'76 Blog

('76 Contributor) "Have the media failed America?" That was the question at an all-day conference in Colorado Christian University's Beckman Center on December 2. Media experts gathered to discuss the changing face of news and journalism's role in a free society. It was part of a project called News in the 21st Century, sponsored by CCU through its think tank, the Centennial Institute. Through the means of classroom instruction and civic engagement the News in the 21st Century Project seeks to equip both CCU students and the public to be critical consumers of media, as well as objective producers. "To be self-governing citizens, we all need reliable information about our world," said Centennial Institute director John Andrews. "The News21 project addresses that need."    Funded by a grant from the Smith Foundation in New York, the project is fulfilled in part by Persuasion and News in the 21st Century, a required general education course. Dr. Chris Leland, the professor of record, taught the first two-thirds of the class on basic persuasive theory. Then, students got their hands dirty: under the tutelage of veteran journalists Stephen Keating and Jay Ambrose, they examined firsthand the persuasive messages, bias and tactics that media sometimes uses. Starting with Keating's first question, "Is Facebook news?" students considered how they got news, what they called news, and how they can trust news.    Bringing media notables onto campus was an appropriate climax, as students heard from men and women that they can read in the paper, watch on television, or see on the computer screen. Exhibiting both conservative and liberal views, the panels discussed the effectiveness of the media, as well as the role for consumers today. Students were continually reminded that media is changing, and the divide between consumer and producer is breaking down. Referring to an individual's role, Patti Dennis of 9News reminded all: "Your job is to enlighten yourself." With the rise of the internet and the democratization of news, there is ample opportunity.   Building on this idea, Brent Bozell, who founded the Media Research Center, exhorted students to become storytellers. "If you learn how to become storytellers, you're going to change the world."   Indeed, that was the goal of the class, and remains the ongoing goal of the project -- which will continue in the spring. According to Dr. Leland, students, "gained interpretive skills and interests they didn't have before. They could see how the theory of persuasion works in the real world. And, they saw the clash of ideas in culture."    Still, this class is a beginning for students: with the tools to add to the cultural dialogue, they now have the confidence to do so from a Christian perspective. "Karl Barth said that every Christian should get up in the morning and read the newspaper and the Bible," explained Leland. "They need to know what's going on and how God wants them to react." The News in the 21st Century project aims for exactly that.   "We invite everyone to keep up with the project through our website at www.news21ccu.com," said John Andrews. "That includes suggesting topics for our blog on media bias, and attending future conferences."    The next conference is set for Friday, March 2, 2012, again at the CCU Beckman Center. It will take up the issue of how fair and accurate is the media's treatment of religion and faith.

(Centennial Fellow) There is not as yet – and may never be – a complete accounting of the human suffering and property losses that befell the people of Japan with the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. One thing everyone knows is that a nuclear power plant emergency of historical proportion is on the list. Has it been reported fairly? This essay is about exaggeration, and the absence of a fair perspective accompanied by useful technical information. In context with the entire tragic picture, the consequences of events at the six-unit Fukushima nuclear power complex are small. Predictably – this being about things nuclear and radioactive – Fukushima has dominated news coverage and created unwarranted, widespread fear. Citizens all around the world have been badly served once again by press failure that has had little redemption. Yes, the Japanese are going to lose several billion dollars worth of electric generating capacity, but that will be little more than rounding in comparison to their aggregate property losses and other economic disruption. Almost certainly, no one will ever be able to identify public health effects from radiation releases because, while there could be some, they will be too few and too diffuse for statistical verification. Heroes. I cannot go forward from this point without pausing to note heroes. The nearly unbelievable calm and cooperation exhibited by the people of Japan make them all heroes. At Fukushima, though, there are several dozen who stand especially tall, men who have braved exposures to high radiation levels while performing emergency procedures intended to protect their fellow citizens. We should all pause and ask our Maker to save them from permanent