The Times whips up its party’s fury
A couple of days ago I wrote about a NY Times editorial that seemed on the surface to be critical of Obama’s foreign policy, but was really a cleverly crafted apologia for him. Make no mistake about it: the Times is abandoning neither President Obama nor its own devotion to leftism, although every now and then it must make a small concession to a smidgen of truth-telling just to keep up appearances.
But even that much must have been too much, because today the Times has come back with a full-throated expression of the meme du jour on the Benghazi Select Committee. In Bryan Preston’s words, today’s editorial “may be the most outrageous text to appear in the New York Times since Walter Duranty covered up the Soviet famine.”
I think that’s hyperbole. But not by all that much. And the Times editors are hardly alone; countless other politicians and pundits of the liberal and/or left persuasion have fastened on the idea that the GOP concern over Benghazi is a politically-motivated farce that’s beneath contempt:
When Jay Carney was grilled at length by Jonathan Karl of ABC News over an email outlining administration talking points in the wake of the 2012 Benghazi attack, it was not, by the reckoning of many observers, the White House press secretary’s finest hour…But Carney needn’t have worried. He had plenty of backup.
He had The New Republic’s Brian Beutler dismissing Benghazi as “nonsense.” He had Slate’s David Weigel, along with The Washington Post’s Plum Line blog, debunking any claim that the new email was a “smoking gun.” Media Matters for America labeled Benghazi a “hoax.” Salon wrote that the GOP had a “demented Benghazi disease.” Daily Kos featured the headline: “Here’s Why the GOP Is Fired Up About Benghazi””and Here’s Why They’re Wrong.” The Huffington Post offered “Three Reasons Why Reviving Benghazi Is Stupid””for the GOP.”
The left must think this is a winning hand. Or perhaps it’s the only hand they’ve got. Or perhaps both. Will it work? Darned if I know, but it certainly seems to have worked beautifully so far with the rank-and-file, who are repeating the charges of “ridiculous” and worse in comment sections all around the MSM and the blogosphere.
But today’s Times’ editorial “Center Ring at the Republican Circus” is especially curious. It’s written in a style that is as juvenile and loaded with snark as a post on any blog, and that’s saying quite a bit. Take a look, for example, at the opening paragraph:
The hottest competition in Washington this week is among House Republicans vying for a seat on the Benghazi kangaroo court, also known as the Select House Committee to Inflate a Tragedy Into a Scandal. Half the House has asked to “serve” on the committee, which is understandable since it’s the perfect opportunity to avoid any real work while waving frantically to right-wing voters stomping their feet in the grandstand.
Now, I don’t read the Times every day, but I generally try to keep up with it, for reasons I’ve explained before: it’s still very influential, both with its readers and in setting the approach for other periodicals on the left. So perhaps this is the sort of tone the Times has come to adopt more and more in recent years. But to me there seems to be something different about this one, with the pureness of the propaganda coming through minus the sober gray-lady veneer.
The Times editors go on…and on. But I’ll just give you another example from paragraph two:
The day before, [House Republicans] voted to hold in contempt Lois Lerner, the former Internal Revenue Service official whom they would love to blame for the administration’s crackdown on conservative groups, if only they could prove there was a crackdown, which they can’t, because there wasn’t.
So, why the juvenile, shrill, and snarky tone? I think the editors spill the beans on themselves in the very next paragraph, although of course, as is their wont, they ascribe their motives to their enemies instead:
Both actions stem from the same impulse: a need to rouse the most fervent anti-Obama wing of the party and keep it angry enough to deliver its donations and votes to Republicans in the November elections.
Just substitute the phrase “anti-Republican” for “anti-Obama” in that sentence, and then “Democrats” for “Republicans,” and you’ve got it. Another thing fueling the Times’ fury is that in the case of Benghazi it sees a threat not only to Obama but to Hillary in 2016. Whipping up hatred and contempt for Republicans is a tried-and-true method that worked in 2012 and could work again.
The last sentence of the Times editorial tips its hand once more:
Little nuisances like…basic facts can’t be allowed to stand in the way when House Republicans need to whip up their party’s fury.
Just substitute “Democrats” or “the editors of the NY Times” for “House Republicans” and you have exactly what’s happening here.
[NOTE: By the way, both the Benghazi Select Committee and the Lois Lerner contempt votes had some bipartisan support. But the only crossover votes were from Democrats who concurred with the Republicans. So, were they hateful Republican tools, too?
