(Print out or save your copy NOW, before "the President" declares this article a danger to national security! I heard Harry Shearer read parts of this article today on his "Le Show" radio program, and thought it might raise a few eyebrows here.)
Posted: Sun., Feb. 5, 2006, 6:00am PT
Spinmeisters go negativeBy WILLIAM TRIPLETT
If you can construct believable stories with enough truth in them to smear somebody royally, boy, is there a pot of gold waiting for you in D.C.
Spin doctors are nothing new in politics, but a certain type -- equal parts scriptwriter, opposition researcher and ruthless street fighter -- is increasingly in demand, and for good reason. Just ask John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential candidate who became the target object of a new verb: "swift-boating...."
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...White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove denied multiple reports of involvement with the Swift Boat campaign. But the hardball Republican operative Chris LaCivita was linked to it, along with multiple communications firms. Records show that media consulting firm Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm was paid $276,000 for the Swift Boat campaign, and Creative Concepts, a Virginia firm, was paid $165,000 for repping both the Swift vets and the conservative book company Regnery Publishing, which issued a tome about Kerry's military service, "Unfit for Command."
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"Modern communication isn't about truth, it's about a resonant narrative," says Eric Dezenhall, a former Reagan administration aide and now president of his own crisis management firm. "The myth of PR is that you will educate and inform people. No. The public wants to be told in a story who to like and who to hate...."(clip)
...If that sounds audacious, it's because, as Dezenhall says, "We're living in an age of audacity," another fact GOP spinmeisters understand and exploit superbly. "George Bush communicates in terms of audacity," Dezenhall says. Bush's response to questions about the wiretapping was to say that he's just trying to catch terrorists. Bold motivation, easily understood. "Democrats communicate in terms of complexity," Dezenhall says, referring to their windy explications of a need to pursue enemies within the rule of law as spelled out in various court ... (snorrrrrrrrrrre).
(more at link below)
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http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117937405?categoryid=18&cs=1>
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