What is the threshold of Bush's teflon?

[Zomby Woof]

All the drip-drip-drip and toast analogies aside, I am convinced that if Bush were to celebrate New Year's Eve by going on a drunken bender, standing on the Statue of Liberty's head while defecating on the flag, and making Dick Clark his greased-up love monkey, somehow, some way, the media and the consenting bewildered herd would spin it into an act of daring heroism and leadership.

Are we EVER going to make a dent? Will the hidden unemployment numbers catch up with him? Will the unending carnage in Iraq erode that post-Saddam-capture bounce? Will the Democratic nominee run the best campaign in history and STILL not get the truth across, because dammit, Bush looked GOOD when pooping on the Constitution in Times Square?

Last rant of 2003. :-)

[maggrwaggr]

1. Bush's Teflon is provided 100% by the media

that is no doubt.

Our true enemy is the media. Bush and Co are like a pack of coyotes in the henhouse. You almost can't blame the coyotes for running amuck in the henhouse -- they're coyotes for cryin' out loud!

A free press is one of the pillars of our society, and it's crumbled. And nobody's noticed yet but us.

It's fucked up.

[BackDoorMan]

2. Teflon? No, it's the republican owned corporate media!

They won't report and will let stories die if they do.

Only six television "news" oganizations all owned, run and edited by republicans.

[Zomby Woof]

5. oh I know

Preaching to the choir here. I am an avid reader of Chomsky, Zinn, Hightower, et al, and know the score when it comes to the media.

I used to post a lot reminding people that CNN was ALWAYS right-wing, and this wasn't a recent marketing ploy to compete with Fox. I am talking Reagan era CNN.

Still, I'd like to think that if the people would just wake the fuck up, the stories would stick, because the one ideology the media really does subscribe to is profit.

We need to find a way to make anti-Bush news profitable, so that even his owners will turn on him.

Profit, that's key in America.

[cosmicdot]

6. like when Bernie Shaw asked that question to Gov. Dukakis

at least imo ... the hypothetical question about Kitty ... it was so disgusting ... such a scum-bag ...


Bernie didn't ask Poppy about his scandals or scandalous affairs.
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with the Diebold machines in place ... the Media controlling images and message ... the police state in place ... * following a script and controlled situations ...

... it may take some divine intervention ...

the BFEE has been moving toward this day of total control ... it has taken decades ... people have been eliminated ... legislation has been passed (Telecommunications Act) ... October has had its surprises ... etc. Coming together, and the Carlyle Group is raking in the money virtually in parallel ... they hardly hide anything anymore.

I do believe a lot of Americans hate corporate america ... whether because of medical experiences, layoffs, downsizing ... so many people have been hurt by it ... it has negatively affected their lives and families ... they can't even get satisfaction when calling an 800 number and running through menus and networks of no-face individuals who follow some policy and procedure manual and a job objective of screwing you ...

I think corporate america is an issue that hasn't been adequately played as a campaign issue. Of course, I favor a candidate with the least corporate connection ... because I think it's the issue of our time. It will more difficult having a standard bearer who has a huge portfolio and/or ties to or record of corporate contributors to hammer the message to the have-nots vs. this corporate White House.

People need to be refreshed on what they may have forgotten in learning history or missed during public education, i.e. using campaign ads of what's happening now with the horrible conditions of our workers' past ... of having no safety nets ... show the grim facts through pictures superimposed over current events ...

conditions of our early industrial manufacturing days are returning and manifesting in new but familiar ways

Heck, just campaigning on ways to reduce stress in people's lives might get attention ... it's something everyone relates to.

announcing that Afghanistan was to be the first war of the 21st century hardly inspires one to pass the torch

[Zomby Woof]

9. thanks cosmic!

Yes, I remember Shaw doing that. CNN abused the news daily long before Clinton came along.

Thanks for the additonal insights!

