Want to avoid issues and substance? Want to smear a political opponent? Distract media attention from scandal, corruption or unpopular policy? Here are some techniques you might consider (Public Relations Firm not included ...):

The Mighty Wurlitzer

This is a CIA technique, which falls under the category of 'psyops,' or psychological operations. If you've been to an old baseball park, you may have heard an organ playing those obnoxious, repetitive jingles to get the crowd worked up while the players are spitting tobacco, adjusting their uniforms, or taking their 35th practice swing (here learn it yourself!). The wurlitzer organ has a huge sound--it was overwhelming. That's the idea of the mighty wurlitzer--big booming noise, coming from all around, repeated as needed to get the point across, difficult to tell where the source is. Have something you want to leak to the press? Start with the Wall Street Journal, call up Rush Limbaugh or Matt Drudge or someone from the NY Times and supply the talking points, schedule someone to be on the Sunday news shows, produce a TV commercial, call up your friends at the Washington Times, or try to talk syndicated columnists into writing an editorial. Use GOP team leader, a website that can spam editorials to local newspapers.

Robert Borosage's article provides a good description of the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings, and the smear campaign that was targeted at Anita Hill, who reported some rather unseemly encounters with Thomas in a work setting. Republicans essentially used every friend and outlet they had to try to smear Anita Hill as a liar and a nut, because they didn't want anything to derail the nomination of Thomas, one of the most conservative Supreme Court justices in quite some time (epilogue here).

Repetition and saturation are the keys--repeat your message, preferably the same message, over and over, in as many different types of media outlets as possible. It doesn't have to be true or verifiable--just get it out there. Here's how the Pentagon used propaganda on the Iraq end of the equation, to attempt to 'control' Iraqi media, hire PR consultants to write articles, and generally make sure, using lots of money, that media coverage was favorable. Stateside, the propaganda was voluminous, and effective. For example, there are three gross misperceptions of the Iraq War and surrounding events that were perpetuated (still were in 2007 by the White House) in the media and by powerful supporters of the war:

1. There was a Saddam/Al Qaeda connection, so War in Iraq was justified as part of the war on terror;
2. Saddam and Iraq were involved in 9/11;
3. The Weapons of mass destruction (WMD)--the reason the U.S. invaded Iraq--because of the imminent threat--have been found.

A Pentagon insider has described how the effort to 'cook' the intelligence worked to support invasion. Even after one year after the start of the war, according to the a respected polling center at the University of Maryland:

• 57% of public believed there was a pre-war Iraq al Qaeda connection. This makes little sense--bin Laden hated Saddam, because his government was secular, not Islamic. It's unlikely Saddam, a tinpot dictator (but a genocidal maniac as well), would want to share power with bin Laden.
• 45% believed evidence of Iraq/al Qaeda connection was found. Again, not true.
• 20% believed Iraq was responsible for 9/11. Patently untrue. None of the highjackers were from Iraq--most were from Saudi Arabia, a country whose leaders share close ties with the Bush family (read House of Bush, House of Saud in your spare time if you're interested).
• 15% believed 'experts' disagree with Iraq/Al Qaeda connection (82% believe experts agree). Most experts actually believe that there is no Iraq/Al Qaeda connection.

Again, any White House has great power to use the news media. Anything a president does is news.

The generals' revolt and the Pentagon's pushback

More recently, in 2006, we learned about how former generals were farmed out to news networks, after meeting with Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and receiving the 'talking points' to sell first the Iraq invasion, then the 'surge.' Then they went after the generals who were dissenting (the so-called 'generals' revolt'). We discussed this in the news filtering part of the course. But it's also a classic example of the Mighty Wurlitzer--75 generals sent out to do the Secretary of Defense's bidding through talking points on network news, without any critical questions being asked by reporters. The goal was to saturate news media with a unified argument and talking points repeated ad nauseum, to give the appearance first that these generals represented a small fraction of opinion within the department of defense, second that they were all retired (why didn't they speak up when they were active?), in an effort to discredit them (what's the opposite of source credibility?). While they were a small fraction, many of them had been stationed in Iraq or the Middle East and were familiar with conditions there, as opposed to someone running a base in South Korea, Guam, or Chad, for instance. The counterattack was fierce, several of the generals were 'retired' early or had their ranks reduced. The larger issue of civilian and military decision making was ignored by the media.

