It’s fun to be a detached observer of the Incredible Campaign of 2008, which has galvanized a nation. Our “mass of niches” culture seems to have coalesced in these past two weeks into a genuine mass audience. It’s probably temporary and of course there’s no guarantee that getting our attention will lead to our doing something (or even voting), but we are riveted to the political soap opera unfolding before our eyes.

The viewership for various segments of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions was huge.

As a television draw, John McCain was every bit the equal of Barack Obama.

The GOP presidential candidate attracted roughly the same number of viewers to his convention acceptance speech Thursday as Obama did before the Democrats last week, according to Nielsen Media Research.

It marked the end of an astonishing run where more than 40 million people watched political speeches on three nights by Obama, McCain and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The Republican convention was the most-watched convention on television ever, beating a standard set by the Democrats a week earlier.

Three times in two weeks, political speeches were watched by more people than the “American Idol” finale, the Academy Awards and the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics this year.

“It clearly suggests that a great number of Americans think that who will be the next president is important and worthy of their time,” said Tom Rosenstiel, a former political reporter and director of the Project for Excellence in journalism.

One day, this will be seen as a watershed—the moment that the world of politics, borrowing from the world of showbiz, inspired the Couch Potatoes of Amercia to take a good, hard (though, possibly, brief) look at their country, their neighbors, and, most of all, themselves and to see if maybe we all couldn’t do a little bit more to get along, goddamnit, and while we’re at it, to do more for ourselves—individually and collectively.

But I must be dreaming, because that would be true progress.

However, I do have some hope that something better will result from the election of 2008, regardless of whether the Republicans or the Democrats win the White House this time around, because all of the candidates are dedicated—and inspiring—public servants (even if they are politicians and thus by nature suspect. Every one of the current crop has sacrificed something and done good things for others. Along the way, we unruly American, with our crude democratic system, shoved aside some folks who had already had their turn and we got rid of at least one rotten apple and we rejected alarmism as a way of daily life).

Well, goddamn!

Ain’t that America somethin’ to see, baby!

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, agree with ‘em or disagree with ‘em, we’ve finally got some great role models (new heroes and villains, as JFK memorably referred to them in 1959,***) that people are paying attention to.

And so we sail into uncharted waters.

————–

*** Admirably, JFK warned the people not to believe in the false idols launched by the new TV era. Then he proceeded to become one of them. He succeeded beyond his wildest imagination, because politicians are still emulating his style, and Democratic politicians all covet the imprimatur of the Kennedys and … but that’s a story for another day. Let’s just say for now that the imprimatur will long outlive the Kennedys.

Politicians cannot possibly accomplish everything they promise the people. They are ambitious above all else. John McCain knows this and is torn up about it, as the NYT reported the other day; nevertheless, he’s running for president for a second time. And he is using war strategies (such as surprise) in his political campaign. He means to win—with honor and within the rules of the arena.

Al Gore will launch a $300 million campaign whose sole purpose is to influence public opinion.

“The whole idea of the campaign is to be inclusive and to be bipartisan and to bring people together to a place where meaningful change can happen,” an organizer said. “It aims to be a game-changer in terms of the politics of climate.”

I wasn’t in fact aware that there is a “politics of climate.” I thought climate is a given. Of nature.  Foolish me!

I’ve been saying for a while now that Obama is the preferred candidate of American narcissists.

Using himself as a laboratory, Andrew Sullivan inadvertently makes my case:

[T]he criticism of Obama as a messiah figure is misplaced. It’s not about believing in him. It’s about believing in our own capacity to act as newly reasonable democratic participants in an age of extreme danger. I don’t think of him as a messiah. Mine has already come. I don’t believe this world will ever be heaven on earth. I don’t need or want another person to give my life meaning.

But I have been deeply, deeply demoralized about this country for the past few years.

McCain goes part of the way - these primaries have ensured that the U.S. will not be torturing after the Bush-Cheney years. His election is a defeat for the insular, toxic forces that have taken over conservatism. But Obama is a deeper solvent for the Bush stain. His election would be a statement not about him, but about Americans themselves. About how they do not recognize themselves any more. And want to again. [e.a.]

You’ll note that on the one hand, Sullivan claims he doesn’t need anyone other than himself to give his life meaning. On the other, however, Sullivan gives “Bush-Cheney” the extraordinary power to make him (a person of seemingly sturdy ego) feel “deeply, deeply demoralized”—to the point where Sullivan believes that only the “solvent” of Barack Obama can properly remove the “Bush stain” and allow Americans to “recognize themselves” again.

This is the Not in Our Name syndrome. It is a kind of delusion.

It assumes, first, that there is a stain on America rather than on America’s  bloodthirsty, savage, barbaric, ghoulish, soul-crushing enemies—the ones who butchered Daniel Pearl in early 2002, for example, for the crime of being an American, a journalist, and a Jew.

It assumes, second, that this “stain” on America appeared with George W. Bush and will magically disappear when the pleasingly mild multiculti symbol Barack Hussein Obama is the occupant of the White House.

The problem here is not Obama. The problem is his fans.

They believe in magic. They believe that by electing him they will have done their bit to make America more lovable and that they’ll then be free to continue being as selfish and greedy and narcissistic and oblivious to politics, policy, and national security as ever.

Does it mean something that even the “Obama Girl” didn’t bother to vote?

On Tuesday night, City Room ran into Ms. Ettinger at an election-watching party in Greenwich Village and asked how things went at the polls.

“I didn’t get a chance to vote today because I’m not registered to vote in New York,” she said.

So where is Obama Girl registered to vote?
“New Jersey.”

Um, but didn’t New Jersey also hold a primary?

True. The problem, she explained, was that she was sick in New York City and was unable to get back across the Hudson River to the polls in Jersey City.

“I was in Arizona for the Super Bowl — every time I get in the airplane I get sick,” said Ms. Ettinger, who did manage to make it to the Svedka Fembot election returns party at Chinatown Brasserie at Lafayette and Great Jones streets.

Okay, maybe the Obama girl isn’t a good example of the flakiness factor evident in Obama’s supporters. But what about the very respectable Kevin Drum, who voted for Obama and then found himself hoping that Hillary would win [e.a.]?

