Letters to the Editor
-
It's the propaganda, children
Let's see. Klein's story is materially false in every significant factual respect. Neither Klein nor TIME will correct the falsehoods, and they won't even acknowledge their receipt of demands for corrections emanating from the actual congresspeople directly implicated in the smear, let alone correct their falsehoods. So the essence of the story's conclusion -- that congressional democrats are being "beyond stupid" in their alleged efforts to coddle terrorists -- stands.
Glenn, as brilliant and admirable as your efforts have been on this, I fear that by emphasizing the shallowness of TIME's and Klein's "stenography" journalism excuses, TIME and Klein are being allowed to turn this into a "process" story instead of having to take the heat for the exposure of their propagandistic goals.
Question: could Hitler have asked anything more of Goebbels in 1938 than for the type of bullheaded lies that TIME and Klein are not only have foisted, but are even still perpetuating, here? The story they have published is factually untrue for the purpose of supporting a vicious visceral suggestion that those who disagree with efforts to jettison fundamental principles of the United States Constitution and impose a police state in this country are "unpatriotic" and, in fact, "beyond stupid". Exposed, they nibble around the edges of "process" because the first layer of the exposition allows them to do so and, when that too is blasted away, they go silent... but the story still stands in their 4 million circulation universe.
The question that is left now is, exactly what goal is being furthered by TIME's persistent refusal to do anything remotely ethical when faced with the litany of proof of the mendacity of Klein's story? There's only one answer: TIME intended, intends and likes the mendacity of the story -- and the only reason that could possibly be true is because TIME's editors like (aka "see value for themselves in") the idea of painting opponents of fascist legislation as unpatriotic wimps.
That's pretty sad. But it is, at it's core, the most fundamental type of "propaganda" in it's most pristine form.