Snatching a loss from the jaws of victory..again

Is there NO ONE running the communications department at the White House?

You kill the most wanted man on the planet, in a daring raid, and ever since, all we have seen on TV talking about it are BUSH PEOPLE.

This was in planning for at least EIGHT MONTHS. Surely in that long of a time, there could have been a roster of people ready to fan out onto the airwaves to "tell the story"... a UNIFIED story that laid it all out.

This is very reminiscent of the Health Care Issue in 2009. The republicans grabbed the bull by the horns and made it THEIR issue, even though everything they said was 99.99999% lies, innuendo & buffoonery of a level rarely seen before.

There should have been a deep bench of people ready to go on tv immediately, and for as long as any venues wanted them. Media abhors a vacuum, and they will always fill the dead air with something/someone. Republicans KNOW how to play this game.

No one ever "retires" from their stable of dis-info-speakers. They seem to always have a suitcase packed & ready to go anywhere, say anything that will justify the presidency of every republican since Reagan, even if all truth points to the utter failures those administrations were.

I am not advocating that we become the the yin to their yang, but the Obama White House should have had at least 30 people, ready to go on day OBL+1, so that if for no other reason, they took up airtime that we all now know has been generously doled out to republicans.

I just watched Dan Senior pushing the neo-con agenda in Afghanistan - Bin Laden was a side attraction. :puke:

to be "right" on issues and events.

Where is Bill Clinton on this?
Where is HILLARY Clinton, other than making COMPLETELY LAME-ARSE comments about "allergies"?!

No, instead we have a V-P who reveals the ID of the Commando team;

a CIA Chief Panetta who cannot withstand an interrogation by Limbaugh-lover Brian Williams and finds himself GIVING CREDENCE TO THE POSSIBILITY WE GOT INFO FROM the TORTURE POLICIES OF BUSHCO;

and a CREDIBILITY-DAMAGING CHANGING time-line story of the raid.

they have`t a clue about messaging to the masses.


clueless in washington dc.

:hi:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I am an avid supporter of Obama, but he cannot run EVERYTHING.. that's why there is a staff..

Whoever is in charge of communications there, needs to be re-assigned elsewhere..

There should have been a democratic ass in every chair..on every show.. and THEY should have been crowing about this achievement.. Obama should not have had to toot his own horn,... that's why presidents HAVE a communications department..

After a week of Bushies, we now find ourselves once again on the defensive side of the issue, and credit is being given to Bush. (even though in a smaller amount).. This event should have been a bright contrast between the administrations, and not a strident blurring of lines, so that a loser like Bush is getting accolades where none are due..

Just once, I would like to see THEM on defense, and us on offense..

yeah, that might work.

It seems to me that the networks set the agenda and invite the THs. I doubt if the problem was that the WH didn't have anyone to speak for the admnistration.

Perhaps if we had a liberal media (or even a politically neutral one), this wouldn't be an issue.

Hell, if we had anything remotely resembling the Fourth Estate left on the airwaves, it wouldn't be an issue. That's one of the reasons why I no longer watch TV (and even find listening to NPR harder to stomach these days.)

Yeah, Faux Noise (et al.) is just dying to get Democrats on the air during their hour of triumph.
:eyes:

Even if it is the truth against pug lies. They will and they have, since deregulation, spent 90% percent on praising pugs and fantasy and the other 10% tearing down democrats and reality.

Obama or his administration has little to do with it, other than supporting legislation that promotes this kind of unfair and unbalanced "news" aka propaganda. We live in corporate USA, not as we all are conned into believing, a democratic USA.

....everyone else get sprayed with bullshit.

i suspect they are not.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

the Sunday talking heads (I did watch a couple of times when Obama was elected to see if the balance changed with a Dem in the WH. It didn't).

So, do you honestly think that the entire Democratic administration and all the Dems in Congress and the WH haven't noticed? You gotta admit, at least some of them are smart people. You gotta admit they know about the Sunday shows and that they could get on if they got pushy about it.

Maybe the thread should be about why that is and not assume the Dems are idiots who don't know how the media works.

My theory is, it is no Obama's style, or he considers it distracting (someone goes on the TV and he spends the next week talking about what was said on the TV instead of getting shit done which Clinton would have loved but Obama may not) or they have information that it does no good, or those shows just turn into shouting matches with both sides looking stupid (think Jon Stewart on Crossfire) or....or....

I admit that for my personal entertainment on Sunday morning its a bummer but I don't rely on the TV for news anymore either. Kill your TV.

The problem was that the White House announced the OBL take down late last Sunday night before all the information was in. They then ended up having to back-track and revise their story when it became clear that they had some of the facts wrong.

I think this initial communications error threw them off-stride. Since then, the White House has been reluctant to add more details to the story.

Maybe that's why they held off with supplying talking heads for yesterdays talk shows, which they knew would be preoccupied with OBL questions.

it was better to make the announcement that night than to let Pakistan make the first statement.

:hi:

:*

Being happy with the result is all good.

Having the action spun by cable news neocon propagandists is not good at all.

People are happy with the result, and then credit Bush for it because of corporate Newspeak.

The dumbasses that gave Bush a 2nd term are convinced.

What's to be happy about with the representation unless you are a conservative?

Another Spare The Air day here in the Bay Area, with choking conditions expected in the vicinity of HP Pavilion. :eyes:

currently involved celebrated for a few hours and went back to work - where as BushCo has nothing to do but talk shows.

1) that the secrecy of the operation would not be harmed by prepping a roster of people months in advance. I think that telling attention seekers that we are abvout capture OBL would pretty much have doomed the operation. AND set up a scenario where other can accuse the POTUS of being more eager to take credit than to actually get the job done.

2) The assumption that cable news outlets are not exclusively owned by the opposition, used to frame policy debates and elections, and used to showcase GOP ideas is totally false. Many groups cannot buy time on the MSM because the MSM doesn't like their messaqe or positions. There is also a long list of people who are essentially blacklisted by cable news because they don't play by the rules.

I couldn't disagree more with the OP. This is the perfect time to expose and destroy cable news. They have been decimating their own audience for years but this is an opportunity for them to lose the last big lump. They are taking the position that the killing of OBL is both insignificant AND a major Bush accomplishment. They are destroying the last shreds of their credibility. They don't cover the wars or many other things of great significance so they are forcing Americans to turn to other sources for information.

You can bet they would have gone if they were invited

You know how they like to spew bullshit about Democrats being "weak on defense" or "weak on terrorism"? Bin Laden's demise has effectively flushed that bit of nonsense down the toilet.