How The Game Works

Over at Balloon Juice, Mistermix nails the Right Wing Noise Machine.

Here’s a great illustration of the cycle and danger of the nontroversy. Last week, Mike Huckabee was one of the morons who insisted that Obama’s trip to India was a waste of money because it cost $200 million per day. After serious consideration, the sage and thoughtful Huckabee changed his position yesterday:

Still, the former governor acknowledged that bagging the trip altogether — as some conservatives have suggested — would have been “very insulting” to India, an increasingly important ally to the United States, given its proximity to Pakistan. “They’ve been a good friend of the United States, not only in terms of diplomatic friendship, but they’ve also been a good trade partner,” Huckabee told Van Susteren. “For him to abruptly cancel the trip would have been a snub of epic proportions and would have had long-lasting implications and created damage that, frankly, we don’t need right now in the international community. We need all the friends we can get, and India is one of them we need to keep.”

This is typical of the nontroversy cycle. The same jackasses who tell us lies to get the cycle started are able to come back again and again to comment on it, without repercussion. This would be harmless except that that subjects of these nontroversies are important institutions that are de-legitimatized every time that lies about them are mainstreamed.

And Mike Huckabee, possible Republican candidate for President, will be able to go on his FOX News show and pretend he never bought or propagated the "India is a $200 million a day trip" lie.  Meanwhile the next time the President goes on a trip, that lie will be repeated.

Six months from now another FOX host will say "this is just like the time President Obama went to India after the midterm elections and that cost what $200 million a day?"  It won't be challenged.  It will be repeated.  And it will continue again and again because there will be plenty of opportunities to parade the lie unchallenged.

And soon it will become accepted truth, because that's how the game is played.