Posted on 2-4-2002
The
Smoke Machine
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times
Modern political economy teaches us that small, well-organized
groups often
prevail over the broader public interest. The steel industry
got the tariff
it wanted, even though the losses to consumers will greatly
exceed the
gains of producers, because the typical steel consumer doesn't
understand
what's happening. "Blinded by the Right" shows that the same
logic applies
to non-economic issues. The scandal machine that employed Mr.
Brock was, in
effect, a special-interest group financed by a handful of wealthy
fanatics
— men like the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, whose cultlike Unification
Church owns
The Washington Times, and Richard Mellon Scaife, who bankrolled
the
scandal-mongering American Spectator and many other right-wing
enterprises.
It was effective because the typical news consumer didn't realize
what was
going on.
The group's efforts managed to turn Whitewater — a $200,000
money-losing
investment — into a byword for scandal, even though an eight-year,
$73
million investigation never did find any evidence of wrongdoing
by the
Clintons. Just imagine what the scandal machine could have done
with more
promising raw material — such as the decidedly unusual business
transactions of the young George W. Bush. But there is, of course,
no
comparable scandal machine on the left. Why not? One answer
is that for
some reason there is a level of anger and hatred on the right
that has at
best a faint echo in the anti-globalization left, and none at
all in
mainstream liberalism. Indeed, the liberals I know generally
seem unwilling
to face up to the nastiness of contemporary politics.
It's also true that in the nature of things, billionaires are
more likely
to be right-wing than left-wing fanatics. When billionaires
do support more
or less liberal causes, they usually try to help the world,
not take over
the U.S. political system. Not to put too fine a point on it:
While George
Soros was spending lavishly to promote democracy abroad, Mr.
Scaife was
spending lavishly to undermine it at home. And his achievement
is
impressive; key figures from the Scaife empire are now senior
officials in
the Bush administration. (And Mr. Moon's newspaper is now in
effect the
administration's house organ.) Clearly, scandalmongering works:
the public
and, less excusably, the legitimate media all too readily assume
that where
there's smoke there must be fire — when in reality it's just
some angry
rich guys who have bought themselves a smoke machine. And the
media are
still amazingly easy to sucker. Just look at the way the press
fell for the
fraudulent tale of vandalism by departing Clinton staffers,
or the more
recent spread of the bogus story that Ken Lay stayed at the
Clinton White
House.
Regular readers of this column know that not long ago I found
myself the
target of a minor-league smear campaign. The pattern was typical:
right-wing sources insisting that a normal business transaction
(in my case
consulting for Enron, back when I was a college professor, not
an Op-Ed
columnist, and in no position to do the company any favors)
was somehow
corrupt; then legitimate media picking up on the story, assuming
that given
all the fuss there must be something to the allegations; and
no doubt a
lingering impression, even though no favors were given or received,
that
the target must have done something wrong ("Isn't it hypocritical
for him
to criticize crony capitalism when he himself was on the take?").
Now that
I've read Mr. Brock's book I understand what happened.
Slate's Tim Noah, whom I normally agree with, says that Mr.
Brock tells us
nothing new: "We know . . . that an appallingly well- financed
hard right
was obsessed with smearing Clinton." But who are "we"? Most
people don't
know that — and anyway, he shouldn't speak in the past tense;
an
appallingly well-financed hard right is still in the business
of smearing
anyone who disagrees with its agenda, and too many journalists
still allow
themselves to be used.
I found "Blinded by the Right" distasteful, but revelatory.
So, I suspect,
will many others.
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