Media Criticism

I read through an entry from last week on the Columbia Journalism Review website that highlights a point I made last week about the power of the presidency. The presidential candidates promise all manner of vague changes to the federal government but they bypass the problem of passing legislation through Congress. Columbia Journalism Review had an article about the generalizations made by the presidential candidates on local environmental issues during the course of their campaigning.

I suggest that every voter who thinks that candidates like Obama, Clinton and McCain can bring change should read this article. Curtis Brainard outlines local media efforts to draw out responses to environmental issues at a local level from national candidates. Each newspaper started out with good intentions but ended with “round-up�? stories and concessions that the candidates had no specific plans for ecological areas like Chesapeake Bay and the Everglades. While Brainard concludes that a mixture of factors contribute to candidate ambivalence about local environmental issues, I think that the main issue falls in the separation of responsibilities within our government.

The president is the leader of our military forces first and a cog in the checks-and-balances machine; everything else after that is gravy according to the Constitution. There is no need for presidential candidates to lay out individual strategies for each state because that would be a massive overreach for the executive office. The ultimate responsibility for environmental problems lies with governors, state legislatures and members of the U.S. Congress. It is ridiculous to ask presidential candidates to get specific on a local watershed when we should be asking for specifics on conservation and clean fuel programs with a national scope. Journalists and voters need to demand detailed policies from the right people. I wouldn’t be impressed if a candidate like John McCain had a specific plan for the Fox River Valley in Wisconsin; I would be annoyed that he wasn’t thinking about issues within his purview.