Here’s the Benghazi Select Committee vote roll call, and here are the roll calls on the Lois Lerner contempt charge and then for calling for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the IRS targeting of conservative groups. Note that there were 7 crossover Democratic votes for the first (Benghazi Committee), 6 for the second (Lerner contempt), but 26 for the third (IRS special counsel). There were no Republican crossover votes.]
The Times is a malicious liar and infamous enemy of America.
They do one thing well: Crosswords
The irony is that if the NYT and other major media had performed their function in a non-partisan manner a Benghazi committee would probably not be necessary.
I think they’re scared. I think they know what EVERY person on the right has known for a long time. There was a HUGE cover up in the Benghazi thing, and also the IRS thing. I think they are already staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, before these scandals even come to full light. (Polling seems to support that) I think the left has a pretty good idea that they are going to get crushed in the upcoming election, and they are grasping for every single desperate move they can come up with. Let’s not forget that the cover up is what brought the Nixon administration, and to a large degree the Republican party, down.
Today a great new term’s been coined for all of us to
use as needed Benghazi Deniers !
it ll work as well as *climate deniers*
use it to shut them up folks
The Benghazi controversy is an ideal opportunity to delpy the 3-prong Rule 12 counter-attack formular of Bush right – Dems lied – Obama wrong.
Fix: delpy -> deploy
… because a contextual re-frame is necessary to achieve the larger effect you want with this issue.
I agree with you Eric.
Don’t give them two seconds: Bush kept us safe; the NYT lies. Obama is a disaster.
Over and over and over and over again, and NOTHING else.
Neo asks: So, why the juvenile, shrill, and snarky tone?
Trick question? It’s what they do.
I’m waiting for the NY Times to start its destroy Trey Gowdy campaign. The BBC and the American Prospect are leading the way, with the former calling him “the Republican Benghazi inquisitor”, and the latter the “GOP Benghazi Attack Dog” and a Tea Partier, to boot.
Sure hope he and his family are ready for what’s coming.
The debate is over. Obama is a terrible President.
Ann:
I think Gowdy’s as ready as anyone can be. He’s both smart and tough.
I saw him on Fox recently where the interviewer mentioned that Gowdy has had death threats since he was appointed chairman of the Benghazi Committee. Gowdy cooly replied that, as a prosecutor, he’s had death threats before and is used to them.
He better watch his back AND his front, though.
Mr. Frank:
My point is that that tone isn’t what they ordinarily do. They usually adopt the gray lady tone. They might end up saying essentially the same things, but the tone is different. At least, that’s what I’ve noticed till now. I’m not talking about columnists or op-ed pieces by individuals, I’m talking about editorials.
SteveH,
Among the intellectually honest, there was never a need to debate whether Obama was a terrible President. The debate was whether he was a fool or a traitor. That is the debate that is over and anyone paying attention knows the answer.
Now the debate about Obama is
1. Malignant narcissist
2. Amoral
3. Killer with a conscience.
4. Regular Family man.
Wonder how the NYT would compare convening a Select Committee on Benghazi compared to a Special Prosecutor to investigate a break in at a Democrat office?
Oh, I know. They won’t. No comparison
That depends on whether the FBI break in was due to Democrats, Republicans, or allies of the Left.
They’re scared. And by “they”, I mean the entire the liberal media-interest group-Democratic leadership-West Wing complex. While I have been sceptical of the Select Committee producing anything remotely close to a “smoking gun”, watching this hysterical, hyperbolic, sophomoric and, dare I say carefully orchestrated response has convinced me the smoking gun does indeed exist. It’s exposure not only could produce a monumental loss in the 2014 midterms (if discovered in time), it could thoroughly discredit and impeach (metaphorcially) Hillary Clinton permanently.
They know this. All too well. And they are responding in the most effective way possible: loudly and mockingly declaring the investigation has no legitimacy, no credibility, no use whatsoever; it is just a partsan hack
job, employed by sinister Republicans aimed at enraging their demented legions of tea party bumpkins.
Understand the purpose of this choreographed dismissiveness and snark is, in part, to motivate their own base. But the primary goal is to delegitimize anything the select committe discovers. For the throngs of LIVs, this might be sufficient. Only time will tell.