And although Obama obviously made up a huge amount of ground over the past two weeks, what it felt like to me was disappointment. He seemed to be coming on so strong that it seemed inevitable he’d win one or two of the big Hillary states — or at least make them into close races — but he didn’t. In the end, Hillary won California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts by double digit margins. It really seemed to take a lot of wind out of the Obama surge.

The other thing inside my head that I didn’t expect was that as the results came in, I found myself sort of rooting for Hillary. Why? Buyer’s remorse? Rooting for the underdog? Guilt for having “betrayed” her by voting for Obama?

Outsize, overinflated expectations—like the insane hype created by the Obama campaign and its friends and supporters in the media—can easily lead to crushing disappointment (and even more voter apathy than the “hopeful” started out with).

I predict that young people will not be inspired to help “change” America. (For one thing: where would they go to effect that change? It’s not as if Obama has suggested, as JFK did, that his supporters actually give something of themselves to their country. So far, all the contributions have been to his campaign. What does that do to bring about “change” in America?

And that’s just one of the risks of running a vapid “inspirational” campaign. The other risk is that you’ll have much more battle-hardened and much less mushy folks, like, say, Jeff Jarvis and me (here and here and here and here, for example)—not to mention Bill Clinton—to remind you that Obama is selling snake oil:

His supporters, including many New York friends of mine, buy his image and believe he is less political and that he is indeed different. I think he’s more political and his campaign is the greatest example of the selling of the president I’ve yet seen. To state it harshly, I say that relying on these stock phrases — believing that we are going to swallow empty oratory about “change” punctuated with chants of “yes we can” — is a cynical political act.

But then again, I can’t argue with the fact that it’s working. It’s working with voters and it’s certainly working with the media, which have given Obama more attention through much of the campaign.

It worked for a while. But the media didn’t give the whole picture, as this picture posted by Ben Smith attests:

Note the many empty seats.

You won’t see this in most of the news photography, because photographers are packed into press risers, opposite whatever backdrop — a crowd, a flag — the campaign prefers.

But while Obama has held some very large rallies in some very small cities — 14,000 in Boise! — there have also been quite a few empty seats at some of the bigger venues.

Does it come as a surprise to you that the media and the campaigns worked together to create the impression of a “surge” for Obama? It shouldn’t.

I boldly predict no mo’ Mo for Barack Obama.

But I could be wrong … because hope springs eternal!

full disclosure: I voted for Bill Clinton twice, and for Hillary Clinton for the U.S. Senate, and for Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination yesterday. This despite the fact that I am no fan of the Clintons.

On the other hand, I don’t expect to be a fan of my president. I expect my president to work hard at the business of our nation so that I and my friends and family can go about our lives doing the things we like to do, and go to sleep at night knowing that a responsible person is overseeing the big, scary mess that is the United States of America.

She’s a Hillary hater:

“Could you see yourself working to support Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination?

Answer: “I would have to think about that. I would have to think about policies, her approach, her tone. . .”

Well, perhaps her husband is the morally superior “real deal” and Michelle is just your typical nasty political in-fighter.

Whereas Hillary has gone on another crying jag—and just in time for a little last-minute press from those voters just tuning in now …

Whoever thought up and produced this Obama video is a PRopaganda^TMgenius. Not that the under-30 set isn’t entirely in Obama’s corner anyway, but this pretty much seals the deal in terms of putting Obama in the territory of “hip.”***

Though the effectiveness of the message-delivery system can’t be disputed, there is an obvious weakness in this kind of campaigning—and this kind of candidate—as Jeff Jarvis points out: It’s all rhetoric.

To me, this only underscores the notion that Obama’s campaign is the most rhetorical of the bunch: speeches and slogans so neat they can fit in 4/4 time.

I agree. The Obama campaign more and more begins to resemble a celebrity marketing campaign, as I mentioned here:

The way Barack Obama is being covered by the media and the blogosphere, he’s not a political candidate anymore—he’s a celebrity. He doesn’t have political followers—he’s got fans. He doesn’t have a political platform—he’s got a one-word slogan—”change” [which works, ’cause “change is good,” just like Nissan says, right?]. He makes narcissists feel so good about themselves.

So: the slogan has changed—now it’s “Yes, we can”—but the marketing pitch is the same: Obama’s the one.

Howard Kurtz tried to burst this bubble on Reliable Sources this morning [e.a.]:

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST (voice over): Conjuring Camelot. The media gets swept away over Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama. Are journalists promoting the rookie senator as the next JFK? …

KURTZ: The presidential campaign is a blur now, all sound bites and snippets, a 22-state dash to Super Tuesday just two days from now. John McCain has been boosted by winning Florida, by the backing of his formal rival, Rudy Giuliani, and by favorable coverage from the reporters he talked to for hours every day.

Hillary Clinton claimed victory in Florida, a beauty contest where no Democrats campaigned because of the a dispute within the party, but the press wasn’t buying her spin.

And Barack Obama, well, the pundits have been comparing him to JFK since he first started flirting with running. And when Ted Kennedy and Carolina Kennedy endorsed him this week, the media somehow magically transported us to this moment in 1961. …

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN F. KENNEDY, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let the word go forth from this time and place — to friend and foe alike — that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Every anchor and correspondent, it seemed, picked up that metaphor and ran with it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS: On the broadcast tonight from Washington, passing the torch.

KATIE COURIC, CBS NEWS: Tonight, passing the torch.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC: The torch gets passed, the Clintons get passed by.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Barack Obama touched by the legacy of Camelot.

HARRY SMITH, CBS NEWS: Ted and Caroline set to hit the campaign trail after they announced the heir to Camelot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Why have the media gone haywire over this Kennedy endorsement?

The consensus of Kurtz’s panel? Because it makes for a great story. (regardless of what it means, if anything).

The media is all about storytelling. It is not about “the news.” Infotainment rules.

Beyond that: you can’t burst a successful PRopaganda^TM gambit with a lot of words. The only way to beat it is to create an even bigger, better, and eye-catching one.

The campaign ‘08 Battle of Iconography goes on.

————-

*** “He’s got soul,” said one of my son’s friends. Being New Yorkers, with everything that’s entailed (that is: living in a bubble of harmony and tolerance … especially now that Giuliani is no longer our mayor), my (young adult) kids and their friends don’t form a representative sample of youth, of course. But they serve as a bellwether of the attitude of their generation.

