We're at the Swiftboaters again
The thing everyone seems to forget about the infamous "Swiftboat" episode of 2004 is that it wasn't really the Swiftboaters themselves who did the damage. That very small group with very small funds initially ran just one ad in just one market.
The true villainy of the Swiftboat episode was in the media, who promoted those guys full time for weeks, giving them free air time and exposure they could only dream of.
But more importantly than even the exposure, it was the media that gave the Swiftboaters their credibility by treating their charges as a "controversy."
I bring this up because, to some degree we're there again, Obama's patriotism. Regardless of any reality, how exactly would Obama prove he's "patriotic enough?"
But, also notice the things that aren't given "controversy status." McCain's first marriage, how it ended, the fact that he only got into politics because he married money, the several reports of infidelity and dubious lobbying contacts, Keating Five...... all off limits.
With Obama, let's put down, race, Rezco, past drug use.... I don't know what else (ask the Clinton folks, I'm sure they have a list,) but you get the point. It works both ways.
It is the media that stands as the gatekeeper on all this, on what is permissible conversation and what is not. Their decision making is some weird black box equational mashup of balancing ratings, filling the empty airtime, and their own self-opinions of their ethics.
I would love to see the media's role in the Swiftboaters brought back up, but that's not going to happen. The media never takes blame on itself.
But they were the ones who did it.
Just a rant. (I may redit/remove this post.)
The true villainy of the Swiftboat episode was in the media, who promoted those guys full time for weeks, giving them free air time and exposure they could only dream of.
But more importantly than even the exposure, it was the media that gave the Swiftboaters their credibility by treating their charges as a "controversy."
I bring this up because, to some degree we're there again, Obama's patriotism. Regardless of any reality, how exactly would Obama prove he's "patriotic enough?"
But, also notice the things that aren't given "controversy status." McCain's first marriage, how it ended, the fact that he only got into politics because he married money, the several reports of infidelity and dubious lobbying contacts, Keating Five...... all off limits.
With Obama, let's put down, race, Rezco, past drug use.... I don't know what else (ask the Clinton folks, I'm sure they have a list,) but you get the point. It works both ways.
It is the media that stands as the gatekeeper on all this, on what is permissible conversation and what is not. Their decision making is some weird black box equational mashup of balancing ratings, filling the empty airtime, and their own self-opinions of their ethics.
I would love to see the media's role in the Swiftboaters brought back up, but that's not going to happen. The media never takes blame on itself.
But they were the ones who did it.
Just a rant. (I may redit/remove this post.)
posted by mikevotes at
3:55 PM
6 Comments:
"Controversy Pimp." How remarkably pithy, precise and apropos.
It's remarkable how the media shy away for real controversies, like those you mention, yet glom on to the faux controversies...
Frightening when you think about it actually. I really don't think even the "respectable" taking heads/commentators often don't have a clue about what they're commenting on -- having gotten their information from the echo chamber rather than source material. Yet we legitimize them because they and they in turn legitimize the wingnuts.
The question is: will we see viral left wing attacks on McCain, and will they have traction. I'm guessing not since the corporate media is, well, corporate.
By
-epm, at 4:18 PM
You know, it's my sense that the stuff coming of the left will be more user generated small stuff, but some of it makes it all the way up to TV.
Two basic types. Edits of McCain saying one thing and then an edit to somewhere else saying the exact opposite.
But, more powerful are the second type, the creative, whther it's a Will.i.am video, or just some outside group, parody/comedy, or whatever.
The left is peopled by people who do these well, and I wouldn't be surprised if a few bubble up.
(PS. It's always been curious to me that Republicans can't do funny. I guess authoritarian bullying just can't be funny.)
By
mikevotes, at 5:14 PM
Republicans and funny: I think there's a general mean-spiritedness in the Republican mindset which makes their "humor" fall flat. It's humor where the punch line is death or violence or bigotry: "bomb, bomb, bomb. bomb bomb Iran." Huckabee's NRA assassination "joke." Anything out of Bill O'Reilly's mouth (or from any Fox or hate radio nut... Coulter, Savage, etc).
Humor -- humor as normal people would define it -- is not part of the Republican DNA. Anger, hate, resentment, greed, bigotry, selfishness....
Most humor is about the collective "us." We can relate to the joke or the characters in the joke, even to our own internal embarrassment. Republican humor is all about the despised "them," where something horrible happens to "them," and they laugh because, well, I don't know exactly.
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It's interesting the Republican attack campaigns are just that: campaigns. Organized, usually well funded and pushed on the corporate media by well placed people in positions of influence. I mean, it's part of the political structure of the GOP to have these "independent" attack squads throwing chaff into the media machine.
By
-epm, at 7:38 PM
And they also lack a certain subversive element that adds alot to humor. You know, there's no surprise. Good humore requires a surprise.
By
mikevotes, at 10:16 PM
I don't think good humor is generated by fear and ignorance. Humor is generated by insight and intelligence. Irony is lost on many people because it takes a broad view of the world and an understanding of history and language.
Propaganda of the Right is always in the 'here and now' so there is no linear narrative that ties their Weltanschauung together.
By
matt, at 8:18 AM
Good point.
By
mikevotes, at 8:21 AM
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