reflectivepundit

Tom Ridge and the Cooked Terrorism Alerts: Selling Fear Works

By Brigitte L. Nacos, Yaeli Bloch-Elkon and Robert Y. Shapiro

Tom Ridge, the first secretary of homeland security, is in the headlines because he reveals in a book he authored that he was pressured by top advisers to President George W. Bush to raise the national terrorism threat alert level just before the 2004 election. Actually, as noted on this blog in fall 2006, Ridge had voiced this suspicion after he resigned as Secretary of Homeland Security in early 2005, when he told reporters that "there were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it [the color-coded alert level], and we said, ‘For that?" The White House and others in the administration knew exactly for what: they believed that raised alert levels increased the fear of Americans and their support for the crisis-managing president. They were right as our systematic research has demonstrated.

Terrorists, policy-makers, and terrorism scholars have long assumed that the mere threat of terrorist strikes affects societies that have experienced actual terrorist attacks. But so far research has neither validated this conventional wisdom nor demonstrated in detail how mass-mediated threat communications by terrorists and terror alerts and threat assessments by government officials affect the public in targeted countries. Our research fills this gap.

To begin with, we found that in the 39 months after 9/11, network TV-newscasts devoted large amounts of airtime to threats communicated by Osama bin Laden and his associates and to terror alerts and threat assessments issued by administration officials. In the evening newscasts of ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News, the average length of news segments devoted to Al Qaeda threat messages was close to four minutes and five-and-a-half minutes for those reporting that the administration had increased the color-coded terror alert level. In contrast, when the official terror alert was lowered by the administration, television devoted on average only one-and-a-half minutes to this news. Similarly, all cases of increased terror alerts levels were reported as lead stories, whereas only thirteen percent of the lowering of terror alerts were lead stories–if they were reported at all.

These coverage patterns played into the hands of the Al Qaeda leadership whose communications left no doubt about their intent to make the American public more fearful. But President George W. Bush and his administration, too, benefited from the generous coverage of their terror alerts, warnings, and assessments in that this reminded the public frequently why the "war on terrorism" had to be fought. Shortly after 9/11, the administration urged the TV-networks not to air bin Laden/Al Qaeda tapes, but there were no follow-up complaints. Obviously, the White House did no longer object to the media’s attention to Al Qaeda communications. After all, President Bush himself told a White House reporter with respect to a bin Laden tape that  was released and heavily covered five days before the 2004 presidential election, "I thought it was going to help. I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden does not want Bush to be president, something must be right with Bush."

New Medium and New Push to Narrow America's Ideal vs. Reality Gap?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Throughout American history, when the inevitable gap between the declared ideals and the reality established by political institutions was deemed unacceptably wide, movements emerged that fueled creedal passions in favor of narrowing the disparity. In his book American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony, Samuel Huntington identified four what he called creedal passion periods that produced movements for change--the revolutionary era in the 18th century, the Jacksonian period in the early 19th century, the progressive period in the early 20th century, and the era of civil rights/anti-Vietnam protests in the1960s and 1970s. In all periods, one of the goals was, as Huntington put it, "the opening up of the processes of decision-making to public participation." 

It is particularly striking as Huntington recognized that each of the movements of those times was associated with the emergence of a new type of media. (1)The political pamphlet of the revolutionary period was central to the movement in favor of independence and a republican form of government; (2) the penny press—newspapers cheap enough for the masses—were instrumental in expanding democratic participation--albeit in the limits of the time; (3) the mass newspapers and news magazines with the advent of investigative reporting (muckraking according to Theodore Roosevelt) in the late 19th and early 20th period drove the progressive movement in its fight against corrupt political and business institutions and for participatory democracy; (4) the three national television networks shaped America's attitudes towards the struggle for African-Americans' civil rights and the Vietnam War and protests against.

I have wondered lately whether the new medium of our time, the Internet, would give birth to or facilitate a new popular quest for narrowing the once again widened gap between the promise of America and the performance of its institutions and the leading actors therein.

America Before And After Obama's Victory

Brigitte L. Nacos
Given the crises and problems troubling the nation and the world and, surely, awaiting the 44th president, one wonders why anyone in his or her right mind would have entered the race for the White House in the first place.

To be sure, Barack Obama’s victory marks a historic leap forward and moves the American dream from the realm of myth into that of reality. 45 years after Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream,” speech, the essence of his vision came true. While racism did not vanish over night, America has gone a long way to overcome racial and ethnic prejudices. For the majority of voters, Barack Obama was a candidate who also happened to be black—not a Black candidate.

