Minimal to lying liars perhaps , as for ordinary citizens not so much .

It's the same tactic as in the Clinton years-- keep even the most ridiculous accusations coming, and the especially low information voters (e.g. most independents) will say to themselves "oh golly gosh, I sure hear a lot of bad stuff about that there feller." And that negative response stays with them for a long time as an unconscious emotional reaction.

But, like with Clinton, the only thing that really matters is that you get health care reformed.

Why would the MSM bother to correct the lies? Punchups and yelling matches at townhalls are good TEEVEE gets a lot of eyeballs so we can sell you stuff. News is for chumps.
Jerry Springerfied NOOZE
brought to you by, Idiocracy: the documentary.

No -- you're wrong.

The best way to play defense, is OFFENSE.

The proper response to McGaughey/Palin's "death panel" nonsense isn't simply to say "not so", but ALSO to ask: do they really believe that Medicare should NOT pay for end of life counseling when the patient requests it? Or private insurers?

That way, there is a counterquestion -- simple and clear -- to ask critics who use the 'death panel' crap: the ones who win elections will say 'yes, of course I support coverage for counseling, but....'

And just like that, the story loses traction. It's not longer "Democrats lose control of message because of big scary attack", it's "Republican attacks fail to get them off defensive..."

Watch the feedback loop you work around here -- every single frigging time, folks revert to "how stooopid Americans are", which generally demonstrates only how dumb WE are, as progressives.

Far better to counterpunch.

Bear in mind that none of that would be possible without media complicity. As along as the press refuses to call lies lies, and insists on he-said, she-said formulations for even the most bogus nonsense, the liars will prevail.

Turns out Katy "But what about our TOILET PAPER, Sen. Specter?!" Abram has been a Glenn Beck loyalist since at least December 2006. Here's one link, and since two-per-comment = mod-jail, be right back with another . . .

Here's link 2.

Any Democrat faces not just the lies of the day, but the cumulative effect of 40 odd years of conservative propaganda. This latest incitement could not have happened if the right hadn't prepared the ground with decades of bashing liberals, big government, taxes, anything with social in the name, regulation, etc., etc.

I don't like how quickly TARP, the stimulus, the auto bailouts, cap and trade, and now health care have had to be dealt with -- or what all that is costing. But what would have been the cost of going slower -- or of doing nothing?

Actually, we know the answer to that, because doing nothing is exactly what got us into the current mess because, after all, government is the problem, remember?

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. ...

Heads I win - Tails you lose...

If all of the idiocy is not responded to, the low-information voters (ignorant whites) who are the base of the rethugnican party will believe that the lies must be true.

If all of the idiocy is responsed to, the corporate media will proclaim that the president has 'lost control of the message'.

There are the approximately 25% of the voters who will believe any lie about a dumbocrat. No responses will significantly alter their views. It is still imperative that attempts be made to do so.

There are probably another 25% who will believe any lie about a dumbocrat if it is not refuted. It is absolutely imperative that efforts be made to do so.

It may seem like a never ending struggle to continue to refute the reich-wing lie machines, but I have come to believe that each and every one of the lies must be countered publicly with the truth. Each individual molehill of lies that is unchallenged adds to a growing mountain of belief in that which is not true. And that is what the reich-wing relies upon!

Don Quixote would certainly go after the windbags

The point is not simply "lies". All politicians to some extent use them. The more relevant aspect is that these lies target the primordial human fears. These lies are just the extension of the "mushroom cloud" one. They are despicable becuase the target the subconscient most basic fears, deep inside the brain of everyone. And yes the Nazis were the master of such PR techniques.

Obama has lost control of the message.

That opponents would scream lies from the rooftops was a given. That the media would not clearly debunk the lies was a given.

Obama knew this. Whatever strategy he had to deal with it has not been successful.

What was Obama's message to begin with? Where was the concise phrase that people could resonate with? He needed something as simple as "Yes We Can" or "Change you can believe in" but he does not seem to have had anything. Instead he's tried to explain wonkishly what the reforms would do.

