Good Stuff
Along with complaining, I suppose I should point out good work, too. Here’s Elizabeth Holmes and Laura Meckler for The Wall Street Journal:
Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the McCain campaign continues to assert that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told the federal government “thanks but no thanks” to the now-famous bridge to an island in her home state.
But I’ll repeat what I’ve said before: The ultimate test of what matters isn’t one-off articles but campaign narratives. During the 2000 campaign, the press developed a narrative about Al Gore being dishonest based almost entirely on things he didn’t even say. During the 2004 campaign, there was a narrative about John Kerry being a flip-flopper. In 2008, a robust narrative exists about Barack Obama being too aloof. This blog isn’t allowed to draw conclusions about the character of candidates for office, but reporters covering campaigns do it all the time and there’s a fairly obvious narrative about John McCain that could be built around his campaign’s penchant for repeating false claims about bridges, opponents’ tax plans, etc.
75 Responses to “Good Stuff”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
September 9th, 2008 at 8:18 am
“This blog isn’t allowed to draw conclusions about the character of candidates for office”
I’m pretty sure you’re misreading election law, if that’s the basis for your thinking here.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:20 am
This goes back to the hack gap and the no liberals on TV rule. There aren’t the Noonans and Murphys given a permanent seat to say the Democrats POV no matter how much they don’t believe it.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:33 am
None of this matters, you see, because Jeffrey Goldenberg points out in the NYT that Republicans have a much better record of preventing 9/11, unlike those gay arugula Democrats who just want to prance around singing about those losers in law enforcement and pronouncing entire words, so if you want to feel safer in preventing a U.S. city from being nukular incinerated (like Charlie Gibson said in the Democratic debate, a 50% chance within 10 years), obviously you need to vote Republican because they’re so good at national security.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/opinion/09goldberg.html
September 9th, 2008 at 8:36 am
there’s a fairly obvious narrative about John McCain that could be built around his campaign’s penchant for repeating false claims about bridges, opponents’ tax plans, etc.
You’d really think so, wouldn’t you. There were ripe opportunities to form similar narratives about George Bush, Jr. which somehow never materialized. A NotReallyLiberal Media, easily cowed by Big Republican would be one reason.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:41 am
It also comes down to message discipline by the campaigns themselves.
If you keep saying the same thing over and over (and repeat it in press relesases over and over), a naturally lazy media will pick up the thread in order to have something to fill the news hole. I guarantee that the media didn’t decide that Kerry was a “flip flopper” (whatever the hell that means) all by their lonesome…
September 9th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Sarah Pinocchio Palin. Sarah, the Alaskan who cried the Bridge to Nowhere. Sarah Liar Liar Palin. Huckleberry Palin. Palin the Fibber.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Freedom Fry, I prefer Sarah Palin and her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants on Fire.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Here Elizabeth Holmes and Laura Meckler of the WSJ are stuck on stupid ..
.. I know Obama hasn’t been in the Senate long, but they seem to forget the other two years.
By their logic .. There were 4155 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, but it’s only 248 this year .. it’s true, but would you shallow ??
And again, Elizabeth Holmes and Laura Meckler are still stuck on stupid,
.. descending into talk that it comes with a “serious caveat”, she kept the money for other projects. Seriously, are we to then assume that the Bridge to Nowhere has morphed into other projects, when the real question is .. Show me the Bridge to Nowhere .. Show me the Bridge to Nowhere .. I’ll settle for a picture of the construction site and I’ll believe too.
Do these people even bother to read their own copy ?
September 9th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Suggested phrases to repeat over and over: “Can’t get it straight” and “when are they going to get it straight.”
With eye-roll.
Three virtues:
1. Not calling McCain and Palin outright liars.
2. Suggests incompetence/ignorance/lack of substance. They can’t figure out what to say.
3. Plays off McCain as supposed straight shooter.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Weathervane John McCain is accurate and it rhymes.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Howzabout “Sarah Hunts-from-Above”
September 9th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I’ve always been partial to “John McCain has fallen, and he can’t get up.” It just has a certain familiarity to it, I don’t know why.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Weathervane John McCain is accurate and it rhymes.
WIN!
September 9th, 2008 at 9:09 am
If Gov. Palin didn’t stop the Bridge to Nowhere, who did? BHO and Slow Joe voted to appropriate the money, but Alaska’s not building the damn thing. Obviously, SHE STOPPED IT. Obama has taken a blow to the jaw, and he’s flailing. He looks more and more like a loser to normal Americans — the latest in a long line of establishment liberal losers that repels middle America.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:11 am
I think it would be precious for Republicans to run with E. O’Neal’s point. I highly encourage it, for my own amusement.
