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.
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.
It isn’t that GOP candidates never get in trouble for their statements. But when they do say something false or ridiculous or abominable, the controversy seems to be much slighter in intensity and shorter in duration. Heard much about Mitt Romney’s varmint hunting lately? The former Massachusetts governor got a bit of well-deserved ridicule when, in his almost endearingly shameless attempts to pander to the Republican base, he claimed to be a “lifelong hunter,” a history that turned out to have consisted of two outings to blast away at “varmints.” Yet what could easily have become an oft-repeated symbol of pandering and phoniness simply disappeared from stories about Romney.
The contrast with what often happens to the other side could barely be clearer. One can come up with a whole list of statements made by Democrats which were used to bludgeon them into submission for weeks or months. Al Gore spent his entire 2000 campaign defending and explaining one statement after another — many of which he never actually made, beginning with the apocryphal tale that he had claimed to have invented the internet. Four years later George W. Bush practically built his entire campaign around John Kerry’s statement that he had “voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” George Allen’s “macaca moment” is about the only Republican equivalent that comes to mind.
Is the fact that Democrats more often suffer through these controversies the fault of the Republican spin machine, or the fault of the media? Ultimately, the two become one and the same when the media so willingly take their cues from people like Drudge.
Media hype over candidate gaffes — and rival campaigns seeking to push that hype along — is hardly new a phenomenon. Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 campaign gleefully pounced on a number of outrageous statements Barry Goldwater made, including the suggestion that we “lob one into the men’s room of the Kremlin,” and his colorful musing, “Sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea.” The latter was dramatized in a crude but effective Johnson ad in which a saw cuts off the east coast from a cardboard map of the United States floating in what appears to be a bathtub. Other candidates caught grief for ill-spoken remarks; Jimmy Carter created controversy in 1976 when he told Playboy magazine, “I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.”
But in recent years the GOP has turned the technique of making hay from their opponents’ words into a reliable formula for success. Here’s how it works: First, find something your opponent said that might be open to multiple interpretations. Next, take it out of context. After that, distort it beyond all recognition (and don’t worry, the truth-seeking press will offer you no sanction for this deception). Express your consternation, your anger, your amazement that your opponent has revealed him/herself to be such a deplorable reprobate for whom no decent American could consider voting. Finally, repeat the offending statement over and over, from now until election day.
The technique will work against nearly any candidate. Imagine for a moment if a pack of reporters followed you around for a day, recording every word that came out of your mouth. No doubt there would be a few things you said that you didn’t really mean in the way they came out, and that certainly would be misunderstood if taken out of context — particularly if this was a day on which you did a lot of talking, as candidates do. Now imagine that that pack of reporters was following you around not for a day, but for a year.
Why does it work so well? It gives television news programs a piece of video they can play again and again, and newspapers something they can quote repeatedly. But more important, it takes an abstract argument and makes it concrete. “Al Gore is a liar” is a judgment that might be persuasively refuted; “Al Gore said he invented the internet” is a compelling piece of evidence leading one to the same conclusion. The fact that Gore never actually said he invented the internet is only marginally relevant, yet more evidence that facts don’t matter much to the journalists Republicans count on to do their work for them.
Another reason it works is that all too often, Democrats give Republicans a helping hand. On the occasion of the “botched joke,” Kerry was criticized by some Democrats, who despite their zeal for looking “tough” could not possibly be so stupid as to think Kerry was actually insulting soldiers. Nonetheless, a number took to the cameras to attack Kerry. The critics included Harold Ford and Hillary Clinton, who said, “What Senator Kerry said was inappropriate.”
It’s also true that a couple of recent candidate-statement controversies have been driven along by intra-partisan criticism on the Democratic side (and it should be noted that the press has been far more intrigued when the Democratic presidential candidates criticize each other than when the Republicans do the same). Nonetheless, the insincere outrage at the statements of one’s opponents remains largely a Republican tactic.
There is some measure of irony in the fact that this party — led by a man whose relationship with his mother tongue is, to put it charitably, uneasy — is positively obsessed with words. And none is more obsessed than Bush himself, who can barely open his mouth without warning of the dangers of “sending the wrong message” to someone. There will be plenty of occasions between now and next November in which Republicans will insist that something a Democrat said is the distilled essence of that candidate’s animating spirit, either darkly malevolent or weak and pathetic (depending on the message of the day). And reporters will be sure to drop repeated mentions of the offending words into their stories from that point forward, as though the paramount question in voters’ minds ought to be whether they can find a president who has never made a statement he or she would have phrased a different way upon reflection.
To paraphrase former White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer, (who just returned to the national scene like some terrifying reanimated zombie of spin), Democrats had better watch what they say.
Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America and the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.
© 2007 The American Prospect
Perhaps every Democratic candidate or office holder should should condition him/herself to automatically reply to any question from the media with the words: “I will answer your question when the president gives one honest answer to any of the questions that Congress has put to him.”
Repeated often enough, perhaps that 21% who still foolishly believe him will recognize that he is a pathological liar.
If and when Hillary becomes the official Democratic nominee, we will see more Republican bombs dropped and shots fired at her campaign than in all other campaigns in modern history combined. It will be like the opening scenes of “Saving Private Ryan” going on for months (figuratively of course).
