These people are soooo incredibly insulated it is getting painful. First, they believe that if they get a Twitter account then they’ll quickly match the organization the left now has in place.
Then RNC chair Steele talks ebonics and so does the stupidest white republican lady in congress.
And then there’s this, from protestors at CPAC
No. They don’t know what it means.
h/t Digby
Stephen Colbert challenged Michael Steele to a rap battle and Steele has accepted.
h/t Salon
Posted in Colbert and Stewart
Marketing/political propaganda axiom: in attempting to make a product or political figure less well thought of, you seek to increase its/his negatives and decrease its/his positives.
Obama was and is conceived by most Americans as new, hopeful, fresh, etc. In a number of earlier posts here, I’ve been detailing how the right has been busy, over the last two months, attempting to counter these Obama positives through the suggestion that he’s not new or special at all – that he’s just a continuation of Bush policies and ideas. (As I noted earlier, there was another complimentary goal in here too…to help re-establish positive notions of the Bush administration, AKA ”The Bush Legacy Project”, a PR strategy being run out of the Bush WH in its last half year or so).
Yesterday, at CPAC, Gingrich threw a bit more weight behind all of this with a strong attack against, wait for it, the “Bush/Obama regime”. Yes. Who knew?
What is going on here is pretty simple. At CPAC, the Bush administration is being utterly savaged. The meme being pushed is that Bush betrayed conservative/Reagan principles in numerous spheres but most importantly, fiscally. He spent too many tax dollars. Politically, or in terms of propaganda, this is seen now as a necessary idea to forward because it excuses ‘conservativism’ and the party for the last eight years and for the financial situation we are in…”We didn’t do it, a pretender did it, so there’s no reason to think we can’t run government properly”. This is almost total bullshit top to bottom (Reagan initiated huge tax hikes, for example) but propaganda and truth have no necessary relationship.
So, this earlier identification of Obama with Bush was mainly designed to make Bush policies look good – “Obama has to follow Bush policies because they were wonderful policies after all”. But now (there’s a truck-load of irony in all of this) the identification is being made to make Obama look as bad as Bush. And this ‘argument’ is being made by conservatives to conservatives.
Update: Steve Benen writes on this too (and it’s typically bright as hell):
I understand the point [Gingrich is] trying to get across. Bush increased spending, Obama is increasing spending. Bush’s policies were a disaster for the economy, so Obama’s policies….
It has a certain child-like appeal, just so long as no one thinks about it too much.
But the reason this isn’t a compelling argument — aside from the fact that it has no relation to reality — is that Gingrich’s point undermines the other Republican talking points. The principal complaint from the right about Obama’s spending plans is that they’re “radical.” The spending is “unprecedented.” The agenda represents “socialism.”
And despite all of this, Gingrich nevertheless argues that Obama’s spending “is more of the Bush-Obama continuity and represents more of the same instead of ‘change you can believe in.’”
This just doesn’t add up. Either Obama’s approach is a radical change or it’s Bush’s agenda warmed over. It can’t be both. read Benen here
Posted in Bush legacy project, Propaganda
Tonight, Limbaugh closes out the CPAC conference. He’s the final speaker and he was given this position for a reason.
What is the fellow going to say? I’m really very curious.
He has a dilemma. Clearly, this CPAC is the quite the nuttiest ever (an accomplishment of some note) and there’s going to be a demand for meat red and bloody. The recent events suggest that the “Obama – should we/do I want him to fail or not” probably can’t be left out of what he speaks to. He’ll be getting advices from the saner (or at least the more sophisticated) elements in the party to step carefully here. But if he is perceived by most of those in attendance (and his radio audience) to be pulling back, that won’t enhance his popularity. Nor his own ego. Yet he’s certainly smart enough to understand the knife edge he walks knowing that a much larger audience will be appraised of what he says. Significant portions of that much larger audience, in the present situation, will likely or even surely be offended and seriously put off by adamant and open rebellion against Obama. There’s also the additional risk of further ripping apart the party and movement. So, he’s got his work cut out for him tonight. This might reasonably be considered the most important speech of his professional lifetime.
How’s he going to handle this? His WSJ editorial on the Fairness Doctrine (for a broader and more educated, though still mainly conservative audience) is red-meat free. But he can’t get away with that tonight in this venue and with the movement in disarray and leaderless. The CPAC audience will want him to lead and his ego will demand he fulfill this role and task. Others in the movement too will want him to succeed tonight in the task of re-invigorating the movement/party and pushing it in some viable direction. Whatever he sets out to attack tonight will likely be our best clue as to what we can expect from Republicans and movement activists going forward. Of course, “socialism” or ”nanny-statism” the dire threat of it, will be a big theme.
