I just realized how vast the vast right wing conpiracy really is.
Kos linked to a synopsis of
right-wing dirty tricks over the history of America. Some of it is a little too blindly partisan for my tastes (such as glorifying President Polk's role in fulfilling Manifest Destiny) but in the 1960s section (for me) a stunner:
Arlen Specter created the single bullet theory.
Is this common knowledge? I'm not American, and only started following US politics in detail about 2000. I was born in 1976, so I only know Kennedy through my parents. Really, does the average politically aware American know this? Do Specter's constituents? Did you know it?
My Dad tells me with emotion in his voice that his busy butcher's shop in downtown Toronto stopped silent in horror at the news Kennedy had been shot. My Irish born mother absolutely loved the guy. Even I get shivers down my spine hearing his speeches, I even tracked them down in MP3 format (anyone know the song "Glad I'm not a Kennedy" by Shona Laing? Love it. She's a Kiwi, which shows how far Kennedy's reach still is). I love Oliver Stone's JFK too, which was my introduction to the absurdity that is the single bullet theory.
So, reading this tidbit tonight, actually stunned me. As jaded as I am to find how these scum have carried on for decades and gotten away with it, Specter actually managed to surprise me. Maybe it's because he's portrayed as some kind of moderate. Some progressives held out hope he would vote against Alito on abortion grounds. Ha. As for his hearings into Bush's illegal wire-tapping, what faith can we put into the man who helped write, as Nixon said "the greatest hoax that has ever been perpetuated" ?
So that's how big the vast right wing conspiracy really is. Bush's wiretapping will be glossed over by hearings held by a supposedly pro-choice moderate Republican senator who openly mused on impeachment, all to add credibility to his report exonerating the President and killing any hopes of impeachment so long as Democrats have less than 67 seats in the senate. What full circle. From helping to write the idiocy that glossed over the conspiracy to murder JFK, to running the conspiracy to gloss over the conspiracy to turn the executive into the superior branch of government.
No offence guys, but man am I proud to be Canadian right now. You have a lot of work to do.
P.S. I just decided I'm going to track down and read the Warren Report. If I were a Democratic Senator, I would read the Warrent Report as part of my filibuster of Samuel Alito. I would look straight at Arlen Specter the entire time I read it. Over and over and over.