Anti-War Israelis Protest Against Netanyahu Government's War in Gaza

Hidden History of Texas--1827-1836

(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on Aug. 24, 2011)

By 1830 legalized slavery was prohibited in most states of Mexico and in some northern states in the United States. Yet legalized slavery in Texas was not permanently abolished until the middle of the 1860s.

Between 1827 and 1829, both state and federal government authorities in Mexico continued their efforts to end the enslavement of African-Americans in Mexico many years before the enslavement of African-Americans was finally ended in either the United States or Texas, following the U.S. Civil War of the early 1860s.

Article 15 of the Coahuila y Tejas State Constitution of 1827 stated that “No one shall be born a slave, and after six months the introduction of slaves under any pretext” in Texas “shall not be permitted.” And on Sept. 15, 1829, Mexican President Vicente Guerrero issued a decree that emancipated all slaves within the Republic of Mexico.

On Dec. 2, 1829, however, the Anglo settlers who lived in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas and owned more than 1,000 African-American slaves, were then legally allowed to ignore Mexican President Guerrero’s Sept. 15, 1829 emancipation decree and to continue to redefine their imported slaves as “indentured servants,” in order to evade the 1824 Mexican law that prohibited the further importation of slaves into Mexico.

But on April 6, 1830 Mexico’s Congress passed another law which more strictly prohibited importation of more slaves into Texas under any guise by the Anglo settlers.

In 1830 the number of Spanish-speaking Mexicans who lived in Texas (and mostly earned their living as ranchers and small farmers) numbered 4,000, while the number of English-speaking Anglo settlers who lived in Texas (usually as either slave-owning cotton plantation owners or non-slave-owning white farmers) numbered 10,000.

So the Mexican government decided it would no longer allow more Anglo settler-colonists -- who were mostly into establishing an economic system in Texas based on slave labor and exporting cotton -- to immigrate to Mexico. As a result, the Mexican Congress’s Law of April 6, 1830 also prohibited any further immigration into Mexico’s Coahuila y Tejas state by settlers from U.S. territory. In addition, this law also imposed new customs duties on imports and exports from Mexico that financially hurt the Anglo settlers who were involved in exporting cotton from Texas and importing other goods to Texas.

Since the border between the United States and the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas was too long for the Mexican Army to guard completely and secure effectively, Anglo settlers continued to enter Mexico in the early 1830s, as “illegal aliens,” and by 1834, the number of white Anglo settlers in Texas had jumped to 20,700, while the number of Spanish-speaking “Tejano” residents within the Texas region of Coahuila y Tejas was still only 4,000.

After some of the Anglo settlers in Coahuila y Tejas held a convention in 1833 -- which asked for both repeal of the Mexican Congress’s Law of April 6, 1830 (that prohibited further immigration of settlers from the United States) and for Texas to become a separate Mexican state and no longer just a region of the predominantly Spanish-speaking state of Coahuila y Tejas -- the 1830 law was repealed by the Mexican government in late 1834.

In addition, the Mexican government then “offered considerable self-government at the local level” to the Anglo settlers in Coahuila y Tejas, and “during the early 1830s Anglos in Texas received important concessions such as trial by jury and use of the English language” from the Mexican federal government, according to Randolph Campbell’s Gone To Texas.

Yet when the demand for a separate, predominantly white Anglo state of Texas within the federal republic of Mexico was rejected by the Mexican government after Stephen F. Austin presented it in Mexico City, Austin apparently then wrote an inflammatory letter in which he advised the Anglo settlers in Texas to form a separate state “even though the general government” of Mexico “refuses to consent.” This inflammatory letter, however, was intercepted by Mexican government authorities; and Austin was then imprisoned by the Mexican authorities for a year.

According to Gone To Texas, among the reasons the predominantly white Anglo settlers in Coahuila y Tejas wanted a separate state for themselves within Mexico was that “most Anglos definitely thought themselves inherently superior to Mexicans” and “most Anglos at least accepted slavery, whereas Mexican officials threatened to destroy the institution.”

