The midterm election campaign is now in full swing, and with Democrats looking at historic losses in Congress, the folks at the New York Times did their job by publishing a front page hit piece on House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Oh.) Sunday:
He maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nation's biggest businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS.
They have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns, provided him with rides on their corporate jets, socialized with him at luxury golf resorts and waterfront bashes and are now leading fund-raising efforts for his Boehner for Speaker campaign, which is soliciting checks of up to $37,800 each, the maximum allowed. [...]
The woman he hopes to replace, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, derided him on Friday as having met "countless times with special-interest lobbyists in an effort to stop tough legislation" that would regulate corporations and protect consumers. And the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, through a spokeswoman, charged that he "epitomizes the smoked-filled, backroom, special-interest deal making that turns off voters about Washington."
So marvelous a hit job was done by Eric Lipton that Obama's Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sent four consecutive messages on Sunday to his 93,000 followers on Twitter:
Politico's Mike Allen decided to "retweet" one of Gibb's messages to his 36,000 followers:
Allen followed this with a tweet of his own concerning Boehner:
Gibbs must have liked that and retweeted it himself:
So, you can see how this campaign is going to work now:
- The White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and/or Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will send their talking points to "news" outlets like the Times
- "News" outlets like the Times will dutifully echo such talking points
- The White House, Pelosi, and/or Reid will broadcast the "news" to all that are interested
- "News" outlets like the Times will dutifully echo such broadcasts.
This is the state of "journalism" in America today.
As Doug Ross noted Sunday, "[T]he White House doesn't even realize that its open collaboration with the Times' anonymously-sourced hit pieces -- disguised as 'news stories' -- is downright embarrassing."
Indeed.
