How would the media react if she turned her attention towards other fictional scandals?
Cross posted from Pruning Shears.
Give Carly Fiorina this much. While she may not have any experience in public office, she has a seasoned pol's grasp of one of the GOP's most effective rhetorical techniques: Adamant denial of reality.
It's something Republicans, and only Republicans, can get away with. If they don't like the way something is happening in the real world, they simply insist that something else is true. The most infamous example is the Bush White House's derision towards the so-called reality based community during the Iraq war: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality" etc. It's a strategy digby likes to call working the refs. Essentially, holding out accusations of bias at those inclined to state the obvious can create uncertainty and hesitation.
When it works (and it often does) you'll see outlets reporting as "opinions differ" on matters of simple fact. Last week, for instance, the AP revised its style handbook to have reporters refer to those who reject the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists on climate science as "climate change doubters" instead of "climate change deniers." AP science writer Seth Borenstein had a truly remarkable explanation for the change - namely that those who deny a simple and obvious truth should not be confused with those who deny a simple and obvious truth. "The reason we don't use 'denier' is that there is a connotation rightly or wrongly and a complaint by some that it has the concept of 'Holocaust denier.'"
The key to making it effective is an attitude of complete certainty and assurance. If you do that well enough, you can cause fair minded people to begin to doubt what they see with their own eyes. Fiorina has the technique down pat. She made a claim about the Planned Parenthood videos that is 100% objectively false, but instead of backing down or admitting error she is insisting even more strenuously that she is right: "No, I don't accept that at all. I've seen the footage. And I find it amazing, actually, that all these supposed fact checkers in the mainstream media claim this doesn't exist, they're trying to attack the authenticity of the videotape."
In response, mainstream coverage has been obligingly neutral. Sure the thing Fiorina claimed during the debate technically doesn't exist; even her supporters now charitably describe it as "illustrative B-roll." Sure there are obvious gaps in the recording, but Fiorina definitely saw something somewhere. Who are we to say she didn't see whatever it was?
(And yes, it makes all the difference in the world if it's actual video or illustrative. This is happening in the context of a relentless campaign to shut down Planned Parenthood, so the provenance of the video is especially important right now.)
The funny thing is, politics offers the occasional controlled experiment on lunatic reimaginings of the world. Every now and then something like the Whitey Tape will stir to life in some unstable precinct on the left, and what happens then is what one hopes would happen in a sane world. It gets quickly debunked, the ones responsible for peddling the lie are diminished by it and mocked relentlessly, and everyone else goes on as if it had never happened.
Which raises a prospect I'm only semi-kidding about. What would happen if, instead of championing a conservative lie, Fiorina instead latched on to a liberal one? What if suddenly she was all like, yeah I've seen the Whitey Tape and Michelle is totally off the hizook!!!! Would Time report that Carly referenced video of Michelle Obama (which does exist!) although, in fairness, it didn't show the things Fiorina claimed it did? Would they interview people who had witnessed incendiary speeches by people who were not Michelle Obama just to get some extra perspective on the nature of such speeches? Or would the response just be, this is nuts?
It would be the Beltway media's version of the irresistible force and immovable object. Obviously crazy non-conservative conspiracy theory versus conservative champion! Two will enter but only one will leave! But for as amusing as it is to think about, it's not at all funny that the right wing really does get a free pass on being wrong. No matter what the subject, all they need to do is postulate an alternate reality with enough confidence and presto! There it is. Convenient for them I suppose, and eliminates some social friction that might otherwise exist between them and those in the media who report on them. But I don't see a whole lot of benefit to the rest of us.