Seems to me the White House was afraid of "Health Care for All." People would think that meant govenrment takeover so we can't say anything that simple. We'd already lost from the start with that attitude.

Steve is exactly right. The moral of the Town Hall story is as much about the state of American media and political communication as it is about the GOP or its takeover by the radical right.

Conservatives with a vested interest in a particular policy will lie because they can. It is as simple as that. Billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and Richard Mellon Scaife did not pour hundreds of millions of dollars into think tanks and alternative conservative media because they wanted a "fair and balanced" socratic debate about the issues of the day. They created the myth of a monolithic liberally biased media so that they could build an alternative Conservative Media Establishment (talk radio, WSJ editorial pages, Fox News) that they could use to dominate the national discussion by pushing whatever messages they wanted, however ludicrous, using semi-educated bully-boys like Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly as enforcers or the harem of pretty blonds on Fox to make their messages all the more alluring for their mostly angry white middle age male audience.

It took them about a decade to build this conservative Echo Chamber, but it is now clear that they can use it to control what tens of millions of Americans believe, no matter how easy it is to disprove. The efforts by liberal bloggers and Olberman and Maddow on MSNBC to act as de-bunkers are but drops in the barrel because they are largely preaching to the choir.

Scott McClellen when he was George W's press secretary finally had an epiphany about what happens to a democracy when it loses interest in the truth and tolerates official lying to advance an agenda. It becomes un-governable. It stops becoming a democracy. Until Americans wake up that democracy itself is at stake, and until conservative interests begin to pay a price for serial lying we can expect much more of it.

Then there was this exchange which is either very depressing or the most depressing ever:

Q If you look at the protests that we saw outside of the building yesterday as a kind of a continuum from the tea parties and then the controversy over the birth certificate, and then some of the anger over the Gates/Crowley episode — you look back at that, I'm wondering what -

MR. GIBBS: Jonathan, let me just — I didn't go in the front door, so I don't know — I did not -

Q There were -

MR. GIBBS: Oh, I don't doubt that, but I'm saying I don't know — I didn't see a representative sample of the signs.

Q Well, what I was going to say is, this is a President who campaigned on the notion that we could get beyond the partisan — the ugly partisan warfare of the last 16 years, and that there could be rational discussion that could bring parties together. And I wonder what happened to that. Why did the post-partisan presidency not materialize?

I suspect the moral of the story is pretty straightforward: it pays to lie, blatantly and repeatedly, when launching a campaign against a policy initiative.

But this and the rest of this post ignore the fact that Obama, the Congressional Dems and every single one of us had ample warning that this was how the game would be played. No one should be shocked, particularly after the last eight years, that a campaign of shameless lying would be the choice of people protecting the healthcare status quo. And no one should be shocked that it's worked -- every time I read a comment from someone saying that the protesters are only hurting their own cause, I wonder if the speaker is new to American politics.

Team Obama has failed and is continuing to fail on two fronts here: One, by not starting out with succinct and powerful messaging that would have preemptively taken some of the starch out of the right's screeching, and two, by responding to the right's outrageous claims with simple denials instead of taking the opportunity to push back with calmly aggressive questioning/statements of our own. He's been playing defense since day one on this, he still is, and there's no reason he should have been.

This raises a number of questions for us (and our press) to consider to include what you've mentioned.

How is it that someone can lie repeatedly with the effect of NO LOSS OF CREDIBILITY?

These Fox News Dumbasses (people who still watch that crap) can't figure it out. They have to suspect at some point, that they are being lied to but the indoctrination that they can't seem to overpower, is what dominates their thinking and reasoning for going back to the same people who lie to them constantly.

The ideology, not the TRUTH, is what is important. As long as you share my 'ideology', I still vote for stupid, incompetent, lying (Bush is a good example). The same holds true for who they'll believe is telling them the 'truth' even after it's been proven otherwise.

Who is so stupid, or as I like to think-so indoctrinated, that they can't go to MediaMatters.org and see the research and judge for themselves that the Fox Network is full of liars who lie constantly, with no apparent effect on their credibility (at least with these nimrods anyway)? It's like the battered female that continues to go back to her abusive ex-husband to get beat again, except the Fox Zombies don't admit or care that they are being lied to.

