You may be surprised to find out that political theater doesn’t only occur in Japan. It occurs in Eu

This week marks the 40 th anniversary of Watergate , the "third-rate burglary" that exposed crimes that felled a president. Investigative reporting by two young reporters for The Washington Post prompted federal investigations that forced Richard cheap air plane tickets Nixon from office in 1974. But investigative reporting by Jack Anderson cheap air plane tickets also forced the 1972 Republican National Convention to be moved from San Diego to Miami Beach. Some industry observers think such work is on the wane. Do we have enough Woodwards and Bernsteins today?
The media has become ever-more savvy in digging up scandals, thanks to people like Matt Drudge. who is an inspiration to all free-lance bloggers who are not handcuffed by a national print/electronic media company. Look no further than the John Edwards affair. Twenty years ago, that story likley would have been cover-up. No more! Politicians beware!
with new technology we should be more informed and government corruption should be at a minimum........a big problem in this country is that the major news networks are for 'entertainment purposes only' and stick to the script instead of doing any actual reporting or investigating....
but few people on these boards want to hear that..to most here, the quality of the writer cheap air plane tickets is determined by your already held political beliefs and positions, ands you don't want to hear anything that might contradict that..
That would make an interesting list, Kevin. And speaking rational human beings, I've often wondered what it is about mainstream news sources--NPR especially!--that lulls people into assuming their objective reporting. Could it be the flat, and anodyne delivery? I sometimes think that the generations raised on/around Star Trek, came to associate rationality with Mr. Spock's soporific tone; exclude emotion from your speech and you must be telling the truth--however ludicrous cheap air plane tickets the content.
This isn't a matter of financies, It's a matter of ideology. The Lib's have taken over the Alphabete news channels and you can't trust them not to be bias. You'll have front page news when a conservative screws up but way in the back in small print when it's a Lib.
A common misconception spread by those right-wing radicals is that liberals control cheap air plane tickets the news media are biased in their reporting. cheap air plane tickets Unlike Republican propaganda outlets (FOX News obviously has a right-wing agenda) cheap air plane tickets mainstream media (television) just reports the facts,it's when their analysis of their policies doesn't suit them that they claim biased. Why do you think that Mute Romney will appear regularly on FOX,but refuses to be asked questions by anybody else ? Because he doesn't want to answer cheap air plane tickets tough questions concerning issues vitally important to potential voters. Honest answers cheap air plane tickets to these questions would surely cost him votes so he hides from reporters like the inept coward he most certainly is ! Even the majority of Republican primary voters (couldn't top 40%) couldn't stomach this smug wealthy two-faced flip-flopper. The fact that most journalists are Democrats is no doubt due to their greater cheap air plane tickets intellect grasp of important issues than that of their backward bretheren. Saying that Democrats tend to be younger,brighter,better informed more compassionate,while Republicans tend to be older,clueless,quite gullible more selfish pretty much sums up the differences between the two parties today !
Doug, the same can be said of Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric, Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow Brian Williams, and blithering fool Wolfe Blitzer, just to name a few. I agree with CDUB; the Alphabet channels have been left-biased for 25 years, and they are only getting worse! I get my news on-line from both sides of the political spectrum of the web, where voices don't have to be politically-correct.
The law does not require that a statement must be perfectly accurate in every conceivable way to be considered true. News can manipulate and be manipulated. Governments and corporations may attempt to manipulate news media. The methods cheap air plane tickets of manipulation are subtle and many. Manipulation may be voluntary or involuntary. Those being manipulated may not be aware of this. Journalism may mix fantasy and truth.
Japan has had 61 different prime ministers since 1885. That is an incredible amount when you compare that to the number of presidents America has had. America has only had 44 presidents, and we started electing presidents a century before Japan started electing prime ministers. These days, a Japanese prime minister lasts only about a year. That's the amount of time it takes for the public to get fed up with them for getting caught up in some sort of a scandal.
