At the Politico, John H. Harris writes about the way the media makes minor stories seem like major ones. The aspect most will note is his confession that the Politico jumped all over Hillary Clinton invoking the assassination of RFK as a rationale for continuing her presidential campaign to juice the site’s traffic statistics. But there is more to it than that.
After all, Harris also notes that:
If this really was a big story, then the media has blown it for months. Clinton made similar remarks to Time magazine back in March. (The Wall Street Journal reporter with Clinton has an entertaining look at how the pack traveling with the candidate initially missed the story.)
Thus, the question might be asked as to why the media jumped on the most recent remarks when it failed to do so earlier, if traffic is the motivating factor? (Or, as noted earlier, why her comments were so terrible in light of all of the assassination talk coming from Obama, his staff, his supporters and his friends in the media.)
I think the answer to that question is that even in March, Clinton was seen by the media as a more viable candidate than she is today. By Mid-May, the establishment media and pundit class was close to demanding Clinton withdraw, even though Democratic voters were not. Accordingly, this class was more likely to hear in her comments what they believe to be an irrational, sociopathic drive to remain in the race. Although Clinton has more delegates than Jesse Jackson ever had (and he never faced this level of pressure to withdraw in 1988), the Quixotic nature of her campaign is evident for all to see.
The other example Harris cites is similarly instructive:
In the early months of this publication (we launched in January 2007), a short news item broken by Ben Smith about John Edwards’ $400 haircut became one of our most-trafficked stories. I thought we handled that news nugget with a decent sense of proportion. The item, for instance, never led our site. But it’s true I was not exactly despairing when other websites and cable TV networks went way overboard on the story, with citations to Politico.
In this case, John Edwards always had a reputation (just or not) as a political lightweight. He had been nicknamed “the Breck Girl” by his rivals. And a video of Edwards being meticulously coiffed, set to the tune “I Feel Pretty” had gone viral months before the Politico item. Thus, the item not only reinforced a longstanding public image of Edwards, it implicitly posed the question of how dumb someone with that image has to be to get a $400 haircut while trying to remake his image into that of a populist.
These may be small stories, but ones that appeal to what political scientist Samuel Popkin calls “low-information signaling†and “gut rationality,â€Â just like Pres. George H. W. Bush checking his wristwatch on camera during a 1992 presidential debate, video of Mike Dukakis in a tank, or Al Gore’s stalking and sighing during the 2000 presidential debates. So long as such stories are not dishonest (like the urban legend of of George H. W. Bush and the supermarket scanner), they can be useful to voters for more than mere entertainment.
Baracky really likes pimping his own hypothetical assassination though. I think that’s very strange and a lot self-aggrandizing. Put on some Kevlar and shut up already.
Barack nor his campaign staff have pimped any such story. That’s just another dumb lie pimped by Karl. Sadly, and even with his head-full of magic low information, Karl has been nothing but dead wrong, ha!, all throughout this campaign. Reality is a helluv’a litmus test.
I think O! groupies in the media happened upon a Hillary bashing story that would play out over a long holiday weekend with no competition. Look when it broke:
“SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP)  Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton quickly apologized Friday after citing the June 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy as a reason to remain in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination despite increasingly long odds.”
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iNxTApa2sQRu0Xx99P3jt2bEXw7gD90RJTI80
Oh. Karl has links and links and links about the pimping. Here’s one. It’s a coy sort of a pimping to be sure.
Oh, Baracky. Stay strong. A little less prayer and a little more Kevlar would sure make me sleep easier. You know how I worry.
http://www.opinionjournal*.com/best/?id=110010830#safety
Oh and here are K’s links…
http://proteinwisdom*.com/?p=12281
He’s so brave.
Think about it. He goes out in public every day with absolutely nothing standing between him and unspeakable tragedy but the Secret Service. And he does it with style.
The Community Organizer™ has a rendezvous with incompetence.
– I felt originally, when the press started the “quit quit” bullshit, he was trying to sew it up before the race issues could manifest. I still think that was the case, but even more I think the difference is that Jackson was no real threat, and looking at how close she is, I think the O camp just feels the longer she stays in it, the more chances they have of losing. They are truly afraid of her, or their candidate saying some more “teh stupids”, and thus the bums rush, aided by the fuckhead press.