They feel betrayed. They feel that they were lied to. They want a reason to believe.

Am I the only one who is totally intrigued by the Gigantic Ego that is the new French president?

Not two hours ago, I posted about the hopeless (irony alert!) mess that is Samantha Power’s “advice” on how to rethink Iran and just now I come across the brass-balls-out maneuver of Sarkozy that has even Marc Lynch—who knows a LOT about the Arab world—scratching his head [e.a.]:

Speaking of the Gulf, I’m struggling to understand the significance of the stunning announcement that the UAE had agreed to the establishment of a major French military base in Abu Dhabi. … A long-term French strategic position in the Gulf challenges American exclusivity, and potentially undermines the fundamental architecture of the hegemonic American position in the Gulf. Perhaps Sarkozy truly is a neo-Gaullist after all….

Here’s the announcement, from Wednesday, January 16 [e.a.]:

PARIS - In a major strategic shift, France is setting up its first permanent naval base in the Persian Gulf, just across from Iran, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced during a visit yesterday to the United Arab Emirates.

The 400-strong military base will be built in Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest and most influential of the Emirates, and will include a significant intelligence operation, French officials said.

It will make France one of a small number of Western countries alongside the United States to have a military presence in a region that is of increasing geopolitical importance both because of its lucrative gas and oil resources and because of its proximity to Iran.

The agreement is “a sign to all that France is participating in the stability of this region of the world,” Sarkozy told reporters after signing the accord, the Associated Press reported.

“France responds to its friends,” he said.

Only one week earlier, Sarkozy was telling the French press that it was free to ignore his steamy personal life (my characterization, not his), remember?

Very interesting. I have no idea what the guy is up to, but it’s clear he is intent on making himself known far and wide.

Here’s a link to the various things I’ve had to say about Sarkozy recently (none of them about politics or foreign policy).

Samantha Power, a distinguished and eloquent author and academic and supposedly a close adviser on foreign policy to Barack Obama, suggests that we “rethink” Iran. Perhaps not surprisingly, considering who she is advising (the King of Hope), her expert “advice” is also founded on hope—and nothing but,, as she herself admits in this pathetic, intellectually dishonest, and useless piece in Time magazine [e.a.]:

A new Iran policy should start with the premise that any country behind a problem can also be behind a solution. No aspect of the Iraq quagmire can be resolved without Iranian involvement. Washington has a better chance of modifying Iran’s influence in Iraq–and Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon–than of immediately halting it.

To do so, we need to broaden the range of policy tools we draw upon. That means refraining from redundant reminders that military force is still “on the table,” which only strengthen the hand of hard-line Islamists and nationalists. It means broadening cultural contacts with the Iranian people, bypassing the regime through Voice of America and the Internet. And it means trying high-level political negotiations, something the Bush Administration has so far shunned. Supporters of engagement should not equate dialogue with concessions. We should ask international negotiators to insist–as we did with the Soviet Union during the cold war–that Iran address human-rights issues as well as security concerns. It’s true that earlier attempts at engagement have produced few dividends. But what negotiations can do is diminish perceptions of U.S. arrogance and remind the world of the urgency of getting Iran to cooperate on issues of shared interest, from preventing state failure in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan to caring for Iraqi refugees.

Dear Samantha Power:

Your candidate repeats this cute phrase over and over again on the stump: that it is stupid to keep trying the same things over and over again and to expect a different result.

Let me remind you that

a) successful negotiators (like, for example, John Edwards) never take anything off the table before beginning negotiations.

b) recent cultural exchanges have led to Americans being jailed and then intimidated after their release

c) Iran has a tendency to change “negotiators” just as negotiations begin to get somewhere (i.e., just as Iran is tempted to make some compromises)

d) international “negotiators” are working against the businessmen in their own countries, who are writing contracts with Iran right and left, now that the NIE declared Iran kosher.

e) “diminishing perceptions” of U.S. arrogance, such as for example Bush’s recent Middle East trip, are a PR exercise in futility. Photo ops and talk are cheap. People the world over are not as stupid as you think.

The Iranians don’t want to deal. They want to rule, with an iron “Islamic” fist—over people who are not interested in their manner of governance.

Stop selling false hope. You are not doing your candidate—or our country—any favors.

John Heilemann tries:

The real winner last night wasn’t any of these guys, however. The real winner was Rudy Giuliani, whose strategy of essentially blowing off the first month of the nominating process now seems to have a whiff of (mad) genius about it. Giuliani, to be sure, has seemed off-kilter the past few weeks, lurching from event to event, spouting themeless bromides and adopting a posture of Alfred E. Neuman–esque what-me-worryism. His standings in the polls have been eroding steadily — and not just nationally, but even in such Rudy strongholds as California, where he’s fallen from nearly 40 percent to less than 20 and from first place to third.

Yet now the Republican field is exactly where Rudy’s people believed (hoped, prayed) it would be at this point: in utter disarray. If he wins in Florida, where he’s essentially been living, basking in the warm sunshine and building up his firewall, while his rivals have frozen their asses off in Iowa and New Hampshire, he will be in the catbird seat. Indeed, you could even argue that, despite having won nothing thus far, Giuliani is now the GOP front-runner again, albeit by default. Bizarre? Incomprehensible? Perverse? No doubt. But what better words to describe the man himself and the party he seeks to lead?

Regular readers, who know that I’m not a politico, will remember that I’ve been saying for a while now that come November, it’ll be Rudy vs. Hillary. After Michigan, though, I’m beginning to think that maybe the human Ken Doll

also has a shot at the nomination—the businessman thing is always a safe mask to hide behind in America …

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Karl Rove is plotting strategy for the Republican nominee …whoever he may be:

Time and again, however, Rove returned to the trump card he used in his successfully executed 2002 and 2004 elections, saying that neither Obama nor Clinton is prepared to protect the country from terrorists.

Rove served notice that Obama and Clinton would be targeted over how they vote on any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation that comes before the Senate this year.

“Do they or do they not want our intelligence officials to be listening in on terrorists’ conversations in the Middle East who may … be plotting to hurt America?” Rove said.

