for present-day workers that we are going -- that present-day retirees have today." A moment later the Repub nominee would comment, apparently about nothing in particular "My friends, some of this $700 billion ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations."

Barack Obama's response, if incomplete, at least was clearer. His first priority (among the three raised) would be energy, he said, in part because of the threat to national security; the second, health care, which he noted "is making our businesses less competitive"; and the third, education.

Given that the format permitted no follow-up, the question proved to be a waste of time. We had one candidate apparently wanting to cut an extremely popular and successful government program, largely responsible for drastically cutting over the decades the rate of poverty among elderly people; the other candidate, skirting the issue of entitlement reform and substituting "education" as a priority.

The problem was hardly minimized with Brokaw's comment, offered as a postscript to this segment, "All right, gentlemen, I want to just remind you one more time about time. We're going to have a larger deficit than the federal government does if we don't get this under control here before too long." Recognition that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which John McCain has advocated making permanent, play a far larger role in the deficit would have been more accurate- but not the "balanced" perspective that the mainstream media is fond of peddling.

Simplistic Question, Predictable Response

NBC News has been touting one of the six questions asked in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey of 1,003 registered voters conducted July 18-21, with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points. Respondents were asked "As you think about the presidential race and the direction in which the next president will take the country, who do you think would be the riskier choice for president–John McCain or Barack Obama?"

Not surprisingly, the response was Barack Obama- 55%, John McCain- 35%.

This was about as suspenseful a question- in reverse- as asking "who is more likely to bring about change, John McCain or Barack Obama?" Change is by nature risky. And Barack Obama, the new kid on the block, personifies change. John McCain looks, and sounds, like the same old thing.

The Illinois Senator said much the same when asked by Tom Brokaw on the 7/27/08 episode of Meet The Press:

And then there is this as well, which is an important question that we asked our audience. "Who's the riskier choice" to be the president with two wars and an economic meltdown going on at home? Senator McCain does much better in that poll than you do. Does that surprise you? (Note Brokaw's misleading addition of the phrase "with two wars and an economic meltdown going on at home.")

Obama replied in part:

No, because, let's say we had reversed--or rephrased the question. Let's say the question had been, "Who's more likely to bring about change in the country?" I suspect I would beat Senator McCain handily. Or another way we could have phrased it was, "Who's more likely to maintain the status quo?" Well, John McCain would have won that poll handily.

Exactly right- I just wish I had written this before Obama said it.

The Republican Media- No. 18b

Again, here is the comment (p. 4) David Gregory, NBC's Chief White House Correspondent and host of MSNBC's "Race to the White House," made on the 7/20/08 edition of "Meet The Press" (relevant portion in bold):

Can I make one point related to this? I do think that, you know, inside the White House, there's always been a feeling that Al Gore thinks he's got the monopoly on this debate, and so there is sensitivity among conservatives about this that he, he commands the microphone, and nobody else can, can be an entrant into this debate. So I think he's, he's politically divisive in that way. I--I'm hard-pressed to believe that he wouldn't necessarily go in the administration if he got the platform, but I also take seriously the idea that working outside, "so I can keep making money in all of this," but he can also have a really profound impact on the flow of the debate both here and overseas.



Here are those "politically divisive" comments (p. 3) Gore had made on Meet The Press:

Asked by Brokaw how he would "characterize.... no major, sweeping initiatives coming out of this Democratic-controlled Congress, Gore stated the obvious: "well, I think that when, when you don't have 60 votes in the Senate to overcome filibusters, nothing can happen."

Despite Brokaw's goading, Mr. Gore declined to criticize Hillary Clinton over her recommendation of a "gas-tax holiday," replying "I, I disagreed with those who wanted a so-called gas tax holiday. And I think taking it from that to sort of the whole..." He did not criticize fellow Democrat Clinton- who is no longer in the race- but did not criticize even Republican John McCain, who is the presumptive GOP nominee, squaring off against the candidate, Democrat Barack Obama, whom Gore wants to be elected.

And speaking of being divisive! Gore remarked "and, and I think it's an illustration of how this, this climate crisis has to, to push us as Americans to take this issue out of the old partisan squabbling and political fighting that we're--we have to be in this as Americans."

So why does the White House believe Al Gore "thinks he's got the monopoly on this debate?" Why a belief he (selishly) "commands the microphone?" Doesn't the President of the United States (admittedly a position to which Mr. Gore was elected but for which he was not permitted to serve) command the bully pulpit? Mr. Bush has a)committed our nation to combat (twice, in Afghanistan and Iraq) without a declaration of war; b)has claimed for himself, initially without approval, sweeping and extra-legal wiretapping authority; and c)routinely claims "executive privilege" for any member of his Administration asked to testify about any actions or discussions with anyone. And he is afraid of an ex-Vice President?