I just want to point out that I was right.

[xiphias]

So, of course, there is absolutely no case against, whassisname, John Mark Karr, who claimed to have killed whasserface . . . Jonbenet Ramsey or whatever, because he was just a pathetic guy who wanted to sound like a big shot, and everybody involved actually knew that.

I point out what I said a week and a half ago, when the story broke.

So, let's get the points out where we can see them all in a row:

1. The President's warrantless wiretapping program is declared both illegal and unconstitutional -- that is, it inherently violates constitutionally-protected due process, but it ALSO specifically breaks Federal laws. This is big, folks -- this is a court declaring that the President has committed a high crime, AND has violated his Oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

2. The Office of Homeland Security announces, entirely randomly, that they just happened to be in Thailand, and, hey, wouldn'tcha know it, here's the guy that killed JonBenet Ramsey ten years ago! It's not like we ever even suspected that the Department of Homeland Security was even LOOKING for JonBenet Ramsey's killer, but, see, apparently, there was this theory that Osama bin Laden has this thing for child beauty paegents. . .

3. The news channels react in a way that I'm having trouble coming up with a suitably biting and sarcastic metaphor for. Something like Pavlov, or shambling zombies chanting "LACK OF BRAINNNNZZZZ", or scampering after a shiny object, or "Hey, that dog has a poofy tail!" I'm really failing to come up with anything that expresses how pathetic and easily manipulated the news channels are. Nobody at the press conference appears to think of asking, "Um, by the way, Department of Homeland Security person? What are you actually DOING here?" which, to MY mind, would have been the INTERESTING story.

In any case, they dig up all their ten-year-old file photos of a tarted-up little girl and chatter on for a while.

4. There's no evidence there, and they don't even indict the guy, and drop all charges.

Do I have any PROOF that the White House manipulated the news cycle, dragged a guy's name through the dirt, fucked with a murder investigation, and used Justice Department and DHS resources to simply distract the media for a week or so until they could be distracted by something else?

No, of course I don't have proof.

But I'm not a moron, and neither are you, and I think that what happened here is pretty damned obvious.

And the thing is that it's up to US, bartenders and students and writers and programmers and exterminators and cooks and homemakers and unemployed people and the rest of us -- us folks with blogs and livejournals, just sitting here typing to put these things together. And if enough of us pathetic little nobodies sit around here in front of our pathetic little computers and keep typing away at these things which sound like pathetic conspiracy theories -- eventually the REAL media will do a story that will be like, "Oh, look at these pathetic little paranoid wankers who keep thinking that we here in the REAL media were totally duped by the White House because we went haring off to Thailand because the DHS said that they had a break in a ten year old sensationalist murder case that turned out to be totally made up, when at the same time the President was found to have been breaking the law, and we reported the made-up thing instead of the real thing, and now they say we were duped and aren't those paranoid wankers so pathetic for . . . hunh . . . wait a minute. . ."

Hey. Here's the truth. WE'RE the Fourth Estate -- you and me. Big Media? No. And really, they never were. People making lots of money from media have always been part of the power structure. But the whole "freedom of speech, freedom of the press" thing? That was always to protect you and me. If the Empire is in dire risk of catching pneumonia, it's OUR job to point out that the Emperor has no clothes -- not TimeWarner's, not CNN's, not the Wall Street Journal's.

You and me, if we pick up something interesting, like, for instance, "someone working for the President is clearly fucking with the JonBenet Ramsey case to distract us," and we start talking about it, those other guys, they'll catch on sooner or later, and they'll talk about it, and more people will hear about it.

But the fact is that it's never been the big guy who's made it his job to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." "Speaking truth to power" is done by those who have truth, never by those who have power.

Yeah. The media dropped the ball on this one. That's because it's not their fucking JOB to carry the ball -- it's ours. It's our ball, and if we want them to carry it, we have to make them WANT to carry it. And we make them WANT to carry it by talking about it. The more this shiny, shiny ball moves around, the more likely they are to go after it. "The President manipulated you, screwed you over by using a pretty little girl murder victim to distract you." That's shiny.

