Century of Smear: Obama, Rush Limbaugh, and Wikipedia

Never in the history of the English language has the word "smear" been as widely used as it is today. There is good reason for this. Politicians "smear" each other freely, even if they belong to the same party; and then the same politicians who were on the verbal attack cry, "Smear!" once their campaign fails. Business men lose money in ill-considered deals and, of course, it wasn't misjudgment or, a word that probably has never been used less than it is today -- failure -- but a "vicious" "smear", a "campaign", a "cabal."

The sad truth is that there actually is a basis for the accusation since everyone, it seems, instead of doing their jobs, are busy smearing others. This couldn't be more painfully obvious today, or this week. The brilliant Camille Paglia (who has the gift of becoming more and not less interesting with age) pointed out in Salon that Obama's "smirky" smearers have been busying themselves so assiduously with Rush Limbaugh that they forgot they have a second job: helping America's chief executive govern the country. Rather, Paglia says, these "flacks, fixers, and goons" launched the ridiculously named "Rushbo" operation, to which valuable hours of conference call consulting were devoted to attacking, or in other words promoting, the right wing's favorite radio host. Could there be more of a "smear" than a personal attack on a private citizen led by the president's top aides?

Rush Limbaugh, of course, cannot be exculpated from charges of smearian. Smear is a part of Rush Limbaugh's business -- though certainly not all of it -- and Mr. Limbaugh does an excellent job of greasing his opponents with political lard. But Rush Limbaugh is not an elected official, and nor is he a journalist, properly speaking. He is a radio host, a soap-box stander, and his job is to sometimes guide but mostly articulate and excite the political sentiments of his audience.

The problem is that politicians have begun to act in a similar fashion -- like "an oafish bunch of drunken frat boys", in Camille Paglia's words. And an even more serious problem is that journalists have also grabbed the political beer bong of smear and are now drunk on the stuff.

Sadly, the blogosphere, which has created some of the most important innovations in journalism in the last decade, which has launched many of its most important personalities, and which will one day be part of a 21 century journalism renaissance, has also led the way in the field of smear. Many bloggers avoid this and follow some kind of code (which might simply be called honesty). But many don't, and instead of disagreeing with politicians or journalists, they open up with epithets, because that's all they have to go on.

This was on full display recently regarding a relatively minor story about Wikipedia's editing practices on President Obama's Wikipedia page. It has long been known that Wikipedia, much like Digg, is not the glowing bastion of open-source free speech that it presents. The majority of its pages are maintained and written by a dedicated core (i.e. an elite), and the top administrators of the site have the ability to do whatever they want with their website. One journalist, Aaron Klein, World Net Daily's Jerusalem bureau chief, noticed this, looked into it, and wrote a story.

As is standard journalistic practice, Klein "tested" the story by having his own researcher attempt to make changes to the page. The changes (I'm not exactly sure what they said), were deleted within minutes, and the Wikipedia user account eliminated.

Many people have many things to say about Aaron Klein and even more things to say about World Net Daily. I often disagree with WND's positions on issues (and preferred political leaders). But I have never read a report by Klein which raises questions about his sourcing or accuracy. A reader of Klein's articles, which are often reported directly from the lion's den of Islamist terror, could grumble at his conclusions, but his journalistic methodology is scrupulously sound.

It can only elicit a sigh of tiredness, of boredom, or pity for a beaten dead horse, to see another smear-blogger going after a journalist because he didn't like the journalist's conclusions. A blog called ConWebWatch is doing just this, and to support the argument drums out epithets in the place of evidence, and guesswork in place of investigation. "Cronies", "sockpuppet", and other tired metaphors of political accusation are hurled, insinuations are made, and the mores of journalism take another beating. And for what? A story that calls into question the already questionable practices of an encyclopedia website.

The bigger question here faces American society on a whole. As the blogosphere increasingly becomes the place where news stories are grown and opinions are hatched, it must also take care that it's not the place where scandal-mongering is perfected and careless rumor-milling is made. Many Americans believe that the election of President Obama represents a revolution of political values -- towards transparency, fairness, and a levelheaded social temperament that politicians call "bipartisanship." Hopefully, this all comes true. But if the hands of the American body politic are perpetually smeared with political grease, how could we possibly build anything worth keeping?

Comments

[LewDan]

Rush Limbaugh makes his living smearing elected officials and your claiming elected officials shouldn't respond because---?

