As a followup to tigtog’s post on Amanda and Melissa’s joining the Edwards campaign, and discussion in comments on the confected scandal about their alleged bigotry and demands from uber-wingnut Bill Donohue that they be sacked, it’s worth reading this excellent post from Glenn Greewald. Greewald looks at what’s broken about the American media, and how, ironically, a tale of two bloggers led to a shift in the story arc of their fate towards greater accountability to the truth in reporting of the “affair”:
For the last 15 years or so — since the early years of the Clinton administration — our public political discourse has been centrally driven by an ever-growing network of scandal-mongers and filth-peddling purveyors of baseless, petty innuendo churned out by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, various right-wing operatives and, more recently, the right-wing press led by Fox News. Every issue of significance is either shaped and wildly distorted by that process, or the public is distracted from important issues by contrived and unbelievably vapid, petty scandals. Our political discourse has long been infected by this potent toxin, one which has grown in strength and degraded most of our political and media institutions.
There are few, if any, more important priorities than creating a counterweight to that network, a method for diluting its influence and exposing and discrediting the people who drive it. And the Edwards story illustrates why that is so and how the blogosphere is beginning to achieve that.The Edwards “controversy” was a story that was concocted at the lowest depths of the right-wing blogosphere, and it then bubbled up through the standard channels until it arrived in the national press. When the story was first reported by The New York Times and the Associated Press, those outlets mindlessly tracked the right-wing storyline without deviation, and that storyline was designed to convey these familiar themes:
(1) Liberals hate Christianity and religion generally and are so radical that they actually border on mental illness;
(2) The Democratic Party is captive to the hateful, vulgar extremists in the liberal blogosphere;
(3) Bill Donohue and Michelle Malkin are vigilant truth-seekers and objective watchdogs, exposing bigotry and radicalism and forcing a reluctant mainstream media to talk about the evil that lurks within the “Left”;
(4) John Edwards is going to be forced by the all-powerful right-wing crusaders to fire his own staffers and appear weak and bullied.
That is a storyline that has played out time and again in different contexts, and it was well on its way to being cemented here. It is exactly what would have happened had it not been for the blogosphere, which forced into the public discussion critical facts that were being omitted and which exposed the absurdity of this story, thereby providing a counterweight to the joint right-wing/media pressure on Edwards to capitulate to these forces.
It’s hard not to see this excerpt from one of Greenwald’s earlier posts as the appropriate epitaph for bloggergate:
Other than screeching that the Terrorists are coming to get us all and that anyone who disagrees is themselves a Terrorist, the pro-Bush right has no ideas, no policies, no substance. They thrive on deeply personal lynch mob behavior — waving purple hearts with band-aids, prattling on about John Kerry’s joke and Nancy Pelosi’s plane, searching for new scalps to satisfy their mob cravings, and depicting their political opponents as weak, girly, traitorous losers. That is the extent of them, and that is all this Edwards hysteria was ever about. And by brushing it aside, Edwards treated it as the petty nuisance it is, rather than endowing it and them with unwarranted credibility.
The idea that the right wing political movement in this country — led by the filth-spewing likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Little Green Footballs, the Clinton impeachment obsessives, and all sorts of Daily Treason Accusers — is committed to high levels of civility in our political discourse and sensitivity to the beliefs of others, and therefore was very, very offended by the commentary of these bloggers, is an absurd and transparent joke.
There is a reason that two of the most bigoted and offensive public figures in our political landscape — Bill Donohue and Michelle Malkin — led their crusade. That Donohue and Malkin were holding themselves out as the arbiter of proper political discourse and anti-bigotry standards reveals all one needs to know about the corrupt roots of this “controversy.”
I’m pretty impressed by Greenwald’s analyses on all manner of things. This incident was nothing more than a playground spat that somehow (well specifically, coverage by reputable news sources that should have known better) managed to escape and spew forth its bile with the precious, life-affirming oxygen of ‘national debate’ for a few days.
Edwards should have moved sooner. This sort of crap has to be smacked down early.
It’s something that Labour should take note of, because it’s bound to happen here.
And I think that’s a bit of a worry, because while the US hopefuls are pretty web savvy (Look at Hillary’s site http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ ), with a heavy reliance on webcasts and (somehow, when we figure it out) blogs, the ALP’s site is distinctly retro http://www.alp.org.au/, and not in A Hip Way.
For instance, just look at Hillary’s ‘I’m in’ anouncment. It featured a well-produced but probably very cost effective webcast which received saturation coverage. Talk about bang for your buck.
Unlike the US, Australian parties still amazingly treat the web as a bit of an afterthought, and not as an integral part of their campaign strategy.
Fuck me, if the ALP think people are going to front up for the guilty pleasure of reading a bunch of media releases they’re nuts.
“…our public political discourse has been centrally driven by an ever-growing network of scandal-mongers and filth-peddling purveyors of baseless, petty innuendo”
Oh the horror, the horror. An informed browse through politics over the past several thousand years should make it clear this kind of crap has going on like forever.
Julius Ceaser was frequently accused by the local bloggers and pundits (ie: political graffiti artists) of fucking not only his own troops but their pack animals as well ( and if true, there’s no record of them complaining about) while at least one Veep shot a former SecState over accusations of incest.
The only really difference between then and now is that the mass media which helps transmit this shit is no longer run by swashbuckling entreprenuers but by large, cautious and sluggish corporations so focused on selling eyeballs and ears to advertisers that they can’t really see anymore what their audience is really looking at or listening to anymore.
This Edwards blogger move is a case in point. It’s all about mobilising an online base in an electorate where voting is not compulsory. Whipping up this pointless hooha about she said a bad word, yes she did, will make for good MSM copy but I doubt it will register anymore by the Dem primaries, not least because all sorts of other moral panics will be well whipped up by then. Like the rumour Obama’s not actually black, just very suntanned.
