The 4 Headed Monkey Wrench: Why the WH Has Lost Its Media Lockdown

Election 2004 went by without a hitch for the Whitehouse, because Karl Rove had the Mainstream Media under his thumb. There was "nothing to see" in Ohio, unless you were Keith Olberman. The Swiftboat Vets were newsworthy, because FOX News said so. The AWOL Memos were forgeries, becausee the Free Republic said so. Exit polls only mattered in the Ukraine.

Then, a strange thing happened on the way to the second term. The mainstream media started talking back. It happened in January, when MSNBC pitched a hissy fit when Seymour Hirsch broke the story about the administration's plans to invade Iran, and it has been building momentum ever since.

Here is the four things which I think have gone wrong for the Whitehouse and the Press:

1. The price of oil is $60 a barrel. I predicted that this would be an eventual problem for the Bush administration back in January 2001. All sectors of the economy want to be babied by the president they have bought. Like jealous siblings, they do not like to see one child get all the attention. The administration has had to resort to some pretty extreme measures to help prop oil prices up to their ridiculous highs, and all other sectors of the economy are hurting. Unfortunately for Bush, one sector, manufacturing, owns its own 24 hour news network. GE=MSNBC="get the hell out of Iraq and get oil prices down to a reasonable level again you bozos!" MSNBC once lead the charge to invade Iraq. Now, it leads the charge to investigate WH corruption and GOP scandal.

2. Michael Powell, son of Colin Powell played "backsies" with the Federal Media Ownership rule changes. And he did it the day after Congress signed W. up for a second term. Players like Viacom and the NYT which had openly played the whore for the WH were left looking ridiculous. They had counted on those changes for profitable mergers. Now, how were they going to make money? Oh, that's right. They could report the news.

3. Dan Rather. Everybody in the press except for people at CBS had lots of fun poking the Great Man with a stick. They figured "Hey, it's Dan Rather. He is invincible. CBS will go to bat for him. This will be amusing, and in the end, it will take him down a notch, but he will survive and no real harm will be done." I'll bet no one, except Thornberg, Heywood,Les Moonves and a few other players at Viacom had any idea that Viacom was going to sell Dan Rather and Mary Mapes into Egypt in order to curry favor with Bush and Rove. When the dirty deed was done, the rest of the MSM must have gone through all the stages of grief. If the Bush administration was playing Salome and asking for Dan Rather's head on a platter, then the Bush administration was the enemy of all journalists. No one was safe.

4. The Special Prosecutor. I must admit that I forgot we even had one. After election 2004, I wracked my brain trying to figure out how to get one of these. I even started a DU thread about ways to force Gonzales to appoint one. Then somebody pointed out that there already was one, and I breathed a big sigh of relief, because no prosecutor could fail to notice all the criminal activitry that is going on at this WH. When the press started to get wind of what Fitz was doing, suddenly a chink appeared in the armor of invulnerability.

Now, combine the economic crisis, the spurned lover, the fear factor and the smell of blood and you get a press that is damned hard to control.

If W. was only semi-literate, he could read this himself and figure out how to get his WH in order and raise his sagging opinion polls. And he wouldnt need the advise of Karen or Condie or his wife or his mom or any of the other bimbos who pretend to give him advise but really just massage his ego. Rove wont tell him, because Rove is part of the problem.

It showed that a policy of stinginess toward government aid agencies combined with a callous disregard for competence in their leadership could have deadly consequences for a whole lot of people in this country.

It showed that yes, there is a place for big government besides military adventurism and fattening corporations.

Mostly, it showed that the emperor indeed is unclothed, that his whole staff are so busy chasing fireflies that they miss the oncoming, very real freight trains in life.

That's where the real tipping point for both the press and the public occurred.

Same for Cindy Sheehan and all the other big stories that are breaking balls at the WH this year.

The four things I selected are 4 things which the WH did wrong, and which they have the power to correct. Fitz was technically Ashcroft's mistake and they cant get rid of him now, but W. could do something to negate the Fitz effect (Im not saying what) that would actually be good for his party in 2008 (again my lips are sealed).

until the aftermath of Katrina showed what total bunglers they really are.

Remember also that the press follows public opinion when it must, otherwise it follows authority.

who are pissed off about US torturing there so they don't have to torture here and the
Iraqi people who have caught on that their country is being laid waste and their oil has
been plundered.