harm. Reporting. I don’t claim that fair, informed reporting of a nuclear power plant emergency is easy. However, among results of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 was extensive focus on lessons learned by those in the industry and those regulating it. The news media were all over this, of course. But what about lessons learned by them from their awful reporting? Recall that TMI was further sensationalized on account of occurring just 12 days after release of a thriller movie, The China Syndrome. Despite all the nail-biting and hand-wringing at the time, I have never seen reported a single injury to anyone – plant worker or general public – in the intervening 32 years. More to the point, I have never seen in the press anything resembling a good news report of the spectacular safety record at TMI! No lessons for the press from Chernobyl either? Unlike either TMI or Fukushima, there was prompt, uncontrolled release of an enormous inventory of radioisotopes. That was 25 years ago, and it is now well known (but, thanks to the underperforming press, not broadly known) that the dire predictions of human and property costs have not been experienced. Wouldn’t one have to say the media has failed to learn any lessons? Of course one would. But then TMI and Chernobyl are old stories, useful in “the news” today not for factual illustration but only to conjure up bad memories and, thus, stir the pot. Columnist Ann Coulter’s March 16 column was ironically titled “A Glowing Report on Radiation.” Read it here. Though her résumé shows no technical training, Coulter wrote a clear discourse on recent radiation effects research. This proves that a technically-complicated subject is amenable to solid reporting. It also feeds one’s suspicion that most in the news business are less interested in straight reporting than in sensationalism and – like too many utility executives – in keeping environmental activists happy. Our household finds Fox News Channel generally more reliable than other televised news sources, and we respect its efforts to air different points of view in its commentaries. However, Fox on Fukushima was worse than useless. On the early evening news program he hosts, Shepard Smith gave us day-after-day regurgitation of emergency action at Fukushima, reported releases of radioactive material with no authoritative explanation as to consequent health effects, and the like. This got no better when Smith showed up to do his broadcast from Japan, apparently to give viewers the impression that Fox was on the ground giving us the straight skinny from up close. All hat and no cattle. Coulter appeared March 17 on “The O’Reilly Factor” to discuss her writing about radiation effects. I’ll give Bill O’Reilly and his producer credit for the invitation, but not the content. The trouble was that O’Reilly was hell bent to make sure his guest didn’t come off as knowing more than he about her subject. What Coulter had to say was dismissed as pretty much irrelevant given the oh-so-urgent need to tell the alarming story of Fukushima and, as usual, it ended with O’Reilly shouting louder. On April 13, The Denver Post carried a report that 0.17 picocurie per liter (pCi/l) of iodine-131 from Fukushima had been found in local water and in the water of other U.S. cities. That happens to be about 16,000 times below the conservative upper limit set by Japanese regulators for consumption by babies, and nearly 50,000 times below the limit for adults. The Post acknowledged that “authorities” considered this concentration harmless, and some useful context was provided. But, I ask, why did the paper publish 400 words on this subject at all? I think you can bet the farm that no hazardous substance other than radioactivity, at 16,000 times below the standard for protecting babies, would have been reported. Few if any can even be detected at levels that low. The Post missed a great opportunity to tell the real story in that 0.17 pCi/l, the beyond-astonishing ability science has developed to detect and identify radioisotopes in the environment. For iodine-131, that is the same concentration as one-fifth of an ounce (weight) dispersed in the Mediterranean Sea. Less than one-and-one-half parts per billion trillion. While this wonderful metrical capability facilitates protecting people against harmful exposure – a blessing – it also opens the door to reports that lead to unwarranted public fear – a curse. We need to demand better from the press. Environmental writer William Tucker has been a well-informed voice of sanity for decades. In an op-ed titled ”Japan Does Not Face Another Chernobyl” published March 14 in The Wall Street Journal, Tucker trenchantly noted, “With all the death, devastation and disease now threatening tens of thousands in Japan, it is trivializing and almost obscene to spend so much time worrying about damage to a nuclear reactor.” Events subsequent vindicate striking “almost” from that sentence! It’s obscene, plain and simple. John Dendahl is a Centennial Institute Fellow specializing in energy policy and mass media.  This piece originally appeared at FamilySecurityMatters.org.    

