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Infowar

When the public doesn’t agree with the Republican-controlled government is it time for bipartisan meetings? High profile discussions?

Silly you — it’s time to wage information war on the American people.

Polls show widespread skepticism of Bush’s proposal for creating individual Social Security investment accounts for younger workers, and Democratic lawmakers have voiced nearly uniform opposition. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that some allies of the president are focused on possible split-the-difference deals that would significantly scale back Bush’s proposal, yet enable him to claim an incremental victory.

The Treasury Department yesterday announced the formation of a Social Security “war room” and the hiring of three full-time employees to help coordinate and refine the administration’s message on the issue. The war room, which the administration is calling the Social Security Information Center, will track lawmakers’ remarks to their local news outlets, to help the White House detect signs of Republican concern or Democratic compromise. (free reg. reqd.)

War is such a useful model, we’ll just use it everywhere. I think we’ve eased into the idea that the administration will manipulate the media if necessary to change our thinking. So a war room is not that big a deal to the devoted.

Posted by James at March 1, 2005 9:31 AM
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