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—In 2001, a crack political unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped a maximum security stockade to the internet underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... Spinsanity.org
Now, as you loyal folks out there have probably garnered at this point, I'm not much for politics. It's not that I don't care or vote for a specific party because (choose one):
It's what Jesus would do/To protect my guns/To protect the whales/Because “it” should be legalized.
I've voted in every major election since I've been old enough and have voted the spectrum (well, not for Nazis, but Republican to liberal independent parties…) and have been just as happy keeping my choices to myself. This year as another election swells the BS is getting hip deep and there seems to be no limit to the extent the parties will go (“John Kerry eats babies” “George W. Bush wants to kill your gramma!” etc. etc…)
Somewhere in the whirlwind of political factoids, sound bites and endless spin I chanced across a safe haven—an oasis for normal human beings to sit down and actually get some straight information: Spinsanity.org . A decidedly non-partisan site dedicated to the preservation of political debate by actual information, Spinsanity.org has become one of the most influential websites today. It's members: Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan have all selflessly devoted themselves to fact checking and chronic de-spinning of information for those who prefer to decide for themselves what to think instead of being scared or manipulated into a particular side. Featuring articles that regularly target the Bush Administration, John Kerry, Michael Moore and a bevy of pundits and commentators, Spinsanity.org has quickly built a reputation of solid research, insight and an incredibly high tolerance for political silliness. They graciously caved in to my harassment to do an interview and I'm right glad to have ‘em.
Joe Mammy : First off, introduce yourselves a bit. How did you meet each other and end up forming Spinsanity.org? Or another way, if you were a television show which one would you be?
Ben : I'd say we're like the A-Team – a bunch of ex-operatives (political in our case, not military) fighting the system on behalf of ordinary people. Bryan is a Stanford graduate who worked in the labor movement and now writes for Columbia Journalism Review. Brendan went to Swarthmore, worked for a senatorial campaign and a technology nonprofit and is now a political science graduate student at Duke. I also went to Swarthmore, served in AmeriCorps for a year, and am now a business journalist.
Bryan and Brendan met growing up in Mountain View, California. Brendan and I met at Swarthmore.
Joe : How did you end up doing this? I assume you didn't wake up one morning and think to yourself that you wanted to go through countless old interviews, speeches and books to find out if people in a position of public trust were telling you the truth or not. You've all been politically active—do you wish to return to partisan politics again or do you feel you've found a home with Spinsanity.org and related projects?
Bryan : We were all pretty grossed out by the aggressive spin and lousy coverage during the 2000 campaign, in particular the whole ugly mess in Florida (which we touch on in the book). I've always been an information junkie, and was then a researcher at the AFL-CIO, so consuming large amounts of political coverage was just something I did. (Reading all that punditry, though, is a good way to give yourself a headache.) And personally, I have no interest in going back into partisan politics. I'm so tired of the spin from both sides (and the press) that I feel like a baseball announcer watching the game – I can appreciate a good curveball or long home run, but I have no inclination to play for either team.
Joe : You've traced American spin (or at least its more organized form) to World War I. It would seem that part of the “spin” process requires a bad guy of some sort (with the Red Scares through the 50's and the Cold War). How would you characterize the events of September 11, 2001 as far as how it's been used to by the political PR machine(s)? Is this the new Cold War?
Brendan : People have certainly leveraged foreign policy threats in domestic politics for decades. It's a potent source of anger and emotion for spinners to draw on. September 11 is no different – we've written a great deal on our website about the way the attacks have been used to try to intimidate dissent and smear political opponents, which does hark back to the Cold War. In the book, we expand that story with a particular focus on how the Bush administration took advantage of the attacks to try to silence dissent and criticism.
Joe : You've put to
gether a book “All the President's Spin” about the use of spin by the Bush administration. How do you think the Bush administration ranks in the last 20 years compared to other administrations?
Brendan: There's no comprehensive way to rank spin from presidential administrations, but the argument we make in the book is that Bush's White House has used dishonest public relations tactics in debates about public policy more often and with more sophistication than any previous administration. The Bush White House's spin isn't focused on wartime deception about ongoing military/diplomatic affairs (FDR, for example) or spin about scandal (like Clinton's) – it's the way they approach debate about all public policy issues. We believe that is tremendously harmful for democracy.
