The masters of deception have struck again. The latest diversionary tactic, or nontroversy, concerns objections to the President addressing school children across the nation with a message of encouragement and admonition to do well in school.
Of course, this nonsense is brought to you by the party of no, specifically, Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer who follows the classic strategy of the Nontoriversy--glom onto a trivial or innocuous fact and try to claim it is a sign of the end times.
It doesn't matter if it is easily debunked. They don't care. They just want an excuse to cast aspersions on their enemy, because the goal is to discredit the enemy by reinforcing a negative gut reaction in the susceptible audience.
This requires repetition and regularity. They provide the regularity by constantly producing more nontroversies, and the trad med oblige with the repetition. As evidence I offer the fact that as of the moment I type this, 4 of the 8 recommended diaries and a front page story on this site are involved in eviscerating the meme. Two of them are about Anderson Cooper exploding the myth. The GOP doesn't care that these myths are busted. Their goal is to cast suspicion on their enemy, especially if he or she is popular. They must be made suspect.
A few days ago I diaried about this whimsically in GOP-Party of Nontroversy. I offer this now more seriously. Here is the body of the post:
It's really just an extention of being the party of "No!" doncha think? For some reason, this political party seems to con news mediums into flogging their nontroversies, things that are "controversial" only in that they are overblown or entirely made up. How do they nontroversy? Let me count the ways:
1. Jim Demint (R-SC) says the stimulus bill is nothing but government spending. (Gasp! says the mediums. Duh! says I)
2. Birthers. 'nuff said.
3. Sudden concern for deficits after 2 unfunded wars and 1 unfunded Medicare Part D in the last administration.
4. Sonia Sotomayor is a racist, says the Klannish Jeff Sessions (R-Al)
5. Teabaggers are revolting. You said it, buster.
6. Bipartisianship (stimulus and health care reform) is more important than anything else in the world. (Broder and the other villagers.)
7. Cheney's say not torturing makes us weak.
8. PACs use astroturf to cause incoherent riots at Dem town halls for Health Care Reform. Passed off as "depth and breadth" of discontent.
9. Deathers.
10. "No Guvmint Healthcare. Hands off my Medicare."
11. Michael Steele opens his mouth today, something even stoopider than yesterday comes out.
12. Gates-gate, "Acted stupidly", beer summit.
13. Michelle's shorts.
14. Malia's T-shirt
15. Obama's swatted fly.
16. Obama says Wee-Weed.
17. Obama is a communist, marxist, facist, socialist... racist.
18. Reconciliation is nookewleer option... if Dems use it. (Judd Gregg R-NH.)
Okay, I'm tired of this exercise. I'm probably not even doing it right anymore. Feel free to carry on and embellish in the comments.
And this Party is taken seriously by the mediums, why, again?
As I wrote then, this list is nowhere near complete, and it doesn't go all the way back to the campaign where the cling-to-guns, William Ayres, and Rev. Wright nonsense lurked. But the point is this is a strategy.
It's what they did to Bill Clinton (Bill Foster, travelgate, Whitewater, the blue dress). It what they did to John Kerry (swiftboating, windsurfing, flip-flopping). Lately, it seems the trad med are defusing these silly things sooner and with more authority. But I think this strategy itself has to be part of the push back from now on. Anyone called upon to go on shows like Coopers to help deflate these memes should use the term "nontroversy" and accuse the author directly of their scheme.
Part of destroying this strategy is in transforming it from transparent to concrete. Pointing out that these are not countless legitimate beefs, but calculated dots to concocted to create a general sense of unease in the poorly informed citizen of the enemy, whether it be a person like the President, or an entity like the "guvmint." (I was at the Austin edition of the Moveon.org organized health care reform vigil where a protester held up a sign reading, "Government can't fix health care. We the people can." The protester was apparently oblivious that the preamble of the US Constitution, the blue print of American government, starts with "We the People..." thus making clear that the government is we, the people.)
So use take the term "nontroversy," load it meaning and fire when ready when the next one appears.