HARVARD SPONSORS WINGNUTS!!!

I was looking at Ernest Istook's bio at HuffPo and saw that he led a "study group" at Harvard's Institute on Politics on, believe it or not, Propaganda in Today’s American Politics.

Istooks's guest speakers includes two well-known masters of agit-prop: John Fund and Andrew Breitbart.

Here's the syllabus:

Spring 2010 Study Group

Propaganda in Today’s American Politics

STUDY GROUP LED BY IOP FELLOW ERNEST ISTOOK

Day: Thursday
Time: 4:00-5:30PM
Location: L166

The term "spin" is inadequate to describe how information is distorted in American politics.

Increasingly, much of the public believe they are being deliberately misinformed, deceived and manipulated by the information coming from government, from elected officials, and from political groups. Study group guests will share their experiences from multiple perspectives - including media bias, Internet and other new media, talk radio, the pundit class, economics, and activists of the Tea Party movement. Attendees will benefit by learning to distinguish the trustworthiness of political claims and of information they receive through the media.

Scheduled sessions and guests will include:

Feb 18th - Congressman Istook will share insights of how talking points are crafted and disseminated from Washington, D.C., how elected officials structure and channel their communications to constituents and to the public, and how special interest groups do the same.

Feb. 25th - Congressman Istook will lead an interactive dialogue on the facts, fictions and myths of the White House Health Care Summit that will conclude immediately prior to the study group session.

March 4th - Robert Lichter, Harvard PhD, author of The Media Elite, President of the Center for Media and Public Affairs and Professor of Communications at George Mason University, on "Media Bias" and "Coverage of Global Warming."

March 11th - Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler, National Coordinators of Tea Party Patriots, the core of the Tea Party movement that is founded on a distrust of what many in government do and say.

March 25th - Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers Magazine, dubbed "the Bible of talk radio," who will relate how propaganda has become a strong-selling commodity that nourishes national media.

April 1st - John Fund of The Wall Street Journal, one of America’s most prominent journalists and columnists. Also author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy.

April 8th - Andrew Breitbart, one of America’s most successful developers of new media. An editor of The Drudge Report and a primary developer for The Huffington Post, and publisher of multiple major websites that include Breitbart.com, BigHollywood.com, BigGovernment.com and BigJournalism.com.

April 15th - Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports will discuss the role of modern polling both in measuring public attitudes and in shaping of them as well.