Tom Ridge Did Not Backpedal (A Journey Inside The Media Simulacrum)
The headlines are all the rage in Washington, D.C., today: Tom Ridge, the first secretary of Homeland Security, is "backpedaling" on his claim that he was pressured to raise the terror alert. "Ridge backpedals on pressure to raise terror alert level," announces a headline in USA Today, which was picked up by Politico's Mike Allen with the snappy rejoinder, "YA SAW THIS COMING." And so the echoes begin: "Ridge Backpedals, Says There Was No Pressure To Raise Terror Alert Levels," announces the Huffington Post's homepage, with a link to the USA Today story. "Ridge backpedals on 'pressure' claims" announces the conservative blog, Hot Air. It goes on.
But did Ridge backpedal? No. What occurred was a classic sales job by a publisher trying to sell books. The press fell for it, embarrassed itself, and is now blaming Ridge for all the confusion, which makes everything more embarrassing. I will explain after the jump.
Until this weekend, Ridge has made no public comments about his book. But what he wrote in the book has remained unchanged. In a section describing a discussion on the eve of the 2004 election about whether or not to raise the terror alert, Ridge writes:
Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level, and was supported by Rumsfeld. There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None. I wondered, 'Is this about security or politics?' Post-election analysis demonstrated a significant increase in the president's approval rating in the days after the raising of the threat level.
Note that Ridge never says he was pressured to raise the threat level for political reasons, nor does he detail anything that Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld or Attorney General John Ashcroft said to suggest that they were thinking about politics. He only says that the thought crossed his mind that politics may have been in play. Now, one can either read this as an accurate description by Ridge of what happened, or a careful hedging of the facts, so as not to betray his loyalty to two other members of the Bush cabinet. Either way, there is no doubt about what Ridge wrote.
But about two weeks ago, when the noise about Ridge's book began to surface online and in the press, most reporters had no idea what Ridge had written in his book. They only knew what Ridge's publisher said was in the book. In a press release on its website, Ridge's publisher, Thomas Dunne Books, announced that the book would reveal: "How Ridge effectively thwarted a plan to raise the national security alert just before the 2004 Election." No mention of politics there. But a "Washington Whispers" mention by U.S. News went further:
Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was . . . pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.
Now we were getting somewhere. "Something he saw as politically motivated" became a New York Times headline, on August 20: "Bush Official, in Book, Tells of Pressure on '04 Vote." The lede of that story was more accurate, saying that Ridge only "suspected" political influence. But by now, all nuance was lost. CNN had Fran Townsend, one of its paid employees and a Bush White House veteran, come on to deny the Ridge claim (or the supposed Ridge claim): "Not only do I not think that it – that politics played any part in it at all – it was never discussed," said Townsend. On its face, it sounded like Townsend was fighting with Ridge. They were not. Ridge never said that politics were discussed. He only said that he thought politics might have played some role. Meanwhile, the news outlets that cater to more ideological audiences, including the blogs, were having a field day. For many liberal writers, Ridge's admission only confirmed what they had always believed: That the color-coded alert system was a political tool. It no longer mattered that Ridge actually says in the book that the alert system was never changed for political reasons.
There is a concept in philosophy called the "simulacrum." If a "simulation" is the representation of something that exists, call it the original thing, the "simulacrum" is a representation that has been detached from, and no longer has anything to do with, the original thing. It refers only to iteslf. The French Philosopher Jean Baudrillard puts it this way:
These would be the successive phases of the image:
- It is the reflection of a basic reality.
- It masks and perverts a basic reality.
- It masks the absence of a basic reality.
- It bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum.
So it has gone with the story of Tom Ridge's assertion. He made a statement. His publisher summarized the statement, distorting it slightly. The press distorted the statement further. The press began talking to itself about the distortion. And then the original statement, which Ridge had put down in the book and remained unchanged, ceased to exist. His statement was replaced by a popular simulacrum: All that remained was the distortion of what Ridge said in his book. The original statement was gone. And so, we have big news today: Ridge Backpedals!!!
Now a disclosure: I am not a purely objective observer. On Sunday, I interviewed Ridge, just like USA Today did. When I told my editors what Ridge said--that he was not going to "second-guess" the motivations of Ashcroft and Rumsfeld--my editors responded by asking if Ridge was backpedaling from what he said in his book. I explained that he was not, since he had been so vague in his original assertion, and so my story, which was published online today, does not lead with any claims of retreat on the part of Ridge. Furthermore, I decided that it was more interesting to write about what Ridge said than to make my piece into a sort of media critique of all that was wrong with journalism. And so that's what I did.
