Anatomy Of A Smear
Dave at Seeing The Forest deconstructs the multi-pronged GOP campaign to smear Clinton for 9/11 and let Bush off the hook. As he says:
Republicans fight back with smears to discredit their accusers. They constructed a 3-part discrediting action that phased in, coming to a conclusion just before the commission releases its report.
For those of you who didn't follow the previous Clinton smears in detail, this is a classic GOP operation. We have the merging stories of Gorelick, Wilson and Berger --- a combination of character assasination, misrepresentation and the exploitation of unrelated credibility issues to form the basis of a counterfactual narrative that is much more juicy than the real thing. A dark conspiracy is set forth in the right wing press, then filters into the mainstream and tittilates the mediawhores with its more exciting version of events. Scoops are given to favored reporters and new facts dished out judiciously to keep the story going long beyond its natural life.
Read Dave's post for the details. This is how its done.
Update: The incomparable Howler has more on this story. I realize that it's long past time we asked just who in the hell is Kelli Arena and why is she always in the middle of these GOP psuedo-scandal pageants? Does anyone out there know who her special friend in the White House is?