2004 David Brock. "Democrats will be brutally slammed and systematically slandered"

[madfloridian]

Last edited Sat Mar 7, 2015, 02:53 AM - Edit history (1)

Brock pointed out how what he called The Republican Noise Machine was planning to attack all Democrats, said the attacks were not "Clinton-specific." They would go after anyone. From the forward to his book.

Unfortunately our side has had no one investing on the same financial level to build our own machine.

With the right-wing media now a seemingly permanent and defining feature of the media landscape, if Democrats cut through the propaganda and win back the White House in 2004, they still face the prospect of being brutally slammed and systematically slandered in such a way that will make governing exceedingly difficult. There should be no doubt that the right-wing media’s wildings of 1993 — which led to Clinton’s impeachment four years later — will be replayed over and over again until its capacities to spread filth are somehow eradicated.

They had their attack machine and used it.

My memoir ended in 2000; what I did not fully comprehend then, but what is apparent to me now as I have watched the politics of the last few years unfold, is that the virus was not Clinton-specific. In fact, it had nothing to do with the Clintons per se; rather, in different strains, it would afflict any and every political opponent of the right wing, including Al Gore, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, and the mourners of Senator Paul Wellstone, every major Democrat seeking the presidency in 2004

They went after Gore shamelessly.

he right-wing media broadcast this attack and similar attacks relentlessly, in effect giving the GOP countless hours of free political advertising every day for months leading up to the election. “Albert Arnold Gore Jr. is a habitual liar,” William Bennett, a Cabinet secretary in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, announced in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. “...Gore lies because he can’t help himself,” neoconservative pamphleteer David Horowitz wrote. “liar, liar,” screamed Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post. The conservative columnist George F. Will pointed to Gore’s “serial mendacity” and warned that he is a “dangerous man.” “Gore may be quietly going nuts,” National Review’s Byron York concluded. The Washington Times agreed: “The real question is how to react to Mr. Gore’s increasingly bizarre utterings. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines ‘delusion’ thusly: ‘The apparent perception, in a nervous or mental disorder, of some thing external that is not actually present...a belief in something that is contrary to fact or reality, resulting from deception, misconception, or a mental disorder.’”

This impugning of Gore’s character and the questioning of his mental fitness soon surfaced in the regular media.

Then Howard Dean.

As I write in early 2004, the Republican Noise Machine is primed to run the same campaign of personal vilification in the 2004 presidential election, no matter which Democrat wins the nomination. An op-ed piece in the Washington Post by Charles Krauthammer has pronounced former Vermont governor Howard Dean “the Delusional Dean.” Krauthammer’s “diagnosis” rested on a transcript of a Dean appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. Through the use of ellipses, Krauthammer doctored the transcript to make his point.

My problem is mostly how our party leaders chose to handle this right wing propaganda machine.

They should have made it their goal to make the Democratic party more inclusive and taken stronger stands on traditional Democratic issues.

Instead it seems they tried to lessen the attacks by becoming more like the attackers. It was too easy to make the left wing of the party a scapegoat using words like fringe activists.

[OnyxCollie]

1. The Right Wing propaganda machine exists

in its behemoth form because Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunication Deregulation Act of 1996 into law.

[madfloridian]

2. Found an interesting post about Telecom Act at Daily Kos 2008

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/01/18/439135/-Media-Consolidation-brought-to-you-by-Reagan-and-Clinton

Interesting timeline

[Bandit]

6. Rush Limbaugh was in full swing long before thiat.

[OnyxCollie]

11. That's fantastic.

But did Rush Limbaugh take away regulations on how many radio or television stations one corporation could own?

[Scuba]

3. Bill Clinton and "centrist Democrats" deserve the blame for this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

[RiverLover]

4. This is where "Centrism" began, with his presidency,

And this is why I can never support his wife.

NAFTA
Repealing G-S and creating the conditions for the economic meltdown
Gutting welfare & calling it "reform"
With Cuomo, creating FHA housing program that was a sweetheart deal for lenders, also contributing to 2008

Everything a rethug would do, but its our party that is to blame.

[Stellar]

5. That ^^^^^^^

Plus that racist program he and Hillary ran against Obama back in 2008. That definitely offended the black communications and that was when the black community all flocked to Obama. (thank you Bill) and Hillary said NOTHING. To this day they have not apologized.

[LiberalElite]

7. Yes, the whole "Hussein" middle name business -

that the right wing now won't give up on? It originated in the Clinton camp.

[Drunken Irishman]

15. It began with Carter.

Carter was the first centrist Democratic president since before the Roosevelt Era. He was progressive on some issues - like the environment and, in some instances, foreign relations, but he also advocated for deregulation and was the first Democratic president to propose welfare reform - a complete overhaul of the system.

In Carter's words:

"I am asking the Congress to abolish our existing welfare system, and replace it with a job-oriented program..."

Clinton, in many ways, was a lot like Carter. A southern governor with minimal national experience, overcame long odds to win the Democratic nomination and found his way to the White House in part due to the American populace turning their backs on the Republican Party.

There are differences, of course, but the lurch to the center began with Carter. It subsided a bit in the 80s - but Carter was the first break.

[madfloridian]

8. That's a powerful graphic.

Thanks for posting it.

[MisterP]

9. their logic's more--"I can serve the rich AND play the bullied victim? sign me UP!"

[Doctor_J]

10. which is why it is stupid to try to make nice with them

For some reason the democrats and especially the president decided to give in to them on every issue. A losing strategy

[wyldwolf]

12. and taking a cue from the Right Wing Noise Machine...

DUers are now carrying it's water on all things Clinton.

[madfloridian]

13. I am not doing that. Not what this post was saying.

[wyldwolf]

14. I'll make a friendly suggestion

Take your OP (which really is a GREAT one) and post it as a response in every vile anti-Clinton post currently live in General Discussion (especially this prime example of yellow journalism)