One of his links is to a post at the conservative blog A Small Victory. Here's one quote that caught my eye:
...the left [has] glommed onto Sheehan's grief as if it were some magic potion that would miraculously make all their dreams of getting Bush out of the White House come true. She's their panacea, the be-all and end-all of publicity stunts, an icon ready made for media and the furthering of agendas. Sheehan is the savior of the anti-war cause. The only problem with being a savior is the likelihood that you'll end up dying on the cross they nailed you to.
Now, beyond the overheated rhetoric, I think there's a point of substance there. It's shocking how well those on the Left can quickly organize around a Sheehan, or a Downing Street Memo, and yet... for what? It seems as if there's no sense of grand strategy or endgame in these political maneuvers. I suggest taking a page from the other side's playbook and develop an easily understood argument that can be encapsulated in a phrase or two and repeated ad infinitum. For example, your average Joe doesn't know or care about "Downing Street". And if it takes fifteen minutes to explain a British memo about Bush's determination to fix intel on Iraq around a predetermined policy to invade, well, Buckwheat, you've already lost the political game. The left should stick to short points which resonate with moderates and put the other side on the defensive. (Luckily, I suspect the Plamegate scandal is shaping up in a way that will be invulnerable to even the most hapless framing by the Dems.)
Why do you think, whenever LA's coastal erosion issue arises, I keep harping on the $100 million Bush requested for restoring Iraqi wetlands? That's the frame, because it provides a winning political context for any further argument. And when the game is fixed in your favor, you need to play it at any possible opportunity.
Here's a simpler example: Say a dim moderate voter is watching you argue with a wingnut. Wingnut says: "freedom isn't free". Your response shouldn't begin, "Well first I think we should harken back to Rousseau's famous quote... blah blah blah... Downing Street explanation blah blah." The dim moderate has tuned out long ago, and will only retain the wingnut's simplistic statement.
Take two: same situation. Wingnut says: "freedom isn't free." Your response: "freedom isn't dumb, either". Dim moderate chuckles, and starts thinking about Bushco's stupidity rather than simple feel-good truisms.
Somerby understands this point about winning frames-- perhaps better than anyone. Here are some of his recent thoughts, which I'll quote at length:
What did that phrase from the memo really mean? It's hard to tell, and we don't have a tape of what "C" really told Tony Blair. But if you know how to read a book [Woodward's Plan of Attack], it's easy to see that the Bush Admin was "fixing the intelligence" soon after that memo. And by the way, it wasn't just the nukes that were being "fixed." On September 26, 2002, Bush restated his "new unequivocal charge" about WMD-- the one he'd adopted, for the first time, two weeks after the Downing Street memo. And when the great war leader spoke, he pimped another phony tale, too. Treat yourself to a mordant chuckle as Woodward gives Tenet's reaction:
WOODWARD (page 189): Repeating the new unequivocal charge about Iraq's WMD programs he had adopted three weeks earlier, Bush said, "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons. The Iraqi regime is building the facilities necessary to make more." Ratcheting up another notch, he added, "And according to the British government, the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order were given."
Tenet and the CIA had warned the British not to make that allegation, which was based on a questionable source, and almost certainly referred to battlefield weapons-- not ones that Iraq could launch at neighboring countries, let alone American cities. Tenet referred privately to this as the "they-can-attack-in-45-minutes-shit."
So according to Woodward, Bush was soon out there talking "shit" about this other scary matter! By the way, where was Bush's National Security Adviser while all this lunacy was occurring? Oh yeah! She was also out there talking "shit" too, about those scary aluminum tubes. None of this is any big mystery. You just have to read Woodward's book.
These are some of the simple facts about the Bush Admin's "fixing of intel." Liberals who want the truth to be known should be reciting these points almost constantly; instead, they've spent their time in the past six weeks staring at the Downing Street memo, trying to mind-read its pithy constructions. But then, liberals and Democrats have constantly failed to make a good case about this theme-- about the way the Bush Admin went out there and faked the intelligence. At this time, your liberal and Democratic elites are almost impossibly inept when it comes to framing messages. And this unfortunate trait has been on display when it comes to the faking of intel.
Did the Bush Admin fake the intel in the wake of the Downing Street memo? Of course they did; they began to scare us silly about Saddam's nukes, grossly misstating the intel to do it. But this is not what liberals say when they discuss this theme on TV, where voters might actually learn from their work.
...
We can't explain why our current lib/Dem elites are so intellectually lazy. It has now been several years, but they keep repeating this hopeless meme-- and going down in flames when they do. The conversation is hopeless but constant. Here is the way it works:
LIBERAL/DEMOCRAT: Bush lied when he said there were WMD!---
MODERATOR: But Clinton/Gore/Kerry/Dean all said the same thing.
LIBERAL/DEMOCRAT: Yes, but what I really hate is when Bush or Powell said [move on to different complaint]...
Exactly. Forget DSM and the "famous" 16 words (unless you can find the author of the forged memo upon which it was based); instead, why doesn't everyone know about Bush's claim (made on a pres. radio address, I believe) that Hussein could launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes! I sure as hell know that Clinton/Gore/Kerry/Dean never tried to sell us on that hysteria, which CIA Director (and Medal of Freedom awardee) Tenet described as "shit". Nor did they try to sell us on the model airplanes misting anthrax, nor the mushroom clouds, nor the aluminum tubes.... Why didn't Bush have to apologize and retract this false, shitty "45-minute"claim?
The publicity surrounding Ms. Sheehan's grief and protest goes for naught if liberals can't make an anti-war case that resonates with the rest of America. Merely saying "Bush lied" does not a case make.
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Another note: Bush's incendiary "Bring'em on" comment (among others) is eternal political gold, and quite literally cannot be over-emphasized.
This (+1) could prove handy, as well.
