I see some blogs are badly distorting the nature of what I said -- about verifying the ISIS videos and about the rashness of sending non-medical troops to Liberia, and about the story we are following here about the blank ballots in Scotland. So why do I ask for the story behind the news story so often (and then why do we so often find it?) Why do I often not take political narratives at face value as they are dictated to the press? A) Because I am a journalist and verifying skeptically is supposed be our job but more importantly b) because I worked for two Presidential campaigns, one formally and one informally, as a political consultant, and because I was a spouse of a White House speechwriter for many years. As a political consultant and also a longtime close-up observer of how news and statements come out of the White House and Presidential campaigns, I know that FIRST the communications team involved has to start with something handed to them that they had nothing to do with -- a gift that has to be announced or a deal that has been done or has to be done by others; -- i.e., we get major support from the teachers union, or from trial lawyers or from people invested in teacher training products, or we got support or money from agribusiness - or we need to go into a country for the commercial reasons of our lobbyists, or take some foreign policy step because of our allies supporters who give money. And THEN the creative, talented people in the campaigns or nations communications shop are asked to construct a narrative about it and talking points and find heroes that help the narrative along, and the narrative often finally sounds like nothing to do with the actual deal. (In fact best that way.) And that uplifting speech often involves finding individuals with great stories to tell that have nothing to do with the deal …. and phrases like no child left behind…or energy independence -- or war against terror -- etc etc. The deal comes FIRST and then the story, even the program or policy, is most often wrapped around the deal which no one but the insiders know about (and even they scarcely talk about). So all the people who are attacking me right now for conspiracy theories have no idea what they are talking about. If I did not witness as a political consultant that national politics is most often -- almost always -- the deal coming before the narrativethe bill, the initiative, the crisis, the drama, the story wrapped around it to justify it -- a narrative which usually does not resemble the deal at all or refer to it in any way -- I would not know to look deeper at the news; and people who assume the dominant narrative MUST BE TRUE and the dominant reasons MUST BE REAL are not experienced in how that world works.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 20:10:51 +0000
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