flights

I’ve just been reading some Jeff Jarvis’ recent posts about Senator Obama (like this one), and it’s a clear reminder that even a lot of smart people will ultimately cast their vote based on a general gut assessment of the candidates.

I don’t know where Jarvis sits on the political spectrum, but he dissects and parses Obama’s speech along all the same lines as the stream of other conservatives who criticized it. Jarvis makes it very clear that he doesn’t want to give Obama the benefit of the doubt – which is fair. But like the other pundits who criticized Obama’s speech, Jarvis takes some pains to manufacture the doubt.

The bottom line seems to be that people who see the world in very black and white terms (not speaking of race now) didn’t like Obama’s speech. Black and white thinkers need to push things toward one end of the spectrum or the other – a thing is either right or wrong, good or evil, us or them. These are the “J” types in Myers-Briggs. They wanted Obama to disown or denounce pastor Wright, because Wright is clearly a wrong-headed person.

Maybe conservatives tend to be “J” types, because conservatives tend to frame things this way. Tax cuts are good. Illegal immigrants are bad.  There’s an axis of evil, and these countries are part of it. Black and white thinkers don’t appreciate people who push things toward the middle, who try to highlight complexities and nuances. They think these people are weak, equivocating, slippery, untrustworthy.

Gray area thinkers are the “P” types in Myers-Briggs. We (yep, I’m a “P”) see black and white thinkers as crude, simple-minded, judgmental, prejudiced. We were exuberant in our praise of Obama’s speech because we’ve had eight years of Bush. Yes, we’ve had it. Had it with his brand of black and white thinking. It was refreshing to hear a politician talk about something in honest terms and not try to boil it down to right and wrong.

Obama loves a man who is deeply flawed. He has striven to understand the nature and origin of the man’s flaws.

Who among us is not flawed? Who among us hasn’t loved someone who is flawed? I don’t know about you “J” types out there, but we “P” folks understand that everyone is flawed.

My stepfather had a mean streak in him. He used to call me a “fag” (among other things) when he got angry, because I liked to draw and paint and cook, and because one of my high school buddies sported an earring. He pushed my mom around a couple of times. On the other hand, he taught me a lot, gave my family a lot.

He was a guy who’d had a really rough life in some ways, a guy who’d been deeply hurt and betrayed a few times. Understanding this about my stepfather helped me dismiss his verbal abuse and put it in its own box, so to speak. Should I have dismissed (or disowned) him and not just his abuse?

That’s not how love and family and friendships work. Anyone who thinks these things are black and white is kidding himself.

I didn’t see Obama’s landmark speech today, but I read the transcript. I admit I was moved by it, and although there was certainly a practical or tactical element to it – in the context of his presidential chances – I think it’s important to look past that and consider his actual words.

I wish CNN agreed. Unfortunately, the whole focus of their coverage was to discuss whether the speech would work, and by “work” they meant only whether it would put to rest questions around Obama’s association with pastor Jeremiah Wright. They used Rush Limbaugh’s response of all things, to raise doubts, as if Limbaugh’s response wasn’t determined before the speech was even made, as if Limbaugh at this point is anything more than a washed up, irrelevant joke on the outer fringes of the media, preaching to an ever-smaller choir.

They didn’t talk about whether the speech would “work” in the sense of whether it will remind us that individuals are complex, that the issue of race is complex, that none of this is black and white – in any sense of the phrase. They didn’t talk about whether the speech would “work” in the sense of whether it will help us shift our attention to more concrete and ultimately solvable issues like the economy, healthcare and the environment – where people of all races share the same concerns.

It’s bullshit cynical coverage CNN, and you will lose more and more of your young audience as long as you pollute the airwaves with this kind of crap. No amount of fancy touchscreen infographics and talk of “liveblogging” will change that fact.