... for article, then #14 and #20.
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Posted on 10/20/2009 8:00:35 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Anita Dunn: How We Created Obama's Cult of Personality By Candance Moore Created 2009-10-20 10:45
For months NewsBusters has been reporting [0] how the media aided and abetted the creation of Barack Obama's Cult of Personality leading to his eventual election as the 44th President of the United States.
Eight days before his inauguration, Obama's Fox News-hating [0] communications director Anita Dunn and his digital strategist Ben Self, while at a conference in the Dominican Republic hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, confirmed the allegation in a tutorial they gave to President Leonel Fernandez and other government officials and guests on how to turn an unknown politician into a messiah.
On Sunday, World News Daily uncovered one of the nine videos [1] recorded that day which gave clues as to how the Obama campaign successfully manipulated the media to advance his cult like status on an unknowing public (video of part 8 embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t NBer Free Stinker):
ANITA DUNN, OBAMA CAMPAIGN ADVISER: But the reality is that whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, that a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying, as opposed to you know why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was. That we had a huge premium both on message discipline, on people in the campaign not leaking to reporters, on people in the campaign not discussing our strategy, and also on making the press cover what we were saying.
So, we no, one of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. We just put that out there and make them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter.
So it was very much, we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it. And it did not always make us popular with the press. But we, increasingly, by the general election, very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control. So, President - Senator Obama himself did a lot of local television. We went to as much live television as possible so it couldn't be edited when it came to him, it was live, so that he could speak in longer than a 12 second sound bite. So that what the voters heard, we determined as opposed to some editor in a TV station [...]
But no, you're right, we went around that filter.
Viewers who are willing to watch the entire lecture will be rewarded. In a rare case of total candor, Dunn admitted selling a presidential candidate to America that had almost no experience as well as controversial ties to former terrorists.
"In retrospect, it looks much easier than it felt at the time," Dunn said. "We made experience, which was a prime target of our opponent, we made it a negative trait."
Imagine that.
The concept behind the cult of personality emerged during this tutorial when Dunn moved to the subject of Obama's "scary friends" like William Ayers. Their strategy to overcome Obama's ties with a former terrorist was simply to divert the public's attention:
Barack Obama was the best answer to the "too risky" argument...when they heard Barack Obama and when they saw Barack Obama, he didn't sound scary. He didn't sound risky. He sounded like a president....the best answer to the argument that you couldn't trust him was to listen to Barack Obama.
Nevermind the fact that he did attend a radical church for 20 years as well as a party at William Ayers' house. All you need to know is that he sounds and looks charismatic.
With a compliant media willing to focus on his "rock star" personality, Obama got away without having to address many of his questionable friends that never even made it into the public discussion.
Seeing how well this method worked on Obama's church, the campaign decided to use his charm as an answer for most everything else. Self explained:
You can use it to amplify excitement that's already there...you have to create that value or enthusiasm for whatever it is you're passionate about, and then you can use technology, grassroots activism to make it bigger.
As a result, while Sarah Palin was being grilled on the Bush Doctrine and John McCain was hammered for his views on Iraq, the mainstream media couldn't get enough of Obama's celebrity status. Time and again, important issues were brushed aside in favor of sensational tingles.
As such, this conference essentially confirms all that NewsBusters had said throughout 2008: Obama's campaign chose to ignore a discussion on specifics, building their message simply on personal appeal, and his adoring media were there for him every step of the way.
Self described this process in chilling terms:
You bring these people together, what do you do with them? How do you transition those people you've collected...and get them to do what you want them to do. These are the Bible in many ways of new campaigns and organizing...
It's much like a relationship. You don't ask them out on a date and then the next day propose marriage. You have to bring them through the stages and develop this relationship...Make it more like they're reading a letter from their friends.
Most Obama supporters had no idea there was a purposeful strategy of fabricating an intimate relationship. Yet once again, the media chose to ignore all warning signs and encourage people to get swept off their feet.
Apparently NBC reporter Lee Cowan was serious when he said it was impossible [1] to talk about Obama objectively; it makes you wonder exactly whom Self had in mind when he spoke about getting people "to do what you want them to do."
