First, I want to apologize if I'm duplicating the sentiments of other diarists. My intention here is more than just giving Mike Stark an "attaboy." My intention is to stand up for Mike, the dKos community, and to emphasize that it's not just important -- it's VITAL for all of us to send the message -- WE FIGHT.
I will make the case below. Please follow me. There's a bit of history, so bear with me.
The Republicans learned something about the Democrats in 1988. That was the year when Bush Senior was faced with what Newsweek called "The Wimp Factor." It's easy to forget that after the Democratic convention Michael Dukakis was beating Bush by 20 points (!!!). That's when Lee Atwater created the infamous "Willie Horton" ad, using a technique that Lee Atwater himself called "Lying With The Truth." Here's what he meant by that -- the ad itself was technically accurate, but the point was to put the picture of the thuggish Willie Horton next to the picture of Michael Dukakis, and imprint the idea that "Michael Dukakis is a wimp who is soft on crime and will let scary black people run amok in your neighborhood - Rough Tough George Bush loves guns and will do whatever it takes to stop this."
To his everlasting shame, Michael Dukakis did nothing about this. He let the Bushies run this ad, with no rebuttal, for 6 weeks. Dukakis further disgraced himself during the CNN debate when Bernard Shaw asked what he'd do if his wife were raped and murdered. Instead of telling Shaw he'd do whatever it takes to bring the murderers to justice, he hemmed and hawed and stammered and reinforced his image as an ineffectual wimp.
Dukakis sent a message - DEMOCRATS CAN BE MUGGED. THEY DON'T FIGHT BACK. THEY ARE MORE INTERESTED IN CIVILITY THAN DOWN AND DIRTY POLITICS.
The next phase in marginalizing Democrats came in the rise of the right-wing radio Hate Squad, lead by Rush Limbaugh. This was the "mainstreaming of hate." Now we had a situation where the worst kind of vile hate (mostly directed against Clinton) was presented as "entertainment" and people like Limbaugh and Ann Coulter became best selling authors and frequent guests on television chat shows. Bill O'Reilly emerged in the 90's, bringing a hate-filled, bellicose style to Fox News, screaming at Democrats, trying to marginalize them as part of an evil "secularist, elitist minority" trying to destroy Christmas."
Cut to 2004 -- the John Kerry campaign. The Swift Boaters were taking a page out of the Lee Atwater playbook -- "smear the Democrat with an outrageous piece of bullshit, and dare him to deny it." Once again, the Democrats tried to pretend there was some civility left in politics. Kerry dithered, and by doing so sent the message, "I can be mugged by lying idiots."
Question -- What if John Kerry had gone on television the day the Swift Boat thing hit the air, and said this:
Kerry: "I didn't want to go into the whole Vietnam thing, but apparently Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove, through their surrogates, want to bring it up. Okay, let's bring it up. I volunteered. I served. (holds up Bush service transcripts) Mr. Bush? He called his daddy to get him out of the big, bad war. Mr. Bush drank champagne and played volleyball, and I guarantee some other kid died in his place. George? You really want to talk about Vietnam? Let's talk. This (points at transcript) is BULLSHIT. And you are a bullshit guy for bringing it up. But now that its happened, I'm going to talk about it every chance I get....
I GUARANTEE this would have changed everything. Of course the hand-wringers in the MSM would have gone nuts, but voters would have gotten a new message from the Democrats -- WE CAN'T BE MUGGED.
Okay, cut to today. Here's what WE ALL KNOW IS HAPPENING. Bill O'Reilly is being sent out by Roger Ailes to smear and marginalize DKOS, because DKOS has become a positive factor in modern Democratic politics. Folks, this is 1988 all over again -- the right-wing has had its foot on our neck for over 20 years, and it looks like we're not going to take it anymore. RIDICULE of the Mike Stark sort is VITAL to this effort. It sends the message WE FIGHT BACK.
What O'Reilly is doing is going out to the 30% base fo hard-core Republican base of true believers. IF WE DON'T FIGHT BACK WITH EVERY TOOLS WE'VE GOT, INCLUDING RIDICULE -- we send the message, "we still want to play nice"...and the O'Reilly/Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter Hate Machine chalks up another victory.
Mike Stark didn't TP his house. He didn't punch him out or slash his tires. He messed with his mind. About time, I'd say.