GOTCHA!

[CrisisPapers]

| Ernest Partridge |

A Democrat campaigning for the White House must feel like a soldier advancing through a mine field. At any moment, he or she is one step away from being blown out of the contest. And the poor wretch is surrounded by a ravenous mob of media hounds, each of whom is eager to set off the fatal charge.

Gotcha!

Still worse, almost all the media volleys are fired toward the port side. If a Republican or (so-called) "conservative" makes a gaffe, as they do almost daily, their "misspeak" is usually politely ignored. Or if it is simply too awful to be ignored, it is shoved down the memory hole after a couple of news cycles and effectively forgotten by the corporate media. No big deal. Count on it: John McCain's belated shedding of the embarrassing Hagee and Parsely endorsements will be gone from the news and forgotten within the week. In contrast, the Rev. Wright "Goddam America" uproar is still alive after several months.

"Gotcha! moments" are often excavated through the sort of diligent searching that was once the hallmark of investigative journalism – back in the days when we still had investigative journalists. The Rev. Wright remark was culled out of thousands of recorded hours of his sermons. Barack Obama's "bitter" comment was caught by chance on a cell phone recording.

If the Democrat's careless comment is insufficiently damaging, the GOP and/or the media will "improve" it. Case in point: It wasn't bad enough that Michelle Obama said that for the first time in her adult life, she was "really proud of my country." That word "really" softens the impact. So out with it! In this video clip of a Tennessee GOP ad, the word has clearly been deleted. Here is the unedited remark.

If culling and editing will not suffice, then there is always whole-cloth invention – i.e., outright fraud. In 2000, Al Gore was relentlessly pounded for his "claim" to have "invented the internet." He never made that claim. And what of his alleged boast to have "discovered" the Love Canal toxic site? Never happened.

Gotcha! smears follow the successful Democratic politician into office. Remember the press ruckus when, in May 1993, Bill Clinton allegedly held up air traffic at the Los Angeles airport, while he was getting a haircut on Air Force One? Now that was news! But when the FAA and the LAX traffic controllers totally debunked the story, the media felt that correction was scarcely worthy of mention. And the Clintons were hounded by the alleged "Whitewater scandal" throughout Bill Clinton's presidency, until at long last, the Ken Starr inquisition was forced to admit that there was "no there there," a finding that was essentially ignored by the mainstream media.

Then there are those utterly trivial incidents, inflated to national prominence: Al Gore wearing "earth tones," Howard Dean's amplified "scream," John Kerry's preference for swiss cheese (yum!) over Cheez-Whiz (yechh!) in his philly sandwiches, John Edwards' haircut, Barack Obama's disinclination to wear flag lapel pins.

Meanwhile, glaring issues potentially devastating to the Republican candidates are kept off the front pages and off the mainstream TV screens: Bush's violation of security laws, his desertion from the Air National Guard, the August, 2001 PDB: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US," the Florida schoolroom on 9/11 and "The Pet Goat," the lies that led to, and now prolong, an illegal war. The list is endless. Also McCain: his numerous "flip-flops," his slavish adherence to the Bush policies and the utter inauthenticity of his "maverick" label, his involvement in the Keating Five scandal, his obvious cluelessness about Middle East politics, etc. And, above all else, the total failure of the corporate media to investigate and expose the frauds perpetrated by the privatized election industry.

But for the alternative and foreign media, and the liberal blogosphere, we'd likely know little if any of this today.

Hillary Clinton and "The A-Word."

Let's stipulate the obvious: Hillary Clinton's reference last week to the RFK assassination was pluperfectly stupid and insensitive. It could prove to be fatal to her campaign, though I doubt that it will.

And yet, although I agree with many that by prolonging the contest all the way to the convention, Clinton might well cause the Democrats to lose in November, and, while I therefore believe that for the good of the party and the country, she should quit ASAP, I believe that the significance of her blunder may have been overblown. At last, the admirable and eloquent Keith Olbermann may have overshot with his rhetoric. None other than Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a Clinton supporter, has downplayed the remark: "It is clear from the context that Hillary was invoking a familiar political circumstance in order to support her decision to stay in the race through June... I think it is a mistake for people to take offense."

