Is the GOP Media Backlash Incoherent?

Matt Taibbi has a good (and amusing) piece in the recent issue of New York Press. Among other things, he writes, "In all seriousness, there have been hints in the last week that a 'blame the media' backlash might be in the works as a strategy for dealing with all the ugliness in Iraq," as evidenced most memorably by Sen. Inhofe's being "outraged by the outrage". If this is true, I suspect the GOP may have to modify its approach, and there are reasons to think the GOP may have a difficult time doing so.

On the face of it, at least, the GOP's strategy consists really of two opposed strategies. First, there's the attempt to gloss the situation in Iraq by only highlighting positive events (e.g. businesses openning, children going to school, the creation of Boy Scout troops, etc.), or highlighting positive myths, as the case may be. Second, there's the attempt to dehumanize "the enemy," as evidenced by Inhofe's apparent endorsement of torture as a means for dealing with Iraqi POW's.

The problem with trying to implement both strategies is that it runs the risk of pulling our intuitions in opposite directions. That is, the first strategy humanizes the Iraqis (in that colonial assistance kind of way), while the second strategy says the Iraqis are getting the violent punishment they deserve. These two approaches can only be reconciled if one successfully sells the American people on a distinction between "good, democracy-lovin' Iraqis" and "bad, terrorist-supporting Iraqis". But it's hard to sell that distinction when it becomes common knowledge that, say, the majority of prisoners at Abu Ghraib were innocent civilians. "Oops!" just won't cut it, b/c the positive depiction of "good Iraqis" has already inclined us to look favorably on what are now the victims of our soldiers' torture. Reports of devastating attacks on wedding parties might work the same way.

I write this, in part, because I wonder whether it is a bad thing if the media highlights something good that's happening in post-Saddam Iraq (assuming, of course, that it's true). Cultivating sympathy for Iraqi civilians generally makes it more difficult to ignore civilian atrocities. Admittedly, there is a much larger problem in that the SCLM doesn't want to cover civilian deaths, generally. But if the torture scandal becomes something of a watershed moment and the media begins to report at least some of the military's wrong-doings, perhaps the positive stories of post-Saddam Iraq would be a helpful complimentary addition that we should actually welcome. For it'd be a real shame if the young Iraqi woman who learned to bake a cake could no longer do so because her arms had been blown off by an American AC-130.

•  Nice analysis ...

  it is hard to figure out why we're painting all those schools if the proper way to treat the children's parents is to pile them up naked in chains and sodomize them.

  by David in NY on Thu May 20, 2004 at 12:09:23 PM PDT

•  Good analysis of the Schizophrenia going on

  Look soon for pcitures of W looking behind the oval office curtains, wondering "Where are those missing Iraqi human rights?"

  Everything is a joke to him, so he can't bother to be consistent.

  by Alan S on Thu May 20, 2004 at 12:17:39 PM PDT

•  There is no problem selling two contrary lies

  as Hitler proved with the classic
  Jews are communists
  Jews own the world money supply

  Since Bush seems to want to emulate Orwell, it's pretty clear that all he is interested in is the propagation of lies.  That they are contrary is not a problem to him, if anything, it seems to make it more endearing.  For example, if the Iraqis got rid of all their WMDs before the war, why did we go to war to get rid of them, and why are we torturing civilians to try to find them?  Because it's fun.  Because if we torture people then release them, they will tell all their friends and spew anti-Americanism everywhere, and then there will be more anti-American violence, which justifies this whole war on terrorism in the first place.

  We cannot justify a war on terrorism where there is no terrorism.  We must first create the enemy and then destroy it.  

  And only this way can we destroy the civil rights of the people of the United States (the majority of whom did not vote for Bush), and the Constitution upon which it is based.

  And only then can we have a monarchy and a government in the style of that old genius George Orwell.  That rich commie.

  by ultrageek on Thu May 20, 2004 at 12:20:21 PM PDT

  •  No, but there is a problem BUYING contrary lies.

    You're correct that it's no problem for Bush to sell two (or more) contrary lies; in many respects, that's what propaganda is. Problems can arise, however, when people accept one or more of those lies and then try to work-out the implications. If, by hearing the kinds of news stories Limbaugh thinks should be front-page, someone becomes convinced of the humanity of Iraqi civilians, then that person may have greater difficulty hearing about the wedding party massacre than does someone who simply buys the dehumanization rhetoric.

    by machopicasso on Thu May 20, 2004 at 01:37:18 PM PDT

    •  Not at all...

      ...because what they are training the simpletons to do is: 1) to believe whatever they hear; 2) to immediately forget what they've been told so they can be told something else that contradicts it.

      The only effort is to shorten and shorten the length of time that people remember things so that it will always seem new.

      And that's why they don't want the photos of the torture out in the public... so that they'll forget.  

      It's immediate gratification that they are selling and anything over two weeks old is old news and no one cares about this.

      This is very Orwellian, and very frightening.

      by ultrageek on Thu May 20, 2004 at 03:18:39 PM PDT

      •  Of course,

        there's no problem if the "simpletons" (as you call them) do as they're trained. The problem for Bush, however, is that not everyone falls neatly under the category of "simpleton", and my diary wasn't written with respect to such people. If the entirety of the voting public consisted of simpletons, then Bush's presidency wouldn't necessarily be bound to the situation in Iraq. But, as it is, there is presently a modicum of memory and accountability, at least enough for Bush's re-election hopes to rise or fall with Iraq (-barring some major change).

        by machopicasso on Thu May 20, 2004 at 03:38:56 PM PDT

•  Disagree

  I disagree with your take - I think we aren't humanizing them when we view them so paternalistically. See the diary below, for example, where Bush talks about letting the Iraqis "take off the training wheels."

  If the Iraqis, in the Bushian worldview, are children, then they must be "cared for" (ie, we paint their schools) and punished (ie, what we saw at Abu Ghraib).

  by DavidNYC on Thu May 20, 2004 at 12:22:06 PM PDT

  •  Yes and no.

    You're correct to flag the problem of paternalism. That's what I had in mind when I wrote (somewhat ironically),"the first strategy humanizes the Iraqis (in that colonial assistance kind of way)..." At the same time, in the grand scheme of things, paternalistic rhetoric is better than genocidal rhetoric if the former means something like "Those poor, helpless Iraqis are human beings who would benefit so much from the immesurable goodness of American democracy and capitalism." That is, at least some forms of paternalism are compatible with recognizing that Iraqis are human beings, albeit in an arrogant and demeaning fashion. But once the status of being a human being is accorded to the other, then it becomes harder to justify the torture of that person.

    by machopicasso on Thu May 20, 2004 at 01:27:42 PM PDT