Striking Back: "Stalking Satan's Mistress"

[Me.]

Fire Dog Lake is suggesting we start striking back by fighting fire with fire. With all the wonderful researchers on DU, a terrific contibution could be made to taking down “Satan’s Mistress”. It’s a start.


“We have a mission. In the comments section regarding the Libby Defense Fund, Digby has this to say about the head of the fund, Barbara Comstock:

Comstock is key.

Here's a little excerpt from Josh Green's seminal article in the Atlantic called "Playing Dirty," about the 2000 campaign:

Political campaigns always attempt to diminish their opponents, of course. What was remarkable about the 2000 effort was the degree to which the process advanced beyond what Barbara Comstock, who headed the RNC research team, calls "votes and quotes"°Xthe standard campaign practice of leaving the job of scouting the target to very junior staff members, who tend to dig up little more than a rival's legislative record and public statements. Comstock's taking over the research team marked a significant change. She was a lawyer and a ten-year veteran of Capitol Hill who had been one of Representative Dan Burton's top congressional investigators during the Clinton scandals that dominated the 1990s: Filegate, Travelgate, assorted campaign-finance imbroglios, and Whitewater. Rather than amass the usual bunch of college kids, Comstock put together a group of seasoned attorneys and former colleagues from the Burton Committee, including her deputy, Tim Griffin. "The team we had from 2000," she told me recently, to show the degree of ratcheted-up professionalism, "were veteran investigators from the Clinton years. We had a core group of people, and that core was attorneys."

Comstock combined a prosecutor's mentality with an investigator's ability to hunt through public records and other potentially incriminating documents. More important, she and her team understood how to use opposition research in the service of a larger goal: not simply to embarrass Gore with hard-to-explain votes or awkward statements but to craft over the course of the campaign a negative "storyline" about him that would eventually take hold in the public mind. "A campaign is a lot like a trial," Comstock explained. "You want people aggressively arguing their case."cont…

“Your job, Jane, should you and all the Plameologists decide to accept it, is to put a stop to this evil harpy once and for all. She is Satan's mistress.”cont….

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/

[NVMojo]

1. TWO YEARS AGO, a GOP insider told me this was going on and this

was how it was being done by the GOP and everyone thought it was just Karl Rove. This person worked with the GOP several years ago when this started and dropped out of the party at the time because it was "all about smear" and nothing about real decent change for America.

[bostonbabs]

2. kick n/t

[H2O Man]

3. The dirtiest trick

that can be used against the republicans is telling the truth about them. It would be interesting to see if DU could organize some truth-telling campaigns designed to expose some republican weasals in the up-coming campaigns.

[Me.]

4. I Think It Is Becoming Essential

If we don't do it who will? The dems?

[mogster]

8. Aye. What I'm missing is a sense of common truth

The media doesn't agree about what the truth is (as they should) and at the DU, the truth may be found but it takes a lot of reading/participation. Which is very interesting ;-) but lack the breakthrough power for ordinary people not too interested in politics.

How come the rw can say 'Oh, those evil liberal media' while at the same time we say 'Media doesn't tell the truth anymore, because it's conservative'? It's because media today try to fill both needs, and thus the earth is flat in one article while round in another - from the same news outlet. Doesn't promote credibility and truth at all, and this spread-legged journalism may be the best proof of how extreme the world has become. The truth, or at least some part of it, is told, there's no doubt about that. But the momentum (which should have removed this administration long ago) exists no more.

Imagine Watergate buried on page 14/Section A4 - and with no one else picking up on it. Nixon would've been reelected instead of resigning back then.

Edit: typo

[satya]

5. We like to take the high road, trying to persuade rather than smear but...

sadly, it's the negative message that sticks. Mark Twain was right: "A truth is not hard to kill and a lie told well is immortal."

[Me.]

6. I Think Of It As Revealing The Truth

unlike swiftboaters who need lies, the truth and the revelations of their dirty deeds will do them in. But the truth apparently needs help to make it to the light of day sometimes.

[populistdriven]

7. We need to hold "Truth-Ins"

Republicans are invited

[Hamlette]

9. the "trial" strategy won't work with Dems because we can't

play by the script. Which is why we all have a love/hate relationship with the party.

They teach you in litigation courses: "Pick one theory of the case, one story, stick with it, repeat it over and over, never do a shot gun approach no matter which side you're on." I agree and it is what we are seeing with the GOP. It's like the GOP has become a religion...or family. You can dis it in private but never in public. I'm sure some republicans don't like Bush (how could they?) but they keep up the story line (strong leader) in public because they don't want to lose power. (Add to the mix the right wing noise machine which has turned liberals into monsters, quite literally, and they will do anything to keep us out of power.)

Of course Clinton did it in reverse. Remember: It's the economy, stupid. So instead of an coordinated attack like the right did, a coordinated message from our side might work.