The authors' stated premise is that "Over the past couple of decades, the Republicans have benefited enormously from their ability to create and disseminate false narratives through the Right’s large, well-financed media apparatus." As a result, they contend, "American voters often go to the polls believing things that are almost the opposite of the truth." THey then detail, in an excerpt from their book Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, one such case study from Election 2000. The piece is marred in some respects by obvious bias and the use of negative, loaded language.

It's important to keep the media honest and point out media failures from the past. This piece is successful at doing so. However, it's done in a very partisan way/one-sided, using language that is counterproductive. Several time the author states his opinions as if they were facts.

Good background about the disinformation policy of Cheney-Bush and a lesson for all. It's been a frustrating seven years for those of us who saw through Bush about the time of the Bob Jones debacle before the 2000 election. Throughout those years, every time an outrageous disinformation campaign was launched: WMD, Mission Accomplished, torture. war on terrorism--the list goes on and on--I thought now, finally, the American people are going to rise up in protest at such outrageous affronts to intelligence. But each time I was doomed to disappointmen--Americans remained complacent and accepting as ever. Thus, we have received what we deserved.

The attack here is truly on the 4th estate. The research that one would expect from journalists is shown to be lacking. Whether that is complacency on the part of journalists due to the attitude of "another Clinton screwup" or whether it is just plain lazy of them not to investigate further from the FUD from the Cox report is unknown. In a republic where the electorate is limited to the news they can get from the mainstream media -or, perhaps worst, a secondary media that requires rigor in reviewing everything that is said and researching it ourselves we clearly are in peril. Either we succumb to the apathy of ".. no one knows what is going on or they are all lying" or we check out of the voting process as we can not tell what ... More »

The story presents an interesting bit of history on the intentional misinformation about scandals. If we are informed from the past, we are less likely to be fooled again in the future.