You offer no legitimate reason. You simply state as fact the absurd position that "elected officials" should be powerless against "drive-by pundits."

Neither do I share your disdain for "smears." They are the result of, and a small price to pay, for having an alternative to traditional media "gate keepers." And they are nothing new. That an informed public is required is neither a concern nor a drawback -- nor, for that matter, anything new either. At least now we have the means to be informed.

[larry278]

If you use your favorite search engine to look for Wikipedia, you'll find other sites in addition to Con WebWatch which augment &, often, supersede Wikipedia, the topics Wikipedia covers & provide interesting alternative coverage to the coverage Wikipedia provides. Those who are given to use Wikipedia as their sole source soon learn to use other sources to augment Wikipedia. Wikipedia does make errors & sometimes Mr Wales & his associates take an unduly long time to correct errors. There are perils to using only 1 source. There are times when the constantly revised Wikipedia is as inaccurate as the constantly revised, current edition of the venerable, Encyclopeadi Bratinnaica often is. Publishing can be a vicious, unforgiving, business.

[ESerafina42]

"The changes (I'm not exactly sure what they said), were deleted within minutes, and the Wikipedia user account eliminated­."

If the guy at World Net Daily wouldn't reveal what the changes he made on Wikipedia were, then you have no business being shocked (shocked!) that they were deleted. How do we know that they didn't DESERVE to be deleted - possibly tired, hackneyed stories about Obama's citizenship? Let him tell us what he put up there, so we can determine for ourselves whether Wikipedia was wrong.

I wouldn't defend Wikipedia on every front, but they've gotten plenty of flack for incorrect information ending up on the site, and particularly on political figures, they've got to keep a close eye for jokers and people with more objectionable agendas. I'm sure that Obama's page is VERY closely monitored.

[LMPE]

Imagine being an alien coming to earth and reading all these different opinions that various websites espouse. When you see two totally different - but self-assured - assertions about a certain topic, you're going to wonder how they could both be true. And then they both disappear. You're going to wonder what's going on here. Something fishy...

Every time that I've written something on Wikipedia, it's been about the times that a movie or cartoon spoofed something.

[Travelinman]

Yes, it certainly is sad the way Rush is being pilloried. It's almost as bad as when Carl Rove crucified Dan Rather.

[rshrink]

Yes, but in this case, it is well deserved.

[rshrink]

Human Beings are born manipulators, yes, it is in the program from the beginning. You can see it in children's behavior. Children can play one parent off another in an attempt to get what they want. As people mature, they can learn other skills which are more acceptable. Some don't learn these skills such as; cooperation, negotiating, learning and teaching with courtesy. Limbaugh has not learned these skills. He also has a simplistic view that people are either good or bad. He is like Bush II in that way. No wonder he supported him. Limbaugh is basically an angry and paranoid person. He sees bogeymen out there. Limbaugh promotes the identity of the anti-intellect, anti-professional, anti-science, anti-education, and sees himself as someone who will take on those “elitists” and show them how he can be bigger and more powerfull and he doesn't need their credentials to do it.

[rshrink]

cont.

He is likely reacting to his parents who thought he was a poor student and one who was disinterested in facts. He was the son whose parents were thinking, he is going to fail. He is an embarrassment to the family. (He dropped out of school to become a disc jockey.) Therefore, he is a person who has something to prove. The “elitists” that Limbaugh refers to are emotionally speaking, his parents. He is angry with them and wants to prove that he is not an embarrassment and in fact, he is a very important person with a lot of influence. So, he has reached out to others who, like him, feel disenfranchised. He has given them the reassurance that they crave. He has elevated their sense of self. Not only are we Limbaugh supporters not inferior, in fact, we are superior. We practical folk know things that others don't know. We are more moral, more righteous and have a real folksy character that the intellectuals are lacking.

[rshrink]

cont.

“At War with Words,” author Dedaic asserts that Limbaugh has created an “otherness­.” He has an “us” and “them” perspective on life. He and his followers are the “us” and the “elitist” by virtue of education, profession and credentials are the “them.” Limbaugh uses words to additionally identify the them such as; socialists, communists, liberals, elitists and want to define the “them” as social engineers, tree huggers, people who cater to the enemy, spotted owl lovers, and on and on. Limbaugh will pick representatives of these “socialists,” and then attach that trait to all “liberals.­” It is a clever game and one which has worked to create wars over and over again in the past. If one identifies with some element that Limbaugh portrays as a bad guy, then the natural inclination is to fight back.

