Paul Waldman
February 13, 2007
Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America and the author of the new book, Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Can Learn From Conservative Success. The views expressed here are his own.In June of 2004, I wrote a column for The Gadflyer asking why the right wing seemed so slow in getting its machinery of anger and innuendo aimed at presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry. “Where are the anti-Kerry books?” I asked. “The conspiracy theories? The intimations of murder and drug-running? The maniacal ravings of the unhinged Right we've come to know and love?” Before long, of course, they got their act together, and Kerry never recovered from the blizzard of lies told by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and other assorted conservative dirty tricksters.
We all know how early the 2008 presidential campaign has begun. It is nearly a year before the first primary vote will be cast, and the smear machine is already taking aim at the Democratic contenders, hoping to replicate the successes it had in torpedoing the last two Democratic nominees and hamstringing Bill Clinton’s presidency. But it isn’t just the candidates that are readying themselves for a campaign that will be longer and more arduous than ever before. And what about the reporters who have so often been the right’s gleeful partners? There are reasons for both hope and concern.
In their repugnant book The Way to Win, ABC News political director Mark Halperin and John Harris of The Politico (and formerly of The Washington Post ) explain that, as journalists, “Matt Drudge rules our world.” In other words, when Drudge—a right-wing operative who closely coordinates his activities with the Republican National Committee—puts up a sensational story on his website, Halperin, Harris and the rest of their cohorts simply have no choice but to run off and cover it, whether it is true or not. What’s that, you say? Barack Obama once killed a man in a barfight? John Edwards is a pedophile? Hillary Clinton knows where Bin Laden is, but won’t say because they’re lovers? Run that baby! After all, “questions are being raised.”
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Source: TomPaine.com - Cue the Smear Machine
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