The White House News War: Forget Glenn Beck. Barack Obama is “Howard Beale.”

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The White House News War: Forget Glenn Beck. Barack Obama is “Howard Beale.”

By letterhead | October 25, 2009

Teeth are being gnashed. Gauntlets is gettin' thrown down like warm beers at a tea party. Over what? Beck, O'Reilly, and Limbaugh? Seriously?

Nobody saw this coming? Not since 1976 when the satire "Network" hit movie screens and won four Academy Awards?

More than 3o years ago, the fictional network boss Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall) cringed at the idea of putting a screaming, delusional nut-bag on TV. He said to Diana Christiensen (Faye Dunaway), head of the network's "Entertainment Division":

"For God's sake Diana we're talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on national television!"

Diana just smiles a creepy, glassy-eyed smile and nods gleefully… as if to say "Um… hell yeah. Isn't it GREAT!"

The movie is worth watching just for that one scene alone. It is the tipping point at which the network descends into "shrieking nothingness" and hysteria, all in pursuit of ratings.

The relevance to Obama is: just a year ago HE was the "anger candidate." He got elected because he channeled people's ANGER.

Whether he wants to admit it or not, it wasn't hope that got him elected. He harnessed the public's anger and discontent, essentially saying:

"Throw the bums out and make room for new people like you who understand your needs… and maybe you won't have to be so scared and angry anymore."

He promised to take it to "the man"… so to speak. And millions of American's of all stripes cheered him on his crusade. But once in office he forsook that anger in favor of pragmatism, and he left a huge swath of the "anger contingent" (which includes millions of independents) unrepresented and ripe for FOX to pick it off and gin it up.

"THIS VIOLATES EVERY CANNON OF RESPECTABLE BROADCASTING"

For those who have never seen Network: The nightly news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) gets fired for lousy ratings and completely loses it on the air. He says: "Tune in next week for my last show when I will blow my brains out on national TV."

The man has clearly cracked up, but manages to convince his producer to let him say a brief farewell on the air the next day. He apologizes to viewers for saying he'd blow his brains, but he'd "just run out of bullshit."

He hits nerve of popular outrage and the ratings go through the roof. It was, after all, a post-war, post-oil-embargo, post-Watergate world of grinding economic distress.

Hackett, once he starts seeing dollar signs, lets Christiensen put Beale back on the air every night, frothing torment and all. And to whip up the public even more, she lards up the evening "news" with a Soothsayer (Tune in tomorrow to see if she was right!) and a viewer sounding board called Vox Populi (a foreshadowing of CNN's live audience-reaction graphs).

In short, Christiensen turns the "news" into a viewer-driven three-ring circus. The network's head honchos revolt against Hackett, lamenting:

"You're seriously considering putting on a pornographic news show… This violates every cannon of respectable broadcasting."

A LUNATIC ON THE AIR YELLING "BULLSHIT"

Wolf Blitzer may not be yelling "Bullshit" on the air, but his program might be better if he did. After all, the CNN Situation Room and all those shows like it are fast approaching the dazzling user-driven carnival show of the fictional Evening News with Howard Beale.

CNN's army of talking-head spokesbots are entirely predictable, rarely saying anything surprising, and usually just spar and whine and accuse each other of not fighting fair. All for the sake of ~~news~~ ~~entertainment~~ ratings.

The network might as well go whole hog and just put "a lunatic on the air yelling bullshit." (As Hackett says of Beale.)

As for the one-man/woman lunatic sideshows (Beck, Limbaugh, Malkin, et al.) and all the other mouthy anger-merchants, Christiensen nails it when she says:

"The audience out there obviously wants a prophet, even a manufactured one, even if he's mad as Moses."

Cue Laura Ingram and Ann Coulter.

THE AMERICAN PUBLIC: SULLEN, LIMP, AND ANGRY

Dunaway gives the following speech that could easily come from a FOX news programming meeting (or CNN, or CNBC, or MSNBC for that matter):

"The American people are turning sullen. They've been clobbered on all sides by Vietnam, Watergate, inflation, the depression… they've turned off, shot up, and fucked themselves limp and nothing helps.

"So this concept analysis concludes that the American people want someone to articulate their rage for them.

"I've been telling you that I want ANGRY shows! I want counter-culture! I want anti-establishment!"