I remember reading that a reporter followed Dennis Kucinich around in the last presidential campaign and was amazed that nothing Dennis said was off the record.
kivals, the Republican bombs will be dropping on any Democratic nominee.
Hey Kivals — Hillary and Obama are the candidates the mainstream media wants precisely because they would be easier to defeat. They know John Edwards with his populist message polls much better than these two against the Republican candidates. They can talk about his hair and would like his wife’s illness to end his campaign but they know he is a powerful force. Read the article about this in the August 10th Rolling Stone:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15825410/the_real_liberal
kathyodat,
Any Democratic nominee would be under constant attack. However, Hillary would be special. The right wing echo chamber has been building up for an anti-Hillary barrage since 2000, and they have been slowly heating up all their rubes and suckers for this moment, ready to boil over with outrage and venom just when Hillary is nominated. It would be the perfect storm from the Republican perspective. With all the pent-up hostility they have been building for Hillary, I think any other Democratic nominee would get off lighter than usual, as the rubes and other clowns will be so disappointed their target is not Hillary that their vitriolic attacks will lose some of their viciousness and to a large extent they will just be going through the motions. It will certainly take some of the air out of their balloon.
The Republicans have the oligarchy’s concentrated wealth advantage. They pay people like Frank Luntz every day to spin, subvert democracy, abet corporatism and fascism without scruples entering the picture. Democrat’s good nature is no match for these sharks.
Kate Anne,
I won’t argue with that.
Kate Anne, I agree with you.
kivals, I think they have enough vitriol in their veins to drown any Democratic candidate. Look what they did to Gore and Kerry. And considering that the last three Democratic presidential nominees were DLC, imagine how they would go after a populist.
ezeflyer: “Democrat’s good nature is no match for these sharks.”
Bless your heart.
Maybe the reason the GOPathologicals can lie with such abandon is that the MSM expects them to be anti-American nutjobs and aren’t surprised when the crazy-talk starts, but they expect more from the Dems and, hence, maybe even subconsciously, hold them to a higher standard. Hell, Mitt the Twit got a free pass on his “if only Saddam would have let the weapons inspectors in…”, as if that isn’t the ramblings of a complete and utter lying POS moron. No Dem would have ever gotten away with that one, except for Red Joe L, of course…
frank, you’re generous or naive. The corporate media have a stake in who gets elected. THEY are part of the problem.
Where is the discussion of issues? I cant see much of a difference between Hillary’s position on most of the issues and that of the republican candidates. So the Republican controlled MSM isn’t attacking Hillary (or the other “favourite” demos) over what might be done (Iraq, Iran, Economic policy, etc.). It must be something personal and trivial. Or is it to make people believe that there is something distinctly different in the policies of the main candidates — that the elections are for real.
It’s nothing more than the schoolyard bully pushing around the kid who tries to “resolve conflicts”. At some point the good kid has to get mean and become a bit of a tough guy himself. Otherwise he’ll just continue to be pounded into the ground and have his lunch money stolen. Plain and simple.
Media works with a “first impressions” syndrome on a blind date with regard to anyone in the neocon/corporate-up cross-hairs.
Sadly, it seems to work — or at least we’re lead to BELIEVE that it works. The public is more influenced by off-the-cuff remarks, careless statements, or misnomers rather than entire careers, books, history of public service, etc. If the public, by and large, buys into that bullshit shallowness — then they get what they deserve, no more, no less.
But I’m not entirely sure they do buy into it. Being spoon-fed that line for the past generation or so, and being told how much money influences politics establishes association, but doesn’t necessarily establish causation. It may well be that the elections are somewhat predetermined autocratically, and money and slip-ups are just tossed at the winner — or magnified on the predetermined loser — respectively and in hindsight after the decision was made.
Still haven’t forgotten the “Dean Scream”, the Wellstone memorial service, or Dukakis in a tank. The right wing spin machine is expert at blowing things out of proportion, using deliberate misinterpretations, smear tactics, and out-right lies. That’s why they’re clamoring so hard for a Clinton candidacy (much as they did for Kerry). They know she gives them the most ammo. They’ll talk about how “electable” she is up until the day she gets nominated. Then they’ll turn to the stockpile they’ve been amassing over the course of her very public life and start lobbing away until something sticks. The ones who they most fear, they are more likely to dismiss out-of-hand to avoid drawing the public’s attention to them. Kucinich and Gravel are the ones most serious about making changes and it their very sincerity which makes the media dismiss them as clowns.
“It is important to understand that war crimes fall into two classes: (1) war crimes relevant to battlefield conduct; (2) waging a war of aggression. To explain what was at that time an unprecedented focus on the second kind of war crime, war of aggression, the Nuremberg Judgment included the following statement: “The charges in the indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive wars are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
It seems that corporations that assisted in this crime against humanity, for example News Corp, The New York Times, The Washington Post, General Electric, Disney, Time Warner etc., ought to face a public trial.
