Guest Post by Mark Crispin Miller
Unanimously screaming that debate is DANGEROUS, and using lies and smears to put that point across, “our free press” is now one big, loud conspiracy against American democracy (or what’s left of it)
Recently the New York Times enhanced its daily dump on RFK, Jr. with a new hit-piece by Times columnist Farhad Manjoo: “It’s Not Possible to ‘Win’ an Argument With Kennedy.” That title is, of course, no compliment. It means that no one can best Kennedy in a debate—not because the latter knows his stuff, has all the pertinent data at his fingertips, and argues with extraordinary clarity (and civility): on the contrary. According to Manjoo, Bobby does not win debates for real, through such forensic skill and intellectual ability, but only seems to win them (or, as the headline puts it, “win” them) by fogging everybody’s minds with sophistry, intermingled craftily with bits of truth. This is good enough for him, because he doesn’t really care about the issues, claims Manjoo: “Conspiracy theorists don’t care about facts, just attention.”
That crack about the “facts” is pure projection—as I’ll show here, by telling the whole story of Manjoo’s attacks on Bobby in the summer of 2006; but let’s begin with Manjoo’s version of that story. Here I’m going to paraphrase, and gloss, his version in detail, both because (unlike Manjoo) I want to get it absolutely right, and—what matters more—because it perfectly exemplifies the propaganda that’s been used to smear the candidate since he declared his run, and that’s been used against him (and others) for many years. In other words, this op ed perfectly exemplifies the gaslighting technique that’s been deployed relentlessly—and catastrophically—by the “free press” throughout the West since 1967, when the CIA first weaponized the phrase “conspiracy theory” (and coined the phrase “conspiracy theorist”), urging journalists to use that mocking language to discredit critics of the Warren Report.
Continue reading “NYTimes’ Farhad Manjoo recounts his moment “in the mud” with Kennedy—but only ends up spattering himself”
