Treacherous Republican wordsmith/pollster/spinman Frank Luntz sinks to new depths in pretending to offer “advice” for the Democratic Party in a condescending little screed posted at Huff Po on Sunday.
I’ll let you make what you will of the bulk of his self-serving nonsense. But setting aside Luntz’s apparent inability — rather transparently, I’ll add, for someone whose business is supposedly language — to keep himself from using the pejoratively intended “Democrat” when he means “Democratic,” I’ll focus on only one major point.
For a man who damned well understands the importance of words he sure did manage to drop one huge rhetorical and literal LIE smack-dab into the middle of his editorial. He writes:
Of course, that’s not “exactly” what Boxer said to Rice at all. Nor is it even close to what she said. What she said was EXACTLY:
Further, Luntz twists his disingenuous knife by adding:
Speaking of “cheap shots”, if Luntz doesn’t know by now that the phony non-incident he describes as having “made even the most hardened Washington insiders cringe” is little more than the Luntzian creation of White House spokeshole Tony Snow as aided and abetted by both the wingnut media and the NYTimes then he shouldn’t be allowed in public, much less on Huff Po.
For the record, we covered the disingenuous brouhaha from the get-go as it sprang from a call we made for a Congress member to ask the White House about the casualty estimates for their Iraq “surge plan” (a Luntzian turn of phrase if we’ve ever seen one). As it turns out, they didn’t bother to make any. Or so Condi claimed during the Senate hearings. (More relevant links to the notable points in our coverage are below.)
Shame on Luntz for purposely misleading readers. Shame on Huffington Post for giving a platform to an out-and-out liar. I don’t care how much undeserved “celebrity” the man can claim, nor how much “the other side” should be heard from. If “the other side” is going to simply lie, then there is no reason that anyone, much less Huffington Post, should give them a platform to do so.
UPDATES:
- To HuffPo’s credit, they have cross-posted this blog item.
- BRAD BLOG Guest Blogger Alan Breslauer calls to our attention one of his blog items from last summer highlighting a video clip of Luntz demonstrating yet more disingenuousness, along with Alan’s personal observations of Luntz who was both a professor of his and, apparently, a frat house drinking buddy…
PREVIOUS RELATED BRAD BLOG ARTICLES:
- Brad Calls on Congress to Ask White House About Casuality Estimates for ‘Surge’
- Rice Claims White House Made no Casualty Estimates for Troop Escalation Plan in Response to Boxer’s Senate Inquiry
- NYTimes Ignores News, Falls for White House Spin on Boxer/Rice Exchange
- Washington Times Outdoes Them All in Misreporting Boxer/Rice Exchange
- VIDEO – Finally! A Media Outlet CORRECTLY Covers Rice Admission That White House (Supposedly) Made No Casuality Estimates for Iraq Escalation Plan
In response to the lying and the fake outrage spewed forth on this matter by the right wing, why hasn’t somebody simply responded, “So what’s wrong with not having any kids?” Personally, the way I behaved in college, I consider the fact that I can claim that status to be one of my singular accomplishments. What century is this? Why on earth would being childless in this day and age be a stigma of any kind? This is patriarchal crap, and not only does the right wing get immediate political play by screaming and crying, they also get to reinforce the supposed “normalcy” of their world view. Boxer was showing more respect for Condi as a complete human being than are those who are presuming that Condi is sadly unfulfilled because she doesn’t have dependents. (I’m sure Condi is sadly unfulfilled, but that’s mostly because she is hysterically anxious and emotionally desperate to please those she considers her superiors.)
Frank Luntz’s fake polling and word smithing, (along with other people like Dick Morris), have given us more brain damage then could be caused by three straight decades of breathing airplane glue. I guess that’s why Chris Matthews thinks Luntz is a genius of high order. When you think of these guys, just see the run down wagon filled with miracle elixir’s behind them in your mind. It’s there.
Boxer is being attacked because she is about to cause real trouble for the polluting corporations. If she had come into the senate and said “have a nice day”, they would have turned her into a traitor.
Let the personality wars begin … during the real wars that are on the horizon … double down.
Bush is winning the personality war … no one, not even Nixon, is going to get the low mark (New Poll). Bush rules!
The “words = concepts” argument is a little stale now. I think your take on condescending tone from Luntz is right—a little like ElderBush saying to his opponent “let me help you out a little” with this-or-that topic. I think it was Geraldine Ferraro he sought to assist in that conversation and his gallantry led a legion of women to abhor and despise him and his spawn.
I have posted elsewhere another article on odd words that have crept into our political vocabulary offered as deceptive substitutes for “straight talk” (or how about the gentler “plain-spoken”—yes, that’s much better isn’t it? The Plain-spoken Express!).
See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/b...a_b_39280.html and learn about the positively Rovian employment of the word “hydrocarbon”–designed to go head-to-head with Al Gore’s version. Al couples ‘hydrocarbon’ logically and fluently with thing words like ’emissions’ to come up with An Inconvenient Truth. Rove deploys ‘hydrocarbon’ as a thin-veil for “oil” and “conquest” and “Shell,BP and Exxon”—-oh yeah, and “Iraq” and “legal contract” and “escalation”. And that “framing” of the word yields a concept called “strategic interest of the United States”. Fancy that.
