It takes a while to reach DEFCON 1

February 20, 2006

Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, wrote an interesting column the other day about the reaction and intensity of scandals surrounding the Bush White House. He makes a provocative argument, but I’m afraid he has the situation backwards.

Have you ever noticed how on a scale of one to 10, every untoward event in the life of the Bush presidency goes straight to a 10?

The Abu Ghraib photos? A 10 forever. Dick Cheney catching a hunting buddy with some birdshot? An instant 10. The Bush National Guard story? Total 10. How can it be that each downside event in this presidency greets the public at this one, screeching level of outrage and denunciation by the out-of-power party and a perpetually outraged media?

Henninger’s boss, the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot, made a similar argument on Meet the Press yesterday, noting that “every debate…in Washington goes immediately to DEFCON 1.”

I’ll gladly concede that the Cheney shooting story reached near-frenzy status fairly quickly last week — that is, if you define “quickly” as a few hours after word was leaked to the Corpus Christi newspaper. It’s not every day that a Vice President shoots someone and there were enough odd inconsistencies in the story to make it immediately fascinating.

But, in general, I think the opposite of the point Henninger and Gigot raised is true. Bush scandals don’t go “straight to a 10” on the frenzy-meter — they usually linger around 2 or 3 until the media realizes it’s missing a big story.

Henninger, for example, points to Bush’s limited service in the Texas Air National Guard as a good example of his thesis. But Henninger’s memory is flawed — Dems tried to generate attention on this story in 1994, during Bush’s first run for governor, but reporters largely bought Bush’s story. In 2000, Dems tried again, but to no avail.

Consider this in a quantitative way. Paul Begala did some research comparing how many news stories from 1992 focused on Bill Clinton’s Vietnam draft record vs. stories from 2000 that focused on Bush’s. It wasn’t even close — Begala found 13,641 stories about Clinton’s alleged draft dodging versus 49 about George W. Bush’s military record. Not exactly a feeding frenzy against the Republican from the “liberal media.”

In February 2004, the WaPo ran an item (on page A8) explaining that Bush’s National Guard service is now “in question.” Slowly but surely, more reporters started to realize that the president’s story didn’t add up and there were gaps in his service record. But the story didn’t go “straight to a 10” — it took literally 10 years for the national media to care about this story.

There are other examples.

Henninger said the “Abu Ghraib photos” are “a 10 forever.” That’s true about the impact, but it still gets the narrative wrong. Abu Ghraib became an international crisis once pictures were released — but the story didn’t go “straight to a 10” beforehand. People needed to be shocked and nauseated by the images before the scandal was taken seriously.

I also keep thinking about the Plame leak scandal. Henninger’s argument — that “every untoward event in the life of the Bush presidency goes straight to a 10” — is completely destroyed here.

Plame’s name was leaked in a July 2003 Robert Novak column, and immediately became a big story — for liberal bloggers. A month later, the Washington Post ran an item about former CIA director John Deutch’s concerns about the failure to find WMD in Iraq. At the very end of the article, the WaPo devoted five whole paragraphs to the Plame controversy, noting that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had asked the FBI to investigate “whether Bush administration officials identified the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson as a clandestine CIA officer.” The Post wouldn’t even give the story its own article. They hid it at the end of an unrelated article — on page A20.

For two full months, the national media ran a total of two items on the story — the Post piece and a Paul Krugman column — while blogs (including this one) went berserk. Once reporters realized what they were missing, in late September, Slate’s Jack Shafer said political reporters ran to the blogs to help them “catch up.” A story that went “straight to a 10”? I don’t think so.

Henninger’s thesis has the story backwards. I can only imagine a world in which every untoward event in the life of the Bush presidency goes straight to a 10. The reality is, Bush scandals struggle for oxygen for weeks, sometimes months, and occasionally years, waiting for reporters to recognize their significance.

Cheney shooting an old man in the face was an exception, not the rule.

February 20, 2006 at 2:11 pm

The GOP says it’s so … it’s so. And it will remain so as long as we have a bend-over-and-get-screwed press that cares more about its make-up and hair-dos than the news or even its own dignity, and an electorate which “learns” all it can absorb by the watching the TV.

the wall street journal is the homebase of DEFCON 1, but lack of self-knowledge is clearly one of the characteristics of the modern right-wing.

“The reality is, Bush scandals struggle for oxygen for weeks, sometimes months, and occasionally years, waiting for reporters to recognize their significance.”

Absolutely! And in the end, the stories all die. They go
nowhere.

But you’ve got to hand it to these guys. Really. They
know how to fight. They attack, attack and attack again.
They never let up. They are vicious and relentless in
their battle against liberalism and Democrats.