Exactly! Clinton's essential point: three months is an eternity in politics. History confirms that a lot can happen before the August convention: a whopper of an Obama scandal could emerge, Obama could be diagnosed with a fatal disease, or, God forbid, he could fall victim to a fatal accident or be assassinated. True enough. But some things, most assuredly, are much better left unsaid.

In sum, as tempting as it may be to use Hillary's A-word blunder to push her off the stage, I suggest that it would be less than honest to do so. And practically speaking, it would be unwise for any Democrats to encourage the media "gotcha!" practice of disqualifying candidates due to single, isolated gaffes.

Also largely unsaid and apparently unnoticed by the punditocracy, is the simple fact that the uncertainties of the pre-convention summer fail to justify Clinton's determination to continue the contest. Should she withdraw tomorrow and then should some misfortune make it impossible for Obama to claim his prize in Denver, Clinton would obviously be at the head of the queue to take the nomination. More so, if she were to withdraw gracefully soon, rather than further embitter the party with her continuing challenge.

In the meantime, what will be the media's likely response to Clinton's verbal stumble? While they could use it to pummel her candidacy, perhaps fatally, I predict that the media will soft-peddle the incident and let it pass into early obscurity, just as if I had been uttered by a Republican. And why? Because the corporate media and its Republican sponsors are all determined to see Clinton's dismal and doomed candidacy continue as long as possible, best of all on to the convention itself. The continuing drama of the contest attracts eyeballs to the media while it enhances John McCain's prospects for success in November.

So What is to be Done about "Gotcha! Journalism"?

I wish that I had a startling and innovative answer that question. Perhaps you do, and if so I'd like to hear it. In the meantime, the old and familiar responses will have to do. Foremost among these: punish the corporate media for its offenses. Deprive the media of its audience and its sponsors of their customers. Look elsewhere for news and information – alternative and foreign media and the internet – and let the corporate media know that you are doing so and why. The corporate media are businesses with fiduciary responsibilities to their stockholders, and thus cannot be indifferent to the financial consequences of their journalistic delinquency. As the general public continues to wise-up to the fact that the corporate media are no longer reliable sources of information but rather are propaganda organs for the military-industrial-congressional-media complex, both the credibility and the audience of that media dissolves. If a significant portion of the public accelerates that dissolution, the media will face the stark dilemma: reform or perish.

At the same time, the alternative media must be supported. Word must go out that reliable information is at hand to those willing to search for it.

The truth will eventually come out, if given a voice. It is up to we the people to give it that voice.

-- EP

[notesdev]

1. Doesn't quite match up

I still hear 'potatoe' jokes over 2 decades later (Dan Quayle for those of you too young to remember).

George Allen's 'macaca' statement caused him to lose his Senate seat, and incumbent Senators almost never lose.

Remember Trent Lott praising Strom Thurmond? He got incoming fire from both sides of the aisle, was forced to resign his leadership position, and ended his career isolated and bitter.

And who among us has forgotten the - ahem - 'unusual' pronunciations of words like 'nuclear' and 'strategy'?


Meanwhile, Hillary all but begs for her opponent to be assassinated to give her a chance to become President... the worst that will happen is that her already-dying campaign gets another nail shoved into the coffin.

In terms of real consequences suffered from poor statements, Democrats don't have too many examples to count (notice the article doesn't provide any, other than the shocking Clinton statement they're trying to play down). When Democrats go down due to scandal, there's either an adultery component (e.g., Spitzer), or a criminal component (Rostenkowski).

Then again, if you watch Fox News you may have a different impression, but I don't think anyone really seriously considers that to be news.

[Time for change]

5. Your examples are the ones that don't match up

When politicians express blatant racism it is legitimate to expect that the press will cover it to some extent. They are forced into doing so even if they don't really want to.

Let's use an example from this election cycle. John McCain repeatedly "mis-speaks" regarding the danger of al Qaeda in Iran, in his attempt to beat the drums for war against Iran. John Edwards gets an expensive haircut. The one is barely covered, while the other one is continually covered. Which is more important, McCain's attempt to draw us into war in Iran, or Edwards' haircut?

The media barely covered Bush's shirking of his National Guard duty, even though the evidence was quite clear. Yet, they played up the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" lies about John Kerry in the weeks before the election as if that was real news.

[Uncle Joe]

2. I believe as the Internet grows in power and influence, thereby dispersing or decentralizing

access to, discussion of and dissemination of information, "Gotcha Journalism" will lose it's power.

