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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRomney Advisers Reveal Strategy: Ignore Journalists, Pander To Right-Wing Conspriacy Websites
By Judd Legum
In a stunning interview with Breitbart.com, two top advisers to Mitt Romney revealed the campaigns plan to largely ignore journalists in favor of right-wing conspiracy websites.
From the beginning of the campaign, Romney has pointedly avoided news outlets who might pose tough questions. The press dubbed it the Mittness Protection Program. As the campaign wore on, Romney has refused to answer direct questions about major policy issues central to the campaign...Romney campaign spokesman Lenny Alcivar recently outlined how the campaign will avoid journalists and cooridnate and communicate their message through Brietbart.com and the Drudge Report:
The governor will no longer allow the mainstream media to dictate the terms of this debate. This is just the beginning We are witnessing the rise of the center right media.
The Drudge Report and Breitbart.com, founded the late Andrew Breitbart, a Drudge protoge, are actually far-right websites that reguarly traffic in paranoid and offensive conspiracy theories. A few examples:
2. The Drudge Report pushed the theory that Chief Justice Robert upheld Obamacare because of cognitive problems due to epilepsy medication. (ThinkProgress, 6/29/12)
3. The Drudge Report reguarly links to and promotes 9/11 truther Alex Jones. Jones also promotes conspiracy theories regarding global elites enacting one-world government; secret FEMA camps; weather control; mass sterilization; the Oklahoma City bombing; the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster; vaccines; and the government using products like juice boxes to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people dont have children. (Red State, 6/20/11; Media Matters, 10/11/10)
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Its not just Romneys advisors who are promoting sites like Drudge and Breitbart.com. In an interview with NewsMax, another far right site, Romney personally praised the Drudge Report.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/07/01/509328/romney-advisors-reveal-strategy-ignore-journalists-pander-to-right-wing-conspriacy-websites/
Recipe for lunacy: Mix one part nuts with two parts faux "liberal media" conspiracy, stir well and stuff rich frat boy who enjoys "pranks" and likes to destroy stuff (including people's lives).
muriel_volestrangler
(101,411 posts)The involvement of Fox will lend 'legitimacy' to the nutcase sites like Breitbart, WND and Drudge - Fox can start with "it's widely reported" (meaning those 3 plus assorted other wingnut sites - Fox won't mention that no-one who could truthfully be called a 'journalist' was involved), and then push it until other cable (or network) news thinks it has to cover what Fox is giving so much time to. And it return, Fox gets to blame the lies and fantasies on "partisan websites" if it needs to - pretending to have been just "fair and balanced" about what it reports.
It's been done before, of course (eg Swift Boating, birthers), but this seems to say it will be a major tactic by Romney. Feed everything through wingnuts, and hope to dominate the news cycle without awkward questions about truthfulness or actual policies.
railsback
(1,881 posts)Of course, all it does is appease the base. I'm sure Romney has his own ideas of how to run a country, but he's been reduced to a five finger stooge and has no backbone to take a stand on anything. Its like listening to Krauthammer reading passages of a torrid romance novel.
Bigmack
(8,020 posts)... I don't care what sites Romney is pandering to.
As soon as we get the word out about that belief... and others, like "No man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith..". ... I think the RW will flee in droves.
http://www.godvoter.org/mormon-jesus-satan-brothers.html
http://listverse.com/2008/02/04/top-10-bizarre-mormon-beliefs/