In his 1996 book Black Texans: A History of African Americans in Texas, Texas Tech University Professor of History Alwyn Barr also observed:

“Mexicans generally accepted black people, especially mulattos, more readily than did the... Anglo population... Because of the favorable legal and social conditions, Benjamin Lundy, a white abolitionist, and Nicholas Drouett, a mulatto who had retired as an officer in the Mexican army, sought permission to establish a colony of free blacks from the United States during the 1830s. The Mexican government reacted favorably, but most whites in the United States and Texas opposed the project as an impediment to their westward movement...

“White Texans, overwhelmingly southern in background, brought with them favorable views of slavery and unfavorable views of black people... Mexican opposition to the importation of slaves did slow Anglo immigration and act as a major source of discontent prior to the Texas Revolution in 1836..."

  So in 1835 the predominantly white Anglo settlers armed themselves and began organizing for an armed rebellion against Mexican government rule in Texas. But a number of Spanish-speaking Mexican settlers in Texas (like a land speculator with the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company named Lorenzo de Zavala) also supported the armed rebel Anglos.

And, according to the Texas State Historical Association’s Texas Almanac website, an East Texas merchant of Jewish background (and a friend of former Tennessee Governor Sam Houston) named Adolphus Sterne “became a principal source of financial backing for the Texas Revolution” of 1835-1836.

Hidden History of Texas--1821-1826

(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on Aug. 16, 2011)

White English-speaking Texans of wealth have exercised a special influence over the direction of Texas history for many years. Yet it wasn’t until Dec. 21, 1821, that the first white Anglo, Mary James Long, was born on Texas soil.

And long before any white Anglos from the United States had settled in Texas in the early 19th-century, Spanish-speaking Texans had already, in the 18th century, developed the cattle ranching techniques such as the round-up, branding, roping, and herding from horseback, for which Texas later became well-known throughout the world as a result of Hollywood movies during the 20th century.

White Anglos only began crossing the border from Louisiana and into New Spain territory in Texas around 1815. So, not surprisingly, in the early 1820s the number of Native Americans who (as members of tribal nations like the Cherokees, Delaware, Shawnees, etc.) lived in Texas -- 20,000 -- was still greater than the number of white Anglo settlers who lived in Texas.

But in November 1820, a white Anglo named Moses Austin (accompanied by his African-American slave, Richmond) went to San Antonio and met with local authorities to talk about setting up an Anglo settler colony in not yet densely-populated Texas. And following Moses Austin’s death in June 1821, his son -- Stephen Fuller Austin -- established a settler-colony in Texas in December 1821, on land granted by Texas’s then-governing authorities.

Since thousands of acres of Texas’ best farmland were being offered by Stephen F. Austin to prospective Anglo settlers at a much cheaper price (10 cents per acre) than what land was then selling for in the United States -- and on credit -- the number of Anglo settler-colonists in Austin’s Texas colony quickly increased during the 1820s.

Under the Empire of Mexico’s Colonization Law of January 1823, each Anglo family who settled in Austin’s colony was given 4,423 acres of land in Texas if they planned to raise cattle stock and 177 acres of land in Texas if they planned to just be farmers. In addition, the Anglo settler-colonists were required to be only of Catholic background and were also required to free all the African-American slave children they owned when the slave children reached the age of 14.

Although the Empire of Mexico’s Colonization Law was voided by Mexico’s new federal republican government by March 1823, the land grant to Austin’s colony in Texas continued to be recognized as valid by the new Mexican federal republican government. But under the March 28, 1825 Colonization Act passed by the state government of Coahuila in Mexico (of which Texas was now a part), Anglo settlers in Austin’s colony had to agree to become both Mexican citizens and Catholics -- in exchange for being given land in Texas (for less than $100 in fees) by Mexico’s governing authorities.

There were only seven African-American slaves in Texas -- living around San Antonio -- according to an 1819 census, and the same 1823 Empire of Mexico law that required slave children to be freed at the age of 14 also prohibited the sale or purchase of African-American slaves by the Anglo settlers in Austin’s colony.

But the newly-arrived white Anglo settlers soon began to create an economy based on the enslavement of African-Americans within Texas, and by 1825, Austin’s Anglo colony included 69 white slaveholders -- mostly settlers from the southern United States region -- who owned 443 slaves of African-American descent.