And they play the victim, too. That’s what this is all
about. They claim they’re getting smeared by a liberal
press. They’re fighting against the “war on Christmas.”
They’re fighting for those poor Christians whose God is
constantly being pulled out from under them by those
commie secular elitists.

Give ’em credit. I mean it. Their tactics work. They’ve
won. The Democrats are a beaten, sorry, disheveled
lot of spineless souls in total disarray..

“…catching a hunting buddy with some birdshot.” And the WSJ folks wonder why many of us thinking humans show them no respect.

And what hark said.

The Democrats don’t realize what it means to play politics these days. It’s all television, all the time. Democrats think its a debating club or seminar in the university — you make your point once, preferably in print, and that’s that. Through years of losing in the speaking and print worlds, Republicans saw their chance in the TV era and grabbed it.

The brain allocates surprisingly little space to the visual. The occipital lobes are nickel-sized, way down at the primitive base of your brain. Speech and thought occupies the entire front/top of your brain, more than the size of two fists. But they evolved later, aren’t as primitive, immediate.

As anyone who has watched TV new knows, the visual image dominates in that medium. Record a political speech while you’re watching it on TV. Now try to remember what the speech you watched said. Most people can’t do it; even those who can are amazed how much they remember when they only listen to the speech, when their attention isn’t on that dazzling light show which, for good reason, is called a “boob tube”.

We’re never going to get rid of TV (no matter how bad it gets … and it’s gone way beyond being a “wasteland”) because people are addicted to it. They no longer remember how to spend their “free time” — in fact, they’ve forgotten there is such a thing. So the Democrats are going to have to “fight fire with fire” — get beyond Al Gore’s wonderful Independence Hall speech (the best event during Bush’s reign, imho). They’re going to have to develop frequently updated “talking points”, distribute those to all potential Democratic spokespeople, barrage the TV (and radio) gasbag shows, demand equal time on those shows, put “title backgrounds” up when they get their own time on TV. The blogs and Air America are good enough, as far as church-going (“preaching to the faithful”) goes, but it’s no substitute for missionary work (emphasis on “work”) among the benighted. And for the TV-challened (meaning lacking wealth), what’s it take to write a short letter every now and then to your local newspaper (the mass readership may be declining, but the opinion-setting people still do read).

BOYCOTT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL!

The Financial Times (of London) is light years superior to the WSJ rag.

Steve – Very good column. Henniger’s technique is one of seeming feigned incredulity and it works on a certain level when he appeals to his readers sense of things. Notice how he flattened perspective – by associating serious anecdotes with less serious anecdores, when he gave his litany of items he claims as Tens. In a way he is writing a medieval woodcut or stained glass painting of his spiritual sense of what happens to Bush media coverage, rather than relaying the various facets in proper perspective.

rocky, i’ve got nothing against the financial times, which is indeed an excellent paper, but i have to disagree with you: the wsj is also an excellent paper. it’s simply burdened by an idiotic editorial page.

the core readership of the wsj – senior business executives – want accurate news reporting and they get it.

The LEFT Media Trust discovers a tantalizing hint of scandal possibly affecting the Bush Administration, splashes the suppositions and the possibilities and the speculations across their Domain Of Information Control, but gradually, as knowledgable people examine and discuss it, it is proclaimed “FAKE BUT ACCURATE”, while still engraved on the malice centers of the hate-filled brains of the LEFT-Wing Dupes. Poor Dupes! Since their Leader (Vozhd, Fuehrer, Duce) was convicted of perjury, in Office, it has become necessary to their self images that President Bush become Satan’s Play-Mate. Poor Left-Wing Dupes; he is an honest man and a Christian Gentleman, forgiving his (and America’s) enemies (and these malicious Dupes) to their consternation.

Funny, I seem to recall that every time one of the Clintons sneezed it went straight to a 10…..

“Hillary was found scratching her nose! It must be a secret signal! She’s hiding something! Even if she ISN’T hiding something, she COULD be hiding something! That must be why Vince Foster killed himself! She must be doing DRUGS! That’s why all those supporters of the Clintons died over the years! There must be Congressional Hearings! There must be an independent counsel! It’s all about the rule of law!”

Until the Dems can understand how they are being worked over on the tube, they don’t have a chance. Coordinated propaganda strategy from the top, a disciplined stable “newsworthy” personalities with scripted talking points, using visual image over content, repetition, cultivation of news networks, using presidental power to manipulate events, lots of money, and a corrupt network of influence.

It isn’t just coming up with the right message, it’s finding a way to expose the fix.

I think how we’re “being worked over on the tube” is really important. But there’s something else. What’s the likelihood of a Republican Congress doing something about Bush? And beyond that, the thing we really should be paying full attention to: what’s being done to make absolutely damn sure our votes count in November? That’s the “fix” I’m most worried about.