– Besides, this one is a loser for the O!s. She planted a worm in the brier patch, and all they are doing is feeding it.
“or their candidate saying some more “teh stupids—
Operation Chaos.
– Yes, well can you say “drug addict”. Rush is just reminding them that payback is a bitch.
thor is a liar, as usual. And stoopid, given how easily the lies are exposed. Nevertheless, he’s comedy gold.
They are truly afraid of her, or their candidate saying some more “teh stupidsâ€Â,
They should be.
McCain-Clinton ’08 yuk
Don’t forget positive-feedback loops. Once a story attracts a critical mass of attention, everyone else starts feeling the need to pay attention to it. Nobody at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party thought Trent Lott’s statements were unusual for a birthday tribute, and nobody at Howard Dean’s speech in Des Moines thought his fired-up yell was all that remarkable, and I doubt Don Imus’s comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team were substantially more offensive than usual. But somebody kind of latched onto each one, either because they had an axe to grind or because the incident in question fit a narrative or the right person just happened to be in a place to notice the incident and spread the word. And, once they did, word just spread.
Some stories are more likely to take off than others, but I don’t think you can ignore randomness combined with positive feedback loops.
But I guess more the point is that Baracky could have downplayed this story but his staff played up the story and later after it had been played and played they tried to act all magnanimous and let’s give the stupid cow the benefit of the doubt. But now Baracky can’t do his ohnoes I could be shot just like Martin Luther King routine or his ohnoes we’re out of fruit again I have to go to the grocery store I could so totally die routine for the general or it would look completely disingenuous, so in a way it was kind of a unilateral disarmament.
“Some stories are more likely to take off than others, but I don’t think you can ignore randomness combined with positive feedback loops.”
Except when reactionary leftist outfits like “Media Matters” lie through their teeth about something a conservative said.
Steven Jens,
You have a point, but the examples you cite are all loops that mesh with what people — or the media — already thought about the speakers.
I would think Barack would send in one of his daughters to fetch the…. don’t say bananas…don’t say bananas…. fruit.
don’t hit the “Say It!” button…..don’t hit the “S
Comment by Karl on 5/25 @ 4:42 pm
The Lott thing was another instance of where going into a slow news period the media launched a drive by shooting and sat back and watched what happen. Politicos don’t do anything stupid on Thursday going into a slow news period.
Mr. Brain the thing is it seems that Baracky is really already adroit all by hisself at lying about John McCain’s positions on things and lying about other stuff. He did it with that 100 years of war thing and on the GI Bill thing and he lied about saying he wanted to meet-up with Ahmadinejad and he lied about that questionnaire he filled out and he lied about how the Kennedy family had personally brought that one dad of his to America and he lied about not knowing about the things Jeremiah Wright said that were so hateful and anti-American.
Whoa. Now that you list it out like that oh my God he’s a big fat liar. I think that would make a good story for the media to look into.
You know happy, if you were to say that Barack was a big fat black liar, you’d be in the slam by 8 PM EST.
Maybe it’s implied. I’d be very careful if I were you. Just be careful is all.
That’s like 32 minutes from now. Crap. I better get in the shower in case they bring cameras I don’t want to look like one of those dudes on COPS. It would kill my mom.
Maybe Barack learned how to lie from Karl.
Oh. That’s not how people learn to lie. Not by emulating. No what happens is sometimes people lie and what happens is they find out there aren’t any consequences. A lot you’ll find this happening with kids who grow up without the active involvement of like parents and stuff. And cause there aren’t consequences, the lies become a crutch to where they feel entitled to their lies. Sometimes people outgrow it, but sometimes they don’t.
It’s about having a sense of honor really. Sometimes this gets confused with a refined sense of audacity. They feel a lot the same if somebody’s moral compass is screwed up. But they’re really very different things.
So if I hear you right happy, a lot of black people come from broken homes. Say hi to Grossburger in C-bloc for me.
“The Audacity of Dope™”
Hey Barry how’s that FARC gold taste?
