The neocons are beginning to panic, as well they should. “Twilight of the Neocons” explores the error of a world view dominated by military response, fear and hate, as exemplified in Richard Perle and David Frum’s latest book. “…there is a growing sense within the GOP in Washington that the neoconservative agenda may have created problems whose solutions are elusive–or worse.”
The GOP is beginning to panic. As well they should. They’ve run a campaign based on lies, hypocrisy, whining, and most importantly, dirty tricks, and then have the gall to get upset when the Democrats do it. People aren’t that dumb. (Well, most of us aren’t anyway.)
The Bush White House should be panicking. Years of lies, even to those in it’s own party, as well as to the American people, are coming back with a vengeance. Add to that a record trade deficit, the Republican Speaker of the House publicly stating that the Administration’s economic bean counters are, well, full of beans, the slowing consumer confidence indicators, the lack of jobs and the lack of WMD’s in Iraq, not to mention the fact that American soldiers, civilians and Iraqi civilians, a lot of them, have died and continue to die every day in Iraq, well… You almost feel sorry for the poor dumb critters in the White House who started it all. Almost.
Ted Rall’s cartoon was dropped by the New York Times website, because in the papers words, the cartoonists work no longer fit “the tone” of the site. But, Rall states it was because of a right-wing e-mail campaign. Read all about it in his blog and read his latest article “First They Came for the Shock Jocks” where he writes about his experience with censorship and the right-wing desire to stop dissent.
“We tell our kids that America learned from McCarthyism, but a new version of the Red Scare is being born in this new century. Powerbrokers connected to what Hilary Clinton clumsily called ‘the vast right-wing conspiracy’ — Bush-Cheney’s neoconservative war profiteers, the Christian Right and their media allies at Fox News and Clear Channel Communications — operate out in the open. Their goal: to crush personalities whose influence and eloquence threatens their plan to recast the United States in their white, heterosexual, pro-business image.
[snip]
The Right is running scared. Their wars and economic schemes are revealed to be as fraudulent as their fake president, whose poll numbers are plummeting as he turns to face uncharacteristically unified Democrats. Because they have no record worth defending and no ideas anyone will believe, the new McCarthy-ites have only one line of defense left: censoring their opponents. The question this time is, will anyone stand up for free speech?”
Tena at Eschaton (Atrios) writes on this:
I think the answer to the question is “yes.” However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a fight ahead, because it is looking as if censorship may be one of the main dirty tricks the Republicans try to use during this campaign. The Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to shut down political ads such as those by MoveOn. Why do Republicans hate American values?
Like the trolls that hide in the corners of this blog and others around the net, they want ideas they don’t like to just go away, and they will use their formidable power to quell first amendment speech and rights, and they will blame it on others, explain it away and lie to do so. How very patriotic and American of them.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely…
The Boston Globe has reported that the Senate investigation into “Memogate” is heating up. “The US Senate’s chief law enforcement officer said yesterday that Republican staff snooping in Democratic computers in the Senate Judiciary Committee may have violated several criminal laws — a revelation that led the panel’s top two Democrats to recommend that the report be referred for possible criminal charges.”
“Just consider what you’re doing now. You don’t want to have the freakin’ president of the United States mad at you for the rest of your life…If you step off this cliff, gravity never goes up, it goes down.”
The Sopranos? No, Larry Telford, “incumbent retention director” of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) to Mike Murphy, a political neophyte running in the Texas Republican primary for the US House of Representatives. New York Congressman Tom Reynolds, chairman of the NRCC also called Murphy, who has no prior political experience and has raised virtually no cash.
“Reynolds dropped plenty of big names, including Karl Rove, chief political strategist for the president. Reynolds promised that, should Murphy put his party first, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay would be made aware and that he ‘wouldn’t forget it.’”
The NRCC’s communication director “denied that the party tried to squash District 4′s grassroots challenger with bluster….[and] said that Karl Rove’s name had not been dropped in either conversation. He also denied that either caller had in any way suggested that running might ruin Murphy’s political career and make him an enemy of the White House.”
However, Reynolds and Telford made the mistake of having these conversations with Murphy while he was taping the phone calls. (Emphasis mine. Slighty edited for clarity) (c/o HippoRider @ Daily Kos)
Ah yes. Nothing like your own voice to come back and bite you in the ass. And, the really funny thing about this? From the article: “After hearing the tapes, the Observer called Forti back. He said he hadn’t fibbed; the talks between Murphy and the party honchos had been incorrectly ‘characterized,’ which led to a ‘misunderstanding.’” So, even after the Observer lets Forti know they’ve heard the taped conversation, Forti still tries to spin it as up is down, down is up. Dumb as a bag of hammers.
Speaking of Bush’s Brain and spin control… Karl Rove’s testimony in that other ongoing investigation, the Plame affair, is finally seeing the light of day. From the American Prospect:
President Bush’s chief political adviser, Karl Rove, told the FBI in an interview last October that he circulated and discussed damaging information regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame with others in the White House, outside political consultants, and journalists, according to a government official and an attorney familiar with the ongoing special counsel’s investigation of the matter.
But Rove also adamantly insisted to the FBI that he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July. Rather, Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak’s column. He also told the FBI, the same sources said, that circulating the information was a legitimate means to counter what he claimed was politically motivated criticism of the Bush administration by Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. (Emphasis mine)
Lest anyone forget, outing a CIA operative during time of war is a very serious offense, considered by most as a crime of treason. To recap, Rove stated that he was not responsible for the intitial leak to Novak, but did assist in the dissemination of that information ex post facto, yet such dissemination was okay since it was a means to counter political criticism of the Bush Administration.
Such conclusions of moral logic should be of great concern to every single American citizen, for essentially, if found to be true, Rove’s actions and statement of complicity essentially admit that he placed a person’s life, a person in service to the USA, at great risk. Rove’s alledged actions also favored the Bush Administration’s political survival over the war on terror. It is also, very likely, a serious crime of treason. Watch as the case unfolds how the right-wing attempts, like Rove, to justify it and create wiggle room. And, we all know if it was a Democratic administration that outed a CIA agent, that the right-wing would be screaming for blood.
Brought to you by Citizens Against Karl Rove Talkin’ Pointz™
