Repetition and Denial

I’m all for the private sector. It does great stuff. Amazon.com, for example. No government program in international bookselling could get paperbacks to my little farmhouse as quickly as those guys do. Amazing.

But relying on the profit motive has its drawbacks. We’ve seen one this week in the little affair of our nation’s (and the world’s, just wait for it) economic meltdown. Having done legal work in the field of derivatives, I can tell you they’re nifty. And they come with pages of “health warnings” attached. But the bankers don’t worry about fine print, and they don’t worry about the long term health of the economy. That’s not their job.

Likewise the media. The job of a journalist is not, as many think, to battle for Truth. Their job is to write and print stories that sell newspapers. That means either fresh, interesting journalism or lurid pandering smut. You don’t build a career or sell a paper by repeating the same stories ad nauseum.

The McCain campaign has understood this well. Under the guidance of Karl Rove’s loyal apprentice Steve Schmidt, the campaign has adopted a strategy of repetition and denial. Thus we are barraged with the same messages on a daily basis: Obama will raise your taxes (not likely unless you make over $250,000), Obama wants to teach your five-year-old how to use condoms (simply not true), Obama used Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines as an advisor on mortgage issues (again, untrue), McCain will clean up the old boys’ network in Washington (?!), Palin said no to that bridge to Russia (or, you know, wherever). The media have challenged the McCain campaign on each of these dubious claims, but the campaign just keeps repeating them. Because they know that the media don’t earn money on old news.

The corollary to producing a snowstorm of favorable, if false, stories is to systematically block information that might dilute the message. So Republicans in Alaska have tried to prevent the bipartisan investigation of Palin’s alleged abuse of power in the “Troopergate” affair from releasing its findings until after November 4. Numerous witnesses in that investigation have refused to testify. McCain has refused to release his medical records. It is an approach to truth and information perfectly in keeping with that of the Bush administration, which has been one of the most secretive (and arguably deceptive) in history. Even the insipid Q&A format agreed on for the Vice Presidential debates is designed, quite openly, to protect Sarah Palin from saying something she shouldn’t. McCain feels that his campaign will profit from the electorate being less informed – that should worry all of us.

There are a few bright lights in all of this for the Obama camp who have, with the recent and regretable exception of a misleading ad about McCain's views on social security, kept the moral high ground. The obstruction of justice in Alaska appears to have failed, and even if Palin is cleared of wrongdoing voters will remember the nervous attempt to obstruct the inquiry. They will wonder what Palin feared would come out about her. Likewise the growing outcry for McCain to release his medical records simply underscores the fears for his health. And preventing the spectacle of a blunt gray-haired Joe Biden beating up on fresh-faced Sarah in the debates may ultimately prove a gift to the Obama campaign.

But the repetition and denial strategy will become acceptable if it is not challenged. Again and again. If we fail to object, if we reward deceit with victory, then we deserve what we get.