I don’t understand how petty distractions like these irrelevant tattles can be “useful” to voters, as Karl says. They’re missteps worthy of mere acknowlegement, and then move on. The campaigns are sleazy for capitalizing on them and the press equally so for perpetuating them.
Agreed cynn, but what if moving on from the petty distractions turns the conversations toward substantive issues, and you’re still riding that little pony called “The 2004 Democratic Convention Speech”?
Not you, of course cynn, you know who.
Is Juan Valdez a Baracky sortof guy?
I just think Baracky sometimes gets mixed up telling the difference between truth and narrative is all. Maybe it’s not a family thing at all. Did he intern ever at NPR?
It’s got a Paradise by the Dashboard Light feel.
I think after Obama is elected President I’m going to compile a list of the Swaggiest and Phattest of Karl’s Big Fat Lies, The Toppest SwagPhats!.
Mock is the answer
Mock: to attack or treat with ridicule, contempt, or derision.
I’m watching MASH on AMC right now. “Suicide is painless” is the intro:
that suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
I try to find a way to make
all our little joys relate
without that ever-present hate
but now I know that it’s too late, and..
Yea ok. So I’m reading Steyn over at the evil NRO:
“The point is that Islam is being institutionalised, incarnated, into national structures amazingly fast, at the same time as demography is showing very high birthrates…
Today the Christian story is fading from public imagination, while Islam grows apace.”
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTgwMDAzNDExYjUxZjQ3ZTE2ZjMxNDU2ODYyYTJmYjc=
I don’t have “faith” in the Community Organizer™. All that can be done is to mock all this leftist bullshit. From health scares to global warming to saving the polar bears, you should have fun and MOCK the shit out of these idiots. That is all.
cynn,
From one of the links:
These “small stories” end up resonating because they to some degree encapsulate something larger — HRC’s “win at all costs” mentality, Edwards’s vanity and faux populism, GHWB’s indiffernec in facing ordinary people, Mike Dukakis’s general discomfort in the military setting, etc. The more scripted politics becomes, the more people will look at such “missteps” as revealing of what is behind the curtain.
karl wrote:
“The more scripted politics becomes, the more people will look at such “missteps†as revealing of what is behind the curtain.”
O! don’t have that problem. His gaffes are ignored.
Karl, then the public is even dumber than StarMag dumb. I no longer get a vicarious thrill over the latest little stumble. So Hillary wants to win at all costs. So Obama is trying to pimp the messiah bit. So McCain is the stalwart, salty American hero. That tells me nothing about the policies, fundamental values, or predilections of the candidates. It is low frequency static, that doesn’t focus the debate, it misdirects it to some stereotype that just diffuses the issues.
truth vs. narrative
This is really simple, see? Baracky’s hybrid fits his narrative, so there it sits in his garage, but the truth is that all the evil, polar bear-snuffing carbon dioxide that was produced in the manufacture of his idled car means Baracky may as well be drowning polar bear cubs with his bare hands. Whereas if he put the car into the aftermarket cause he doesn’t need it, he could actually displace someone’s gas-guzzling, earth-choking very bad combusty old school car. But then he couldn’t say he had a hybrid in his garage. This is the logic of an inherently dishonest person. I don’t know what to tell you.
Wow. Y’all’ compulsion to shoehorn the democratic candidates into media products is interesting, to say the least.
These “small stories†end up resonating because they to some degree encapsulate something larger  HRC’s “win at all costs†mentality, Edwards’s vanity and faux populism, GHWB’s indiffernec in facing ordinary people, Mike Dukakis’s general discomfort in the military setting, etc. The more scripted politics becomes, the more people will look at such “missteps†as revealing of what is behind the curtain.
Take the wizard hat off, let go of the ruffle adjuster and step away from the curtain, Karl.
You mock. It’s not compulsion. It’s just if you enable Baracky’s lies you become a lot complicit. That sort of thing compromises a person I think and you end up instead of being able to discuss politics all you can do is tell people what you saw on the Daily Show last night or heard on the NPR on the way to work. I don’t want to be that guy is all, cynn.
Are there 57 states in POTATOE?
“…if you were to say that Barack was a big fat black liar, you’d be in the slam by 8 PM EST.”
I haven’t seen the slightest bit of evidence that he’s fat.
thor
Yo the Community Organizer™ is a constant f**k up. Does Baracky have Teleprompter stock?