Hint: The point of the story is the money, not the bridge, and Palin lobbied for and kept it.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:16 am
The worst part I think is that after the Bridge was torpedoed by public opinion (at which point she decided it was fine to oppose it after campaigning on building it), she used some of the money to build the road to nowhere that led to the nonexistent bridge. After all, she’d have to give it back if she didn’t! People don’t seem to be aware of that part. The rest of the money, who knows where that went…somewhere else in Alaska.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:21 am
That’s correct Adam. All Congress did was to remove the language specifying that the bridge had to be built. The funds were still sent to Alaska.
If Palin were a true reformer, she would have returned the money to the feds. She didn’t. She directed much of it to other transportation projects, and then stated that they didn’t have enough left over to build the bridge. Pretty disingenuous.
Still, I think it is important that Palin *campaigned* for the bridge to nowhere from the get-go. Yes, she opposed it in the 11th hour, but only because it became very unpopular. That’s not a principled stance by any stretch.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:24 am
“Significant evidence to the contrary” implies that there’s evidence going both ways, ie it might be true. The WSJ still can’t bring itself to say that the claim is false. How about “dispite all evidence to the contrary and none in support”?
September 9th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Sarah Palin, as a Pentacostal, knows the Decalogue. Yet, she lies. She is a Liar. John McCain, who always puts country first, thinks he is putting country first when he lies to his countrymen. John McCain tells lies. John McCain is a liar.
This is the as God is My Witness–naked truth. This is the truth you swear to tell in a Court of Law. Will John McCain give depositions, under pain of prosecution, that everything they tell their countrymen they know to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the Truth, so help them, God?
Will they agree to these terms with their countrymen? If not, then what are they playing at?
September 9th, 2008 at 9:33 am
“John McCain has fallen, and he can’t get up.”
LOL!
September 9th, 2008 at 9:47 am
I think “Weathervane McCain” is better than “Weathervane John McCain.”
Maybe even “Weathervane John.”
Anyhoo, I don’t think today’s revelations about her billing the state for tens of thousands of dollars for housing for nights she stayed at home is going to help her reformer image any.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:55 am
McCain and his minions will lie about ANYTHING.
They even lied about Walter Reed Middle School — claiming they projected a 50ft image of a junior high for the first five minutes of John McCain’s acceptance speech on purpose.
Lie, lie, lie.
On the biggest night of John McCain’s life, for the biggest speech of his life, John McCain wanted a 50ft image of a junior high to make history.
Right.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:55 am
The media whores are certianly culpable but a lot of the blame has to be placed on the abject cowardice of the leaders of the Democratic party and our candidates. I’m looking at you Barack.
They have to push those narratives, but they they have no idea about how to go on offense. They are utterly clueless. BTW: because the Republicans are such lying sacks of shit, our narratives don’t even have to be hypocritical bullshit like the Republicans’. There’s no reason not to do it. I hope a few of them finally figure this out when McCain takes the oath of office.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
What fraction of reporters can be shamed into doing the right thing?
September 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
“During the 2000 campaign, the press developed a narrative about Al Gore being dishonest based almost entirely on things he didn’t even say. During the 2004 campaign, there was a narrative about John Kerry being a flip-flopper.”
These narratives developed by the mainstream press, in the first instance because it hated Gore, and in the second as an echo of conservative media, were then amplified by the conservative media.
McCain won’t have that problem. Conservative media will negate anything the mainstream, or ‘liberal’ media says about him.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:58 am
So she did stop the bridge, which was all she claimed, but she didn’t return the unearmarked funds to the federal treasury, which would surely have been a first in American history. What else have you losers got?
September 9th, 2008 at 10:01 am
The part of the Bridge to Nowhere story that seems to get lost is that ..
1) there was a need to improve transport to the airport
2) Alaska was to pony less than $100 million for the $700 million bridge originally
3) an examination of the bridge project plans after Palin became governor revealed another $300 million for maintenance over the life of the bridge was to be paid by Alaska.
4) the increased total costs prompted seeking of alternatives
5) the Alaskan Democratic Party praised Palin for killing the bridge
September 9th, 2008 at 10:09 am
We’re not going to get “McCain is a liar” or “McCain will say anything to get elected” or “Palin is a liar” from the Obama campaign or its surrogates, to the degree that Obama can stop it.
Obama believes in a new kind of politics and thinks he can win on “McCain is more likely to make another mistake like Iraq than I am” and “McCain’s health care plan isn’t as good as mine”.
I hope he’s right, but if he’s wrong, he’s throwing away the election. Either way its a stupid gamble, but that’s what the democrats nominated.
Team Obama knows how to use message discipline to smear an opponent, and how to do it without getting its own hands dirty. Everyone knows how to do it since we’ve seen so many demonstrations over the last several presidential elections. But team Obama isn’t doing it.
