Palin and Biden; Politics and Message Management

Sarah Palin held her own in the first VP debate with Joe Biden, but message management dominated objective reality. That bodes ill for the future. For what it's worth, overwhelming political devotion to message management brought us to our current situation. I don't care which side you're on, Republican or Democrat, because both sides have spent too much of their time in the White House and the House and Senate managing their respective messages and not near enough time taking care of the business of this Nation.

Message management is all about worldview and, not only convincing others that one's own worldview is the best interpretation of current and past events, but also keeping the people on your team from straying from that interpretation. The problem with message management is that too many of its practitioners actually begin to believe their own world views, even when objective reality is rearing its ugly head and taking big chunks of flesh out of various asses. Now, if the only chunks being removed were from the asses of the message managers, there would be no problem. Unfortunately, when objective reality goes on a feeding frenzy, Joe and Joanna Sixpack (to quote the folksy and down-home Governor Palin) lose a few pounds from their backsides.....and not in a good way.

Message management is usually enforced by the senior advisors to a President. Message management sometimes is promulgated by so-called statesmen. Message management results in the Iran Hostage Crisis. The convenient view, expressed by practitioners of Message Management, was that the President was ill-served by the Intelligence Community about the potential consequences of allowing the Shah of Iran into the United States for medical treatment. The objective reality is that several working groups within the Intelligence Community wrote analyses stating that allowing the Shah into the U.S. would result in extraordinarily bad consequences for Americans in Iran. The prevailing view among the Message Managers was that those analyses were wrong, that no one would dare harm Americans for fear of military reprisal. The Message Managers included the inner circle of President Carter, as well as an outer circle of respected statesmen from the Republican side, a former Secretary of State, a former Congressman/CIA director, and a former Secretary of Defense. Guess which view prevailed? Guess what the Message Managers did when Objective Reality bit the U.S. keester in the form of the storming of the American Embassy, the taking of hostages, and nearly a year and a half of superpower humiliation? They blamed the guys who predicted what the reality would be for not warning the President. Pretty funny, considering that the Message Managers usually are the ones who determine what information makes its way to the Oval Office.

Message management results in Vladimir Putin re-energizing the Russian Bear and thumbing his nose at the President, even though the President had looked into Vlad's ("I call him Vlad, the President said) soul and said he saw a good man and a friend in democracy. Was Condoleeza Rice, at the time National Security Advisor and widely acknowledged (among the Message Managers, at least) Russia expert asleep during that meeting and the writing of that speech? Most Russia experts were laughing themselves silly over that remark by the President. Then, they went to get a few drinks, because they knew that the Message Managers were in charge and that Objective Reality was lurking around the corner for the chance to dine on ass.

Message management results in encouraging premature elections in the Palestinian territories, because "democracy is on the march". Objective reality is Hamas being elected to power in free elections. The Message Managers never saw it coming, because in their worldview Hamas was, and still is, a terrorist organization. The Objective Reality was, and still is, that the average Joe Pot of Tea in the Palestinian territories believes that Hamas was, and still is, a freedom-fighting militia that also builds schools, hospitals, and food warehouses. It doesn't matter what Joe Sixpack America thinks about Hamas when George Sixpack Bush pushes for free elections in the Palestinian territories. Joe Sixpack doesn't have a vote. Once again, the people who don't have a worldview and a message to manage were warning about the probable outcome based on observation of objective reality at zero ground, but they didn't have a voice at the table, because the Message Managers were in charge.

Message management results in the smug attitude that the surge in Iraq has worked. Got some news for ya: it is highly doubtful that people who can't even pronounce Iraq correctly are in tune with the multi-faceted cultural dynamics on the ground in Iraq that will determine whether Iraq becomes a shining beacon of democracy in the Middle East, a partitioned mish-mash of ethnic warfare, or another brutal dictatorship doing the bidding of Iran. Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, or the United States. It can go either way. The surge did accomplish its military objective, but pay damn close attention to the military commanders because almost every single one of them has stated continuously that Iraq has no military solution. Iraq's salvation will only arise from the political ashes. The Message Managers believe that the ethnic infighting has halted. It hasn't. Baghdad is a conglomerate of walled off neighborhoods, boundaries marked by ethnic membership. Neighborhoods that have been cleansed along ethnic lines. The American-backed Sunni militias are about to be incorporated into the Shiite security forces of the Iraqi government. Some of them will be incorporated. Some of them will be left out. Does anybody really believe that the ones left out are really going to give up their weapons? Would Joe Sixpack? Throw in the unresolved Kurd problem in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, and the Saudi money and weapons flows to the Sunnis and you've got yourself one whole big mouthful of Objective Reality sitting around waiting for digestion.

Message management tells us that the desire for freedom will prevail. Really? Would anyone argue that the great experiment in freedom has a strong and fluorishing home here in the United States? I wouldn't. So, how come, when Bin Laden's minions killed our fellow citizens, who were exercising their freedom in the land of the free, we willingly allowed the Message Managers to gut our most precious document, the Constitution, and submitted to the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act? I'll tell you how come.....We pay too much attention to the Message and not enough attention to what's really going on.

I think we're still paying attention to the Message Managers. And I'm worried that the Message Managers are fixed on their own worldview and not paying attention to Objective Reality. I may be a big ass, but you betcha I'm really getting tired of losing chunks.