The America of today is different from what it was yesterday. Today--and from now on-- every boy and every girl in this nation can believe in the American dream that requires adherence to fundamental values, most of all equality.   

Under the headline “Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job” the satirical weekly newspaper The Onion published this morning the following job description of Barack Obama’s future position in the White House:

WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."

Satire aside, Obama may well have applied for and won the most difficult job in the nation and in the world. There is little time for victory laps. The president-elect must prepare for a running start to deal with the many problems and crises that the current administration will leave behind, among them the financial and economic crisis, a crumbling infrastructure, loss of jobs, energy dependency as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear program, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc., etc.

Bradley Effect: R.I.P.

by David Epstein

OK, so I stayed up entering all the data by hand just to answer one question: what was the final word on the Bradley Effect I've had to discuss about a million times in the past few weeks.

The answer is: nada. I took the last polling projections from 538.com and compared them to the final results from the election, state by state. These numbers don't include Alaska or Hawaii, which aren't in yet, or DC, which is once again such an outlier that it throws everything off (95% of the vote??). Here's the graph, which pretty much tells the story:

The projections were more or less spot on. There's a slight upward tilt to the actual results, meaning that Obama did better than he polled in the states he won, and worse than he polled in the states he lost. On average, for all states, he underperfomed his polling by about 0.8%.

But we're not necessarily that interested in whether he won New York by 25 or 26 points, or whether he lost Wyoming by 33 or 34 points. In the states where the last polls had Obama within 10% of McCain, in either direction, Obama actually outperformed his polling by about 0.5%.

Of course, this doesn't mean that some people didn't lie to pollsters because of being embarrassed to admit they were voting against Obama. It means that, overall, the polls did a great job at estimating outcomes, and there's no evidence at all of a massive divergence between polled results and actual outcomes. Chalk one up for the guys in green eyeshades, and a bit strike against the theory of hidden racism in American elections.

A Normal Election

by David Epstein

A few thoughts on tonight's events.

In one sense, this was a completely normal election. If you take the 2004 election map and add 4% to the Kerry vote for each state (except for North Carolina, where you have to add 6%), then you get this year's map. So this was simply a good Democratic year, fueled by the economic meltdown, the war, and Bush's deep unpopularity.

But of course it is the fact that Obama, an African American, achieved this result that makes it so extraordinary. That he could win in every section of the country, including three states of the confederacy, is an achievement so stunning that we will not truly be able to comprehend it for some time to come. I never thought I would see this in my lifetime. Not only has the electoral map been redefined, but our psyches, our understanding of what our country is, and our sense of what we can be in the future will never be the same again.

Live Blogging on Election Day--Here

Election Day, 12 noon to 12 midnight, Columbia University's The Morning Side Post blog offers live blogging by professors and students in the United States and around the globe. You can follow the blogging on this site as well. David Epstein, Sharyn O'Halloran, and I are among the faculty bloggers.

McCain or Obama? Two New York Marathon Scenarios for Victory

By Brigitte L. Nacos
After watching the New York Marathon’s women’s and men’s races today, I couldn’t help but think of the presidential race. Paula Radcliffe of the United Kingdom was all the way in the lead and won decisively over Russia’s Ludmilla Pertrova. Compared to an election outcome, this would have been a landslide victory. It was a completely different story in the men’s race: Abderrahim Goumri of Morocco had a clear lead over the seemingly struggling Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil in second place, but the Brazilian had a spectacular finish and passed the Moroccan with about a mile to go.
The news media’s overblown attention to opinion polls and the horse race aspect of election campaigns, especially when the presidency is at stake, has left the strong impression that Senator Obama’s quite comfortable lead in national polls during the last several weeks means victory on Election Day. This would be the equivalent of Radcliffe’s performance in today’s New York Marathon. But the Gomes de Santos versus Goumri scenario is equally as compelling and suggests that the trailing Senator McCain can still overtake the long-time leader and win. In other words, as Yogi Berra put it, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”   
Contrary to most pundits, both McCain and Obama are aware that it may be hazardous to predict the outcome of Tuesday’s elections on polls. To be sure, one would rather be in Obama’s positions since most nationwide voter surveys have him with a substantial lead and leads in major so-called battleground states. But since the electoral votes of states in the Electoral College determine who will be the next U.S. president—not the nationwide popular vote—the focus must be on key states in which polls have Obama in the leads but McCain—increasingly—in striking distance

Biden, McCain, New Presidents, and Terrorist Crises

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Senator McCain and Governor Palin make great efforts to exploit a perfectly prudent remark that Senator Biden made about his running mate. Biden suggested that Obama would be tested internationally early in his presidency. McCain and Palin want us to believe that Biden’s comment laid bare Obama’s inexperience and the country’s vulnerability if the Democrat wins the presidency. Nonsense! Biden was right in pointing to the likelihood that the next president will be faced with a foreign crisis. After all, history has taught us that new presidents tend to be tested early on by international foes. Convinced that Barack Obama will become the next president, Biden did not speak generically of new presidents but mentioned his running-mate—although his comments were as applicable to McCain.