But here's where it gets more interesting. Because I now write primarily on the Internet, my success as a reporter is easily measured by the amount of links and eyeballs I get on my stories. The more links, the more eyeballs, the more money TIME makes, the happier my editors are, the happier I am. (As it happens, these connections are not always explicit or fixed--I am not solely judged on my traffic--but as the news business continues its march to unprofitability, these pressures are growing ever stronger all across the media landscape.)
As a result, there is a constant pressure, which I have written about before, to pen stories in a way that feed into popular narratives with explosive charges, even when the narratives and charges are not exactly right. The DC journalistic establishment increasingly functions as a group of lemmings, all racing for the same cliff. Where once TIME had a different audience from USA Today, or the New York Times, we now all compete for the same eyeballs, on the same platforms, your laptop, desktop, or iPhone. USA Today's editors, and Huffington Post's producers, know they can get a lot more people to link to a story that says "Ridge Backpedaled" than one that says, "Ridge Authors Memoir That Carefully Hedges Thoughts On Role Of Politics In Terror Alerts." And so, I believe, this tendency of leaving reality behind, and embracing the simulacrum, will only increase over the coming years.
So strap in. It's going to be a wild ride.
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1
Michael Scherer:
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This is a very, very interesting --and compelling, I might add-- blog post.
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Thank you. -
2
It is the Move.On orgy, George Soros, and other nefarious far left liberal extremists who promote their agenda to completly discredit the Republican Party, anything conservative, and the Bush Administration.
The goal of Sal Alinsky, whose favorite two pupils, Hillary Clinton and Barack "the Community Organizer" is to use lies, non-facts, and other subversive statements in order to create a crisis which never exists in order to promote their liberal causes.
As I said in an earlier post over the weekend, the new wave of NeoSocialist (Progressives), which both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton adhere to are simply the tactics and teachings of Saul Alinsky. Alinsky an avowed Socialist / Communist. Even today, Hillary Clinton's Senior thesis from Yale is kept under lock and key, and forbidden from public review. The title: "There Is Only the Fight..: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model."
The "fight" is to destroy anything in its path. Further erosion of democracy and free enterprise systems, Our way of life in America is threaten by these miscreants who currently occupy the White House. They have used the current recession and financial mess on Wall Street to further erode stability in our Country. Spending TRILLIONS of dollars to undermine the value of the dollar in hopes of a total collapse.
Each program Obama proposes in the future will further their cause. Destroy America as we know it.
Ridge and his book are just pawns in the bigger scheme, and to sell a few books to boot. The press is eager to "jump on anything", but are manipulated in doing so by their love affair with Obama.
When does this love affair end Michael? When will you hold Obama accountable?
Here you can read more about Sal Alinsky and his association with the current Obama Administration.
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3
Michael, I saw your latest tweet. Given the lemming-like behavior of way too many journalists, it's hard to find praise for them. And no, after eight years of softball Bush coverage they can NOT play catch-up by doubling down on Obama criticism. That's not balance. Therefore, thanks for pointing out some of the media madness here. I sincerely hope you and other swampers don't literally get paid by the eyeballs…which used to happen at Gawker to some degree, thus the hyperbolic headlines. Maybe your literary-style analysis can find your niche. Ya want praise? Ya got it with recent torture stories, thx. Just as KT found her niche with health care, if you won't write and publish your own poetry here (seriously, go for it), maybe looking back at Bushco and FINALLY revealing what happened in poetic detail / how we're going to address it could be your beat. The corporate media certainly failed in those eight years. Someone needs to go back and clean up the mess. Let it be you. Hey, you might even get more page hits for this, if not always (or ever) praise and affection… this place is NOT warm and cuddly (and more people leaving / taking breaks including sacredh, alas), *sigh*.
gawker – http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/fashion/13gawker.html?ei=5090&en=d870566229de2bfc&ex=1357880400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all-
3.1
Tweet was a joke, Deconstra. I don't really want praise. I just think the CIA whining about morale.