Catch.

Comments

[fibro-witch.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with you. I am amazed at how stupid the media has become. I think the hope was we would miss the anniversary of Katrina because we were all paying attention to the 10 year old death of a little girl.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

I think you've gone overboard here. Do you really think that, if the White House were really trying to divert media attention from the court case and from the Katrina anniversary that the physical evidence wouldn't have matched? If there's anything this administration has shown it's good at, it's manufacturing evidence to fit the conclusion they want.

Part of the reason why the media latched onto Karr as they did is because it's sensational. It's giving the public what they want. Let's face it, most people don't care about the court verdict about the warrantless wiretap program. If they fully understood its ramifications, they might, but most don't, and most of those who do don't care about this particular verdict, because no matter which way it went, the case was going to the Supreme Court.

You're getting perilously close to putting on a tinfoil hat here. You're right that the media dropped the ball, but that doesn't mean the Bush administration is behind it. When you assume there's a conspiracy, you tend to ignore all the evidence against it because it can be written off as part of the conspiracy. It's a dangerous trap.

[aprivatefox.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I agree that this was a conspiracy, but one thing in your post seemed odd to me: If there's anything this administration has shown it's good at, it's manufacturing evidence to fit the conclusion they want.

I haven't been following the news as closely as I ought, but I've been operating under rather the opposite impression - that this administration is very good at claiming there's evidence for things, and relying on the poor follow-through of the media to let them dance away without ever actually presenting said evidence.

Are there some particular cases you're thinking of where the administration actually presented false evidence?

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

I phrased my argument badly, it's true. The point I was trying to make is that Bush tends to make up his mind, and then find the evidence to support his decision later. Surely, if all they needed was something to distract the media, they could have come up with something better than arresting someone who they knew was going to be found to be unconnected with a ten-year-old murder.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

What you seem to be missing is that it worked.

They did divert media attention from the court case and the Katrina anniversary. Why should they have evidence that matches? They're not superhuman, and manufacturing evidence in a domestic criminal case is entirely different than showing blurry photographs, waving your hands, yelling, "Look! A monkey!" and claiming that you've demonstrated the existence of weapons of mass destruction.

And does your second paragraph do anything, at all, to disagree with my premise?

Let's break down the argument you've just made:
You think I've overstated my case. That's a good thesis statment.

First point: "If the White House were trying to divert media attention, they would have made up fake DNA trails."

I counter that by pointing out that they did divert media attention, without having to make up fake DNA trails.

Your second point is that they're good at making up evidence.

I counter that by pointing out that they have never made up physical evidence, only documentary evidence -- a totally different skill. And further, that they have never interfered, to my knowlege, with a preexisting domestic criminal case in that manner.

Your second paragraph is mostly a discussion of the mechanism by which this distraction works, with the argument tacked on the end that it's not WORTH distracting people from this matter, because the legal issue is not settled, since it's going to be appealed.

But the first part of your paragraph shows the weakness in the last part -- the problem for the White House isn't the legal issue, directly, but the sensationalism. "The President Broke The Law" is sensational. Maybe not as sensational as "The President Likes Oral Sex", but sensational nonetheless. The more the President is perceived negatively, the more power the Republicans as a whole lose. The more people are talking about "The President's Illegal Actions", the less power and influence he, and his whole party, have. Therefore, getting people to talk about something else helps them.

Your third paragraph is. . . it's not an ad hominem attack, but it's one of the related falacies; I can't remember the name right now.

The point I'm making is that there is now evidence that the Bush administration, or someone within the administration IS behind the distraction.

Your last two sentences are good general advice, with no specific utility to this situaion.

I'm not assuming that there is a large-scale conspiracy. I'm assuming that one or two guys realized that this would be a fantastic distraction, and pushed it to suit.

Can you give me some of the evidence that I'm writing off?

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

The primary thing you're writing off is the far-fetched basis of the whole thing. For just how long was the White House planning this thing? How long have they been following Karr, waiting for just the right moment to arrest him? I mean, this is a guy who confessed to a crime he didn't commit, insisted that he was responsible, and waived his rights in several instances. Did the administration buy him off, too?