How is this possible? Lie and get caught in a lie or lies and move on as if it never happened. No credibility loss.

You can be conservative and not watch Fox News. In fact, you should insist on avoiding news outlets with such a lack of journalistic integrity. I think true conservatives would see this and boycott such abhorrent 'journalism.'

He's been playing defense since day one on this, he still is, and there's no reason he should have been.

The reason is that Baucus, Grassley & Co slow-walked to give this space to develop without anyone knowing what "Plan" is there to sell. So "Attack Everything" is the only tactic available, and it only works for one side.

Before we start blaming the MSM for Obama's problems selling health care, I'd like to point out that even progressive blogs are overwhelmingly focused on discussing death panels, Nazi references and the character of town hall attendees.

This is true of this blog as well as video blogs like ThinkProgress.

I know what Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman think about health care. I can watch video of the guy who thinks his son is going die if ObamaCare passes. I heard the nonsense that Newt Gingrich spouted on This Week (What did Howard Dean have to say?) And I can watch the latest Glenn Beck rant.

Even on the rare occasions that I spot a video clip from Obama's town hall meeting it invariably is his response to some Republican myth.

Who is actually making a case for health care reform?

As vile as Karl Rove is, he does have some skill as a political operative, and one of his maxims which is often true, particularly when it comes to answering your opponent's charges is "when you're explaining, you're losing."

Similarly LBJ's maxim "make the SOB deny it."

However, what Gibbs said is also true, though he didn't say it with nearly the force required -- if reporters don't ferret out and expose the truth or falsity of charges they repeat they aren't reporters, they're stenographers or, worse, communications directors for the insurance industry or whatever other astroturf operation they are publicizing.

The "lost control of the message" argument seems to be a false dichotomy. It is possible to both address the lies and get your message out. As a biologist, it amazes me how often these false choices crop up e.g., nature or nurture, and so much time gets wasted debating which untrue proposition is right.

The reason is that Baucus, Grassley & Co slow-walked to give this space to develop without anyone knowing what "Plan" is there to sell. So "Attack Everything" is the only tactic available, and it only works for one side.

No. We haven't even gotten the common elements, the basic platform, out there. Most people still don't even understand that this is all about changing insurance standards, not altering the delivery of services. That's not the Gang of Six's fault. It's Obama's.

And again, it should not have come as a surprise that blue dogs would join Republicans in slowing down the process. This is really basic stuff.

Either way, the incentives to tell the truth and talk to Americans like grown-ups are minimal.

What is at stake is -- to wax a little hyperbolic but only a little -- the future of the American great experiment. If the anti-reformers win, our democratic republic is most likely not salvageable.

Counterattack should be along two fronts

1) Fight fear with clear eyed reason:
Read Jinchi at 9:06 am and then follow it up with this short op-ed from Robert Reich:

How to Fight Healthcare Fearmongers and Demagogues

2) Read shortstop at 8:56 am and then follow it up with this body slam of Birthers by Bill Maher.

And keep this in mind: The right wants you to feel dispirited and tempted to throw in the towel...

It is possible to both address the lies and get your message out.

Sure it's possible. But I don't think you can argue that it's true in this case. Obama is currently playing on the defensive.

I question the premise. What have we learned in the last three weeks? That the opposition to Health Care Reform is based in paranoia, falsehood, and a complete lack of substantive argument. Everybody can see that now. The GOP lost control of its message. Their message has been that they want health care reform, but the Dems are too ideological to get the job done. But the GOP lost control of the message to their far-right wing which has been saying that they oppose all forms of health care reform. Now, if health care reform does not pass, it will be clearly the GOP's fault. Very different than 1993. Where will we be in another month?

Everybody can see that now.

No, everybody, or even most bodies, cannot. Take a look at the post above this one.

The GOP lost control of its message.

The GOP is in perfect control of its message and is achieving exactly what it intended to achieve.

What was the message to begin with? They had no clear message to articulate. They've certainly lost control of the message if they ever had it.