Like I said, I still have my doubts the select committee will get anywhere close to the truth. But if anyone can, it’s Trey Gowdy. I know he’s tough and unflappable; Boehner made an excellent decision in appointing him. Excellent. I just hope he (and, yes, his family) are aware of what is potentially in store for them. The liberal media-Democratic leadership-West Wing complex is snarky, flippant, mocking in its response now. But if Gowdy edges closer and closer to that smoking gun, the response will turn shrill quickly. Shrill, outraged, bombastic, angry and, yes potentially violent.
Stay tunned….
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall that the original Watergate burglars were looking for information to confirm that the Democratic National Committee was taking money — treasonously — from Communist dictator Fidel Castro.
Somehow ALL THAT got lost in the dust of the vast Leftwing horde’s pursuit of the burglars, and by extension, Nixon.
Which was more dastardly — breaking into the DNC headquarters, or taking money from an avowed enemy head of state?
Hmmmm…. such a tough call….
Also, those who aren’t deranged know that Nixon didn’t order the break-in itself. But just for doing the attempted damage control, he was run out of office without being impeached.
Clinton, Impeached! refused to leave. Which is what They do, those of the Hive Mind. They simply refuse to accept punishment or censure, and the Republicans, baffled by this, retreat in confusion.
I agree with Ackler @ 12:05…though not “100%,” because apparently that’s “neither realistic nor desirable.” (heh, :P)
But seriously, to answer your question, neo-neocon, about the change in tone:
I basically never read the Times, but my impression is that the Gray Lady tone is one of urbane sophistication and reasonableness (you know, because they’re snobs). This is the tone that begins sentences thusly: “Of course, all serious-thinking people believe…”
The change comes because the left cannot afford impartial rationality in the readers; deep down they fear/know that Obama/Hillary are guilty. An impartial person will look at the evidence due to be released and come to that conclusion independently. Of course, if Obama/Hillary go down it will call into question every supporter that carried water for the administration. It will call into question their whole worldview. This is almost as high as the stakes could possibly be.
The left must so poison the well with vitriol and emotion that no one in America (or at least, no one that matters) will be able to look at the evidence impartially.
IMO, they are going to have some problems with that:
The more strident they become in their denunciations, the more unhinged they will seem. This is the phenomenon seen in conspiracy films where the protagonist shouts at bystanders, “I’M NOT CRAZY! YOU’VE *GOT* TO BELIEVE ME!!!”
Riiiiigggghhht.
Even long-time leftist readers, accustomed and inclined to reflexively believe the Times’ positions, will begin to suspect something is awry (as you have) because the change in tone signals that “The Gray Lady doth protest too much.”
Really, if they’re smart they’ll get a hold of themselves and resist the upwelling of fear. But then, leftists have never been very good at controlling their emotions once their buttons have been pushed.
One more thing:
“Will it work? Darned if I know, but it certainly seems to have worked beautifully so far with the rank-and-file, who are repeating the charges of “ridiculous” and worse in comment sections all around the MSM and the blogosphere.”
Rank-and-file leftists are one thing, being liars and hypocrites themselves. But for independents, the situation has changed: millions of citizens have either been burned personally or know someone else that has been burned by Obama’s lies. They’re no longer in the mood to give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt.
In dictatorships, the “preference cascade” is held in check by the suppression of information. With the internet here in the U.S., physical suppression has been impossible but has been replaced with the willful ignorance of the LIV. After being burned, citizens are asking “why is this happening?”
The answer will be readily available if they know how to Google.
My own personal theory is that the deaths with the SEAL team in Afghanistan, due to leaked intel forming a Taliban ambush, was due to weapons imported from elsewhere. And that elsewhere might just well be Libya, where Hussein wanted to topple Qadafi because he’s not Muslim Brotherhood or AQ. Qadafi’s air force was one of the things suppressing the “rebels” in Libya. Benghazi happened after most of this was over. With rumours implying that the ambassador was there to work out deals with AQ, and that this deal fell through because an AQ tribe chose AQ over American money/guns. The coverup was thus simple, they didn’t want increased security for an operation that they wanted kept secret, they being the Regime. As with Fast and FUrious, when too many people know what’s going on, it gets bad. The peasants start hearing it.
Some time after Benghazi, AQ took over Fallujah III with supposedly “better armed and trained” forces. Better armed… from where? Better trained, from where? The same dynamic applies to Syria and to a lesser extent Egypt. Iran, Hussein ignored because Iran was suppressing the freedom fighters well. Egypt, Hussein used pressure on, because the Muslim Brotherhood already had political power there and convinced the military. Libya, the dictator was a Bush ally and supportive of American doctrine, he had to go. Syria, the dictator was blowing up AQ using WMDs or something, and it was a good chance to out Bush Bush.
