MAGGI PICAYUNE

Here is a great book for those of us in the “I told you so” crowd or whatever name Tricky Dick apologist William Safire calls us. Rampton and Stauber are pros at proving point by point, reference by reference, what a great load of BS the invasion of Iraq was. This is not some made-up list of accusations a la Ann Coulter. These two have actual proof through their news-article references that somehow were buried in the American media. They also go back to the recent history of the conflict and we are not talking since late 2001, more along the mid to late Eighties to make their point on the mainstream media took the sucker bait earlier. A great example of something I always knew but many need to be reminded about is how the “star” witness regarding Iraq’s invasion was a complete liar when she told a yarn over how incubators from hospitals were stolen. Firstly, Nayirah’s (if that was her real name) story was an outright fabrication since she was not present during the events. She is the daughter of Saud Nasir-al-Sabah, Kuwait’s ambassador to the US and has been in America for years. Secondly, the UN and Amnesty International followed up with investigations when Kuwait was “liberated” (for the same undemocratic government which still reigns today) and found absolutely nothing to confirm such events. Thirdly, Kuwait is the size of a small New England state. Does anyone think a country so small has 300 incubators let alone that many children being born under any conditions? How this happenened is where the authors shine in their investigations. Kuwait affected public opinion through lies, deception and spin courtesy of PR firms, which is what they have argued in their past books on toxic waste and BSE (mad-cow disease) in the US.

Fear not oh Republicans and Liberal-haters. The book has venom for the Democrats’ failure on the Middle East and using or getting used by the PR Lie Machine. However, this fraudulent invasion was dreamed up and constructed by Right-wing think tanks while they were pushing Clinton to jump into this quagmire. He was content to just lob some missiles at them to distract us from Lewinsky, boredom and/or bad advice from his cabinet. It does not matter now. The invasion happened, the country is a mess and the US will have to be there for a generation or else leave it a disaster for another brutal dictator to take control of. At least this very-well written and researched book takes the lead in the post-mortem of foreign policy blunders.

Let us see the Coulter-Limbaugh crowd squirm out of this as these facts put them on the ropes. I really enjoy books that give me ammo to back what I have always felt and known. Shuts down the Right’s tactics of using Jesus, screaming, red-baiting and violent threats.

Recently, there have been books (actually diatribes) written by Ann Coulter, Michael Savage and other Right-Wing yahoos claiming a Liberal Media Conspiracy. A Liberal bias they say (more like screaming) is out there, criticizing their illegitimate president. If you have been paying attention to current events for the last 20 years and seen how the Right has been presented by this SCLM (So Called Liberal Media as the author calls it), you can easily see that these people are big fat liars. Eric Alterman takes it a few steps further by systematically pointing out chapter by chapter how their claim is utter bullshit. What is more amazing is that he does it without ranting and with well thought-out research. The footnotes at the end are pretty extensive.

His overall argument about the perpetuation of this myth comes from the sports expression of “working the refs.” Ever since Nixon’s second term, the Far Right had enough on losing or being marginalized by their proxy…New Deal-era Republicans. So they formed their own think tanks and organizations to push forth their agenda. The Left has theirs too but their cash flow is less than 10 percent of what the Right is funneling through. One of the Right’s key themes since the Seventies has been their constant harping, whining and lying about the media’s liberal bias. Alterman proves this strategy worked and here are the fruits of the Right’s efforts:

1. Surveys continue to back this myth with a majority of Americans believing this.
2. The SCLM has even resorted to self-censorship for fear of being criticized as Liberal.
3. Certain Right Wingers even admit to this being a lie but they enjoy saying it because they are currently winning.

It seems I was correct all along, the Republicans and Right have employed the same tactics as the bullies I knew from school. They keep repeating the same lie with the knowledge of it eventually being accepted as fact by them and their toadies. With many Americans believing there were links between Iraq and al-Qeda, the Right is on a roll.

I enjoyed his theory about why the honeymoon ended abruptly with Clinton and resulted in Joe Klein writing Primary Colors. It reaffirmed my opinion about how egotistical most political journalists are (the wannabes at Marquette were that way too). He stated how many journalists have this attitude about how they believe they could do a better job running the country. So every four years they are easily seduced by candidates who seek their opinions and strategies. Clinton was guilty of this during the 1992 primaries. When Clinton went from candidate to nominee, he no longer needed the reporters because the competition for the job got reduced to just Bush. The SCLM’s reaction was more of a spurned ex-girlfriend for the next eight years, especially from that hack Joe Klein.

Alterman’s book does bring to light some other things his opponents fail to do, actual proof of the money trail. Hilary Clinton was not lying about the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy against her and Bill. She just got the Vast part wrong. There is a Right-Wing Conspiracy of sorts with an agenda and they have operated in the open since Reagan, the first candidate they unabashedly purchased. I particularily relished the chapter about how the various think tanks financed and inflated the validity of The Bell Curve. What utter nonsense it was. Racism wrapped up in the tidier package of a book over a KKK rally. It shows how the SCLM got suckered into publicizing it and giving it more attention than it ever deserved. The media has only themselves to blame too because Alterman argues about how poorly these subjects are reviewed by a reporter who just covers the science beat. Instead something inane like The Bell Curve should have been handled by an actual scientist so the validity of its (inaccurate) theories can be refuted or proved. But the timeliness of the news also presents another problem…who really wants to read the review of a book several months after its release? This would probably be the minimal amount of time it would take an actual expert on the subject to fairly assess it.

Media is a good book but those who believe the myth about the SCLM will never read this nor even have their eyes opened. It caters to those who never believed the lie because there is plenty of evidence to disprove the SCLM: Bush’s exaggeration of Iraq’s capacity to threaten the world (let alone the region) is an impeachable offense and the body count on US Soldiers during the Occupation is now 61 (when I wrote this review). Would a SCLM be completely silent about this? The British press still has a full spectrum of viewpoints and Tony Blair, a so-called Liberal according to America’s definition of the UK parties, is under much more scrutiny than Bush will ever be. For those of us on the Left, this is a good reference book to help us refute the bully logic of the Right who continue to “work the refs.”