I believe the people are waking up to the corporate media created Matrix induced slumber used for the purpose of brain washing the American People as to the state of reality because of the growing Internet.

I believe two way mass information at the dawn of the Information Age is as fire was during the first stirrings of the Stone Age, it sheds light and keeps the beasts away.

I believe this was the true motivation for the obvious vitriol the corporate media unleashed on Al Gore for the better part of two years prior to the selection of 2000 playing Zeus and his vulture(s) to Gore's Prometheus with continuous slander and libel, thereby enabling a far lesser man and corrupt incompetent to power.

Al Gore didn't invent the Internet and he never claimed to, but he was the primary political champion for empowering the American People by opening the Internet to them and for this he had to pay a price and by extension, the American People had to pay as well. I believe had the corporate media given him credit for his vision and dedication to empowering the American People via the democratization of information, instead of deriding him, Gore would have won in a landslide too large for the neocons to steal.

"If culling and editing will not suffice, then there is always whole-cloth invention – i.e., outright fraud. In 2000, Al Gore was relentlessly pounded for his "claim" to have "invented the internet." He never made that claim. And what of his alleged boast to have "discovered" the Love Canal toxic site? Never happened."

[Doctor_J]

3. My feeling is that before democracy is restored here, Big Media

will have to be burned to the ground, maybe literally. Hate radio and Cabal "News" hosts make daily death threats with complete impunity, and are so one-sided as to make the purveyors of Pravda look like amateurs. Our only hope of not ending up like the USSR is to do something radical to take the hate mongers out of the equation. As a 50-year-old, I hope to God I am around when it happens.

[Doctor_J]

4. If Obama shared McSame's addiction to sleeping pills, his campaign

would be over. Instead the MSM refuses to report on McSame's drug abuse.

[Prophet 451]

6. Thoughts

Firstly, I'm sorry, I'm not buying it as regards Hillary's use of the assassination scenario. The fact that she has alluded to a similar scenario at least three times previously and the fact that she is a bright and capable woman suggests that she chose those words quite deliberatly. No, I'm sure she wasn't intending to incite violence toward Obama (although it does beg comparison with Henry II drunkenly ranting "Will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?"). If she simply wished to draw attention to the length of the nomination process (and Olbermann made clear why that doesn't work anyway), there were many other examples she could have used, examples she was surely made aware of after the first reference to RFK. No, I think the only real explanation is exactly what it appears: That she was floating the idea that she was sticking around in case something terrible happened to Obama. To some, I'm sure that looks like pragmatic politics. To the rest of us, it looks vaguely akin to a vulture.

Secondly, to this day I do not understand the furore over Michelle Obama or Rev. Wright's remarks. This kind of inordinate pride in one's country simply for existing would pass to those of us in Europe as nationalism, not patriotism which is another reason why Senator Obama's explanation for his lack of a flag pin (that it had become a substitute for "true patriotism") was so refreshing. The continual trumpeting of the USA as the greatest nation on earth has now gone on for so long, from politicians on both sides of the aisle, that it looks less like actual patriotism and more like a check-box that must be ticked. In the words of the late, great Bill Hicks: "Aren't you proud to be an American? / I dunno, I didn't have much to do with it, my parents f***ed here".

Finally, it's always amused those of us in the IT business that Al Gore got so flamed for "claiming to have invented the internet". Not just because he never actually said that but also because it wouldn't have been that far from the truth if he had! Gore was one of the very first people to both see the potential impact of the internet and be in a position to do something about it. He played a very big part in pushing through the funding which created the internet as we know it and the IT business has not been shy about thinking him for it, awarding him three industry awards for his work. Gods bless Al Gore on this one, without his work, I probably wouldn't have a job.

[KSinTX]

7. Media doesn't report anymore, sees itself as 'king or queen maker'

Thanks to the relatively new "pile on" journalism and its close relative "what if," the ancient art of "gotcha" journalism has spiraled to new lows. No one wants to feel left out of a good brawl so what you end up with is news outlets sourcing other news outlets who got a story by speculation among the talking heads about a statement that may or may not have been made or if made isn't worth sorting through little details such as context or facts. Why should they? They'll draw a hefty paycheck and have an even larger audience the next day.