“Mrs. Joseph Wilson”
So I flicked past the Tony Snow Show on radio. He murmured about how the story of Joseph Wilson and Karl Rove will die soon. He’s right if he has anything to say about it; and he does indeed have a say in it, as a Fox News pundit/newsguy/somethingoid he will spin it as the White House sees fit and then move on to the next big story. (That would be the Supreme Court Battles, and probably a missing white 19 year old.)
It will resurface in due time, theoretically a better narrative for the Bushistas to play with will have been thought up. As it is the current narrative makes no sense. Tony Snow commented on Joseph Wilson’s appearance on the Today Show and how Joseph Wilson called his wife “Mrs. Joseph Wilson” by saying “I guess he won’t be invited by Gloria Steniem to visit the Hamptons!”
Huh? Though I understand the general “liberal elitist” slur he’s imparting on the audience, this is an amazing non-sequitur.
The other key part of obfuscation is that you stick the story into a “Donkey versus Elephant” narrative. This looks to me why Watergate didn’t gain any traction until after Nixon lost all of Massachusetts. George McGovern whisps sadly about how if all of Watergate had broken earlier, he might have been president (and has the Watergate-era poll numbers to prove it.) The news media is most wrapped around the Doneky Versus Elephant storyline, and the public most eager to buy it, during the campaign season, obfuscation easier to pull. Note this line:
Mr. Nixon, who appeared before a news conference in his Oval Office this morning, addressed the corruption issue in measured and at times almost inaudible tones that seemed deliberately designed to contrast with what he suggested was the shrill and irrespsonsible campaign tactics of his opponent.
“I think the responsible members of the Democratic party will be turned off by this kind of campaigning.” he said, “and I would suggest that responsible members of the press, following the single standard to which they are deeply devoted, will also be turned off by it.”
I wish one can extract the two-party system from all of politics. IE: so that a politico doesn’t feel obligated to sell his integrity to keep a boat he’s tied to, theoretically believes in but doesn’t totally, afloat. I don’t know which of these politicos have integrity, and for a bit less than half of the American public to not be invested into, but there seems to be no other way around it.
(Other items of note: when I find my play by play of a series of Iran-Contra hearing Bloom Countys, I’ll stick it up here.)