It has been reported extensively in everywhere (even this blog) except the Mainstream Media that White House
national security adviser for strategic communication (fancy term for professional liar) Ben Rhodes is the brother of CBS News president David Rhodes. No administration in history has monopolized the news media as successfully as the current one. There are no close seconds.
If you are interested in the original source, click
here:
However, The NYT outdoes itself for, well, whatever it is it does.
Like Obama, Rhodes is a storyteller who uses a writer’s tools to advance an agenda that is packaged as politics but is often quite personal.
Obama the storyteller? Like the false narrative that he was born in Kenya or one of the 37 "material discrepancies" found in his autobiography?
When I asked Jon Favreau, Obama’s lead speechwriter in the 2008 campaign, and a close friend of Rhodes’s, whether he or Rhodes or the president had ever thought of their individual speeches and bits of policy making as part of some larger restructuring of the American narrative, he replied, “We saw that as our entire job.”
Gee, I thought it might be something like securing peace and prosperity. Barry is restructuring the American narrative, is he? Now his job doesn't seem so tedious.
In this environment, Rhodes has become adept at ventriloquizing (emphasis added by blogger) many people at once. Ned Price, Rhodes’s assistant, gave me a primer on how it’s done. The easiest way for the White House to shape the news, he explained, is from the briefing podiums, each of which has its own dedicated press corps. “But then there are sort of these force multipliers,” he said, adding, “We have our compadres, I will reach out to a couple people, and you know I wouldn’t want to name them — ”
“I can name them,” I said, ticking off a few names of prominent Washington reporters and columnists who often tweet in sync with White House messaging.
Price laughed. “I’ll say, ‘Hey, look, some people are spinning this narrative that this is a sign of American weakness,’ ” he continued, “but — ”
“In fact it’s a sign of strength!” I said, chuckling.
“And I’ll give them some color,” Price continued, “and the next thing I know, lots of these guys are in the dot-com publishing space, and have huge Twitter followings, and they’ll be putting this message out on their own.”
What is interesting about the NYT "profile" is that the writer seems to admire the subject as he describes the antics of the sleaziest bastard this country ever produced.
Rhodes’s messaging campaign was so effective not simply because it was a perfectly planned and executed example of digital strategy, but also because he was personally involved in guiding the deal itself.
Can we get this slimeball an award? Any award? Isn't there a Scumbag Hall of Fame he can get inducted into?
I need a shower after reading that BS. But one parting quote from Rhodes.
“I don’t know anymore where I begin and Obama ends,”
Given the context of tailored falsity, that is an amazingly accurate quote.
If you are not of strong stomach,
here is a nice summary:
Rhodes concluded during the Iraq war—not the one his White House is currently overseeing, but the previous one—that Washington foreign policy decision-makers from both parties, whom, along with their helpers in the press he calls “the Blob,” are “morons” for whom he maintains “a healthy contempt.”
This contempt is evidently shared by his boss: hence the mind-meld, or at least an important element of it. Senior ex-administration officials express frustration and perhaps some confusion about how they got railroaded repeatedly by Rhodes and his allies in Obama’s inner circle.
As with Lois Lerner and Jonathan Gruber before him, one wonders why someone who has beaten the system would publicly admit to their high crimes, misdemeanors or flimflam. Probably because they are so damn proud of their cleverness that they just have to brag.
I heard Howard Kurtz on Fox News stating that there will be a journalistic backlash for the insults Rhodes hurled at the fourth estate. Nonsense! Tonight the DC pubs are packed with forlorn Jimmy Olsens crying in their Chardonnay. "What must I do to make my master love me?" Keep trying, Jimmy. Keep trying.
