Jul 22 2010
You Can’t Manufacture Credibility & Respect
The democrat party, as a whole, is learning a harsh lesson these days. Where they naively thought success was measured by the amount of crap produced, they are now learning that the quality or success of their labors is the greater measure by far. If they could do one thing well they would be on the road to redemption. But they are not doing anything well, accept creating a historic backlash in the electorate.
When 90% of the country opposes you, you are doing something very wrong. When 90% of the country opposes the fruits of your labor, they will undo what you created with amazing speed and energy. The House of Representatives is lost to anyone who aligned themselves with the Democrats on their economic stimulus dud, their bailout raid on the treasury, their transformation of health care into an IRS tax, or their delusions about carbon dioxide (the air we breath out) and global climate.
It is the liberal/progressive movement, in all its incarnations and flavors, that has truly self-destructed through out this period of political ascension for the left, which peaked in 2008 with the election of an inexperienced liberal president. These left wing ideologues have replaced civil, creative, optimistic and mature approaches to solving this nation’s problems with derogatory, simplistic, alarmist and juvenile fantasies. They have become corrupt and conspiratorial, relying on propaganda and messaging instead of generating sound ideas that generate public support..
They cannot grasp why trickle-out government spending (which only goes to selected contractors in a few niche markets) failed to broadly spur the economy and generate jobs like across-the-board tax cuts can (cuts which do not discriminate, are instantaneous and hit every nook and corner of the country). The liberals hid the reality of Obamacare, where their version of saving medical costs is to limit available services. Health care is now all about diverting billions of dollars into creating a massive bureaucracy to oversee everyone’s participation in Obamacare – not a dime of which will be spent on doctors or patients, new drugs or preventive care. How will these ‘watchers’ save a life? How can they when they are siphoning off needed dollars?
It is no wonder 90% of the country is in opposition – they all have the common sense and intelligence to see why liberal fantasies are recipes for disaster. But the damage being done to the left is not just to a political party.
The next blow to hit  is going to be the “Journolist” Conspiracy. While serendipitous moments of like-minded thinking can be expected in the leftward biased world of ‘journalism’ – and tolerated – the realization that a cadre of left wing zealots have attempted to control the nation’s media focus and help their ‘team’ get elected smacks of a high crime. These people are allowed their own opinions, but they are not allowed to twist the nation’s through coordinate misinformation and lies.
Take the ugly war on Governor Sarah Palin, and put yourself or someone you know in her shoes. She is simply someone who arose out of Main Street to do what she felt was right (and succeeded). But to the far left, she was a threat:
“What a joke,†added Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker. “I always thought that some part of McCain doesn’t want to be president, and this choice proves my point. Welcome back, Admiral Stockdale.â€
Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation noted that Obama’s “non-official campaign†would need to work hard to discredit Palin. “This seems to me like an occasion when the non-official campaign has a big role to play in defining Palin, shaping the terms of the conversation and saying things that the official [Obama] campaign shouldn’t say – very hard-hitting stuff, including some of the things that people have been noting here – scare people about having this woefully inexperienced, no foreign policy/national security/right-wing christia wing-nut a heartbeat away …… bang away at McCain’s age making this unusually significant …. I think people should be replicating some of the not-so-pleasant viral email campaigns that were used against [Obama].â€
Emphasis mine. If you can stomach it, a review of the mad Andrew Sullivan and his obsession with the Palin’s youngesrt son Trig/ It is a classic case of an emotionally disturbed human being. Sullivan has single handedly created a completely new variation of ‘stalking’.
This is not America, this is some insecure lefty railing against his personal demons. As we all know the best anyone could claim was Palin and Obama had similar levels of inexperience on foreign policy, etc. Palin clearly had much more administrative experience than the community organizer who claimed running a Senate campaign was good enough. But the anti-christian thing is just ugly. Just as ugly as the most crass racism.
This Levy tool is likely a planted agitator, set in place to lead the not-so-bright others on journolist to do the bidding of his masters. Otherwise he is a delusional nut. Either way he represents the worst of humanity, let alone America.
As we uncover this cadre of propagandists, creating half truths from the depths of their insecurity with diversity of opinion, we come face to face with a classical inner demon of humanity: fear. Liberals hate Christians/Catholics for some weird and inexplicable reason. Maybe the feel inferior to them, who knows. I am not religious, but being in a church does not make me feel hate towards those in attendance. I know I am of a differing view, but that does not make me despise them.