Despite such nonstop cheerleading from most of the mainstream media, Dunn admitted that she was still not satisfied with Obama's coverage. Any attempt at objective journalism was seen as a "filter" that had to be bypassed:
So that what the voters heard, we determined as opposed to some editor in a TV station...But no, you're right, we went around that filter.
Dunn also complained about the media's habit of editing extensive quotes for time restraint. The campaign favored live interviews where nothing could be edited and Obama "could speak in longer than a 12 second sound bite."
The sound bite issue had been a problem for Obama early on. As Dunn revealed, instead of coaching their candidate to perform faster, they forced the press to play by their rules so that Obama could ramble on as long as he wanted.
The goal of this approach was to influence everything that appeared in the media:
...a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying, as opposed to why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was. That we had a huge premium both on message discipline, on people in the campaign not leaking to reporters, on people in the campaign not discussing our strategy, and also on making the press cover what we were saying.
Pay no attention to the fact that Obama fudged his data or cited information from questionable sources. Don't think about why Obama would want to divert your attention to a certain place.
Dunn wanted no analysis, no question of motives. All that mattered was repeating Obama's talking points, and when there was danger of this not working, or a reporter airing an unbiased piece that might appear negative, the Obama campaign responded by becoming more restrictive:
So it was very much, we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it. And it did not always make us popular with the press. But we, increasingly, by the general election, very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control.
After eight years of media complaints about the secrecy of the Bush administration, it would seem that such tactics from Obama would raise concern.
Yet once more, Obama's charm made up for controlling the media.
Predictably, the spin has begun to whitewash the findings of this conference.
Politico's Ben Smith on Sunday offered a sympathetic take [2] on Obama's plight as President "in spite of an independent news media."
If America truly had an independent news media, they would not have allowed the Obama campaign to manipulate them so easily. Maybe just as important, if the press believed in telling the truth, footage of this conference would have been analyzed nine months ago.
In the end, whether the media are ashamed to admit that they dropped their guard or they are still compliant in helping Democrats control the message, they had little interest in covering the truth behind the conference in Santo Domingo on January 12, and continue to give cover to those who manipulated them.
pffftt I actually reported this almost a year ago when Obama sent CNN to Indonesia (yes the Obama team sent CNN to Indonesia - Obama admitted it) to “debunk” the madrassah story - the truth is on my blog
Haven’t they exposed this a little early? Or are they so pleased with themselves that they just couldn’t help themselves?
ACORN voter fraud and the MSM elected Zero, IMO.
In an effort to prevent that, I think the MSM will support Obama no matter what happens. And that may save Obama, but it will surely kill the MSM.
Anita should have worked on “creating” a personality for herself, cuz hers really sucks.
Not to mention the dowdy librarian looks and lizard tongue.
Other politicians have worked their entire lives, struggled, sacrificed and weathered the worst for decades and yet remain unrecognized and unappreciated.
“O” has had it all handed to him- gratis – he has from the first, enjoyed the idiotic and mindless hero worship of his supporters without once having to account for himself in the way or to the extent that other politicians are answerable.
The MSM made him their particular SPOILED darling and propelled him to that most unwholesome level of self-righteous and smug complaisance which is so frightening to everyone who understands the historically familiar pathology behind that kind of perfect and complete subjectivity.
Judging by what Anita Dunn says, Beck is on target. Everything he says they ( Obamas Administration ) are guilty of, they admit to being guilty of in their own words. They don’t understand that because of Fox, we are on to them. There is no way the public will shun the only true Media that is still around in favor of an administration that proves themselves to be liars.
We have sick, demented, evil people in charge.
Nothing surprises me anymore. We have elected the enemy, and the MSM has betrayed America- they are quite simply the Fifth Column.
BFRL...
More and more, every day.
Barack Hussein Obama is THE ONE.
Just ask your government schooled child!
Under 3 minute video depicting how the Obama cultists resemble the cultists who worshipped that other guy 70 years ago in Germany:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u0GJSZttZE&feature=channel_page
Imagine how many papers they would sell if they turned on Obama and started reporting everything they have been hiding.