I recall skimming the article and thinking, “yet another blame the messanger article.” It’s really true. For 6 years now the steady drip, drip, drip of policy being trumped by politics from a President who can’t talk and chew gum without a script has lowered the bar such that each new outrage is numbed down by being crowded among all the rest.

It’s the accumulation that rachets each event to a ten, not the event itself. Cheney’s is a perfect example. It wasn’t so much that he ignored reporting the event for 24 hours but that the failure to disclose pushed the envelope of Cheney’s habitual disregard for the media to a degree never before reached.

So, I’m not sure that I agree that everything isn’t a 10 now. Earlier in his term Bush got away with a lot. For example Knight Ridder published the first report that Bush made up his mind to take out Hussein two years before it got any play. It’s only now that Bush has such a large body of lies, distain, incompetence and mendacity that it’s hard not to be outraged. . .

Until the Democrat Party Voters learn to disregard the siren calls of The LEFT Media Trust and examine, appraise , and evaluate the correlation of forces presently driving the American political economy, and the World, these Voters will have nothing but noise to contribute to the discussions of the great controversies of our time. If, through one of those great pranks that History has played on Men Of Certainty in the past, the policies of drift and appeasement advocated by The LEFT Media Trust should gain traction, then America could find herself, sometime during the next decade, in a life and death struggle for the survival of our comfortable standard of living and the liberties that make it possible. I personally would prefer that our descendants not hiss with shame and contempt when they utter our names. [One Jimmie Carter is ENOUGH!]

I think PW is onto the real problem. I watched the last election here in Ohio ,and all I can say is Diebold will let us know who wins. Freedom my ass!

From Wikipedia:

DEFCON 1 : Maximum force readiness.
DEFCON 2 : Increased force readiness (less than maximum).
DEFCON 3 : Increased force readiness.
DEFCON 4 : Peacetime; Increased intelligence; Strengthened security measures.
DEFCON 5 : Peacetime.

Defcon 10… Eden?

What liberal press? The press today is made up of paid robots to spew the garbage fed them by the corporations who own them.
Napoleon said the ones who own the press, own the country.

“What liberal Press?” The answer is short and can be stated in words suitable to the comprehension of the products of The Public Education Trust:

The disinformation transmission belts [TLMT] that gave American Citizens seeking news the term:

“FAKE BUT ACCURATE”

Even Winston Smith would be appalled at that solecism, that sophist’s corruption of rhetorical illogic. It could only find acceptance in the mind of an Urban Serf or a T.A. begging for a “Grant”.

It’s turning someone’s argument back against them, isn’t it? If a family member or friend is vexed by something you do, just try telling them, “You always get so upset about everything I do so quickly!!” or something along those lines.

Now, you’ve added something to the dialogue: you’re saying that they should defend themselves for having a greivance.

It’s a weird trick, but people really, really do it. Usually it makes my esteem for someone drop like 99%.

So what can the GOP do if the complaints are getting really hot, and the complainers seem to think that their grievances are really well-founded?

Don’t try and defend on the substance

oops, my comment got cut off–

I meant to say:

In that situation, they won’t try to defend on the substance, but instead they’ll question the questioners– to do otherwise, the GOP would be acknowledge that those who complain have a real reason to be opening their mouths in the first place.

So here we have the writers coordinating a message that gets to all their readers– then the readers repeat the lines in their homes and workplaces, unthinkingly aping a coercive, manipulative move that has no more rational force than a predator’s ruse.

That’s a stunning post from Waumpuscat. And to think that the only president’s name from the past several decades which inspires pride in me is Jimmy Carter’s.

Amazing how important personal integrity and wisdom are to us moonbats!

Good post and your list doesn’t even count all the “untoward events” in Bush’s life that never gained any traction in the major media.

As just one example, there are a number of issues relating to the his minority ownership in the Texas Rangers that raise far more serious questions than anything connected to Whitewater:
That he was loaned the money to by a tiny share of the team, but guaranteed a much large piece of the sale price as long as the team didn’t lose money.
The use of government bonding authority to finance the new stadium (common and not illegal, but not consistent with traditional conservative principles).
The stadium authority’s abuse of eminent domain to acquire properties not needed for the stadium, which were later resold at a profit to the team owners.
The various ways the other members of the ownership committee were allowed to feed at the public trough when Bush was Governor.

None of these issues ever got significant attention from the national press that I can remember. Nor have several others relating to his term as Governor of Texas.

Maybe if the Bush administration didn’t have a serious ethics scandal every three days on average, the WSJ editorial staff would be less defensive.

As it is, they sound like they’re running out of straws to grab.

BTW, what would the proper response to the Cheney shooting be? “Ho hum, Cheney almost killed an old man, next story?”