I'm frightened by our inability to maintain our focus - I'm not talking about laser like precision here - I'm concerned that we're unable to keep our eyes on the ball - even when it's a one on one game of 21 and you can't follow the basketball.
Our ability to lose sight of the plan has been amply demonstrated in the last ten days.
The first occurred with the great manipulation that was "The Path to 9/11." Yesterday Cyrus Nowrasteh had an op-end in the Opinion Journal, which was entitled "The Path to Hysteria." In it Nowrasteh went for the victim role. He argued that he has made films that have been considered ant-Republican, and thus it was grossly unfair that he was accused of being unfair to Clinton - it was an apolitical attempt at truth.
Whether the publicity run up to the show was concocted by Rove, or merely based on the personal greed of Nowrasteh, the clear plan was to rile up Democrats, and get them defending Clinton's behavior of a decade ago. The publicity we obtained for him was priceless, and had the added bonus for the right of bringing Monica Lewinsky back into the news, as well as a lot of fresh debate about Clinton's handling of Osama.
The dishonesty of the Op-Ed, like the publicity before the film's airing was infuriating, and because of our reaction - totally successful. In it Nowrasteh mentioned that they had "lawyers [who] scrutinized every detail, every line, every scene. There were hundreds of pages of annotations." You don't need a team of lawyers to help you tell the truth, and they are not the same as fact checkers - you use lawyers to find our how much lying you can get away with. The idea that the number of annotations is in any way indicative of truth went out the window the day that the stork flew in to deliver Ann Coulter. He also said that "much was made of my 'friendship' with Rush Limbaugh (a connection limited to two social encounters)" If he did not like the characterization of his relationship to Limbaugh, why'd he wait to clarify it? Why did Nowrasteh let Limbaugh's description of the film as a complete indictment of Clinton stand?
When Bush says of a Democrat - "I've heard that he stopped beating his wife" - do we have to go out everyday and argue before the press the he hasn't stopped? Do we have to fall for every trick in the book?
(Tomorrow I hope to provide additional examples, and some suggestions.)
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