How Liberal Bloggers Are Helping Republicans

You think you are exposing a scandal, but what you're actually doing is promoting someone you hate to a better rank on Google.

On June 9th, while supposedly waiting to be interviewed by KXTV in Sacramento, Carly Fiorina (a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate) said something VERY scandalous... She called Barbara Boxer's hairstyle "so yesterday". What she (supposedly) didn't know is that her mic was on and the video of her catty comment would be "leaked".

Sounds like the perfect chance to give her a gut-punch on your blog, right? I mean, you could really spin that. You could call her a "gossip" or a "catty elitist who cares more about fashion than substance"... This could be the end of her, right?

Wrong.

This is what strategists call a "manufactured scandal". It's something that's "leaked" by the campaign itself to trigger a surge in Google searches but doesn't really do all that much to damage the reputation of the candidate in question.

Fiorina also made sure to mention that her buddy Meg Whitman decided to be interviewed by Sean Hannity. So when Politics Daily and the Huffington Post did their part and made mountains out of molehills with this "caught on open mic" scenario, this is what the results looked like:

Google Searching "Carly Fiorina Hair":
You get a story about Fiorina's Courageous Battle With Cancer.

Google Searching "Carly Fiorina Hair Barbara Boxer":
You get her wikipedia page, which presents a sanitized version of her corporate legacy summed up with another quote about Boxer: "After losing all my hair, Barbara Boxer just isn't so scary anymore." (Another reference to her cancer survivor status.)

Google Searching "Carly Fiorina Whitman Hannity Comment":
You get Carly Fiorina and Sean Hannity in a mutual admiration love-fest with eachother where Fiorina expresses profusely that she is friends with Whitman and that she was afraid Hannity would be "too tough" on her.

You see what this all adds up to?

There were THOUSANDS of liberal bloggers doing their part to advertise Carly Fiorina's spin campaign for a week after the manufactured scandal was "leaked".

The biggest mistake a Liberal Blogger can make is to assume that Republicans are all ignorant people with misspelled signs at a Tea Party or an NRA rally. In reality, if this were a game of chess, they'd already have you in check-mate.

Obama's poll numbers are in the tank, healthcare reform is a win-win situation for the Insurance Lobby (mandatory Insurance with no public option), the war rages on, Gitmo is still open for business, faith-based initiatives are funneling millions of your tax dollars into the right-wing think tanks, billionaires have that antsy-dancey feeling in their pants again and millions of dollars are being dumped into any campaign against a democratic incumbent or gay candidate.

Republicans have convinced America that there is an all-powerful "liberal media" out there, hellbent on denying the "truth" and that somehow, the most watched News channel in the world (FOX NEWS) is just not a part of this grand conspiracy. Meanwhile, "our side", MSNBC, has chosen to legitimize the Tea Party as a "grassroots movement that became a real political party" and they've completely forgotten that it is actually just tightly controlled Republican atro-turf.

You must never forget that Republicans are masters in the art of deception and propaganda - and especially today's Republicans who hail from the corporate dotcom revolution and have learned how to use facebook and adwords to their advantage.

Here are some of my suggestions for liberal bloggers to avoid unwittingly helping Republicans to spin the media in their favor:


1) Never blog about Sarah Palin. She is the media center of Right-Wing talking points and any exposure you give her is always a "freebie" to the GOP. Everything that relates to Palin is a carefully crafted device to get you to do exactly what you're thinking of doing. Remember that.

2) Find some politicians you actually like and blog about their success. Far too many liberals are going down the path of defensiveness and it gives the Republicans quite an edge. The President himself just can't seem to score a few kind words from the mainstream media even though conservatives maintain that we are talking about a "liberal media".

3) Decide what your values are and start from there. Conservatives are able to follow eachother blindly without ever worrying about back-stabbing or sabotage because they all share the exact same values. A Liberal without a clear understanding of his own values will find himself struggling to explain exactly what he is so concerned about and it does more harm to his position than good.

4) Attack someone in your own party on occasion. Decide who the bad apple is in your bunch and expose them as a "wolf in sheep's clothing". This is a great way to draw in some readers from that highly coveted "independent/moderate" group.

5) Do NOT rely on the mainstream media for all your news. Networks like CNN, FOX, MSNBC and CBS are good for an occassional glance, but you should be using the internet to its fullest capability and really digging for information that YOU have decided that YOU care about. Any first-hand information or interviews you can get are far better than recycling whatever the latest talking point is.

Alex Sink Cites "Religious" Reasons For Not Supporting Gay Marriage

On Thursday June 10, speaking to a group in St. Petersburg, Gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink contradicted her pro-equality image by saying “I don’t support gay marriage. I think that is entirely a religious decision that individuals can make. I do support civil unions.”