(Denver Post, Mar. 27) "Donor supports program cuts" sounds a bit like "man bites dog" to my ears, and yet I am one of those donors to Colorado Public Radio (CPR) who supports an end to federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Enacted in 1967, the Corporation provides roughly 15 percent of the funding for National Public Radio (NPR), state affiliates such as CPR and public television. I applaud the House of Representatives for having the courage to cut this program because it is the fiscally and morally responsible thing to do. Federal, state and local government indebtedness exceeds the Gross Domestic Product; yet the gravity of this situation is lost on some politicians who continue to press for business as usual, or worse, even more spending. It is as if the ship is sinking and the crew is enthusiastically pumping water onto the deck. If lawmakers want to right the ship they must cut discretionary funding, reform entitlements and balance the budget. Since mandatory spending will be more challenging to reform, lawmakers can act now by eliminating unnecessary discretionary programs. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is the very definition of an unnecessary government program. Times have changed since 1967. Back then public television provided a viewing alternative to the handful of existing options. Those were the days when you had to switch the channel by hand and the screen turned to white static late at night. Likewise, news radio was a scarce commodity. On family road trips, we often had a choice between the tinny sounding farmers report and popping in an 8-track cassette. With today's innumerable cable television channels, FM and AM stations, XM radio and the Internet, no one under 30 will ever know the deprivation we experienced. Consumers have unprecedented viewing and listening choices which they pay for directly through user fees and indirectly by buying advertized products. Miraculously enough, these programs survive without taxpayer funds. Once weaned from the public's pocketbook, most public television and radio programs will likewise carry on. Sesame Street, with its millions of young viewers and millions of dollars in Big Bird and Elmo merchandise, will outlive all of us. NPR's exceptional programming from Morning Addition to All Things Considered to BBC World Service provides in-depth coverage of events and issues heard nowhere else on the dial. While AM radio offers interesting commentary and top-of-the hour news, only NPR provides the long story. Two years ago I became a contributor to CPR's outstanding classical station, KVOD. I believe strongly that one should put one's money where one's heart is. I reject both the lazy "I gave at the office through my taxes" approach to philanthropy and the idea that those who do not enjoy programs should be forced to pay for them. I love classical music; therefore I buy concert tickets and make donations. I have a right to support this form of music and a right not to support music I do not like. As a taxpayer, however, the government makes that choice for me. Americans should have the freedom to choose (and pay for) the news and entertainment they want free of coercion. Pulling the plug on the $430 million in taxpayer subsidies for public television and radio is as much a moral imperative in support freedom as it is a moral imperative in support of fiscal responsibility. The purpose of government is to protect the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of its citizens. It is not to subsidize the choices of some citizens on the dime of others. Spending the hard earned money of citizens and obligating the future earnings of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren through massive government debt to subsidize television and radio programs is antithetical to the purpose of government in a free society. Krista Kafer is a freelance writer in Littleton and a Centennial Institute Fellow.

(Denver Post, Feb. 27) So Facebook brought down the Egyptian regime.  Until now, the only thing I knew it had brought down was my productivity – and that of many other Republicans old enough to know better, after we all stampeded there upon hearing how Democrats rode it to victory in 2008. Obama in, Mubarak out, Zuckerberg to megawealth, and “Social Network” to the Oscars. Such is the Facebook scorecard so far, and there is 90% of the human race yet to be tapped – er, “friended.” Well, call me a dinosaur, but I still believe the front line of self-government in a free society is citizens reading newspapers.  Your pretty pixels on a shimmering screen are fine.  But ink on pulp, served up at the breakfast table for Printosaurus Retrogradus to devour, digest, and act upon, remains the superior medium for effective political engagement in my book. If you are reading this on newsprint – and about half the total audience of the Denver Post now may not be – you probably agree.  Our task is to bring along enough of our fellow Americans, especially the next generation, so that newspapers can survive economically and the country, with their help, can keep renewing itself politically. He’s gone apocalyptic, some will say.  He’s a curmudgeon trapped in the 1950s, a technophobic troglodyte.  He’s mad because his email service, America Online (itself pathetically passe’), has merged with the Huffington Post – and ISP wasn’t supposed to stand for “incessant socialist propaganda.”  His prejudice for the fish-wrapping, birdcage-lining news medium of yesterday over the wild and woolly Web of today is groundless. Maybe; the 1950s charge isn’t actually that far off.  But the prejudice none of us who love newspapers should apologize for is simply a matter of setting value on their more comprehensive, structured, and reasoned interpretation of current events – in contrast to the fragmentary, fleeting, and impressionistic patchwork one is likely to get from the unedited maelstrom of online sources. I want, and we should all want, the neighbors who share with us the duties of governance in city, state, and nation to be thinkers equipped for deciding responsibly.  Does democracy carry the inescapable risk that your carefully considered vote will be cancelled by that of some shallow-minded flake?  Boy, does it – which is all the more reason to work for a civic ethos where informed consent is encouraged and impulsive irresponsibility is frowned on.  Editorial gatekeeping and quality control in our news and opinion media cannot be mandated (thank God for the First Amendment), but they must not be lost. Twitter mustn’t become the only game in town.  Newspapers didn’t lose their dominant agenda-setting and chaff-filtering function as radio and TV arose in the last century, and we need to hope they don’t lose it as the Internet burgeons today, even though electronic delivery may far outpace print delivery. Election 2010 would have gone better here, in my opinion, if the Rocky Mountain News had still been around to compete with the Denver Post.  But heaven help us if the people’s momentous decisions on candidates and ballot issues had had to be made with only the help of dueling websites and water-cooler gossip, and no Denver Post at all. What keeps vital democracy-facilitating businesses like this one afloat as the new technology sorts itself out, I don’t know.  I do know government subsidies are not an option.   My personal crusade is more on the demand side, building readership. That’s why, at every opportunity in my work on a college campus, I brace these laid-back millennial students to arm themselves for citizenship by reading print journalism and lots of it – the local paper, national papers, newsmagazines, opinion journals.  Nothing else feeds your head in quite the same healthy way, I tell them.  Please help me spread that message.  