He told the state officials that it would be their responsibility to find “creative and sustaining ways” to “talk about these contrasts.”

Rove also offered advice to whichever Republican candidate wins the GOP nomination.

He said the candidates had to first “create a sustaining narrative about themselves.” Then he said the candidate should “immediately engage” on the “kitchen table issues,” like healthcare, education, jobs and the economy.

Third, Rove said the GOP nominee has to show that he is serious about campaigning “aggressively in places where Republicans don’t usually campaign.” Rove said that includes among black, Latino, Asian and union voters.

“We’re going for everybody,” Rove said.

Lastly, Rove argued that the Republican candidate must show the electorate “that they understand the surge is working.” Rove said the candidate should get firmly behind the war effort, painting the Democratic nominee as “defeatist.”

I dunno. That sounds like a Rudy spiel to me. We shall see.

On some days, everything you want to blog about is in the New York Times—in the Styles section!

First up, my favorite story of the year so far, which I wrote about here and for which I have nothing to add, is covered again, here:

The French President’s Lover

Bertrand Guay/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 

SWEETHEARTS Carla Bruni, the former model, and her new boyfriend, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

The article suggests that Sarkozy’s ex-wife and current amour are engaged in a catfight and handicaps the fight Upshot? Bruni has it all, she’ll make a better first lady than the ex, and people hate that (unless they’re in the government, and then they wish Sarkozy would get on with it and marry her already so that he can get back to being a credible head of state):

Still, it isn’t necessarily the couplings and uncouplings and recouplings (and cheesy photo opportunities) that appear to offend so many who have tuned into a story that is less soap opera than Feydeau farce. It is the unspoken sense that it is unseemly for those so materially blessed and genetically gifted to want more.

And it may also be the cheekbones. “People always secretly hate the rich and beautiful,” said Long Nguyen, the editor of Flaunt magazine, … “It’s not a matter of whether ex-model is a career path for a first lady. It’s that nobody can stand a person who has it all.”

Ms. Bruni is the daughter of classical musicians, and she speaks three languages; she is also a bestselling musician herself, as well as a former model:

Gerard Julien/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ms. Bruni on the catwalk for Yves Saint Laurent in Paris in 1995.

Intellectual honesty compels me to point out that in the past, I have been grossed out by American politicians’ PDAs.

I don’t know why I’m more tolerant of the French president’s very public love affair. I won’t try to justify my deeply lowbrow interest in this story. It is news, however. I don’t remember anything like it in my lifetime (except, vaguely, Rudy and Judi’s love affair—and that went over like a lead balloon, including with me).

Here’s another fun story from the Times:

Has Gawker Jumped the Snark?

By ALLEN SALKIN

Gawker, the gossip Web site, seems to be in the midst of a particularly intense period of turmoil, which has led to a slide in its once-hypnotic influence on the news media world.

The setup:

“THE ideal Gawker item,” Nick Denton, the owner of Gawker Media, wrote in an instant message last month to a prospective hire, “is something triggered by a quote at a party, or an incident, or a story somewhere else and serves to expose hypocrisy, or turn conventional wisdom on its head.

Indeed, that’s the perfect gossip item. And gossip has traditionally been a weapon of the powerless against the powerful [which is one reason I do not criticize infotainment--i.e., institutionalized gossip--but rather accept it; in the media age, gossip may be even a more potent weapon than ever against the powerful] , as Gail Collins wrote in her entertaining and informative book Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity, and American Politics [e.a.]:

For much of human history, [gossip] was one of the few weapons available to the powerless: servants who spread stories about their masters, peasants who irreverently speculated about the most private aspects of life in the manor. … In American history, gossip has sometimes been a reaction against heavily marketed politicians who voters might suspect were being thrust upon them against their will.

Back to Gawker. The Times describes a situation in which Gawker moved from criticizing the powerful to attacking the powerless:

Before the wave of staff departures at Gawker, New York magazine published an article in October ascribing the site’s popularity to the resentment of the city’s “creative underclass,” and asked whether pandering to the nasty impulses of those who covet an increasingly rare slot among the news media establishment troubled the souls of Gawker’s writers.

N+1, a culture journal, followed with a thoroughly researched essay noting how Gawker’s voice has changed with successive editors, descending from a homespun blog that smartly sniped about editors like Tina Brown and Anna Wintour, whose prominence arguably opened them to sarcastic comment, to its current state as a cruel behemoth, eviscerating low-level editors and people’s children.

Gawker didn’t “jump the shark.” It was eviscerated by New York magazine and then cut to pieces and stomped into the ground by N+1 (with which Gawker had had a long and not so illustrious history).

The downfall, from the N+1 piece [e.a.]:

Gawker had always sold itself as mean but it now became, actually, very mean. …

If they had only pursued Tara Reid, Fred Durst, and other amateur celebrity pornographers, Gawker simply would have become another version of its own, Denton-owned, Los Angeles spinoff, Defamer.com. Instead, Coen took it upon herself to defame all-but-anonymous people who, within the context of the New York media apparatus, might have seemed like the equivalent of ingénue actresses and other easy-target celebrities.

Taking the form but lacking the content of tabloid magazines and websites, Coen and a succession of guest and co-editors besieged essentially private people, who for the most part did not have the audience or influence of Gawker.

Yep. And now it’s over (though Gawker is still alive, no one reads it anymore: that was the point of the Times piece).

For those of you who missed it, the actual end of Gawker was fascinating. It was described “live,” so to speak by Gawker’s Emily Gould, in this post. Twenty years from now, Gawker will be a distant memory, known to only a handful of people. Its cultural moment is over.

Back from cultural limbo, however, are American heroes from the 1980s.

Tough Guys for Tough Times

By ALEX WILLIAMS

At a time when the country is faced with a new tangle of problems, the return of the ’80s action hero suggests that some Americans, particularly men, are looking to revel in the vestigial pleasures of older times and seemingly simpler ways.