But they would rather drink the cool-aid and die along with their messiah I guess.
When Obama uses the media, he snaps his fingers, issues his soundbyte, and assumes they will take care of it. And they do, for the most part. Whether they will continue to abase themselves and grovel, with no compensating rewards of the kind clinton gave them--cocktails, ord'oeuvres, celebrities, constant pats to their self esteem--remains to be seen. Probably many of them are stupid enough to keep doing it forever.
So, President - Senator Obama himself did a lot of local television. We went to as much live television as possible so it couldn't be edited when it came to him, it was live, so that he could speak in longer than a 12 second sound bite. So that what the voters heard, we determined as opposed to some editor in a TV station.
The opposite of the McCain campaign, of course. And McCain's handlers hated Sarah Palin so much they DELIBERATELY did the opposite. They refused to let her speak live, but instead handed her over to two leftist stooges who could be relied on to edit her comments as destructively as possible. Which they did.
But they didn't handle McCain much better. Does anyone remember ANYTHING McCain said that was admirable or memorable, apart from his acceptance speech at the convention?
Obama is much like Stalin, of which it has been said,
“It wasn’t a cult of personality as much as it was
a cult of hypocracy.”
Yes and yes. I’m hoping their hubris will bite them on the a**.
Exactly! The definition of one. Ms. Dunn has quite a big mouth and I am sure she is being instructed to shut her Yenta yap. Is any of this news though. We know the empty suit Chocolate Messiah’s strategy is to create demons and manipulate the media. They are trying unsuccessfully with FoxNews just like they did with Rush.
It wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if zero weren’t half black.. and therefore immune from criticism by the MSM.
Our MSM is nothing but a bunch of adolescent groupies.
More sobering is the realization a few have now reached, that the media like MSNBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, and nearly the entire of the newspaper industry, all assiduously avoided reporting the truth of the lies the sonofabitch was telling in his 'image manipulation', and in so doing they eagerly transmogrified into the fifth coulumn enemy of we the people. ... And still no one seems able to build the durable guillotine this enemedia deserves.
“...Does anyone remember ANYTHING McCain said that was admirable or memorable ...”
I remember in one of the debates, discussing former Soviet republics, how McCain basically broke it down for everybody. Good, solid presentation.
And Obama basically said, “Um, yeah. What he said. Ditto.”
If Obama is the new Nixon ... I sure am looking forward to Watergate 2.
I think back to the criticisms levelled by BJ Clinton (”it’s a fairy tale”) and Geraldine Ferraro during the primaries, and how they were shut up. That CERTAINLY set the stage for what followed.
This carp should have been exposed back then, but for some reason the Clinton machine backed down. They could have done us all a big favor if they didnt back down and screamed about it from the rooftops.
Too late now...
I think the media is now at a fork in the road. They can either go down in flames with their messiah or they can turn on obozo. If they were to turn on him, their balance sheets would look a whole lot better, but add to this, I think if they turn on him, it will be nasty. They could use the excuse that they were lied to as an out never mind that they were in the tank for this goofball. Should be interesting.
“Does anyone remember ANYTHING McCain said that was admirable or memorable, apart from his acceptance speech at the convention?”
Yes - something about Obama would make a fine president - that we need not fear him :-)
As an ardent admirer of Chairman Mao, I am sure Anita Dunn knows a lot about creating a cult of personality.
Ping.
When it comes down to crunch time, the MSM will always act in their own self interest. Ideology will be sloughed off and left by the roadside in the end.
someone out there is doing a marvelous job of researching and archiving tape of wacko quotes from White House staff. This is so in-your-face it is going to make it REALLY hard for the MSM to follow Axelrod’s demand that they ignore Fox News
What will be interesting (but I think I know the answer to my question, of course) is whether or not the MSM looks at this and raises any issue with it. Wouldn’t you think that this would be an important issue for all the major news organizations to take up? And wouldn’t you think they would be forced to look in the mirror and at least raise the specter that they may have been used and manipulated?
Amazing... and sad.
... for article, then #14 and #20.