There isn't evidence, despite your assertions, that "someone within the administration IS behind the distraction." I'm assuming this is due to DHS's involvement in Karr's arrest, but regardless of whether or not you agree that immigration adminstration includes what they evidently did in Thailand, it's a bit of a stretch from DHS involvement to the whole thing being a deliberate distraction from other stories.

It sounds to me like you're assuming a conspiracy, though perhaps not a large-scale one. I mean, in order to get Karr arrested, they needed a warrant for his arrest to be issued by a judge in Colorado, which meant that lots of other people in the legal system in Colorado also needed to be involved.

I guess I should rephrase my argument. It's certainly not impossible, or even necessarily implausible, that the Bush administration would try bizarre tactics like this to divert attention from their misdeeds and suchlike. But, as you yourself said, you don't have proof. If you make accusations like that without proof, people are less inclined to take you seriously.

[goljerp]

There have been a number of, well, convenient coincidences for the bush administration so far. Remember all those "#2"s of al queida in [iraq/afghanistan/pakistan/wherever] who were found? How the alert level would go up at times good for bush? And, more recently, wasn't it convenient that the brits just happened to decide to arrest the wanna-be terrorists (some of whom didn't even have passports, let alone any plane tickets) right after Lieberman lost a primary generally seen in the press as a referendum on Bush's Iraq policy? I mean, they could've, you know, waited until they finished recruiting or something. String together enough coincidences and you either end up with the luckiest administration ever, or something less innocent.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Did anyone really buy that the Connecticut primary was a referendum on Bush's Iraq policy? It was a Democratic primary. Did anyone really think a large number of Democrats liked Bush's Iraq policy? What rock have they been under? The Connecticut primary was a demonstration of how much contempt Democrats in Connecticut have for Bush, and really not much more than that.

I don't think the Bush administration wanted to distract from the Connecticut primary. Now, it's quite possible that the foiling of the British terrorist plot was intended as a boost for Bush's horrible poll numbers--which it failed to accomplish, if that's true.

It is quite true that a lot of the terror alerts seemed exceedingly well-timed. I've noticed that they haven't been doing nearly as many of them since Bush's second term began, which is possibly because they realized many people had cottoned to them (or at least enough people suspected there was more going on than met the eye).

You must realize, too, that one ought to resist the temptation to automatically think the worst of someone because you consider him your enemy. A lot of what I hear and read from liberals these days sounds nearly exactly like a lot of the things the conservatives used to say when Clinton was President. I'm a die-hard liberal, and it's a daily struggle to avoid the knee-jerk reaction to think the worst of the Bush administration, but I've found that they do so many appalling things for which there is ample proof that one needn't accuse them of things they may have done for which there is none.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

If there's anything this administration has shown it's good at, it's manufacturing evidence to fit the conclusion they want.

If that was true, they'd have been able to manufacture WMDs to find in Iraq.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

As I said here, I phrased my point badly.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

The problem with people like us being the Fourth Estate because the Fourth Estate isn't doing its job, is that our news cycle is so much longer. Like, decades instead of weeks. We can help shape the verdict of history, but the problem with history is that it's the past, by definition. By the time we can shake enough people by the shoulders, the assholes have gotten away scot-free.

The reason the media are so easy to manipulate is that the audience is too. They know that it takes pitching to the lowest common denominator to get those ratings, and it's a race to the bottom.

In an age when we need an Edward R. Murrow more than ever, we've got Fox News instead.

The problem came, I think, when the news stopped being about news and started being entirely about the numbers game. The real news has retreated to the places where people like us hang out who still care about it, who still value independent thought: the net, public radio.

The zombified masses are where the money is. If you keep giving them bread and circuses, they stay mostly quiet and shovel cash at you. Once TV figured out that its vast influence and reach could result in REALLY big piles of cash all being shoveled in at once, that was the end of the mass media's usefulness as a watchdog.

I don't think the networks are so much easily distracted as horribly shallow and cynical. They know that their AUDIENCE is easily distracted, and all they care about is the bottom line.