Hear how center-right media on the Web in Colorado are breaking news and changing the political conversation. And learn how you can be a part of it. A couple of weeks ago, for example, a twenty-something from Denver with a videocam cruised a Bennet Senate rally and made ripples nationally on CNN. That was none other than Kelly Maher of WhoSaidYouSaid.com.  Join her next Monday evening, along with Michael Sandoval,the Battle '10 Colorado reporter for National Review Online, and Todd Shepherd of CompleteColorado.com, for a panel discussion and how-to roundtable.  The moderator will be Stephen Keating, the Centennial Institute fellow for new media. When: Monday, Nov. 15, 7-9pm. Where: School of Business, Room 103, at Colorado Christian University in Lakewood, on Cedar two blocks east of Garrison.  Open to the public, no charge, but you will need reservations.  Email centennial@ccu.edu or call 303.963.3424. Stephen Keating, below, covered cable TV and was business editor for the Denver Post before reinventing himself as an online journalistic entrepreneur.

('76 Contributor) Next time you read a news story about racism at Tea Parties from some dishonest source like the NYT's Bob Herbert, bear in mind this Crash the Tea Party website. Here are some people openly recruiting infiltrators to pose as Tea Partiers and behave in ways intended to reflect badly on the Tea Parties, so as to damage the public perception of the movement.  Since the claims that Herbert made have failed to be corroborated in the multiple videos of the events in question, that pre-established narrative must  now be bolstered by whatever means necessary. Of course, there almost certainly are some racists and other disagreeable people at many Tea Parties (which of course has NEVER been the case at a union rally or an anti-globalism rally or some other such leftist thing)--there are bound to be some unsavory individuals at the margins of ANY gathering of substantial size for whatever cause--but the organized effort to smear the entire movement based on some individuals' unrepresentative behavior is truly disgraceful.  It's McCarthyism. It's difficult for me to understand how anybody could, in good conscience, attack people whose central message is that the founding principles of American government should be adhered to.  No matter how awkward or embarrassing somebody's effort to stand up and proclaim that message, how can you not be ashamed to do anything other than applaud him for it?  And the idea that it's a generally awkward or embarrassing movement is just propaganda, from what I've seen--certainly some of the individual efforts have been awkward, but so what?  I've met very admirable and impressive folks involved with the movement. What is wrong with people who are trying to marginalize ideas like limited, responsive government, government of, by, and for the people?  That such efforts are widespread in THIS country really sickens me. Then again, maybe there's something even more insidious going on than an infiltration agitprop effort by Tea Party opponents.  Maybe it's one layer deeper--this recruitment effort is organized by the Tea Party itself, to create the impression that its opponents are unscrupulous enough to resort to such infiltration tactics.  Or maybe it's even deeper than that:  Maybe the Tea Party opponents want to create the impression that the Tea Party would resort to creating a false recruiting effort attributed to Tea Party opponents.  Or maybe it's an even deeper layer of insidiousness than that...  [Or maybe someone needs to call the fantasy conspiracy helpline for counseling - Editor]  

"We can’t allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress," wrote Bob Herbert in his New York Times column the other day. A Democrat friend of mine from Rochester, NY forwarded me the Herbert piece, entitled "An Absence of Class," about the alleged ugly incidents in the aftermath of the US House's healthcare vote.  She accompanied the link with this single sentence:  "You would never ever defend this."  The following is how I responded. If you think I would defend it, then you completely missed the point I was trying to make before.  I don't defend the things Bob Herbert describes--if they really happened (I am completely open to the possibility that they didn't actually happen as described, or that they were grossly exaggerated, or that Democratic members of Congress and their lackeys would make up or even stage such incidents in order to achieve exactly what the incidents have achieved:  a smear against thousands of people). But let's assume that it all did happen exactly as reported.  I say, So what? Any time you gather thousands of people together, no matter what the cause they're gathering to demonstrate for, you can take it as virtually guaranteed that some of them aren't going to be nice or well-behaved people.  The vast majority of humans, of any political stripe, aren't exactly saints.  Obviously, in any gathering of large size, you'll have a bell-curve distribution on the civility spectrum, and at one end of the curve you'll have bad apples. This method of gathering an unruly mob to make a political point in the streets, by chanting and waving signs (as opposed to making the points on the pages of a newspaper or at the debate lectern or in some other measured and intellectual manner) has been a favored practice of the Left for decades; seeing the same tactic on the other side is a fairly novel thing. You wouldn't seriously assert that nothing vile ever took place at any of the demonstrations in support of causes dear to the Left, over all the decades?  