Liberals hate fiscal conservatives. They want to have people rely on the mythical goodness of government instead of having to work and compete for personal success. Is it because they have allows felt out-classed, not quite up to the challenge? What drives this fear of the open market which the rest of us – existing in that open market – embrace and support?
Whatever drives these people, they have gone beyond the bounds of acceptable actions. You cannot bribe and force into law left wing policies that fail, and then expect credibility and respect. You cannot rely on gutter character assassination, followed by unproven cries of victimhood, to endow you with public sympathy (don’t being calling ‘cracker’ a ‘racist’ unless you got some hard and indisputable evidence). You cannot use a conspiracy of thug-like propaganda tactics to inspire people or win their hearts. The Journolist Conspiracy illustrates how the left tried to manufacture credibility and respect for their side out of falsehoods and lies aimed at their opponents. It just does not work that way.
The liberal/progressive movement has been based on brutal and simple minded strategies. America was built on inspiration, dedication and honor. It should be no surprise the two would not mix well.
Well, what started all of this is the 2000 election. The sour grapes were so strong, that the media proclaimed Bush was “illegitimate” and they vowed they would not let up. They were true to their word.
The problem is that after about 6 years or so of that a couple of things happened. First, after doing it for so long, they became conditioned in a certain way. They stopped thinking anything through and their opposition became reflexive just because it was “Bush” or anyone who supported anything Bush did in any way. And the second thing, and most important thing, is the impact it had on voters who were 12 years old when Bush was elected in 2000 but who became 18 in 2006. From the time they first became politically aware, they heard the same coordinated meme from the press, pop culture, their teachers, etc. Children of that age look around themselves to decide how they are supposed to act and what they are supposed to believe. When their kids shows are bashing Republicans, when the news is bashing Republicans, when their teachers are bashing republicans and promoting Democrats, they get the idea that Republicans are bad and Democrats are good.
You would have been hard-pressed to find many first time voters of age 18 or 19 in 2006 who voted Republican. It just wasn’t “cool”. The same would be true in 2008. Now maybe they are getting the inkling that they have been had. To an 18yo, 6 years or 8 years of political indoctrination is a very long time, it is a much longer time in a relative sense than it is for someone who is 40.
These people have basically robbed an entire generation of objective analysis and thought. They have done a grave disservice to the nation and their profession.
In the real world, results are what counts not how much crap you produce. The Democlowns results have been TERRIBLE and they will be judged accordingly.
AJ, you sparked a thought.
The JournoList scandal is damning, but I wasn’t sure how it could be read as criminal. But I think I know how it can be. Sedition.
I would give long odds that a complete look at the archive would show a concerted effort to derail the war effort. This is the classic definition of sedition…a felony punishable by 10 years imprisonment.
And criminal convictions justify other harsh actions. Revocation of broadcast licenses. Denial of access to Government officials. The kind of scrutiny that will turn up evidence against anybody.
Our opponents have done this nation great harm. It is only just that they pay for their crimes.
It isn’t criminal. Newspapers are under no obligation to print anything true or otherwise. Ben Franklin used to print stuff he made up in his own head as “news”, forged “letters to the editor”, etc. Propaganda masquerading as journalism is a long American tradition.
What is new is that there are too many one-paper towns and too many of those are controlled by the same groups of people. In this case you had journalists all across the country colluding to produce a consistent message across many different papers and other forms of media.
That is not illegal but it should remove any mask of objectivity and cause anyone to read content produced by these people for what it is … political propaganda.
In the old days you at least had several papers in each city from which to choose. These days you might have all the papers in your region published by the same people (NY Times and Boston Globe, for example).
Houston used to have two newspapers: Houston Post and Houston Chronicle. Houston Post went out of business. For many years, Houston Chronicle delivered thick newspapers every single day. About 3 inch thick and thicker on Sundays. Not in the last few years. Now it is less than 1/4 thick except on Sundays. Sundays is about 2 inch thick.
I have to wonder if Houston Chronicle had to lay off people over time.
You say there is a backlash but there are many articles of late saying that the GOP party is lacking an agenda, lacking a clear message, lacking the courage to stand up for the conservative principles. Read Bill Whittle’s latest article about conservatism.
We may see the GOP party starting to unite together to stand by those conservative principles in the next few weeks as they listen more to their constituents. Like John Cornyn…
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