Finally, the New York Times has noticed that our pop culture lags behind reality so badly that people have to turn to “icons” from the 1980s like Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone to serve as role models for 2007. And—surprise, surprise!—it works! Because there seems to be a familiar American archetype in demand among Americans: the hero [e.a.]:

This is a moment in American history bedeviled by a sinking economy, the possibility of environmental catastrophe and violent conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. So it’s not surprising to see men who were raised on cartoonish images of the fictional John Rambo taking out more Soviet soldiers in two hours than the Afghan mujahedeen did in a decade show an appetite for characters who tend to fix even big problems with room-clearing brawls, monosyllabic wisecracks and large-caliber firearms. …

Judith Halberstam, a professor of English and gender studies at the University of Southern California … said that these living G.I. Joes communicate a “not-so-deep code of American exceptionalism,” as well as the American instinct to cut through obfuscation with plain talk and “to not bother with politics, just go in with force and fix things.”

So get ready for red-blooded action stories (and conspiracy stories and spy thrillers, the paranoid counterpart of hero epics) to come roaring back … once Hollywood gets back to its senses and starts making stuff that people want to see again.

The article does note one point that needs elaborating … sometime:

Indeed, heroic caricatures seem comparatively less cartoonish at a time when nonfiction heroes like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds have been tarnished by accusations of fraud, said David Zinczenko, editor in chief of Men’s Health.

Are sports stars “heroes”? I don’t think so.

I think the current craving is for heroes, not for celebrities. More about this another time.

I’ve been re-reading Daniel Boorstin’s classic 1961 work of social criticism The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (which is extraordinarily fresh and insightful for a 45-year-old book, by the way, but that’s a topic for another day).

Underlying Boorstin’s thesis of a mid-twentieth-century American populace transfixed by images is his notion that advertising—or any kind of marketing—succeeds by holding up a mirror to potential customers and offering them an enticing, image of themselves (more on this another day, but let’s just say for now that advertising is about fantasy-fulfillment).

Now, along comes the NYT’s Elisabetta Povoledo to tell us that Italians are transfixed by a six-part TV biopic, “The Boss of Bosses,” because the mirror it holds up to its audience shows a somewhat less than flattering image of itself [e.a.]:

“Italy has always been fascinated by the Mafia, by its personification of evil,” [a reporter] said in a phone interview.

Another possible explanation for the popularity of “Il Capo dei Capi” may be that it goes beyond mere storytelling and puts Italy in front of an unflattering — if engrossing — mirror of itself. It suggests that if Mr. Riina became the most formidable and feared mobster in Italian history, it was thanks to the collusion of political and economic forces at various levels of Italian society.

“It’s not fiction — it’s a real story that tells 50 years of Italian history, and it names names,” said Pietro Valsecchi, who produced the series. “It tells us just what sort of country we have been living in, it shows us the complicity of the state, it puts the Mafia in our face.”

There’s some evidence for the notion that its roots in reality drive the popularity of the series:

“The Sopranos,” the HBO drama about Italian-American bad guys, never caught on here.

The producer gets the last word [e.a.]:

Fictionalizing reality may be the best way to educate Italy’s distracted audience, Mr. Valsecchi said. “Italians don’t read newspapers — they barely glance at headlines. But here they’re getting the full story, with all its implications.”

Well, he gets the next-to-last word. I get the last word, which is a minor amendment to Mr. Valsecchi’s proposition: Fictionalizing reality is a way to infotain an audience—that is, to capture its attention. But let’s not get carried away. That is different from educating the audience.

photo by Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

Clinton’s White House years become a boon

When I talk about PRopaganda^TM, this is what I mean.

So. I’m back and I’m mellow—probably because I have studiously avoided catching up on the blogospheric eruptions that I missed while I was away (though I did follow the news, at a vast remove, in the International Herald Tribune, which, shockingly, costs € 2,20 [approx $3.10]; more later on following the news at a vast remove).

Among others, I had P. G. Wodehouse for company on my European idyll, and these words, from Psmith in the City, written in 1910, also helped to lighten my mood [e.a.]:

All political meetings are very much alike. Somebody gets up and introduces the speaker of the evening, and then the speaker of the evening says at great length what he thinks of the scandalous manner in which the Government is behaving or the iniquitous goings-on of the Opposition. From time to time confederates in the audience rise and ask carefully rehearsed questions, and are answered fully and satisfactorily by the orator. When a genuine heckler interrupts, the orator either ignores him, or says haughtily that he can find him arguments but cannot find him brains. Or, occasionally, when the question is an easy one, he answers it. …

The electors of Kenningford who really had any definite opinions on politics were fairly equally divided. There were about as many earnest Liberals as there were earnest Unionists. But besides these there was a strong contingent who did not care which side won. These looked on elections as Heaven-sent opportunities for making a great deal of noise. They attended meetings in order to extract amusement from them; and they voted, if they voted at all, quite irresponsibly. A funny story at the expense of one candidate told on the morning of the polling, was quite likely to send these brave fellows off in dozens filling in their papers for the victim’s opponent.

[Penguin; pp. 56-57]

In 1910, there was no Feiler Faster Thesis to explain (courtesy of Mickey Kaus) that candidates (and their campaign strategists) needn’t fret about not having enough time to connect with voters.

Even a century ago it was understood that only at the last minute do voters give political campaigns their

allotted minute and a half of concentrated thought.

Except: even a century ago Wodehouse knew that the great unwashed among voters don’t give candidates their thought.

They vote with their gut.

And they are likely to be swayed not by facts but by—dare I say it?—infotainment [that is: gossip, rumor, fabrication, PRopaganda^TM or anything else that makes for a more entertaining story than what reality, and a factual rendering of it, can deliver].

Upshot: time isn’t the crucial problem for candidates. As always, perception is the problem. Image is the problem. (Then, of course, there’s the little issue of connecting with the public’s mood.)

It’s not fair.

It’s not right.

It could lead us where we definitely don’t want to go.

It’s likely to offer dismal results for those of us “earnest Liberals” who want to vote for Obama—or, rather, to live in a world where Obama’s views hold sway.

But that’s the way it is.

The mysterious disappearance of Madeleine McCann has become an unparalleled worldwide super-spectacular media sensation, and a lurid tabloid nightmare for her parents. The Sydney Morning Herald dubs it a “trial by new media” and a “vicious affair.”

Describing a chain of events that started with the British tabloid media “invading” the Portuguese town where the girl disappeared, the Herald suggests that the Portuguese authorities then leaked false stories about the parents in relatiation for the British tabs’ excesses.

