Neocons Down, Not Out
By Robert Parry
December 6, 2007
Since the neoconservatives began to emerge as a political force in the mid-to-late 1970s, they have followed a consistent strategy of targeting the information flows inside the United States, paying particular attention to controlling the nation’s intelligence analysts and purging independent thinking from the U.S. news media.
Those were the two key switching points that allowed the neocons to push out favorable information and suppress contrary facts to shape how Americans perceived reality. Thus, the neocons could guide the public on issues such as the severity of the Soviet threat in the late Cold War or the WMD danger from Iraq and Iran this decade.
That neoconservative strategy reached its zenith after the 9/11 attacks as the U.S. intelligence community and the Washington press corps caved under intense political pressure. Essentially, President George W. Bush and the neocons got to manipulate reality itself – and they used that power to scare the heck out of the American people.
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Though Bush and the neocons again find themselves on the defensive, the political battle is far from over. The neocons retain extraordinary strength within the U.S. news media as well as in the leading Washington think tanks and inside many of the presidential campaigns.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/120507.html