A white settler from Georgia, Jared E. Groce, for example, brought 90 slaves with him when he settled in Texas, establishing a plantation there in 1822, and apparently became one of the wealthiest settler-colonists. And around 25 percent of the 1,800 people who lived in Austin’s colony in Texas by 1825 were African-American slaves.

In his Gone To Texas, professor Randolph Campbell indicated the economic motive and the ideological reason for the white Anglos who settled in Austin’s colony deciding to set up a slave labor-based economic system in Texas during the 1820s, when he wrote:

“A trend toward cash-crop agriculture developed almost immediately... Cotton production depended on slavery, which in turn provided the strongest link between Texas and the American South... Anglo-Americans made slavery an institution of significance in Texas beginning in the 1820s because they saw it as economic necessity... Free labor could not be hired where land was so inexpensive... Most Texas immigrants... held racist views that allowed them to see nothing wrong with the practice of whites owning blacks in order to profit from their labor...”

  So, not surprisingly, a few years after the Republic of Mexico legally prohibited the further importation of slaves of African-American descent into Mexico in 1824, a minority of the Anglo settlers in eastern Texas, led by Haden Edwards, declared their independence from Mexico on Dec. 21, 1826 and attempted to establish an independent "Republic of Fredonia."

But the independent Republic of Fredonia did not gain the support of either Stephen F. Austin or most of the other Anglo settlers in Texas in 1826 -- and once Mexican government troops arrived in the Republic of Fredonia on Jan. 4, 1827, the Republic of Fredonia quickly ceased to exist

Hidden History of Texas--Pre-1821 Years

(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on 8/10/11)

Since 1965 at least three high-profile Texas politicians -- former U.S. Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, former U.S. Rep. George H. W. Bush and former Texas Gov. George W. Bush -- have used their decision-making power in the White House as U.S. presidents to involve the United States in major morally disastrous and economically wasteful military interventions overseas.

The general populace knows a lot about Texas politics and history, yet most people in the United States who didn’t grow up in Texas and who never have lived in Texas probably know very little about the hidden history of Texas.

Prior to 1821, for example, people of Jewish religious background who wanted to openly practice Judaism were, at least in theory, not allowed to become residents of Texas because the Spanish authorities in Texas required people who lived in Texas to worship openly only as Catholics.

And, even today, only about 131,000 of the over 25.1 million people who live in Texas appear to be of Jewish background, although the land area of Texas is a lot larger than the land area of Manhattan Island -- where about 243,000 of the 1.6 million residents are of Jewish background.

But long before white Europeans of Christian religious background arrived and explored Texas in the 1500s, Native American people had been living in the South Plains in what is now Texas for over 10,000 years.

The first permanent settlement of white Europeans in Texas didn’t happen until 1682, when Spanish-speaking people established a settlement a few miles east of what is now El Paso. And over 80 years later, in the 1760s, there were still only 1,000 Spanish-speaking settlers in San Antonio and only 500 Spanish-speaking settlers in East Texas.

Even in the late 1770s, fewer than 4,000 Spanish-speaking settlers of European descent actually lived in what is now Texas.

Of the over 3,000 people who lived in these settlements in 1777, around 50 percent were born in Spain, 25 percent were either mestizo or mulatto, and 25 percent were Native American. But, at the same time, about 20,000 Native Americans still lived in Texas in areas outside the Spanish-speaking settlements at the end of the 1770s. In addition, 20 known slaves of African-American descent also lived in Texas in the 1770s.

As late as 1792, Texas still had only about 3,169 Spanish-speaking residents, including 34 blacks and 414 mulattos of African-American descent. So, not surprisingly, the majority of people who lived throughout all areas of Texas in 1799 were still Native American.

When Texas was part of the New Spain colony in North America under Spanish rule during the late 18th century, the legal status of women who owned property in Texas was actually better than it had been when the 13 U.S. colonies on North America’s East Coast were ruled by the UK prior to 1776.

According to the Spanish laws that governed Texas in the 1770s, for example, unmarried women in Texas who owned property retained title to their own property after marriage; and they also shared equally in the ownership of any property they and their husbands acquired after marrying. In addition, the husband of a woman in Texas in the 1770s could not, under Spanish law, sell the married couple’s community property without the consent of his wife.

