Dr. Alan J. Lipman, from Head of State: Political and Media Psychology, mulls over the response of the White House and former associated figures to Scott McClellan’s book and gives a name to the phenomenon: tactical woundedness.
Tactical Woundedness: The use of an apparent sense of betrayal, often portrayed through the use of euphemistic insinuation, such as the word "puzzled" and "this isn't the ----- we knew", that is meant to serve as a form of indirection--to draw viewers of an event away from a damaging factual disclosure and towards an implication of personal disloyalty. This relies on the known effect of people to be influenced in the direction of attending to interpersonal conflict over factual inaccuracy--even when the factual inaccuracy may have a considerable impact on their own lives.Yes, David Gregory is just stupid enough to say that if Americans didn’t want war, it was their responsibility to let the government know. Seafan and commenters over at Democratic Underground provide abundant proof that, well-whaddya-know, a huge number of Americans (among other residents of the planet) did say they didn’t want war.
And I know it’s hard to remember the fine details from more than 5 years ago, but think hard.
Think back to the run-up days to the Iraq War. Think back when the mushroom clouds were blooming and anthrax spores gently wafted through the air.
Think back to when the Pentagon’s hand-picked military experts and message controllers fanned out to the nation’s television newsrooms to promote Operation Crusader Rabbit.
Think back. Who was virtually the lone antiwar protester allowed on air to do battle with the Pentagon’s entire PR KillForce-1 Squad. That’s right, it was this woman: Saint Janeane of the Satellite Up-link.
Video link thanks to Avedon.
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