Somehow ALL THAT got lost in the dust of the vast Leftwing horde’s pursuit of the burglars, and by extension, Nixon.
Some people call that broken cover as cover. Meaning, using the evidence of one’s own guilt, as proof that one is innocent.
Or, stalking horse.
The person that is said to have leaked the information to the 2 jour tools, was the same FBI guy that ordered break ins of Weatherunderground homes, causing the release of Ayers and Bernadine Dohr. Coincidence?
They had this planned, one way or another. A combination of revenge on Nixon, a Leftist coup for US power, Democrat vote buying covering, and so on.
I listened to NPR the other day — the first time in years — and heard a female reporter interview a man about something a GOP politician was doing. Sorry to be so vague, I was only half paying attention, because what the politician was doing was not nearly as interesting as what the interviewer was doing. She asked, repeatedly, why he would do such a thing — wouldn’t it alienate his base? How did it fit into national Republican strategy? Never, in the interview, did the subject of what the politician wanted to do and whether it was a good idea come up…. only if it was good or bad for the party and for strategy.
Matt_SE: “But for independents, the situation has changed: millions of citizens have either been burned personally or know someone else that has been burned by Obama’s lies. They’re no longer in the mood to give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt.”
That’s not enough. The narrative needs to include a sufficiently compelling explanation for why the Democrats lied, and also why that lie was not justified in context.
Right now, the Republicans and the Right are pushing ahead on the Benghazi controversy with an incomplete narrative, which is opening the door for the Democrats’ defense.
Remember, as I’ve explained, the Democrats rely on a pegging (like currency evaluation) defense strategy based, as Neo has explained, on Alinsky’s Rule 12.
No matter how bad the Democrats may look on foreign policy, the Democrats’ defense strategy is to make the Republicans automatically look worse in comparison by citing to strawman-Bush. While looking good on foreign policy is preferred, looking comparatively less bad than your straw-man opponent works just as well for a binary choice.
When there is “a pox on both your houses”, We The People collectively must still pick one house or the other. We The People will collectively choose the less poxy house. Making themselves out to be the less poxy house is the basis of the Democrats’ Alinsky Rule 12, pegging defense strategy.
Matt_SE, your underlying algorithmic flaw in judging this issue is the same algorithmic flaw you’ve shown in judging the Iraq enforcement as an “unnecessary foreign adventure”. You don’t adequately account for the realistic alternatives. That’s fine when supporting a favored theory in academic isolation, but your algorithm falls short when choosing from a limited set of options in practice. Such as the limited set of options Bush had with the Saddam problem. Such as the limited, binary political options for We the People.
The way to counter the Democrats’ pegging defense is switching off the pegging of Republicans as automatically comparatively worse.
The way to do that for the Benghazi controversy is the counter-narrative that Bush was right on Saddam specifically and the War on Terror generally.
The binary political choice in this case boils down to Bush on Iraq v Obama on Libya. The proper counter-narrative is that Bush was right and the Benghazi controversy is about protecting the Democrats nation-harming lies about Bush’s foreign affairs for partisan gain with the upcoming election.
Narrative: The Democrats and Obama lied about Benghazi. Why? Because they wanted to protect Obama’s Libya policy. Why? Because of the upcoming US election. Why would Obama’s Libya policy affect the US election? Because Obama’s Libya policy was deliberately designed and represented as the superior/moral/smarter alternative to Bush’s bad/evil/stupid Iraq policy.
Then, drawing the conclusion is simple:
If Bush was justified on Iraq, then Obama is wrong on Libya. If Bush was wrong on Iraq, then Obama is justified on Libya.
If Bush was right on Iraq, then the Benghazi controversy threatened to shine a highly critical spotlight on the Democrats and Obama on the eve of the 2012 election, because the Democrats’ central platform that drove Obama to the Presidency was the false claim that Bush was categorically wrong on Iraq.
Simply, given that the Democrats and Obama were all-in on the false narrative against the Iraq mission, if the Democrats and Obama were actually wrong on Bush and Iraq, then – just maybe – they are actually wrong, and worse than the Republicans, on everything.
