inquiring minds at the White House
Via a post from Erin O’Connor that’s interesting on several fronts: the White House says,
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
Let them know so they can do what?
Send the rumormonger to a re-education camp, Alan. Duh. Just like Barack Hussein Osama’s idols, Stalin, Pol Pot, and teh Hitlerz!11!!
— Erik Vanderhoff · Aug 6, 04:32 PM · #
They can discover that the source of the disinformation is a group for which Americans have unpleasant associations, and publicize this connection. They can issue (dis?)information of their own to counter the rumors, of which they might otherwise not have become aware.
— Hyman Rosen · Aug 6, 04:36 PM · #
The motivation is surely benign. I don’t think anyone imagines anything like re-education camps are in the offing. It’s still a weird use of state power to encourage people to inform the government of dissenting memes and arguments. I would have thought such an intrusion into the realm of private communication would be enough to disqualify the program without invoking hyperbolic slippery slopes.
— Blar · Aug 6, 04:53 PM · #
“They can discover the source of the disinformation is a group for which Americans have unpleasant associations”
Your mom and Aunt Edna?
I don’t know about you but for me family members are the source of most of these types of emails and they immediately get filed along with the flash animations and pictures of cute animals in the Specially Protected Archive of Messages folder. Having White House staffers trying to chase down such trivia rather smacks of desperation IMO.
— Jaldhar · Aug 6, 05:22 PM · #
Look, this is similar to the “stop the smears” campaign Obama’s people used during the presidential campaign. Clearly the purpose is to find out what misinformation is out there so they can counter it with what they perceive to be correct information (as they are doing with the “health reform will kill your Grandma” b.s.)
— Eric · Aug 6, 05:30 PM · #
No, they’re not the source of these emails – they’re not writing them – they’re the audience and the conduit. No one is saying that your family members need to have tabs kept on them.
The source of these emails, fraudulent and crammed with purposeful disinformation, are often corporate lobbying interests doing it on purpose to drum up astroturf against policies they don’t like.
— Chet · Aug 6, 05:46 PM · #
So they can spy on people without warrants, imprison them without trials and torture them until they get the information they want. Oh, wait. Wrong administration.
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 6, 05:47 PM · #
So they can figure out what’s out there and adjust their communications strategy accordingly, Alan. Dumbass.
— Don't Be a Douchebag, Alan · Aug 6, 06:18 PM · #
Probably nothing. It’s astroturfing/community organizing. They want to make ordinary citizens feel like they are important to the effort in as many ways as possible; you have to keep people constantly invested in a movement.
— Aaron · Aug 6, 06:26 PM · #
“The source of these emails, fraudulent and crammed with purposeful disinformation, are often corporate lobbying interests doing it on purpose to drum up astroturf against policies they don’t like.“— Chet
Yup and that perfectly conveys what the Obama administration will “do with this information”. And maybe with a bit less hyperbole as the Speaker (i.e. “Well they’re not THAT evil”)
— C3 · Aug 6, 06:27 PM · #
Don’t be a douchebag, Don’t be a douchebag, Alan
— Jay · Aug 6, 06:46 PM · #
Source?
Also, I am relieved that only “corporate lobbying interests” will “have tabs kept on them.” Admirable restraint, that.
— Blar · Aug 6, 06:57 PM · #
Look at the way it’s phrased. They’re concerned about the “what” of the disinformation, not the “who.” Sheesh.
— Erik Vanderhoff · Aug 6, 07:30 PM · #
Okay, but does anyone NEED to ‘drum up astroturf’ with ‘disinformation?’ Everything I’ve seen indicates they can’t even provide a clear and DETAILED retort to the claim that “even if the reforms are a good idea (and we’ll get to that next), tell me how you plan to pay for them – without using the phrase ‘pay for itself.’”
Either way, scary stuff – get your guns and lock your doors, I say.
— Christian L. · Aug 6, 08:20 PM · #
Another one for the “if Bush had done this” files. Progressives: from apoplectic defenders of perceived threats to civil rights to meek church mice in only 200 days!
— BrianF · Aug 6, 08:21 PM · #
Gee, I guess a guy can’t even ask a question here in Barack Hussein Osama bin Mohammed’s Amerikkka. How can I get back to the Freedom I had when I lived in One Nation under Dick Cheney?