If the popular narrative was that Obama is running an unusually clean campaign, which is true, then if it fails the Democrats at least won’t nominate another candidate who might make that mistake again.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Neo, the WSJ article also mentions that in two years as governor Sarah Palin has requested $750 million in earmarks. I’m no good at math but I think that’s over double what Barack Obama has requested in the last two years. Shouldn’t that be enough to sink the meme that she’s Mrs. Hater of all things Pork?
September 9th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Has anyone heard if Andrew Sullivan has been fired from the Atlantic for his Palin coverage?
Whatever his faults, he’s been all about defining her, and whether they fire him or not, it’d be good to see him get back to blogging about her, since he has such a large audience.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:23 am
I think the lie about Walter Reed Middle School is on par with Clinton’s not inhaling.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:27 am
ed wrote,
Let’s be honest: that’s partly the fault of the Dems who took control of Congress in 2006.
If they had actually tried to investigate the lies that took us to war, there’d have been an opening for the narrative “George W. Bush is a war criminal and liar.” But the Dem investigations were (unfortunately) a joke, or nonexistent.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:53 am
This is a very odd statement (of course, what’s left out is that the narratives for many years, such as 2000, are outright lies. So, reporters, who are supposed to be objective, are expected to lie, while this blog isn’t allowed to come to conclusions ? I think you need a new job.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:57 am
The final narrative of the election will probably be based on this observation from Rasmussen ..
Now this is one stunning achievement. It took one week for the media to wipe away the history of Dick Nixon’s CREEP, Bill Clinton’s John Huang and James Riady, and Al Gore’s Hsi Lai Temple from 55% of the public’s mind.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Being afraid of terrorists is only concern a Wealthy individual can not control. They can control their own environment by living in a crime-free zone. They can send their kids to the best schools. They can pay the out of pocket health care cost if a big emergency happens. They can invest their money wisely. But the one thing they do not have control over is whether their town, workplace etc. could be destroyed by a terrorist. Its not that liberals don’t care about terrorists, but to them the terrorist is the drug company who charges more than they can afford, the terrorist is the healthcare plan that they paid into for 30 years with no major illnesses, only to find out when their Kidney goes bad that the insurance will not pay because they did’nt indicate on the application 30 years ago that their grandmother had diabetes. Or the man that worked 30 years at a plant and right before his retirement his 401K is gone, because the business went under. Or the union worker who is now being told his retirement healthplan is no longer in valid, now 50 with healthcare problems and no insurance company to pick him up because of a pre-existing condition. The terrorist is the crime happening in the neighborhood that has risen due to lack of education, employment and state funds. The terrorist is the lead that my child got because the tax dollars I paid wasn’t being used to protect her. The terrorist is the FDA for not checking the imported food that had E-coli in it and killed my neighbor down the street. The terrorist is not be able to send my child to college even though he was a straight A and honor roll student during his entire high school years. The terrorist is government that has allowed woman to work 3 jobs to pay for shelter and food for her children and care for her elderly parent because her tax dollars aren’t be used properly to go after their Daddy because he lives in another state. The terrorists are congress of both parties who watch out for their own interests and forgot that government was suppose to work for the people. The terrorists are lobbyists working for a society of greed and self-interest and the little man has no say. The terrorist is the court system that lets a person with money get away with murder and a poor innocent person spend 18 years in prison for a crime he never caused. The terrorist is the main media both left and right who forgot about reporting the facts so people can come to rational conclusion. The terrorists are the radical religions that have withered away at the separation of church and state.I could go on and on…you get the point, so when the wealthy are secure on almost everything in life but afraid of foreign boogeymen, they must understand why the poor and middleclass do not think this is the biggest issue when the life they created crumbles before them sometimes believe it or not at no
fault of their own.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:17 am
John McCain and Sarah Palin will say and do anything to win.
That’s your winning narrative right there. Obama used this line against Hillary Clinton and it was very effective, IMO. Through this filter, all the lies, distortions and atatcks that McCain launches will be seen as reinforcing this meme.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:35 am
From Palin’s communications director Bill McAllister regarding the bridge decision: “She changed her mind when she saw that Alaska was being perceived as taking from the country and not giving ….”
So Palin gave up on the bridge project only after some sunlight was shined on it which in turn resulted in Alaska becoming a national laughingstock, which makes Palin’s unqualified “I said no thanks” description enough of a distortion to be a lie. She was enthusiastically in favor of a grossly inefficient allocation of federal resources when a small percentage of the populace knew about it; not the best quality to have in a president.