I imagine most onlookers cheap air plane tickets who are unfamiliar with Japan are baffled cheap air plane tickets by this. But what you need to know is that the scandals are not real, they are merely theater. Everything is scripted, written for a foreign audience, typically the American government. In a sense, cheap air plane tickets having prime ministers constantly resign is a creative way for Japan to say no to America. If America wants Japan to do something, rather than saying cheap air plane tickets no, a Japanese cheap air plane tickets government can pretend like it wants to do that thing. Japan will go through the motions of trying to enact that policy but at the last minute before it actually enacts that policy, the government will get caught up in a scandal, which results in a change of government and a new policy direction. Of course, Japan can repeat this procedure indefinitely, which it does, and then nothing cheap air plane tickets gets done.
When he finally cheap air plane tickets left the White House, and boarded the presidential helicopter for the last time, right before he went onboard, he smiled and made the V sign with both hands. The V sign has an interesting history in the relationship between America and Japan. Many Americans flashed the V sign after World War II was over. Japan started to use the V sign at about the time America withdrew from Vietnam. I'm sure you can guess what President Nixon had in mind when he flashed the V sign at the end of his term.
Of course, for political theater to be useful, it has to have a target. To see who the target was, you need to know what happened on the day before the Saturday Night Massacre. On October 19, President Nixon asked Congress to provide cheap air plane tickets Israel with $2.2 billion in aid. In response, Libya and other Arab countries imposed an oil embargo that dramatically raised cheap air plane tickets the price of oil. Raising the price of oil would hurt many countries. But Japan would probably suffer the most under an oil embargo. It imports essentially all of its oil and it gets most of it from the Middle East. Once the price of oil went up, I imagine Japan asked America to do something about the price of oil. And I imagine America told Japan that it was busy dealing with the Watergate scandal.
During much of the scandal, President Nixon acted like the whole thing was a joke, which it was. On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted to adopt three articles of impeachment. While the House voted, President Nixon swam at the beach in San Clemente.
"I was getting dressed in the beach trailer when the phone rang and Ziegler gave me the news," said President Nixon. "That was how I learned that I was the first president in 106 years to be recommended for impeachment, standing in the beach trailer, barefoot, wearing old trousers, a Ban-Lon shirt and a blue windbreaker emblazoned with the presidential seal."
"It is true that as far as the capacity to govern is concerned that to be under a constant barrage 12 to 15 minutes a night on each of the three major networks for four months tends to raise some questions in the people's mind with regard to the president and it may raise some questions with regard to the capacity to govern," said President Nixon. "The point that I make now is that we are proceeding as best we know how to get all those guilty brought to justice in Watergate. But now we must move on from Watergate to the business of the people, and the business of the people is continuing with the initiatives we began in the first administration. We've had 30 minutes cheap air plane tickets of this press conference. I have yet to have, for example, one question on the business of the people, which shows you how we're consumed by this."
The scandal reached its climax on October 20, when President Nixon ordered the attorney general to fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor. Both the attorney general cheap air plane tickets and the deputy cheap air plane tickets attorney general resigned in protest. The media called this event the Saturday Night Massacre. Public opinion turned decisively against President Nixon after this.
"There's one, two press people in this gallery," screamed Patrick Kennedy. "We're talking about Eric Massa 24/7 on the TV. We're talking about war and peace; $3 billion; 1,000 lives and no press! No press! You want to know why the American public is fit? They're fit because they're not seeing their Congress do the work that they're sent to do. It's because cheap air plane tickets the press, cheap air plane tickets the press of the United States, is not covering the most significant issue of national cheap air plane tickets importance and that's the laying of lives down in the nation for the service of our country. It's despicable, the national press corps right now."
Even before a prime minister resigns, scandals help Japan avoid adopting unwanted policies because, when a government gets ensnared in a scandal, the media and the political class will focus on the scandal, and not the policy that America wants. cheap air plane tickets When wrapped up in a scandal, Japan will inform the rest of the world that it has political cheap air plane tickets constipation at the moment, please come back later if you want something. This whole routine is what's called political theater.
You may be surprised to find out that political theater doesn't only occur in Japan. It occurs in Europe as well. The antics of Silvio Berlusconi are the best example of political theater in Europe. But not only does it occur in Europe and Japan, it also occurs in America. The most recent example is the Eric Massa groping scandal which prevented a meaningful debate cheap air plane tickets on the war in Afghanistan. The lack of debate on