Page 2 of
2 Inside the neo-con echo
chamber By Eli Clifton
Podhoretz' own evolving
left-to-right political trajectory.
Andrew
Bacevich wrote in his 2005 book The New
American Militarism: "Podhoretz did much to
create and refine the fiercely combative
neo-conservative style. That style emphasized not
balance (viewed as evidence of timidity) or the
careful sifting of evidence (suggesting
scholasticism) but the ruthless demolition of any
point of view inconsistent with the
neo-conservative version of
truth,
typically portrayed as self-evident and beyond
dispute."
However, it wasn't until the
1995 founding of The Weekly Standard by Irving
Kristol's son William that a definitive shift in
the media presence of neo-conservatism truly took
hold, and the impact of the political group inside
Washington began to shift. Unlike Commentary and
other early neo-conservative journals, The Weekly
Standard, owned by the News Corporation, the media
conglomerate of Rupert Murdoch, was not targeted
at intellectual elites. Rather, it was targeted at
conservative power brokers. Under the editorship
of William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard
undertook an explicit mission to effect immediate
changes in policy and to serve as a reflection of
neo-conservative policy campaigns on current
affairs. The pretense of intellectualism
disappeared.
The influence of The Weekly
Standard runs all the way to the top of the US
government. Vice President Dick Cheney's office at
one time reportedly received 30 issues per week,
apparently to remain on top of any policy
recommendations advocated by AEI (where Cheney and
his wife have both held positions) and the Project
for the New American Century (PNAC), two
neo-conservative groups with close ties to the
management of The Weekly Standard.
The
Weekly Standard has served a pivotal role in what
could be considered the neo-conservative "echo
chamber" - a collection of think-tanks, media
outlets and advocacy groups that strengthen and
repeat neo-conservative policies and ideology
through constant media exposure and reinforcement
within organizations populated by influential
policymakers. Only with this system in place have
the neo-conservatives, a group with no grassroots
support base, been successful in influencing US
foreign policy as well as public opinion.
A significant component of the
neo-conservative echo chamber is its use of
mainstream media to disseminate ideas. Neither the
academic journals nor neo-conservative periodicals
have the readership and crucial role in public
opinion of the mainstream media. Both the
editorial pages of major newspapers and the Fox
News cable channel have played pivotal roles in
selling neo-conservative policies to a more
mainstream, conservative and Republican audience.
Max Boot at the Los Angeles Times, David
Brooks at the New York Times, Charles Krauthammer
and Robert Kagan at the Washington Post and
numerous members of the Wall Street Journal
editorial board, including Irving Kristol since
1972, have served as liaisons between
neo-conservative writers and mainstream America.
Fox News, launched in 1996 by Murdoch's
News Corp, has served as one of the media outlets
of choice for Bush administration rhetoric as well
as high-profile neo-conservatives. For
personalities such as Bill Kristol, Fox News has
served as a springboard from which to launch
himself into mainstream media circles.
The
outrage and patriotic rhetoric and images employed
by Fox News cast neo-conservative ideas and policy
in consumable and marketable packaging. Never
before had the neo-conservatives gained such a
mainstream audience. The views of the Bush
administration, as well as PNAC and various other
neo-conservative groups, were regularly publicized
through Fox News and regional-newspaper editorial
pages during the lead-up to the war in Iraq. The
sprinkling of neo-conservative writers and pundits
throughout the US mainstream media served an
invaluable role in pushing for
neo-conservative-crafted Mideast policy.
The impact and influence of the
neo-conservative echo chamber was felt when
accusations of an Iraqi program for weapons of
mass destruction and charges that Saddam Hussein's
regime was harboring al-Qaeda members flooded the
mainstream media during the buildup to the
invasion of Iraq. Despite the factual inaccuracy
of nearly all the Bush administration's
justifications for invading Iraq, the media and
policy lobbying wings of the neo-conservative camp
successfully disseminated their message and
promoted their vision of a democratized,
US-friendly Iraq.
To argue that
neo-conservative influence is truly on the wane,
as Fukuyama and others have claimed, is to ignore
the continued impact of this echo chamber. Unlike
the early years of the movement, today's
neo-conservatives enjoy a serious - and powerful -
presence within the mainstream US media. Though
this level does not generate the political
faction's ideas and policies, it does generate
influence. Access to the gates of mainstream media
has enabled the movement to actually implement and
market its objectives to Americans.
The
attainment of this power owes a great deal to the
early neo-cons who saw value in becoming
"gatekeepers" of information and ideas. Starting
with Irving Kristol's early days at Commentary,
the movement gained a voice, but one largely aimed
at intellectual and academic elites. In fact, the
evolution of the neo-con movement parallels the
growth of its founders as publishers and media
figures. Later, when Bill Kristol founded The
Weekly Standard, the neo-conservatives could
present specific policy objectives to Washington
elites.
Not by any accident, the
neo-conservatives' time of greatest influence on
US foreign policy coincided with the explosive
growth of mass-media outlets from which they could
promote their policies. The omnipresent fluttering
US flag on Fox News exemplifies the new
ueber-patriotic packaging through which the
invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq and
the escalation of tensions with Iran are marketed
packages.
When asked why The Weekly
Standard and Fox News have increased in popularity
over the past few years, Matt Labash, a senior
writer at the Standard, responded that it is
"because they feed the rage. We bring the pain to
the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but it's
true somewhat. We come with a strong point of view
and people like point-of-view journalism.
"While all these hand-wringing Freedom
Forum types talk about objectivity, the
conservative media [like] to rap the liberal media
on the knuckles for not being objective. We've
created this cottage industry in which it pays to
be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much
as possible. It's a great way to have your cake
and eat it too. Criticize other people for not
being objective. Be as subjective as you want.
It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it,
actually."
If Irving Kristol intended to
start a revolution with his writing on the culture
wars and US Cold War foreign policy, he certainly
laid the groundwork in academic journals and
periodicals. What may never have entered his
imagination at the time was the degree of success
the second generation of neo-conservatives would
experience in marketing neo-conservative ideas to
a mainstream audience. The original network of
journals and think-tanks has been amplified by a
powerful, streamlined media machine. The
neo-conservative revolution has, quite literally,
been televised.
Eli Clifton is a
writer based in Washington, DC, and a contributor
to Right Web.
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