Since the Murdoch take-over of the Wall Street Journal, many of us have been waiting for the proverbial right-wing foot to drop and for the venerable bastion of media integrity to fall... well, not quite fall, but start tilting right.
As a kid, I'd turn to the inside back pages of the Philadelphia Bulletin to get my fix of the funnies-- Pogo, Li'l Abner, Snoopy, Hi and Lois.
Up until recently, when it came to news, the Wall Street Journal was hard to beat. You could depend upon the NEWS section of the WSJ to be solid reporting-- excellent journalism, untainted by spin or the right wing bias... before the Murdoch acquisition, except for those inside back pages of the front section. The inside back pages of the WSJ's front section have always, in my mind, been very similar to my childhood's Philly Bulletin's inside back pages-- the funny pages. Stridently, massively biased right wing brain farts so extreme they really are the funny pages, with a few celebrity politician exceptions. It is mildly amusing to read op-eds totally sans facts or substantiation on those pages. I can't tell you how many times I've read a piece and just shaken my head, thinking, "wackoland." And it's not just me. There are plenty of other journalists who have respected the Wall Street Journal's journalistic integrity-- except for those two inside back pages.
But things have changed. Like a leaky toilet, Murdoch's find-the-lowest-level media model has expanded the Op-Ed section, on some days, to a third page-- the page before the inside back pages. Today, there's an article by Karl Rove, a stale, limp, semi-re-run, in which he appears to unveil his new, yet old strategy of attacking Obama as a flip-flopper. You know, the way the GOP went after Kerry with "First he approved, then he disapproved the $87 billion."
This time, instead of using the 2004 term "flip-flopper" he's trying out some other pejoratives-- "parsing, evasions and misdirections," in one part of the op-ed, "backpeddling," in the middel and "one who parses, evades, dissembles and condescends" at the end.
The GOP had Kerry on tape, talking about his $87 billion dollar flipflop. This time, Rove has Obama wearing or not wearing a lapel pin, mistaking Auschwitz for Buchenwald and changing his position on his pastor, Reverend Wright.
This is test drive of the 2008 GOP attack spin is taking place on a page of the Wall Street Journal that, before Murdoch, was a news page. The page does clearly spell out, at the top, that it's an opinion page. But the human mind works in a predictable way with boundaries. Do something the same for a long enough time and patterns emerge, traditions evolve and automatic responses become the norm. Break the pattern and you can take advantage of those automatic responses. In this case, moving the funny-page content to a page formerly devoted to the news just might notch up the credulity paid to what would normally be considered standard WSH editorial right wing "hokum," to borrow a word from Li'l Abner's mammy, Pansy.
Rove wraps up his trial balloon/test drive slime experiment with the wishful thinking, "the narrative is beginning to take hold."
This time, Rove's re-run, old, stale "narrative" is built on a far flimsier, weaker base. That's not surprising. The GOP's message is also stale and old and does not appear to be picking up much traction. The Op-Ed directly above Rove's, by Daniel Henninger, Deputy Editorial Page Director for the WSJ, and frequent commentator on Faux News, copies some anti-Obama rhetoric first used by the Hillary camp-- dissing Obama for his eloquence. But in the end, Henninger falls to the most tired, and increasingly ineffective weapon in the right wing arsenal-- anti-tax talk, saying,
"My friends, Sen. Obama is very eloquent, but he is also going to be very, very expensive. It may turn out that an angry, inflation-pressed America just wants to vote for an aura. Feel free, so to speak. John McCain's job will be to explain the price of voting for eloquence."
Rove is tired. The GOP is tired. The WSJ is leaking and it's a sad thing that a formerly trusted institution, which once had strong, bulwarked boundaries, has begun the much expected, post Murdoch acquisition, slippery slide. It's not surprising. Part of the deal when the sale to Murdoch was made was that key editorial staff would not be fired without the approval of a special board put together to protect the integrity of the Journal. Just recently, Murdoch's team finessed that deal by asking for a resignation. Sadly slippery. And the leaking, like a rusting, rotting, toxic drum's contents oozing into a town's formerly pure water supply grows, from a drop here or there to....a regular flow... the 2008 political season approaches full bloom.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
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A few declarations.
-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
-My articles express my personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
Maybe they will rename it to the Wall Street Post so it will be in line with the other rag they publish from N. Y.
As far as the eloquent comments of Rove who is just loaded with eloquence (remember the rap dance on TV), George W Bush is the antithesis of eloquence and look how expensive he has been.
So Mr. Rove and Mr. Murdoch change the Wall Street Journal into a supermarket tabloid if you will, but I say keep the back slapping, stupid grinning Neanderthals out of the White House for a refreshing change.
by
Michael Chavers (42 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 173 comments)
on Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 11:18:32 AM
The values and morals of our society are at an all-time low when we are continually subjected to the likes of Karl Rove, Wolf Blitzer, George W. Bush, Kinda Sleazy Rice, Dick Cheney, and others who do nothing but distort and lie. Now that he has been away from the public for a couple of months Rove feels it is “safe” for him to return to the limelight, this time it appears he is shilling for Hillary Clinton. The real frightening thing about his recent supposed support of Clinton is that in his past some terrible things have happened to opponents of people he has strongly supported, namely John Ashcroft and Norm Coleman whose opponents suffered similar tragedies when their airplanes mysteriously crashed. Now, with Clinton planting the “seed” about something happening to Obama and with Rove coming on with comments that would appear to be supporting her, there may well be reason for concern.
Then to Wolf Blitzer. Is he nothing more than a shill for the Israeli agenda? His support of the killing of Arabs in the Middle East is appalling and CNN has given him more time in front of the camera in order that he can continue to shill for the mass murders taking place. As long as the genocide of the enemies of Israel continues all is well with Blitzer.
The Bush, Rice, and Cheney trio should be tried in a criminal court for their lies that have led to the murders of thousands of people in the Middle East. It is well known of their moral deficiencies of not being truthful, yet nobody even suggests something be done to them for their lies.
There are others, too numerous to cite here, but lauded by the corporate media propagandists and fed to the American people. Their intent is primarily to keep the truth from the people, apparently adhering to the quote of Bono; “The less you know, the more you believe.”
by
Dennis Kaiser (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 212 comments)
on Friday, May 30, 2008 at 6:03:02 AM
