HeadlineUpdate

Stop Feeding the Hand that Bites You

An intelligent argument today by David Sanger in the New York Times against the way the White House runs press briefings.  The departure of the robotic Scott McClellan brings into focus the danger that daily, televised briefings can become argument clinics where, as Sanger says, "Both sides strut."
Bill Clinton's Monica-era press secretary Michael McCurry repeats here the regret he's expressed recently about letting the briefings be televised.

"It's too late," Sanger writes, "to turn the television cameras off, of course."

I'm not so sure. After the spectacle of the last few years of the Bush press operation, I think most Americans have had enough.  As blogger Jay Rosen observes, the White House strategy is to treat the media like a joke. And it's working. I'm told that McClellan's briefings inspired a new drinking game:  take a shot every time he repeats a stock sentence--well, actually I made that up, but who's to know?

I recall when the great John Chancellor retired he expressed his secret wish:  that the White House would just stop trying so hard to make news. Just shut down the press office, he said. I know it's impossible, but wouldn't it be nice?  Sanger won't say it, but that's clearly on his mind too:

As for me, after I'm done fixing that hinge on my chair, I'll return to my daydreams about what it must have been like covering Calvin Coolidge, whose tightlipped pronouncements from his porch in Vermont must have inspired this White House. But at least when those briefings were over, there was a nice stream down the hill where reporters could cast for brook trout, and forget about the empty pages in their notebooks.

Suppose they gave a briefing, and nobody came?  If a press secretary speaks in an empty room, does anyone hear him?  Can we ever tune out the media watch?

Memo to the White House news corps: pick a day and stage a boycott. For one day, don't get managed, spun and bamboozled.  Pick a date, put out the "Gone Fishing" sign and let's see what happens.

How about December 24th?  It's both a slow news day and I.F. Stone's birthday. Go on then, do it for Izzy...

Why We Blog

The Washington Post has a front page story today about a self-described "angry" blogger. Of course I'm envious of My Left Wing's sticky eyeballs and today's ink, but I have to agree with the premise of the question the Post reporter asks (and, this being the Post, never answers):

Do the hundreds of thousands of daily visitors to Daily Kos, who sign their comments with phrases such as "Anger is energy," accomplish anything other than talking among themselves?

The article describes how My Left Wing's author composes what she calls her "long, sustained scream":

She will write about Darfur. The shame of it. The culpability of all Americans, including herself, for doing nothing. She will write something so filled with outrage that it will accomplish the one thing above all she wants from her anger: to have an effect.

"Darfur is not hopeless," she begins typing, and pauses.

"Ugh," she says.

"You are not helpless," she continues typing, and pauses again.

"Weak."

She deletes everything and starts over.

"WAKE THE [expletive] UP," she writes next...

And lo and behold, by the end of the article she's received 200 responses, including

"Thank you for the kick in the [expletive]."

"I wrote to my [expletive] so-called representatives."

"I also wrote to my [expletive] congressman to get off his [expletive] [expletive] and do the right [expletive] thing."

"You know what?" O'Connor says. "I did a good thing today." And for a moment, anyway, she isn't angry at all.

I don't buy this reasoning.  I've worked for tons of radical causes in my time, and hurled invective at the gates of authority more times than you can shake a stick at, if that's your idea of a good time.  But I'm also a professional writer and as I've written here and elsewhere, I believe in the value of professional writing when persuading people to make political decisions.  I've had direct mail clients who've lamented, can't we just write "send money now" on a postcard?  Nope.  It takes clever people like me to write words that get you to do hard things like voting or giving up some of your hard-earned dollars. Urgency, attacks, even anger all have their place, but all those angry people on the net should join me in memorizing my favorite Robert Kennedy quote, the one about "acts of courage and belief."  Optimism trumps pessimism in politics.  Keep Hope Alive!

We're Busy Making Plans for Niger*

    Today's Washington Post has a good behind the scenes look at the Marx Brothers farce that the Bush White  House has become.  As other bloggers such as the very informed on this topic David Corn report the internecine developments of in the Blame Plame Game Fame, allow me to extract this nugget from today's coverage.  All of us who have worked as speechwriters can recognize when we're being set up; well, except for Peggy Noonan, and I defer to my colleagues who are far more experienced than I to read between these lines:

But the White House Iraq Group, formed in August 2002 to foster "public education" about Iraq's "grave and gathering danger" to the United States, repeatedly pitched the uranium story. The alleged procurement was a minor issue for most U.S. analysts -- the hard part for Iraq would be enriching uranium, not obtaining the ore, and Niger's controlled market made it an unlikely seller -- but the Niger story proved irresistible to speechwriters. Most nuclear arguments were highly technical, but the public could easily grasp the link between uranium and a bomb.

"Irresistable to speechwriters, eh?"  I'm sure that's just how it worked.  The speechwriter found a reference on page 24 according to the New York Times, and still smarting over losing credit for that "axis of evil" line, the real live version of the terrific parody here slouched into action. Don't blame George Tent, George Bush or Dick Cheney, it's that kid in speechwriting with the Pat Buchanan haircut.

Hey messengers, you're getting blamed --speaking of which --how many hours does Scotty McClellan  have left before he goes home to run his Mommy's campaign?  Wager in the comment section below.  If I could trust you not to send me spam, I'd turn off the registration...

*To deliver on that XTC reference in the title, click here.

The Hammer Gets the Axe*Updated*

Not since the golden era of Watergate have we enjoyed a political scandal so delicious as the current troubles besetting House Republicans. And as the Wall Street Journal reports, there's even a sex angle.  Read all 1,153 news stories about the final fall of Tom DeLay...and remember, you heard it here first.

Originally posted 1-07-06

    I've had it in for Tom DeLay since 1994, when I turned the bug man from Sugar Land's own words against him in a direct mail package I created for Public Citizen.  I had an artist create a landscape of smokestacks and pollution, and quoted DeLay's view that DDT is "not harmful." I alerted fans of Ralph Nader about the forerunner of the K Street Project, a group of businesses, trade associations and PACs he called "Project Relief."
    Now the GOP is relieved of the albatross they used to call The Hammer.  I still maintain the man is dumb as a box of rocks.  If the Republicans are smart they'll decide on a new leadership team and do what Republicans do so well, stage a coronation.  But it will be more fun if they continue to eat their young.