He’s “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.”–Harry Reid, on candidate Barack Obama.
“We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama,”–Rudy Giuliani, on Obama’s National Security policy.
Which statement is false?
Which statement got more press coverage?
Why?
As I have discussed here and here, an attempt seems to be going on to subtly revise history so that people forget George W. Bush was President on 9/11.
One question I didn’t address in the earlier posts is: Who is doing it? Now, you might think it’s obviously the Republican party doing it, as part of an effort to rehabilitate the image of Republicans as better at National Defense. This is quite likely, although it seems like it would be simpler to demonize Bush, and claim that his Presidency is not typical of Republican ideology.
But is there any other group that would have an incentive to make this effort?
This little item deserves a bit more attention, I think. First of all, I must admit I have a personal bias against Giuliani because, quite frankly, I am biased against jerks. The man is barely even a Republican in terms of his actual political policies (he used to be a Democrat, in fact) yet he has been using some of the worst elements of the Republican party to gain power for himself. That’s my opinion of him.
But, his personal character aside, what’s actually interesting about this is that it seems to be part of a concerted effort to absolve Bush from blame for negligence in allowing 9/11 to happen.
The theory behind this goes like this: everybody makes a claim. They make it a lot. The claim will be analyzed, and, often, proven false; but that is irrelevant. The important thing is, if you get enough people saying it, someone who is utterly uninformed will hear it, and assume it’s true because he hasn’t got time to research it in depth.
Like I said in my previous post, this isn’t the first time prominent people try to hammer home a stock line. I remember a montage on Rush Limbaugh’s show that illustrated this technique perfectly. This sort of thing goes on all the time in politics, and once you know about it, it becomes incredibly obvious. (Remember how every speech at the ’08 Democratic convention pointed out the similarities between McCain and Bush?)
That said, I don’t know if anyone has ever attempted revisionist history on this scale. I know the USSR infamously cropped pictures of people who’d displeased Stalin after they were executed, but this is something else entirely.
What I wonder is:
1. Who is making this concerted effort?
2. Could it work? Will people really start to forget who was President on 9/11?
To be continued…
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2010/01/rudy-giuliani-no-domestic-attacks-under-bush-one-under-obama.html
This is an excellent lesson in how politics works, and in how political parties can play the press.
Giuliani is not alone, you see:
http://rawstory.com/2009/2009/12/gop-strategist-matalin-bush-inherited-911-attacks-clinton/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzpy1GdIeCY
It is curious, I think, that they all have been having this memory lapse.
In seriousness, though, this is by no means a new technique, but I do think it is a tad brazen to do it with regards to something as obvious as a terrorist attack.
