Unleashing Hell

by digby

So I hear that Tim Griffin has abandoned his quest to become a fearless crime fighting lawman to go back to being the nasty dirty trickster he was born to be:

The Republican National Committee is hiring one of the party’s toughest oppo-researchers — former Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin, who was also at the center of the U.S. Attorney scandal — to dig into Barack Obama’s past and unearth info to damage his general election candidacy, a senior Republican operative confirms to me.

Griffin played a lead role in the GOP oppo operation during the 2004 campaign, unearthing info that damaged John Kerry’s presidential bid. According to the senior GOP operative, who’s familiar with Griffin’s past work, he was instrumental in unearthing a videotape of a 1971 interview that Kerry did in which he appeared to confirm that he renounced his medals to protest the Vietnam War.

The video was subsequently used in an ad by the Swift Boat Vets, whose work was renounced by McCain. The McCain campaign — and the RNC — declined to comment on Griffin’s hiring.

“Griffin is basically going to consult for the Republican National Committee on working out Obama’s vulnerabilities,” the senior Republican said, somewhat euphemistically. “The hope is to do to Obama what folks successfully did with John Kerry.”

If you want to see Griffin in action, you can watch Digging the Dirt the BBC documentary on oppo-research from the 2000 election. Here’s an article about the movie from Time magazine about it:

[T]he overwhelming coup of the film is the insight it brings to the Republican version of Carville’s War Room – the seething boiler room at RNC headquarters in D.C. where GOP Head of Research Barbara Comstock and Deputy-Head Tim Griffin ply a rough trade that has probably cost Gore the election.

The nasty secret of the 2000 elections is undoubtedly the enormous growth in the past four years of the people who “do oppo” the nickname for the innocuously titled “Opposition Research” departments in each campaign.

That both sides maintain teams dedicated to unearthing material on the other side is not new. What IS new is the intensity of the digging, the sheer breadth and depth of the search – and most of all the now seamless and instant deployment of the results through the spin meisters directly into the mass media.

In fact, the film reveals how much the media has come to depend on the Oppo research teams for material.

Where newspaper journalists and TV producers once conducted independent research of charges made by a campaign – that has now dwindled. That is because the media has become aware that the research offered by both sides is so intensively fact-checked and triple-checked that it can safely accept the word if offered by the oppo experts.

In the film we see RNC glee as AP accepts their oppo research on a Gore misstatement during the first debate. During their months of filming BBC producers also observed producers for NBC’s Tim Russert among others calling to enquire if the team had any new material. This was apparently normal trading on both sides.

RNC researcher Griffin comments in the film: “It’s an amazing thing when you have topline producers and reporters calling you and saying ‘we trust you…. we need your stuff.'”

The instances where such research – by either side – has proven to be false are very few in number. [really???] The backfire effect on the campaign that issues the material would be far too devastating. It is this that presumably gives the media its comfort zone.

So one might say that if the oppo research of both sides is so accurate – where is the harm in them disseminating and the media accepting the information?

The problem lies not in the veracity of the information per se – but in the significance and disproportionate magnification that is then placed on the information – and how its disbursement reinforces other themes in the campaign gameplans.

[…]

The program established its bona fides with the Bush campaign early in the year. Being a ‘foreign’ film crew from the impeccable BBC was the irresistible blandishment. Obviously without a dog in the race – the BBC were granted the sort of access that American journalists dream of.

But even more remarkable is the way the subjects react in front of the camera. They KNOW they’re being filmed. They KNOW that what they’re doing might appear sly and devious. And yet they can’t resist the lens. Like a team of art thieves in the Louvre heisting the Mona Lisa. Even though the snap might be incriminating – they can’t quite resist the lure of posing for a quick vacation Polaroid. “Me and Chuck heisting some old painting in Paris, France.”

And so – on the night of the first debate – we see a pumped-up Tim Griffin (deputy head of RNC Research) barking orders to his large team of “oppos.” Lehrer tosses Gore the question about him having cast doubt on whether Bush has sufficient experience to lead. Gore demurs and parses his response. Griffin leaps into loud action. Within minutes his team have tracked down an obscure Gore quote buried within the transcript of a lengthy speech. Gotcha! “It directly contradicts what he just said in the debate! He just lied!” crows Griffin. Seconds later Griffin has fed the contradiction to the Associated Press. This is beyond post-debate spin. This is play-by-play impeachment. And incredibly effective.