Seriously, some of these responses are even better than I thought they would be.
— Alan Jacobs · Aug 6, 08:23 PM · #
1) Obama is trying to stop community organizers from assisting concerned citizens in making their voices known.
2) Jesus was a community organizer.
3) Therefore, Obama hates Christians.
Seriously, I don’t see the problem. People need to watch what they say, after all.
— J Mann · Aug 6, 08:34 PM · #
Christian L- I mean that flag@whitehouse is astroturfing. The more people invest themselves in a movement, the more psychologically committed they become; it is important to provide people constant opportunities to do so, or they will “go back to their ordinary lives.”
— Aaron · Aug 6, 08:37 PM · #
Let them know so they can do what?
So they can know who might be planning terrorist attacks or may have some associations with those who know who is doing the planning. These cells are pernicious and very hard to ferret out, usually until it’s too late.”
I mean come on, Alan, it’s the 21st century – this is just democracy 2.0, like when groups were targeted, infiltrated, and intimidated during the stop the smears campaign.
I realize many want to portray this as stasi tactics and domestic spying, but no one at the government is interested in you or your name if you don’t deal in propaganda or funding of terrorists. I too value my privacy, but all our freedoms require a basic security and domestic tranquility. The real threat to these are our bad health, the escalating expense of treating it, and the terrorists who hope to destroy these things by spreading fear, confusion, and lies.
It’s the president’s job to identify the enemy so he can counter their sinister plans. If that takes me and my nana being put on a list somewhere, so be it. As long as the investigation into smears prevents just one more terrorist act, I’m all for it.
— Tru Patriot · Aug 6, 08:40 PM · #
Grow up, Alan. The obvious implication of your question was that something sinister or unsavory was going to be done. Can we just skip the first 10 or 20 coy conversational steps where you pretend that you might have meant something else, and get straight to the question of whether in fact something sinister will be done with the information?
— sidereal · Aug 6, 08:46 PM · #
This post is pretty low for TAS. If it’s a genuine question, it’s simple-minded and could have been answered with a moment’s thought and research. If it’s rhetorical, it’s cynical and helps fan the flames of baseless paranoia for partisan purposes. Alan Jacobs’s ridiculous, defensive response to commenters actually answering the question he asked suggests that it’s the second option. I expect more around here. If I wanted bad-faith, half-assed “well doesn’t it raise a lot of questions” eyebrow-raising, there’s plenty of blogs I could be reading (the Corner, cough cough).
— on the other hand · Aug 6, 08:50 PM · #
Obama is playing tit-for-tat.
This would be called…….astro-proofing.
did you know tit-for-tat is unbeatable, Alan?
— matoko_chan · Aug 6, 09:00 PM · #
I love games theory.
tit-for-tat is the optimal solution for the IPD (iterated prisoners dilemma) in evo theory of cooperation.
so Obama’s moves copy the conservative move, whether it was fair or cheat.
astro-turfing gets countered by astro-proofing.
— matoko_chan · Aug 6, 09:05 PM · #
Seriously, Alan, don’t act all coy. Your question was clearly phrased to imply that something sinister was going on; did you raise any such specter when the 2008 Obama Campaign made an identical request for rumors and disinformation? This isn’t some “Oh, it’s okay when Obama does it, not when Bush does it” bullshit. If you can point to some sort of apt comparison, do so. But it’s not like violations of American domestic spying law are remotely comparable to “email us the latest version of ‘Obama is going to come to your house and personally execute your pet dog’ that’s making the rounds.”
— Erik Vanderhoff · Aug 6, 09:18 PM · #
You’re wrong, Erik. This situation faced by Obama is the same, maybe worse. The right-wing astro-turfers are a greater threat than the fantasy that some invisible enemy was hiding amongst us. These real terrorists are now showing themselves and terrorizing statesmen by co-opting many of the left’s own organizing tactics.
Bush wanted us to turn in suspicious neighbors to have tabs on them and protect us and so does Obama. Just because one focused on crimes in order to target many well-meaning Americans who questioned his opinions about foreign policy, and the other focuses on our health and a political issue about which no one dissent unless manipulated by insidious insurance cells, doesn’t make a difference. Just because one president is sinister and should be skeptically questioned, doesn’t mean all of them are and should be.
