View Single Post
Old 04-06-2005, 08:54 AM   #3 (permalink)
roachboy
 
roachboy's Avatar
 
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
this article is from the washington times, which is hardly a neutral source.

here's an interpreation from a non-rightwing viewpoint:

i think the memo could well be a fake, but one concocted and planted by the political cadres within the bush administration.
it smells of rove. put your face close to the screen and i am sure that you too will catch a bit of the fetid smell of karl rove.
the idea would be to turn the schiavo farce to some kind of advantage for the right--it has not done well in the press, it is one of those moments across which the more authoritarian elements of right ideology come to the fore. the discourse around the schiavo case has been really quite repellent, and the level of hypocrisy perhaps evident enough for even conservatives who supported this kind of display to sense, perhaps, a problem.

when you have a fiasco at the tactical level, you can always try to plant something like this. planting it would have at least three main advantages:
it would make the problem the "mainstream press" and not the craven exploitation of a sad and ultimately ridiculous situation by the right:
it would play to the right's beloved victimization narrative;
it would function, ideally, to trivialize and displace the problem the right's own actions have presented to it.

you could see in the rather farce something of a model, in fact, but not as conservatives would like:

think about it: the problems raised by cowboy george's glorious history during vietnam is not in doubt--it was a problem during an election cycle--it would not go away, despite the constant slander generated by republican operatives like the swift boat charlatans--so you concoct a "smoking gun" and plant it--then you reveal the fact of the fraud, but not the source--and presto macho the issue shifts from the fact of george w bush's record of exploiting wealthy family connections to avoid going to vietnam (and this not on the basis of anything approaching a principled objection to the war) to the press that relays these facts.
if you manufacture enough structured indignation from the loyal brownshirts of the right, you can perform a wholesale forest-for-the-trees switch.
and why not, it worked pretty well, didnt it?

i mean, as loathesome as i find karl rove, you have to hand it to the guy: he is slick, in an odious kinda way. all the move required, really, was control over how it was framed--a breakdown in fact checking at the tv network is simply grist for the mill. and given the nature of rightwing land, it would have been secondary had the breakdown actually occurred. what matters is the aggressiveness of the accusations that it did occur, and a spineless television network.

but dont you find anything strange in how focussed the conservative attacks on rather were? where did that focus come from? would you need a trail of directives to prove that there was a centrally directed focus on particular aspects of the rather farce?

so you have something parallel here--and why not, it worked pretty well for the rove people last time out.

sick thing about this is that the above is no more or less probable an interpretation than any of those that take this story seriously.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Last edited by roachboy; 04-06-2005 at 08:58 AM..
roachboy is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360