Joe : Do you feel that the current use of media (for both good and ill) is a result of technological developments in the last 5-10 years; and now that the proverbial genie is out of the bottle do you think there's any way to right the course, or at least counter-balance it effectively?
Bryan : It's partly a matter of technology – the cable networks and the Internet have changed print reporting, particularly newspapers, and put a premium on analysis rather than breaking news. The candidates are also using technology (there have been several stories about banks of TiVos in the campaigns' war rooms, for example) to speed up the news cycle and throw more information at reporters. But, at the same time, there are more resources available to reporters than ever before and it's certainly possible for motivated journalists and news organization to break through the spin if they rethink the way they cover politics. Outlets like the Daily Show and weblogs have demonstrated it's possible to cut through the BS and draw an audience.
Joe : Going through the website I'm constantly amazed by the extent that these tactics have permeated the discourse. Do you ever feel like you're a referee at a pro-wrestling match—that none of it's real but everyone seems willing to believe it?
Ben : Hmmm, I'd say more like being one of the refs at a basketball game and you feel like you're the only one noticing all the fouls. All the other refs are too focused on the players' style to notice the constant fouling. The players act like they're playing croquet or, if pressed, insist that the other side fouled first. And the crowd knows it's a dirty game but aren't close enough to see just exactly how the players are getting away with it.
That's a painfully strained metaphor, but what I'm trying to get at is that, unlike pro wrestling, the damage to our political system by the deception we track is real.
Joe : What is the most absurd/humorous piece of spin that you've come across?
Ben : That's a hard one to pick. Bush's frequent claims that he said during the 2000 election that he would only run deficits in case of recession, war, or national emergency — and that he had hit the “trifecta” — was a particularly bold piece of spin. In fact, he never said anything of the kind and when asked for evidence he had, the White House just couldn't provide it. It's also amazing how liberals claim that the Bush administration said Iraq was an imminent threat when the administration usually argued that we could not wait until the threat was imminent.
Joe : Tell me about the book; how long it took to compile, facts that would surprise people about it, what amazed you most about the whole process.
Bryan : Fun facts: None of us were in the same place for more than a few days while we wrote it - we did it all by email and phone. And we did most of the research electronically. There's no way we could have done it in, say, 1995 – neither the technology nor the information resources we now have access to (web sites, Google, Nexis) existed. It would have taken us years.
The book itself we wrote in less than a year, but since there were three of us, it made the pace manageable. What amazed me most of all is that we actually pulled it off and hit our deadlines.
Joe : People often characterize Bush as, well, less than brilliant. Through this process how did your opinions and beliefs about him change as a politician, the President and as a person?
Brendan : I think we were all struck by what a careful and disciplined public speaker he is, and how good he is at avoiding saying things that are untrue while giving people a misleading impression of an issue (the Bush administration's specialty). And the deeper we went in our research, the more amazed we were about how he kept getting away with it. Bush is a remarkable politician – and, from our perspective, an extremely irresponsible one.
Joe : Do you have the next book/project lined up yet?
Ben : We're so focused on promoting our book, keeping up the website, and writing our Philadelphia Inquirer column that we honestly haven't even had time to think much about future projects. We'll probably start thinking about them after the election. And after taking a one-month nap.
Joe : Who's going to win the World Series this year?
Bryan: My heart says the A's, but my head says the Yankees.
Brendan : Anyone but the Yankees, hopefully.
Ben : I know almost nothing about sports, but have a history of predicting winners better than my friends who do follow it and pissing them off as a result. So I'll literally pick a random name out of my ass and say the Astros.
Joe : Any parting words of wisdom?
Brendan : Word to your mother.
*****
“ All the President's Spin ” is available in bookstores nationwide (and our very own Joe-Mammy.com Store ). Spinsanity.org is updated regularly and features a number of very good articles on many of the topics listed above. Read the site, buy the book and support honesty in politics (and help pay Brendan's grad school bills).
