Analysis of an incident that ended in an assault on an air marshall provides an object lesson in cellular sociology. (New York Times)

Sisyphus Shrugged has leaked this outline of rhetorical strategy for the coming campaign by Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz. Am I getting upset over nothing? business as usual? No one should be shocked that there are secret primers of ‘spin’ — politics is all spin, after all, isn’t it? Nor should we be shocked that the same old tired discredited lies — ‘they hate us because they hate freedom’, the disingenuous invocation of 9/11 at every turn; sidestepping the lack of evidence of any connection between Iraq and the Wot®; supporting ‘our boys’ in Iraq — form the basis of this rhetorical barrage. Lies repeated often enough begin to sound banal, and banality is the cornerstone for the appearance of credibility. …And Luntz recognizes this.

But several things leapt out at me in reading this. The first is the utter contempt the Republicans have for the public which has to elect them; this approach is predicated on capitalizing on the short attention span and short memory of the typical voter. One of the commenters to the Sisyphus post found it ironic that the memo insults the American attention span when they have tried to sustain lies for so long, but the listeners’ poor memory actually works in favor of the liar. If the voting public paid attention, Luntz acknowledges, the Bush Cabal could never get away with all they have done and plan to do. Actually, I quite agree. If Luntz and the Republican strategists are contemptuous of the voters, then what I feel must be meta-contempt — I find it contemptible that the public lets itself be the victim of such sustained contemptuous abuse. I am amazed there is still anyone with an income under $1 million or so and without a corporate board position who still considers voting for Bush-Cheney ’04.

Second, as I predicted (it didn’t take a genius), they are planning how to exploit The Adoration of Reagan for their campaign purposes. It is a pity that the above-mentioned factor number one, the short attention span of the voter, will mitigate against this. If only he had died three or four months hence…

Thirdly, it is clear that this is the strategy of a desperate beleaguered team on the defensive, grasping at straws. The smell of fear is in the air; let us savor it. I share other webloggers’ amazement that this memo is not being more broadly covered, and hope that if so it will have a remarkably focusing effect on that supposed short attention span of the electorate. The “Go fuck yourself, Leahey” story is splashed across all the front pages (especially the tabloids… and the weblogs); how about this great big “Fuck you, America”?

Here, if you want to counter spin with facts, are a few fact-based conclusions to use with those with whom you associate who are still on the fence, if you have the patience to debate with them.