So what, you say? The public is misinformed on lots of things. Why are the above any more important? Because they formed the basis for public support for the war. People supported it because they thought there was a tie with terrorism. They were led to believe Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat. Why are perceptions of experts important? Because 72% who believed the experts who claimed Iraq had WMD said they would vote for Bush. Of those who believe there were no WMDs-74% would vote for Kerry, 23% for Bush. In other words, the White House support hinged somewhat on people believing that the U.S. was in Iraq because it was an imminent threat, and had ties to terrorists. None of this was proved, and much of it disproved. In addition, only 41% were aware that world public opinion was opposed to the war; 59% thought either they were supportive, or it was evenly balanced. Less than half the American public believed that the majority of the world was opposed to the war and U.S. occupation (which it overwhelmingly was).

So why, you might ask, didn't the White House come out and clearly state that there was no uncontested evidence to support any of these assertions? Why in fact did officials continue to try to make connections between al Qaeda and Iraq, and speak of WMDs as either irrelevant or still hidden somewhere, long after the invasion? The bigger question may be, why do so many people harbor these misperceptions, even years after? Because of the Mighty Wurlitzer, perhaps--they've been repeated in the press, in various outlets, over and over, for the last 2 years. They have created an illusion that there was a consensus among the 'experts' over these issues.

Here's an interesting figure: of all the corporate news outlets, those who watched Fox News were by far more likely to believe at least one of the 3 misperceptions. Of those who didn't believe any of the three misperceptions, only 23% say they would vote to re-elect Bush in the fall. So belief was critical to the Bush/Cheney re-election chances. Here's a compliation of many of the unproven claims of the Administration.

The Mighty Wurlitzer. Remember it. It'll be on the test. Mighty Wurlitzer. Test. As seen on TV, heard on talk radio, and etched somewhere in the recesses of your subconscious.

More techniques

Guilty by association

• Saddam and al Qaeda--no proof of any substance, but don't tell that to the Weekly Standard. The important thing, from a PR standpoint, is to be able to continue to put 'Saddam' or 'Iraq' and 'al Qaeda' in the same sentence.
• Obama and terrorists. Tying Obama the candidate to William Ayers, now a college professor, in the 60s a radical. Just ask Bill O'Reilly. This story was covered on and off for months on Fox.
• McCain and Bush. Obama's campaign ran ads tying candidate McCain directly to President Bush, whose approval ratings when he left office were in the low 20s.

Spin and Twisting truth

Some good ones from Bill Press' book on spin:

• George Stephanopolous, former Clinton spokesperson: 'A good spinner like a good lawyer: you highlight the facts the help your client's case and downplay the ones that don't. When the facts are unfavorable, you argue relevance'
• He took a public perception that 'Clinton is boring', because he could drone on incessantly about policy nuances, to 'specificity is a character issue this year.' In other words, droning on incessantly is specificity, and if you can't do it, you're uninformed on the issues.
• Bush: He avoided questions about alcohol and cocaine addiction by 'running a campaign on 'ideas and philosophy'.Some more examples:
• Democrats said 'Bush is stubborn' and refused to change course in Iraq, republicans said 'he was showing leadership in the war on terror to make unpopular but necessary decisions'.
• Clinton, when confronted with smoking pot, said 'I didn't inhale (technically he never broke the law, in other words). He also said "I've never had sex with that woman" (Monica Lewinsky, and he was defining sex as intercourse, which reportedly he avoided though they clearly had a sexual relationship)
• Bush is a leader (the governor of Texas is a largely ceremonial position), a businessman (whose companies have all lost money, while he has made millions). He also characterized 20 years of alcohol and drug addiction, until age 40, as 'youthful indiscretion.'

Attack the messenger-the White House smear machine (ad hominem attacks)
The Bush/Cheney White House mastered the ability to avoid the facts, and instead focus on the person delivering them. Attack the messenger, avoid the message.

A general smear tactic is to question someone's patriotism, call him/her partisan, or accuse them of self-interest (just selling books, for instance). In a collective sense, this has been the strategy for responding to critics of the war in Iraq. Here is a list of smear campaigns from the Bush/Cheney White House, provided by Sourcewatch.

The intentional leak

This is from Cathie Martin, wife of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, and good friend of Dan Barlett, White House advisor, who works in the White House Communications Office (and recently testified in the Valerie Plame leak case):

But Martin, encouraged by Libby, secretly advised Libby and Cheney on how to respond. She put "Meet the Press" at the top of her list of "Options" but noted that it might appear "too defensive." Next, she proposed "leak to Sanger-Pincus-newsmags. Sit down and give to him." This meant that the "no-leak" White House would give the story to the New York Times' David Sanger, The Washington Post's Walter Pincus, or Time or Newsweek. Option 3: "Press conference -- Condi/Rumsfeld." Option 4: "Op-ed."

