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Smear - rhymes with Fear (Photo: Senor Codo, flickr)
Today’s New York Times has a story about how L. Lin Wood, the lawyer hired by Herman Cain has warned any other women who might be considering coming forward with similar allegations “should think twice.”
That was nice of him.
The article goes on to say that Mr. Wood’s services included not only legal representation, but also a research team, and that it had hired another crisis management public relations expert.
What I think most people here understand now is that crisis public relations for right wing Republican politicians (and corporations) is NOT the same as it is for left wing Democratic politicians and left leaning corporations.
The strategy is not only not to back down, but to go on the attack. Unless they are going to use the crying, “I found Jesus” tactic. The preferred method is to attack the accusers and anyone connected to the accusers.
Corporations do this too, remember the old Johnson and Johnson Tylenol poisoning strategy taught in PR classes? Nobody does that anymore. The new model is the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Destroy the credibility of opposing experts, hire your own experts and then–drag it out until everyone dies.
What you will see as the Cain/Wood strategy unfolds are damning, “facts” about accusers which the MSM will run because they are “facts” The right wing media will add “color” to the “facts”. One of the reasons that this method works is that nobody goes after the MSM or the right wing media after the attack is carried out. There are never any consequences for publications for running knowingly false information. The MSM will say, “we were just reporting the “facts” as they revealed. The RW media will say, “Hey it’s just my opinion that she is a gold-digger tart!”
I’m going to make a suggestion for Ms. Bialek, and actually for anyone who finds themselves on the receiving end of this kind of right wing backlash using the Cain/Woods attack methods.
Don’t let the media give Cain/Woods the last word.
The right wing press (and MSM) often let the “authority” or politician have the final word in the “he said/she said” reporting convention. This convention often works in the favor of the authority who is used to talking to the press. The accusers need to remind the media that they are available to comment on the Cain’s comments because it’s “the fair thing to do”. The MSM don’t consider it their job to come down on one side or the other anymore, therefore whomever has the best spin or the last word “wins” that story.
In the story the author mentioned that one of the accusers of sexual harassment, Ms. Bialek, has said she is not seeking money to tell her story, though she has not ruled out a book at some point. I hope that she does more than that. I would like for her to go on and have a highly paid speaking career talking about the politics of smears.
UPDATE:
Last night I had a dream. It was about supporting and empowering a bunch of tech geeks who hung out in the public library and never hit it rich with the high-tech jackpot. Sometimes because they were unlucky, like the thousands that don’t win, and sometimes because they were ripped off by the people at the top or the funders/founders who were greedy.
After they fixed a computer problem using old computers then discovered a cure for a very specific cancer. They used it to heal Steve Jobs. As Jobs left the room where this all happened I asked to close and lock the door with all the discovers inside. I told them all this amazing thing they did will be attacked. Other people will make money on it and they will try to stop you from profiting from it. We need to stick together and ensure we don’t become victims, because everyone is going to want know who cured Job’s cancer and I’ll be damned if they all your hard work is taken without you getting credit and being compensated.
Then I woke up.
I realized when I woke up that what was going on was related to my sense of the injustice of the women getting attacked for their courage in coming forward. That others will profit and benefit from their courage yet complain if the women profit from it.
I also figured out that my rage, my sense of injustice, started out from the moment that they succeeded because I knew that the people who wanted to take their cure and take their talent cared nothing for them and if someone like me didn’t stand up for them and help them they would be crushed.
8 Comments
And she should research Laura Ingraham’s mean and ham-handed comments from yesterday. A big rant, and lengthy, insulting and doubting the woman, including speculative and unfounded accusations/insinuations. Completely no class…hard to envision another woman wanting to take such a mean-spirited attack. Can probably listen online….I happened to be in my car.
Both women seem intelligent and well spoken. They knew what they were getting into when they came forward and they had the guts to do it anyway.
I don’t have any advice to them, but to those who oppose these kind of disgusting and misogynistic smear campaigns I suggest making clear to anyone discussing this story that you believe and support them.
After Anita Hill, any woman coming forth with reports of sexual harassment and battery such as those reported of Cain knows that she’ll be fair game for public attacks. So, why do it unless what she reports is true?
May Cain’s many victims take your advice and give as good as they get.
“hard to envision…” – I was trying to figure it out for a long time and recently got an answer I think (thanks to Derrick Jensen’s book “Endgame”) – she is self-hating and the hating spills on fellow women.
I am hoping the threat energizes and enables other victims who might have thought to let it go, I think this threat might be the very thing that opens the flood gates
Why is that misogynistic and the attacks on Cain not racist? Is the characterization of the attack based on some inherent nature of the person attacked, rather than the veracity of the attack?
Well greybeard, let’s examine the facts of this particular situation with Cain.
Cain has been formally accused for sexual harassment at least two times in his career. The NRA offered settlements to these women under the condition that they keep the matter confidential. Now you’ll surely argue that this doesn’t prove their allegations. You are correct, but Cain was never brought up on criminal charges, therefore the burden of “innocent until proven guilty” does not apply. What we do know is that the NRA considered the allegations serious enough to give these two women payouts totaling 80K.
Are you suggesting that these formal complaints of sexual harassment against Herman Cain in the 1990s were tied to a racist conspiracy to tank his campaign for President that wouldn’t come until nearly 15 years in the future?
Now let’s look at Cain’s own words on the subject of racism “I don’t have a lot of patience for people who want to blame racism for why they don’t make it in America.” Indeed his campaign has been centered on his contention that anyone who is not part of the 1% is to blame for their own predicament. Until the sexual harassment charges came to light, Cain’s only mention of racism in America was to belittle those who would claim it existed at all.
This diary is about the misogynistic smear campaigns being waged against the women who came forward. I addressed my comment to the people who are opposed to these misogynistic smears; hence I was not addressing you. Therefore, your response should have been directed at the author of the diary, not to me. If you want to argue that it’s not at all misogynistic to dredge up things like Ms. Bialeck’s bankruptcy filings (which I’ll point out is a plight of many Americans) and that once in her long and distinguished career, Ms. Kraushaar complained about a sexist email as a means of suggesting these women could not have been victims of sexual harassment and assault then by all means you should make that argument.
You ask “Is the characterization of the attack based on some inherent nature of the person attacked, rather than the veracity of the attack?” Herman Cain is running for President; he has a history of being accused of sexually harassing women who were his subordinates. Therefore, the “attack” as you characterize it is coming up because of his own alleged behavior, not his race, which if you were to take his own words at face value has had no negative impact on his ability to climb the corporate ladder and become extremely rich and powerful.
The women who are coming forward however had have suffered negative career consequences that they can directly tie to their unwillingness to sexually service Herman Cain. I believe that they are telling the truth and as I said in my earlier comment, the best way to I can help shield them against the smear campaign they are being subjected to is to be vocal in my support and belief in them. Silence leaves all women vulnerable and by having the strength and courage to come forward they are creating an environment in which all women are safer in the workplace.
whoa – all I am saying is that attacks on the accusers may be misogynistic. Or perhaps the attacks are based on unproved accusations, not because they are women. Just as attacks on Cain may be because he is black, or they may be because the attackers don’t agree with his politics. A disagreement with a woman does not have to be misogynistic. It may be substantive.