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intrepidity

(7,241 posts)
Wed Apr 1, 2020, 01:09 AM Apr 2020

Why don't we hold our "leaders" accountable for their words?

Is this a new thing, or has it really always been this bad in this country, where elected officials all the way up to and including the president, can just say whatever they want and rarely, if ever, must actually account for those words?

I don't accept that it has always been this way.

I know the Press tries to confront them during pressers, but nearly always, just more lies are offered and the real questions ignored. A reporter may ask the correct question but when it goes ignored and there's no follow up, what can we do?

Why is such a seemingly fundamental thing so problematic?

I mean, it's as simple as: "you said this. What did you mean?" And then just don't let them not answer. Just don't. If they have to finally stand there in awkward silence, let them. Make them slink away in shame if they won't answer.

Where are our courageous reporters when we desperately need them right fucking now? Who will hold their feet to the fires? We just can't let this continues. It's not healthy for a democracy, and right now, it is killing us.

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Why don't we hold our "leaders" accountable for their words? (Original Post) intrepidity Apr 2020 OP
It's gotten fatally worse. zipplewrath Apr 2020 #1
There are many courageous reporters out there, but as a profession... pat_k Apr 2020 #2

zipplewrath

(16,646 posts)
1. It's gotten fatally worse.
Wed Apr 1, 2020, 01:31 AM
Apr 2020

This President and many modern politicians have taken it to a whole new level. But it has always been true that the people who elect you are resistant to judging you harshly even when you clearly violated a campaign promise.

pat_k

(9,313 posts)
2. There are many courageous reporters out there, but as a profession...
Wed Apr 1, 2020, 01:42 AM
Apr 2020

... seems to me they've been decimated.

Once upon a time, all city newspapers had somebody assigned to Washington to report on issues most important to their readers. Turnover was pretty high -- bringing in new points of view and styles all the time.

We have had wave upon wave of consolidation. Now, there is a fairly static White House press corp. That is a very bad thing. As good as some of the White House press people are, they are victims of group think -- a kind of reporting where actually digging in on something to get the actual facts just isn't done. Instead we get reporting that X says Y, and Q says R, and we'll let you decide. The focus is on today and when today is over, it's on to the next thing.

The REALLY important stories don't follow a 24 hour news cycle. You have to dig in. You have to follow related lines of inquiry over time. People like Jane Mayer still do this kind of reporting, but it is WAY too rare. And gets far too little attention in the constant push to "move on."

In politics, the meme "look forward, not back" is perhaps the most damaging of all. Instead of holding the war criminals in the CIA and other institutions accountable, Obama wanted to "look forward" and pardoned them all with a pledge to "change things so it doesn't happen again." Asserting that we are now, after the fact, "banning torture" was insanity. Torture was already banned. It has been banned since the Geneva conventions (and by other treaties before that). A president claiming authority to "ban" it means the presidency has the authority to "unban" it.

I don't mean to pick on Obama on this. It's just one example of a general phenomenon that has become the "norm" among the people we elect in recent decades. Nobody was held accountable for the massive fraud committed by mortgage securitization trustees, mortgage servicers, foreclosure mills, the other players responsible for bringing down the world economy in 2008. No one was held accountable for obstruction of justice in Iran Contra (the Democrats decided it was best to "look forward" because the country wasn't in the "mood" for impeachment). No one was held accountable for the stolen presidential election in Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004.

The problem is that if people are not held accountable for their actions, it -- whatever "it" may be -- WILL happen again. You have changed nothing if you identify criminals, and then "let them off" in your race to "look forward, not back." When people who have violated the rules aren't held to account, making new rules is an exercise in futility.

I realize I've gone off on a somewhat different track, but I think what you have identified is part of a phenomenon that extends past the problem with journalism in recent decades. I see a mystifying general reluctance to directly confront certain types of wrongdoing -- whether by a politician, a priest, a CEO, or another type of figure that holds a certain type of power.

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