British tabloids mocked many of these stories yet, hedging their bets, also reported them. The most lurid example was the Daily Express, which ran a headline, “Gerry may not be the father”, above a story that began: “The smear campaign in Portugal against the McCanns continued yesterday…”

The resulting spiral - unsourced British reports of unsourced Portuguese reports - created a perfect storm: huge media fascination with almost no facts to feed it.

Hmmm. This seems to focus the blame on the media. As I recall, however, the parents launched an enormous PR campaign across Europe and Britain to focus attention on their daughter almost immediately after she went missing. I wrote about it here in May, and also posted this astonishing picture, taken at a soccer stadium:

In May, writing about other abductees who were also (vaguely) in the news and who got almost no attention by comparison (such as the British journalist Alan Johnston and the Iranian American scholar Haleh Esfandiari), I tried to explain the appeal of this particular story and the hold that stories can have over us:

… I’m not going to lecture you about how trivial this one abducted child is compared to the other abducted people in the news that we could be concerned about … Nope, this is not a guilt trip about the geopolitical messages we should be listening to (although we should be listening to them, of course). …

This is just a reminder of the extraordinary, magical, mystical power of [certain] stories to capture our imagination in a way that nothing else can—that is, to capture our imagination and attention in a way that influences us. …

Most of us will never run for office in ultra-violent Colombia. Most of us will never serve in Iraq. Most of us will never report from war-torn Gaza. Most of us will never have to toe a precarious line between being a free American scholar and a devoted Persian daughter who goes home to totalitarian Iran twice a year to visit her 93-year-old mother.
But which of us cannot put himself or herself in the shoes of Madeleine McCann’s parents and which of us does not remember being a helpless child?

Surely there’s a lesson here for all marketers (of anything, whether product or idea). The lesson is this: nothing beats a great story (in which category I include heartbreaking, sad, horrifying, etc.). We will give you our momentary attention pretty readily if you make enough noise (for example: if you say something totally outrageous, like what Jimmy Carter said about Tony Blair the other day, we’ll notice). But if you want to get through to us, give us a story we can relate to at gut level.

Give us a story that no amount of cynicism or jadedness or ironic detachment can protect us from and we are your slaves.

Indeed, a lot of people became slaves to that story. The Herald continues [e.a.]:

The McCanns are partly to blame. Well-educated doctors, they have hired spin doctors and tried to harness the media to their cause. Their stated reason is understandable: they want to keep the focus on finding their daughter.

But the journalist Matthew Parris wrote in The Spectator last week that their savvy media strategy - down to Gerry McCann’s daily blog and constant photos of Kate McCann clutching Madeleine’s pink cuddle-cat - was starting to hurt them. With both reporters and the public alert and resistant to spin, the McCanns had proved “unwisely media-wise”

That seems to be an understatement, considering the backlash that has swept over the McCanns. The Herald’s James Button makes an important point [e.a.]:

[W]e have learnt a few things about the media and their relationship with the public - all of us.

I do not mean simply mainstream media, but the online world of websites, bloggers and instant public feedback. The old and new media have not just reported the McCann story. They have changed it.

Indeed, the media became an actor in the story and nudged it along on an arc that no one could predict and, worse for the McCanns, that no one could control. As they inevitably lost control of their story, it overtook them.

The harsh truth is that when you live by media, you walk the razor’s edge. The rewards of launching a PRopaganda ^TM campaign are potentially very high, as Former Spook reminds us here, discussing the media consultant hired by the diaper-wearing Astro-nut Lisa Nowak:

In a “sample” chapter from the book (posted on her firm’s website), Mackenzie claims that her efforts helped a convicted killer avoid the death penalty; more astonishingly, her fees in that case were paid for by the taxpayers of Florida, after a public defender successfully petitioned to court to add a p.r. specialist to the defense team.

However, in this era of “celebrity justice,” Nowak’s decision to hire a spin doctor is a shrewd move, indeed. The disgraced former astronaut understands that a skilled defense lawyer, aided by an equally competent “image” specialist, can go a long way toward an acquittal, or at least, a hung jury. In the case of Lisa Nowak, Mr. Lykkebak is already hammering away at the credibility of police officers who handled her arrest.

But the risks of things spinning out of control are potentially greater, as the McCanns can now attest, as sympathy for their loss has now apparently turned to revulsion at their very presence:

The online public, however, has been far more hostile. When the Daily Mail last week ran an article, “McCanns’ DNA dossier to demolish Portuguese police’s ‘pathetic’ evidence”, the 60 readers who emailed feedback to this positive story came out two to one against the McCanns.

Evi Labi of London wrote: “It’s terrible for a child to disappear but would it be possible to get some peace from the McCanns’ organised and very well-orchestrated publicity?”

A newspaper in the McCanns’ county of Leicestershire had to close an online discussion forum because of vicious comments about the couple. More than 17,000 people signed an online petition asking social workers to find the McCanns unfit parents to look after their two-year-old twins. An internet poll found that only 20 per cent of Britons thought they were completely innocent.

The New York Times wonders if candidates are giving us too much information. Then the paper lets a surrogate act as its mouthpiece:

“I’m all for democratizing dialogue, but this is just much too much information,” Mr. Begala said. “It’s appalling, really.”

Hmmm. Appalling? I wouldn’t go that far. I see all public figures—from politicians to CEOs to movie stars to sports sensations to news anchors to talking heads—as self-conscious performers. They’re in front of the camera—of course they’re performers! Plus, no one can create a public profile in today’s world unless s/he’s got good visuals.

Bottom line: they’re not my cuppa, but they’re here to stay, because as long as there are public figures and cameras, there will be performers

Here’s what I had to say back in February:

Gawker reports on a “Firm Potent Leader with Plenty of Stamina”:

The Post ruined all our breakfasts with their cover this morning (seriously: “Judi gushes as Rudi rushes in”?? Ewwwww!!!)

Check out the placement of her hand on his cheek. And her hair, cascading just so. I’m going to throw up.

I also once posted a picture of The Kiss:

And for a while I was obsessed with making fun of the PDAs of the Chief Monkey of Iran:

 

the many loves of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

July 31, 2006

June 2006

The NYT’s Virginia Heffernan once came close to understanding (though she didn’t use these words) that one category of infotainment—in this case, celebrity photography—isn’t all bad.

