[lbo-talk] Obama Is Anorexic Over-Exerciser (was: Edwards caught with mistress)

[Gar Lipow]

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 6:57 AM, shag <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> At 02:35 AM 7/26/2008, Gar Lipow wrote:
>
>> Yeah, for anyone who believes it, (and the late night talk show joke
>> you quoted sounds like they don't), sure the National Enquirer staked
>> out the hotel room and forgot to bring a camera - no pictures. For
>> Doug who posted about how "entertaining" this was: slander is a nasty
>> weapon, and thanks to double standards most of the time a more useful
>> weapon for the right than the left. Chortling at its successful
>> deployment by a bunch of right wing liars strikes me as a really bad
>> choice. I'm really shaking my head especially when in between the
>> chortling Doug describe the Enquirer as "accurate" . I mean Waddafuck?
>> As I said in another post, they won't stop at the truth to sell
>> papers, but they don't hesitate to make stuff up, or print guesses as
>> solid fact.
>
> not that it really matters, but of all the people they could lie about, WTF
> would they bother with John Edwards? The people who generally pay attention
> to the NE are probably the same "low-information voters" who wouldn't know
> who John Edwards is and probably wouldn't have voted for him anyway.

Probably because a lot of what they get wrong is not making things up
from scratch, but publishing unverified rumors as verified truths.
Some of them turn out to be true of course, which gets their hit
record up. But I admit to enough fascination to notice what is on the
covers in the supermarket. An amazing amount of their stuff is
directed at D level  celebrities.   I think the point of their general
approach (as opposed to the more wack stuff you see in some other
tabloids) is to give the impression that you are getting authentic
news, being let in on stuff on the inside. Not just sticking to the A
list gives that impression and helps to sell papers - which I'm sure
is the primary objective. Don't know if there is a conscious political
agenda, but if there is it is secondary. Still have a dislike for
slander, and I include making nasty allegations about people while
indifferent to its truth of falsity as slander, especially in cases
where the the tabloid knowingly makes up evidence.  As I say don't
know if hitting the left is deliberate or not. But for structural
reasons a media that makes slander part of its standard operating
procedure and includes politicians as targets is likely to hurt the
left more than the right in our current historical circumstance.