Creating controversy

I've seen dozens upon dozens of news reports about the anti-Kerry ad that questions his military record. But other than in those reports, I've yet to see the ad itself. This leads me to wonder: Was there really a huge controversy? Or did the conservative news media create it? I'm inclined to believe the later.

The same thing happened earlier this year with Janet Jackson's breast at the Super Bowl. The news media cried out: "Gasp! How horribly offensive! Here it is again in slow motion."

Remember back in 1993 when some dumbass kid got killed while lying in the middle of the road, emulating a scene he saw in the movie "The Program?" Disney responded immediately by cutting the scene. So what do the news media do? They play the scene over and over and over again so that more kids can see it. How responsible!

Now we've got an obscure ad made by a group of hatemongers running a few times here and there. It's been denounced by the Kerry campaign (obviously) and by the Bush campaign (supposedly, though not really), and nobody has seen the damned thing anyway. But there needs to be a controversy, so the news media are going to make sure you do.

Just as saying there are WsMD in Iraq doesn't necessarily make it so, saying there is a controversy doesn't necessarily make it so. Repeating it enough times though, in either case, will make people believe it.