All you have to remember to understand the media is that entertainment values matter much more than news values.
News values are chiefly important so that the media can say "First Amendment" to avoid all accountability.Originally a comment on Eschaton.
Watergate was 30 years ago, when America really did have independent media. Not a good model for 2004.
Job one for President Kerry is to reverse the media concentration. Otherwise, his win would merely be a rear guard victory in a long retreat.
Even so, at the same time he works to betray their betrayal of the country, Kerry will have to suck up to the press. Nicknames have been done already, but a little high school level flattery should do just as well. If he can't compartmentalize well enough, he'll need proxies.
Tactically, Kerry will need to forestall immediate moves from right-wing media outlets (Fox, Wash Times, WSJ, Rush, Drudge, etc.) to start the death of a thousand cuts. Yes, he needs to manage the press, and that means driving a wedge between the VWRC echo chamber and the lapdogs formerly known as the mainstream media.
The lapdogs are going to continue to put the right's smears into play. Kerry's press operation will have to kill those smears directly or through proxies. The important thing is to catch them while they are small. That means not waiting but instead framing them before they reach the public. This needs to be done in deadly earnest but using humor and ridicule. The end result should be the destruction of the right-wing media's credibility.
The first thing for Kerry to do on Wednesday, Nov. 3, is to talk about how he's going to make his honeymoon period work for America. He should use that exact term. The way this works for him is that he can put a date on it to frame the length of that honeymoon. He should aim high, The previous administration had four years to break the war on terror and the economy. I think it's only fair that I should have until July 4th [or the third anniversary of Sept. 11] to show progress on them.
Then, Kerry should propose some doable steps, some that he can accomplish alone [a ground-up reorg of the FBI (lots and lots of firings), a return to more or less honest accounting for budgets and deficits] and some that he can beat up Congress over [real funding for port security, the end of perverse tax incentives to corporations for sending jobs overseas]. Once he has implemented at least the first set, he can stop talking about his honeymoon but he should continue to expect (that is, demand) fair treatment for as long as he keeps hitting his targets. Oh, and lobster rolls for the press corps would be a good idea from time to time because so many of them are miserable toadies.
If we win the Senate, this will be easier to do. If we win the House, even easier - because the New England three in the Senate Republican caucus can be swayed into a working majority. If we win both houses, hallelujah.
When liberal and moderate groups get out of hand (and it will happen), Kerry needs to stay on target because there are only two issues that matter. He needs to say, I hear you, and I support some of your goals, but I must govern by the priorities of all Americans in contrast to the previous administration. When we have the war on terrorism and the economy back on track, we will consider your longer-term needs. Until then, I can only offer ...
Originally two comments here on Eschaton.
It is unfortunate that a key part of modern mass media politics is the cult of personality. You don't think Duhbya "won" in 2000 on policy, do you? More voters make their decision on likability than on ideology, at least more of the persuadable middle.
The Texans have spun Duhbya into a nice guy that everyone would like to have an alcohol-free beer with, but the truth is much different. He's a spoiled, self-entitled, self-righteous, willfully ignorant, mean, cavalier bastard. This story and stories like it dent that likability and are important, sad to say, to whipping his no account butt back to Crawford - for at least as long as it takes for him to sell his vanity ranch.
----
I want a reason to vote for Kerry but i just can't...
Bring honor and respect back to the White House. It didn't work the first try, but we owe it to ourselves as patriotic Americans to try again.
If George Soros wants to help, he should hire people to follow Tom DeLay around and collect really juicy oppo. That little martinet belongs in jail, can't you just tell by looking!
Originally a comment on Demagogue.
I'm really sick of statements made in press briefings being attributed to a "senior administration official". This is not a valid ground rule, and a press corps that was worth the First Amendment wouldn't have to think twice before disobeying it. What's McClellan going to do about it? Throw them out? Now that would be a story!
Originally a comment on DailyKos.
The Republicans are expert at segmenting the market. They know that they can use diametrically opposed tactics and only political junkies will notice.
So, they will have one message for moderates ("compassionate conservatism"), another message for right-wing Protestants (Bob Jones U.), many different messages on Iraq (9/11, imminent threat, WMD, human rights, liberation, oil, power, democratic dominoes in the Middle East, protection of Israel, Inigo Montoya, ...), code words for the hardcore neo-confederates - you get the picture.
Rove and Co. will fire any bullet they can lay their hands on at Dean. Unelectable? A clear and present danger (to the United States of Neocon)? Dean can't be both, but they'll have the money, the doublethink, and the media shills to do both.I went to a Dean meet-up last week to recruit new blood for the Democratic Town Committee. Hey, they get me, I get them, we both win! Please, sign up and get active.
The danger of acquiescence is obvious.
Originally a comment on DailyKos.
Cokie Roberts is useless except as a prime example of smugness.
Originally a comment on Eschaton.
Rush is also applying his rehab lessons to politics: When liberals say something bad about conservatives, they're really telling us what they think of themselves. So, when Ted Kennedy says that Bush lied his way into the Iraq war, ol' Ted is really telling us that he would have lied in a similar circumstance.
I learned so much in such a short time.
deminva
The truth is that the frothing right wing is usually guilty of its own charges:
So, the Bush Administration is now promising us that they will real soon now have the evidence they should have had when taking us to war? Of all the incredible gall!
Originally a comment on Politics, Law, and Autism.
it might be worthwhile to take an interest in why science continues to be regarded by so many with mistrust.
I've thought about this for a long time, and I don't know the answer, but I have some ideas.
Science is hard. It takes effort to understand. Its beauty is subtle. It demands careful attention to details. Most people want easy, but they are jealous of any authority that tells them the intellectually easy way is wrong.
Science requires the suspension of belief, not disbelief, in favor of looking. But belief is a matter of choice for most people, rather than a matter of evidence. About evolution, my sixth grade teacher said, "It's not nice."
As if that mattered. Yet niceness did matter to her more than the evidence, and I think that perception or another matters most to most people.
So, does science need a change in PR? It's not enough to be right. It's not even persuasive. Does science need heroism and myth just as much as politics or religion does? Well, there hasn't been much of heroism or myth in science since July of 1969. (And, yes, I do realize that landing on the moon was really more about politics than it was about science.)
(Originally a response to this.)