– Thor, you really need some consoling badly. You’re setting yourself up for some ego crushing bangety bang if your hero doesn’t carry the day.
– And while you’re at it, get the green monster off your back. You can’t write a comment that isn’t off the rails offish and immature, and as far as Karl, well open jealousy is a hell of a way to go through life, so get the OCD looked at too sparky.
– I have to admit though, that the green lump between your shoulders does match the yellow stripe down your spine nicely.
I am so going to beat you up in front of your Mom.
I don’t know thor’s political leanings. I myself am left, but I think the current left congress members are sickening and mewling. Having said that, why is it that anyone remotely opposed to the Iraq engagement is “yellow?” Talk about perpetuating a meme — you guys are the masters of smearing any disagreement with the traitor crap. Please.
– Say hello to your mom for Me sonny. Is she still as hot as she used to be?
cynn,
I think you’re missing the point. The fact that McCain presnts himself as salty war hero and Obama presents himself as post-racial Unifier is exactly why people pay attention to the missteps; they see them as more authentic and revealing than the scripted image.
Iraq is our ally, cynn. That pretty much answers your question I think.
– cynn. You know you just played the ball off the line. Anyone with any sense at all is against war. We don’t fight wars because we want too. We fight them, and always have, because others will not live peaceably with their neighbors, and think killing them, and us, would be a great idea. So that is “teh big fat canard” the Left has been pimping since the start.
– Walk into a Secular Progressive/Peacenik rally and hold up a fistful of lifetime deferment forms. Then you’ll discover the difference between true conscience and cowardliness.
cynn,
re #48
I think you meant engagement with Iran. I don’t think people are saying that’s “yellow” here at pw. I think people are saying: (a) Bush has been engaged in multi-lateral talks (of the sort those on the left are supposed to love) with Iran for years; (b) a presidential summit with Iran without preconditions would likely be counter-productive, as was the Vienna Summit of 1961; (c) since getting this criticism, O! has taken a position that sounds quite a bit like the very Bush policy he is supposedly critiquing.
I’m not so Left, not so Right. The pendulum swings, Dickens’ mice scream and I keep myself free to dream, which is the essence of adolescents, don’t you tinker, cynn.
Oh, now I know for sure thor is just a big kidder! thor, you scamp! You tease! Oh, such a mischievious boy!
I’m definitely not Left for sure cause I feel a lot responsible for helping out. Mostly this means trying hard to not be part of the problem. Some days are better than others.
I ain’t no shabby plaid frock, more like Montreal, in spite of it all.
Show me a Technicolor dreamcoat and I’ll wear that bad boy all the way to the White House.
What are y’all even talking about?
I have no idea.
I’m thinking back to Dallas and Buffalo in the Superblow, Emmit, Troy and fumblin’ Thurman, and I’m realizing, like, I remember everything I know, yet I’ll never know if I’m going to be one of those forgetful fathers. “Just wait and you’ll see, boy!” That’s exactly what he my Dad used to say one our fishing trips.
I just don’t understand how these little hiccups amount to partisan swipes. I don’t accept it myself, and why an otherwise thorough person as Karl promotes this crap is beyond me.
“Comment by cynn on 5/25 @ 7:08 pm #
I don’t know thor’s political leanings.”
thor doesn’t so much lean as kneel.
Plus, I think the persistent Iran drumbeat is not only stupid, but bound to backfire.
Comment by cynn on 5/25 @ 8:10 pm #
Plus, I think the persistent Iran drumbeat is not only stupid, but bound to backfire.”
Why?
They’ve been at war with us since, what, 1979?
Oh. Thinking back is one of those things where it’s hard to know exactly where it lands on the part of the problem/part of the solution continuum. Be careful.
Karl likes to whisper about pretty things. “So he wants to be our black King, well let’s see if he doesn’t end up feeling the springtime breezes like a crucified goddamn Jesus. Motherfucker, Obama!”
Yeah, I don’t think that arming insurgents in Iraq and pursuing nukes is either smart or going to work out well for them. They should maybe put down those sticks and take up the cello.
