Posted on 07/02/2007 1:05:16 PM PDT by hardback
On the morning the immigration bill died — again — the ideological Washington Times exposed a supposed plot on Page One: A photo of Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the liberal Democrat from New York, conspiring with a Republican “traitor” from South Carolina, Sen. Lindsey Graham, to put something over on the American people.
In reality, they could have been checking a takeout menu. That Thursday morning, however, Schumer and Graham were in agreement that the Senate should keep talking and voting on revising laws on illegal immigration.
To the conservative media, Schumer and Graham symbolized the enemy. Hours later, the senators’ cause was lost. And the new
media — websites, e-mails, conservative talk radio and television — scored their most clearcut victory since the reelection of President George W. Bush in 2004.
This time the new media did it without strings being pulled by Karl Rove, President Bush’s top advisor. Rove deployed these same forces under the mainstream radar in the election. This time Rove, and his president, were on other side, trying to move legislation they hoped would build an Hispanic Republican voting bloc and give Bush a shining legacy.
The dividing line in the aftermath between the new conservative media and the traditional mainstream outlets couldn’t have been sharper. National Public Radio dolefully headlined Friday morning that Congress was under attack for failing to pass the immigration bill.
Right wing radio talk show hosts couldn’t have been happier. Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity were exultant. Michael Savage told listeners on 400 stations that the defeat of the bill was the greatest moment of his life.
A CBS poll showed only 13 percent of those surveyed supported the effort that Bush, Schumer, Graham and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., were making.
If the poll is representative, then where were the other 87 percent getting their information, true or false, about the bill?
The pillars of the mainstream press, the New York Times and the Washington Post, covered the debate like a horse race, offering few details. Same for the networks. Cable news continued its obsession with murders and Paris Hilton.
The details were offered up daily by hundreds of cottage websites and conservative radio, talking to the heartland over the heads of insider mainstream reporters here and in Manhattan.
They were fed by analyses published by the conservative Heritage Foundation, and facts served up by Republicans like Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. The result jammed the Senate’s switchboards and fax machines. It clearly alarmed Establishment senators who supported the bill.
Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., mocked the notion that a government that could not process passports for its citizens could investigate and document more than 12 million illegal immigrants, and secure the Southern border.
The “Terrorism Assistance and Facilitation Act of 2007,” is what Sessions called it, pointing to holes in border enforcement the bill didn’t plug.
Sessions and the new media were aided by a number of elements: 1) Bush wasted six years of Republican congresses and tried passing it with the help of Democrats who had no interest in giving him a legacy; 2) It was a deeply flawed bill; 3) There had been no hearings on the measure.
The stunning victory scored by new media in this episode raises a big question for the power structure: The lobbyists, the political Establishment and their friends in the mainstream press.
How are they going to manage the message in the presidential election, when more and more people out there are looking elsewhere for details?
If we KNOW illegals are voting, then why the hell don't we put them in cuffs?
All this talk about illegals sweeping into power. Hell, they are already pulling the levers.
EXTRACTION mr bush!
. . . as opposed to the completely unbiased Washington Post?
This time Rove, and his president, were on other side, trying to move legislation they hoped would build an Hispanic Republican voting bloc and give Bush a shining legacy.
Does anyone think Rove or Bush could possibly be that dumb when 98% of the illegal aliens to be welcomed in by the blanket amnesty fit the profile of the perfect democrat voter-- poor, uneducated and easily led? Something like 45% of Hispanics were also opposed to blanket amnesty and these are the Hispanics who the Republican Party should be reacing out to . . . not those who are likely to become wards of the state.
bttt
...How are they going to manage the message in the presidential election, when more and more people out there are looking elsewhere for details?...
This dynamic will only accelerate with the passage of time. When smart people want details, they increasingly look for them online. The MSM spends too much effort “managing the message” and providing biased “analysis” to do the job they’re supposed to do, which is to give us the facts.
So if you want to know what’s really going on, you go to FreeRepublic, you go to the blogs like Real Clear Politics and NRO’s Corner, and you listen to talk radio.
All the African-Americans who hadn't already joined the Democratic party fled into its arms in a riotous rush.
Great idea, we need more than the bogus debate beaty contest routines, the New Media needs a platform to smoke out the real positions on the major issues!
Big victory. (/sarc)
True. Cuban Americans tend to vote Republican, but Mexican Americans and Puerto Rican tend to vote Democrat.
Talk about condescension - as if the other 87 percent is incapable of thinking from itself without direction from media outlets.
Yup. A regular "no-brainer" IMO.
You don't get the details at all in the mainstream media. They hit a story, devote 1/8th of a page or 30 seconds to it, and on they move.
Getting out these details is the power of the new media. A new law in Maryland allows convicted felons to vote after serving their sentence, another liberal tribute to our new Gov, Mr. Wonderful. What the Balto Sun never mentions is that the previous governor, a Republican, actually restored voting right to those convicted of ONE felony, after serving their terms. The new law applies to repeat-conviction felons of any crime, including murder, rape, child-molestation, except voter fraud....and voter fraud doesn't seem to even be possible by Dems in Maryland.
I respect anyone his point of view, but it is too bad that the left can argue without all the facts on the table due to their stranglehold on the MSM. Talk radio and the internet are upsetting their ability to lie by omission and to spin the facts for the mostly ignorant (not stupid, just uninformed) public. The Dem party must have an uninformed public to stay in power.
Demand a border fence! Build it NOW!! Beef up the border patrol and close our borders!
U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121
White House comments: (202) 456-1111
____________________________________________________________
You are relentless. Glad you are on our team.
Thanks! This is a war and we are the peasants vs. the knights. Fortunately, we are legion, where they are few.
....where’s are the thousands of views and hundreds of replies on the immigration threads? Where’s the fence?
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