after i read
this article in today's WaPo, i
was going to post it in today's diary because i thought the info about the 527s was instructive.
but then i thought back to the bush-mcCain "summer of love festival" which began in earnest this august. remember that? i guess that's when the decision to bury the hatchet was agreed upon, provided the hatchet was buried in kerry's back...
and i got pissed. this epistle is the result of that anger.
what struck me most of all in reviewing this issue was that the 527 "flip-flopping" by bush was both a misnomer and was prototypical of how he has consistently played both ends against the middle. and to his benefit. and to our detriment.
the truth is, we know what to expect and when to expect it. the challenge is whether we learn from it and strategize against it. now.
a preface i wanted to avoid both tedium and a narrative recapitulation of the 527 issue as there are already some great places for such a review, such as the dkospedia pages. that being said, i do think some important lessons can be gleaned here. if one were to use the 527 issue (both independently of but also alongside of the actual 527s efforts in the election cycle) as a lens to review the GOP mind the 527 issue (and the 527 efforts themselves) then ways bush/rove used and abused them becomes very instructive.
but it only becomes such if it helps inform the 2006 democratic party election strategy. clearly, the GOP use of the 527 issue in toto continues to work for a variety of reasons. part of the blame does fall on the electorate, as it seems we are quite often etherized during times when we should be engaged in full-scale debate.
but, much of the blame for the on-going success of the GOP -- 527 marriage is, surprise surprise, the media. hard to create a place where intelligent dialogue and debate can occur when you have a press corps which was, is and appears to want to be as utterly lazy as is humanly possible, incapable and/or unwilling to do their job.
but where to begin?
how about march of 2000, during the bush-mcCain brawl during the republican primary season, when campaign finance reform was ostensibly a central issue. on face the nation bush expressed his belief that these groups had a legitimate right to air their views. In his own words:
"There have been ads, independent expenditures, that are saying bad things about me. I don't particularly care when they do, but that's what freedom of speech is all about."
The context at the time for bush's statement was his race against fellow GOP challenger senator john mCcain, which was by no means either gentlemen-like nor without fireworks and even had alan keyes in the mix to boot.
bush had reason to support the 527s -- they were airing ads which were helping bush through a difficult stretch following mcCain's upsets of bush in the michigan and arizona primaries.
like father like son
gov. bush and the boy wonder karl rove used 527s in much the same manner that former president bush and his trusted ward lee atwater used -- to their advantage -- similar avenues to slime mike dukakis during the 1988 presidential election campaign. the willie horton ads to this day have a life, due much in part to the media's ineptitude and refusal to set the record straight. Check out as cited this Daily Howler entry or this one or even this one to see what i mean.
But Gore only mentioned the program once, and he never mentioned any prisoner's name; never mentioned any prisoner's race; never ran any TV ads on the topic; and never used any visuals. More specifically, he never named Willie Horton, or mentioned his specific crime (Horton committed a brutal rape while on leave). In the Bush-Dukakis general election, the Bush campaign--and an independent, pro-Bush group--made extensive use of the Horton incident. In particular, the independent group used visuals of Horton which seemed to emphasize his race (he was black). In later years, as he neared his death, Bush campaign director Lee Atwater apologized for his own conduct in pushing the racial aspects of the Horton matter.
fast forward to the past
march 27, 2002, president bush signs into law the mCcain-feingold campaign finance reform act. in his remarks when signing the bill, bush is not universally appreciative of the whole of the bill but believes it to be a step in the right direction in campaign reform. bush closes his remarks with this remarkable piece of double-speak:
I believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted, questions arise under the First Amendment.
I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election. I expect that the courts will resolve these legitimate legal questions as appropriate under the law.
As a policy matter, I would have preferred a bill that included a provision to protect union members and shareholders from involuntary political activities undertaken by their leadership.
