Sorry, all, I just need to vent. This is reposted from my blog at
Three Guys, in response to Matt Yglesias's much-linked "So Mad" post today.
And just like that, Matt's gone completely over to the
hack side:
I'm really so furious about this whole situation that I don't know what to say. I'm taking out my credit card and making some donations and I would strongly advise any readers who don't feel like continuing to see a lying, cowardly, idiot who's willing to go to any lengths whatsoever to maintain his grasp on political power (and that's all there is to it, this isn't deception in pursuit of some higher goal, the man has no ideological principles whatsoever other than his own self-aggrandizement) so that the gang of criminals he's employed at the highest levels of government can avoid prosecution serve in the White House I would suggest that you do the same.
I'd like to say more about this, but it's late, and I'm tired, and barely coherent. So I'll just ramble on for a while and then go to sleep.
There's been something in the air this week. This SBV ad situation has made me genuinely angry, as angry as I've ever been at Bush, his supporters, and the institutional biases in the media that enable them. This Potemkin scandal has shown for all to see that at the core of all the right's rhetoric there is nothing but the simple, naked desire for power at any cost.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Bush all know they're lying.
The right's allies in the media all know they're lying.
The journalists, anchors, and producers who control the news all know they're lying.
Glenn Reynolds and the rest of warbloggers know they're lying.
Al and Charlie, the paid trolls who haunt Kevin Drum, know they're lying.
Bush knows they're lying.
But none of them will say it. Instead, they treat this election as just another ridiculous game: They pretend and will continue to pretend these guys have credibility for as long as it makes John Kerry look bad. No principles, no decency. No limits.
There's not a single piece of documentary evidence to back up any of the claims of the Swiftboat Veterans beyond their own suddenly recovered memories--and it doesn't matter. The ads aren't just run by the networks--they run the ads for free as news segments! And, somehow, no one ever seems to get around to mentioning that they're completely full of shit.
This is why we on the left get so excited when Chris Matthews or Mark Shields comes off the bench and finally just calls it like it is: these people don't deserve a pulpit. They deserve to be shunned from decent society. They deserve to be run out of town on a rail.
And the Swift Boat Veterans are just the very annoying tip of a very, very big iceberg. Phony voting machines, illegal purges, voter intimidation, off-year redistricting, convenient terror alerts, the outing of CIA agents, selective declassification, manipulation of national security for partisan purposes, lying to New Yorkers about the quality of the air they breathe, completely false allegations about anyone and anything, covering up the torture our own soldiers have enacted in all our names...where will it end? Is nothing off limits? Is nothing sacred?
You know the answer. It's by now become a cliche: These people have no shame.
What I don't get is this: what's in it for them?
Seriously. What's in it for them, besides just winning? What is the right even fighting for anymore? What exactly are they willing to go this far in order to preserve? What exactly is their justification for destroying democracy in order to save it?
I don't see it. From Day One the Bush White House has been devoted to Bush-hagiography, reelection, the 2002 midterm elections, and invading Iraq, in that order. Every move they've made has been calculated and cynical, devoted to serving at least one of those four ends. As Matt says, there's no grand vision here, there's no ideological prize to be had. Bush's policies have all been abject failures, even by Bush's own standards. Four more years of this will be murder on the country, and everybody knows it, even the empty suits on the right.
It's not that they think they have something to gain; it's that they just don't want to lose. They're not even bothering to try to defend Bush anymore; their strategy is just to sling all the shit they can at Kerry and hope he can't deflect it all. And why not? The strategy's worked for 16 years. All that ever changes is the depth to which they're willing to sink.
It's disgusting. Beyond disgusting. And the sooner we root them out--the sooner anything that ever touched George Walker Bush is thoroughly and permanently discredited--all the better for our country.
It starts in November. But November's just the start.