I am surfing through news articles and headline says, “GOP opens 'war room' at Democratic convention." What did I tell you? National Republicans have set up shop in Denver, hoping to thrust themselves into the media's coverage of the Democratic convention. The GOP effort includes a "war room" and media center less than a mile from the convention hall and making top Republicans such as Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney available for press conferences and satellite interviews to television stations across the country, especially in swing states.
If the Democrats aren't going to be accorded the same privilege at the Republican Convention, then Democrats need to put a stop to the Mainstream Media allowing Republican operatives to set up their attack-central at their Democratic Campaign Headquarters with the purpose, what else, being able to INTERFERE with and TWIST media coverage of the Democrats' message, by their usual rapid-attack insertion of ”the McCain version” of Democrat talking points.
In the name of “balance” (a la Karl Rove) the press plans to let the Republicans rain on the Democrats' show and be there at every turn to water down what Democrats want to get across to the public using their
neo-con hacks to horn in and tell the public how to interpret what is happening there with the GOP's pre-packaged, outrageous dirty-double-dealing-trash talk with which to obfuscate and lie about the Democrats' policies and plans to fix the mess that they, the Republicans have made of this country.
Now the obvious question is, is this free speech? Does anyone think the GOP will let Democrats do this same thing when THEY, i.e., the Republicans, have their convention? Not on your tintype. If the press is going to allow the Republicans access to their coverage of the Democrat convention, then they need to also guarantee that Democrats will have access to their coverage of the Republican Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
As it is, the Republican have the advantage in this election debate, because they get to go last, chronologically, before the Fall elections a couple months from now. You can bet the Republicans will try their best to shut out and block Democrats from setting up any kind of similar ‘war room” a couple of blocks from THEIR convention. And you can bet they will howl loud and long to try to intimidate the press away from allowing Democrats into the television coverage of their talking points when they no longer are interested in "balance" as the Republicans unleash their 'message' of more of the same corrupt government and attacks on Democrats at their convention.
Just as there has been a media cover-up so far of John McCain’s true nature as right winger and not maverick; his broken promises not to run a negative campaign (nobody remembers those promises except a few Democrats) and his constant gaffes, misrepresenations, red herring 'issues', slander and double-standard hypocritical criticisms of Barack Obama that he daily, almost hourly launches. You bet there will be, somehow, an IRON-CLAD blackout of Democrat objections or 'analytical input' into the press coverage of the drumbeat of sleazy half-truths, untruths, false claims and attacks on Democrats that will be going on at the GOP convention when the national spotlight will be on Republican speakers who will loudly trumpet their party's non-stop prevarication, covered gavel to gavel by eager television newscasters, radio commentators and newspaper reporters covering the Republican Convention
Democrats are already being subjected to attempts by John McCain to interpret for them the 'raw deal' that Hillary is supposed to have gotten, in an attempt to sow mischief and dischord among the ranks of those disappointed that Hillary didn't get picked to be Vice Presidential running mate by Barack Obama.
The Democrats' every move is already being parsed, analyzed, 're-interpreted' and disinformation is rife already in the pre-Convention coverage about who is angry at whom, yada yada yada.The Democrats won't be allowed to simply speak for themselves and won’t be able to make their points unhindered to the listening public without their covearage being bastardized by GOP editorializing via 'invited GOP experts' who will sit in on talking-head 'analyses' of what the Democrats just said and did...the public can't figure that out for themselves.
So as the Democratic Convention opens, the press is already set to allow open season on the Democrats’ delegate strategies, on their legitimate grievances against 8 years of Republican malfeasance and failed policies and open season on key Democratic points that ought to be allowed to be aired
uninterrupted in their entirety, without being peppered with McCain propaganda every time a Democrat opens his or her mouth. God forbid that the public be allowed an unfettered view of what the Democrats think about America’s economic distress and what they propose to do about it. Instead, we will get more canards launched, more distractions from issues and more name-calling from the Republicans, who will be hot to throw the American people off the Democrat message. Instead, every little nuance that is said will have to be parsed, re-framed and harped on so that we stupid morons out here in everyday-land will be able to 'rightly' interpret what Democrats 'really' are saying. .
By letting the one-sided GOP sneak-thieves into their favorite vehicle for propaganda, the so-called ‘news-maker interview’ with key Republican propagandists, John McCain will be able to interweave his sculpted attacks and half-truths into the workings of the Democratic speeches, and this will effectively water down coverage of the Democratic message, that is, unless the Democrats are, in turn, at the Republican Convention, allowed to have the same ‘news-maker-interviews’ of their own to be inserted so as to 're-interpret' the Republican 'message'. Has anyone ever seen Democrats accorded this equal privilege during the Republicans' time in the spotlight? I never have. It has been a one-way street, so far in most news coverage. .
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