- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
The manipulation of public opinion about war is nothing new. During WWII, the War Department (as DoD was then known) and OSS hired some of the most prominent psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists for this purpose. People such asRobert K Merton (probablty the leading 20th centure sociologist), Kurt Lewin (a polymath psychologist with strong progressive political leanings) and Paul Lazarsfeld (a giant in survey work) were part of this effort. The focus group (Merton and to a lesser degree Lazarsfeld were its inventors) actually owes much of its origins to this effort and there were great refinements in survey research.
OTOH, Allen has been trading as "journalist" for years and his yipping and yapping for joy need the kind of attention that Kos, AmericaBlog & others have been lavishing on the hapless Bill O'Reilly. BTW, when I pick up Politico at the Metro, it takes me about 2 minutes to read it. It seems mostly useful as something to ball up as fill when packing valuables.
