Posted on 03/02/2006 3:02:50 PM PST by MikeA
Some say Dick Cheney is toast. He's too hot to handle, throw him over the side if he won't drop himself into the waves. Don't look now, but that isn't water surrounding the Bush ship of state. It's gasoline.
Have you ever noticed how on a scale of one to 10, every untoward event in the life of the Bush presidency goes straight to a 10?
The Abu Ghraib photos? A 10 forever. Dick Cheney catching a hunting buddy with some birdshot? An instant 10. The Bush National Guard story? Total 10. How can it be that each downside event in this presidency greets the public at this one, screeching level of outrage and denunciation by the out-of-power party and a perpetually outraged media?
There was a time when what's been called news judgment would deem some stories a five or six and run them on page 14, or deeper in the newscast. Back then the Senate minority leader wouldn't bother to look up from his desk. Not with this presidency. Every downside event--large, small, in between--plays above the fold on the front page now. And when Dick Cheney accidentally pops Harry Whittington, old Harry Reid jumps up from his Senate leader's desk faster than a Nevada jack rabbit to announce, one more time, that this "is part of the secretive nature of this administration."
If it all seems more than a little tiresome, if you wish it would all just go away, well, maybe that's the point--their point. Induce swing voters to seek respite from the Bush experience.
Absent any fresh or positive message for voters...try winning by turning politics under the Republicans into an experience of unrelenting discomfort?
Why not make the public just want to throw in the towel on the Republican "experience"?
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
You can read the rest of this incredibly insightful piece on the Wall Street Journal's free site. You don't have to be a subscriber to go there:
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post_article?forum=news
No one has done a better job of nailing it as to what the Democrats and their media lapdogs are up to in coming up with the "Bush scandal" dejour to scream headlines with. Every week they come up with something new, even when it's old news such as this week a long ago released videotape of the president's meetings about Katrina that the ADMINISTRATION gave to the AP back on August 28th. And of course last week it was their misrepresentation of the ports deal, then prior to that the Cheney shooting, wiretaps before that and on and on.
For those of you who remember, the 2004 election year was exactly the same with week after week the media blowing some story way out of proportion and dialing it up to a 10 on the hysteria meter. They're just using the same playbook this time around. We can all hope it will begin to just bore the American public and they'll begin to just glaze over at the latest "Bush bash of the week club" offering from the MSM.
But it has the potential of tiring Americans on Bush and the Republicans as Henniger warns. Democrats saw how exhaustion over the Clinton presidency helped put Bush into the White House in 2000. They're hoping the same strategy will fatally wound him for what remains of his presidency and turn him into a premature lame duck. What's disgusting is that the Democrats have the news media's full cooperation in this unseemly strategy.
Whoops, I posted the wrong link to the entire article. Here it is: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110007980
It's an adaptation of 'Say something often enough and people will believe it", which the dems use ALL the time.
I think that's exactly it. I mean, which of us isn't just sick of reading about non-stop crises. Some of us recall when Richard Nixon, near the end of his presidency, came down with phlebitis. Newsweek did a cover with a caption like "Now, Illness . . . " which translates, "Here's even more bad news about Tricky Dick." I think that's how most people finally took it: Nixon was unrelenting bad news.
We didn't have Free Reublic in 1989.
Repeat a lie often enough....
"We didn't have Free Reublic in 1989."
Let's hope you're right. But the MSM can still generate a lot of buzz.
Rampant abuse of freedoms leads inexorably to curtailment of those freedoms--in other words, a backlash to dictatorship. It's happened before in history. You can't have liberty without wisdom--and it seems our press is sorely lacking in sagacity.
I notice after turning my iPod up full volume in the subway, after a while, it ceases to be loud enough. I no longer experience the music as intensely. In fact, it wears me out after a while and I turn it off... yeah, there's an analogy here...go ahead, MSM, deafen us...hasten your demise.
I can tell you the MSM is certainly influencing my opinion. I never let a Bush bashing story on tv go by without telling my three sons that this is all MSM hogwash and propaganda, and the talking head are just mindless robots doing the bidding of the DNC.
That's certainly their intention, but it didn't work in 2000 or 2004.
Now, consider that the news media has fewer subscribers/viewers today than in 2000.
Likewise, consider that our labor unions are smaller today than in 2000 (e.g. the AFL-CIO has lost over 6 million members in the past half-dozen years).
So the Democrats are repeating their same plays, but with an even smaller core than they had back in 2000 (when they lost).
What makes them think that they can win now?!
It will backfire. The dems and msm will be perceived as the nattering nabobs of negativism that they have been for the last 40 years.
And they wear the people out.
that is, We didn't have Free Republic in 1989.
...and you can add ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, the NY Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, and their ilk across our once great Country.
IMO, the MSM thinks it's invulnerable... it got away with forging documents designed to affect the results of a presidential election... pretty heddy stuff. Nobody was brought up on charges... no one.
Until their offices are stormed by a disgusted citizenry... they will expand their efforts in denying Americans the truth.
Spul Chik strikx agn.
I only did that because...it was gnawing at me.
you said it -- plain and simple.
Same author's newest editorial in WSJ is great as well...
