A WHIFF OF ROVE
By Peter Fredson
September 26, 2005
Yesterday I returned from a walk around the block, turned on my TV and saw a blurry picture of Cindy Sheehan, with muffled sound. The picture was shot from below the lady, perhaps surreptitiously, at a bad angle. I could not make out what Ms. Sheehan said.
Then the picture changed. A woman was shown in full clarity, with full clear sound and from the front. The contrast between presentation of the two speakers was remarkable, and it was obvious that only the second speaker was to be given any attention. This is obviously part of the "dirty tricks" of the Bushites.
Cindy Sheehan was part of an anti-war anti-Bush demonstration, with perhaps 100,000 participants. Anti-war and anti-Bush signs accused Bush of lying to start a war and fomenting terror instead of fighting it. Some signs said "Bush terrorist', "Bush liar", "Bush lied people died", "End the illegal occupation", and "Say NO to War."
One problem I had with the seriousness of the occasion was that many of the participants chose to wear bizarre clothing, with exceedingly colorful attachments. Another problem is that the demonstration was not focused but diffused as some of the demonstrators were also against "racism, colonialism, police brutality, World Bank and International Monetary Fund Policies, and called to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and end of U.S. threats against Cuba and Venezuela."
It was obvious that the anti-war demonstration was not professionally organized.
The second woman was part of a well-organized Republican Party demonstration. She intimated that Cindy Sheehan was a traitor to her country because she was criticizing a War Time President who was fully occupied in fighting a mighty terror in a distant land, so that terror would not strike us here in America.
I wish I had recorded the next part, but basically she said that to criticize the President was treasonous, and that Cindy Sheehan must hate her country because no one that loves their country would act in such a treacherous fashion, putting the lives of the brave soldiers at risk. She loved her son, but now he was dead, and she felt that his memory was dishonored by the Cindy People.
It was at that instant that I got a faint disgusting whiff of turd blossom, direct from the Turd Blossom himself. It was as though Karl Rove were present and had personally organized the entire pro-Bush demonstration. The Republican mantra would now be: anyone that hates their country will criticize Bush, and this will cause our brave boys to get killed. Rove went for emotion rather than substance: a tried and true Bush tactic.
Let's review some of the Rove strategic statements: The deaths of the soldiers were not caused by Bush but by terrorists. Our sons and daughters in Iraq are fighting for American Freedom, while terrorists hate freedom and democracy. Bush needs to keep us safe and any criticism will encourage the terrorists. Bush uses the flypaper strategy to kill those nasty terrorists and when he finishes we will have democracy and freedom. Most Iraqis want us to stay in Iraq for stability. We are reconstructing Iraq against wishes of the terrorists who want to see us fail. If we don't fight them in Iraq we may put our country in peril as they come over here. We are trying hard to give Iraq a Constitution and firm leadership, and only terrorists want to see all this fail.
More Rove strategy: Our brave boys were nice boys, popular, good in school, loved their parents, nice-looking, good fiancées and husbands. The war was not caused by Bush but by an evil dictator, full of evil, who had gassed some of his own people and therefore it was legitimate to "change the regime." So, it is a terrible shame, even a crime, to say or do anything that will put the lives of these brave good soldiers at risk.
The contrast between the two demonstrations was indeed remarkable. The anti-Bush one showed how his continual lies led to war and that he was responsible for every soldier killed. He and his neo-con cronies started war deliberately as part of their strategy to dominate the world, for themselves.
The second demonstration somehow failed to mention any of the hundreds of Bush lies, or his failures, or how he mocked sovereignty, or how he bullies the UN and deceived the entire congress into a war. There was no mention of WMD's, aluminum tubes, yellow cake, biological labs, mushroom clouds, but some discussion of EVIL.
Part of the mantra is that Bush is a fine, honest, open, friendly, diplomatic, wise, and judicious person who loves his God, Mom and Laura and wants only the very best for the people of his country.
Then I watched as several characters that I thought were dead, came to give their testimony for wartime. They were the left-overs from the Nixon administration, even some of the disgraced and convicted people, who still resent the loss of Nixon. They showed no repentance, shame or reluctance to back the war demonstration, or to back a lying president. On the contrary, like Bush who loves to stay a failed course, they too wanted a replay and another chance to demonstrate a repugnance for democracy and a lobbyist's love of corporate welfare and compassion.
"The group who spoke here the other day did not represent the American ideals of freedom, liberty and spreading that around the world," Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, told the crowd. "I frankly don't know what they represent, other than to blame America first."
The smell of turd blossom overcame my desire to watch the demonstration so I turned off the TV.
But now we know, as we had known before, that the Republican strategy is to use emotional phrases to denigrate the opposition, make them appear treasonable, and laud every movement of wise Great Leader Bush and his equally wise and honest Cabinet. The media did as expected, giving scant attention to the anti-war demonstration but much greater time, and attention to the pro-Bush demonstration.
Bush himself was not present in Washington to see the demonstration. He was off giving speeches, shaking hands, patting people on the back, smiling, strutting, hugging poor and black people, and throwing money at the big corporations who will make fortunes at "reconstructing" the after effects of Katrina and Rita. He didn't even have to fake being serious for photo-ops. He knows he is in big trouble but Karl Rove will pull him out with his big bag of dirty tricks. The public is most gullible right now, and will buy any emotional gimmick that they think will give them some sort of stability in a shifting world.