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Malignant 'bipartisanship' has gotten so obvious and even showing up in slugs like Pansey Graham, Ol'-Empty-a Snowe, Suz-vain Collins that one wonders if some soviet era mind altering microwave assault hasn't been discovered and implimented by the criminal enterprise democrap party? ... I mean, what could the democraps possibly have on the old fool that is so damning that he stands ont eh "D" side of the aisle while mouthing speciously that he is what Republicans must become?
WRONG! If Obama had his boys ( I'm only referring to "white" members of the administration) break into "watergate" the Washington Post wouldn't investigate - they would provide cover for him. "Deep Throat" would be arrested - and the NEW York Times would trash him... Trust me - you don't want "watergate" when the press is in the tank for the President.
For years I had been mystified by how Hitler and National Socialism had seduced Germany, a modern, industrial, and highly educated nation. In light of recent events in the U.S., I have a hard time remembering what exactly I found so mystifying.
“For years I had been mystified by how Hitler and National Socialism had seduced Germany, a modern, industrial, and highly educated nation. In light of recent events in the U.S., I have a hard time remembering what exactly I found so mystifying.”
After reading this article, I got the same feeling. Just hope the final outcome isn’t similar.....
I was just listening to Glenn Beck on the radio. He played an exerpt of Britt Hume Laughing out loud at the fact that Anita Dunn (who has mysteriously disappeared since her stupid statement about Fox news) “looks to Mao for advice” and that Beck set up a Red Phone with a man in Maoist drag manning it. However this time they were not laughing at Beck, they were laughing at Dunn. Do you think that the MSM is finding their back bone?
I would name her Anita Dunn-Goebbels, Propaganda Minister of the 21st Century!!!
And most importantly, the RACE CARD syndrome!!!
Believe me on this. My former neighbor, a German lady now 105 years old, and otherwise completely sane and rational- LIKED Hitler. She attended a parade, SAW him and was so moved and impressed that she did NOT question him or his plans. This was a grown, educated and intelligent adult...like MANY who supported the lunatic.
To this day, she believes he was right.
If sane and PROPERLY educated people are so emotionally swept away... think what generations of shamefully dummied down US voters ‘see’ in “O”.
Read your Spengler. It will all be reduced to money and blood... sooner than you know. Reason and restraint are foreign concepts!
“When a people lose their humility, they are prey to EVERY fanaticism on earth”
When I see Howie Kurz (media columnist for the Washington Post) and others at the NYT and big broadcast channels news desks covering this and raising some concerns. If only Brit and Glenn and Rush are protesting (along with the author of this article, whose name I can’t remember or spell), then the Obama Administration will have achieved its strategy of controlling the media and making us all subservient to the State. Scary.
The latter, and it is written: “Pride cometh before a fall.”
Obamacare Macht Frei!
Give them time, ratings do matter! If the rest of the MSM doesn’t join in soon they will have turned Fox into a ratings giant (even bigger than now). Then all these inane little interviews that they are getting exclusively (from the admin) will be seen for the useless propaganda they are.
Good one. Nice graphic. Love to see it on the front page of the NYT.
Yeah, right!!
Dunn’s persona is well developed, that whole look and way of speaking are something she’s worked for .. to look and sound dowdy, so that she would be taken seriously as a woman with ‘gravitas.’ They can’t stand the Palin template that goes contrary to dowdy.
Connecting the dots between that paper and this article tends to imply that Obama is as much under the control of his aides as the media is.
What acceptance speech?
Well-developed or not, it still sucks, as does her appearance. That reptilian thing with the tongue is, er, unique as well.
That tongue thing DOES set her apart, but Nancy Pelosi is always doing a tongue thing, too.
I have no idea why so many Dem women work so hard to be so unattractive. Most don’t have to work at it at all ;)
To borrow a phrase from Marc Steyn’s recent column on this subject, if I were to say that “Mao murdered 70,000,000 Chinks,” would Anita get mad at Mao for murdering 70 million people—men, women, and children—or would she get mad at me for saying “Chinks”?
I’m afraid the answer is all too obvious.
(Also, I’d better add that that was what grammarians call a conditional statement, contrary to fact. If it were in Latin, the verb would be subjunctive. I didn’t actually say that.)
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