It's quite sad. Democrats can ram through whatever they want but they want to play nice with insureres and the scumbags but the scumbags aren't playing nice back. Obama actually believe the idiotic media narrative that "HilaryCare" failed because of WH micromanagement. The Obama white house should have put their health care plan on the table from the get go and made several things untouchable. Instead they put "reform" in the hands of congress and the lobbyists and this allowed an opening for the Right Wing smear machine lies and propaganda.

The GOP lost control of its message.

I think you're engaged in wishful thinking Tom.

Republicans have managed to convince Senior citizens that Democrats will cancel their Medicare. They've convinced parents of disabled children that their children will be cast aside in favor of cost-cutting.

This has been a growing and effective theme throughout this debate - that you can't insure everybody without watering down coverage for those who already have it.

Laugh all you want about the irony of the 65+ set complaining about government health care. But they're fighting to keep their piece of the pie and if they think they'll lose it, they'll fight you tooth and nail.

(BTW, it was obvious in 1993 that Republicans killed health care, too.)

LOL -- you guys are all wrong: health care reform passes in the fall, by substantial margins. Gabby Giffords and Dennis Moore count for a lot more in this mess than Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, much less Sarah Palin.

And, particularly for Shortstop's benefit: you steer by the stars, not by the lights of every passing boat.

I think it was a mistake for Obama to try to engage the industry, which hampered the message from day one. Most people support health insurance reform, not so much healthcare reform. With reform bills barely past the committee stage, it's very difficult to promote or defend any specifics of healthcare reform at this point. But if from the beginning the emphasis had been on consumer protection and regulation of the health insurance industry and the drug companies, maybe all this death panel idiocy would have been harder to promote.

But I doubt it. All the vaunted "working with the industry" and bi-partisan appeals to Republicans have just left Obama open to charges of being co-opted. Personally, I believe he has the interests of Americans front and center, rather than the health insurance industry. But no matter what approach Obama took, the right wing echo machine would have been deafening. I think he's done the best he could in a country that is so polarized and so ill-informed by a diseased press/media establishment. I've given up on healthcare reform at this point, but I'm still hopeful he can pass a bill with decent regulation of the industry and maybe that's all that would ever have happened anyway. In a country controlled so heavily by corporate interests, regulation is a major step forward.

The GOP is in total control of its message and that is to drive up Democrats negative approval numbers.

"Just Win Baby"

the Americanist is wrong. "Insurance Reform" passes in the fall as yet another giveaway to big business making it a law that everyone has to buy in to the system with no cheap public option available for those that want it.

People are going to be pissed off when they find out what "Insurance reform" actually is. You think Max Bauccus, Arlen Specter, and Olympia Snow give a shit about Health Care reform?

Senate, House, Conference Committee, Presidential signing statement.

Honest, do you guys NEVER think about the real dynamics?

"The critic rises/at curtain's fall/and finds, in starting to review it/that he never saw the play at all/for watching his reaction to it..." -- EB White.

2) Read shortstop at 8:56 am and then follow it up with this body slam of Birthers by Bill Maher.

That wasn't really what I meant by calmly aggressive questions/statements of our own -- I was thinking more along the lines of forcing them to go on record defending certain aspects of the current system.

But I found it amusing to watch nonetheless.

Shortstop is correct. The Obama White House knew the "other side" would come out fighting.

They weren't ready, and didn't have a solid, consistent game plan, except for denigrating the protestors as "un-American," and calling names. Sneering is not a plan, if your goal is to present WHY your plan is a good one.

The FAILURE is Obama's, and his team's.

Epic fail.

I agree with the "play offense" point above, but even more importantly, the lying strategy only works for Repeublicans.

An unspoken assumption of all our political discourse is that the Democrats are the "good guys," so to speak, while the Republicans are the "villians." That why IOKIYAR exists -- the press implicitly gives the bad guys a pass it would never, ever give to anyone on the left.

you guys are all wrong: health care reform passes in the fall, by substantial margins.

"Health Care Reform" can mean a lot of things. Single payer was off the table before the discussion even started. They're working hard to get the government option tossed as well. Let's not let the government negotiate better rates for pharmaceuticals. And of course, Blue Dogs are suddenly worried about the deficit again.

