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The sheep are easily led.
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Press Falls for Lie About Clinton, Enron
by Joe Conason
In a democratic society, successful propaganda generally relies on two elements: the fabrication of a useful, plausible, specific lie, and the deployment of visible professionals who are willing to repeat it until it’s believed. Like any other salesman, the resourceful propagandist must also be prepared to get lucky.
Fearful about the potential political impact of Enron, members of the Republican propaganda corps quickly realized they should argue that both parties were equally corrupted by the energy firm’s money. Simple mathematics belied this assertion, but simple minds might be persuaded anyway. (There is reportedly a videotape from the autumn of 2000 that shows Kenneth Lay dispelling such illusions, explaining patiently to his employees that Republicans deserve bigger contributions because they’re more compliant with his agenda of deregulating markets and reducing corporate taxes.)
What the G.O.P. really needed was a potent symbol of Democratic complicity with Enron; a familiar face to replace the images of the President and the Vice President and all the other administration figures compromised by Kenny Boy; a sturdy scapegoat to carry the weight of their own sins.
It wasn’t too difficult to guess who that might be.
The search for a scapegoat became a revealing exercise in experimental psychology and media manipulation. On Jan. 11, the Drudge Report ran an item purporting to demonstrate that the Clintons, not the Bushes, were the true tools of Enron. Among the highlights was a replay of past infamy: "[Ken] Lay also played golf with President Bill Clinton and slept in the Clinton White House." (Proprietor Matt Drudge refuses to say where he came upon this allegation, replying only that "Lay’s direct ties to Clinton are well documented.")
But the Drudge Report couldn’t make this canard fly without a boost from the mainstream. Two days later, the Chicago Tribune’s Washington bureau produced a story about Enron’s history of bipartisan favor-shopping in the capital. Seeking balance, the Tribune reporters wrote: "Lay was no stranger to the Clinton White House, playing golf with the president and staying overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom." All the usual suspects quickly appropriated the Trib’s credibility to promote these familiar tropes and themes.
The very next day, Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes promoted this bogus claim on the Fox News Channel’s prime-time broadcast, without contradiction from any of his fellow pundits. Enron wasn’t really a Republican scandal, declared Mr. Barnes, because "Ken Lay not only played golf with Clinton, he spent a night in the Lincoln Bedroom." Almost simultaneously that evening, Bush campaign consultant Alex Castellanos told viewers of CNN’s Crossfire that "Ken Lay slept in the Lincoln bedroom" with Mr. Clinton as his host.
Heeding their unofficial motto–"monkey see, monkey do"–other journalists quoted the same tale, which reached the pages of The Washington Times, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Newhouse News Service and other papers.
The tale traveled overseas to Korea, Australia and Britain –where the once-august Times of London virtually reprinted the Moonie paper’s version. Apparently this is what their Washington correspondents are paid to do.
On Feb. 17, Mr. Castellanos repeated the claim on ABC’s This Week (where former Clinton aide Paul Begala had the presence of mind to contradict him). David Bossie, the G.O.P. operative who did so much to promote the phony Whitewater scandal, popped up on Greta van Susteren’s Fox News broadcast to reiterate that "Ken Lay spent the night in Clinton’s Lincoln bedroom."
By then it had become a durable myth, showing up in letters sent by gullible citizens to newspapers around the nation.
The first reporter to expose this outpouring of deception was Gene Lyons, the Democrat-Gazette columnist (and my co-author). Unfortunately, few outside Little Rock had an opportunity to read his Feb. 13 column. Salon.com, DailyHowler.com and Mediawhoresonline.com all have posted excellent analyses since then. Eventually, thanks to pressure from their astute readers, the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Times and Ms. Van Susteren issued corrections or retractions. (Others, according to Nexis, have not.)
So now might be the time for healthy introspection among those who fostered this falsehood. They might learn something about themselves from the remarkably candid explanation offered by Frank James, the Chicago Tribune reporter who put his paper’s imprimatur on it.
Mr. James denies that he picked anything up from the Drudge Report. Instead, he told me that on a tight deadline he had mentally "transposed" Bill Clinton’s name into his memory of an article he’d read about another President who hosted Mr. Lay in the White House. That President was, of course, the father of the current President.
No psychiatric degree is necessary to identify the process by which an embarrassment to the Bushes is turned into an attack on the Clintons, without so much as a phone call to check the facts by any of the perpetrators. It’s called projection, and it is certain to persist until Enron is only an unpleasant memory.
