Press as Reality

The Poor Man makes a good point about the Bush administration's approach to the Iraq war:

Here’s my little translator’s key to this emerging talking point: Republicans attach incredible importance to media criticism of the war, because they genuinely believe that the war is won and lost IN THE MEDIA. The American media, that is. Their partisan selves are so thoroughly embedded in the culture-jamming electioneering of the Rovist personality cult the GOP has become that they genuinely don’t recognize the difference between actually achieving peace and a non-doomed secular democracy in Iraq, and just being able to plausibly claim that peace on American TV.

I think this is correct, but I would take it a step farther: this media strategy is the standard response to almost every serious problem. For instance, you might recall that after being told that "America is under attack", Bush sat in a Florida classroom for seven minutes before taking any action. But can you remember what action he took first?

But even after he left the classroom, he didn't call the Pentagon. He didn't ask if there were other aircraft hijacked or missing. Instead, he and his staff worked on a statement to the press.

Ken Mehlman gives us another example of this mindset. Speaking about Rathergate:

“It also, frankly, gave us an opportunity, frequently, when things came out in the media that we didn’t believe or didn’t like, to say, ‘It’s another CBS story,’” said Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, who was the president’s campaign manager. “I mean, it gave us a serious response to bad news.”

But of course, that's not a serious response to bad news, that's a clever response, a response that tries to change the subject. Now, that might be a good strategy if all you want to do is to alter the way people talk about bad things, but it's a horrible approach if you actually want to do something about those bad things. Mehlman's inability to distinguish between the two is telling, and sadly, all too common.