the AP does an odd photo juxtaposition today:

An AP-Ipsos poll also found that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a more popular figure than the president and her colleagues on Capitol Hill, though she faces a gender gap in which significantly more women than men support her.

Professor Gadi Wolfsfeld compares TV coverage of political news to shows like Big Brother and Survivor.

Only, guess what? He’s talking about Israeli TV, not our MSM:

Both in political news and in reality shows we see several mechanisms that ensure the ongoing flow of insults and attacks. Both genres are edited in a manner that grants personal clashes the most attention, particularly if these attacks are caught on camera.

In addition, in these genres, participants are actively encouraged to condemn other competitors. The most dramatic political stories take place when a group of ministers or Knesset members (who are often branded as “rebels”) secretly conspire against the prime minister, in a bid to topple him. Daily news items focus on strategies, media “spins,” behind the scenes “conspiracies,” and backstabbing.

Sound familiar? It should.

The component that is sorely missing when it comes to political news coverage is a debate on policy and institutions. The Winograd interim report points to fundamental failures in the decision-making process, both within the political leadership and in the IDF. These failures constitute genuine danger to the country’s future. Yet many of the problems that emerged in the report existed a long time before Ehud Olmert was elected as prime minister, and they are likely to persist even after he ends his term in office.

Despite this, the main motive in the news coverage was that the solution to the problems that emerged from the report hinges on the resignation of Olmert and Peretz. Just like in a reality show, it appears that all we need to do in order to take care of everything is to kick out the “failures” from the show. Yet one of the ironies inherent in modern public discourse is that the most important problems faced by the country are too complex, and possibly too boring, for primetime coverage.

This is a superb piece of media and culture criticism, worth much more analysis than I can give it here and now. Another time—I promise (I promise myself along with you, dear patient readers). But here’s another irresistible bit:

In the news, just like in reality shows, Israeli viewers send instant messages in the form of polls that are published in the media several times a week. As opposed to reality shows, the first question they ask here is as follows: Who should be kicked off the show (”Do you think Olmert and Peretz should resign?”) On the other hand, Israeli politicians enjoy a “lifesaver” so that they can be reelected and return to the game after they were dismissed.

That last bit (the “lifesaver” for politicians) shows how Israeli politics are not so similar to American politics—in Israel, they have to keep using the same people because they’ve got a small population, whereas here in America we have 300 million to choose from, so we don’t have to resort to such…oops! Bush 41, Clinton 42, Bush 43, Clinton 44?

In the fundamentals, however, we’re completely alike, says Professor Wolfsfeld, quoting the eminently quotable Neil Postman—we’re Amusing Ourselves to Death:

The main message [of Postman's book] was that in the modern era, the entire format of public discourse in the media is adjusted to show business. The danger this trend poses to all Western democracies is even more apparent today.

When the news focus more on an attempt to amuse and less on the desire to inform, even the most involved citizens will find it difficult to develop intelligent comprehension of the major challenges faced by the country.

I don’t agree with his conclusion at all. Intelligent comprehension of the issues is not an unreachable goal for involved citizens. They’re just not going to reach enlightenment by watching television.

Just as obvious a point, and just as overlooked: it’s sort of hard to claim that Israelis, who are constantly engaged in wars and counterinsurgencies and counterterrorist actions, are transfixed to the point of paralysis by the televised public brawling of their politicians.

It seems to me that the right kind of public brawling just might get the audience’s juices flowing, in the direction of political engagement.

That might be too much to hope for from mere infotainment, but that’s what I, for one, am hoping. So: here’s to infotainment. It rules!

General David Petraeus, writing the words that so many people have ached to hear, makes it plain what is expected of American military personnel—namely, honor:

10 May 2007

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen serving in Multi-National Force—Iraq:

Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we—not our enemies—occupy the moral high ground. …

I fully appreciate the emotions that one experiences in Iraq. I also know firsthand the bonds between members of the “brotherhood of the close fight.” Seeing a fellow trooper killed by a barbaric enemy can spark frustration, anger, and a desire for immediate revenge. As hard as it might be, however, we must not let these emotions lead us—or our comrades in arms—to commit hasty, illegal actions. In the event that we witness or hear of such actions, we must not let our bonds prevent us from speaking up.

Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary.

We are, indeed, warriors. We train to kill our enemies. We are engaged in combat, we must pursue the enemy relentlessly, and we must be violent at times. What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight, however, is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings.

Read the whole thing (at Balkanization, where Marty Lederman, thinking conspiratorially—and probably correctly—says he detects the hand of Cheney in Petraeus’s use of the qualifying adverb “frequently.” [ you have to follow the link and read the whole letter, because it's not in the passage I copied and pasted .]

 Whatever. What’s important about the letter is that, finally, it’s out there in black and white: “While we are warriors, we are also human beings.”

Soldiers kill. They’re engaged in combat. They pursue enemies relentlessly. They must be violent. They are warriors. They are also human beings.

Via Andrew Sullivan, who missed the parts of the letter about the warrior ethos and skipped right to the part about torture, and ludicrously and pompously titled his post “Petraeus Comes Through,” as if the honor of the American military and the American people had gone missing until Petraeus wrote and published these important and valuable words. (Does he believe that—abracadabra!—said lost honor will just as magically be restored?) Two hours later, a very impatient Sullivan, having seen no reaction from certain quarters in the blogosphere to Petraeus’s letter, uses it as a cudgel with which to bash his real enemies—his former pals on the right. So juvenile and so tiresome.

But Sullivan is now among those who are paid to provoke (at least I’m assuming he’s being paid, since his new Atlantic Online colleague Matthew Yglesias, who is also quite the provocateur, says he’s being paid).