How the Spying Story will Unfold and Fade.....sigh

This is worth a read for numbers 1 - 6. An article by Peter Daou that will make you depressed. Doesn't all this sound SO familiar???

http://daoureport.salon.com/synopsis.aspx?synopsisId=a6da2e05-c808-4f7e-9ab2-3d2a01a82a15


7. A few reliable Dems, Conyers, Boxer, et al, take a stand on principle, giving momentary hope to the progressive grassroots/netroots community. The rest of the Dem leadership is temporarily outraged (adding to that hope), but is chronically incapable of maintaining the sense of high indignation and focus required to reach critical mass and create a wholesale shift in public opinion. For example, just as this mother of all scandals hits Washington, Democrats are still putting out press releases on Iraq, ANWR and a range of other topics, diluting the story and signaling that they have little intention of following through. This allows Bush to use his three favorite weapons: time, America's political apathy, and make-believe 'journalists' who yuck it up with him and ask fluff questions at his frat-boy pressers.

8. Reporters and media outlets obfuscate and equivocate, pretending to ask tough questions but essentially pushing the same narratives they've developed and perfected over the past five years, namely, some variation of "Bush firm, Dems soft." A range of Bush-protecting tactics are put into play, one being to ask ridiculously misleading questions such as "Should Bush have the right to protect Americans or should he cave in to Democratic political pressure?" All the while, the right assaults the "liberal" media for daring to tell anything resembling the truth.

9. Polls will emerge with 'proof' that half the public agrees that Bush should have the right to "protect Americans against terrorists." Again, the issue will be framed to mask the true nature of the malfeasance. The media will use these polls to create a self-fulfilling loop and convince the public that it isn't that bad after all. The president breaks the law. Life goes on.

10. The story starts blending into a long string of administration scandals, and through skillful use of scandal fatigue, Bush weathers the storm and moves on, further demoralizing his opponents and cementing the press narrative about his 'resolve' and toughness. Congressional hearings might revive the issue momentarily, and bloggers will hammer away at it, but the initial hype is all the Democrat leadership and the media can muster, and anyway, it's never as juicy the second time around...

Rinse and repeat.

I'm praying that we don't....

I hope.

Other than offering cynicism. Since he has it all figured out and is a lot smarter and more capable than everyone else, it is up to him to do what he can to bring this to the conclusion he would rather see.

Cause cynicism alone is how lazy quasi-intellectuals who would rather bitch than act respond.

and hasn't since Bush was appointed President. Its the Bush Fascist Party.The party of corruption.

I agree wholeheartedly, with Daou.

Here's an example of the spin we'll be hearing more of from the right..

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/news/051220b.asp

With their attacks on the President's anti-terror policies, Democrats may risk appearing to be more interested in protecting the rights of terrorists than the safety of American citizens. That could help the President as he raises the pressure on Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act before the end of the year.

Nothing will come of this scandal, nothing has come of scandals past, and nothing will come from this one..

I predict that within 6 months, this will be as forgotten as the Downing Street Memos are today..

in the House yesterday, didn't he? :)

But he's one of the few decent Dems out there. What's become of the Downing Street Memo's? They were supposed to be the nail in Bush's coffin, undeniable proof that Bush mislead us into war, the "Smoking Gun". Instead, they're now limited to mention here or there.. But forgotten in the American public's consciousness..

rather because there is always a new one taking position. :)

Nothing sticks... It simply teflon's off.. and ends up in a filthy stew in the background. If I had a dollar for every scandal that was supposed to be "the one" I'd be a very wealthy man right now. I know, we need to try and be positive, try and hope for the best, but after all these disappointments, after all the hype over all of it.. Color me skeptical that anything would actually stick to this President and won't be covered up and forgotten by mainstream America.

It's that it doesn't stick in a way satisfies you. You want them to be run out of the White House by a pitchfork waving mob. OK, yeah, that does sound good. But that isn't the way it works. And what does it matter WHICH scandal topples them? So maybe it won't be the DSM. I agree that should have gotten more play. Maybe they won't be THE thing that topples Bush, but they are AMONG the things weighing him down. He is having a harder and harder time shaking things off.

Think of bubble boy as an evil PigPen. The swirl around him gets thicker and thicker. Watch.

We went through a very similar process with Nixon. No one thing will take W down or take the Thuggery out of power. The accumulation of illegalities will. And at some point the Republican leadership will tell him to take a hike.

Each and every time...This is the one baby! We got him this time! This whole regime will finally pay for their crimes! Yehaw! The Dems are on this one! We got Fitzy!!!!!! Impeachment, impreachment, he will be impeached!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then nothing.

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don't want to "go out of your way to make trouble." Why not? - Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

Just as getting rid of Nixon was. I'm just not being very clear, sorry.

Is that what you are saying? That it is time to move to Canada? No, wait...Canada will probably be the first place to go...

Daou ignores the fact that these scandals never really go away. No amount of "framing" can really disappear them. They may fade in the short run but become part of the baggage that BushCo has to carry.

Look at the 2004 Election. Not even the grossly militaristic Inaugural killed off that scandal. The consequences are still rolling in for BushCo. Same with the war. Same with the Patriot Act.

Daou is simply wrong.

It is just S-L-O-W to some of us. The general public has to absorb and digest information before reacting. Political figures are (for reasons I don't totally understand) required to sidle up to situations and not take the direct route. It doesn't mean it is being ignored or has no impact. A tide does not turn on a dime. And that is what is happening now. The tide is turning. Slowly, but turning. As sfexpat said, it takes many things piling on and slowing momentum. And when the momentum slows sufficiently, they are going to sink.

Between this and Fitzgerald's investigation, it's going to stick.

The reason being that the conservative establishment power base has abandoned Bush. He is no longer useful to them. Look for a severe change in circumstances in the not too distant future.

I loathe gratuitous pessimism as much as the next guy/gal, but other than how these repeated scandals have done a lot of real damage to the efficacy of this Administration, he's mostly on the money here.

This alone will not be the critical wound, I don't think. I do believe that the Dems will emerge a little stronger after the '06 elections, but I am not allowing myself to believe that corporate media will allow a real debate to take place that would ensure our re-taking either house of Congress.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try our best and work for local candidates, just that we should be realistic about how formidable a conspiracy we have for a foe.

I pretty much agree with his assessment, and the above poster who pointed out that every scandal is "the one" that will bring down the administration. How many times on DU have we become excited about the scandal de jeur, only to have it fade into the background? It was always "the one."

My hope is that all of the scandals will have a cumulative effect in the unconsciousness of the Independent voters in 2006 and 2008, and they will pull that Dem lever in response. But, wouldn't it be nice if they were voting FOR the Dem Party for it's ideals and policies instead of against the Puke Party for it's scandals? But, it's better to get the pukes out of office, then work on Dem policies and ideals later, I guess. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5653392&mesg_id=5653392


"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in "43" had come immediately after the "German Firm" stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in "33". But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.