YAY!!!!!!

How did you imagine one achieved victory in a war? I'm all ears.

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So what was your intended point on the last page where you allege us "turkeys.. are being jerked around by" our "chain"?

You are at the receiving end of a sophisticated marketing operation. The marketed product in this case is the war in Iraq, more broadly the "war on terror", or presently in the specific, progress in the war.

Consider Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch, Cindy Sheehan or Jack Abramoff. All these stories packed a whallop in great part because they personalize and simplify the abstract or the complex.

Conversely, when something goes bad or wrong, you will want to flip this over and depersonalize - make the personal into the abstract and complex. You don't see caskets because that personalizes soldier deaths...bad for marketing the product. You don't see photos of blown up people because that personalizes those Iraqis or Americans. Abramoff becomes a depersonalized abstraction - everyone is corrupt.

Your administration is not dumb about this stuff (the first TV marketing guru was brought into the Eisenhower administration to manipulate perceptions). Consider the instances where an individual or family or a mother etc is brought forward into the PR limelight. Consider the instances where they are kept out. Fox has done how many interviews with Sheehan or the Tillman family?

So, Zarqawi becomes a handy personalized demon to replace Sadaam and kids. The real complexity of the insurgency falls out of view.

And that's why the cheers here are probably more significant for what they tell us about the marketing of the war and the credulity of you folks rather than about any positive change - which will be suggested ("turning a corner") but which is predictable fascade worked out in a multi-million dollar media center.

Consider the media's constant fixation upon publicizing the negative news out of Iraq, and virtually ignoring (in comparison) all the positive, and the natural effect that has upon the public's view of the war effort.

I'm not blind to the effect the media has upon public perception. Consider the media's constant fixation upon publicizing the negative news out of Iraq, and virtually ignoring (in comparison) all the positive, and the natural effect that has upon the public's view of the war effort. There's your sophisticated marketing operation: it's the media, and it ain't overly populated with conservatives on the whole. You won't be happy unless/until the only thing(s) being reported is/are negative, and that's because you are against the war. Thus, when a sucessful operation takes out Zarqawi, you can claim it's a good thing (perhaps because you view him as evil), but you know the effect of the operation does not further your goal of constant negativity coming out of Iraq, and thus your displeasure.

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Consider the media's constant fixation upon publicizing the negative news out of Iraq, and virtually ignoring (in comparison) all the positive, and the natural effect that has upon the public's view of the war effort.

You mean like Fox News.... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,199754,00.html

tico said

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I'm not blind to the effect the media has upon public perception. Consider the media's constant fixation upon publicizing the negative news out of Iraq, and virtually ignoring (in comparison) all the positive, and the natural effect that has upon the public's view of the war effort. There's your sophisticated marketing operation: it's the media, and it ain't overly populated with conservatives on the whole. You won't be happy unless/until the only thing(s) being reported is/are negative, and that's because you are against the war. Thus, when a sucessful operation takes out Zarqawi, you can claim it's a good thing (perhaps because you view him as evil), but you know the effect of the operation does not further your goal of constant negativity coming out of Iraq, and thus your displeasure.

Well, that's fairly silly. "the media's constant fixation on publicizing the negative" when what we are discussing is the coverage of Zarqawi's death which was in every paper and news show for days. Not to mention the coverage of the final poliical appointments in Iraq. Etc.

What I want reported is the truth and all of it. I want to see color photos of blown up children and american soldiers. I want to see all the documentation covering discussions leading up to the war. I want access to military investigations of military wrong-doing.

Not "fairly silly" at all -- you must not have noticed my inclusion of the words "in comparison." The media is quick to point out the number of dead US servicemen in the war -- was the lead on last nights local TV news -- but don't hype many of the military's successes. They jumped all over the Haditha report. But hardly ever report any US successes. It is disingenuous for you to claim otherwise.

The coverage of the final political appointments in Iraq was hardly made into a big story. That's a fine example of the short shrift given to successes in Iraq.

And then when the media does fixate -- momentarily -- upon a US success (Zarqawi), it doesn't make you pleased.

What you want is the war to end, and the US to cut-and-run, and you think publication of gruesome photographs will further that goal. Thus, it appears you would like to exploit the media to achieve a goal you find laudable.

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Not "fairly silly" at all -- you must not have noticed my inclusion of the words "in comparison." The media is quick to point out the number of dead US servicemen in the war -- was the lead on last nights local TV news -- but don't hype many of the military's successes. They jumped all over the Haditha report. But hardly ever report any US successes. It is disingenuous for you to claim otherwise.

The coverage of the final political appointments in Iraq was hardly made into a big story. That's a fine example of the short shrift given to successes in Iraq.

And then when the media does fixate -- momentarily -- upon a US success (Zarqawi), it doesn't make you pleased.

There is one sense in which your argument matches reality. The press, particularly the modern press driven by the demands of large corporate bodies whose fundamental demand is for profit levels, will commonly cover the sensational. A bomb gets page one and the mended road gets page 59.

But suggesting ideology is at play here is just uneducated and simple-minded. It holds true in all coverage (sports, celebrities, crime) and if the dems were to gain power in 2008 and be responsible for managing this war, the media will do just exactly what they are doing now as regards what they cover.

I don't want to exploit the media, you dipshit, I want it to tell us the truth and all of it.

I imagine that were you a vegetarian (what am I saying ... you probably are a vegetarian ...) you might advocate taking news cameras into packing plants for a series of exposes on sausage being made ... all in the interests of "honesty and transparency," but with the primary goal of furthering your interests ... because you had made a value decision that sausage was a bad thing.

There's a reason gruesome photos aren't often shown to juries, and that's because showing the photos just to display the gory depictions might tend to prejudice the members of the jury and cause them to not base their decision upon logic and reason, but rather their inflamed emotions. The question is whether the evidential value of the photos outweighs their prejudicial effect. Yes, war is hell, and bodies are mutilated in the process ... but that does not mean -- in and of itself -- that the particular war is not right, just, or appropriate, no matter how opposed you are to it.

Yes, I understand that there are those who believe that because war is hell, no war is ever right, just, or appropriate. These people are usually called liberals, would prefer to not live in the real world with the rest of us, and have no business ever being in charge of this country's national defense.

Your courtroom analogy isn't appropriate here, as I expect you may understand. To smoke, to eat meat, or to instigate/promote a war are each willful decisions with consequences to your own and others' lives. To sit on a jury is not.

Ticomaya wrote:

Setanta wrote:

Ticomaya wrote:

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Yes, war is hell, and bodies are mutilated in the process ... but that does not mean -- in and of itself -- that the particular war is not right, just, or appropriate, no matter how opposed you are to it.

Gross misrepresentation--people who oppose wars usually, and in the case of the war referred to here, certainly, precisely because they assert that the war isn't right, isn't just and is inappropriate.

Yes, I understand that there are those who believe that because war is hell, no war is ever right, just, or appropriate. These people are usually called liberals, would prefer to not live in the real world with the rest of us, and have no business ever being in charge of this country's national defense.

Another silliness or lack of integrity. Who here has made such a claim?

The point I'm making is that making weighty decisions, such as to determine whether a criminal is guilty or not, or whether to instigate/promote a war, is rarely best made by those with inflamed emotions.

The point I'm making is that making weighty decisions, such as to determine whether a criminal is guilty or not, or whether to instigate/promote a war, is rarely best made by those with inflamed emotions.