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4
Newsflash from a lemming-
The entire "terror alert" concept was politically motivated. What the Hell difference does it make to the poor shlep on the street what the terror alert level means? There's nothing I can do at the yellow, orange, or red level except shoot my neighbor for good measure and kiss my a$$ goodby.
It's only function was "Scare the public so they never forget that Bush is holding back the wild-eyed non-christian rapists with his almighty pinky". Please Michael, I want you to find testimony from all the police and medical response folks you can find that they relied on knowing the terror alert level so they had some idea how to carry on with their jobs if not their lives.
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4.1
further to centfan...
recent history also shows that the year before and the year after a major election (see WTC-1993,2001, Madrid, etc.) requires a heightened state of alert by the intelligence/military/law enforcement communities. The color code is just a Pavlovian Approval Ratings Booster.
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Michael:
This is a very good post and meta-post. I'm having trouble reconciling it with the GOP talking points you have passed through and posted in the past. Will the real MS please stand up? (And if you're standing now, please remain so.)
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5
You have said in clear language what many of us have suspected. Drudge is not the only one leading the likes of Mike Allen by the nose. By being up front with your readers you will, over time, gain credibility. I have noticed an evolving MS in the past few months. Respecting the intelligence of your reader produces , in return, respect for the scribe.
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6
Note that Ridge never says he was pressured to raise the threat level for political reasons...
You're not being pressured if you are going along with the program, even unwittingly...assuming Ridge is an honest actor would still leave open the possibility of Ridge being manipulated.
I'm sure that some of the alerts were legitimate, but the correlation of terror alerts to news events lends credence to claims of politicization...but considering the source, I understand that a lot of people would take that comparison with a grain of salt.
Me, I wouldn't say that using the terror alerts for political purposes is something that various folks in the Bush administration were above doing.
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7
I must say it's nice to have a forum where you can explain such things clearly. Otherwise we might have found ourselves entirely trapped within of vortex of self-reference.
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8
Your reading of Baudrillard and this situation are a bit (I think) imprecise, and indeed rather interestingly masks a basic reality that you do not attend to.
You imply that the Tom Ridge story as it exists right now, "Bears no relation to any reality whatsoever." This may be true, in a very limited way, of the claim that Ridge has, "Backpedaled on his assertion that he was pressured to change the color coded terror alert for political reasons," since Ridge never overtly made this claim.
However, when you refer to "news outlets that cater to ideological interests," so vaguely, you yourself proceed to "mask and pervert a basic reality" that many left wing blogs have been pointing to for years: the fact that, regardless of their intentions, the Bush Administration demonstrated throughout its time in office an ability to mislead and incite fear in the public by exaggerating terror threats. One of the ways in which they did this was with the color coded terror alert.
See the following article from Time here:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1211369,00.htmlDick Cheney constantly tells us that we need to be afraid of attacks. Condi Rice went on television and said that she didn't want the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction to be a mushroom cloud. Tom Ridge's office told people to stock up on plastic and duct tape to keep poison gas out of their windows.
All of this acted as a way to defend aggressive foreign policy, including the Iraq and Afganistan wars. The color-coded terror alerts show a pattern that these claims were often made in the wake of Republican scandals.Now, you may be correct when you say that the leftist reading that this inciting of fear was a DELIBERATE attempt by the administration to mislead the public is, itself, a distortion. It's equally possible that the administration - Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld - were simply deeply afraid of the threat posed by Al-Qaida, and deeply afraid of the consequences of various scandals for their ability to continue to hold power and protect the country. This fear may have led them to fully believe that terror threats were greater than they were - that Iraq needed to be invaded, that terrorists needed to be tortured before they struck again, that Democrats who criticized these policy decisions would allow more attacks if given power - and therefore they may not have INTENTIONALLY raised the color-coded alert to cover scandals, or deliberately "lied" in order to justify going to war with Iraq.
Nevertheless, the claim that they did these things deliberately at the very least masks a verifiable truth - namely, that the Bush Administration consistently exaggerated terror threats, and as a result pursued regrettable policy decisions like the torturing of innocent men and the pursuit of an ill-guided, poorly executed war with a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks on 9/11.Given that, your own claim that left-leaning outlets' claims "bear no relation to reality whatsoever," should, in fact, be understood as simulacrum. It obscures the verifiable evidence upon which they base their claim. It also leads you to lose sight of the important fact that Ridge's original claim that he felt political pressure to change the color-coded alert system also masked a reality: the simply fact that a Bush administration appointed to protect the country from terrorists felt that people like Ashcroft, Cheney and Rumsfeld were exaggerating the terror threat even while he was working there, and even though he helped execute their policy directives.