"Senator Yosemite Sam
Washington defines politics downward.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, February 24, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST "
Oh my goodness, who believes anything they read or hear in the secular or liberal media these days? Don't tell me! Too many do - sob! The media hasn't made a dent in my belief in GWB. Some of our President's policies have made a few dimples, though. Like our insane open border policy, like our urging Israel to give up territory to the Palestinians. I don't THINK GWB had an "off" button to push when he learned of approaching Katrina, or that leaving his ranch a few days earlier would have made a difference. No, inspite of some of my larger concerns with this administration, I must respect MOST of what he has accomplished so far. I must also trust that most thinking Americans cannot be led astray by those accusatory headlines in the birdcage liners every day.
It's interesting isn't it how with every one of these Bush bashing media freak-outs, when you dig just under the surface you find they're based on lies, distortions, historical revisionism and some Democrat's spin on the events. I would say 95% of the time you can debunk a media Bush bashing story with just a couple minutes of web research. That's why whenever there is one, I almost always know it is a lie without even doing any further research. But I always do just to have the substance to rebut their bull with.
Yeah, I loved the Yosemite Sam piece too. It was a perfect follow on article to this one. The Yosemite Sam analogy was dead-on.
The sad thing is that in the latest frenzy, the ports debate, conservatives are pouring gasoline on the lib's fire.
for later
An interesting comparison would be to go back and review the broadcast stories on Vince Foster and Monica. None of these stories was ever told with the sense of disapproval or outrage. In fact, I got the impression that the Clinton stories were reported fairly objectively, just concisely laying out facts without editorial head shaking or eye rolling. The big difference was the MSM reported those stories only once, and after that it was 'old news'. They never gave them the repetition, ad nauseam, that bad news about Bush gets.
"conservatives are pouring gasoline on the lib's fire."
It really is sad to see so many otherwise good conservatives drinking the media's Koolaid on this ports issue, not realizing it's just all part of the media's disinformation campaign to keep the pressure on the Bush administration and to wear people out on Republican governance.
Unfortunately since it feeds into their prejudices, too many conservativews were willing to swallow the media's misrepresentations about the terminals operations issue and just took the bait. Fortunately many are taking the time to inform themselves and slowly they're coming around to realizing they were taken on a major flight of fancy by the demagogues in the Democratic party and their media lapdogs. I hope these people have enough shame to be embarrassed when once they come back down to earth.
What? Was there some news involving Dick Cheney? Oh, yeah, didn't he go hunting with a buddy of his? It was some time ago, I think. How did that all work out?
bump
Fox did a great story on the port deal last night or the night before- interviewed a former Marine longshoreman who's worked the port for 29 years. He was really great explaining how it works and saying that all the talk was baloney. I really hope alot of people saw that.
Tonight on Brit's show, Bill Sammon, author of "Strategery" called the AP and old media reporting on the "new video tape" journalistic fraud. He sure did hit the nail on the head. Indeed, the media was even in attendance during that videotape, as per Brit, and there was nothing "exclusive" about it as presented by the AP and old media. These people make me sick, and yes, the backlash will be on the media, not on the President (eventually). The truth always outs itself.
I would bet you that scumbag David Gregory doesn't even remember Harry Whittington's name.
I just saw that, it was great! You are right, the truth comes out, and thanks to Fox and the internet, more people learn the truth. Far too many people are still headline skimmers and MSM watchers, though.
Spiro? Is that you?
"We didn't have Free Reublic in 1989."
Bush's fault.
Yup. That was very well done.
And to think that good old Prosecuter Fitzgerald believed the old media proven liars over Libby. Boy what a fool he will be shown. I so look forward to seeing Russert, et al, on the stand as the defense attorney's show time and time again what absolute liars and propagandists they are.
YES! Sammon was excellent!
I think the MSM is loosing their following exactly for the reasons you outlined, and people have grown ever more weary.
The people are also finding other outlets....talk radio and the internet.
They knew something was wrong about the MSM but couldn't put their finger on it.
the "homeless" disappeared from 1993-2001, before coming back with a vengeance about 30 days after GWB took office.
I switched over to watch CHris Mattheews show for a minute or two tonight -- and surprise of all surprises. The deputy press secretary (Trent Duffy???) was on, and he was excellent!!!! He needs to be front and center, and President BUsh needs to have Scott moved to another position. Following Trent was Governor Barbour who was also excellent. Chris then said he was going to have the democrat response, so I switched (having a democrat response on is a waste of time, since Chris is the democrat response anyway).
An intereresting quote from Pulitizer in the 1890's:
Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together," Pulitzer wrote. "An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations."
Scary!
A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself."
How prophetic is that!!! Look at how base our culture has become and how ignorant. People form ignorant opinions off of inaccurate and deceptive headlines. Reading is no longer valued. Research to learn the truth takes away time from "American Idol" and "Desperate Housewives." Americans buy into whatever the media spoon feeds them and remain ignorant on what the media refuses to report. Americans know more about the Simpson's than the contents of the constitution according to that study released this week. And a president who help revive their economy bringing it back from negative growth when he took office to one that grew at 3.7% GNP in the 2005 the same as a the "boomtown" 90s, gave them full employment, record home ownership, record numbers of jobs, protected them from further Al Qaeda assault in their cities for 4 1/2 years, and overthrew two terrorist regimes is reviled by the public largely because of what the media has told them to believe about the man. Pulitizers quote could not have been more dead-on if he had lived to see the times we're living in. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Good post.
Like minds....exactly the line that glared out at me! Is there any wonder we face the problems we do today!
I guess nobody has told the MSM that Bush and Cheney aren't running for re-election again. What a waste of energy on their part!
I like Heninger. But as you said this bashing doesn't make sense. I wonder how much of it is just irrational and uncontrollable hate.
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