So sure, health care reform may pass this year. But progressives have already lost major battles against an unpopular opposition party that doesn't even have the numbers to filibuster the bill anymore.

Obama lost control because his administration and Congressional leaders didn't see this as a political campaign with strong and proactive narratives designed to mobilize his base right from the outset. They saw this through a legislative paradigm that is pretty much obsolete with major and controversial policy issues.

That said, Obama had three disadvantages here. First, the healthcare industrial complex has very deep pockets and presumably the best marketing wizards in the business who have been developing contingencies for years.

Second, it's harder to sell legislation when it isn't clear what it is. The legislative process is messy, at least in the absence of the Bush II era's unitary government, where the Republican Congressional leadership pretty much did what the administration wanted without much complaint.

Third, the healthcare debate is further proof (if needed) that in the US it is much easier to kill a legislative proposal than to pass one. That's the downside of the checks and balances built into our system (both constitutional as well as otherwise).

Obama took on a huge challenge. No, he didn't fully grasp the difficulty of the enterprise, and is paying dearly for it. If there is a positive side to this, perhaps it is that Obama may henceforth suffer less from "best and brightest" syndrome. So when he joins a street fight next time he might do so with the right weaponry and attitude.

As for healthcare reform, Canada is looking better every day. I wonder whether the US is too big and dysfunctional to be governable.

"I suspect the moral of the story is pretty straightforward: it pays to lie, blatantly and repeatedly, when launching a campaign against a policy initiative -- if you're a Republican."

Fixed.

But progressives have already lost major battles against an unpopular opposition party that doesn't even have the numbers to filibuster the bill anymore.

Right. And the idea that congresspersons, particularly blue and bluish dogs, will cast their votes completely independently of major public backlash created by Republicans without effective Democratic opposition is too quaint for words.

This story on Politico 44 further proves Gibbs’ point:
In their post titled “Palin Slaps Back At WH”, they basically restate Palin’s claim of saying there will be death panels, and the White House saying there isn’t… and yet, the don’t even say if the claim is true or not. In fact, at the end of it, they just give a link to their original post of what Palin said.
So lets take a look at what Gibbs is saying again:

Gibbs responded by noting that there's "a tremendous amount of disinformation that's out there." He added, "[L]et's be honest, you all, the media, tend to cover 'X said this(Palin), Y said this (Obama),' but some of you, but not everyone, does an investigation about whether what X said is actually true."

http://www.politico.com/politico44/

Everyone who blames this mess on the administration's lack of preparation is correct. They should have been paving the way for the roll-out of their health care plan long before it actually appeared. And they should have had plans in place to deal with both the foot-dragging DINOs and the most egregious liars on the other side. Right now, Palin, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Beck, etc. are paying no price for their lies and Baucus and the Blue Dogs are paying no price for their obstruction. Obama should have had a "war room" operation ready to go to spank his opponents as soon as they opened their lying mouths and to light a fire under wayward Dems. After what the GOP did to health care reform back in the 90s, and the subsequent insanity of the 2000 and 2004 elections, there's no excuse for being unprepared. I like and voted for Obama, but I've always suspected that he doesn't have the sack for a real fight.

"I suspect the moral of the story is pretty straightforward"

The American people, by and large, are stupid.

Incapable of predicting the future as I am, I can't speak to the Americanist's prophecy (or anybody else's) on whether substantive healthcare reform will pass this year, but he/she is absolutely right about the proper response to the "death panel" charges.

Why the Obama response to ALL of the disinformation has been so lame & late makes me wonder if the President really wants a good bill that will help Americans or if he's become enamored of his industry lobbyist friends he keeps meeting behind closed doors & cutting deals or no deals with depending on what the storyline of the day is.

The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com

The American people, by and large, are stupid.

