Gee, does THIS sound at all familiar?

[julka]

....it was one of Gergen's guiding assumptions that the administration simply could not govern effectively unless it could "get the right story out" through the "filter" of the press.

Gergen was one of Reagan's PR "killers"

if you haven't read On Bended Knee, by Mark Hertsgaard, try the long excerpt at his own site, which places into stark relief the sleazy PR tactics to which these undescribables resort, as well as the utter fealty to which the media subjected themselves. I read this when it came out, and to go over this site today makes it SO obvious what this country faces today. It's very sad, because the media are even MORE compliant, MORE concentrated, MORE arrogant, than they were fifteen years ago.

is this inFURIATING, or what???

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald_Reagan/On_Bended_Knee.html

We have been kinder to President Reagan than any President that I can remember since I've been at the Post."

So said Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post, some four months before the November 1984 re-election of Ronald Reagan. Three years later, after the Iran-Contra affair had shattered Mr. Reagan's previous image of invincibility, I asked the legendary editor if he still stood by his statement. He did.

Stressing that this was "all totally subconscious," Bradlee explained that when Ronald Reagan came to Washington in 1980, journalists at the Post sensed that "here comes a really true conservative.... And we are known-though I don't think justifiably-as the great liberals. So, we've got to really behave ourselves here. We've got to not be arrogant, make every effort to be informed, be mannerly, be fair. And we did this. I suspect in the process that this paper and probably a good deal of the press gave Reagan not a free ride, but they didn't use the same standards on him that they used on Carter and on Nixon."

so much more here.....and it points out just how much worse things are in the media than one can imagine. it goes downhill from the above quote, btw, if you can believe it

[julka]

1. killers and filters

"The "killers" primarily responsible for generating positive press coverage of Reagan were Michael Deaver and David Gergen, and if they did not exactly get away with murder, they came pretty close. Deaver, Gergen and their colleagues effectively rewrote the rules of presidential image-making. On the basis of a sophisticated analysis of the American news media-how it worked, which buttons to push when, what techniques had and had not worked for previous administrations-they introduced a new model for packaging the nation's top politician and using the press to sell him to the American public. Their objective was not simply to tame the press but to transform it into an unwitting mouthpiece of the government; it was one of Gergen's guiding assumptions that the administration simply could not govern effectively unless it could "get the right story out" through the "filter" of the press."

could this possibly be where Bush came up with his own strategery of bypassing those uncooperative national media filterers, to get his message out to the freeple?

[julka]

2. I'm getting sick to my stomach; the more things change........

"The whole thing was PR. This was a PR outfit that became President and took over the country. And to the degree then to which the Constitution forced them to do things like make a budget, run foreign policy and all that, they sort of did. But their first, last, and overarching activity was public relations."

Leslie Janka, a deputy White House press secretary under Reagan

[julka]

3. who's the patriot and who's the terrorist?

those damn terra-ists, why don't they just get out of their own country (and come here?)

" By the later years of the Reagan regime, a preferred nomenclature suited to U.S. interests became standardized for the Third World. In the case of nations to be rolled back (e.g., Nicaragua), governments were called terrorist and the insurgents were labeled democratic. In the case of countries to be supported against "communist" insurgencies (e.g., El Salvador and the Philippines), the governments were called democratic and the insurgents were labeled terrorists. "

from the book ''Rollback'' by Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould

[blm]

4. Great posting, julka.

Good for those who are new to politics and have yet to comprehend the obstacles and the strain the Democrats in DC have been under for over twenty years.

[julka]

5. this book was written in 1988, and it's just as relevant today..........

as it was then.

if one reads just the excerpts at Hertsgaard's site, he/she will be stunned at the similarities with what's happening today, indeed, since Reagan reshaped the way the presidency deals with media.

here's one I like....remember how the pugs SCREAMED about what a mean, unfair, biased reporter Sam Donaldson was toward Reagan?

here's what he had to say to Hertsgaard:


"The press, myself included, traditionally sides with authority and the establishment."

see?

It was true, of course, that reporters did not lead the Reagan mandate chorus by unilaterally inserting statements to that effect in their copy. That, after all, would be editorializing. Rather, in an example of how the press often functioned as a clear windowpane for the White House apparatus, reporters simply gave Reagan officials a platform for making such statements themselves and then did not bother to question or otherwise balance them.

In fact, on three separate occasions Donaldson did this himself. On May 4, after showing viewers footage of Vice President Bush attacking Democrats for trying "to thwart the mandate of the people," the ABC White House correspondent concluded his report not by challenging the mandate notion but by noting that it, and not the merits of the program, was now "the administration's main sales pitch." A similar claim by White House spokesman Larry Speakes was allowed to pass unchecked on June 3, as was another by President Reagan himself on June 16. (Donaldson was hardly unique in this regard. His counterparts at CBS, for example, filed similar reports on the May 4 and June 3 statements.)

Awed by Reagan's mastery of television and fearful of his ability to sway public opinion, the Democrats also seemed more than willing to accept the mandate thesis. Quickly abandoning any pretense of being an opposition party, dozens of them fell into line behind the President while scores more simply refrained from voicing any strong or sustained criticism of his program. Thus on May 8 the House of Representatives gave Reagan his first big victory on economic policy, approving by a 60-vote margin a White House budget
that slashed social spending while gorging the Pentagon.

things just haven't changed at all.....well, they DID, between 1993 and 2000, when that liberal media somehow got off its knees and went for Clinton/Gore's neck, in an astounding about-face

[grasswire]

6. thanks for this, Julka

It's so disheartening. I don't believe there's been a real strategist in the Democratic party in decades. They've all been suckered into playing defense, with no strategic thinkers planning offense.

[cally]

7. This article is se enlightening

I finally understand why the press gave Reagan such a free pass. They are doing the same with *

[julka]

8. this is one of the most important books to come out in a long time

the pugs have learned much more from it, I'll venture, than anyone else.

it's a blueprint for action.

not that all of them haven't distilled this down to a science behind the scenes, anyway.

but then, rove probly never talked to Deaver or Dergen, did they?

and speaking of pugs, grasswire, I saw a show the other night where the guy was surrounding by SIX snuffling pugs, talking about what great pets they were.

too funny......wish I'd taped it.

[RuB]

9. undescribables. What a great word for the Bushie cabal

The current undescribables pResident's handlers learned their modus operandi from the Reagan years.

[charlie]

10. I read the book when it came out

Hertsgaard did the TV rounds, often paired with Jane Mayer who had a book documenting Ronnie's alarming detachment from reality in his 2nd term (before his dementia was revealed). Even back then, there wasn't a single instance that I can remember that he could get a pundit or journalist to agree with his premise. Most had a sort of condescending amusement, a kind of "you're seeing what you want to see, kid. We're pros, we know what we're doing" attitude. Hertsgaard was in the vanguard in laying bare how entirely stage-managed the presidency had become and he couldn't get anyone to take him seriously. Really dismaying.

[julka]

11. did Mayer do that book with Doyle McManus?

I read that when it came out; it was stunning in how unflatteringly it portrayed him, for the most part.

During much of Iran Contra he used to just sit and watch TV; wouldn't talk to ANYone, except the dragon lady.

BTW, I can't WAIT to see Judy Davis as the lady in red. hard to top her, especially in her Australian stuff.

digressing, sorry.

Mayer wrote the most excellent Strange Justice, with Leslie Abramson, IIRC, another book that should be read by all to understand the depths to which these undescribables will lower themselves to get their way.

ask David Brock about that book. it's what really broke him in w/the powers that were (taking it apart, that is, in a most mendacious review, which led to his hit job on Anita Hill)