Hypocrisy du jour
Wed Oct 11, 2006 at 05:15:39 PM PDT
I can hear the conservative campaign commercials and stump speeches this year whisper their sweet siren just like they always have:
The modern GOP strongly defends our security, the Constitution, limits big government, fights for truth, justice, honesty, accountability, moral values and the American way. Really, trust us.
But this year, I hear something else as well, the steady drip of scandal after scandal laying bare the lies hidden behind slogan.
Imagine it's 1864. The great emancipator President Lincoln is overseeing the end of the Civil War. You ride your horse into town for supplies, and purchase a paper. The morning's headline is, "Lincoln owns slaves, two escaped slaves step forward." On closer inspection, you read that not only has he directed General Grant to transport hundreds of captured slaves to private plantations instead of freeing them but also that he has been pocketing a tidy profit from the operation. Would you continue to trust him to end slavery?
Imagine it's 1904. Teddy Roosevelt the Roughrider war hero known for carrying The Big Stick is president and campaigning for reelection. At your town's grocer you hear the news, not only has your Republican President been wearing dresses while in the Whitehouse he has quite a collection of ladies' shoes and corsets. Do you continue to believe in his public image?
There's no need to imagine. It is 2006. The GOP house majority and its' leadership, who rose to power on a campaign of accountability, moral values, national security, ending "waste, fraud and abuse", etc:
1. have ignored the actions of a known congressional sex predator toward minors under their care.
2. have publicly known ties to lobbyist accused of buying votes and legislative language.
3. have supported a war that was started on false pretenses, made the country less safe, drove the deficit up exponentially, and wasted billions of dollars in the process.
4. have attempted to approve the sale of a port operations company to a King with known ties to our enemies.
5. have passed laws to protect the unconstitutional acts of a reckless president including torture, warrant-less search and seizures, and waving the writ of habeas corpus.
6. have refused to hold anyone accountable for any of it.
The industrial strength mendacity woven through rhetorical promises, commercial illusions, surrogate spatter, imitation news, and orchestrated opinion has captured and tortured the body politic, bending it to the will of avarice, and left that body only one recourse: leaking sordid revelations that leave the integrity of the charlatans shaking under the strain.
drip... Abu Ghrabe
drip... Yellow cake
drip... Valery Plame
drip... No bid contracts
drip... Jack Abramoff
drip... Dubai Ports deal
drip... Tom Delay's money laundering
drip... Rep. Mark Foley
And that integrity, that battered, abused, and tortured GOP integrity is a politician's greatest asset without witch no matter the crafting, the skill, or the millions behind the media campaign, they will not be believed. The Foley scandal is only the latest scandal to demonstrate that the party holding the banner of moral values in one hand is the party abusing that very same principle to further their own political gain.
Name one conservative principle left unscathed by the deluge of hypocrisy revealing scandals? If there are none, how can anyone believe their latest proclamations of values and convictions in this very campaign? There is only one conclusion.
They can not be trusted. They can not be trusted to protect us. The can not be trusted spend our money on our behalf. They can not be trusted to author, enforce or even obey the laws. They can only be trusted to do whatever is takes to stay in power.
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