Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (8291)	3/13/2004 5:14:55 PM
From: Ron	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Bush guts the facts again; will the media let him? By Matthew Miller TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES Here at Matt Miller Global Column Headquarters, we report, you decide. So here are the facts: President Bush attacked John Kerry this week for Kerry's alleged attempt to "gut" U.S. intelligence services via a 1995 proposal that would have cut roughly $300 million a year from a roughly $30 billion annual budget. In other words, Kerry's proposal would have cut 1 percent of the intelligence budget. Readers who are in business may pause here to laugh their heads off. Can you imagine tough Pentagon CEO Donald Rumsfeld facing down a general who told him that a 1-percent cut Rumsfeld wanted somewhere would "gut" that area? Calling a 1-percent cut a "gutting" is beyond ludicrous. It's beyond preposterous. The only possible conclusion is that it is an intentional deception. (Yes, Democrats can be prone to "argue" in similar ways on Medicare and Social Security, but we'll gut those programs another day - and, as your mother told you, two wrongs don't make a right.) So what was Bush's attack about? There are two ways to look at it: as a measure of how dumb the White House thinks we are and as a measure of how anxious the White House is a full eight months before November. Think of the choice. Team Bush made a decision to reach back to an obscure 9-year-old proposal, blow it utterly out of proportion, and then have the president - not some surrogate - utter the deception himself, to assure that it would make national headlines and force the press to write stories about just what it was Kerry may have done (which, sensibly enough, was to include shaving some intelligence bloat as part of a broader deficit reduction effort). This is not about facts. It is about planting seeds of mistrust. Which brings us to Bush's flip-flop strategy. "Once again, Sen. Kerry is trying to have it both ways," Bush said in his offending remark. "He's for good intelligence, yet he was willing to gut the intelligence services. And that is no way to lead a nation in a time of war." Is this rubbish supposed to be the way to lead a nation in a time of "war"? This from the man who always boasts that he's "plainspoken"? Bush's bogus attack followed shortly after the White House scored a major propaganda coup by getting The New York Times to do a Page One story on whether Kerry is, indeed, a flip-flopper. You know this charge must poll well because Team Bush is entirely on message. Dick Cheney barely opens his mouth nowadays without noting that "that kind of indecision may not be what the American people want." Surely that's right - which is why they must be upset about Bush's own flip-flops on steel tariffs, farms subsidies, nation-building, and funding his own education bill. And that's just for starters. Why parse this in detail? It's a preview of Bush's unfolding strategy. Karl Rove knows that the public has little impression of John Kerry. He's determined to use the GOP's colossal financial advantage, and the media news void now that Kerry is the nominee, to define Kerry before Kerry can define himself. This is politics 101. But it's also a surreal commentary on how news management (or dueling propaganda) is central to political life in ways that 285 million of our 290 million fellow citizens likely don't notice or understand. Presidential elections are largely fights over how the press will frame the debate. It's a case of the "observed" and the "observers" blending interactively in one giant feedback loop. How each side can get the national press to behave - what the press can be persuaded to define as "news" - will go a long way in determining public opinion. Whether you think this is any way to run a democracy or not, it's a reality. And that means there are three centers of power that matter in the months ahead: the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the national press. I know top editors and producers at these outlets are often uncomfortable with their enormous power in this process, but it's unavoidable. As stenographic reports of Bush's bogus attack this week show, the only question is whether the media have a strategy for exercising this power responsibly - a strategy that's as thoughtful as those partisans will deploy in attempting to influence the press. Contact Matthew Miller at www.mattmilleronline.com.