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9
As far as BushCo's ethics are concerned, this dust-up illustrates the difference between being innocent and being acquitted. Ridge's latest nuance (and no, Mr. Steele, that's not an insult) is akin only to saying "I never personally saw Mr. Vick electrocute any dogs." The media, as is their wont, focus on what Ridge did or didn't say – having long ignored the actual issue of political manipulation of terror alerts.
Plato, go find another cave. This one's still full of political reporters describing the shadows on the wall.
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10
Well, Michael Sherer, are you a journalist yourself? Are you an *investigative* journalist?
After your brief and baffling detour into vocabulary and simulacra, how about asking yourself, the world and better yet, asking *RIDGE*, why it might have crossed his mind in the first place why these threat-level raisings might be politically motivated?
Did Ridge think he was around men not of sufficient character to do the right thing such that *they* might do somthing like that for purely political gain?
Why has no one asked him that question?
Instead of investigating a media who's running around chasing a story to sell advertising, why not chase the man whose evocative words provoked an incendiary interpretation?
Do we--do YOU--yet know if Tom Ridge thought it possible that the men he worked for were capable of raising the threat level for purely political purposes?
Does he know if it was actually ever done?
All we know is that he never said so in his book. Do we know that he never said so ex-literarily?
Would you ask him for us and get back to us on that?
Isn't that the function of an investigative journalist?
Function as one!
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10.1
I asked him, but he did not elaborate much. He said his suspicion that politics were at play was circumstantial--the alert bump would help Bush, DHS did not see need for bump, and two Bush officials were pushing for bump. He said they never said anything that sounded political, and he does not want to question their motives.
By contrast, it is totally clear that the White House, by way of Fran Townsend, sent ridge political language praising Bush in the August 1 terror alert bump. But Ridge told me he did not want to second guess the motives of those who sent him the language.
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11
Was it not DHS' purview to monitor terror threats and condense intelligence down into the threat-level system, and was not Ridge the man who would receive all those reports, as well as recommendations as to what the threat level would be?
Given that he was the one to make the recommendation, and I would assume that he in fact, did his job and did make the recommendation only to be overridden by Bush and Rumsfeld and the rest, your "simulacrum" judgment seems weaker and weaker.
Drawing conclusions from facts and from specific context is not bad journalism nor if presented objectively and with completeness is it a lie.
You chose only one definition of simulacrum from one discipline from ONE practitioner in that discipline just to suit your article's needs.
One can only conclude from this that your article itself is a Baudrillard definition #4 simulacrum.
Here's another 's' word: syllogism.
The DHS is the authority on fact-based threat-levels
Tom Ridge was the representative of the DHS' conclusion on threat-levels.
Therefore, Tom Ridge's presented information on threat-levels was fact-based.If Tom Ridge's information on threat-levels was NOT in agreement with what the actual threat levels were set to by Bush and Rumseld, then something OTHER THAN FACT was used as the basis for setting those threat levels.
Tom Ridge had the authority to set the threat-levels as head of DHS and did set the threat-levels to something other than what the DHS concluded were the proper levels based on facts gathered by his own department, DIRECTED TO DO SO BY BUSH AND RUMSFELD.
Conclusion: Ridge was successfully pressured to set threat-levels to values based on reasons other than facts based on gathered intelligence.
It is left as an exercise to the reader to imagine what "reasons other than fact, given the timing of the upcoming Election" might be.
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11.1
This is precisely the right point. Well done.
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12
Because I now write primarily on the Internet, my success as a reporter is easily measured by the amount of links and eyeballs I get on my stories.
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Can we take this a step further MS? Does the number of reactions (i.e. comment postings) also translate to pageviews/eyeballs? If so, your interaction certainly encourages folks to respond and interact and read. Keep it up man. -
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[...] the new age of journalism.. Tom Ridge Did Not Backpedal (A Journey Inside The Media Simulacrum) Tom Ridge Did Not Backpedal (A Journey Inside The Media Simulacrum) - Swampland - TIME.com [...]
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[...] as Michael Scherer points out at the Swampland blog, that doesn't amount to “backpedaling,” as at least one newspaper [...]
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