The ones showing up to disprupt the townhalls certainly are beyond stupid--one guy they played on NPR this morning was asking why they didn't address the "real" problems--tort reform and immigration. These are ignorant, moronic, xenophobes who are completely unhinged from reality. They may represent a majority at the townhalls, but I think even the congressmen realize they don't represent a majority of Americans.
And of course, the MSM isn't doing its job on separating fact from fiction, but they've been neglecting their jobs for years now. Look at their behavior during the Clinton years, the elections in 2000 and 2004, the entire Bush administration. They're a joke, clowns, nothing more.

Who controls the message?

Half a dozen giant corporations control virtually everything you see and hear on television and radio.

That's a plain and simple fact. There is no mystery about it.

The problem is that the Democrats are just no good at propaganda and sloganeering. The Right screams "death panels!" and the left says "that's factually incorrect. What we propose is merely that Medicare be expanded to cover the costs associated with end-of- life counseling sessions you have with your physician."

Which one has more impact?

Why the Obama response to ALL of the disinformation has been so lame & late makes me wonder if the President really wants a good bill that will help Americans or if he's become enamored of his industry lobbyist friends he keeps meeting behind closed doors & cutting deals or no deals with depending on what the storyline of the day is.

I'm starting to wonder myself, although Obama has a history of proving me wrong. But he just seems waaay too accommodating to the forces he's trying to reform, and to their whorish enablers in congress--like Baucus.
If this falls apart and fails with a worthless giveaway to the insurance industry, Obama will be the one to blame and rightfully so.

Allan Snyder wrote: "And of course, the MSM isn't doing its job on separating fact from fiction, but they've been neglecting their jobs for years now."

With all due respect, if you think the "job" of the so-called "mainstream media" is to "separate fact from fiction" -- i.e. to impartially and accurately educate and inform the American people about facts and issues -- then you are as deluded as the Ditto-Head mobs showing up at the town hall meetings raving about Obama's plan for a government takeover of Medicare.

The "job" of the "mainstream media" is, first and foremost, to generate profits for the handful of giant corporations that own virtually all of the mass media in America. It's important to realize that only a tiny part of the mass media's programming is "news" or "public affairs" programming. Most of their programming is commercial advertisements, and most of the part that we think of as the actual content is straightforward entertainment, e.g. fiction, sports, etc.

And the tiny portion that is called "news" is nothing but corporate propaganda -- which is of course the other main "job" of the "mainstream" media, to propagandize the American people in furtherance of the ruthless, rapacious, relentless class warfare by America's corporate ruling class against every one else.

The giant media corporations are not "neglecting" their job -- they are doing it very well. They are relentlessly bombarding the American people with corporate propaganda, spin, and outright lies, and keeping them ignorant and stupid.

"a legislative paradigm that is pretty much obsolete with major and controversial policy issues..."

Gotta love a guy who hates democracy so much he characterizes it as a "legislative paradigm" -- as opposed to, what, the mass media?

There's an infamous but invaluable bit of political advice to recall here: Always Concede On Principle.

If there is a fight over who gets how many of an odd # of marbles in the middle of the table, that becomes a debate over the past history of anti-your side discrimination and the merits of affirmative action to correct it, countered by the intensity of proponents for the magical efficiency of the free market in marble allocation -- the smart folks concede on every single frigging principle. Admit that the free market works marvels; apologize for the history of anti-your side discrimination, insist on affirmative action to redress all grievances...

And take the marbles. Cuz that what counts, in the end -- who gets the marbles.

That's what Obama is doing. How come you guys can't see it?

he just seems waaay too accommodating to the forces he's trying to reform

I think Obama has two shortcomings:

a) he likes to be the most popular kid in class, and

b) he really does seem to think that everybody wants what's best for the country and can, with a little effort, find common ground.

After the number of times that he's praised people only to have them kneecap him (as happend with Grassley yesterday), you think he'd wise up. For whatever reason, Obama does not seem to be able to understand that the GOP wants to wreck his presidency, period. They will never work with him on anything, ever.

With all due respect, if you think the "job" of the so-called "mainstream media" is to "separate fact from fiction" -- i.e. to impartially and accurately educate and inform the American people about facts and issues -- then you are as deluded as the Ditto-Head mobs showing up at the town hall meetings raving about Obama's plan for a government takeover of Medicare.