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All those words just to say that Lay had not slept in the Lincoln Bedroom during the Clinton administration?? http://www.hostboard.com/forums/
I guess this single fact overshadows the favor-shopping Enron was involved in? Overshadows the relationship between Lay and key Clinton executives??
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">All those words just to say that Lay had not slept in the Lincoln Bedroom during the Clinton administration??</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
The point was this:
"In a democratic society, successful propaganda generally relies on two elements: the fabrication of a useful, plausible, specific lie, and the deployment of visible professionals who are willing to repeat it until it’s believed."
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I guess this single fact overshadows the favor-shopping Enron was involved in?</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
The "single fact" being that Republicans and the media used a lie to smear Clinton and point the finger away from Bush.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Overshadows the relationship between Lay and key Clinton executives??</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
What relationship was that? Prove that Lay bought favors from Clinton.
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The author of this story is biased to the left? Not a chance in hell.
http://www.salon.com/directory/topics/joe_conason/
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This exemplifies my general beef with the GOP -- their habit of spinning everything in such a way as to claim credit for all things positive and to discredit all things Democratic. Yeah, yeah, I know that both sides do it, but it is a central strategy of the right. An exception to this is House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who appears to be as reasonable a Republican as there is on the scene right now. He comes across as an independent thinker who doesn't go into knee-jerk blame the Dems mode when confronted with difficult questions. At the other end of the spectrum is Majority Leader Dick Armey, whose first name absolutely fits. I saw him interviewed yesterday morning on CNN, and he appears to have genuine personal dislike toward Democrats as opposed to simply political differences. In his puny mind, everything breaks down with such elegant simplicity that it's frightening: GOP = good, Dems = bad. He was asked if, in hindsight, he would retract the statements he made in '93 when Clinton was proposing his economic package (which Armey vehemently opposed, predicting economic collapse), which after being passed led to the nation's longest sustained period of growth and prosperity. Armey of course didn't retract, claiming instead that it is Reagan whom we should be thanking for creating an economy strong enough to withstand even the misguided policies of Clinton, stating that Bubba was only able to pass half of what he had proposed and that had he been allowed to pass everything his (Armey's) predictions would've proven true. http://www.hostboard.com/forums/ According to Armey, it was early '80s Reagonomics that led to the mid-late 90s prosperity. In my eyes, I'd have a helluva lot more respect for Republicans if they were able to accept responsibility when appropriate and give credit where it's due. On the whole, their brand of politics just seems a lot dirtier. I said politics, not non-political activity.
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This is fucking beautiful....
Fester: The "single fact" being that Republicans and the media used a lie to smear Clinton and point the finger away from Bush.
Yeah, all Republicans did?? http://www.hostboard.com/forums/
As well, this is politics, right? And is "politics" not usually fraught with misinformation and highly spun "lies??" I am not saying it's right, however, the author gives the impression that this lie somehow overshadows Lay's relationship with the Clinton White House.
What relationship was that? Prove that Lay bought favors from Clinton.
Prove that Lay bought favors from Clinton, dipshit....you see, the appearance is there, but no smoking gun. It's the same argument that you liberal dipshits used to defend your lying President against charges of corruption in pardoning convicts for money, accepting Chinese money, and permitting the sale of guidance technology to the Chinese.
Now you wanna spin that against the GOP, http://www.hostboard.com/forums/ ....
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Smackie: This exemplifies my general beef with the GOP -- their habit of spinning everything in such a way as to claim credit for all things positive and to discredit all things Democratic. Yeah, yeah, I know that both sides do it, but it is a central strategy of the right.
?Central strategy of the right???? LMAO! Get over yourself?.remove the blinders, Smackie..err?walk out of the haze.
An exception to this is House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who appears to be as reasonable a Republican as there is on the scene right now. He comes across as an independent thinker who doesn't go into knee-jerk blame the Dems mode when confronted with difficult questions. At the other end of the spectrum is Majority Leader Dick Armey, whose first name absolutely fits. I saw him interviewed yesterday morning on CNN, and he appears to have genuine personal dislike toward Democrats as opposed to simply political differences.
Funny, if you had simply cut the names and replaced them with Democrats, you?d have the same story, http://www.hostboard.com/forums/
In his puny mind, everything breaks down with such elegant simplicity that it's frightening: GOP = good, Dems = bad.[/b]
Gee, did you just not do that same thing in your very first statement??
He was asked if, in hindsight, he would retract the statements he made in '93 when Clinton was proposing his economic package (which Armey vehemently opposed, predicting economic collapse), which after being passed led to the nation's longest sustained period of growth and prosperity. Armey of course didn't retract, claiming instead that it is Reagan whom we should be thanking for creating an economy strong enough to withstand even the misguided policies of Clinton, stating that Bubba was only able to pass half of what he had proposed and that had he been allowed to pass everything his (Armey's) predictions would've proven true.