Replace "Vietnam" with Iraq (now Afganistan). Replace "Watergate" with illegal domestic surveillance and Justice Department scandals and a host of other ills. Replace "inflation" and "depression" with foreclosures, bank bailouts, unemployment… you get the idea.

These shows are playing to an audience. A rabid and hungry one. Even among independents.

MEDDLING WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE

In the end, Beale turns his anger on the very network that made him a star, and the CEO of the network holding company turns on Beale:

"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature Mr. Beale… and I-WILL-NOT-HAVE-IT!!!"

Beale is charged with telling his audience the truth about corporate control of their lives — that they can't escape it. Not a happy message. And one that kills his ratings.

In response, Christiensen uses the cast of her terrorist reality show (The Mao Tse-tung Hour) to assassinate Beale in their season opener.

So in the end, what have we?

- A network that cares not a whit for anything other than its own corporate agenda

- An irascible public on a hair-trigger

- Young, conniving, bloodless whores who will put anything on the air as long as it will make a buck

- A powerless old-guard with no spine and even less influence

- A growing appetite for violence as a way of expressing political and economic discontent

And the Obama White House has waded into this firestorm carrying a #2 pencil and a legal pad, attempting to school the nation in "respectable broadcasting." Yeah… OK… Obama is right about FOX ~~News~~ Noise. (Good summary here.) So what?????

FOX has successfully co-opted people's anger in part because the Administration handed it over to them. The Administration pandered to big money in Finance and Healthcare and Big Business and many people — who once saw Obama as an ally — now see him as the enemy. Those who saw him as simply the enemy now see him as the anti-Christ.

"Americans are fed up," says Real Clear Politics. Independents are bolting the Obama big-tent faster than you can say Wall Street Bonus. "What does all this portend? Very possibly a Ross Perot moment — the emergence of someone with serious charts and serious language that angry Americans will see as more authentic than 'hope and change.'"

IS OBAMA HOWARD BEALE?

In a credible alternate reading of the Howard Beale story, Glenn Beck isn't Beale. O'Reilly isn't Beale. Limbaugh isn't Beale.

BARACK OBAMA IS HOWARD BEALE. (Of course, minus the ranting and frothing and mental instability.)

Obama ran for president crisscrossing the USA yelling "BULLSHIT!" He did it an an ever-so-gentlemanly way, of course. But that was essentially his message. Enough of the bullshit. Enough of the scamming. Enough of the taking advantage of the little guy. You're mad as hell and if you elect me you won't have to take it any more. "Yes we can!" was as much a metaphorical pitchfork and battle cry as anything else.

But Obama was meddling with the primal forces of nature. And America's corporate overlords quickly put the kibosh on it. Now Obama seems to preach an immutable corporate cosmology. Like he's placating the forces of corporate control… ceding to them control of government and the national commonweal. The audience hates it. And like Beale, the president's ratings are dropping.

If he continues down this path, his show will get resoundingly canceled in 2012.

I pray not. (And I especially pray not violently.) I campaigned and voted for the guy and want him to succeed. But entertainment is an unforgiving business. While America loved the pilot, it is showing little patience for the well-worn lines that the White House is trying to pass off as something genuinely new. And it's not just the FOX tea-party anti-government types who are seething. Even dyed-in-the-wool capitalists (e.g., Dylan Ratigan) are coughing up hairballs every night on cable "news."

Obama used to understand and channel the public's anger quite well. He re-directed it from cynicism into hope. "Yes we can." It's OK to be angry; but you don't have to resort to complete cynicism because you CAN do something about it.

But for some unknown reason, the president has given up trying to channel people's anger. Where is the champion? Where is the righteous outrage? Where is the "take it to them" spirit?

People are in pain, and feel like they really are just cogs in a corporate wheel. Contrary to the "Yes we can" mantra, it's looking more like, in fact, we probably can't. And that is even more cause for cynicism.

Criticizing FOX for giving voice to the very anger he used to champion, but now seems to ignore, only makes Obama seem more out of touch, and more of a sell-out.

Turns out the whole "green shoots" mentality and turn-toward-the-positive message program of the White House may have been a mistake. He should have stayed on the anger train for a while longer.

But he got off too soon and gave away that platform. That's the real danger here. And the White House seems deaf to it.

Topics: Media, Politics, Public Relations, TV | Comments Off

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The White House News War: Forget Glenn Beck. Barack Obama is “Howard Beale.”