The netroots work the ref

January 26, 2006

I mentioned last week that MSNBC’s Chris Matthews told his national television audience that the terrorist responsible for 9/11 “sounds like an over the top Michael Moore here, if not a Michael Moore.” The ensuing flap, generated almost entirely by progressive blogs, wasn’t about Matthews and Moore so much as it was about liberals who are sick of absurd comparisons between the left and terrorists.

My friend Peter Daou, of Daou Report fame, made a compelling case yesterday that these media memes underscore many of the left’s political problems. In particular, Peter notes the difference between individual stories and broader storylines.

There’s a critical distinction to be made here: individual reporters may lean left, isolated news stories may be slanted against the administration. What I’m describing is the wholesale peddling by the “neutral” press of deep-seated narratives, memes, and soundbites: simple, targeted talking points that paint a picture of reality for the American public that favors the right and tarnishes the left.

You’ve heard the narratives: Bush is likable, Bush is a regular guy, Bush is firm, Bush is a religious man, Bush relishes a fight, Democrats are muddled, Democrats have no message, national security is Bush’s strength, terror attacks and terror threats help Bush (even though he presided over the worst attack ever on American soil), Democrats are weak on security, Democrats need to learn how to talk about values, Republicans favor a “strict interpretation” of the Constitution, and on and on.

A single storyline is more effective than a thousand stories. And a single storyline delivered by a “neutral” reporter is a hundred times more dangerous than a storyline delivered by an avowed partisan. Rightwingers can attack the media for criticizing Bush, can slam the New York Times for being liberal, but when the Times and the Post and CNN and MSNBC echo the ‘Bush stands firm‘ mantra, it adds one more brick to a powerful pro-Bush edifice.

These narratives are woven so deeply into the fabric of news coverage that they have become second nature and have permeated the public psyche and are regurgitated in polls. (The polls are then used to strengthen the narratives.) They are delivered as affirmative statements, interrogatives, hypotheticals; they are discussed as fact and accepted as conventional wisdom; they are twisted, turned, shaped, reshaped, and fed to the American public in millions of little soundbites, captions, articles, editorials, news stories, and opinion pieces. They are inserted into the national dialogue as contagious memes that imprint the idea of Bush=strong/Dems=weak. And they are false.

With this in mind, a new initiative is underway at Open Letter to Chris Matthews, as part of an aggressive push-back. If it’s a subject you find interesting, you may want to take a look.

Amen, brother!-secular of course.

  • I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Coulter and O’Reilly are not the problem. They can be easily dismissed as partisans. It’s the Broders and the Kristofs and the Kliens and Howells and Matthews.

    It is the hosts of our Sunday talk shows who bring up GOP narratives again and again. The right wing guests just nod in agreement. SBV are not possible without the media on board.

  • Republicans favor a “strict interpretation” of the Constitution??

    Can we ask them about this? This has been bothering me for days, that the same crowd who yammers on about “original intent” is intent on giving their president powers, and eliminating the entire meaning of the 4th Amendment, that would seem to stir many of the founders from their graves.

    Sorry to go off on a tangent there…

  • I’m sure there were founding fathers who would have been happy to give the Executive branch the right to search people’s houses or papers without going to a court for a warrant.

    But the fact this, they couldn’t get the Constitution approved without giving a promise to put in a bill of rights, and one of the amendments in the bill of rights that was approved was the 4th. Clearly, the 4th is meant to restrict the conduct of the Executive and direct the responsibitities of the Judicial.

    And that’s “strict interpretation” 😉

  • Corporate America is solidly behind the Republican
    Party. Is it any surprise that their bias leaks out
    into the media, which they control?

    I think progressivism is dead in America for
    a long time, and I don’t know what it will take to
    resurrect it. If the Bush disaster didn’t, what
    will?

  • You’ve heard the narratives: Bush is likable

    He has the most vicious tempor of anyone in modern politics. Tip O’Neill could sit down at the end of the day over a bourbon with Ronald Reagan. The Regal Moran can’t stand to be in a room with people who don’t lick his butt (after being screened).

    Bush is a regular guy

    He’s an alcoholic who, rather than enter rehab, hides behind a professed fundamentalist “religion”, four “mothering” women (Laura, Barbara, Condi, and Karen). He’s destroyed every company he’s been given. He got the Presidency of the United States through the illegal interference of his dad’s pals on the Supreme Court. He completed stints at Harvard and Yale even though he has the intelligence of a three-year-old.