Geeks like us are the minority, and the political machine has gotten very savvy about manipulating the fears of the sheep--their fear of anyone or anything marginally different. It's so easy to reinforce their fear and hatred of thoughtful people; you've seen how "folksy" politicians have done it again and again to bright candidates who didn't have the ability to dumb themselves down.

This is by way of being a very long and cranky version of "the vast bulk of people are as dumb as a sack of hammers". You get the idea.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

But none of that is new. We're dealing with yellow journalism. Rupert Murdoch is not significantly different from William Randolph Hurst.

It's important to remember, I think, that Murrow was an abberation. A happy abberation, but not at all typical of what news has ever been.

He rose above what was typical, and we should absolutely honor him for that. But the country wasn't built with the idea that we'd have Edward R. Murrow doing this for us -- it was built with the idea that we could do this for ourselves.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Hm. I will absolutely grant you that he was a fluke, sadly. I think that the idea that a free press was essential was there from the start, though. I wish I could go dig up the quotes I'm vaguely thinking of, but I'm about to go to bed here....

My sense has always been that the press is supposed to serve the citizenry here, because it's understood that each individual does not have the time or access to uncover all this information. That's the point of the news; to sum it all up.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It absolutely is essential -- but the "free press" they were thinking of was always small-scale, by modern standards. A couple of guys, a printing press, standing on streetcorners yelling at folks, printing up your pamphlets by the hundreds or thousands and giving them to everybody . . . you could reach hundreds of thousands of people, but it was always closer to "blogging" scale than "FOX News" scale.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i heard a vague rumor that he was in thailand for srs surgery.

a person idly wonders if he was having trouble coming up with money for the surgery. a person idly wonders if he isn't having that particular trouble any more.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I heard a vague rumor that the Boulder DA's office got told that he was being extradited, and responded with, "WTF??!? Didn't we discount him as a loon who was totally unconnected to this five years ago?"

Two quotes

[cheshyre]

I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist.

-- Teresa Nielsen Hayden

There are basically two theories of history: conspiracy and cock-up. The Bush administration combines them so well that in any given case, it's hard to decide.

-- James Wimberley

Re: Two quotes

[sethg]

Yeah, that's it precisely. The strongest argument I have against xiphias's conspiracy theory is that I'm not sure this Administration is competent enough to pull it off.

Re: Two quotes

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I think the Bush administration is conceited enough and venal enough to attempt to manipulate the press and the populace. I also think much of the GOP is skilled in 30 years of negative campaigning against Democrats to simply view this as a different target to apply the same tactics against.

Re: Two quotes

[ecban.livejournal.com]

The second quote is nearly Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. In the administration's case, I never have been able to distinguish the two, but I suspect that the original stupidity allows the malice and the malice generates new stupidity in an endless feedback loop tending toward infinity.

The first quote, I have on a t-shirt...

[sethg]

Even if the Administration is successfully manipulating the media, they're not doing so well at manipulating the general public.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

My understanding was that the guy was already in jail in
thailand for something. And it was pointed out by someone on my friends list that whatever he was charged with before, he's not in prison in thailand anymore. Maybe the president got involved to draw attention away from his misdeeds. I don't think that bush is capable of understanding that something he did was wrong, or could be percieved as wrong. He did it, therefore, it was the right thing to do, in his mind.

