A Good Story
by Aemilia Scott

"Up Shit Creek" doesn't quite describe the compromised position of the Bush administration right now. The FEMA response to hurricane Katrina, the failed Harriet Miers nomination, the indictment of Scooter Libby, ongoing investigations of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, 2000 soldiers dead in Iraq, gas at three dollars a gallon. This is a deep creek.

Why are there no riots in the streets? Why aren't thousands of people with flowers in their hair marching on Washington? Democracy for America did sponsor a candlelight vigil for the 2000 fallen soldiers, but it was sparsely attended and sparingly covered by the press. Why, no matter how far up the creek this administration floats, does it always seem to have a paddle?

Many blue-faced citizens argue that the Bush administration amazingly endures the shitstorm because it controls the issues. Progressives love talking about how the Bushies control the issues on Iraq, the budget, the environment, and any other issue where they are put on the rhetorical defensive. This is not true. The administration has no control over these issues because the administration doesn't care whether or not these issues exist.

Now that one annoying problem has blossomed into such a bounteous cornucopia of conservative controversy, administration officials are beginning to sweat. This is a lovely thing to see. But before this, progressives wrung their hands as Ari and Scott and Cheney and Bush smiled and minced their way through neck-deep scandal. The reason is that the Bush administration knows something that we don't, and thus they see the shitstorm for what it is: not a shitstorm.

Edward R. Murrow once said, "One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news... And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles." Murrow said this as an adult watching the infancy of television, but the statement is even more true today.

There are close to one billion people in America today who can't remember a time without TV. I can't remember a time without MTV. Americans' eyes and minds are now developed from infancy with an incredible stamina for taking in and sorting visual and auditory information. And although Murrow didn't know it, 50 years after his speech Americans would be exposed to those first two of his categories much more than the last.

And progressives spit, "The news media are becoming about advertising and entertainment!" Are about? The news media aren't about advertising and entertainment. They are advertising and entertainment. The reason progressives lose elections is because their righteous indignation during the cheese course about the state of the modern media stops there, and they don't use the American viewer to do what she does best: seek out and remember a good story.

Americans love two things: they love a heart-wrenching story, and they love a stupid good time. Look at the top five movies on any given week and you'll know what they'll want to see on the news. Unlike academics, intellectuals and newsphiles, most American media consumers don't go into Titanic wearing one hat and watch CNN wearing another. To them, the media are one seamless audio-visual experience they can watch with the same eyes and judge by the same standards. And just like Aristotle said it would be, the two standards against which America judges its visual information are Comedy and Tragedy.

Aristotle wrote that Tragedy is good people in bad situations, and Comedy is bad people in good situations. Sept. 11th: Tragedy; "American Idol": Comedy. The fate of poor blacks in the wake of hurricane Katrina: Tragedy; The White Sox victory: Comedy. Now wait a minute — the Sox are not bad people. True, but in the strictest sense of the philosopher's model, those south-side saints are undeserving of the title because they are underdogs. The underdog winning in the face of huge adversity is a type of Comedy meant to uplift.

Terrorists striking in New Delhi: Tragedy; George Takei comes out of the closet: Comedy. Rosa Parks's death: Tragedy. Fitzgerald levels a series of indictments against Libby surrounding his false testimony on the identity of CIA operative Valery Plame and an alleged... Whoa, whoa. You've lost me. I've already changed the channel to "Nip/Tuck."

This is the shining core of the Karen Hughes-era conservative strategy: The Bush administration doesn't have control of the issues, it just ignores the issues that aren't camera-ready. Conservatives deliver the points they want in the way America wants them, and they allow the more complicated (and important) issues to sink to the bottom under their own weight. Americans love a good shitstorm, but a shitstorm is not a shitsorm if it takes Tim Russert to describe it.

President Bush didn't answer any questions about the indictment of Scooter Libby last Friday because he didn't have to. All he had to do was fill the media's mouth with a story tasty enough to satiate it — in this case, conservatives fell in line by only discussing the President's impending nomination to the Supreme Court. A new hero in flowing black robes to protect America's unborn children. Or an evil spirit clad in black coming to wreak havoc on basic American freedoms. Now that's a story, no matter how you slice it. Anyone who fights for one side of the story or the other is still fighting for the story. And that's how conservatives win.

On the Monday following Fitzgerald's Friday indictments, print and television news sources had all but forgotten this historic scandal. Complicated affiliations between the press and the White House, accusations of perjury and allegations of wider wrongdoing gave way to Rosa Parks lying in state and the outrageously smiley face of Samuel Alito. I'm sorry, Scooter who?

Intellectuals and politicos need not run upon their copies of the New Yorker, they must simply admit that more people read Us Weekly. This week more tears were shed over Bradgelina than Rove's potential escape from justice. Let's move past how hilarious and sad that is, and use that knowledge for the forces of good.

America needs heroes. America needs villains. And as painful as it is to write, America needs a battle of good versus evil. These elements are what makes any story, Comic or Tragic, any good. Whether it's a flawed leader whose tainted character forces him into a sexual relationship with his intern, or an evil dictator subjugating his citizens and the heroic president who brought him down, conservatives just know how to spin a yarn. America could have heard these told as the story of a bumbling but lovable Rhodes scholar who falls under the spell of a wacky seductress, and one young soldier who came to Iraq with high hopes but who slowly realized that America will never fully win this war. Sounds a lot like Platoon, doesn't it? Platoon is a popular film.

It doesn't have to be all doom, gloom and pie charts. Progressives can make the issues that matter camera-ready. In fact, Scooter Libby's story is one coat of paint away from a real, dress-waving presidential scandal.

Here's the pitch: A beautiful and smart CIA agent and her loyal husband fight the good fight in Iraq. But the seemingly benevolent administration begins to get drunk on its own power. It tries to conceal the fact that Iraq is not the real threat. So with a few cleverly-concealed microfiche exchanges between media players and the office of the Vice President on the jogging path of the Washington Mall, an evil plan emerges to expose the identity of our lovely heroine. The administration succeeds, but not before she and her husband go to the media and expose the fat cats with the help of an average-Joe lawyer from Chicago. The little guy beat the big guy.

It's The Rock meets A Few Good Men. Jesus. Jerry Bruckheimer would eat his own face for a story of this caliber.

In the indictment of Scooter Libby all the ingredients of a publicly memorable story are there. Everyone is working from the same set of information about politics, but progressives need to be more savvy about producing a scandal that is tasty enough for America to stomach. As long as conservatives are busy cracking eggs to make an omelette, progressives will never win by feeding America soufflé.

E-mail Aemilia Scott at aemilia at gmail dot com.