“Frank Luntz is a Liar”
How about “Frank Luntz is a putz” (probably already been coined)
Why don’t the Dems start setting ‘them’ up with attack points in their speeches as a joke ?, pretty soon everyone will get it eventually and ‘they’ will go away
Will someone PULEEZ tell me why all these rightwing neo-con’s are all so creepy looking? wtf??? This guy looks like a zombie! Maybe when you’re ruining the country with propoganda, it somehow takes a toll on your looks.
Huffpost is a blowhole, I can’t stand the way they handled 911 truth – pretend there is no room for debate. They are an Internet version of the MSM, albeit a largely progressive incarnation.
This site is where the real 21st century journalism is. Brad’s blog allows us the reading public a true forum, rather than filtering out posts that don’t support its point of view. The so-called media could learn a lot from Brad. Heck, they could learn a lot from a journalism class.
Brad I want to thank you for all you’ve done and continue to do. I applaud your efforts and wish we were all half as brave and one quarter as driven as you seem to be.
I didn’t mind that they let Luntz publish his blog entry. It exposed his self-delusions for all to see. It provided a communication channel for readers to respond to his behavior. So, I see it as therapeutic in a way for HuffPo readers.
Any venue we can use to point out the covert-aggressive manipulation tactics of Luntz and the rightwing is invaluable. Shine a light on what they’re doing and watch them scurry away into the cracks.
For more info on covert-aggression, see the 2nd comment here:
Don’t You Smell a Rat? How Republicans Deftly Shift Our Focus
– Tom
3 comments:
1. Is this Luntz guy high on goofballs in this picture?
2. HuffPo stinks.
3. There is no #3.
4. If you’re complextion is as white as a vampire, here’s a tip from your Uncle Dan: Don’t wear a Jack Abramoff black suit and turtle neck!!! It doesn’t go! All he needs is the Black Spy vs. Spy hat, like Abramoff.
Brad, I thank you for pointing out that we can’t let our guard down, not even for an instant. It would be a good idea if we correct the way “those people” use words. I guess they do make their own reality.
The verbal exchange between Barbara Boxer and C. Rice was professional and civil. Boxer was entitled to an answer that was relevant to the issue, Rice should have had a meaningful answer – that is, IF SHE WERE DOING HER JOB. That’s the point “they” do not want to highlight. By their reasoning, go after Boxer.
I’ve never seen a picture of Luntz before. He’s Eddie Izzard’s twin!
http://maculato.pardo.ch:81/onl...es/h/h3967.jpg
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-con...6/06/luntz.JPG
I tried to post a comment to that story on HuffPo, but they didn’t publish it.
I asked why Arianna chose to give top billing to a story by Luntz at a time when the Dems are hard-put to defend themselves for having taken impeachment off the table and vowing to continue funding the war.
I’d be interested in knowing if Arianna pays for feature stories on HuffPo, as Luntz doesn’t seem to me to be the type who writes for free.
Whenever the Dems come under criticism, they need only trot out a greater evil Republican, in order for their loyal followers to forget that the Dems have voted for everything the Republicans wanted.
I don’t know if the Democrats and/or Arianna actually paid Luntz to write his article in order to deflect some of the current pressure on the Dems to do the right thing now that they have a majority, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
What I said in the comment that they didn’t publish, was that they don’t have the Republicans to kick around any more, and that they should start taking some responsibility for their own actions.
Shame on Arianna indeed, Brad. Top billing should have been given instead to an article by a Democrat who opposes torture, opposes continuing to fund the war, favors impeachment, and exhorts other Democrats to do the same. Maybe they couldn’t find a Democrat willing to criticize other Democrats, and they don’t like legitimate criticism of Democrats, so they brought in a Republican liar with phoney criticism that they could more easily respond to.
Mark S asked:
He may not be working for free. But it wasn’t Arianna paying him. I write for Huff Po as well, and nobody (other than editors, etc.) gets paid. At least as far as I know.
So you may see the above article as my biting the hand that doesn’t feed me 😉
Sic ’em, Brad! 😉
Here’s the type of article that HuffPo should give top billing to if it has any decency and any shame:
Oops, the link didn’t work.
try this
MSNBC’s Hardball program is an instrument of the Luntz organization to create “research” for the Repuglican cause. I participated as the lonely “Liberal” in a number of Los Angeles”Town Meetings” where Luntz provided a cross-section of Republican boosters from LA and OC during the RECALL CAMPAIGN of CA Gov. Gray Davis. Luntz is a danger to us ALL. He helped ARNOLD run my state into the ground.
RAVEN:
I saw one of those phony polling shows. I can see why they aren’t having them anymore. Wasn’t doing MSNBC any good. Very transparent mind manipulation.
It is a mystery why fans fawn over the Luntz propaganda toolbox. It only has two tools: red herring, and big lies.
See Luntz deploying both on C-SPAN in this documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuiy6oyk56U