Since the Senator of Arizona is very much into the “war on terrorism,” he should know that transnational terrorists in particular are eager to force U.S. presidents to deal with major terrorist incidents shortly after they take office. And in this respect, terrorist foes do not distinguish between Democrats and Republicans. Thus, the attacks of 9/11 occurred less than eight months into George W. Bush’s first term, and the first terrorist strike against the World Trade Center in New York took place in February 1993—only a few weeks after Bill Clinton was sworn in as president.

One could also argue that the downing of PanAm Flight 103 on December 21, 1988–exactly one month before then Vice-President George H.W. Bush succeeded President Reagan—was not only meant as a parting shot for Ronald Reagan but just as much as an opening salvo for the elder Bush’s presidency. After all, it fell on the new man in the oval office to deal with the horrific terrorist incident that caused the death of 270 persons—most of them Americans.

Unless he suffers from extended senior moments, McCain would surely remember. Unfortunately, his much younger running-mate is unable to refresh his memory.

Powell’s Endorsement of Obama: Move Toward Redemption?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

As I watched and listened to Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama earlier today, my resentment towards the retired general, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former National Security Adviser, and former Secretary of State softened. Like many Americans, I would have voted for Powell if had he had run for the presidency before he became the linchpin of the Bush administration’s campaign to convince people at home and abroad that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that this existential threat had to be removed militarily. Powell’s performance before the UN Security Council in February 2003 with visual WMD-“proofs” and all was his darkest hour and in the words of his then right-hand man “a hoax.” After advising the president not to go to war against Iraq, after protesting behind closed doors the administration’s decisions in favor of torture and the extraordinary extradition program (meaning the outsourcing of torturing terrorists or suspected terrorists to torture-happy countries), Powell could have made a real difference by resigning as Secretary of State. Instead, he went along with those who did not act in the best interest of the country.

Powell’s endorsement of Obama was an act of courage albeit nothing comparable to what his resignation in 2002 or 2003 would have been--and a move toward redemption. I am certain that he will be attacked by his longtime Republican admirers and that his motives will be questioned. The same voices that have fed racist sentiments among a small segment of the electorate will argue that race was the decisive factor in Powell’s decision to side with Obama. I do not buy the race thing for a second. Powell was and is part of the predominantly white establishment; he is the last person to have a racial axe to grind. And precisely this makes this endorsement an important one.

I agree with literally all of Powell’s arguments in favor of Obama and paraphrase and emphasize several of them here: 

McCain as Attack-Dog: Tired Old Barks

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Listening to the pre-debate cable show hosts and pundits, the overriding question was not what policy positions John McCain would take in the last presidential debate but rather whether and how the Republican candidate would attack his opponent on so-called character issues, namely his association with former Weather-Underground leader William Ayers. It was obvious that the talking heads hoped for a fight—not a high level policy discourse. In that, they were aligned with the Republican base and people like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh.

Both got part of what they wanted: McCain performed as eager attack-dog (supposedly in the service of his country) trying to bloody  Obama (supposedly a shady character who associates with terrorists). But while McCain got hot under the collar and repeatedly seemed to breathe hard to keep from losing his temper, Obama remained composed and seemingly untouched by his opponent’s punches.

By referring to Republican and Reagan friend Walter Annenberg and his foundation’s funding of The Chicago Annenberg Challenge Grant, where he worked with Ayers, Obama took the wind out of McCain’s guilt by association attempts. Even less effective was McCain’s effort to link Obama to ACORN, an organization allegedly threatening the fabric of our democracy. Apart from the political class and the interested public, who in the audience knew what ACORN is and what the Arizona Senator was talking about?

When everything was said and done, the attack-dog had thrown some read meat in the direction of the herd he has trouble to lead. But the barks sounded tired and old and not at all relevant in the midst of a severe financial, fiscal, and economic crisis that is hitting and preoccupying Wall Street and Main Street. If initial polls and focus group results were right, McCain’s offensive did not win over those he needed to persuade: Independent voters who have not yet made up their minds.

One wonders what tactics the McCain campaign (and like-minded groups) embrace next.