I for one will sleep much better knowing that these people’s misinformation will be officially documented and stored for use by the White House, and that Obama will fight these corporate organizers with his own unparallelled community organization skills with the help of the AFL-CIO. Fight fire with fire, but mobs with the Mob, I always say. (I’m from Chicago too).
— Tru Patriot · Aug 6, 09:40 PM · #
Your question was clearly phrased to imply that something sinister was going on
Nah, it really wasn’t. When I wrote this post I didn’t realize that the right-extremists had taken this issue up and were shouting “Stalin!” and “Hugo Chavez!” That’s because I don’t read a ton of political blogs and I read none of the extremist ones. Also I don’t watch TV news. It was all the foaming-at-the-mouth on this thread that caused me to do some Googling. If I had known in advance, I would have written the post differently, or skipped it altogether.
Your assumption, and that of some other commenters, is that if nutjobs are denouncing this White House blog post, then anyone who even questions the blog post must be a nutjob. But that’s an obvious non sequitur. Someone could think that this isn’t a good idea by the Obama team without thinking that the second Massacre of the Innocents is at hand. Why assume extremism, on the basis of no evidence?
— Alan Jacobs · Aug 6, 09:44 PM · #
And sidereal, I’ll try growing up if you try growing a sense of humor.
— Alan Jacobs · Aug 6, 09:49 PM · #
Awww, c’mon Dr. Jacobs…don’t you want to play?
If the right does force-amplification and astro-turfing and disinformation, Obama will do it right back.
membah steven den beste?
here’s a walk down memory lane.
“There’s been a lot of analysis of this, and it turns out that honesty isn’t the best policy. One guy decided to run a computer tournament; people were permitted to create algorithms in a synthetic language which would have the ability to keep track of previous exchanges and make a decision on each new exchange whether to be honest or to cheat. He challenged them to see who could come up with the one which did the best in a long series of matches against various opponents. It turned out that the best anyone could find, and the best anyone has ever found, was known as “Tit-for-tat”.
On the first round, it plays fair. On each successive round, it does to the other guy what he did the last time.
When Tit-for-tat plays against itself, it plays fair for the entire game and maximizes output. When it plays against anyone who tosses in some cheating, it punishes it by cheating back and reduces the other guys unfair winnings.
No-one has ever found a way of defeating it.”
hehe, so simple even a bither can unnerstand it.
— matoko_chan · Aug 6, 09:59 PM · #
Ah, so I was wrong. You’re saying it was actually ignorance instead of cynicism. I guess I find that cheering, in a way. But you came to the story from a blog post that links this poorly-worded request to Orwell’s 1984, for crying out loud, so I’d say you must have had some idea that this was being ginned up into a ridiculous hysteria when you wrote your coy closing question. (I especially like how O’Connor decides that all academics are hypocrites because they’re not also up in arms about this complete non-story — what exactly did you find interesting about that post, again?)
Also, matoko_chan, please please please stop posting. I often agree with the points you make, but even I find your style and attitude completely unbearable.
— on the other hand · Aug 6, 10:02 PM · #
Alan, I know you would never knowingly echo extremist nutjobs. But as a cautious vigilant citizen, I still had to send your name and post to the White House since they don’t have time to listen to any of this misinformation about curbing costs and scare-tactics about some nation-wide neighborhood watch.
Hopefully, they can now better explain the situation to you so this sort of idle questioning doesn’t happen again.
— Tru Patriot · Aug 6, 10:02 PM · #
biRther.
you see, this is the incentive for playing fair in evo theory of cooperation.
playing fair maximizes both sides winnings.
The refuglicans could have compromised and worked their goals into the bill and got props from the electorate when it finally passed, but they chose to cheat.
So now it will be crammed down their throats and they will have to spend a half century in the wilderness.
So delicious.
sowwy otoh, but I function here both as punishment and as a guard….so these poseurs don’t scam anyone else like they scammed meh.
— matoko_chan · Aug 6, 10:08 PM · #
OTOH, did you notice that the quotation from 1984 was in reference to a different news story?
Tru: I will pay the price for my foolishness. I expect a secret tribunal to convict me of sedition and sentence me to read this comment thread until I have it memorized.