That’s what the Democrats feared. That’s why the Democrats lied about Benghazi: Lies to protect the fundamental lie at the foundation of their political victory over the Republicans.
If Bush was right on Iraq, then that means Obama lied about Bush for partisan gain, and Obama’s foreign policy is metastasized from his lies about Bush, and his lies have harmed us and aided our enemies.
The Democrats were scared of the domino effect exposing the fundamental lie on Bush and Iraq holding up their whole power structure. If that narrative had been programmed into the zeitgeist on the eve of the 2012 election, it might have flipped the script, damned the Democrats, and vindicated Bush and the Republicans.
In sum, it’s insufficient for the Right to accuse Obama of lying about Benghazi and leave it at that. In the context of America’s binary political choice and the backdrop of the Iraq mission, it also falls short to accuse Obama of lying to deter criticism of his Libya policy.
Laying a proper contextual foundation requires answering why Obama lied to deter criticism of his Libya policy. To achieve the desired larger social-political effect, answering that narrative question requires establishing Bush was justified on Iraq.
Without laying a proper contextual foundation, then your narrative is incomplete. If your narrative remains incomplete, then the Democrats’ defense that the Republicans are ‘inflating a tragedy into a scandal’ will be effective.
If the contextual frame is lacking, even if the Republicans successfully prove their case on the merits within the scope of the Stevens et al killings, the larger social-political effect will fall short of re-ordering the binary social-political balance in the zeitgeist’s ‘court of public opinion’.
Again: Right now, the narrative is incomplete and insufficient to change the zeitgeist. A contextual re-frame is necessary for the Benghazi controversy to have the larger effect you want. And the foundation of the contextual re-frame requires establishing in the popular narrative that Bush was right on Iraq.
Add: The role of the GOP in the contextual re-frame is limited. The main responsibility of the GOP is proving the case on the merits within the scope. That job of competing for narrative and zeitgeist belongs to right activists, the people of the Right, not the GOP.
Fix: The job of competing for narrative and zeitgeist …
I’m not going to rehabilitate Bush because even if he was right on Saddam and the War on Terror (and I know he wasn’t completely right…”Religion of Peace,” anyone?), he was wrong on many other things; mainly domestic.
I also disagree with the need to do so. Bush is no longer mentioned as the béªte noir of the left; he seems to have disappeared. If Bush derangement syndrome were a real thing, this would be impossible.
My take? The left’s pollsters informed the party that they were starting to look kooky to the voters. The left then dropped this particular strawman and started looking for another.
Bush has been “memory-holed” and completely forgotten because it is useful for the left to do so. If it ever becomes useful to demonize him again, he will be resurrected from the ashes, as if he’d never been gone. This is classic Orwell stuff.
Bush is no more or less useful (or hated) than any other convenient scapegoat of the left. They really have no shame or intellectual integrity.
And I will not gloss over the man’s failings for the sake of some theoretical egghead exercise. In other words, I don’t WANT to rehabilitate Bush…no matter how many times you ask.
Matt_SE,
That’s why they win.
The Left hasn’t forgotten Bush. They were using Bush and Palin as a bogeyman and woman even up to 2012.
The Left only reacts to propaganda once the triggers are activated. The idea that they are free thinkers, Matt, is evidence of your education on this matter.
Problem is,
Global WarmingClimate ChangeGlobal Climate Disruption is fake, a redistribution of wealth scam on a planetary scale. Benghazi was real, with real Americans murdered thanks to the fecklessness of both a sitting President and a Secretary of State.I’m proud to be a denier of whatever they are calling the so-called warming of the planet today. So the Dems may be just as proud of being a Benghazi denier as I am of being a glowbull worming denier, that is to say, throwing out the ‘Benghazi denier’ charge will have no effect, even though being a denier of Benghazi is like being a denier of climate (it’s called ‘weather’). But no one ever accuses the left of being consistent in their arguments but rather consistent in their rank hypocrisy.
Ymarsakar:
I agree that the left hasn’t forgotten Bush at all. He is brought up quite a bit now, actually, but it’s in a particular way that shows how very successful the attacks on him have been—he’s added to a speech or an article almost as an aside, to counter any possible criticism of Obama in an “of course, Bush was worse” manner. The idea is that that is so well-proven, so completely obvious and accepted, that it’s a tautology that no longer has to be argued or supported, merely accepted by all thinking persons.
In other words, it has become a given, and still a very useful tool.