“That’s not good news for gay marriage proponents hopeful that a new governor would make changes,” writes Christina Silva who broke the story for the St. Petersburg Times.

This is in contrast to what the LGBT community might expect from the winner of Equality Florida’s esteemed “Voice of Equality” award for the year 2009. At the reception gala she garnered standing applause from about 200 of South Florida’s gay community leaders. She spent approximately 10 minutes giving a stump speech about how “every American deserves to be treated equally” but mostly she gave the audience her resume from her days at Bank of America. She did not, however, talk about Florida’s controversial ‘Amendment 2’ which bans LGBT persons from participating in both marriage and civil unions.

At the beginning of that November 2009 gala, director Nadine Smith introduced Alex Sink by saying “when you look around at these galas… you see the backbone of the gay community.” Alex Sink took to the podium soon after where she made a total of eight pleas for campaign money while saying nothing about specific actions she would take as Governor in favor of the LGBT community

“I know that together, we can make equality for ALL Floridians a reality,” Sink said to the guests at the 2009 Equality Florida event, “that is - with the right officers in place."

“Tonight I stand before you as a candidate for Governor – a position for which no woman has ever been elected. And in 2010, with all your support and encouragement, and maybe some of your money, I intend to put Florida under new management.”

Update: Director of Equality Florida, Nadine Smith issued the following statement: "I disagree with all candidates of both parties who do not respect full legal equality for LGBT families including equal protection under our country'smarriage laws. "

Darrin McGillis, also a candidate in the Democratic Primary has expressed that his position is for FULL Marriage Equality. His campaign website is McGillis4Governor.com

Arizona’s Immigration Policy Would Not Have Stopped the 9/11 Hijackers

There has been a lot of blabber from the right-wing lately about how THEIR style of immigration reform is needed “in a post-9/11 world”.

That phrase, “post-9/11 world” is meant to imply that we now live in a more dangerous society than we did before. Thereby, right-wing pundits assert that new, tougher and more radical immigration reforms are needed – including Governor Jan Brewer’s controversial reform in Arizona.

The debate over Arizona’s new immigration policy can be framed in one of two ways. The right wing of American politics contends that we are losing jobs, security and quality of life due to excessive immigration (mainly from Mexico but not limited to that border).

The left wing argues that we lose more jobs from corporate outsourcing and that our immigration policies pose no particular threat to our security or quality of life – that those are false perceptions based in racism and classism. Furthermore, those on the left believe that better national security will arise from a uniform Federal immigration reform, as opposed to each state choosing their own immigration policies as Arizona has done.

So let’s take a quick look at this phrase that has become popularized within the right-wing media and see if it holds water… Sorry to spoil the surprise, but the answer is NO.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report and numerous Congressional Inquiries, all 19 hijackers who are commonly known to have been the perpetrators of 9/11 were in possession of the required documentation in Arizona’s new code.

None of the 9/11 Hijackers were known to have crossed the Mexican/United States border by foot and few of them even spoke broken English. They had even taken classes with large numbers of other foreigners on how to speak with American dialects, appear more American and blend into American society.

All the hijackers had visas, passports, and photo ID’s. All the 9/11 hijackers’ information was verified by the Concordance system prior to boarding their flights.
The Arizona Immigration Bill (SB1070) does not include any provisions which would require additional scrutiny in obtaining work visas or immigration status. It does not require any additional checks or procedures for national or state security in the process of obtaining citizenship or an identification document.

The Arizona Bill is primarily a set of laws which restrict LEGAL citizens from having any contact or collusion with illegal or undocumented workers. For instance, an Arizona citizen can be charged with a misdemeanor for knowingly or unknowingly giving an undocumented worker a ride in their car. The language of the bill encourages regular citizens to be “watchdogs” or “vigilantes” in the sense that it stiffens penalties for citizens who are found to have “reckless disregard” for another person’s immigration status.

The bill is very poorly written and unconstitutional at best and does absolutely NOTHING to prevent terrorism or to strengthen national security. SB1070 serves only to encourage distrust and skepticism amongst Arizonans based on race, class, employment and income.

Photo: Jan Brewer (R-AZ) and Sheriff Joe Arpaio (R-AZ) celebrating Pakistani Day 2006 with Arif Kazmi. Joe Arpaio is one of the most controversial characters in law enforcement. He has created prison camps in Arizona which are softly referred to as “tent cities” in which prisoners suffer in 120 degree heat and has been scolded by human rights advocates for digitally recording the daily activities of prisoners and putting these images on the internet for all to see – without knowledge or consent from the prisoners.