Martin was embarrassed about the "leak" option; the case, after all, is about a leak. "It's a term of art," she said. "If you give it to one reporter, they're likelier to write the story."

There are always 'leaks' from the White House. We're meant to believe they're unintentional, someone is talking who shouldn't be. Often times they are intentional campaigns to spread rumors or stories that would hopefully bounce around the media 'echo chamber' without people realizing their source:

Jessica Lynch, in an interview after her media ordeal, said "Yeah, it does [bother me]. It does that they used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff," Lynch said, "I mean, yeah, it's wrong ... I don't know what they had ... or why they filmed it." White House aide Karl Rove tried to sell pictures to Larry Flynt of her 'frollicking with two soldiers' in Texas before deployment. Flynt realized it was an attempt to smear her, and refused to publish them.

Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq (who was a strong critic of the White House's rush to war), Marine Corps officer: He found himself subject to criminal charges (later summarily dismissed) of improper chat room communications with an undercover cop, posing as a minor, on the Internet. He was accused of pedophilia. Not only was the case dismissed by a New York State judge, but the transcript was ordered sealed, the usual response when unfounded charges are brought against a person. Still, two years later someone mysteriously unsealed the transcript and leaked it to the press. Who has the power to take such action?

Joseph Wilson, former ambassador, who revealed that the rumor that Iraq had tried to purchase enriched uranium from an African Country was entirely false, had his wife 'outed' as CIA operative after the White House leaked this information to Robert Novak, conservative columnist. Novak refused to divulge the source--leaking a CIA agent's identity can be a treasonous offense. Novak's role was never made public, though two journalists who refused to print the story were threatened with jail time for not revealing their sources. One, Judith Miller with the NY Times, actually served time. Miller's coverage of the war for the New York Times was called into question, as was her uncritical use of official, powerful sources in her reporting. She later left the paper.

John Kerry-it was leaked in the Drudge Report, after he became the Democratic primary frontrunner for the 2004 campaign, that he had affair with a staffer (who was working in Kenya at the time this came out). Drudge claimed that half a dozen news outlets were investigating the allegations against Mr Kerry, but most of them denied doing so. Drudge's phony rumor was busted by the British press, not the American press. . . In the run-up to the elections, there was an attempt to smear Kerry's war record, with a propaganda campaign called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. George W. Bush's military record, which had been in question for some time, was not a major issue in the campaign. However, Dan Rather was likely forced into early retirement because of a botched story about Bush's Alabama Air National Guard Record, even though the contours of the story have never been challenged (ad hominem, anyone?). That's flak for ya.

Al Gore--Democratic candidate for president in 2000, he was accused of having claimed to have 'invented the internet' (he actually said that he 'took the initiative in creating the internet'-he meant that he supported, spearheaded funding to develop it). Also, he told a reporter that he read that author Eric Segal based the characters in Love Story on Gore and his wife, Tipper. It was true--he'd read the story, but conservative columnists and talk show hosts had claimed he was being petty, had delusions of grandeur, and was a liar. This kind of distortion of his personality received a great deal of press in the 2000 campaign. Here are more examples of smears and misrepresentations against Gore in 2000.

In Spring 2008 the attack on Scott McLellan began. McLellan was a former White House press spokesperson, who came out with a book highly critical of the Bush/Cheney White House and the campaign to persuade the American public, via mainstream commercial media, to support an Iraq invasion. The smear campaign tried to paint McLellan as disloyal, as 'disgruntled' (hmm . . . maybe even postal??), Karl Rove called him a 'left-wing blogger,' but the substance of his remarks were not revisited by the White House--there was little defense, mostly offense and attacks on McLellan's character (often couched as 'disappointment' or 'shock' or 'disbelief').

Ad hominem attacks are effective when they destroy the credibility of the messenger. They are deceptive to the extent they do so while avoiding the substance of the message.

Democrats were especially prickly because he was replacing retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall, an icon of the Supreme Court and civil rights. Thomas played the race card, and Hill's testimony was forgotten at the time. Thomas' mistress has since given interviews that would seem to confirm some of the allegations Anita Hill made. The story went . . . . nowhere. And while it is ancient history, if true, it also would mean that a Supreme Court Justic perjured himself in his nomination hearings.

Bill Press. 2002. Spin this. New York: Atria.