Making a Scandal Disappear

I rarely link to anything from Dkos, as I assume that everybody has already seen it. But this diary amused me. "alysheba" explains how to make the scandal disappear:

Every now and then, your average celebrity - or, in the case of today's news, your average drug-enhanced baseball legend - just needs to disappear for a while. The "so-and-so entered rehab this morning" method has been particularly popular of late, counting among its proponents such figures as Mark Foley and Ted Haggard.
Time will tell if today's headline-makers will choose the same option.

Occasionally, though, a scandal is simply so big, so utterly interwoven into the primal fabric of a nation, so completely relevant to the daily lives of 300 million citizens, that none of the usual remedies will do. Surely, baseball players being caught on steroids in December of 2007 is such a case. And, in this instance, the only way to salvage a celebrity's career - and bring comfort into the hearts of all the nation's citizens - is to effect a complete and total media blackout.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/13/191230/73/261/421796

Her suggestions for specific players:

ROGER CLEMENS: Call a press conference and immediately demand the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

It may sound paradoxical, but in order to disappear, Clemens needs to put in some serious face time hammering this issue. I call it my "Crazy Ivan" maneuver (patent pending) - turning headlong into the media's prurience before their corporate handlers have time to retask them. One serious marathon session of putting that big, square jaw in front of every camera he can find and talking incessantly about the need for impeachment?? 24 hours later it'll be: "Roger who?"

DAVID JUSTICE: Join forces with Robert Kennedy and announce a speaking tour to raise the nation's awareness of election fraud in 2004.

As a retiree, David Justice has time on his side - time to think, time to plan, most of all, time to sit through a crash course in the ConyersReport at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, and then take his newfound knowledge on the road! It may sound cliched, but making one's self the poster-child for what the mainstream media prefers to label a "conspiracy theory," well, that's the high road to a low profile.

LENNY DYKSTRA: Quickly orchestrate and, if necessary, self-finance, an endorsement deal for Johnathan Goodwin's 100 mpg diesel-electric Hummer.Nothing says "media blackout" like the phrase "alternative fuel." And for Dykstra's money, he couldn't find a better place to hide than under a 7,000 lb. car that scares the shit out of Detroit. I mean, a right wing loon like Arnold Schwarzenegger joining forces with an energy independence advocate like Goodwin? Plus the endorsement of a tobacco chewing millionaire like Dykstra?? There's no way to shoehorn those oddities into the stock media narrative! And you know what
that means: BUH-BYE DYKSTRA HEADLINES!

ANDY PETTITE: Join the Army. Go to Iraq. Stay out of combat if possible, but upon your return have someone pen a book on your (fictional) traumatic brain injury. Stay away from Bob Woodruff at all costs!

Pettite's got a lot to lose. Given that Bonds was already done prior to today's news, and that Clemens was close to retirement anyway, Pettite, in my professional opinion as a newly minted publicist, is the real loser today and it appears he may have to go for the sacrifice fly.

He may get some press initially over the whole "celebrity enlistment" thing, but say he's done with his obligation in three years, he'll still have a good half-decade of throwing ahead of him. And, again, coming home
with the whole sourpuss TBI-thing - that's a guaranteed "C-ya" in the press and next thing y'know, he's back on the mound.But, again, Pettite must stay well clear of Bob Woodruff. The last thing he needs is to get swept up in another one of those "intrepid reporter" plots. That's the kinda airtime no fallen hero needs!

BARRY BONDS: Rent out the "House that (You) Built" and stage a public hearing on the Sibel Edmonds case, signing autographs as necessary to increase attendence.

If none of these work, I would suggest that the accused players become advocates for alternative energy as a way to address global warming. The media will then completely ignore them.