Eric Boehlert: The GOP's looming (media) civil war

[babylonsister]

The GOP's looming (media) civil war
Eric Boehlert


It's not easy to flip a congressional district that's been Republican since the late 1800s, but after being willingly hijacked by the right-wing media -- after getting steamrolled by Fox News' embrace of third-party candidate Doug Hoffman -- Republicans managed to hand Upstate New York's 23rd District to Democrats last week. And they did it just in time for the newly elected Democrat to help (barely) push health care reform through the House of Representatives during Saturday night's historic vote.

Doug Hoffman was, first and foremost, a media candidate (a media creation), which means we are entering a very new and different realm in American politics. We're entering a sort of Fox News Era where media outlets -- where alleged news organizations -- essentially co-sponsor political campaigns. We've moved well beyond the time when Fox News, for instance, leaned right and gave conservative candidates more air-time and tossed them lots of softball questions. We're now watching unfold a political reality where Fox News literally selects candidates and then markets them through Election Day.

There's a reason Hoffman described Glenn Beck as his "mentor" and pledged his "sacred honor" to uphold the "9 Principles and 12 Values" of Beck's 9/12 Project. There's a reason Sean Hannity wanted to "declare" Hoffman the election winner, and why Fox News' on-screen graphic read "Conservative Revolution?" when Hoffman was being interviewed (i.e. prematurely crowned) by Hannity on the eve of Election Day.

Hoffman's outsider bid, originally opposed by the Republican Party, was a media production, plain and simple, which means his loss was a media loss, as well.

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich had it right when he told The Washington Times that Hoffman's rise as a third party candidate was the "result of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News." Gingrich, who originally opposed Hoffman's candidacy, added: "This was not an isolated amateur; this is an entire movement."

Indeed, it's a media movement that's doing it's best to obliterate the line between journalism and politics.

As I've been noting for some time, Fox News has transformed itself into the Opposition Party of the Obama White House. So it makes sense that, as a purely partisan player, Fox New would immerse itself in backroom horse-trading. It makes sense that rather than covering the campaigns and the candidates, Fox News would insert itself as a political player within Republican contests and throw its support behind a specific candidate, the way it did in NY-23.

The looming problem for the GOP, though, is that the right-wing media can't pick winners and stands poised to rip the Republican Party apart. (Did you notice how Limbaugh last week claimed "Newt" had "screwed the whole {NY-23} thing up"?)

It's yet more evidence that during President Bush's pro-war tenure, far-right radio and TV talkers, along with fringe bloggers, convinced themselves they represented the mainstream -- the majority -- of the GOP. But they don't. They represent the radical CPAC wing of the GOP, and it shows on Election Day. We saw that in 2008, when bloggers and talkers opposed Sen. John McCain in the GOP primaries yet were completely unable to sway Republican voters in the process. In the immortal words of Republican strategist Mike Murphy, "These radio guys can't deliver a pizza, let alone a nomination."

more...

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200911100021

[Uncle Joe]

1. Just as a drowning person; desperately grasps for anyone to save her/him self,

such is the corporate media; they're a wounded beast and are now becoming more dangerous because they see the writing on the wall; regarding their waning propaganda ability due to the growing power and influence of the Internet.

The Internet represents reason and one way top down radio/television rule largely by emotion, they would risk the Republican Party and put fascists in power if for no other reason than to eliminate the challenging power of reason coming from the Internet. That's what this is all about.

Don't mistake what I'm saying, there is no absolute, as some reasonable, intelligent people inhabit the traditional corporate media and some lunatics make their home in the Internet, however the art of interactive reading and writing require a certain amount of reason, enabling some people with previously limited views of the world to become enlightened. This represents a threat to the power mongers of the one way, top down corporate media; having become accustomed to shaping reality for millions of Americans with their voice and image of God power; through the magic of radio and television.

This loss of influence is creating a power vacuum in the heretofore corporate media propped up, corporate supremacist, shadow Republican Party.

"National political parties go through all kinds of evolutions; all kinds of natural expansions and contractions over time. (Barry Goldwater, for instance, oversaw perhaps the GOP's most radical contraction in modern times.) It's quite rare, though, for the catalyst of that change to be external media forces. Sure, permanent Beltway insiders such as Bill Kristol have routinely hopped back and forth between "the role of Republican flack and alleged journalist without changing even a comma in his prose 'style'," as columnist Eric Alterman noted last week.

<SNIP>

Disillusioned "Right Wing" blogger Rick Moran, recently bemoaning what he sees as the rise of an "anti-reason" movement on the far right, may have put it best when he asked, "What is it that possesses certain conservatives to fool themselves so spectacularly into believing that they can create a majority out of a minority?"

His definition of "anti-reason" conservatives, who now anchor the right-wing media, seemed dead-on, as well: "hose who reject reality in favor of persecution complexes, wildly exaggerated hyperbole, and a frightening need for vengeance against their imagined 'enemies.'"

<snip>

Thanks for the thread, babylonsister.

[applegrove]

2. The fact that the republican base has been so well trained my faux news, neocons

and other right wing republicans means they will be hard to untrain. The GOP may be broken for a while (thank god cause when they get into power they do anything but good government).

[Turborama]

3. K&R Excellent article that's well worth reading in its entirity!

"it's a media movement that's doing it's best to obliterate the line between journalism and politics."

Thanks for posting.

[Miss Authoritiva]

4. Fred Thompson too...

Hoffman's outsider bid... was a media production, plain and simple, which means his loss was a media loss, as well.

I always thought the "grassroots" support for a Thompson run in 2008 was a bit bogus. Always thought Thompson got suckered by it, too.