Now, did Cheney shoot his friend in the face to distract the media from the revelation that he ordered a minion to release classified material to the press? Absoutely. Cheney understands that he does things that are wrong all the time. And he can assemble a small enough conspiracy to make things work. Bad press? Him and three other people arrange a nice shotgun blast to the face and squash the whole thing.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I don't think that Cheney shot a guy to distract folks. I don't think he's THAT crass. I think he shot the guy because he's a moron who doesn't know gun safety.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I see it differently. He's been a shooter for a long long time with no incident. And it just so happens that just as a court says for sure that he did something indefensable, he shoots someone in a manner that is pretty much assured to cause injury but not death, and then conceals it just until the day the news hits. The bad news was Cheney specific. The thing that took that news out of the news cycle was done by him, and only needed two other people to coordinate. To me, that's a great setup for a coverup. Unlike involving an unknown in thailand, the justice department, embassay personnel, the police in thailand, etc etc. All of the cover-ups Bush has been accused of involve huge conspiracies. What's the first rule of keeping a secret? Tell as few people as possible. Cheneys secret would be safe, he's not telling anyone, the lawyer he shot isn't telling anyone, the woman who hosted the hunt isn't telling anyone. Done deal. One money hungry official in thailand decides to spill the beans and bush's coverup is blown. And one of the requirements for being in politics or law enforcement in thailand is a willingness to be bribed.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I don't see it as a big conspiracy. I see it as one guy writing a memo saying, "Dear DHS -- pick up this guy in Thailand that we found out has to do with the JonBenet Ramsey case."

Everybody else involved in the thing, short of the guy writing the memo, is not part of a conspiracy -- they're simply doing their jobs.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Spreading the word, man. The absolute non-interest in the public is unbelievable. Eventually, like some bit of crystal in a super-saturated system, something will click with the public and a cry will be heard. Or not. Bread and Circuses has worked for centuries.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

'Course they have. But they worked mainly during the Empire period, not the Republic.

We've not made that switchover.

Yet.

Yeah, there are a lot of people in this country who'd be happier with an emperor than a president -- but they're far from the majority yet.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Even during the Republic, senators would distribute grain and bread at times, to placate the plebeians or influence their votes. What amazes me is the lack of interest or the "my voice/vote doesn't count" attitude from a lot of people. Look at the numbers in Florida, Ohio, and New Mexico. So close yet so far.

Still, something has to come along that will spark the interest of folks and get them off their collective asses. I just hope it isn't a revolution. Really hope for peace and prosperity for my daughter to live in.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

A lot of that, during the Republic period, was the whole "patron/clientes" relationship, which is probably not the healthiest way to run a republic, but still worked . . . okay.

I mean, in American history, I think the best analogue to the patron/client relationship is the "ward boss" system, which was not a good way to run a democracy, but was, I would argue, better than what we've got now. What we need is unbribable politicians. If we can't get those, the next best thing is politicans who are so cheaply bribable that we can all buy politicians. . .

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Or even an honest politician; one who, when bought, stays bought and then delivers.

While the current government has worked out for a few kleptocratic clans, the majority of folks that have sought out Karl Rove's Big Tent are getting screwed like the rest of us. At some point, their losses will outweigh the fear of being called liberal or unpatriotic and they'll beat feat back to the center. Just hope there's someone half-way responsible there, to get things done.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

About, oh, eighty years ago or so, my great-grandfather had a movie theater in Revere, outside of Boston. And he was trying to open up a second theater in Boston.

At that time, and actually, until the 1982 Larkin vs. Grendel's Den Supreme Court decision, a church had the ability to close a theater or bar within 500 feet of it, and a church opened up right nearby this theater my great-grandfather was trying to get running, and the shut him down.

So, he decided to go talk to Mayor James Michael Curley, who was on his second term as mayor. He would later go on to serve four terms as mayor, and two terms in prison -- concurrently, in one case.

Anyway, my great-grandfather got an appointment, and explained his situation to the mayor, and the mayor said that he'd see what he could do, opened the bottom left drawer of his desk, and walked out. My great-grandfather walked to the open drawer, and put a paper bag in it which contained $100, which would be somwhere around $1000 in today's money -- not a small sum, certainly, but well within the means of your average small businessman. Heck, even a group of families could scrounge that much together if it was important to them.

He closed the drawer, Mayor Curley looked in and saw that the drawer was closed, and told my great-grandfather to come back in a week.

A week later, my great-grandfather came back, and Mayor Curley was very apologetic. "I talked to them, but I had no leverage over them. I've got no power I can use to make them budge. I'm sorry."

He opened the drawer again, and walked out. My great-grandfather walked over to the drawer, took out his paper bag with the $100 in it -- none was missing, of course -- and thanked the Mayor for his efforts as he passed him on the way out.

THAT'S an honest politician.