Right now on the Drudge "Report", everyone's favorite closeted self hating homosexual Matt Drudge has one of his breathless breaking "scoops" up about George Bush being mocked at the Coretta Scott King memorial.
Drudge's story, while written with the sloppy prose of a sixth grade essay, is essentially correct, but there's a small sentence in his last paragraph that once again illustrates the inability for con apologists to get even their basic facts straight:
"Later, Carter said Hurricane Katrina showed that all are not yet equal in America. Some black leaders have blamed Bush for the poor federal response, and rapper Kayne West said that Bush 'hates' black people."
Now as we all know, Kayne West said George Bush doesn't care about black people. Is this a simple error on Matt Drudge's part? Of course not. Follow me on the flip:
Drudge knows exactly what he's doing. As we've seen a million times before, they keep the lie going even when they know it's a lie.
Why?
Because it's not about the facts. It's partially about making us crazy with aggravation. But it's mainly about perpetuating a meta-theme:
Liberals are "Angry."
Over a year later, after having this missatement corrected over and over and over again, the meme that the wingnuts are STILL repeating is that West had said Bush hates black people. Hatred. Anger. "Unhinged." By changing what West said it is a reframing of the entire debate, not just a factually incorrect word.
The difference between "doesn't care" and "hate" is the entire battle.
The actual statement by West implies presidential indifference and bubble-life, things that everyone, even republicans, pretty much know are true about this failed preznit.
The false statement that the right wing noise machine continues to perpetuate feeds into the notion that "radical leftists" are unhinged hairy armpitted lesbians, caring more about hating Bush than anything else. It's a basic variant on the "they say Bush equals Hitler" lie.
Kayne West correctly pointed out that what happened in Katrina was not malice but indifference.
The right wing noise machine intentionally distorts that point to read like an accusation that Bush intentionally wants to see black people die, a ridiculous assertion and one that would bring discredit to the entire argument.
Of course it isn't true. West never said "hates." Even worse, the wingnuts know that. But they don't care. Even worse, they need it to be "hates." Without that word change, they can't even repeat what Kanye West said. Because it's true.
So there it is. Like a good piece of right wing propaganda, still popping up on Matt Drudge like a fungus you can't cure no matter how many things you spray on it.
And this is the general fallacy we all fall in here in the fact-based world. We think if we correct their lies, we'll win the argument. But their lies are INTENTIONAL.
Yes we can keep trying to correct them. But we also need to realize they're quite aware of what they're doing. They aren't after the truth or accuracy. Until we realize they distort things quite intentionally, and not out of simple laziness, they'll go on tossing out their bullshit and we'll run around trying to correct it every single time they do it.
What Matt Drudge is reminding us with this lie is that the propaganda is intentional. It's our job not to correct the propaganda any more (it's a waste of energy), but attack the sources.
In short, this isn't about what Kayne West said.
It's about who Matt Drudge is.