Thanks for the insult, I'll just say what the job of any supposed news organization is, as opposed to the MSM. You're describing what the MSM is today, which I already agree with, I'm telling you what it's supposed to be as self-described sources of news, and what it once was.
I certainly don't need self-righteous assholes like you lecturing me about it.

...it pays to lie...

Like setting up a fake "doctor" to ask Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D) loaded questions at a town hall? That kind of lie?

correcting the lies IS the media's MAIN JOB. Any idiot can tell me that X said this and Y said that. Someone needs to shift through the BS and call X or Y on the lie, or explain the nuances. What X or Y said only matters to those who support X or Y (and don't support the other).

No politician, no matter how skillful, ever has 100% control of the message. Especially in a fight as big as health care reform. What matters is whether they can nail the landing. If they do, then the temporary bobbles along the way are forgotten.

Obama is very good at nailing his landings.

Allan Snyder, I didn't intend my comment as an insult.

But to complain that the corporate-owned media isn't doing its "job" is silly, and in a way is just as misguided as the Ditto-Head complaint that the media is "liberal".

The job of the corporate-owned media is to generate profits, and promote the corporate agenda. Its job has NEVER been anything other than that.

This is nothing new. Read up on the history of the role of the "media" in the Spanish-American war, for example.

What has changed is not that the corporate media propagandizes in the corporate interest -- what has changed is that the half-dozen giant corporations that own and control virtually all of the mass media in the USA have a near-totalitarian control of the information that reaches the American people, control that their forebears could not even have imagined; that there are NO effective, independent checks or balances on their ability to saturate the public discourse with disinformation; and that they have at their disposal the most powerful means of multimedia communication and the most powerful and insidious propaganda techniques ever conceived.

These facts are THE central reason that our society is in such grave trouble, on so many fronts -- but these facts are virtually ignored by most "liberals", including "liberal" media critics, who really should know better. How many people who get steamed about Murdoch know the name "Hearst"?

I apologize for my harsh language which you understandably construed as an insult.

Canada does indeed look better everyday. I thought Obama winning the election would stem the tied of the US' brain drain that will happen in the next two decades and perhaps reverse it. Sadly that seems less and less possible.

What part of 11 dimensional chess is this?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/13/internal-memo-confirms-bi_n_258285.html

Dozens of protesters at health care town hall meetings - HUGE news stories.

Millions protesting in the streets prior to the Iraq invasion - eh, not so much.

It's a Republican media world.

Very interesting question.

It seems to me that rather than saying "No, there are no death panels in the bill(s)" the President and everyone FOR reform needs to say "You've got it exactly backwards. There are death panels NOW and they're in "health" insurance company offices all over the country."

Every SINGLE bad thing said about the reform needs to be turned back with "That's what the "Health" insurance companies are doing now. We need to change that and that's what this bill will do."

Make you change your doctor? That's what insurance companies are doing now. (Let's drop the "health" from their names. Or maybe make THEM the "death" insurance companies."

Ration health care? That what insurance companies are doing now. We need reform to change that.

Pull the plug on Grandma? That's what insurance companies are doing now. We need reform to change that.

"correcting the lies IS the media's MAIN JOB.."

Sez who?

I mean -- unless you happen to own a significant piece of "the media", it ain't YOU who determines what the media's job is.

And if you're attempting to OBSERVE what the media does, it'd help to actually, yanno -- watch it a bit?

Most media "content" (which used to be quaintly called "news" or "entertainment") exists simply to keep the ads apart. The business model is that advertisers will pay to have their material tacked onto whatever-it-is that the "media" puts up, which attracts eyeballs.

So that the media does -- is sell access to eyeballs.

That's it.

Over a fairly long history, particularly with newspapers, the media has generally figured out that there is an audience for stuff that is "new" -- and since the audience is always there, but "new" things aren't quite so common, a fair amount of "news" is manufactured -- either through very expensive, shoe-leather and research investigate stories, or through much cheaper (and more reliable) coverage of press releases, staged events and the commentary industry.