In August 1813, an attempt was made by some of the fewer than 4,000 Spanish-speaking residents of Texas to establish a Texas republic that would no longer be either ruled by a royalist viceroy who represented the monarchical Spanish government or be part of New Spain.

But after a leader of the Spanish-speaking rebels named Gutierrez declared Texas independent from Spain on Aug. 6, 1813, the new Texas Republic’s Army of North Mexico (which numbered 1,400 men), led by Jose Alverez de Toledo, was defeated at the Battle of Medina (in what is now the area around San Antonio) on Aug. 18, 1813, by a Spanish royalist force of 2,000, led by Joaquin de Arrendo.

Some 1,000 of the combatants involved in the Battle of Medina were killed during the battle; and the royalist troops of Arrendo then “executed 327 soldiers from the republican army who surrendered or were captured after the battle,” according to University of North Texas Professor of History Randoph Campbell’s 2003 book Gone To Texas: A History of the Lone Star State.

In addition, “in San Antonio 40 men suspected of supporting Gutierrez and/or Toledo paid with their lives,” “eight women and children from their families died of suffocation while packed into prison compounds,” and a detachment of Arrendo’s Spanish royalist army “advanced towards Nacogdoches, executing 71 more accused rebels along the way,” according to the same book.

Six years later, in the summer of 1819, Texas was invaded by an army of about 300 Anglo-American men, led by an Anglo-American merchant named James Long -- who also tried to set up an independent Texas republic that would no longer be ruled by Spain or be part of New Spain.

But by the fall of 1819, royalist Spanish troops had driven Long’s army of Anglo-American invaders back across the East Texas border and back into U.S. territory; and after Long led a second unsuccessful invasion of Texas by armed Anglo men two years later, he was imprisoned and then killed by local Spanish-speaking Texas authorities, after the armed Anglo invaders were again defeated by Spanish-speaking troops in the late summer of 1821.

Shortly before Long’s second invasion of Texas was beaten back, an alliance between the white Creole elite landowners in New Spain (who had been born in New Spain and, thus -- under Spanish rule -- did not enjoy the same political and economic rights as Spanish-born residents of New Spain), New Spain’s clerical leaders and Spanish royalist army general Agustin de Iturbide was successful in pressuring the royalist viceroy to sign the Aug. 24, 1821 Treaty of Cordoba.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Cordoba, New Spain ceased to exist as a political entity and the independent Empire of Mexico was established (although the Spanish government in Madrid later declared the Treaty of Cordoba null and void in February 1822, unsuccessfully attempted to reconquer its former Mexican colony in 1829, and did not formally recognize the independence of Mexico until 1839).

So after Aug. 24, 1821, Texas would become part of the newly independent Empire of Mexico. And after the white Creole military commander of Vera Cruz, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, led a white Creole landowning elite-supported Mexican Army revolt in December 1822 which set up a federal republican form of government in Mexico in 1823, Texas now became a part of the Republic of Mexico’s state of Coahuila y Texas in 1824.

Institutional Racism and the Democratic Obama Administration

Between 2009 and 2012, not much change in the level of institutional racism and, economic racism within the United States or in U.S. foreign policy was produced by the Democratic Obama Administration. And in October 2012, the official unemployment rate for African-American workers in the United States still exceeded 14 percent.

One reason might be because the Democratic Obama Administration, itself, apparently may have been staffed and operated in an institutionally racist way since 2009. As Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter noted in his 2010 book The Promise: President Obama, Year One:

“…High-ranking African-Americans on the White House staff like [Patrick] Gaspard, Mona Sutphen [deputy White House chief of staff], Melody Barnes (chair of the Domestic Policy Council), didn’t seem to have influence commensurate with their positions. And the National Security Council staff of 240 was almost entirely white…The car companies and AIG and other recipients of bailout billions weren’t being pressured…to hire more African-American executives and move beyond tokenism on their boards…With a black man as president the pressure was off. The number of high-ranking African-Americans in corporate America were actually shrinking…Almost no Blacks held senior management positions in hedge funds or venture capital firms…Obama…hardly ignored fund-raising…In the second half of his first year he hosted 2 or 3 fund-raisers a month, held mostly on the road…”

  So don’t be surprised if neither the level of institutional and economic racism in the United States, the militarism of the U.S. government’s bi-partisan foreign policy nor the official jobless rate for African-American workers changes too much during the second term of a re-elected Democratic Obama Administration (or during the first term of a newly-elected right-wing, neo-conservative Republican Romney Administration, if the 2012 Democratic presidential candidate loses the election, despite being backed by most of the Big Media conglomerates) between 2013 and 2017.