[leftofthedial]

3. so far, it's infinite

he owns those charged with holding him accountable

[POed_Ex_Repub]

4. He wants it to last another 10 months..

I don't think it will though. 9.7% unemployment tends to catch up with a person, no matter how much they tout the so-called "improving economy". (Just look what it did for his daddy)

[yorgatron]

7. it's just a coating

who's gonna scrape the bottom of the pan with a fork and start scratching away at it.

[xchrom]

8. i really think you're talking about

the cultural divide here in america.
the repuke ground troops are fervent, fantical even, in their support of the conservative agenda. so besides the media, that provides a good deal of teflon on it's own.
i think it makes even some of us liberals very uncomfortable to really talk about that {growing?}chasm.
we'd rather deflect and do things like chew up our host of democrat presidential runners and spit them out in useless conversations.
liberals need to create some of their own teflon and get very, very testy and aggressive.
the best defence remains a good offence.

[Wapsie B]

10. He could be shown

sodomizing boys on video and it would be spun that he just loves kids. With the airheads in the media nowadays not a question would be asked.

[tom_paine]

11. Afraud I agree, ZombyWoof...Orwell's Teflon is LIMITLESS

For the specific purpose that it is unnaturally created and psychoengineered and, most importantly, the absence of dissenting views on equal or near-equal footing.

I was having a discussion like this with a Left-Moderate friend. I said basically the same thing as you dd and he pooh-poohed me.

never happen, he said.

The more I see the blatant Orwellian madness, the revisions, obfuscations and the Mighty Wurlitzer, the more I am not so sure...

Raygun's Teflon was merely the Busheviks' Orwellian Infrastructure's Test Run. Mild in comparison to what surrounds the current Emperor, so dripping to overflow with scandals that a third-year ADA with a $2,000 budget could uncover them, if it wasn;t forbiddn and if people weren't deathly fearful (with good cause) of the Imperial Family's retribution.

[Zomby Woof]

12. I am glad you weighed in

I reallllly work hard at optimism, but sometimes I just go with what I observe and analyze, and come to similar conclusions as you.

Thanks for posting, I appreciate your input on every thread.

[Skittles]

13. they are juggling a lot of balls, ZombyWoof

and they have to keep doing it for some time

[Zomby Woof]

14. I am losing patience

We all are. The teflon isn't just helped by the media, it is enabled by an apathetic, ignorant, and self-absorbed culture with the attention span of a gnat on speed.

I am still wondering if my example of Bush's New Year's Eve behavior is all that satirical. I am almost convinced he could literally do all those things and get away with it. So I leave the humor versus seriousness of it to everyone's own judgment.

[Silverhair]

15. Most DUers don't understand the nature of political teflon.

When a president is said to have "teflon coating", what is really happening is that the attacks against him are seen as purely partisan, and therefore deepely discounted.

Many of the items that we have tried to attack him over have really been extremely trivial. Here are some examples of really trivial attacks:

Taking an S-3 to land on the carrier instead of the usual helicopter.
Wearing a flight suit
"Mission Accomplished" banner on the carrier.
"Turkeygate"
Poem on Laura's bed.

That's just a few fast ones.

When we raise hell over trivial stuff that nobody but the left gives a damn about, we act to innoculate Bush against other stronger attacks. So when we do bring up a serious matter, then the public thinks of all the trivial crap and jumps to the conclusion, since it is the same people complaining as before, that there isn't anything to it again.

To get rid of political teflon, don't make trivial attacks, save it for when you have something of substance.

[tom_paine]

16. Only partially true, silverhair

And as the Orwellian nature of our society becomes more clear it will become even more infinitesimally true and eventually irrelevant as a point.

If one looks at all the legitimate, "mainstream" criticisms of the Emperor*, they are treated in exactly the same way as the trivial ones.

Think about it:

Lies about the Iraqi WMDs
Miselading Congress in intelligence briefngs (that used to be against the law in the Days of the Old Republic)
Lies about the Tax Rebates and where the Tax Cut money was going
The Busheviks forcing the EPA to lie about NYC air quality, post-9/11

These and many others are all legitimate concerns, neither trivial nor insignificant. And all are treated in the exact same way as the picayune attacks you mention.

