The spin has already begun on the Foley scandal, with Tony Snow referring to the matter as "naughty emails" (as diaried eloquently
here). It's inevitable that the neocons will try to spin the Foley case such that it doesn't add to the mounting body of evidence that the Republican leadership has fostered a culture of corruption in the interest of protecting and enriching their own.
Earlier this summer, the phenomenon of lonelygirl15 hit the Internet. If you were under an e-rock (or conusmed with the CT-Sen primary) and missed it, an attractive, witty, and intelligent teenage girl who is home-schooled and sheltered starts video blogging on Youtube. Her interesting short videos, shot from her bedroom, grab an audience... and then we start to learn about her strange religion (hints of the occult or Satanist), the relationship with her video editor Daniel, and her family, which seems super-strict and moves around frequently. Soon, people became suspicious that lonelygirl15 was in fact a work of fiction of some sort, a claim ultimately proven correct.
So what does one have to do with the other? Join me on the flip.
lonelygirl15 came to my attention in early September, after
On The Media ran a story on her. This was just at the start of the controversy about whether she was real or a fabrication. I went back and caught up on the earlier videos, and continued to follow the story as it unfolded. Ultimately, it was revealed that lonelygirl15 was a product of a handful of semi-pro filmmakers, who were experimenting with this new type of narrative.
There was great outrage from many who had followed lonelygirl15's saga... we were lied to! We were misled! We were deceived! We have been betrayed! But something odd happened... most of the audience didn't leave. Myself included. At the point when it was revealed as fiction, I was invested enough in the story line that I wanted to see what happened, and the fact that this wasn't a genuine story of a 16-year-old girl's life really didn't matter to me.
The neocon establishment, over the next few days, is going to spin the Foley story - probably multiple different ways, just to see what 'sticks'. Tony Snow, Rush, Savage, and the rest of the Bushies are very good at exactly what lonelygirl15 did - creating a narrative that is believable, but not truth; creating a narrative that will hook the listener and invest them in the story such that the fact that it's not an accurate reflection isn't relevant. G. Felix Allen's campaign tried this with his 'heritage' defense of his Confederate/racism fetish. Rush did it successfully with the 'Skull and Bones' story about Abu Ghraib.
So what can we do? Once the narrative gains traction, there's no good way to remove it from the consciousness. We have to interrupt the narrative as it is being told. Don't let them finish telling the story. Listen to Rush, listen to Savage, watch Faux News - and call in with the facts that we know. Be the 12-year-old kid in the movie theatre who audibly points out all the anachronisms and flaws in the story line. Disrupt the coerced suspension of disbelief. This is not just a matter of our story vs. theirs - it's a matter of not allowing the right to trivialize the abuse of minors and enable sexual predators.