The Daily Show calls itself “a fake news show,” but it often does what the “real” news shows won’t. It documents how what people on news shows try to pass off as “spontaneous and unrehearsed” (as the opening of Meet the Press used to put it) is really planned and scripted at Talking Points Central. The Daily Show will give a quick montage of clips in which different people on different shows all use the same unusual word or phrase.
Last night it was “dithering.” A series of right-wingers, culminating in Dick Cheney, all accuse President Obama of “dithering” on Afghanistan.
Slide to 3:37:
It was just like the old days, when The Daily Show would string together clips from Bush Administration figures and right-wing commentators all using the same key words. But then, the statements all came on the same day, so the central direction was obvious. (I mean, it was obvious to Daily Show viewers, not to viewers of “real” news programs.)
The popularity of dithering may be more a case of contagion than planning. Note the dates of the O’Reilly and Cheney clips, more than two weeks apart.
Dithering is not a frequently used word. Lexis-Nexis shows only 27 instances in TV news transcripts for the first nine months of the year. The first use in connection with Afghanistan comes on September 24 – on Australian ABC, but the speaker was from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. So it’s likely that dithering represented one idea of how to attack Obama. That idea took hold.
Over the course of the next month, dithering begins to reverberate. Republican senators use it in hearings in early October, TV news people bounce it back, and right-wing commentators start yodeling it loudly.
They are changing the rationale for why we are in Afghanistan. What’s really going on here is a dither, a big dither, indecisiveness. (William Bennett on CNN, Oct. 18)
And finally the Cheney quote on Oct. 21 that is echoed in every news story about that speech.
The White House must stop dithering while America’s forces are in danger.
Quite possibly, Cheney’s speech was written by someone at the American Enterprise Institute or someone else in that neo-con circle. Still, I don’t see the dithering as a matter of “talking points” distributed by the RNC. Instead, it’s an example of what I mentioned in another post – a word (dithering, issues) that spreads because it just sounds “right,” at least to certain people.
I expect that the dithering life cycle will be mayfly brief. Issues to mean problems was slower to catch on, and it may hang around for a good while.
Comments 22
duclo — November 18, 2009
dithering is also used in audio editing, here's an interesting explanation that also includes navigational WWII info
http://www.users.qwest.net/~volt42/cadenzarecording/DitherExplained.pdf
Kevin Baker — November 18, 2009
You need to listen to Rush Limbaugh (yes, I'm serious) as he does this same thing on a fairly regular basis. As rarely as I listen to him, I can recall at multiple incidents of this. The most memorable was during the 2000 election when it seemed that every single talking-head in the news was using the word "gravitas" in connection to Cheney's selection as VP.
"Dithering" may be uncommon, but "gravitas"? Seriously?
Groupthink is not something that is exclusively Right-wing, and it seems that the Media (which I see as Left-leaning) does it far more commonly than do those on the Right.
a — November 18, 2009
Aside all of this humour news nonsense and corrupt politics of USA. Is it not such a great thing that USA cannot handle its own actions? Not to mention wars and as a result of this now UN is a war waging party in this yank conflict. Yes, the global community now has blood on its hand because of these yanks. UN should have no role in this crisis but as we know american vocabulary does not include such word as "responsibility". We all know that in the end they will leave Afghanistan crisis for the global community and flee back home like rats they are. It is just a matter of time. And money, because all a yank understands is money. And perhaps oil, too, as we know in Iraq.
I kind of tend to sympathise with the Afghan guerillas, even though I ideologically disagree with the in everything. But at least these people are honestly fighting for the things they believe in unlike yank soldiers that get enlisted because of benefits and salary. Such is the nature of the yank. Murder and pillage for money.
But what is the thing that sets apart a heap of garbage and a yank? -Garbage gets taken out in a plastic bag but yank returns home in a plastic bag. That is the elemental difference.
wondering — November 18, 2009
"Dithering" was quite popular in Canadian right-wing commentary, used to describe Liberal PM Paul Martin (aka "Mr Dithers"). It worked so well that they keep trying to resurrect the term to go after subsequent Liberal leaders.
Very interesting that it is now popping up in the US media.
VinceP1974 — November 18, 2009
For a blog such as this that sees sexism everywhere.. I'm surprised there has been no mention of the dehumanizing attacks by the Left on Sarah Palin.
Does your political bias trump your concern about sexism?
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