For those of you unfamiliar with “take out the trash day,” you probably shouldn’t even bother to familiarize yourself with the term.
It refers (or rather referred) to when political spin doctors would throw out a bunch of “bad stories” all at the same time on a Friday afternoon, the logic being that newspaper editors only had a certain number of column inches to devote to each of the stories in the next day’s paper.
And what paper was that? The Saturday editions, of course, which were (and are) the poorest-read newspapers of the week.
The idea, then, is to dump all of your “trash” stories when the fewest people are paying attention – thus dividing, conquering and turning down the volume on your bad press.
Obviously, the rise of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle have all but obliterated the utility of the “take out the trash” ploy. It’s a different market now – with blogs, social networking sites and a preponderance of cable TV shows removing the neat barriers that used to exist between cycles.
As any PR pro will tell you, though, there is some marginal utility to be gained by releasing bad news on a Friday when most Americans are preparing to veg out for the next two days. Bad news like, say, President Barack Obama adding another $2 trillion onto America’s ten-year deficit projections.
Wait … what? You missed that?
Yeah … the Obama administration now says that American taxpayers will be forced to pick up the tab for $9 trillion in new deficit spending over the next 10 years, not $7.1 trillion as was previously predicted.
Of course, you’ll probably be hearing a lot more about this “little” news item on Monday, because as it turns out one of the problems with “taking out the trash” on Fridays is that the particularly rancid items don’t stop stinking over the weekend.
And this is rancid as hell, people.
Oddly enough, Obama is trying to spin his escalating taxpayer tab as some sort of perverse justification for passing his socialized medicine plan, which he continues to foolishly believe will actually control health care costs in this country.
Riiiight …
By the way, speaking of hypocrisy, our friend Charlie over at The Garnet Spy has a heckuva post up highlighting some of the rhetoric that Democrats were throwing out just five years ago on the subject of deficit spending …
Check it out, it’s a must-read …
By Karla M. McGowan August 23, 2009 at 3:31 am
It depends on which newspaper you read. If you read the State you’re going to miss alot.
By Laura Campbell August 23, 2009 at 3:42 pm
America has always been a country whose citizens will not stand for big government. While health care is a topic of utmost importance, other topics need to be addressed.
The United States needs to bring back our jobs that have been sent overseas. We need to let politicos like Sanford know that the type of behavior he has displayed will not be tolerated. Our government needs to stop the rhetorical BS. We need a lot less talk and more action. If there were enough jobs, people would not have to depend upon government programs for their survival.
It seems like the health care issue is being used as a smokescreen for other ideas to be formulated and passed behind the scenes.
The US needs big government as much as we need big business. Get rid of them both. They’re using the divide and conquer strategy across the board. Until the people are no longer divided by race, religion, political parties, etc. and work together, it will continue as such.
By lkmurrayfan August 23, 2009 at 7:53 pm
From your cash for clunker blog:
“But we can’t ever forget that the way was paved for him (Obama)by Republicans who racked up record deficits and exploded the national debt, and that it was a Republican President who started our descent into “irrational government interventionism,” a $13 trillion and counting strategy (over the last 9 years)which has utterly failed to achieve any of its economic objectives.”
$13 Trillion, $9 Trillion – take your pick – it’s expensive whether you’re saving your own country or somebody else’s. What are we spending $9 trillion on in the next 10 years? That’s less than a trillion per year for 10 years for our country and our people. How does that compare to $14 trillion over 9 for a war in some godforsaken place that apparently didn’t bring democracy to fruit? –
My point is we can bash each other over which president did or is doing us in or we can try to get a handle on this run a way train so hopefully my grandchildren won’t live in an impoverished country. We need to quit being a consumer driven economy and become a production based economy – until there are jobs, GOOD jobs, we’re on a steep slide to the third world of has beens.