Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Eric Boehlert Doing the Hard Work

Unhinged in 30 days: The right-wing media's Obama era implosion

The goal with this kind of thing is to render reasoned political discourse and national dialogue and debate irrelevant.

It's astounding to watch the avalanche of hate ooze from conservative media quarters. And why? Because Obama passed an economic recovery bill. Good Lord, imagine if he had failed to win the popular vote and then led the country into a pre-emptive war based on faulty intelligence, a war that lost thousands of American lives, and tens of thousands of foreign lives, while milking the U.S. treasury out of a few trillion dollars in the process.

I suspect the unvarnished hate directed toward Obama, the radical rhetoric behind it, and most especially the overnight delivery used to proclaim it, is unprecedented for our modern politics. Even during the first Clinton weeks and months in 1993, I don't think the right-wing ratcheted up the demonizing language this quickly. Note that back then the Republican Noise Machine was just coming into its own, whereas today it's a well-oiled hate machine. Also, in the early 1990s, the Noise Machine (i.e., Limbaugh) hadn't been given unofficial control of Republican Party messaging the way it has today. There still seemed to be some (emphasis on some) adult supervision within conservative circles.

Anyone who has brothers and sisters is familiar with the tactic--blow up the conversation so you can't lose the argument.

With money and talent pouring in from Conservative foundations and think tanks, with the military intelligence operations working behind the front, plugging the gaps, strategizing the long view, and keeping the Pentagon in control through their agents at the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute and Project for a New American Century, the corporate-military-media fascii don't have to play to win. They just wear down the audience and run out the clock.

There's one solution: start a new conversation.

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