Black Worker Unemployment Rate Jumps To 14.3 Percent In October 2012

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all Black workers in the United States jumped from 13.4 to 14.3 percent between September and October 2012; while the total number of unemployed Black workers increased by 200,000 (from 2,464,000 to 2,684,000) during the same period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age jumped from 10.9 to 12.4 percent between September and October 2012; while the number of unemployed Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 186,000 (from 1,018,000 to 1,204,000) during the same period.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age also jumped from 36.7 to 40.5 percent between September and October 2012; while the number of unemployed Black youths increased by 28,000 (from 279,000 to 307,000) during the same period. In addition, the “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 14.1 percent in October 2012; while the number of unemployed Black male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 6,000 (from 1,167,000 to 1,173,000) between September and October 2012.

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 20.6 percent in October 2012; while the official unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 6.6 percent during that same month.

For white female workers over 20 years-of age, the official jobless rate was still 6.3 percent in October 2012; while the number of white female workers over 20 years-of-age in the U.S. labor force dropped by 100,000 (from 54,531,000 to 54,431,000) between September and October 2012. In addition, between September and October 2012 the number of white female workers over 20 years-of-age who had jobs in the United States dropped by 78,000 (from 51,105,00 to 51,022,000); and the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all white workers in the United States (male, female and youth) was still 7 percent in October 2012.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 27.8 to 28.9 percent between September and October 2012; while the number of Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age with jobs decreased by 56,000 (from 811,000 to 755,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

According to the “seasonally adjusted” data, the official jobless rate for all Latino workers in the United States (male, female and youth) increased from 9.9 to 10 percent between September and October 2012; while the total number of unemployed Latino workers in the United States (male, female and youth) increased by 42,000 (from 2,427,000 to 2,469,000) during the same period.

According to the “not seasonally adjusted” data, the unemployment rate for Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 7.6 to 8.3 percent between September and October 2012; while the number of unemployed Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 120,000 (from 1,017,000 to 1,137,000) during the same period. And in October 2012 the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 9.5 percent.

Between September and October 2012, the number of Asian-American workers who had jobs decreased by 57,000 (from 7,810,000 to 7,753,000), according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data; while the number of Asian-American workers in the U.S. labor force dropped by 55,000 (from 8,204,000 to 8,149,000) during the same period. The “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Asian-American workers increased from 4.8 to 4.9 percent between September and October 2012; while, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data, the number of unemployed Asian-American workers increased by 2,000 (from 394,000 to 396,000) during the same period.

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all female workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age increased from 7.5 to 7.7 percent between September and October 2012; while the total number of unemployed female workers over 16 years-of-age increased by 160,000 (from 5,456,000 to 5,616,000) during same period. And the official unemployment rate for all youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 23.7 percent in October 2012; while the jobless rate for all male workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age was still 8 percent during that same month.

Between September and October 2012, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all U.S. workers increased from 7.8 to 7.9 percent; and the total number of officially unemployed U.S. workers increased from 12,088,000 to 12,258,000—an increase of 170,000--during the same period.

According to the November 2, 2012 Bureau of Labor Statistics press release:

“…Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for Blacks increased to 14.3 percent in October…In October, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 5.0 million. These individuals accounted for 40.6 percent of the unemployed…The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) fell by 269,000 to 8.3 million in October…These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job…

“In October, 2.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey…Among the marginally attached, there were 813,000 discouraged workers in October…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Temporary help employment changed little in October and has shown little net change over the past 3 months…Manufacturing employment changed little in October. On net, manufacturing employment has shown little change since April.