    Bush is firm

    He’s a wimp (remember when a responsible press decried “the wimp factor” in Bush I?). Seen any action lately on the thing he promised to devote his second term to, Social Security? Ever see him debate (wihout a “wire”) or just a talk front of an unscreened audience?

    Bush is a religious man

    Ronald Reagan claimed to be, too, though he never went to church. Jimmy Carter actually taught Sunday School (and later built houses for the poor). Bush gives $14 million of our money to Pat Robertson; he bombs 120,000 innocent Iraqis in an unprovoked invasion; he has never admitted a mistake … does all that sound like a religious man? Bush is the least Christ-like public figure I can think of.

    Bush relishes a fight

    Only when his dad’s pals will pick up the pieces, and even then it’s not so much a fight as a self-induced failure. He never takes responsibility. He can’t wait to snuggle down for the night wiff his widdle pilly.

    Democrats are muddled

    That’s because we represent so many diverse causes: women, gays, the poor, educators (teachers, parents of students), non-gazillionaires, people with inadequate or no health insurance, renters, environmentalists, animal rights groups, etc. The Republicans are not “muddled” because they only represent corporate interests and ownership. They used to stand for minimal government, balanced budget, national parks, etc, but those people have all been driven into submission. The Republican Party, today, is simply Fascist, no more than a power grab.

    Democrats have no message

    Democrats have always (until they got too rich at the corporate trough recently to remember) been on the side of the poor, working classes, while collar workers, expansion of public education, “socialized” medicine (like all the rest of the industrialized world), public support of the arts, congressional oversight of the executive, etc. I could never be mean enough or rich enough to support the Republican “message”.

    national security is Bush’s strength

    Democrats won World War I and World War II (while Senator Prescott Bush was serving as Hitler’s Wall Street banker and the “America Firsters” (Republicans all) were kissing Hitler and Mussolini’s butt). Democrats met the U.N.’s goal of keeping the 38th parallel in Korea in spite of Chinese invasion (Truman had to fire Gen. MacArthur, a pompous ass Republican and would-be emperor of Asia). Clinton settled Kosovo without losing a life or offending the Muslim world. Bush I invited Saddam to enter Kuwait then got credit for driving him out. Rumsfeld delivered the gas with which Saddam killed the Kurds. Bush II has become bored with Osama but a started an unprovoked “war” in Iraq which has turned into a hopeless quagmire. Bush II beat back warnings about 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

    Seems pretty one-sided to me, except for LBJ lying us into Vietnam, though even there you could argue that Eisenhower’s John Foster Dulles blew away what would have been Demoractic elections in a unified Vietnam (because Ho, who was sympathetic to Americans, was a “Communist” – eek!). Might also bring up the fact that Nixon-Kissinger carried the war on much longer than needed, as well as secretly bombing the bejesus out Laos and Cambodia before caving

    terror attacks and terror threats help Bush (even though he presided over the worst attack ever on American soil)

    At first they did boost his miserable rating. Ever since then Bush’s ratings having been going down while the entire Muslim world – hell, the entire world – has become inflamed. Wonder how Bush is going to “deal with” the success of Hamas in the recent democratic vote in Palestine.

    Democrats are weak on security

    See the above comments on national security.

    Democrats need to learn how to talk about values

    Certainly not like Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell, or James Dobson. Certainly not like the Wall Street bankers or Bush’s “Pioneers”. Jimmy Carter’s pronouncements on “Human Rights” were good. His “Habitat for Humanity” constructions for the poor speak better than pious platitudes about human values. The Regal Moron’s sneering at the poor and carpet bombing of Iraq don’t speak well for his human values. From FDR’s time onward, especially after LBJ passed the race hatred on to the Republicans, the Democrats have been the only party to push truly Christian (actually universal) values, while the Republicans have been pushing nothing but GREED.

    Republicans favor a “strict interpretation” of the Constitution

    You’ve got to be joking. Just look at any recent pronouncements by Alberto Gonzales, aka Torquemada. Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito are about as far from “strict interpretation” – Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, etc. – as you can get. Unless, by “strict interpretation”, you mean bending over for the Regal Moron or planting a big, wet, French kiss on the Regal Moron’s ass.

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