Davos Newbies Home

Changing the rules 

Dave Winer: “Watching Tim Russert interview Wesley Clark this morning, it occurred to me how dysfunctional the system has become.”

British Politics: “I want a Howard Dean comeback in New Hampshire for one simple reason: the media coverage of his Scream has been completely over the top, and has featured pundits, columnists and writers deciding on the basis of 15 seconds of a campaign rally that a serious politician is not fit to be President. I find this kind of coverage distasteful, pointless and irrelevant. Howard Dean may be the wrong man to be President, but it can’t be for that reason. It’s gotcha politics at its lowest, and driven, not by outrage at his policies, beliefs or campaign strategy but on the media equivalent of schoolyard bullying.”

I believe fundamentally that most people would agree with these analyses. My hope is that there is enough time for the backlash to emerge in the face of what is a true media onslaught. The glory of democracy is that voters can make the decisions. But they have to face completely distorted pressures on the way to the ballot box.

Catching up on Davos 

Having stayed away from my computer over the weekend, I have only just caught up with the Davos bloggers. Jay Rosen is good as always, but I hadn’t encountered the pseudonymous billmon before. His account of vice-president Dick Cheney’s speech is a must read.

Billmon’s report on the Davos blogging session is also the only one I’ve seen that doesn’t try to be polite.

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