Moments later the topic is the Balkans. Gore speaks of how the First World War started there and says “my uncle was a victim of poison gas there.” The RNC oppo staff giggles at this and Griffin bellows: “This family stuff is killing me… let’s check his uncle! Let’s see if it’s Witt Lafont. He’s under investigation for drug-trafficking…” There is a flurry of activity and history books being consulted – and then palpable disappointment that Gore’s uncle really was a gas victim. “OK so that is not a lie…” Griffin grimaces and phones the bad news to a waiting colleague: “Hey… we confirmed the uncle tear-gas story….”

But when Gore makes what turns out to be his misstatement about visiting Texan fire sites with James Lee Witt (Director of FEMA) – Griffin senses blood. “Have Jeanette take a look at that!” he cries. And his hunch is right. Gore has transposed dates or people. And that gives Griffin another opportunity.

The BBC cameras catch him on the phone exulting to a colleague: “You know what this would be perfect for is… Get one of these AP reporters or somebody on it for the next few days and then we get a lie out of it… and roll a few days with a new lie!”

And “LIE” was what they got. The New York Post trumpets LIAR LIAR on its front page – and the post-debate spin cycle becomes about Gore’s perceived chronic character flaw. And so it has gone every week since the debates. The image is enshrined.

Was the fact that Gore DID visit Texan firesites – but on that occasion with another FEMA executive relevant? Did it matter that he had made other visits to Texas with James Lee Witt? Were Gore’s words a misstatement or a lie? What would have been the benefit in intentionally lying about such a trivial fact? Was it important either way?

To Griffin it is all very simple:

“If there’s something really good that we can attack on then we will… Research is a fundamental point. We think of ourselves as the creators of the ammunition in a war. Research digs up the ammunition.. We make the bullets.”

The enduring legacy of the 1992 campaign was the large sign in Carville’s War Room – bearing a phrase that subsequently entered the political lexicon. “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Behind Tim Griffin in the RNC Oppo Room, the BBC camera captures a large sign he has erected. “On my command – unleash hell on Al.”

I think that any of you who’ve read Somerby over the years know very well what a pernicious meme the “Gore lies” turned out to be — a character assassination of disparate “facts” to create a totally inaccurate narrative. There is no margin in thinking that just because your candidate is clean or has little history that he will not be subject to this treatment.

The press has been fairly friendly to Obama during the campaign, but I am convinced that it is only due to their pre-existing hostility toward Clinton and the permission they gave themselves to be sexist jackasses. But nonetheless, we certainly have seen some hints of what they are capable of: the Reverend Wright feeding frenzy puts us all on notice about how eagerly they will jump on any story they find sexy or stimulating.

They also eagerly fell back on the musty old “elite liberal” story line* with their silly attention to bowling and orange juice and the like. I have every reason to believe that Tim Griffin and the Party will come up with a dandy new anti-Obama narrative that the media will fall in love with.

It would be really great if, for once, the Democrats could do the same thing. Obama has a lot going for him on the positive side that will do much to mitigate whatever they come up with. And the GOP’s fear tactics are so tired and worn out that I really doubt they will have the same punch. The new media also dilutes the intensity of these story lines quite a bit.

But it’s a mistake to underestimate how good the Republicans are at this and how powerful a strong narrative can be. The press is torn this time out because they have been focused on their loathing of Clinton and have always worshiped McCain. But soon Pied Pipers like Griffin will be unleashing hell on Barack and the media kewl kidz will likely be following right behind him. In any case, it is better to be prepared for it than pretend it can’t happen.

*I hereby proclaim for all to see that yes, I did think that Clinton played into that “elite liberal” stereotype and I wish she hadn’t. I also thought Obama did similar things at different points. With a few exceptions (such as when I vociferously defended Obama on Wright) I stopped writing about campaign stuff last January. I decided to stick to the media critique and have, for the most part, done that.

And yes, to the person who keeps asking, I think Ferraro’s comments were racist. I do not, however, believe the campaign dispatched her to make these remarks to a Torrance, California advertising shopper hoping they would play well to racists in Ohio and Pennsylvania. And I also understand why it would be difficult for any campaign to cut loose someone who has been a Democratic party icon for two decades.

There are many things I have failed to address in this campaign on this blog. It does not automatically follow that I condone them. I still don’t believe that either campaign’s behavior has been beyond the pale, so I guess I’ll continue being accused of acting in bad faith. There’s nothing I can do about it short of lying and I can’t quite convince myself that lying on my own blog makes a lot of sense.

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