Oh man poor john Kerry and his millions of dollars and his botched election at the hands of the most ridiculously incompetent president since James Buchanan. And I supposed to blame the fascists. Please Kerry didn’t want to win he is one of the fascists…he won regardless. At most it hurt his precious ego. I’ll bet he wanted his old Skull and Bones butt-buddy to get another four years time to destroy whatever might be left of good governance in this country. In short media matters blows and this columnist is a god awful writer.
“America’s parochial press is not designed to promote debate or to educate, but rather to repeat the official line.”
Wasn’t Dick Cheney the first person to grace the halls of Congress with the “F” word?
Interesting to note the media’s relative silence on the matter compared with the feeding frenzy that ensued when the Sex Pistols used the same word.
i don’t buy this “dems aren’t savvy at media manipulation & viciousness” crap for one second. they handle someone like nader in the media pretty effectively, and just wait to see what they do w/cindy sheehan vs. pelosi.
this aggressive/lying reps vs. meek & honest dems is a persona for public consumption. it’s a narrative groove the MSM & DC are comfortable with, b/c it lets the larger strategic agenda go thru, an agenda dems & reps basically agree on. if you don’t believe that, why does every major issue pass w/ near unanimity (iraq war/funding/surge, NCLB, katrina crap, wiretapping, prep for war vs iran, israel stuff, etc., etc.)
waiting for dems to get more media wise is like waiting for godot.
Chicanery,
Yeah, I was at the Wellstone memorial service myself. The audience was genuinely moved, engaged, in solidarity with one another, etc. It was a great celebration of their lives, and Rick Kahn’s speech was not at all out of place. Family, friends, colleagues, etc. were all there.
The right-wing spin machine went into gear, as if Wellstone’s service should have been devoid of all activism, friendship, family, or politics itself.
I expected that from the right-wing spin doctors. I was disappointed, though, for Wellstone’s manager Jeff Blodgett for caving in to the MSM, and expressing “regret”. I was also disappointed that Bill Lofy’s book on the Wellstones gave no mention to the possibility of foul play, either motive, ability, or the subsequent tipping of balance in the Senate.
Yes, the Dems ARE lousy at media manipulation. The MSM and the GOP “allows” them to be “good” at it ONLY when it involves tearing each other apart. As far as turning the guns on the GOP… forget it… they ALWAYS lose….
jonjoe, I was baffled that the Dems always were so defenseless against Republican attacks, and never fought back. Then I noticed that they had no qualms about ruthlessly attacking their own left wing. They don’t attack the Republicans because they’re on the same side. Feeding from the same trough. They will be punished for biting the hand that feeds them, or criticizing the the favored sons of the corporate empire. You got it right. Having sold their souls, they are now selling us out.
I agree with most of the comments here and the thrust of the article, but times have changed, especially after Katrina and the current Craig sex scandal; the GOP is increasingly appearing to the public as a bunch of hypocritical incompetent scolds, and the word games and trumped-up attacks are not having the same impact they once did.
In this recent Craig flap, the right wing bloggers barely bothered to back the guy, and he received no support whatsoever from Republican politicians. Even Mark Foley got a ‘grace period’ when the accusations were first made against him; Craig was asked almost immediately to resign. As Scott Reed, an ex-GOP campaign manager, told the NY Times last Wednesday:
“The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness. You can’t make this stuff up. And the impact this is having on the grass-roots around the country is devastating. Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country.”
– Scott Reed, as quoted in the New York Times Aug. 29, 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/us/politics/29repubs.html
Not only is the GOP down in the polls on every major issue, but they are quickly becoming a laughingstock and people don’t vote for jokes. As Mark Twain said, “against ridicule no one can stand.”
They’re like the pious Elmer Gantry getting caught with a girl in his bed; only, in this case, it was Sen. Larry in a men’s restroom in Minneapolis. The Craig disgrace, IMO, was the last straw for many people, even some Republicans.
I think the Christian-theocrat-neocon wing of the GOP is finished and will go down in flames in 2008 no matter who the Dem candidate is — that’s how disgusted most people are with GOP sleaze these days. Some sane Republicans would even welcome this fate — they want to restore the party to its Goldwater-conservative days, and think a landslide victory by the Dems will send the neo-theocrats packing. I think they’re right.
Times have changed and we’re becoming a more liberal nation as the average voter discovers the neocon philosophy simply doesn’t work in real life.
“Still haven’t forgotten the “Dean Scream”, the Wellstone memorial service, or Dukakis in a tank.”
The Dean Scream was partly Howard’s fault for not being more aware of the cameras and mics, but it’s true the MSM capitalized on it to get rid of him — he was not Corporate America’s favorite candidate. CNN even later apologized for airing the clip something like 700 times; of course, that was after the pliable Kerry was the nominee.
The Wellstone service ‘outrage’ was cooked up in Rove’s workshop, but it didn’t have that many legs, except on Fox News.
Mike Dukakis riding in a tank was entirely the fault of his 1988 campaign manager Susan Estrich; here, I don’t think you can fault the media for airing something that was intended by the campaign as a stunt to get free publicity. It just got the wrong kind of publicity. BTW, Estrich these days is a ‘liberal’ commentator on Fox News who also apologized, after the election, for the ‘Duke in a tank’ stunt.