Armey?s on the ball and the Cato Institute, Brookings Institute, and a host of others agree with him. My God, are you just trolling for responses here or are you serious?
According to Armey, it was early '80s Reagonomics that led to the mid-late 90s prosperity. In my eyes, I'd have a helluva lot more respect for Republicans if they were able to accept responsibility when appropriate and give credit where it's due. On the whole, their brand of politics just seems a lot dirtier. I said politics, not non-political activity.
Democrats equals good, GOP equals bad, geez, didn?t you just criticize this above?? LMAO!!!
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Fester, here you go:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> On Feb. 20, 1998, during a meeting with Energy Secretary Federico Pena, Lay "encouraged the Clinton administration to seek electricity legislation favored by Enron," outlining for the secretary what the company believed were the "important" pending legislative concerns.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Seper recalls, for example that, the Washington-based Export-Import Bank approved a $302 million loan toward a $3 billion Enron-controlled power plant in India in 1994.
Wrote Seper: "Mr. Clinton took an interest in the deal, asking the U.S. ambassador to that country and his former chief of staff, Thomas F. 'Mack' McLarty, then a presidential adviser, to monitor the proposal.
"Mr. McLarty - who later became a paid Enron director - spoke with Mr. Lay on several occasions about the plant. In 1996, four days before India granted approval for Enron's project, the Houston-based firm contributed $100,000 to the Democratic Party."</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE> http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...6/135018.shtml
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Later that year, Clinton administration officials helped Enron during the company's negotiations over a natural gas project in Mozambique.
The top negotiator on the gas project for Mozambique was Minister of Mineral Resources John Kachamila, who complained of "outright threats to withhold development funds if we didn't sign," with Enron.
Kachamila said U.S. diplomats, "especially [U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission] Mike McKinley, pressured me to sign a deal that was not good for Mozambique. He was not a neutral diplomat," according to the Houston Chronicle.
The Clinton administration's U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was also reportedly involved in pressuring Mozambique to sign the deal with Enron.
USAID is an especially powerful agency because of the volume of money it pumps into the developing world. Mozambique was receiving over $40 million dollars during this time from USAID.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE> http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...18/83918.shtml
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Six days later, Enron executives were on a trade mission with Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor to Bosnia and Croatia. With Kantor's support, Enron signed a $100 million contract to build a 150-megawatt power plant. </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, who egregiously linked political donations to government assistance, accompanied Enron chairman Ken Lay on a mission to India. Enron president Joseph Sutton was on the trip to Bosnia during which Brown lost his life in a plane crash (Sutton was not on Brown's plane at the time). After Brown's death, Enron's Terence Thorn, a $1,000 donor to the Clinton-Gore campaign, traveled with Commerce Secretary William Daley to South Africa. Ken Lay also traveled with Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary on her trade trips.
There were other contacts between Enron and the Clinton administration. Ken Lay was a close friend of Mack McLarty, Clinton's first chief of staff. In his 1993 disclosure statement, Robert Rubin listed Enron as one of the firms with which he had had "significant contact" while at Goldman Sachs.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...0/769wnrjo.asp
Yeah, no relationship between the Clinton administration and Enron, http://www.hostboard.com/forums/
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Smackie Chan:
This exemplifies my general beef with the GOP -- their habit of spinning everything in such a way as to claim credit for all things positive and to discredit all things Democratic. Yeah, yeah, I know that both sides do it, but it is a central strategy of the right. </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
Oh, come on Smokie!
Like your' beloved President didn't "spin" the meaning of the word "is?"
Like your' beloved President didn't spin the fact that lying under oath was ok because it was about sex?
Like the Daschle is out there handing out accolades to the Repub's and admitting mistakes.
Like they wouldn't even allow Bush's judicial appointee to get a vote on the Senate floor, even though they had approved the same man for an earlier appointment.
Shove your pathetically hypocritical pink head in the sand commie.
I call total bullshit on you and that moron Uncle Mansexter, Enron executives had just as much, if not more, access to the Clit-on Whitehouse as they did to the Bush. So don't get on your bullshit high horse and act like the "right" is the only party that spins. For Pete's sakes that's the most moronic take of the day, my gosh man, you are the people that enlist that alien hybrid Carville.
Smokie says: "It's a central strategy of the right." LMAO!!
Don't you have some Steve Miller to spin and some hydro to blow?
Unbelievable.
