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No More Swiftboating: Exposing the Right-Wing Slime Machine and its Media Enablers |
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Every four years, we can count on a few certainties: an extra day at the end of February, the Summer Olympics, and the media’s faithful stenographic regurgitation of right wing slurs against the Democratic candidate for president. In 2000, the media dutifully repeated the prescribed narrative about Al Gore: boring, pedantic, prone to exaggeration. Never mind that the caricature was itself a lie–it was catchy and it stuck to Gore, as the media failed to challenge the meme until it was too late.
2004: time to follow the same script for John Kerry–the Swiftboaters spouted lies about Kerry’s service in Vietnam, and the media helpfully provided an unfiltered megaphone. Again, the attacks were BS–but it didn’t matter.
Glenn Greenwald notes that, this year, the media is chomping at the bit to provide the same services with regard to Barack Obama:
Howard Kurtz — who is a right-wing blogger disguised as a journalist — has been beating the same drum for weeks and weeks now: the press hasn’t been passing along right-wing attacks on Barack Obama with the viciousness and zeal that generally typifies press behavior.
Whether it’s Tim Russert digging into nonexistent connections between Obama and Louis Farrakhan or Kurtz repeating vicious slurs against Obama and his wife, there are signs that the sliming has begun, Kurtz’s protests notwithstanding.
Whether the Democratic candidate is ultimately Obama or Clinton, it’s time to respond promptl and aggressively to the insidious symbiotic relationship between rightwing attack dogs and media stenographers. When Wolf Blitzer asks about lapel pins and Louis Farrakhan, Democratic surrogates should ask why Blitzer isn’t asking McCain about John Hagee. When lies crop up on MSNBC or in the Washington Post, they must quickly be exposed. The Bill Clinton “rapid response” model is worth reviewing, by whomever ends up getting the nomination.
Bush the elder tried out a lame slogan when he was in the process of losing to Clinton in 1996: “annoy the media–re-elect Bush”. What would really annoy the media would be to expose their sycophantic chanting of right wing attack lines.
Let’s see what they think of that, this year.
Chris Edelson is a lawyer in Washington, D.C. who writes frequently about current political and legal issues. His writing has previously been published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Metroland (Albany, NY) and at commondreams.org.
Bush ran against Clinton in 1992. The Democrats went up against the Dole/Kemp ticket in ‘96.
Certainly, a “rapid response” strategy is a good idea. But I wonder about the power of the media, especially in this contest. So far, one of the media’s anointed front-runners (Giuliani) failed miserably. The other (Hillary Clinton) is on the rocks. Makes you wonder if the media narrative is as powerful as it once was.
Either way, the ultimate defense against the republican attack machine is a strong platform. If Democrats stand for something, they won’t be able to be swiftboated.