Changing the Topic

In politics, who "wins" the argument is less important that who decides what the argument is about. Republicans have learned that lesson. Democrats need to catch up.

Take the discussion about Scott McClellan's book. From a liberal or Democratic perspective, the most important aspect of that book is the revelation that even Bush's own press secretary thinks that the press was too deferential to the Bush administration, especially when the Iraq War was being sold to the public:

... the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq ... the "liberal media" didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.

In discussing McClellan's book, Jessica Yellin acknowledged the extent to which corporate pressure to be "patriotic" shaped news coverage at MSNBC, one of her employers during that period.

When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings.

Between them, McClellan and Yellin completely demolish the "liberal media bias" myth that has served the right so well for so long.

Given the facts, the Bush administration and its allies didn't want to have to argue that McClellan and Yellin are wrong. But of course they also didn't want to admit that McCellan and Yellin are right. So what do they do? Ignore the substance entirely, and make the argument about McClellan's character: the old slime-and-defend game. "He's just a disgruntled employee." (Have you ever noticed how few former employees are actually gruntled?)

The point is not to win the argument: it couldn't matter less what judgment the public forms about McClellan's character, or even about whether the Bush White House told the press a pack of lies. Neither McClellan nor Bush is on the ballot this fall.

The point is to distract attention from the fact that Bush's own press spokesman says he and his boss managed to bamboozle the press. That's the fact that the right wing can't afford to have the public notice, or reporters know that the public has noticed; otherwise the next bamboozlement might not go as well, and reporters might have to at least try to conceal their adulation of John McCain. That's why the media were so eager to downplay McClellan's charges, despite their accuracy.

As long as we're arguing about whether Scott McCellan is a liar, no one in the press is required to confront its professional failure, no one in the public learns about the "liberal media bias" myth, and no real harm comes to right-wing interests.

By the same token, the flap about the fact that Barack Obama said his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz when in fact it was his grand-uncle who helped liberate Buchenwald was obviously trivial, and I doubt that anyone really became less interested in voting for Obama as a result of it. (It might help protect John McCain the next time he can't tell a Sunni from a Shi'a, but that's about it.) But anyone who thinks the Democrats "won" that exchange doesn't know how the game is played.

What that manufactured controversy did was drive the Phil Gramm scandal out of the day's media coverage. "What Phil Gramm scandal?" you ask. To which I reply, "Precisely!"

Keith Olbermann actually managed to break some hard news: at the very time former Senator Phil Gramm was helping to craft John McCain's "hands-off" policy toward the mortgage crisis, Gramm was a registered lobbyist for the Swiss bank UBS, which just happens to be hip-deep in bad paper.

Coincidentally, on the very same day the Financial Times reported that UBS had advised 50 current and former employees of its private banking group not to travel to the United States. The bank is worried that they might be arrested in connection with a massive tax-evasion scheme under which UBS helped rich Americans cheat the IRS, thus making sure that the rest of us suckers had to pay for, e.g., the War in Iraq. Some of the clients of the scheme are already testifying before a grand jury, and a senior UBS official has already been indicted. UBS is offering to provide lawyers for all of the suspects.

Now, how is it that Gramm got to be Vice-Chairman of UBS? Why, by being the chief author of the banking-deregulation legislation (the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act) that made so many bankers rich and helped create the crisis McCain doesn't want to do anything about.

In keeping with McCain's decision to purge "lobbyists" from his campaign, Gramm had himself de-registered as a lobbyist. But he's still Vice Chairman of UBS, and still McCain's chief economic adviser. All the de-listing means is that he can't now personally call Congressmen or Senators; no doubt his staff can handle such details for the next few months.

All the makings of a huge news story, right? Revolving-door lobbyist, presidential candidate, mortgage crisis, lawbreaking. And yet the story of the day was Obama's grand-uncle, and the Gramm story never broke through the clutter (even on the Huffington Post).

Now that's a victory, if you're a Republican. As long as this pattern continues, we can win all the battles and lose the war.

A problem, as the math textbooks say, left as an exercise for the reader:

What are we going to do about it?

Comments

[luziannagirl]

Wonder what it would take for mainstream media to cover this story? I mean, the story about the tactic of changing the topic in politics. They aren't likely to cover the story of their own complicity to those ends.

I mean, consider the huge story of the FCC's role in auctioning off the public's airwaves to the highest bidder, with no regard to whether the best interests of the public are being served. No coverage.

Or, the related story of how the conversion from analogue to digital broadcast signals is being driven NOT by concern that the freed-up portion of the spectrum will go to emergency responders and police, as industry spin goes, but primarily to gigantic telecom/cellphone industry interests needing ever more I think they call it bandwidth. Who wants to bet emergency responders get all the spectrum they need after conversion is complete? Not me. And where is this story? Anywhere?

[Umungus]

"In politics, who "wins" the argument is less important that who decides what the argument is about. "

I agree, we need to learn to be proactive, not reactive.

[dadw5boys]

NO PROBLEM IGNOR THE PRESS AND THE REPUBLICANS TOTALLY.

THEY ARE THE SAME COIN JUST TWO SIDES.

Both the press and the Republicans want to see the American people enslaved apparently.