But -- correcting lies? Get a grip -- go MAKE some news if you want 'em to cover it.

ump902a said it. This has been pissing me off for days.

But SecularAnimist explained it.

Corporate media PRO Iraq war. Corporate media ANTI health insurance reform.

MSM can't die fast enough if we want our Republic to endure.

Obama has indeed lost control of the debate, if he ever had it, and that's not the "MSM's fault."

http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/08/obama-has-lost-control-of-healthcare.html

The real problem is that Obama is not William Jennings Bryan, taking populist anger and talking about being crucified on a cross of denied healthcare coverage:

http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/07/prez-kumbaya-instead-of-william.html

The President is placed in a position that no one should ever be in, let explain. If the sole purpose of media existance is only to repeat what it hears ( hearsay) is it any surprize as to what is happening? Hearsay is designed with only purpose in mind that is to start a fire storm that consumes everything. No one looks for the I who started the fire, they only concern is that I'm on fire. So the as to be the one who is trying to but out the fire, while the starter watches it burn. Great good media, so enough it will all be consumed!!!!!!

You were never supposed to have "health care" the way you "voted" to have "health care."

You get what they give you, and they used every trick in the book to arrive at this point-where you'll accept whatever is in the bill and whatever is signed into law (signing statements be damned, Bushie did that, and no self-respecting Democratic politician would ever use one, no?) and you'll cheer and vote to keep the Democratic Party power structure firmly in place in 2010 and you'll return President Obama to the White House in 2012 with a clear mandate for "continuing change and hope, Inc."

There is no news coverage-there's just marketing that identifies itself as "marketing" and then there's product placement that identifies itself as "news coverage." Subscribe to a PR newswire sometime. Match what's on the wire with what's in the "news" and you'll give yourself a bellylaugh at the continuing stupidity of the 'merican people. Did anyone really watch Michael Moore's Sicko? I don't live in a country where people paid attention to the problem. I live in a country where, after working for change, voting for change, and expecting a reasonable transition from the status quo to substantive change, all I got was this lousy T-shirt that some dude is now repossessing because my spouse is sick with cancer and we can't afford *diddly-squat.*

President Obama doesn't have the life experience to really see this. Howard Dean certainly did, and you saw what the media did to him. Now, who was it that kept Dean from being an informed advisor to Obama? Oh, yeah. Chicago bull$$$hit politics, courtesy of Rahm Emmanuel Inc. No wonder the wheels are coming off da bus. The good people have been flushed out of the process of determining what the best course of action should be.

Niiiiiiiice.

The reporter asking if the WH lost control of its message -- while living in a media cycle that plays the lies over and over -- pretty much indicates that there isn't much room for the WH message. I have been hearing some pushback by Dems on the death panel thing, but I doubt that gets the kid of play the Summer of Spittle crowd gets. If the media landscape is such that frothing at the mouth gets the air time, then what would the media report on any real, measured pushback?

You just can't argue with crazy.

lotus: Here's one link, and since two-per-comment = mod-jail

Is that true? Does the moderator prohibit more than one link per post? I thought it was that he/she did not like the content of some of my links.

MRM, in my experience two links (even if typed out and not HTML) will not go through until looked over. I wish they'd lighten up.

Could you help me. Deeds, not words shall speak me. Help me! It has to find sites on the: . I found only this - phoenix unversity. Sutherland asbill & brennan llp, abated to display its power to sutherland, is an first voter creativity.No are payments used by tax? Except not remitted by court 7, effort 2 of the boc recognizes the fees of a tough identification to: the situation of one tax of strong center, unless the college is not beaten to hire more than one effort of possible borrowing under guidance lawyer receiving the only loans; and revenues original to the financing of the total exchange.Look any such contracts born by the city manager as they need to inestimable assets.This is a state of form that could cut in the account. Major paying commissioner oglesby intended to know the taxes just used.He is working a developer to follow with the income privilege of his recorded business of failure. Waiting for a reply :o, Dore from Azerbaijan.

Have no enough money to buy a car? You should not worry, because it is real to receive the personal loans to solve all the problems. Therefore take a commercial loan to buy everything you want.