I've seen a little bit of it myself.  For example, sometimes I'd walk out of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California by its Franklin St. gate, during the height of the Iraq War, to find an anti-war mob with signs at the bottom of the hill, and some of them would jeer at me and call me things like "Nazi"--people who didn't know anything about me except that I sported a military-looking haircut.  But you know...so what? It wasn't unusual for acts of mob violence--looting, arson, etc.--to happen where MLK made a public appearance, even though King explicitly decried any such activity.  Things got pretty ugly right there in your town, if I'm not mistaken.  Should we paint all members of the civil rights movement with the brush of a few thuggish individuals who made the event a pretext to behave in a vile manner?  Everyone who favors desegragation is is a thieving incendiary...if YOU favor desegregation then YOU're on the side of looting and arson...yeah, okay...strong argument, huh? Herbert says, "We can’t allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress — epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here."  Oh really?  We can't allow it?  How short his memory is, because he and his ilk were perfectly happy to keep quiet and allow it just a few years ago, when protesters were saying and doing things at least as vile against the previous administration.  I doubt if any president has received the amount of abuse that Bush did.  And I don't care about that.  He's a big boy and he wasn't drafted into the job of president, and having a thick skin is part of the job.  So what? Why is this Herbert article even worth serious consideration?  His chosen method of decrying a lone idiot who spat on some politician is to spit on tens of thousands of people with vile statements like these:  "For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness...."  "This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry." What is this?  Fight fire with fire?  This is Herbert's own commitment to hatred and bigotry on display. The whole article is nothing but an ad hominem.  He's not critiquing the Tea Party's central message--he's trying to turn people off to that message with guilt-by-association.  "If you are tempted to favor shockingly radical, fringy ideas like...oh, let's say, a limited government that is accountable to the people and stays within the bounds of the Constitution...then you're in the company of bigots, and therefore a bigot yourself."  That's what he's saying.  This is just the latest flavor of McCarthyism. I've been called a racist and a Nazi for criticizing Obama about issues that have nothing to do with race--those names were hurled at me based on nothing other than the ethnicity of the target of my criticism, as though the only thing that keeps me from cheering him for his policies is that he's not pure Anglo-Saxon.  Apparently nobody is allowed to criticize a public official on any grounds, if the official happens to be a minority.  That's about the level of Herbert's argument here. I don't care.  They can call me whatever they like.  All they're doing is revealing the Orwellian inversion of language that infects their thought:  If I am color-blind, applying the same standards of criticism to a black man that I would to a white man, then I'm a racist  It's no longer prejudice and racial double standard, but the absence of prejudice and racial double standard, that makes you a racist.  If I'm for limited government and against the kind of centralization of economic decision-making that Nazis and other varieties of socialists espouse, that makes me a Nazi.  Opposing socialism makes you a National Socialist.  Up is down, black is white.

('76 Editor) "Avatar" with its leftist plotline, where capitalism and America are villains, is amusingly debunked by Denver Post columnist Mike Rosen today. Reviews in National Review, Weekly Standard, and Commentary did likewise. I'll be skipping this overhyped dud. After posting the above on Twitter and Facebook a short time ago, I was informed by one Victoria Livingston on FB that:  "Americans have had a history of being bullies; it started with overrunning the Indians before the 'settlers' were Americans."  To which I then replied: America a bully at times, Victoria? Of course, what did you expect? Strong nations, like strong individuals, may be tempted to use their strength irresponsibly. That's not confined to our country - it's the human condition, the tragic flaw, original sin, fallenness. But show me another country that has been half as earnest and noble as America in trying to atone for that irresponsibility in the past and to prevent its recurrence in the future. With "Avatar," James Cameron - like so many others in entertainment and mass media - has bitten the hand that feeds him with liberty and opportunity, affluence and indulgence, privilege and prestige. Ingrates one and all. Fie upon them.

