TBTM Editorial: 'Manufactured Outrage - The Whining Never Stops'

[americanstranger]

Drudge pissed me off, so I wrote about it. Wanna hear it? Okay, here it go....

The first thing you should realize about the Republican party and all their assorted spokespeople, representatives, mouthpieces and surrogates is this - they can dish it out, but they cannot take it.

Over the past ten years, conservatives have defined the rules of the game as it is played today. Throughout 8 years of non-stop attacks on Bill Clinton - despite his unparalleled success as a two-term, legally elected president - they nearly perfected the technique of sliming their political opponents. Remember the 'Clinton Body Count?' Remember The Clinton Chronicles, in which Clinton was accused of everything from drug dealing to outright murder? Sure you do. You couldn't swing a dead cat in Washington, DC without hitting some Republican who was pushing one outlandish allegation or another about Clinton. So effective was the rumor-mongering that many otherwise intelligent Americans still believe that Clinton either raped someone or killed someone or stole something.

Key in the Republicans' tactic was the technique of 'manufactured outrage.' Remember the righteous anger of Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston and Newt Gingrich during the failed impeachment? Well, you can't possibly describe it as anything other than manufactured outrage - because while they were railing about how Clinton's conduct was rending the very fabric of our society and threatening the existence of our nation, every one of them was practicing the exact same conduct. Newtie was, to put it coarsely, bending his secretary over the desk. Hyde had wrecked his share of marriages by that time (of course it was, in his description, a 'youthful indiscretion' - if you can count age 40 as anything vaguely resembling 'youth'). And Livingston was engaging in conduct so potentially embarrassing and so deviate, that he resigned as Speaker of the House rather than have his personal sexual proclivities revealed.

But that's all in the past. There's a whole new - and even more bogus - form of manufactured outrage being practiced by today's Republicans, and it's proof that they are beyond shame and more than willing to do anything to win. Case in point - MoveOn's 'Bush In 30 Seconds' ad competition, the Bush family's connection to and financial support of Nazi Germany, and Ed Gillespie's efforts to conflate the two.

http://www.takebackthemedia.com/com-waller-1-8-04.html

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-as


http://www.blah3.com | http://www.takebackthemedia.com

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. and yes they will NOT get over it

Funny story talking to a RWer, he can call the nine candidates MONKEYS, but is appaled that I call George the Lesser, Fascist... never mind that he has said such beauts as

"it would be easier if this was a dictartorship."

Of course he is also willing to give liberty for the sake of a little security, and the fact that I correctd him, we don't hate George, just his policies, was oh so shocking... after all we all hate George and stop saying that George is a Fascist... (Ok I will give him the benefit of the doubt, Goerge is a puppet)

Feel better now?

I am amazed at this double standard that even the base eats like Candy

As soon as Bush lies to me like Clinton I will be outraged... huh, where are the WMDs... yep it was a fun conversation with one of my local connies today.

[unblock]

2. for republicans, it's loyalty, not logic

hypocrisy doesn't bother them in the least, their side can use any tactic available, and they assume that democrats do the same, even if they can't prove it.

you can't convince republicans through logic, you can only undermine their loyalty. position shrub as a letting down republicans, or actually betraying republicans, is the only thing that can work to undermine support in his core base. anything else just comes across as an attack against 'my candidate' or 'my president' and they react in defense out of loyalty.

[Lexingtonian]

3. don't forget _why_ they do this

The upper level Pubbies know perfectly well that since 1998 that their coalition is no longer a majority nationally and since 2000 no longer even a plurality nationally, either. They make sure to pretend otherwise, though.

So they do what every political force does that holds power but is in decline: anything and everything that serves to keep their own coalition together and the opposition- us- frayed, split or marginalized to the swing voters. Every possible 'structural' or preexisting advantage gets exploited with ever decreasing ethical standards as the decline continues. As they feel their hold on power approaching the tipping point despite their labors their behavior becomes ever more extreme and some of them can't handle it, going hysterical and/or psychotic. It's a classical phenomenon. Historically, such a political force in decline rarely gets knocked off by its opponent, though- the 'successful' opponent tends to be disunited and obsessed with pointless stuff and led ineffectually. Selfdestruction is usually the major cause for the downfall that occurs.

This kind of a ruckus is a standard play in the game- it reunites some Republicans to some degree, it splits Democrats somewhat, it converts no one else. As for the allegation of fascism, don't forget that the world was unwilling to _do_ anything about Hitler during his first six or seven years despite a variety of flagrant abuses and wrongdoings.

What Republicans fear, of course, is not a mocking. It is grassroots Democrats deciding to get serious and forget all the irrelevant high idealist arguments among themselves. It is grassroots Democrats putting aside their differences and knocking off their most internally divisive 'leaders' (IWR hankering, anyone?) and getting down to business. And that business is to shell out the money and talk to voters on a most basic level, which is to say "There are all kinds of reasons but the bottom line is that Bush has actually done nothing good for me and I don't see what he has done for you that is any good."

[americanstranger]

4. Kick.

-as

[catzies]

5. You're absolutely right, of course. I asked a good friend of mine

who is a Repub, if he was "angry at what the Clintons did" before the RW media told him to be. He couldn't answer. I took that as a no.