He’ll do lots of dog-whistle stuff (threats to constitution, dangers of socilized governance, ACORN, Reverend Wright) and he’ll likely use “the annointed one” because it will be demanded. I don’t know how much further he’ll go to satisfy the red-meat demands. A lot of big money and status-quo power hinges on this, not just the nutcases. Smart people in the party and movement comprehend the large shift in public opinion that has been underway for two election cycles now. They understand as well that demographic realities are not in their favor. This is a very critical point for them.
And there’s another factor here for Limbaugh to consider as well. Over the last couple of days, it’s been openly noted (Paul Begala, James Carville) that the Dems will be pushing forward the notion that the Republican Party IS functionally being led now by Limbaugh. They are doing this for a strategic PR reason with two goals; to portray the Republicans as obstructionist to a popular president at a time when that is the last thing citizens want thus portraying the party as extremist and dangerous, and secondly, to marginalize the extremists in the modern conservative movement and faciliate a resurgence of moderates.
Tonight we’ll find out how smart and intellectually resilient he is as a propagandist which, it’s my consideration, is the term that describes him far more accurately than ideologue.
Update: As I bump into good analyses from others on this subject, I’ll note them here. Stohlberg has a piece in this mornings NY Times, but it’s shallow and lousy.
But two things I wanted to add to my own account here constitutes rather large ommissions in what I wrote above. The most fundamental element of conservative talk radio and other conservative movement media outlets is the proposition (forwarded every day, every hour, without fail) that the mainstream media is biased against conservatism and for liberalism. This justifies both their reason for being and their extremism. This will makes it appearance in Limbaugh’s speech tonite as a central element. Not only will it (hopefully) increase the audience for rightwing media (which pays Limbaugh $400 million for eight years of broadcasting) it will also (hopefully) spread doubts to that larger audience that they are being misled (“misled” and “tricked” and related words will be key components in his speech) by the mainstream media, it will also feed the red-meat urge for CPAC goers who have been trained for twenty years to hate and distrust the media, and it will allow Limbaugh to mount a strong indirect attack on Obama.
Secondly, the talk radio phenomenon leapfrogs on a long tradition of American populism – the central theme of this strain in american thought being that the normal folk are being victimized by a small group of elitists. At different periods of time, different “elites” are held to be in this selfish and victimizing role. During FDR’s time (like the very comtemporary present) that group were and are held to be found in or related to the financial sector. For the conservative movement, it was held to be “liberal elites”, mainly the universities, the highly educated or the intellectuals, people in the arts, the media and the Democratic party. Tonite, Limbaugh will attempt to identify the financial sector (Wall Street as opposed to small businesses) as being in the pockets of the Democrats. Thus the Democrats are responsible for the present mess.
Update: Surprising, at least to me, I’ve found very little commentary so far on Limbaugh’s speech yesterday. Crooks and Liars has a typically good piece here. The full speech is available from Rush’s site (of course it is) http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_030209/content/01125106.guest.htmlhere.
That’s Mitch McConnell up there. This is a guy ya just want to party with, clearly.
Here’s a paragraph noted by Paul Krugman, headed “No comment”.
In his CPAC speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that conservatives are more “interesting” and “fun” than liberals. Here’s his proof: “who wants to hang out with guys like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you can be with Rush Limbaugh?”
James Dobson, head of the evangelical Focus on the Family, just resigned. Apparently there’s some problem getting new young members and funding (Tom DeLay at CPAC also mentioned lack of funding problems for his rightwing operation).
I’m simply beside myself with grief.
More at TPM
Jindal Admits Katrina Story [that he related in his response to Obama's speech] Was False
Posted in Future of the GOP and conservative movement
Tagged Jindal, Katrina story
“Tonight, we tell America: we know the past, we know we did wrong. My bad. But we go forward in appreciation of the values that brought us to this point.” Michael Steele, new RNC chair
“Michael Steele! You be da man! You be da man!” Michele Bachmann
Intellect you can put your faith in.
h/t Alex Koppelman at Salon
Revenge Is Sweet
And there’s money to be made killing Albanian Muslims.
by John Podhoretz
03/02/2009, Volume 014, Issue 23
Jonah writes for the LA Times and National Review and others. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps the things he says about the educational system have merit. He is compelling evidence for his thesis.
