Is Kerry’s Armor Teflon? Is Matt Drudge Lying?
I’m hating Matt Drudge tonight. He freely admits that 80% of what he writes is true. I’m praying that his story about John Kerry’s affair with a 20 year-old intern is in the 20 percent that’s not true.
But last time he broke a story like this one, he brought down Bill Clinton.
If the story is true, WHY did Kerry run? Does he really believe that he is so invincible that, like Gary Hart telling the media “If you think I’m cheating on my wife, just follow me.” And they did, and caught him screwing Donna Rice. She went on to have a successful line of jeans, and his career was ended.
Does Kerry or anyone else really think, that in this day of media saturation, he can really get away with something like this? I’m praying that his armour is Teflon. And that Matt Drudge is a lying liar telling a lie.
What is the media going to do with this story?
Back in November, 2003, Greg Morago of the Hartford Courant asked, “Can The Rich And Famous Get Away With Anything? It Certainly Seems That Way” Interesting in light of the current controversy surrounding both John Kerry and George Bush, Morago wrote:
“We ask because mere mortals (regular folks, Middle America, whatever you want to call the vast majority) seem to never be able to get their hands on one. Average Janes and Joes go to jail when they’re caught red-handed; they pay fines when they’ve transgressed; they suffer when they’re publicly humiliated.
Not so the Teflons among us. Their shiny, impenetrable surface makes them invincible. Punishment for crimes and misdemeanors never sticks. Bad press slides right off. Ill will ricochets with alarming ease.”
What do all these celebrities have in common? That Teflon armour. And it seems that the Teflon phenomenon grows more flagrant and unbelievable each day. Does anyone really think that Kobe Bryant will be convicted of sexual assault? Or that Paris Hilton’s incipient television career will greatly suffer because of a sex video circulating on the Internet? Or that Martha Stewart will lose it all over her securities fraud brouhaha?
No. Why? Because celebrities – whether they’re movie stars, politicians, business giants, heiresses or actual royalty – are coated in Teflon.
“The culture loves its celebrities to crash and burn. But then it loves to bring them back,” said Anthony Mora, a marketing and public relations expert. “It’s a forgiving culture in that it gives celebrities second, third, fourth and fifth chances.”
In most cases, Teflons are aided by the public relations machine and media feeding frenzy that attends all celebrity scandal.
“PR, marketing and advertising is hand in glove with information now,” said Nancy Snow, a professor of communications at Cal State Fullerton and the author of “Information War.” “We don’t let the facts get in the way of a good narrative.”
“If the image is powerful enough, you can’t help being pulled in. Even if you’re skeptical, you get pulled in by the whole magic,” she said. “But it’s a two-way street. PR isn’t just doing it to us; we’re fully complicit in it.”
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Steve MacLaughlin
Doc Searls