Thursday, January 08, 2004
David "I'm writing as bad as I can" Brooks is playing rope-a-dope with us
Look. Savaging Brooks is good, clean fun (Atrios; Howler; and we've even done it ourselves) but in some ways, it's misplaced energy.
A new winger meme seems to have rolled out of the RNC fax blaster—it's starting to replace "anger" (didn't take), and "irrational hatred" (didn't take).
The meme is: conspiracy theorist. (An excellent example comes from thug meme-meister and convicted felon Ollie "Shred Me" North. What is with the Republicans overthrowing constitutional government, anyhow?)
In the light of winger meme transmission strategy, the most important sentence in Burbling Brooks's screed is the following:
The rope-a-dope? Brooks is covering a Big Lie with a Small Lie.
The Small Lie: Brook's shoddy slur that administration critics are anti-semites. We nailed him on this one, but he's gotten us to throw our punches where it doesn't really hurt him.
The Big Lie: That pointing out the role of the neo-conservative PNAC in American political life makes you a "full mooner" [1]. In fact, the role of the PNAC has been well known to us in the blogosphere for some time; UggaBugga provides a typically brilliant diagram of their influence [2]. However, though the Big Lie is old news to us, it's new to the mainstream. When we focus on the Small Lie, because it's new, instead of the Big Lie, because it's old, we miss a teachable moment. In this way, the Small Lie covers up the Big Lie.
So, Brooks has managed to introduce the role of the PNAC into the mainstream of political discourse in a way that marginalizes it as a "conspiracy theory."
Rope-a-dope!
I join with the rest of our readership—and his happy client(s)— in wishing Mr. Brooks the most lavish of tips for his most excellent service(s).
[1]Moon this, Dave.
[2]UggaBugga's work reminds me of the link analysis used in wartime intelligence... I wonder why?
A new winger meme seems to have rolled out of the RNC fax blaster—it's starting to replace "anger" (didn't take), and "irrational hatred" (didn't take).
The meme is: conspiracy theorist. (An excellent example comes from thug meme-meister and convicted felon Ollie "Shred Me" North. What is with the Republicans overthrowing constitutional government, anyhow?)
In the light of winger meme transmission strategy, the most important sentence in Burbling Brooks's screed is the following:
The full-mooners fixated on a think tank called the Project for the New American Century, which has a staff of five and issues memos on foreign policy. To hear these people describe it, PNAC is sort of a Yiddish Trilateral Commission, the nexus of the sprawling neocon tentacles.
The rope-a-dope? Brooks is covering a Big Lie with a Small Lie.
The Small Lie: Brook's shoddy slur that administration critics are anti-semites. We nailed him on this one, but he's gotten us to throw our punches where it doesn't really hurt him.
The Big Lie: That pointing out the role of the neo-conservative PNAC in American political life makes you a "full mooner" [1]. In fact, the role of the PNAC has been well known to us in the blogosphere for some time; UggaBugga provides a typically brilliant diagram of their influence [2]. However, though the Big Lie is old news to us, it's new to the mainstream. When we focus on the Small Lie, because it's new, instead of the Big Lie, because it's old, we miss a teachable moment. In this way, the Small Lie covers up the Big Lie.
So, Brooks has managed to introduce the role of the PNAC into the mainstream of political discourse in a way that marginalizes it as a "conspiracy theory."
Rope-a-dope!
I join with the rest of our readership—and his happy client(s)— in wishing Mr. Brooks the most lavish of tips for his most excellent service(s).
[1]Moon this, Dave.
[2]UggaBugga's work reminds me of the link analysis used in wartime intelligence... I wonder why?
