Branded-How the media marginalizes opposition to the Iraq war by parroting Republican talking points

Branded by Drew Westen
How the media marginalizes opposition to the Iraq war by parroting Republican talking points.
Post Date Tuesday, November 20, 2007


From Blinded by the Right, in which he spoke of his experiences as a conservative "hit man," to his work with Media Matters, David Brock has made us all aware of just how easy it is for those on the right to refract data through the prism of radical conservatism and watch it spread like wildfire from The Drudge Report and The American Spectator to the most cherished outlets of the "liberal media." Every time the media (and even Democratic leaders, who often themselves become unwitting conduits for messages from the right) repeat the well-crafted, market-tested phrases constructed by a multi-billion dollar conservative messaging infrastructure--from "the war on terror" to "support our troops"--they are putting political capital into the piggybank of the Republican Party. (Both the media and prominent Democrats still too often repeat the phrase, "war on terror," which conflates the battle against Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups with the Iraq War, and "support our troops," which confounds concern for our men and women in uniform with support of their deployment to Iraq.)

A recent--and particularly insidious--case in point is an idea that has spread from right-wing pundits to Democratic strategists and prestigious media outlets: The notion of an unruly "liberal base" that is pulling the Democratic Party hopelessly away from mainstream America. While channel-surfing last month, I watched Tucker Carlson earnestly advise Democrats on the dangers that will befall them if they pay too much heed to the liberal rabble, particularly pajama-clad bloggers. But the more Democrats fall prey to the myth of the liberal base, the more they undercut the progressive values that unite Americans from the center to the left. And in so doing, they also unwittingly participate in a conservative branding campaign against the work of some of their most effective advocates.

For example, along with VoteVets, MoveOn.org has produced some of the most powerful television ads over the last several years in support of progressive positions, and they happened to have been well ahead of the curve in opposing two of the most egregious political acts in modern American history, the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the rush to war in Iraq. Yet a campaign by the right designed to deflect attention from the fiasco in Iraq had senators scrambling to censure the architects of a newspaper ad with an ill-advised title, when they had never censured the architects of the disastrous war itself.

When Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell made outrageous statements that make MoveOn's headline seem milquetoast by comparison (e.g., about gays and the ACLU causing everything from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina), the Republicans never considered censuring them. They simply waited until the storm blew over (if there even was a storm). But it didn't take long for a flood of Republican officials and candidates (such as presidential contender Fred Thompson) to call for all Democratic candidates to return any money ever donated to them by the group.

Conservatives have good reason to want to brand MoveOn as part of the out-of-touch, blog-infested version of the liberal elite: As Fox News's Major Garrett put it:

Here's a pop quiz on money in politics: Who gives more money to federal candidates, the National Rifle Association or MoveOn.org?

Answer: MoveOn.

And it isn't even close.

In the last two election cycles, MoveOn.org Political Action Committee spent more than $58 million in pro-Democrat political advocacy, according to Federal Election Commission records.

more...

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=879eba2a-a4c8-473e-8ed5-7fd8d5570566

I think the corporate news is the most powerful tool the Right have left.

Actually, it's about all they have left, and their numbers are plummeting. But the winger version of news that saturates Americans has inflicted near-terminal damage to democracy .

Every day--at DU and elsewhere--you see the ill effects of the right-controlled news on good people. There are millions of people whose entire reality is based on fifteen years of right-wing disinformation. No wonder that--fresh from an electoral landslide and virtually assured of another--Democrats are still having terrible morale problems, panic attacks, and premonitions of catastrophe. It's not their fault. Fifteen years of rigged elections and biased news will do that to you.

But it can be easily remedied. Simply avoid the corporate news like the plague. Avoid it as shrewd Russians avoided Pravda. I know it looks like the news, but it is enemy propaganda. It exists to weaken and demoralize the left.

individual to the media conglomerates who in turn promote the right wing agenda.

You pay to be immersed in their propaganda and pay for their yachts as well.

It's a brilliant scheme.