Palin should have just remained mum on her embarrassing involvement with this project; instead she decided to bring up the subject on her own volition, and to lie while doing so. Again, not the best quality to have in a president.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Of course the whole “Bridge to Nowhere” claim is based on creating deliberate confusion between the *bridge as project*, paid for in whatever way possible/necessary, and the *bridge as Congressional earmark*, paid with federal funds specifically set aside for that.
Palin did have something to do with the fate of the *bridge as project* — but the whole point of her story is that she was the one who spoke out against the *bridge as Congressional earmark*, because that makes her brave and common-sensical. And that’s the part that’s false, as Bob Somerby has been pointing out: not whether she was for or against a particular boondoggle of a bridge, which barely matters, but whether she “told Congress” anything about it. She didn’t.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Neo -
You forgot Whitewater and Vince Foster and Danny Casolaro and Eric Starvo Galt. They’re not all related to large campaign donations or conservative bias in media, but I thought they were as topical as your stuff. (I’m amazed that it’s only 55% that notice the right-wing dismantling of a watchful press, but then again, almost 30% of the country will cut Bush some slack when they find out about his alcohol-fueled child porn incidents years ago.)
But, when all else fails, remember: Michael Moore is FAT!!
September 9th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Everybody knows the classic Rove move is to attack your enemy at his greatest strength. Palin has many attractive features as a candidate, but her best asset to McCain is that she’s a maverick who will bring real change to Washington.
So that’s where she has to be hit every day. The lobbyist she hired for Wasilla, the earmarks, the Bridge to Nowhere, the sports complex, the eBay plane, her cook, and so on. If she and John McCain want to claim the maverick title, they ought to be hit on that until it hurts. In addition, you go after their policy stances and paint it as “more of the same” as the Bush years.
If, for some reason, the Obama campaign doesn’t want to do this, there’s nothing stopping the netroots from taking this on. It’s not a 527, but it can get the job done.
And I don’t just mean blogging, I mean calling into local radio shows, writing your local newspaper, showing up at local events, the whole thing.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I think some of the folks have it upthread:
Weathervane McCain and Pinnochio Palin.
It just rolls off the tongue. And both rhyming and alliteration are catchy.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Palin’s only objection to government corruption has been that she hasn’t been on the receiving end of enough of it. She raised local taxes and paid taxpayer money to a crooked lobbyist to win more Federal earmarks as mayor; she was the #1 earmark-requester in the US as governor (measured per capita); she spoke out against Alaska-GOP crooks like Stevens and Young — until Stevens hired her to run his 527, and Young endorsed her, and now they’re all pals again.
Her only objection to what Keating-5 crook John McCain and the Republicans have been doing in Washington is that she’s been too far away in Juneau to get in on the action. She’s lying about opposing the “Bridge to Nowhere” and about her abuse of power and about taking per diems for living in her own house because she wants to go to DC so she can get first crack at the trough.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
This blog isn’t allowed to draw conclusions about the character of candidates for office, but reporters covering campaigns do it all the time
This must be a joke of some kind, but I don’t get it.
September 9th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
>1) there was a need to improve transport to the airport
So she bravely opposed a bridge that was needed?
Neo, it must hurt to be as stupid as you.
>Weathervane McCain and Pinnochio Palin.
That’s pretty good, but I also want to nominate “Pick-pocket Palin” for her constant (not only the earmarks but the big handle she grabs off the top of oil that belongs to the entire country) fleecing of the rest of us Americans, Red and Blue.
We can alternate, depending on the subject.
September 9th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
This “narratives” thing is a screwy way to look at it. You can say the press is maintaining this “narrative” of Palin as a pork-fighter, and to prove you wrong, I can point to a hundred instances of the press saying that she’s lying about fighting the Bridge to Nowhere. But that’s not good enough, if you’re talking about some nebulous “narrative.” What the fuck is the media supposed to do here? “Sarah Palin, the lying liar, was campaigning in Cleveland today…” I really don’t see how that’s a news reporter’s job. The reporter’s job is to report the facts, and that’s what the WSJ did here. That’s what almost everybody has done re: Palin. If that’s not fighting the pork-fighter “narrative,” I don’t know what is.
September 9th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
The Democrats need to start playing hardball and call these people liars and back it up the ample evidence that they have.
And that includes Obama. He needs to get out from behind his professorial desk and start behaving like a street fighter if he wants to win.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:22 am
November 25th, 2008 at 9:31 am
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:56 am
levitraIt is the coolest site,keep so!
March 11th, 2009 at 5:11 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 17th, 2009 at 2:36 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:33 am
tramadol
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
April 1st, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Very nice information. Thanks for this.
http://successfool.com/1-year/
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:28 am
Great site. Good info
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Very interesting site, Hope it will always be alive! viagra