A Guide to Media Manipulation, Republican Style

In recent years the GOP has turned the technique of making hay from their opponents' words into a reliable formula for success -- with a few distortions and a little help from the media, of course.

Paul Waldman | August 29, 2007 | web only

After he lost the 2004 presidential election, it looked as though, like many who had been in his position before -- Adlai Stevenson, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey -- John Kerry might take one more shot at reaching the Oval Office four years after falling short. But then on Monday, October 30, 2006, the local NBC affiliate in Los Angeles aired a story on Kerry's appearance that day at a campaign event. The story included a clip of Kerry delivering what quickly came to be known as the "botched joke," in which what was intended as a dig at President Bush's history as an inattentive student and all-around nincompoop came out sounding like an allegation that American troops are uneducated.

One hour later, a popular conservative talk show host in Los Angeles played the clip on his show, complete with the absurd yet predictable allegation that Kerry was intentionally maligning America's brave troops. At 2:34 a.m. Eastern time the next morning, a link to the clip appeared on the Drudge Report. At noon that day, Rush Limbaugh led his show with a discussion of the botched joke. That evening, ABC, NBC, and CBS all led their national newscasts with the story. The next day, Kerry announced that he wouldn't be doing any more campaign appearances before the midterm elections. Whatever slim chance he had at becoming his party's presidential nominee a second time had vanished completely.