And it’s not it really matters anyway. The uS is too big, rich, strange and diversified for any one Oval One to really run it now. And after the Dubya fiasco, would you really want any one person with that much power anymore anyway. Time for another American revolution I’d say. Give everyone some properly vested stock and rejig how the board of directors is appointed and their performnace pay assessed. And soon, before Google puts in a very competitive offer for the lower 48.
The serious attention given to Donohue’s screeching about “anti-catholic bigotry” because of some satirical articles (including the dreaded swears oh noes) about Church public policies reminds me of a Teresa Neilsen Hayden post from a few years ago (looong comments thread):
Sure, transgressive jokes from outsiders rather than insiders can be a more hostile thing, but the principle still holds up reasonably well, IMO.
Clarification: I’m referring to Donohue as my purported cultist, not the entire body of the Catholic Church.
Nabakov: “And after the Dubya fiasco, would you really want any one person with that much power anymore anyway.”
Well, finally! It’s about fucking time. After all, that’s ONLY what I’ve been saying for, oh, I don’t know, let me think now, maybe the last TWO HUNDRED FUCKING YEARS OR SO.
Mr. Nabakov, would you kindly come visit DC and politely explain to the present, sitting crop of weevils that, yes, they ARE a crop of weevils, they always HAVE BEEN and ALWAYS WILL BE a crop of weevils, no matter who’s elected or who’s in charge, that nothing will ever change that basic fact, and that the whole reason for the entire bloody system existing the way I designed it is to safeguard the non-weevils back home from the inescapable fact that the weevils in charge can never be anything other than what they are. The whole point is to make them fight each other just enough so that they don’t have time left over to do anything radically stupid. I could have sworn I made that clear. Christ, we had this whole thing pegged in 1787. I dunno, did maybe too much exposure to sunlight make the ink fade on the goddamned paper? Or maybe instead of calling it a ‘constitution,’ I shoulda been more clear, and just called it ‘How to protect yourselves from ASSHOLES: a user’s manual’…
Note to self: next time writing constitution, invest in UV-proof polarized glass… Oh, and remember to get “RTFM” engraved on the front of the Capitol…
Dear Mr Madison, I have some more bad news.
Why don’t you sit down? Cup of tea?
Maybe brandy might be better.
Cheney’s team is arguing that the Office of the Vice President doesn’t have to conform with some reporting requirements purportedly covering all executive arms of government.
On what grounds, you may ask?
His press secretary said: “it has been determined that reporting requirements do not apply to the Office of the Vice President, which has both legislative and executive functions.â?
Full report here.
So much for those checks and balances.
President Madison, I think, would have enjoyed port or madeira over tea, eighteenth-century bloke’s bloke that he was. Perhaps a nip of rum, James, or would that remind you too closely of the slaves cultivating the sugar?
Nabakov, I recall that the real stinging accusation made against the emperor Julius wasn’t that he fucked his troops, but that everyone knew he was fucked by them (well, Nicodemus, anyway), implying youth and lack of manliness, a reverse Clinton with a twist.
Almost correct, DD. It was Nicodemes of Bithynia.
Nicodemus was a character in the New Testament.
Yet at the same time that Julius Caesar was being defamed as a catcher and not a pitcher, he was notorious for his many mistresses, nearly all the wives of his political opponents. It was an attempt to swiftboat him with the voters, simple.
My favourite soap opera moment in the later days of the Roman Republic is Cato the Younger snatching a letter from Caesar in the Senate, a letter that he thought would reveal Caesar as a traitor, only to find that it was in fact a love letter from his own sister Servilia.
“was an attempt to swiftboat him with the voters, simple”
Ceasar’s military campaign experience was impressive though – wasn’t it?
Quite right, GregM, quite right: so many old books, so many men fucking their subordinates for money and power. I’m open to your suggestion for a penitential act to atone for my wrongness.
But the most minor of errors, DD. I would not even consider asking you to forgo a small glass of chablis for it.
Ah, yes, Caesar. Quite a lad. Certainly got around. His first name, after all, was “Gaius” — just like mine (I did a little time in Bithynia too, if you know what I mean…).
Greg M: “Nicodemus was a character in the New Testament.”
I do take your point, but if you’ll permit me to be a bit of a stickler: Nicodemus was not a ‘character’ in the NT. Sancho Panza, for instance, is a ‘character.’ Nicodemus was a *person* who is discussed in the NT.
But, that being said, Cheers all! Off to the library at Alexandria…
Oh, wait… Shit.
Ceasar’s military campaign experience was impressive though – wasn’t it?
PeterTB, I was thinking of Caesar’s early runs for elected office (quaestor, praetor etc) before his Gallic campaigns that made his reputation as a general. The incident with Cato and the letter took place before Caesar had generalled any victories (pretty sure about that), although he’d performed well as a junior officer (and his celebrated capture and crucifixion of the pirates who’d captured him for ransom predated it). At this stage Caesar’s military achievements tended to be portrayed by his enemies as due to pure luck or to him taking credit for the work of more modest men.
By the time Caesar had conquered Gaul his opponents were mostly interested in painting him as more bloodthirsty than Marius and Sulla combined rather than trying to convince people that he wasn’t militarily gifted.
Back to bloggers on campaign: here’s a good story in the LA Times about the Edwards bloggers brouhaha (love that word).
Catullus, you had it bloody easy. “Exhaustion” is a piker’s way to die untimely.
P.S. You died well before my Library was destroyed, too.
Execution? Could be worse, at least you get out in the open air.
…you could be stabbed.