A Guide to Media Manipulation, Republican Style

[marmar]

from The American Prospect:


A Guide to Media Manipulation, Republican Style

In recent years the GOP has turned the technique of making hay from their opponents' words into a reliable formula for success -- with a few distortions and a little help from the media, of course.

Paul Waldman | August 29, 2007 | web only



After he lost the 2004 presidential election, it looked as though, like many who had been in his position before -- Adlai Stevenson, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey -- John Kerry might take one more shot at reaching the Oval Office four years after falling short. But then on Monday, October 30, 2006, the local NBC affiliate in Los Angeles aired a story on Kerry's appearance that day at a campaign event. The story included a clip of Kerry delivering what quickly came to be known as the "botched joke," in which what was intended as a dig at President Bush's history as an inattentive student and all-around nincompoop came out sounding like an allegation that American troops are uneducated.

One hour later, a popular conservative talk show host in Los Angeles played the clip on his show, complete with the absurd yet predictable allegation that Kerry was intentionally maligning America's brave troops. At 2:34 a.m. Eastern time the next morning, a link to the clip appeared on the Drudge Report. At noon that day, Rush Limbaugh led his show with a discussion of the botched joke. That evening, ABC, NBC, and CBS all led their national newscasts with the story. The next day, Kerry announced that he wouldn't be doing any more campaign appearances before the midterm elections. Whatever slim chance he had at becoming his party's presidential nominee a second time had vanished completely.

From a local radio host to Drudge to Limbaugh to 30 million viewers of the national news, the alacrity with which the botched joke went when from meaningless remark to national story was no accident. Now consider a more recent incident in which media wags obsessed over something that emerged from a Democrat's lips. On the stump in Iowa, Michelle Obama spoke to an audience about the struggles of balancing family obligations with a life in politics. "If you can't run your own house, you certainly can't run the White House," she said, going into a description of the efforts she and husband Barack undertake to minimize the disruption the presidential campaign causes to their daughters' lives.

An article in the Chicago Sun-Times said the quote "could be interpreted as a swipe at the Clintons," and it was off to the races. Like a pack of hormone-addled 16-year-old boys, reporters and pundits shouted in unison, "Reeowr! Catfight!" Fox News ran a photo of the two women over the title, "The Claws Come Out."

So once again, Democrats found themselves explaining their words, over and over and over, something that doesn't seem to happen very often to Republicans. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=a_guide_to_media_manipulation_republican_style

[beachmom]

1. Great article. Thanks. Of course, there is an even darker truth

to the story, and it's the fact that other Democrats also fueled this right wing attack on John Kerry. One of those Democrats was Hillary Clinton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1k0nUWEQg

Unfortunately, to this day, I have to inform friends of mine that Kerry was talking about Bush, not the troops, and that he had botched the joke. Even then, they rarely believe me, and cling to the media narrative. It is very discouraging. My anger rests more with the MSM and Democrats who threw him under the bus, than the RW, who we all know is a snake anyway. The media HAD THE SCRIPT of what the joke was supposed to be, and then lied, by acting like they had no idea what Kerry had meant, that he had dropped the word "us". They played dumb to fuel the story, when all they had to do was show what he was supposed to say, that it was a misstatement, nothing more, nothing less.

Although the joke was a factor, I don't think it alone was why Kerry decided not to run in '08. Ending the war in Iraq from the Senate is his priority now.

[zbdent]

2. and yet, an anti-gay Repuke senator from a very Red state gets arrested

for soliciting a MALE undercover cop for sexual favors ... and nobody knows about it for three months ...

[MBS]

3. oh, this is really good-- thanks n/t

[unblock]

4. the vast right-wing consmearacy