The Clinton propaganda machine

Jack Shafer:

Politicians don't call it dissembling, deceiving, or lying. They call it media management, and no administration has practiced this black art better in recent times than that of President Bill Clinton. In his 1998 book, Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post describes how, after the disastrous first half of the first term, the Clintonites learned how to stage and contain the news by "alternately seducing, misleading, and sometimes intimidating the press."

Kurtz continues:

[W]hat the White House press operatives did was to launder the news—to scrub it of dark scandal stains, remove unsightly splotches of controversy, erase greasy dabs of contradictions, and present it to the country crisp and sparkling white.

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The Clintons learned the importance of knowing how to take a punch, but more essentially, they learned how to change the subject and how to selectively use the White House megaphone to drown out negative stories. Clinton chucked mini-initiatives into the media air, where they worked like chaff to flummox the news radar of the press corps. He and his spokesmen stayed on message to control the agenda, sidetracking unwanted questions with quick, disdainful responses. The goal was to "manage the news, to package the presidency in a way that people would buy the product," Kurtz writes.

The Hillary Clinton propaganda machine employs none of the engineers who worked for her husband, but it applies the same techniques, as well as some held over from her Little Rock days. For example, earlier this week the New York Times reported the skill with which Hillary Clinton's campaign has co-opted its former "nemesis," Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report.

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What is really interesting about the media reaction to this management is the lack of outrage. They keep giving the Clintons' credit for being so skillful at "news management" and deceit. Don't expect much to change with Clinton 2.0. You can already see it on the campaign finance scandals that are peculating to the surface. If anything they are getting even less attention this time around. It reminds of one of their favorite scandal ruses--"that is old news."