Jennifer Aniston looking pensive occasioned a headline on her misery since her divorce from Brad Pitt. The caption drew me to Ms. Aniston’s eyes. Interesting: those part-Greek eyes, darkened by experience. What was Ms. Aniston thinking, now that she’d been left for Mr. Pitt’s costar in an action movie, the tattooed siren Angelina Jolie? So human, her hurt and expression. And so recent, I thought. I bought the magazine. …

Nevertheless, Heffernan proclaimed her guilt about indulging in what she considered a lowly pastime: gawking at celebrities.

Weakly I have hoped reading portraits in this way might strengthen some evolutionary skill, the way gossiping is said to make you better at forging allegiances.

I wouldn’t want to get all meta or postmodernist on her, but in fact Heffernan is strengthening certain skills. Media savviness may be the quintessential skill of our era. The people enjoying its advantages, if indeed they are advantages, are those who learn to manipulate the media the better to please audiences. Surely this cannot come as a surprise to Heffernan.

I also find it curious that Heffernan continues to flog her own guilt over her terminal lowbrow-ness while Perez Hilton, “the reigning online gossip maven,” one of Heffernan’s interview subjects, explains exactly how, as a practitioner, he ensnares her in the guilt trap [e.a.]:

“I took several art history classes in school, and photography,” he said in a telephone interview. “When you pay attention, you see some things that somebody else might miss, so it behooves you to try and find that special thing in an image. Then your intepretation will stand out more.”

He recognizes too that analyzing a photograph also often means embellishing it: “When I look at a picture, I go through the same process as when I look at a news story. How can I process this image to make this as entertaining as possible to my readers? I’m looking at it, cropping it, resizing it, drawing on it, making it my own.”

Despite even this acknowledgment that the photographs are shrewdly manipulated in order tap into exactly that place where Heffernan responds to the endeavor as deep play, Heffernan continues to feel guilty about her secret—until she meets another high-minded person like herself slumming at a certain online site:

[L]ast summer … I spoke to a lawyer I met on a “Lonelygirl15” message board. He and I were both obsessed with figuring out whether she was an actress or an ordinary girl.

“What do you do with your time when you’re not studying Web images?” I asked him in an e-mail message.

“I usually stick to stuff like Rathergate or the doctored Reuters photographs,” he wrote back, …“But this is fascinating.”

And that’s when it occurred to me: there is an undeniable pleasure in inferring stories from pieces of data, whether the story is trivial — “Lonelygirl15” — or substantial, like the military service of the president. Isn’t the discovery of that pleasure, in some sense, what drives science and all manner of detective work? We’re all on the Web, weighing various kinds of data we get — eBay listings, blog posts, Craigslist solicitations — and trying to read between some pixels, and connect others.

Sure, I don’t expect we’ll break any big news reading PerezHilton.com. But maybe we’re not entirely wasting our time; we’re practicing interpreting images from the new close-range, high-def magazines and Web sites. [e.a.]

Yes indeedy, we are.

Also, Heffernan should get a clue: there’s an entire area of cultural studies populated by “aca-fans,” like the MIT professor Henry Jenkins, who’s apparently being referred to as the Marshall McLuhan of the 21st century.

You can check out the confessions of other aca-fans Deborah Kaplan and Alan McKee on Jenkins’s blog, beginning here:

[Kaplan]: I consume vast amounts of highly denigrated popular culture: children’s and young adult literature, fan fiction, science fiction and fantasy, chick lit, science fiction television, romance novels, comics. Really, aside from the fact that I don’t watch reality television, my consumption patterns are (like many people’s) heavily lowbrow. With the exception of a few authors, I don’t read highbrow literature for pleasure, and even those highbrow authors I do read are often denigrated by the establishment for writing women’s literature, or are slotted carefully into the multicultural space available on a reading list (Jeanette Winterson, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ishmael Reed, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Kazuo Ishiguro). When I was a child I watched PBS and A&E with my parents; now I’m fond of PBS pretty much only as the network that brought me Doctor Who throughout my childhood. I don’t listen to NPR; I listen to folk or classic rock or pop stations.

And yet I am constantly being told my tastes are too highbrow.

This message has been approved by Committee to Clarify That We Have Identified the Enemy:

I wasn’t the only one to notice (duh!) Rudy’s swing through London the other day.

Dan Balz notes that and more:

Rudy Giuliani has adopted a creative strategy for his presidential campaign. By acting like a president, he hopes to turn himself into the presumptive Republican nominee. His rivals have other ideas but so far lack the will to stop him.

For the past two weeks, Giuliani has been waging what amounts to a general election campaign, meeting with foreign dignitaries while smacking around the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, as well as the most prominent symbol of the Democratic left, MoveOn.org.

In London this week, he chatted with former prime minister Tony Blair and posed for smiling photos with Blair’s successor, Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He also paid a courtesy call on another former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, who remains an iconic figure to American conservatives, and received an award in her name from the Iron Lady at a glittery dinner.

How did it go over across the Pond? I’m sure it depends on whom you ask, but the Telegraph’s Toby Harnden was duly impressed:

Rudy Giuliani scored a coup in his White House campaign yesterday by meeting Gordon Brown at No 10, conferring with Tony Blair, receiving an award from Baroness Thatcher and wrapping himself in the legacy of Winston Churchill.

The unprecedented feat of staging a show of genuine closeness to four British prime ministers – three of whom evoke degrees of veneration in America – placed the former New York mayor firmly on the global stage and cemented his claim to be a world leader.

Balz adds some analysis [e.a.]:

A Republican strategist who is not part of the former mayor’s circle of supporters marveled at the images beaming back from Giuliani’s trip. What they conveyed to GOP voters, he said, was the first image of “the post-Bush era with another Republican standing on the world stage.”

In the absence of an argument against his candidacy by his rivals, that could turn Giuliani into the dominant figure in the race. “Time is getting very short for the Romney and Thompson campaigns,” the strategist said.