[rshrink]

There really isn't a way to win with a Limbaugh. If there is no response, he and his followers would take that as a reinforcement of their position. If one does contest Limbaugh's rants, then the followers have been schooled on how to respond. They only respond with their cliche comments, often having little to do with the issue brought up initially. This is where the “dittohead” element comes in. Limbaugh also is good enough to tell his followers who they should not listen to and makes it clear by labeling them clearly as the “them,” by using the liberal, socialist and other perjoratively transformed labels. This was how he has steered his listeners away from mainstream media, important if you are going to build your forces.

The problem is probably obvious here. It is devisive. We need to remain a “united” states and this is in opposition to that idea. We are a diverse society. Our success relies on the success of diverse groups, not on the success of dittoheads.

[rshrink]

rshrink (Anonymous) says…

From Wiley Interscience:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jo…

“abstract
This study investigates the media's potential to affect audiences' interpretations of news events. It compares perceptions of the causes of the 1996 presidential election outcome across four media consumption groups: listeners to the program of Rush Limbaugh, listeners to other political talk radio, consumers of mainstream news media, and nonconsumers of news media. Limbaugh listeners were more likely to discount substantive election explanations than were consumers of other types of political talk radio, consumers of mainstream news media, and nonconsumers of news media. These differences in interpretation parallel differences between the content of his program and that of other media.”

[BethStuart]

I have similar doubts about Wikipedia's objectivity. A couple of weeks ago, I looked at Allen Stanford's page on Wikipedia. Some of it was directly copied from Stanford's own website. Not suprisingly, it described Stanford in glowing terms.

[ObjectiveRealist]

Did you login and add to the article? I've contributed to a couple pieces on Wikipedia that I found wanting. They were not controversial, just incomplete. I kind of enjoyed it.

[Terry Krepel - Huffpost Blogger]

Here's the link to my original ConWebWatch article, if you want to read for yourself:

http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/blog/index.blog/1889910/is-aaron-klein-writing-about-himself/

Here's the expanded version of it at HuffPo:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-krepel/worldnetdaily-manufacture_b_173326.html

[ObjectiveRealist]

Thank you.

[ObjectiveRealist]

Based on those, it looks like Ashley is defending the instigator / offender. No motive is evident to me so far.

[rshrink]

cont. from below:

If someone would have just came in and left things alone and sat on their backside for eight years, things would be considerably better. Limbaugh has a big share of responsibility for these tragic circumstances. How much does someone have to be in denial to continue to subscribe to Rush's ruse.

[rshrink]

Bush II was a tragedy still unfolding. I can only see him getting a worse legacy as time goes forward. He overlooked the urgings of several people who feared that an attack like that on 9/11 was immenent, so he could spend time on his ranch. He was busy cutting taxes for the wealthy and trying to privatize social security which practically no one wanted. He then launched us into a needless war to get Saddam. No doubt we could have bought Saddam off for a tiny fraction of the cost of this war, not to mention all the needless suffering and dying. He put incompetent people in positions of power in government that allowed more problems to result from Katrina, didn't pay attention to the evidence being brought forward about Maddoff, had no interest in making sure that banks and mortgage companies and credit companies in general were operating ethically, encouraged sending jobs out of the U S, now has nearly bankrupted the country, did nothing to help with the unemployment problems and healthcare, denied problems with the environment, ignored science in general and I am certain many of you could add to this list and feel free to do so and Limbaugh was right there pitching for Bush, claimed responsibility for getting him elected two times, when we could have had rational people leading the country that would have prevented all of this from being necessary.

[arvay]

The blogosphere is largely self-correcting, and a valuable source of information blocked by the incompetence and political prejudices of our media.

Our blindfolded "coverage" of Gaza is the best recent example. Major media outside the US covered it in detail, or captive "journalists" kept coverage minimum. But now we have other sources of information, and we can comment.

Paglia is stimulating but she's most effective as an occasional spice, not a the main information meal.

And the Democrat strategy is brilliant. Rush isn't being "attacked," he's being goaded into making ever more over-the-top statements, including his ability to force REAL political Republican leaders to publicly eat poo.

As he once said smarmily about drugs, if you don;'t like their effects, don't take the drug. For REush, no drug is as powerful as his own ego