According to a new study from Accuracy in Media, the Obama administration spends $100,000 per week on message control. It seems in ObamaWorld, a picture is worth a thousand paychecks — $5 million a year distributed in salaries alone. Everyone from ethnocentric Message Coordinators to Town Hall Organizers to Speechwriters will divvy it all up.
One of the little secrets in ObamaWorld is that, while the President made good on his promise not to raise salaries, he quietly added more high paid staff. Lots more. Hence, an army of image makers are paid by taxpayers to ensure the president’s message saturates the daytime airwaves, grocery aisle rags, demographically desirable blogs and that twitters are at full tilt. Or, is that twit?
The world hasn’t seen this much obsessive compulsive message control since the days of Joseph Goebbels. The verdict is out whether all this taxpayer expense is working. After all, the president still enjoys an extended honeymoon with the media, and this kind of infrastructure would suggest he is not living in a fool’s paradise. Let’s face it, right now the media sees a superstar who can fill a prime time special, sell magazines or drive web traffic — but that will change as his approval numbers continue to slide. Certainly, many have suggested President Bush would have benefited from some juiced up spin control — but how much is too much? Will ObamaWorld’s propaganda machine work when the honeymoon is over?
The report reveals that Obama has created a campaign-style war room to spin everything from health care to women’s basketball. In campaigns, war rooms are funded by donors — in this case the donors are American taxpayers.
Coming soon from ObamaWorld — a carefully orchestrated series of health care town halls where questions will be filtered, camera angles will be directed and theatrical lighting carefully staged. If all this sounds to you like an infomercial, that’s because it is! Calling all celebrities — ObamaWorld wants you! They’ve already enlisted Ashton Kutcher to pitch HIV outreach (link http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24344.html). Who might be enlisted to help pitch health care — is the ShamWow guy available? (After all, government run health care might prove to be a Sham-Wow of epic proportions).
Of course, we need a good, honest health care debate; not policy infotainment. And we already fund a ‘town hall’ forum for discussion and debate — it’s called Congress. In the end, is all this expensive message craft really necessary, especially at a time of economic recession? The answer is up to us – after all, we will foot the multi-million dollar production bill.
Feeling rich?