If Frank Luntz Falls in the Forest and There's No One There to Report on It... Does It Make a Sound?

I learned during the Reagan years that you can't make people care about what they don't care about.  People by and large did not care about Iran-Contra, and nothing anyone said or did made them. The Republicans learned this too, because people didn't care about the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and they couldn't make them - Bill Clinton's approval ratings remained high throughout the impeachment process, and he remains a much-loved former president today.

But both those issues got media coverage (even if I believe that the latter got way too much and the former, too little). It always bites to see a story that seems loaded with importance and impact get utterly ignored by the mainstream media.

There are plenty of examples of this, but the one that's making my head hurt today is the lack of coverage being given to the  leak  of Republican pollster Frank Luntz's so-called "playbook," a guide to how Republicans can appeal to voters not by moderating their positions or policies, but by changing the words they use to talk about them.

For example, in a memo that leaked out two years ago,  Luntz advised Republicans to stop using the phrase "global warming" and instead use "climate change," because "while global warming has catastrophic communications attached to it, climate change sounds a more controllable and less emotional challenge." In other words, call it something else but for heaven's sake don't DO anything about it.

This is also the reason that all the Republicans suddenly started talking about "personal accounts" instead of "private accounts" or "privatization" in discussing Social Security. It's why they started calling the estate tax "the death tax."

This document is huge, but the good citizens at Political Strategy have broken it up into bite-sized pieces for you. Since the mainstream media isn't going to tell you about it anytime soon (although they are clearly a major part of how these twisted words get out into circulation - or perhaps because of that), you can read it in ten parts here. Or read progressive   commentary over on Daily Kos or Think Progress. Or maybe take a look at Luntz in his own words in a transcript from PBS' Frontline.

Just don't ignore it. Don't be manipulated by it. Don't let your brain get caught on Frank Luntz's hook.

Comments

[bruce]

This is indeed an important issue; the deceptive use of language. I call it lying, I guess others call it "strategy". But like you say, its just an excuse to avoid acting on the problems.