— Alan Jacobs · Aug 6, 10:10 PM · #
Alan, seriously? Yeah, I’m sure she meant for her gloss on 1984‘s portrayal of a government that “encourages people to watch one another, and to report ‘unorthodox’ behavior” to have absolutely no resonance with the other thing that she immediately starts talking about that involves portraying the government as asking for reports from citizens. Sure. Totally unrelated. Nothing but a sober discussion going on there. To quote Homer Simpson, “Oh, by the way: I was being sarcastic.”
— on the other hand · Aug 6, 10:21 PM · #
You have no idea how vast my sense of humor is. And yet I’m not sure what was so hilarious about your ghostwriting a Corner post. I refer you to the Washington Post in regards to the ‘It was a joke, therefore it was funny, therefore you’re not funny if you didn’t find it funny’ fallacy.
— sidereal · Aug 6, 10:51 PM · #
Alan, I don’t even have a TV and I’ve been unable to to escape the deluge of ridiculous scaremongering going around about health care reform.
In that environment, your post is hard to distinguish from some of the other hysterical OMG-OBAMA-IS-STALIN/HITLER/BIGBROTHER crap. Since I knew that couldn’t possibly be what you intended, I just thought it was surprisingly tone deaf.
— Michael Straight · Aug 6, 10:55 PM · #
You have no idea how vast my sense of humor is.
True dat.
— Alan Jacobs · Aug 6, 11:27 PM · #
I must to say this is a greatly article……..
— supra shoes · Aug 7, 03:05 AM · #
Matoko, tit for tat isn’t a great analogy.
1) Obama is the first player (tat) not the second. David Axelrod, Obama’s Rove, is well known as the market leader in astroturf, and was responsible for Obama’s successful astroturfing of Hillary and Edwards right out of the Iowa caucuses. Under your reasoning, the righties are using the winning strategy because they are responding to the king of astroturfing.
2) When the game theory writers describe tit for tat as a winning strategy, they don’t mean that one or the other of the players in the game is the winner; they mean that the strategy is a winner, in that there isn’t any better strategy. Depending on the rules, either the first player or the second can “win” in a tit for tat strategy, if you define “winning” as getting more points than the other player. What the game theory writers mean is that for the rule sets they use, neither player can improve his or her own perfomance by shifting away from tit for tat.
— J Mann · Aug 7, 01:48 PM · #
Surely the White House would already be aware of any “fishy” information. This would almost certainly be the case if the information was widely circulated. Hannity? Drudgereport? This seems like a pretty weak attempt to intimidate.
— Okie Poke · Aug 7, 01:58 PM · #
“So they can spy on people without warrants, imprison them without trials and torture them until they get the information they want. Oh, wait. Wrong administration.”
Just keep telling yourself that. Meet the new boss, absolutely nothing like from the old boss…
— SDG · Aug 7, 04:56 PM · #
That’s total nonsense. Where do you people get this stuff?
— Chet · Aug 7, 05:29 PM · #
Why do you ask me for sources, Chet? Is it because you know that I hate to look up the stupid Textile link format ?
Axelrod’s consulting company, ASK, is one of the market leaders in astroturf. See here, or just research what ASK does.
— J Mann · Aug 7, 07:36 PM · #
Be that as it may – the idea that Hillary and Edwards were “astroturfed” is pretty stupid, given Obama’s chain of nationwide victories.
— Chet · Aug 7, 10:27 PM · #
Be that as it may – the idea that Hillary and Edwards were “astroturfed” is pretty stupid, given Obama’s chain of nationwide victories.
1) Which “chain of nationwide victories” is that, Chet? The only nationwide victory I’m aware of is the one Obama won in the general election.
2) Your point is a non sequitur. You imply that the fact that Obama won a lot of primary victories (which is what I assume you were referring to when you spoke of Obama’s “chain of nationwide victories”) proves that his campaign didn’t astroturf the Edwards’ and Clinton campaigns. That simply does not follow. Is your point that they didn’t need to astroturf? Again, even if one grants for argument’s sake that the Obama campaign didn’t need to astroturf, it does not follow as a matter of simple logic that they didn’t in fact astroturf.
— Kate Marie · Aug 11, 10:12 PM · #