This is from his introduction to his book called The Republican Noise Machine. It was revealing then, and it is going on now. We forget it for a moment, that the GOP has this powerful media blitzing organization. We forget it, and we start blaming our own for what the other side has done for years.
They are very adept at turning any issue right back on us, no matter how much merit our side has. They are excellent manipulators. They use words well. They are not afraid to take chances even if they are dead wrong on a topic. They are fearless.
From 2004:
Has the Republican Right hijacked politics?With the right-wing media now a seemingly permanent and defining feature of the media landscape, if Democrats cut through the propaganda and win back the White House in 2004, they still face the prospect of being brutally slammed and systematically slandered in such a way that will make governing exceedingly difficult. There should be no doubt that the right-wing media’s wildings of 1993 — which led to Clinton’s impeachment four years later — will be replayed over and over again until its capacities to spread filth are somehow eradicated.
He mentions how they went after each president and presidential candidate without any hesitation.
My memoir ended in 2000; what I did not fully comprehend then, but what is apparent to me now as I have watched the politics of the last few years unfold, is that the virus was not Clinton-specific. In fact, it had nothing to do with the Clintons per se; rather, in different strains, it would afflict any and every political opponent of the right wing, including Al Gore, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, and the mourners of Senator Paul Wellstone, every major Democrat seeking the presidency in 2004, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, and the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org. What we have here, as a criminal investigator might say, is a pattern.
Then came Al Gore:
The right-wing media broadcast this attack and similar attacks relentlessly, in effect giving the GOP countless hours of free political advertising every day for months leading up to the election. “Albert Arnold Gore Jr. is a habitual liar,” William Bennett, a Cabinet secretary in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, announced in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. “...Gore lies because he can’t help himself,” neoconservative pamphleteer David Horowitz wrote. “liar, liar,” screamed Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post. The conservative columnist George F. Will pointed to Gore’s “serial mendacity” and warned that he is a “dangerous man.” “Gore may be quietly going nuts,” National Review’s Byron York concluded. The Washington Times agreed: “The real question is how to react to Mr. Gore’s increasingly bizarre utterings. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines ‘delusion’ thusly: ‘The apparent perception, in a nervous or mental disorder, of some thing external that is not actually present...a belief in something that is contrary to fact or reality, resulting from deception, misconception, or a mental disorder.’”
This impugning of Gore’s character and the questioning of his mental fitness soon surfaced in the regular media.
Next came Howard Dean.
As I write in early 2004, the Republican Noise Machine is primed to run the same campaign of personal vilification in the 2004 presidential election, no matter which Democrat wins the nomination. An op-ed piece in the Washington Post by Charles Krauthammer has pronounced former Vermont governor Howard Dean “the Delusional Dean.” Krauthammer’s “diagnosis” rested on a transcript of a Dean appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. Through the use of ellipses, Krauthammer doctored the transcript to make his point.
As Gore’s experience demonstrated, Democrats ignore these attacks at their peril: Not only do such attacks confirm the preconceptions of Republicans but they shape the thinking of undecided voters and even of Democrats. One of the most frightening experiences I have had in recent years in talking with rank-and-file Democrats is the extent to which they unconsciously internalize right-wing propaganda. To add insult to injury, too many Democrats have a tendency to blame the victims of these smears — their own leaders — rather than addressing the root of the problem.
We internalize the propaganda and blame our own.
Bob Cesca's blog calls it
The Republican Distraction MachineHe quotes Greg Sargeant:
Multiple news accounts this morning report that Pelosi’s credibility is in question after yesterday’s press conference, in which she accused the CIA of lying about what they told members of Congress about the agency’s use of torture. This theme was sounded by MSNBC, WaPo’s Dan Balz, the New York Times write-up, and many others.
That’s as it should be. But I challenge you to find a news account that stated with equal prominence that the CIA’s credibility is also in question.
He points out that this is distraction from the real crooks and criminals and bad guys who were in charge and pushing for this policy.
Again, what's worse is that Pelosi's veracity (or not) is insignificant next to the bigger questions here. Questions that the establishment press aren't asking in lieu of this Pelosi business. The Torture-Iraq nexus is an explosive story -- so why all the attention on a Democrat who had nothing to do with authorizing torture and, with it, fabricating the case for war?
David Brock was right then, and it is still true now. The Republican Noise and Distraction Machine is out in full force right now.