Political Scientist Ivan Krastev: Can democracy exist without trust? TED Talks, August 2012
I've been doing a lot of reading this week about the evolution of political institutions. We live in a unique situation where we have very little trust in our political institutions--and Chris Hayes, in his book The Twilight of the Elites, argues that we have very little trust in almost any of our institutional pillars--yet we have done little to remedy that. I'd argue that our distrust comes directly from the fact that there is little to no accountability to those of us who put them in office. As I type this, it occurs to me that the same could be said of the media as well. We hear these media and political figures talking about ways to hold teachers accountable for doing their jobs and yet these exact same people have worked in concert to perpetrate something as inhumane as a war of opportunity and have never, ever been held to account for it.
Like Krastev, I'm dubious that democracy can survive without trust. I'm not sure how we get back to a point in which we can trust our politicians (and the media that cover them), but I suspect it will require some sort of accounting and dismissing of anyone who did their jobs so poorly. You know, kind of like the same way they think they can talk about our poor teachers, who make so much less and get so little respect.
ABC's "This Week" – Guest host: Jake Tapper. Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. ABC News global affairs anchor Christiane Amanpour, ABC News senior foreign affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz, and ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross. Panel: ABC News' George Will; Fox News contributor and former State Department official Liz Cheney, co-founder of Keep America Safe; Ret. General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe; PBS' "Washington Week" moderator and managing editor Gwen Ifill; and ABC News senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl.
NBC's "Meet the Press" – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Rice; Panel: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN ); Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Rep Peter King (R-NY); author of the new book "The Price of Politics," The Washington Post’s, Bob Woodward; the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg; and NBC's Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Andrea Mitchell.
NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine Assistant Managing Editor; Trish Regan, Bloomberg News; Kasie Hunt, Associated Press; John Harris, Politico Editor-in-Chief.
CBS' "Face the Nation" – Rice; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif, the Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk. Panel: The New York Times' David Sanger, TIME's Bobby Ghosh, and CBS News' Margaret Brennan and John Dickerson
MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" - Guest host: Sam Seder. Panel: Tanya Wells, Steven Gates, Program Director, Youth Advocacy Programs- Illinois, Melissa Boteach, Director of Half in Ten/Poverty and Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress, Gary Younge, Guardian columnist; John Reel, assistant to the director at Senior Service America, Inc.; Matt Farmer; Stephen Pimpare, associate professor at Columbia University School of Social Work, author of "The People's History in America."; Elise DeBroad.
MSNBC's "Melissa Harris-Perry" - Jim Frederick, Time Magazine; Wade Henderson, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Allison Kilkenny, Co-Host, Citizen Radio; Peter Goodman, Exec. Business Editor, Huffington Post; David Levine, Founder and President, Mr. Beams; Harrison Schultz; Hanna Rosin, Author, "The End of Men"; Jamie Kilstein, Co-Host, Citizen Radio; Dr. Maya Angelou.
CNN's "State of the Union" – Rice; Netanyahu; Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, author and professor of Islamic studies Tariq Ramadan and author Bernard-Henri Lévy, author Michael Lewis.
CNN's "Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz" - Clarence Page, of The Chicago Tribune, Ryan Lizza, of The New Yorker, and Amy Holmes, of Glenn Beck TV, Paul Farhi of the Washington Post, media critics Gail Shister and Adam Buckman.
"Fox News Sunday" – Rice; Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. Panel: Brit Hume, Fox News Senior Political Analyst, Liz Marlantes, The Christian Science Monitor, Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard/Fox News Contributor, Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times.
So what's catching your eye this morning?
