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01/08/2004 Archived Entry: "New TBTM Editorial: 'Manufactured Outrage - The Whining Never Stops'"
New TBTM Editorial: 'Manufactured Outrage - The Whining Never Stops'
Yeah, this whole Drudge thing go me all het up. So I wrote this.
The first thing you should realize about the Republican party and all their assorted spokespeople, representatives, mouthpieces and surrogates is this - they can dish it out, but they cannot take it.Over the past ten years, conservatives have defined the rules of the game as it is played today. Throughout 8 years of non-stop attacks on Bill Clinton - despite his unparalleled success as a two-term, legally elected president - they nearly perfected the technique of sliming their political opponents. Remember the 'Clinton Body Count?' Remember The Clinton Chronicles, in which Clinton was accused of everything from drug dealing to outright murder? Sure you do. You couldn't swing a dead cat in Washington, DC without hitting some Republican who was pushing one outlandish allegation or another about Clinton. So effective was the rumor-mongering that many otherwise intelligent Americans still believe that Clinton either raped someone or killed someone or stole something.
Key in the Republicans' tactic was the technique of 'manufactured outrage.' Remember the righteous anger of Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston and Newt Gingrich during the failed impeachment? Well, you can't possibly describe it as anything other than manufactured outrage - because while they were railing about how Clinton's conduct was rending the very fabric of our society and threatening the existence of our nation, every one of them was practicing the exact same conduct. Newtie was, to put it coarsely, bending his secretary over the desk. Hyde had wrecked his share of marriages by that time (of course it was, in his description, a 'youthful indiscretion' - if you can count age 40 as anything vaguely resembling 'youth'). And Livingston was engaging in conduct so potentially embarrassing and so deviate, that he resigned as Speaker of the House rather than have his personal sexual proclivities revealed.
But that's all in the past. There's a whole new - and even more bogus - form of manufactured outrage being practiced by today's Republicans, and it's proof that they are beyond shame and more than willing to do anything to win. Case in point - MoveOn's 'Bush In 30 Seconds' ad competition, the Bush family's connection to and financial support of Nazi Germany, and Ed Gillespie's efforts to conflate the two.
Replies: somebody speaks up.
Well written, and good points.
I tried not to vomit as I was reading Drudge yesterday...
I've been hearing a lot lately about how the liberals 'control the media'.
Could have fooled me.
Posted by Allison @ 01/08/2004 03:09 PM NY