Over the summer when Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a dead soldier went to talk to bush and he couldn't take the time to see her - rather had to spend time riding his bicycle - the media played it up and it showed bush for the asshole that he is.

Then, bush stayed on vacation - even travelling to California, while New Orleans was devastated by a deadly hurricane that everyone knew was coming.

The media could no longer hide the fact that bush is an asshole.

Cindy's vigil made his vacation photo-ops a PR disaster when Katrina hit.

It made my day after watching Bush get a second term because the MSM sat on those damned exit polls.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42134-2005Jan27.html

FCC Drops Bid to Relax Media Rules
Agency Sought Fewer Limits on Ownership

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 28, 2005; Page A01

The Bush administration yesterday abandoned plans to ask the Supreme Court to allow a set of controversial rules to take effect that would have loosened restrictions on how large media conglomerates could grow.

The decision disappointed big media companies that had lobbied heavily in support of the rules and thrilled those who had fought to keep tighter rein on how much control one company should have over television, newspapers and radio stations in individual markets.

I think it was greater than what you've listed all put together. There's just no way you can "spin" or "Swiftboat" your way around the destruction of a major American city.

There is a thing in law, "Res ipsa loquitur", meaning, "the thing speaks for itself."

The spectacle of death, destruction and misery that was Katrina, the manifest callousness of the government towards those who are poor and black, the total indifference of the shrub, strumming his guitar in San Diego, the arrogant idiotic incompetence of Brownie... all of these things, spoke for themselves.

There were many attempts, vigorous ones, to lay it on Nagin, Blanco, some idiot who supposedly shot at a helicopter, to lay it on people looting.

It wouldn't take though, because the thing spoke for itself.

Katrina, and the ongoing erosion of support for the Iraq adventure by the average American citizen, accelerated first by Cindy Sheehan then by the Katrina debacle.

Shrubco might be in a very different position, politically, to fend off the Fitzgerald investigation, the Abramoff fallout, the national discussion on Iraq initiated by Murtha, the DeLay indictment, if not for Katrina. That doesn't mean they could have dodged all these things forever, its just that they might have reached this point much later in the second term.

I think there is perhaps another factor.


Unspinnable stories.

When you charlie foxtrot situations like Katrina, Abramoff/DeLay/TopGun/DefenseContratorCumMoneyFunnelWithBonusCocaineIranContraElement, the Economy, and Election Fraud leakage, you create stories that cannot be spun, because the spinner is not God.

Things have gotten so far beyond KR's control that any focus on a new story, completely removes some other story from his control. He's good, has a good staff, and pockets deeper than anyone who isn't in the Whitehouse can know, but in the face of situations as horrid as Katrina, no one who can't just kill off all the witnesses can succeed. Surely Karl, who admires Lenin so much, should know that even Stalin failed at the same task, and Karl Rove is no Stalin.

The press was on vacation, and as you say, when required to earn their money the old fashioned way, they can earn it. But it is the sheer size and compelling drama of 2005's stories that make anyone who wanted to call themselves a reporter or editor go completely ape. These are horrible, juicy stories that make a train wreck look trivial.

Anybody with a notepad or camera can cover these stories. Many of them are no longer about philosophical arguments regarding capitalism, these are about the middle and working class, floating face down, like a New Orlean's senior citizen.

Karl's machine, even far better funded than a Louisiana Levee, cannot spin and tread water simultaineously, as soon as Fitz slams the lid shut, we will see the NeoCons start floating by, white and bloated, like the belly of a dead Mississippi catfish-- but far more responsive to prodding.

Think of it. Not even the 'War on Christmas' has traction. It has slipped from Karl's nerveless hands, as frenzy gives way to catatonia.

But yes, your post is spot on.

today that said ..

"Anatomy of a Victory"

"George W. Bush's plan to privatize Social Security, the centerpiece of his second-term agenda, is dead. Conservative pundit William Kristol argues that this Bush defeat began the unraveling of his presidency: "The negative effect of the Social Security is underestimated," says Kristol. "Once you make that kind of mistake, people tend to be less deferential to your decisions." There was an "entire Republican agenda, based on the idea that we reform these entitlement programs," says New York Times columnist David Brooks. "That's gone now because of the failure of Social Security." A remarkable progressive mobilization caused Bush's defeat--and progressives can learn much from the anatomy of that victory."


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051219/editors

You bring out really good points on why the bushits have lost their death grip on the corporate media which is key to losing the People.