(it is also worthy to note that the disgust and astonishemnt in these attacks rises in part from the idea that these people script everything as much as a Soviet Regime, and lie about even the most trivial matter automatically, like the Soviets)

Are you familiar with the psychological technique known as "innoculation". It has many sub-variant but the one I am talking about is the Orwellian way that Democratic concerns and Republican concerns are handled by the Media.

In practically every instance in the last 10 years, all Republican concerns/attacks/issues have been treated with utmost seriousness and ALMOST NEVER are ulterior motives discussed. Their attacks are always treated as a Matter of Principle (capitalized).

Conversely, and I find this genuinely frightening for the state of the nation ALL Demorcatic concerns/attacks/issues are IMMEDIATELY EXAMINED FOR ULTERIOR MOTIVES. So that when Gore endorses Dean, the primary discussion around bloated moribun pundit-tables is, "What is Gore angling for, why did he do it?" with absolutely ZERO discussion of the actual merits of what he said. Faux has taken this to a geobbels-liek scientific level. If a Democrat is on their show, as soon as they have left the screen, a Fauxite is called out to IMMEDIATELY speculate on ulterior motives, completely ignoring discussion of merits.

Gore is angling for 2008 by his endorsement of Dean, who he wants to lose.

When Hillary appeared on Faux to discuss the 9/11 EPA deception, the designated Faux hitter came out to ensure us that she didn;t believe anything she said, but was playing it up for a possible run in 2008.

Scarily enough, most supposedly centrist outlets like CNN follow this format, albeit not quite as lustily nor obviously. Perhaps they don;t even realize themselves many of them, but are just dragged along in the wake of changing journalistic mores.

In this way, all Democratic "attacks" are inncoluated in the public mind as "partisan and having ulterior motives" and all Republican attacks as "legitimate and honorable", regardless--like Pavolovian conditioning (which innoculation is related to) eventually the subject no longer needs the innoculation to make the desire "leap" themselves.

The success of this strategy (in which the Corporate Media is pulled lazily along in the wake of the Party-Loyal Right-Wing Sub-Media) is in no one speaking out against it or opposing it.

In this the Democrats have played right into Bushevik hands.

Watch your nightly news with this principle in mind to see if I am lying or exaggerating. It's quite pronounced at this point.

I think your main difficulty here, silverhair, is that you are applying the rules of the Old American Republic (by this I mean the egalitarian state of checks and balances that existed from post WWII-2000) to the Amerikan Empire (a moribund former democracy winding down to it's Imperial Destiny just as Rome did, with atrophied checks and balances respected barely by the Imperial Family and then only when forced to).

But that's just my opinion.

[Karenina]

17. The *dimwit dauphin is naked.

Outside the U.S.A. the ROTW is all a-twitter, watching in horror as parasites devour what once was a great nation. If Americans believe that their "military might" is a match for those who perceive the threat of a drunken 800 pound gorilla who has ingested too much CRUDE (in ALL its forms) and is suffering from Montezuma's revenge, spewing projectile feces hither, thither and yon, well, I got some beachfront in the Sahara to sell you.

[Zomby Woof]

18. damn Karenina

Your posts ALWAYS kick ass, and I am honored you graced my thread with one. :toast:

[name not needed]

19. as long as bush* has his cronies

to do his dirty work, he is untouchable.

[mlawson]

20. I think people are either born with teflon, or they are not.

It's sorta like the divide in grade and esp high school, between those who get picked on and those who never do. And we remember that it's not necessarily according to physical build, either. For some lucky kids, any catcalling or name caling, just rolls off their backs, and it doesn't last long.

Just like the above, political hits damage some candidates instantly and they NEVER get past it, and for others, it just goes away (as in the cases of Ronnie and Big Dog.) But I do not think there is anything the person can do to acquire teflon; they either have it or they never do... I fear that Dumbo has it.