How the Lying Rightwing Scumbags Do it, Abetted by Big Media Stooges

The current $mear on Speaker Pelosi is a case study in how the right-wing $mear machine operates. The right has been working to spread a lie that Speaker Pelosi "demanded" a "luxury jet" to fly herself and "supporters" and "contributors" around. The lie is effective because it ties a current event to a deeper, long-term resentment narrative about "limousine liberals" that the right has been pushing for years. It is spreading across the country because it is passed through a prepared pipe to the places where the general public receives their information.

The facts are simple: since 9/11, for obvious security reasons, the Speaker of the House of Representatives (who is next in line behind the Vice President to become President) has flown on government rather than commercial aircraft. Speaker Pelosi is from California, so with the House now back to a five-day workweek the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives requested a jet that can make it to California non-stop. According to the Sergeant-at-Arms,

"The fact that Speaker Pelosi lives in California compelled me to request an aircraft that is capable of making non-stop flights for security purposes, unless such an aircraft is unavailable."
That is the entire story, period. But the right's propaganda machine has been working to blow this up into a story that supports their "limousine liberal" resentment narrative, adding various embellishments with each passing day. According to this narrative, liberals are rich "elitists" from the coasts who think they are smarter and generally superior to the "regular people" in "the heartland." This is meant to create a resentment backlash, bringing votes to conservative candidates so they can get into office ... and give tax cuts to rich elitists.

Over several days, the "Pelosi plane" story has been expanded into a fable that has Speaker Pelosi "demanding" a "floating pleasure palace," a "luxury 757" with two beds, a bar, and 40 first-class seats, so she can "transport her political cronies, favorite Members of Congress, congressional staffers, friends and relatives."

An interesting point to note about this story is that such government planes do exist. The Bush administration has actually purchased such planes for use by executive branch officials and military brass. But this "use of luxury aircraft at taxpayer's expense" is not objected to in the retelling of this story. The objection is to their use by Speaker of the House Pelosi in particular. So perhaps part of the right's anger driving this issue can be laid to authoritarian resentment about a member of Congress - "the People's House" - a female Speaker, no less - being "demanding" enough to possibly gain use of one of "their" luxury planes.

As so many $mears do, this one originated with the Reverend Moon's Washington Times and was quickly spread across the right's echo chamber. Though the Reverend Moon preaches that Christianity must be "torn down" because he is the true Prophet and our "True Parent," the Christian Coalition again joined forces with him to condemn Pelosi,

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Others joined forces with Moon's efforts. The New York Post wrote in the story,
AIR-OGANT NANCY, DEMANDS 22G-AN-HOUR JET OF SAME TYPE VEEP GETS,

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is demanding regular use of the military's "Lincoln Bedroom" in the sky - a luxurious aircraft of the same type that carries Vice President Dick Cheney and First Lady Laura Bush on official trips, officials said yesterday.
In a development that has some Republicans and defense officials fuming, Pelosi recently asked the Pentagon to give her access to the Air Force's super-opulent C-32 for flights to her San Francisco home and other official trips.
The floating pleasure palace is a reconfigured Boeing 757 stored at Andrews Air Force Base with Air Force One and the rest of the fleet of executive aircraft.

The aircraft has a game room, stateroom, showers, a communications center and seats 42 to 50 people, according to the Air Force.

It costs taxpayers $22,000 an hour to operate, according to military and congressional sources.
"It will be a flying Lincoln Bedroom," said House GOP Whip Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).
"This shows an unprecedented sense of entitlement. This is a symbol of hypocrisy, this is a symbol of excess and this is a symbol of arrogance," said a member of the House Republican Conference.

Far-right outlets like NewsMax echoed and amplified the $mear. The Republican Party itself put up a web page titled, "Non-Stop" Nancy Seeks Flight Of Fancy, claiming,

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Wants Non-Stop Military Aircraft For Herself, Staff, Family, And Other Members In California Delegation
And right-wing talk radio has, of course, echoed the $mear all day, every day.

But the right's "echo chamber" reaches far beyond newspapers, TV and radio. People receive information in lots of ways, and the conservative machine has studied them and puts them to use. Online message boards and e-mail chain-forwarding, for example, can be a useful barometer of right-wing smear-planting operations. The same wording repeated at many boards often indicates that something is going on. The number of examples resulting from a Google search for the phrase "Nancy Pelosi's Gas Guzzling 757 Flying Bedroom", for example, demonstrates that this may be occurring.

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Even though no facts supported Reverend Moon's smear, the $mear quickly migrated to the corporate media, as documented by Media Matters and Think Progress, with CBS News (and here), Nightline, CNN, NBC's Today, MSNBC, and , as the right's Media Research Center bragged, others. (Media Matters covers this topic in detail here.)

Right-wing weblogs also helped spread the story....

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A final note - Newsweek today continues the circulation of the lie, complete with conservative narrative reinforcement, writing, (with a big, red down-arrow):
"Sure Hastert had military jet, but seeking bigger one (to go nonstop) makes her sound like a 757 liberal."

The rest is here.