His column in the NR this morning includes this gripping title and thoughtful passage:
The Politics of Fear
…President Obama, whose whole campaign was about hope over fear, has been scaring the dickens out of people lately. He has certainly terrified the stock market. He’s warned of “catastrophe” and economic “disaster” from which we may never recover.
What’s particularly odious about Obama’s scare tactics is…
To begin, and just as a reminder, where did the fellow come from? Wikipedia does a little bio:
Goldberg’s career as a pundit was launched following his mother Lucianne Goldberg‘s role in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, when he wrote about the “media siege” on his mother’s apartment in the The New Yorker.[4][5]
Goldberg has spoken of his mother and the Lewinsky scandal:
My mother was the one who advised Linda Tripp to record her conversations with Monica Lewinsky and to save the dress. I was privy to some of that stuff, and when the administration set about to destroy Lewinsky, Tripp, and my mom, I defended my mom and by extension Tripp…I have zero desire to have those arguments again. I did my bit in the trenches of Clinton’s trousers.[6]
OK, so that ought to qualify him adequately for syndication. But he writes real books too! His recent one is a deep, tempered, careful analysis, ”Liberal Fascism”. That’s a splendid title as well, I think. It catches your attention in the manner of “Metal Carpentry”. But let’s get back to his column from this morning, “The Politics of Fear”.
“Fear politics”, we are instructed, are naughty. People can get frightened and might over-react, perhaps even bash their teeth out on big rocks or go hunting the scalps of the powdered-wig crowd. ”Fear politics” ought really not to be engaged in, is the lesson. And we thank Jonah for it.
What else can Jonah teach us?
Is [Iraq under Saddam] likely that if it got weapons of mass destruction, it would use them recklessly? Check! Is it working very hard to get weapons of mass destruction? Check!
When Barack Obama campaigns, he’s basically saying, ‘I’m a silver bullet. I’m going to solve all your problems just by electing me.’ FDR, Hitler, all these guys, they basically said, ‘All your problems can be solved.’ “
And my personal favorite:
Hypocrisy is bad, but it’s not the worst vice in the world.
Posted in Propaganda
There’s a very bright ad running presently satirizing the “clean coal” idea. Perhaps you’ve seen it
“Clean coal harnesses the awesome power of the word ‘clean’”
Just who, I wondered, directed this ad? It’s the Coen brothers.
Mitchell and Netanyahu seem at odds on key underlying issues.
Mitchell wants to press ahead with peace talks that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu avoids any talk of Palestinian statehood and says peace efforts should focus on building up the Palestinian economy. Mitchell has urged a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, while Netanyahu says existing settlements must be allowed to expand.
More here: Washington Post
Posted in Israel/Palestine
Charles’ column this morning seems oddly schizophrenic.
His title, “The Obamaist Manifesto” and his second sentence play on the standard “Yikes! Commies!!” ploy:
If Barack Obama succeeds, his joint address to Congress will be seen as historic — indeed as the foundational document of Obamaism.
We don’t, of course, recollect Krauthammer ever speaking of Eisenhowerism or Nixonism or Bushism. To be fair, Reaganism falls from his keyboard with an easy regularity and the suffix makes some sense in that respect, given the distinct ideological shifts that the one president facilitated and that the contemporary president looks capable of. Still, one assumes that Charles wouldn’t be comfortable with comparison between Reagan and the dark beasts of the right, Goebbels, say, or those happy profiteers who locked their workers inside the Triangle Shirtwaist Building.
Yet at the same time, the rest of his column is really rather thoughtful and not overly prejudicial, for Charles. Sure, he tosses in the ideologically-necessary description of European economies as “schlerotic” and as examples of nanny-statism but “evil”, “Satan”, “Hitler” and “destruction of everything American and beautiful in the universe” make no appearance here.
It’s a sort of balance, all in all. I think he’s been charmed.
The Apollo theater turns 75 this year. In a PBS documentary on the theater broadcast a few years ago, one lady who was in attendance when Ella made her first appearance on Amateur Night, told how the audience had intially hooted derisively as Ella, whom they thought not attractive, came out on stage. Then she began to sing. “Within one minute”, the lady recalled, “it was so quiet in there you could have heard a rat pissing on cotton.”
Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course. read Paul Krugman here
h/t dotter