NOBrain: Great; here comes the next Grand Deployment. I had so much more, but I wisely deleted it.
For real, have you guys actually bought into this new manifest destiny project hocked for Iran? Are you really that blinkered? God, I can only pray that you turn your crusty eyes toward America itself and see what actually needs your weakened attention.
wtf? … what does that even mean? Shouldn’t there have been a memo? That sounds very precedenty.
“Anyone can see a forest fire. Skill lies in sniffing the first smoke.”
-Robert A. Heinlein
What’s this manifest destiny project you refer to, cynn? I haven’t heard anyone of any import pitching anything.
“Comment by cynn on 5/25 @ 8:26 pm #
Are you really that blinkered?”
Ok, now I’ve gotten my RDA of irony.
cynn,
I don’t promote it. I observe it. In this particular case, I note that it’s not all bad, hence the title “quasi-defense.”
I observe it because a theme I do very much want to promote is the reminder to the sort of people who write, read and comment on blogs like this that we are not the norm. And that if you really want to understand politics, we would do well to keep in mind how the people who do not write, read and comment on blogs like this think about politics.
This is why Speed Racer.
So I gather that you and your blog equals truly understand the dynamics of politics, while the slithering masses can only digest the compost tossed down from above? Elitist, but unfortunatley true, because the message is so neatly controlled from your level.
KARL, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD!
cynn,
I would not claim the omniscience you suggest, but seek to remind the political junkie that he or she is not typical.
Nor do I consider that an elitist point of view. We live in a country where — despite a general leftward drift — politics do not play a crucial or decisive role in the lives of most citizens most of the time. Accordingly, many people believe that they have better things to do with their time than pick apart the details of competing healtcare proposals. I don’t consider that to be necessarily irrational, or something to be looked down upon. Rather, I am saying to those who are political junkies and policy wonks that understanding political campaigns includes an understanding various forms of voter thought and behavior — understanding the political landscape as it is, as opposed to how how political junkies wish it was in their elitism.
You, fine sir, are little more than a corrupt partisan who couldn’t pick apart and reassemble a tinker toy windmill.
Get this through your skull: Obama is about to finish the greatest upset in political history because he reads more books than you, because he writes better than you, because he’s a fuck of a lot smarter than you, and because he’s not a fuming butthole, like you.
Better you spend some time figuring out how you got it all wrong else you’ll be doomed, again, to putting on your clown shoes when the instructions call for putting on a parachute. You blew this one, baaaaaad.
I would be totally swayed by thor’s argument, if he had one.
You’re coming of age, in my eyes, of you, Karl, being a Right-wing weenie boy was when you first broke this particular fairy tale. I informed you that I was from Dallas, had driven down the street in front of the book conservatory in Dallas because I worked in the Trammel Crow building. You clung, like a wittle bitter-clingerer, to your fancy fool’s tale. You preferred to do the chicken dance in the line of others doing the same cutesy dance. The truth wasn’t what you wanted to hear, to confront, to deal with. Nope. What you’re into is lies. Interpreting low information symbols, to you, involves sticking your head up your ass until your come out with a handful of poo to fling, and not much else.
What’s the career prospects for honest work as a delusional one-party weenie boy? Mm, that’s too bad. Well, there’s always the off-chance you’ll grow up and take a broader more rational look at reality.
I say that these political tics do say something about the candidate. Whether the message picked up by the media is valid or not – well that varies. But, so much of their every move is scripted and controlled, these are small glimpses into what the candidate is really like.
Karl,
I’m not from Dallas, but I have ridden the Eagle down the tracks in front of Dealey Plaza in Dallas, just because.
Please take this into your considerations.
I’m not from Dallas, but I did drive through it a couple of times. The period in between those times coincides with the arrest of the D.C. snipers.
I think my authority therefore outweighs either Thor’s or guinsPen’s.
Sorry, guys.
Like PIATOR and actus before him, thor insists on beclowning himself for all to see.
And I’m not from Dallas. From the friendlier, tougher, more diverse, less pretentious burg to the southeast, Houston.
Fear not, for the media is fickle, especially when it comes to politics.
“Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue.