That sounds right to me: images are of course very politically potent (an argument I’ve made often on this blog about iconography as it relates to our current geopolitical situation and information war). In the absence of a potent countervailing argument (or image), images can stick for good—a point underscored by today’s NYT, which, coincidentally, gave Giuliani the front-page treatment today for his exemplary leadership on 9/11 (they must be kicking themselves, because their timing only underscores Giuliani’s currently excellent PR):

Mr. Giuliani was led through a basement and out onto Church Street, his head and shoulders dusted white with ash. He walked north into the surreal brightness of that day, comforting a police officer and dragooning reporters.

He would walk north two miles, pausing in the bay of a deserted fire station in Greenwich Village to call a television station and urge calm. Three hours later he stepped into a press conference with Gov. George E. Pataki.

“Today is obviously one of the most difficult days in the history of the city,” he said softly. “The tragedy that we are undergoing right now is something that we’ve had nightmares about. My heart goes out to all the innocent victims of this horrible and vicious act of terrorism. And our focus now has to be to save as many lives as possible.”

Inevitably the question arose: How many lost? The mayor looked up through his glasses, aware that among the viewers of this live broadcast were the mothers, fathers, spouses, lovers and children of those who labored in the smashed towers.

“The number of casualties,” he said, “will be more than any of us can bear ultimately.”

That walk north, the spareness of his words and his passion became the founding stones in the reconstruction of the mayor’s reputation, transforming him from a grouchy pol slip-sliding into irrelevancy to the Republican presidential candidate introduced as America’s mayor. The former mayor has made this day the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, aware that millions of Americans hold that heroic view in their collective mind’s eye.

Love Giuliani or hate him or fear him, it’s hard not to marvel at the effectiveness of his photo-op swing through swinging London on this leg of his PRopaganda ^TM campaign (”You know me; I’m the best.”). His opponents and detractors can sputter about it all they want. Unless they can top it, they will get nowhere.

I’m not saying it’s fair. I’m saying that’s the way it is, and that it’s better to try to face reality so as to be able to oppose him effectively. I also note, glumly, that of the Democratic candidates, Hillary is the only one who will be able to marshall the aura of a world leader (aided as she will be, of course, by her rock star husband).

The continuing appeal of Rudy Giuliani in one reductive sentence:

“He did a great job as mayor of New York, he sure would be tough on those terrorists and he has a fine chance of beating Hillary Clinton,” said Mr Hisle, 64, a regular at the [Blue Moon Café in Ada, Oklahoma]. “

Read it and weep.

update: Gawker is wondering why the dearth of Owen coverage on TMZ. Good Question! Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus is wondering why all the focus is on Kate’s tragedy. ‘Cause, Mickey, if she’s all sad about it, that makes her a good person rather than the slut she appeared to be in the rumors that were published about her at the time of Owen’s little accident.

Last week, amid the instantaneous global release of the most intimate details surrounding the presumed suicide attempt of the actor Owen Wilson, I wondered what had happened to Hollywood that there wasn’t even one layer of PR protection around this highly bankable star when the ravenous celebrity press got hold of the details.

Today, it looks like—finally—somebody is at home, even if what follows sounds like a fairy tale called “Owen Wilson’s Wonderful Recovery”:

Wes Anderson: Owen Wilson “Doing Very Well”

Actor Owen Wilson is in surprisingly good spirits after attempting to commit suicide on August 26, according to his friend, director Wes Anderson.

“Obviously he has been through a lot this week,” said Anderson, who directed the actor in his latest film The Darjeeling Limited.

“I can tell you he has been doing very well, he has been making us laugh.”

Let us agree from the outset that in the real world where we all live, Owen Wilson cannot possibly be doing “very well.” He was abusing various drugs and alcohol and was reportedly despondent or enraged shortly before he attempted to take his life a week or so ago. Only on another planet—let’s call it Bizarro Hollywood World—could this man be doing “very well.” He is human, after all. Right?

Wrong! He’s a star. Of course he’s doing well! In Bizarro Hollywood World, suicides get better overnight, with the help of their loving friends, family, and business partners.

So this news of Owen Wilson’s fabulous recovery is what I often refer to as PRopaganda ^TM: “dramatic realities” or “dramatic narratives” spun (by PR meisters) from a few legitimate details of a given celebrity’s autobiography and then embroidered with fan-pleasing details. The story-weavers get a peg to hang a plausible tale on (in Wilson’s case, he’s a comic actor, so when he’s being normal and not suicidal, we would expect him to be making people laugh) and run with it, till those of us who want to believe it, ’cause we loooove Owen, actually believe it.

[There's an entire academic and non-academic literature about this stuff, if you're interested. Start with Joshua Gamson's Claims to Fame---a fascinating read. But read it at your own risk: You will never love a celebrity in quite the same way again after you finish it, 'cause you'll know that you've been deliberately seduced. You've been had.]

Helpfully, in today’s WaPo, Shankar Vedantam tells us all about the stubborn human propensity to believe “myths” over reality:

The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths.

You should read the whole thing, but here’s the most fascinating bit:

[T]he mind’s bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.

Have favorite myths (e.g., good triumphs over evil)? Not likely to invest the time and effort need to grasp the facts? That would describe most of us, except when the subject matter is our passionate interest and/or hobby. We’re too busy to pay minute attention. Which is what gives marketers of all stripes—not to mention potential propagandists—their opening:

Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.

Yes indeed. They most certainly can.This is where clever public relations comes in—in order to fight a damaged reputation, you’ve got to try to avoid repeating the claims made against you. Vedantam explains the paradox:

“If someone says, ‘I did not harass her,’ I associate the idea of harassment with this person,” said Mayo, explaining why people who are accused of something but are later proved innocent find their reputations remain tarnished. “Even if he is innocent, this is what is activated when I hear this person’s name again.

So how to you refute a false claim or reclaim a damaged reputation?

[R]ather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth. Rather than say, as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) recently did during a marathon congressional debate, that “Saddam Hussein did not attack the United States; Osama bin Laden did,” Mayo said it would be better to say something like, “Osama bin Laden was the only person responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks” — and not mention Hussein at all.

Edward Bernays, the “father of PR”, recommended this tactic. Don’t refute. Fight PR with more PR. This stuff is all around us—in every corner of public life—all the time. Observe, and you’ll see.

By the way, the New York Post has a ways to go to catch up w