[Manx]

The problems is not Obama's or the Democrats. The debate is framed mainly by the tabloid "news" networks. Look at how they enabled the swiftboating of John Kerry. If people really cared about the issues, the swiftboat strategy wouldn't have been so successful. And I think there was a consensus that John Kerry won the debates with George W. Bush, but that didn't seem to matter with the voting public. The Republicans played the fear card and it worked.

One tactic the Republicans use effectively is repetition. They repeat the same things over and over and over until pundits, talking heads and the public start repeating them as facts. I've watched it work time and time again.

[wordworker]

it truly is all about framing the issues:

it's unfortunate that it took a "war," a natural disaster, a coming or existing recession, (________ fill in your Mad-lib "favorite" current or past debacle) - to push abortion, gay marriage, extramarital affairs, (________ fill in your Mad-lib "favorite" current or past non- or relatively un-small-governmental issue) off the table.

i believe we've already seen version 2.0 of the "swift boat" and it has already convinced Obama to "resign" from his house of worship -

this will, of course, cut against him any number of ways - he must have known about the radical agenda, but he stayed for twenty years anyway; or he had heard sermons like that and lied about it; or he is a flip-flopping weasel for selling-out his church, or, who knows, maybe even that if there were sermons with bad words with him in attendance and he didn't know it then that would mean that he was at best not paying attention or at worst sleeping through them.

listening to/watching the DNC proceedings yesterday - what with the spirited presentations from Arthenia Joyner and Rep. Wexler, the impassioned reasoning of Alice Huffman, and, yes, the "fair reflection" of Harold "has anyone ever had a more appropriate last name" Ickes - it is certainly hard not to believe that the party of inclusion has a large and interesting tent -

maybe there's a boat somewhere around camp that can be sent on a swift mission....

[Americanium]

Mark,

A few days ago I wrote on here asking why Obama is indulging McCain in a debate on Iraq, patriotism and Veterans affairs.

I wrote it would be better to take on McCain on the issues of ethics reform , lobbyists and the economy. Your article provides the evidence why McCain was glad to go toe to toe with Obama on the tired Iraq issue. McCain knew the information about Phil Gramm would hurt his standing with independents and would be another lobbyist exposed in his campaign.

Senator Obama wants to allow McCain to dictate the terms on which he wants to debate. Like the novice that he is Obama is chasing McCain on an issue that is not resonating with people who har paying high gas prices, loosing their homes and their jobs.

If Senator Obama thinks he can out hustle McCain on an a topic of his choosing we might as well put Hillary on top of the ticket.

This Phil Gramm issue goes to the very heart of what is wrong with Washington and to date Obama has not said a thing about it.

Perhaps Obama has become part of the Washington game.

[heal57]

Obama can beat John McCain on any issue; that's right--any issue. Obama is smart to bring up Veterans affairs; like the GI bill McCain would not sign!! McCain doesn't give a damn about any soldiers. He does not have the facts on Iraq, he can't remember what he said so he changes everything. You can forget about domestic policy. Sometimes I'm not sure he remembers he's in the United States. Obama is campaigning. That snake Phil Gramm is disgustng; you're right. There's only two more states to go Tuesday, then Obama can go deeper and deeper with McCain. If you seriously think the democrats are going to lose to McCain after 8 freaken years of George Bush, then they deserve to lose. Obama will be our next president and you can take that to the bank.
Independent for Obama '08

[luziannagirl]

What are we going to do about it?

Since most of our elected officials of any party say anything to get into office, and when they get there, serve only themselves, special interests, and corporations, just voting won't achieve much of a change. Pushing for policy change also gets us only so far, especially when those at the top of the power hierarchy just do whatever they want in the end.

So, we wield the only legal, civilized and peaceful stick we citizens have left, and that's Power of the Purse.

How about a one-day boycott of all products advertised on mainstream media television "news"?

[jetlit]

The disingenuous defense by David Gregory and his mainstream ilk of the press"s acquiescence to White House pressure, its endemic unwillingness to ask the necessary, tough, and probing questions of Bush officials"or Bush himself during his rare press conferences"is laughable. Only when Bush and the boys and girls in his employ, after Katrina, were mortally wounded politically and the rank and near-criminal incompetence of this presidency was revealed in all its splendor did the MSM tip-toe into a semi-confrontational role. The press"s shameful surrender in the face of power isn"t unprecedented. The press"s behavior mirrors its behavior during the Reagan Eighties. During his two terms, the highly-scripted and genial Reagan was given a near-free ride even after Iran-Contra, evan after his near-disastrous performance in Reykjavik, even after the Savings and Loan Scandal that almost sank the economy in 1987. The press"s now-forgotten communal bendover is appropriately documented in a sadly out-of-print book, the aptly titled ON BENDED KNEE: The Press and the Reagan Presidency by Mark Hertsgaard (1989). Unfortunately, during the Reagan years, we didn"t have the counterbalancing internet to take up the slack when the mainstream media not only dropped the ball, but failed even to pick it up. If we had, the Reagan presidency would have been exposed as the shambles it was and we"d be spared the sanctimonious naming of airports, shopping malls, rest stops, etc. after the late, "Great Communicator."

[Dap]

Dear Mark,

It's has been awhile since I last dropped in on ya, hope you are well. I'm thinking you just may be on to something there, and have posed an excellent question. Sure is disheartening, all this corruption. Agape.