And when the band plays “Hail to the chief”,
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord,”-CCR
Obamalamadingdong doesn’t need to fear an assassins bullet, the media will do the job without a single shot fired. I saw Hillary bagging on Obamarama regarding his Cuba Policy du juor. Just wait till the presidential debates, the media will crucify him using her words.
Don’t bet more than a dollar on that.
I’m not from Dallas either, but I’ve seen Baracky in action a lot. He’s an empty suit who speaks well. He keeps FARCing up on foreign policy, the economy, and his overall message. Obviously a case a premature election. He needs more seasoning desperately.
Karl, there’s too much blood in the water for the sharks to ignore. This isn’t a New York/Illinois Senate race. Obamadoration only sells so many spots on the 24/7 news cycle.
But I was wrong when Hillary ran for Senator in New York. I was embarrassed that the State where I was born, a place that was supposedly tough on politicians, whithered like a Jimmy Carter foreign policy. Maybe I’ll reconsider after the Democratic National Convention in Denver. If it’s all kissie-face, and the MSM buys into it, I’ll admit my naivete.
#75 and #79 – Karl
I have said much the same thing in my comments here and elsewhere. It goes with commenters on conservative blogs saying that they will never vote for McCain. That does not matter as much because they are a very small subset of the population. It is the low-information voters who have other things to do with their lives who will decide the election, and how well the candidates can keep control of how they are defined is of great importance. Gaffes and missteps that are at odds with the advertised image are used by low-information voters – who are used to advertising and do not trust advertising – to look for cues that are different from the advertising and give them an independent image (maybe inarticulable ‘feel’) of who the candidate actually is.
Missteps and gaffes that are far different from the advertised image of the candidate feed into that instinctive assessment – I believe DenBeste called it a ‘bullshit detector’. For the candidates, starting so early hurts them because it gives more opportunity for these disonnant notes to come out and hurt their prepared image. Se. Obama has been hurt more because both Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain have been in the public eye longer and the instinctive gut-feel of these candidates is pretty well locked down – these two would have to monumentally misstep or gaffe to cause a change in that set idea. Sen. Obama is relatively unknown, and each misstep and gaffe hits harder because that instinctive gut feeling has not been set as well and as hard – it is still forming.
Bad news for Sen. Obama, but that is how people operate, how they judge other people, and how they set their expectations. If he had stayed in the senate for a term and gotten some publicity he wouldn’t have quite the same level of problem he has now. Hype is what he came out of the starting blocks with, but anyone can tell you that hype doesn’t last long once the performance starts.
As an example, Harry Truman was hurt by his connection to Tom Pendergast. He needed Pendergast’s machine or getting elected was going to be a no-go proposition, but Truman himself was an honest man. He demonstrated that by working harder in the senate than nearly anyone else, by his investigation into waste and fraud in defense contracts. For Senator Obama to have distanced himself from his connections to Rev. Wright, to Ayers and Dohrn, to Rezko, he would have had to act in both the state legislature and in the uS Senate in such a way as to prove that he wasn’t being manipulated and that he truly was his own man. He did not give himself enough time to distance those connections, a very bad move, too hasty.
Comment by thor on 5/26 @ 1:36 am #
If you have an erection lasting more than four hours, seek immediate medical attention.
N. O’Brain – I think that would be suicidal ’cause it seems that is the only head he ‘thinks’ with.
Who am I to deflate the pride Nikkolia has in her barrio. I’ll just mind my tongue.
I see the line of macarena dancers is still wagging their dicks at Obama.
Get to detox, thor.
Seriously, if I was a candidate I would want you to support my opponent.
The Bosnian Snipercrat Party is looking for someone at the top of their ticket. Long range that might work out for you if you’re looking to run.
thor is bitchen. he speaks truth to power. Or at least, he’s abrasive.
Now cynn, you bite their scones just as much as I.
Your endorsement says a lot, cynn.
Get to detox, thor. And reserve a room for cynn when you get there.
Mikey, you are casting aside the least of us. Shame on you.
Politics aside, Mikey, please show some respect to our Lady of Perpetual Iridescence.
So other than that, how was the trip to the gas station, Mrs. Obama?
Son. You wouldn’t know a 7.62 x 51(NATO) from a 7.62 x 54R if it hit you in the occipital lobe.