Friday, March 31, 2006

Bush shifted speech to preempt Democratic news conference

The Democrats presented their news conference offering the Democratic Security Plan Wednesday. Only almost no one reported it.

Why? Simple. According to Peter Daou Bush had scheduled a speech on Iraq Policy to be given beginning at 1:30 PM. At the last moment, the White House changed the time of that speech so that it started a few minutes before the Democratic press conference.


Peter Daou earlier published an excellent article on how the Republicans and the media are working together to present the current occupiers of the White House as just a bunch of good old boys doing their best to do what America needs done. Examples are:
narratives: Bush is likable, Bush is a regular guy, Bush is firm, Bush is a religious man, Bush relishes a fight, Democrats are muddled, Democrats have no message, national security is Bush’s strength, terror attacks and terror threats help Bush (even though he presided over the worst attack ever on American soil), Democrats are weak on security, Democrats need to learn how to talk about values, Republicans favor a “strict interpretation” of the Constitution, and on and on.

A single storyline is more effective than a thousand stories. And a single storyline delivered by a “neutral” reporter is a hundred times more dangerous than a storyline delivered by an avowed partisan. Rightwingers can attack the media for criticizing Bush, can slam the New York Times for being liberal, but when the Times and the Post and CNN and MSNBC echo the ‘Bush stands firm’ mantra, it adds one more brick to a powerful pro-Bush edifice.
The Daou Report explains why the media is letting Bush and the Republicans get away with its massive lies and frauds while at the same time not letting the Democratic adn progressive messages see the light of day.

This article is a "must read."

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