[Peace-discuss] Co-option cop

[C. G. Estabrook]

[One might condemn the bad politics of the "traditional liberal interest groups" 
  -- what Sartre called "bourgeois bad faith" (= the liberal bleat that "we've 
got no choice!") -- but remember who chose the awful Emanuel to do this job.  --CGE]

	April 9, 2009
	Jeremy Scahill
	Rahm Emanuel's Think Tankers Enforce
	'Message Discipline' Among 'Liberals'

The White House is 'helping' liberal groups to get their political messages in 
sync with the official line.

Over the past several weeks, independent journalists and anti-war activists have 
tried to shine a spotlight on how groups like the Center for American Progress 
and MoveOn, which portrayed themselves as anti-war during the Bush-era, are now 
supporting the escalation and continuation of wars because their guy is now 
commander-in-chief.

CAP has been actively pounding the pavement in support of the escalation in 
Afghanistan, the rebranding of the Iraq occupation and, more recently, Obama's 
bloated military budget, which the group said was "on target." MoveOn has been 
silent on the escalation in Afghanistan and has devoted substantial resources to 
promoting a federal budget that includes a $21 billion increase in military 
spending from the Bush-era.

What is clear here is that CAP and MoveOn are now basically psuedo-official PR 
flaks targeting "liberals" to support the White House agenda. This, though, 
should not come as a shock to those who have closely monitored these groups. 
They were the primary force behind Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI), 
"a coalition that spent tens of millions of dollars using Iraq as a political 
bludgeon against Republican politicians, while refusing to pressure the 
Democratic Congress to actually cut off funding for the war."

Now, according to John Stauber, executive director of the Center for Media and 
Democracy, the Center for American Progress is now running "Progressive Media 
which was begun by Tom Matzzie and David Brock in 2008 and now 'represents a 
serious ratcheting up of efforts to present a united liberal front in the coming 
policy wars....' [These groups] are working hard to push Obama's policies, 
including rationalizlng or defending his escalation of the wars in Afghanistan 
and Pakistan as "sustainable security."

On Wednesday, Ben Smith at Politico reported on the latest development in this 
White House-coordinated campaign to use these think-tankers to whip up support 
for its agenda. It is a newly formed coalition, the Common Purpose Project, 
which blogger Jane Hamsher describes as "one of the many groups Rahm Emanuel has 
set up to coordinate messaging among liberal interest groups." This one includes 
the direct participation of White House officials, according to Smith:

     "The Common Purpose meeting every Tuesday afternoon at the Capitol Hilton 
brings together the top officials from a range of left-leaning organizations, 
from labor groups like Change to Win to activists like MoveOn.org, all in 
support of the White House's agenda. The group has an overlapping membership 
with a daily 8:45 a.m. call run by the Center for American Progress' and Media 
Matters' political arms; with the new field-oriented coalition Unity '09; and 
with the groups that allied to back the budget as the Campaign to Rebuild and 
Renew America Now.

     "Unlike those other groups, however, the Common Purpose meeting has 
involved a White House official, communications director Ellen Moran, two 
sources familiar with the meeting said. It's aimed, said one, at 'providing a 
way for the White House to manage its relationships with some of these 
independent groups.'"

Common Purpose was founded by Erik Smith, a former aide to Dick Gephardt. The 
group's political director is former Obama aide, Miti Sathe. "Common Purpose is 
formed as a 501(c)(4), which leaves it focused on policy, rather than electoral, 
work," notes Smith. "Part of the group's role is to enforce a kind of message 
discipline." He tells the story of how last month "some of the more liberal 
members of the coalition" were launching a campaign against conservative 
Democrats under the banner "Dog the Blue Dogs." The White House, Smith alleged, 
"was in the midst of discussions with members of the congressional Blue Dog 
caucus, and objected to the slogan, which was promptly changed, and the page 
describing the drive is gone from CAF [Campaign for America's Future, a 
participant in the Common Purposes calls]'s website."

Hamsher, who wrote an interesting response to the Politico report with a 
different spin on the above story, concluded:

     "There's a big problem right now with the traditional liberal interest 
groups sitting on the sidelines around major issues because they don't want to 
buck the White House for fear of getting cut out of the dialogue, or having 
their funding slashed. Someone picks up a phone, calls a big donor, and the next 
thing you know ... the money is gone. It's already happened. Because that's the 
way Rahm plays."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/rahm-emanuels-think-tanke_b_185203.html?view=print