“Mining lost 9,000 jobs in October, with most of the decline occurring in support activities for mining. Since May of this year, employment in mining has decreased by 17,000…In October, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees edged down by 1 cent to $19.79…"

 

Obama's Murdoch and Mass Media Conglomerate Connections

“…All the major media companies, driven largely by their Hollywood film and television businesses, have made larger contributions to President Obama than to his rival, former Gov. Mitt Romney...Even companies whose news outlets are often perceived as having a conservative bias have given significantly more money to Mr. Obama. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, for example, has contributed $58,825 to Mr. Obama's campaign, compared with $2,750 to Mr. Romney… Mr. Murdoch has not been shy about expressing his criticism of Mr. Romney...In 2008, News Corporation contributed $380,558 to Mr. Obama's campaign, compared with $32,740 to the Republican nominee John McCain.

“Other media companies have contributed more significantly to Mr. Obama, including Time Warner, owner of CNN and the magazine publishing house Time Inc. The company, which is based in New York and also owns Warner Brothers and HBO, has contributed $191,834 to Mr. Obama in the 2012 election cycle, compared with $10,750 to Mr. Romney. The Walt Disney Company, owner of ABC and ESPN, donated $125,856 to Mr. Obama and $9,950 to Mr. Romney.
“Philadelphia-based Comcast Corporation, owner of NBCUniversal and one of the biggest spenders in lobbying money in Washington, has given $206,056 to Mr. Obama and $20,500 to Mr. Romney…”

--from the August 22, 2012 issue of the New York Times

Obama’s Murdoch and Mass Media Conglomerate Connections

Most people in the United States are against the U.S. government allowing a small number of billionaire global media barons (often from foreign countries like Australia) to monopolize the ownership of most U.S. radio studios and networks, U.S. television studios and networks, U.S. movie studios, U.S. magazines and U.S. newspapers and internet news sites.
Yet between 2009 and 2012, no radical democratic reform of the U.S. media world that would have shifted mass media control of the public airwaves away from the U.S. mass media conglomerates and towards more democratic control of the U.S. mass media studios, networks, newspapers and internet news sites by the people of the United States was enacted by the Democratic Obama administration.

One reason for the apparent lack of support for the radical democratic reform of the U.S. mass media industry and the democratization of U.S. mass media ownership by the Democratic Obama administration between 2009 and 2012 might be because the U.S. mass media conglomerates have generally allowed the Obama White House to apparently use the U.S. mass media as a self-promotional political tool between 2009 and 2012. As the 2010 book The Promise: President Obama, Year One by Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter observed:

“…After wrapping up the nomination in June 2008, Obama met secretly with Fox brass at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York with the intention of making peace. He chatted amiably with owner Rupert Murdoch, who openly admired Obama…Murdoch…extravagantly complimented the candidate, and the meeting ended with an informal agreement by Obama to resume relations with Fox. He granted a long interview to Bill O’Reilly, as well as one to the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal…Obama placed courtesy call to Murdoch during the transition [between the November 2008 election and the January 2009 inauguration] but wrote Fox off…[In 2009] Rahm quietly called Murdoch three times to tell him he welcomed his ideas, a peace offering that Murdoch appreciated. The point was to maintain decent relations between the White House and the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal…

“The most common media criticism of Obama (even from supporters like Colin Powell) was that he was overexposed…Obama…believed he needed to be omnipresent or the vacuum would be filled by adversaries…The White House could now flood niche media markets with content via blogs, Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, and Flicker photo streams…The White House sent messages to reporters several times a day. Obama’s media strategy was to follow bad news with more news…

“…[In 2009] Obama appeared on Jay Leno’s show on NBC and in several 60 Minutes interviews with Steve Kroft on CBS. He opened the White House for a day to NBC News, held a town meeting…with Diane Sawyer on ABC, and sat for dozens of one-on-one interviews with cable outlets and talk radio hosts…When he appeared on five Sunday shows on September 14 [2009]—a first for a president—critics claimed that it was overkill…

“…Obama was overexposed to those who regularly watched Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, Comedy Central, or CNBC or listened to NPR…It amounted to…around 10 percent of the electorate who voted in general elections…The White House sent him into the anchor booth in St. Louis during the [2009] All-Star Game and ghosted article on parenthood under his byline for Parade magazine…He stopped holding full-dress news conferences in the second half of 2009…Instead his format of choice was the one-on-one interview. He sat for 152 interviews in 2009, for more than any of his predecessors…”