His master’s voice

So here's an editorial in today's paper.

Odd. I hadn't heard of this secret plan they're on about. NPR, the BBC and KYW Newsradio hadn't mentioned it. Nor had The Washington Post or the Times from either coast, or the rest of the paper I get paid to read. And the usual couple of dozen blogs I trust to keep me abreast of such things hadn't mentioned this either.

So I asked Google to tell me where this came from. And Google told me (via Media Matters). It came from this letter from Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan.

Let's compare the two.

Editorial

Now, apparently, the Democrats plan to "slow bleed" the president's policies by adding so many requirements to moving soldiers and Marines in and out of Iraq that Mr. Bush will have no choice but to withdraw. …

RNC Marching Orders

The Democrat [sic] strategy on Iraq is finally clear. … They call it their 'slow-bleed' plan. Instead of supporting the troops in Iraq, or simply bringing them home, the Democrats intend to gradually make it harder and harder for them to do their jobs. They will introduce riders onto bills to prevent certain units from deploying. …

Editorial

However, the "slow bleed" strategy is both dubious and devious. For one, it is dangerous to hamstring military commanders in a time of war. What if one of the Democrats' backdoor tricks goes wrong and American fighting men and women are harmed? Will the Democrats be so proud of their actions then?

RNC Marching Orders

"Slow-bleed" is exactly the right name for this incredibly irresponsible and dangerous strategy. … It is a cynical and dangerous erosion of our ability to fight the terrorists while we still have men and women on the ground in Iraq. It will put their lives in far greater danger, as resources slowly dry up. How can our troops operate without bases? How can they fight without backup?

The RNC chairman concludes his letter by urging partisan supporters to "Write a letter to your editor today." What do you do if, as one of his supporters, you can't do that because you are your editor?

Have no fear, you can still heed your master's voice by writing an unsigned editorial using the same boilerplate talking points supplied by Duncan.

Media Matters put a tracking collar on this "slow bleed" nonsense from the start, tracing the phrase from the RNC to this Politico post and back to the RNC. Politico's John Bresnahan expresses some regret for his role in this spin cycle in this follow-up post:

The Republican National Committee has e-mailed supporters, urging them to contact newspapers and other media outlets to object to [Rep. Jack Murtha's] proposals.

The RNC was reacting to a story in The Politico on Wednesday that spelled out the Democratic strategy of cutting off the supply of troops available for the war, while retaining funding for forces already deployed in Iraq.

Without the troops to execute the surge, the Pentagon would find it increasingly difficult to keep U.S. forces in Iraq.

Republicans have repeatedly charged that Democrats want to “cut off funding for the troops,” and the Democratic strategy seeks to deflect those charges.

The Democratic plan was characterized in The Politico as the “slow-bleed strategy,” which was not a term used by any Democrats or the anti-war groups supporting their efforts.

The RNC, however, attributed the phrase to Democrats, and it was used in their e-mail alert.

The RNC attributed the phrase to Democrats, and the editorial repeated this attribution uncritically, because uncritically repeating the RNC letter was the editorial's raison d'etre.

What do you call that again, when you "attribute a phrase" to someone who never said it? When you say something you know is not true?