('76 Editor) You have to read closely to see it, so elegant are the euphemisms, but the company that owns the company that owns the Denver Post is taking bankruptcy to get out from under $1 billion in loans it can't repay. ("Pact lets Post's owner cut debt," Jan. 16.)  I note this with sadness, not any sort of pleasure, because Denver and Colorado need the Post -- all the more so after we lost the Rocky Mountain News a year ago -- and because I admire press lord Dean Singleton, whose MediaNews Group is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher in terms of circulation and who is one of the world's true visionaries about where journalism is going in the digital age. As today's story explains, MediaNews is in relatively better shape than most other struggling or bankrupt newspaper owners, and given Singleton's proven virtuosity there is reason to think he can pilot the company through current storms into sustainability when industry trends smooth out.  For Colorado's sake and in the interest of informed self-government, let's hope so. Disclosure: I am a Denver Post columnist.

('76 Contributor) Harry Reid is not racist and Republican calls for his resignation are misguided.  There I said it.  The senate majority leader has recently come under fire for remarks attributed to him in the new book “Game Change.” Authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann say that in 2008 Reid described then candidate Obama as a " 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.'”  The comments have been seen by some as being racially insensitive. Reid’s defenders argue that he was merely making the point that Americans were ready to elect a black president (or at least a light- skinned black president. Baby steps.)  DNC chair Tim Kaine insisted that Reid’s remarks were offered in the context of saying something positive about the Obama candidacy and why his candidacy would be strong. What remains unclear is why we weren’t treated to an equal amount of gushing about Obama’s vast executive experience and his readiness to lead.  Instead, these titans of liberalism were most impressed that Obama was Black but not too black and well spoken enough not to offend the racial sensibilities of voters.  It was also a plus that he was able to turn on a “negro dialect” when speaking to Black audiences.  (Actually the same could have been said of Hillary Clinton.  She is also light skinned with a habit of turning on a “Black dialect” when speaking before black audiences.  Recall her chicken necking as she quoted lyrics from an old “negro” spiritual:  “I ain’t no ways tired.” Really Hillary?  But I digress.) I would be remiss if I failed to point out that the racial sensibilities Reid and company were concerned with offending were those of liberals.  Reid was not mentally tallying the votes of Republicans, but Democrats! Certainly Senator Reid is behind the times.  Who uses the word “negro” anymore?  The accepted term is “people of color,” which, for what it’s worth, sounds way to close too colored people for my tastes.  But do Reid’s comments really rise to occasion GOP outrage, which, let’s be honest is a bit contrived? Is there a double standard?  Absolutely!  There is also a growing sensitivity to public speech that has corrupted our sense of proportion.  If one must resign for speaking the truth – Obama is light skinned, well spoken and does have a habit of turning on the “flava” when he speaks before Black audiences – what is the penalty for saying something truly outrageous?  Calling for the head of Harry Reid only succeeds in making legitimate liberal outrage over the similarly innocuous uttering’s by others.  If we continue down this path I fear we will end up a nation unable to govern itself because we will be unable to speak lest we offend someone…somewhere.  Moreover, these displays of outrage miss the real substance of Reid’s intimations. What is now clear for all to see is the new left's political calculation vis a vis race.  For the left there can be no post racial America because for the new left race is a chief weapon in their arsenal.  Their use of race and racism is premeditated; it is a commodity to be traded in the political market.  THAT should be the focus of GOP outrage; that should be what the media is talking about; that should be the cause of our national indignation. There was another interesting bit of “dish” found in “Game Change.”  In an effort to gain the endorsement of Massachusetts senator Edward Kennedy for his wife, former President Bill Clinton reportedly said to the liberal icon about Obama, "A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.”  According to the book, Kennedy was offended by the remarks and ultimately gave his support to Obama.  In a subsequent conversation Clinton griped, “The only reason you are endorsing him is because he is black.  Let’s just be clear.”  According to Harry Reid and Tim Kaine Clinton was quite correct; were it not for his light skin and his ability to speak like a “negro” when he has to he would still be a junior senator from Illinois and not the President of the United States. 2+2=4. Denver native Joseph C. Phillips is a veteran TV and film actor, national columnist, campus lecturer for Young America's Foundation, and  the author of He Talk Like a White Boy.