Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth – Joe Conason
Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth – Joe Conason, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press (2003) 245pp. (S) ***
Big Lies was part of the tidal wave of works that constituted the class of 2003. That served as an answer to some of the more obnoxious screeds of the right, served up by the likes of Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage. It’s really unfortunate that this democratic return volley came as late as it did, that there weren’t more books like J.H. Hatfield’s Fortunate Son and Rick Abraham’s The Dirty Truth, works that sought to expose George W. Bush’s gubernatorial record and his failures as a businessman in the private sector. Now, we can only imagine how many other prospective voters such publications would have reached, even given the nasty (yet brutally effective) Bush information suppression machine.
What Joe Conason seeks to do is to explode some of the myths of right-wing ideology that have subsequently been filtered down through the corporate media, to finally become unquestioned truth. In discussing perceived media bias, Conason hits it on the head when he writes: “Complaining constantly about [liberal] bias [in the media] serves to intimidate journalists, enforce demands for favorable coverage and privileged access, and ultimately, to maintain the overpowering influence that conservatives now enjoy.”(p.34) It’s simply amazing what constantly crying victim can accomplish (even when your party controls all three branches of the federal government).
Where Conason goes wrong, however, is when he writes the following: “After two years of skewed tax cuts, destructive deregulation, and social regression, nobody doubts Bush’s conservatism.”(p.176) (Nobody, that is, except perhaps many conservatives.) Well, what is exactly conservative about passing tax cuts that break the treasury and land the federal government right back in deficit spending? One can advance several arguments as to why George W. Bush is not a conventional conservative. Among them to be included: the launching of war of aggression upon a weak and for the most part defenseless foe (that for the record, never attacked us), using a justification of disarming said foe of his imaginary weapons of mass destruction that have yet to manifest themselves, the trampling of civil liberties via statutes of the USA Patriot Act and warrantless wire taps, by a man whose 2000 campaign mantra was “I trust the people, not the government,” and finally, the adoption of a reckless fiscal policy that has only grown the deficit and the overall debt. This is just a start, but whatever the case, there is abundant evidence to suggest that at heart, George W. Bush is not a genuine conservative, whatever one may think bout his ability to be “compassionate.”
Because his book was published in 2003, Conason is unable to devote much of his analysis to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nor is he able to summon sufficient amounts of skepticism with regards to the Bush administration’s official line on the events of 9/11. (Again, without having the benefit of time, at one point, however, he quotes Karl Rove, Bush’s chief political consultant, “we can go to the country on this issue [the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent ‘war on terror’] because they [American voters] trust the Republican party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America.”(p.192) Never mind that the source of this quotation is a shameless chicken hawk, who is completely comfortable in helping to spin a war of aggression to the American people, a war predicated upon one of the worst national security and defense breakdowns in U.S. history while he was in power, furthermore, a war he knows he will never personally fight in, nor will members of his family. How do they keep getting away with it? Conason cites two truths: “In political campaigns, a lie backed by enough money effectively becomes truth.”(p.78) and “Appearance matters more than substance in contemporary [American] politics . . . ”(p.90) Though the cynicism is overwhelming, these two statements best explain how George W. Bush continues to beat the odds. The bigger the budget, the more shit that will fly and stick. What a sad, sad reality, indeed.
Big Lies was part of the tidal wave of works that constituted the class of 2003. That served as an answer to some of the more obnoxious screeds of the right, served up by the likes of Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage. It’s really unfortunate that this democratic return volley came as late as it did, that there weren’t more books like J.H. Hatfield’s Fortunate Son and Rick Abraham’s The Dirty Truth, works that sought to expose George W. Bush’s gubernatorial record and his failures as a businessman in the private sector. Now, we can only imagine how many other prospective voters such publications would have reached, even given the nasty (yet brutally effective) Bush information suppression machine.
What Joe Conason seeks to do is to explode some of the myths of right-wing ideology that have subsequently been filtered down through the corporate media, to finally become unquestioned truth. In discussing perceived media bias, Conason hits it on the head when he writes: “Complaining constantly about [liberal] bias [in the media] serves to intimidate journalists, enforce demands for favorable coverage and privileged access, and ultimately, to maintain the overpowering influence that conservatives now enjoy.”(p.34) It’s simply amazing what constantly crying victim can accomplish (even when your party controls all three branches of the federal government).
Where Conason goes wrong, however, is when he writes the following: “After two years of skewed tax cuts, destructive deregulation, and social regression, nobody doubts Bush’s conservatism.”(p.176) (Nobody, that is, except perhaps many conservatives.) Well, what is exactly conservative about passing tax cuts that break the treasury and land the federal government right back in deficit spending? One can advance several arguments as to why George W. Bush is not a conventional conservative. Among them to be included: the launching of war of aggression upon a weak and for the most part defenseless foe (that for the record, never attacked us), using a justification of disarming said foe of his imaginary weapons of mass destruction that have yet to manifest themselves, the trampling of civil liberties via statutes of the USA Patriot Act and warrantless wire taps, by a man whose 2000 campaign mantra was “I trust the people, not the government,” and finally, the adoption of a reckless fiscal policy that has only grown the deficit and the overall debt. This is just a start, but whatever the case, there is abundant evidence to suggest that at heart, George W. Bush is not a genuine conservative, whatever one may think bout his ability to be “compassionate.”
Because his book was published in 2003, Conason is unable to devote much of his analysis to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nor is he able to summon sufficient amounts of skepticism with regards to the Bush administration’s official line on the events of 9/11. (Again, without having the benefit of time, at one point, however, he quotes Karl Rove, Bush’s chief political consultant, “we can go to the country on this issue [the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent ‘war on terror’] because they [American voters] trust the Republican party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America.”(p.192) Never mind that the source of this quotation is a shameless chicken hawk, who is completely comfortable in helping to spin a war of aggression to the American people, a war predicated upon one of the worst national security and defense breakdowns in U.S. history while he was in power, furthermore, a war he knows he will never personally fight in, nor will members of his family. How do they keep getting away with it? Conason cites two truths: “In political campaigns, a lie backed by enough money effectively becomes truth.”(p.78) and “Appearance matters more than substance in contemporary [American] politics . . . ”(p.90) Though the cynicism is overwhelming, these two statements best explain how George W. Bush continues to beat the odds. The bigger the budget, the more shit that will fly and stick. What a sad, sad reality, indeed.
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