A TRUE PROPAGANDIST DOESN'T LIMIT HIMSELF TO VERIFIABLE FACTS -- RIGHT, HINDROCKET?

John Hinderaker of Power Line has posted a Daily Caller video of Occupy protesters outside an Americans for Prosperity gathering in D.C. The Apparatchik Formerly Known as Hindrocket writes:

RAMPAGING OCCUPIERS ATTACK 78-YEAR-OLD WMAN

We posted video last night in which degenerates from Occupy D.C. stormed the Washington Convention Center where Americans For Prosperity was holding a dinner. In the course of their riot, the Occupiers attacked a 78-year-old woman who had been attending the dinner, and pushed her down a flight of stairs....

Now, I've watched this video repeatedly I've slowed it down. I've freeze-framed it. I've crashed Adobe Flash twice watching it.

And here's what I see. I see an angry crowd that's pointing fingers, blocking cars, banging on thick glass doors with bare hands, and using a lot of four-letter words. What I'm not seeing is anyone being pushed down a flight of stairs by demonstrators. What I see -- and what I think you'll see, starts shortly after 2:25 (in other words, after the furious woman yells at the demonstrators, "Don't touch my kids!" in response to what doesn't seem to be any deliberate provocation). The DC's camera person is at the to of some stairs. Two older women are knocked off their feet -- but watch the one in red. She's barely visible as he falls -- but it appears that she falls not because demonstrators push her but because, in the course of trying to contain the jostling crowd, a security guy in a blue uniform pushes or nudges the crowd, and thus pushes a mostly bald, shaved-headed Bernie Kerik clone in a suit (who is quite stocky and who I assume is also security) into the woman.

The video cuts to another older woman who's on the ground -- but she hasn't gone down the steps, and she also seems to be a victim of the security team's pushing. Then, around 3:43, you see the woman who went down the stairs.

Watch it:



Look, if someone deliberately pushed a 78-year-old woman down a flight of stairs, I consider that a serious crime, even if the perp was someone who's politically on my side. But do you see evidence that that happened? I sure don't.

But this is why the right wins. We now have angry, fired-up crowds -- but they have people whose instinctive response to an incident like this is to deliberately distort the truth in a way that seems accurate, or pretty close to accurate, even to people who aren't their ideological soul mates, but that turns innocent behavior into an intolerable existential threat. Over the years I've called this "truth creep"; it's a brilliant propaganda tactic, because people who should know better can't spot it (or don't bother to try), and it works. The classic example of truth creep is the recasting of the proposed Islamic cultural center blocks away from the World Trade Center site as the "Ground Zero mosque." That's become the semi-official name of the project for most people.

The right has a vast network made up of bloggers and others who engage in truth creep every chance they get, and major media outlets (Fox, talk radio) that disseminate the distortions. That's a big reason why they're still winning.

*****

The woman, according to an e-mail Hinderaker reprints, wasn't hurt as badly as she might have been -- "She went to the emergency room with a bloody nose and bruises on her hand and leg." That's some consolation -- I'm glad this woman didn't suffer serious injuries, however much I disagree with her politics. We're also told:

Her name is Dolores Broderson, age 78. She rode on a bus for 11 hours from Detroit to get there.

At that point, Hinderaker lays it on a bit thick:

She rode from Detroit for 11 hours because AFP is a genuine grass-roots movement, unlike the Occupiers and their sugar daddies. But that is a relatively minor point. The Occupier movement stands for riot, assault, rape, vandalism, sexual harassment, public urination, public defecation and public masturbation. And Barack Obama owns it lock, stock and barrel. He has endorsed the Occupiers and never uttered a single word to distance himself from them. Their disgusting behavior should be hung around his neck like an anvil when he runs for reelection next year.

There are multiple instances of truth creep there. For what it's worth, Dolores Brodersen (that's the correct spelling) is (or was) a pol-wannabe -- she's run twice for a seat in the Michigan state legislature. (She lost overwhelmingly both times, which suggests that she was the GOP's sacrificial lamb in a heavily Democratic district. But that tells me that, with regard to politics, she's not an outsider, even if she's not a fat cat.) She's a retired Detroit public school teacher, which means she was a filthy socialist leech whose job would be eliminated in a properly run Randian society. (Right, wingnuts?)