Individuals have a right not to have their money spent in support of candidates or causes with which they disagree, and those rights should be better protected by law. I hope that in the future the Congress and I can work together to remedy this defect of the current financing structure.
stunning. this from the man whose re-election team required "loyalty oaths" and at whose party's convention herded protesters into unsafe and unhealthy warehouse facilities turned into "holding pens." from the same team whose chief architect's long-time friend was not only the big money behind the anti-kerry 527 group swift boat veterans but also a major contributor to the efforts of the GOP (through tom deLay) in gerrymandering texas in 2002 (i guess i can plug my old diary entry about rove, perry, deLay now.
one can also laugh along with the irony of bush's defense of the constitution (by way of his reference to the first amendment) when one contrasts the verbiage against the reality of the administration's reactionary, mcCarthyistic, ashcroft/patriot act 1 and 2/"if you speak out against the president you are a traitor" approach to americans (look here and here for examples of this).
recall that in june 2004, the supreme court ruled against the bush/rumsfeld actions following september 11th (regarding detaining suspected terrorists and denying them access to legal counsel -- i.e. guantanamo). however, we still know the administration has yet to comply with the court's decision (either by dragging its feet or by just ignoring the court's rulings).
if there was ever any doubt of the bush administration's unwillingness to comply with the june 24, 2004 supreme court ruling, an article published today explores how the administration's refusal to seriously implement the ruling is playing itself out, almost 6 months later, in the case of australian david hicks.
the SBV? all the benefit, half the calories
it is hard to discern which was more potent:
- the separate the swift boat veterans 527 efforts (parts 1 and 2);
- the kerry campaign's decision to not respond aggressively and early to these attacks;
- or the bush team's hijacking of the SBV ads themselves and instead switching the issue to the propriety of the 527s themselves.
what we do know, though, is that bush, being pressed to either distance himself from the SBV's ads and their claims, did not. instead, we got the following (taken from the WaPo article cited above, august 27, 2004):
McCain said he secured Bush's commitment to support legislation to regulate the groups. The organizations have used a loophole in the new campaign finance law -- of which McCain was one of the two principal architects -- to become significant and controversial actors in the campaign on behalf of both the president and the senator from Massachusetts.
Separately, Kerry agreed to take off the air a commercial using footage from a debate during the 2000 GOP primaries in which McCain directly criticized Bush for allowing supporters of his to question McCain's commitment to veterans. McCain had asked Kerry to stop running the ad.
In an interview with Washington Post editors and reporters, McCain said that he is grateful for Kerry's action and that he still hopes Bush will condemn the Swift boat veterans' ad attacking Kerry's service. McCain added that he plans to raise the issue when he campaigns with Bush next week.
But McCain, who has tried to put behind him bitterness over his defeat at Bush's hands in 2000 while becoming one of the president's most significant allies this year, also said he saw Bush's willingness to go to court to rein in the groups as more significant than not singling out the ad for criticism.
in plain english, bush sidestepped the call to be accountable to and responsible for the slander in the SBV ads, got kerry to take down an ad where mCcain criticized the president, and got mCcain both as emissary and "part of the team" all in one fell swoop. and what did bush have to do as part of this incredible agreement? nothing. except make verbal overtures about the issue while in reality doing absolutely nothing.
but, the reality is that the ads had an impact. a real impact. from today's waPo (the catalyst for this epistle):
"At the end, Republican 527s reversed the trend from earlier in the year and got ahead of the Democrats, and it definitely appears to have made a difference for Bush, particularly in Ohio," said Alex Knott, political editor of the Center for Public Integrity.
In addition, two Republican 527 groups, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Progress for America, ran ads that, according to surveys, made the strongest impressions on voters in key states.
The Swift Boat Veterans spent less than either of the top two Democratic 527 groups. Yet Swift Boat Veterans ads attacking John F. Kerry's service in Vietnam were recalled by 75 percent of those surveyed by the Republican firm Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates. Running second to the Swift boat ads in viewer impact was a pro-Bush Progress for America commercial showing 16-year-old Ashley, whose mother was killed during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Using a different methodology, Public Opinion Strategies found that voters in six battleground states were most deeply influenced by three sets of commercials, all either pro-Bush or anti-Kerry: the Swift boat ads, the "Ashley" commercials and "Wolves," an ad produced by the Bush campaign using film of a wolf pack to suggest the threat of terrorism.
so? what? and so what?
i guess the mantra that is in play by and from the bush/rove folks is actually simple. their tools in executing their strategy, as best as i can condense it, would read something like the following:
- lie
- blame
- play to your audience
- use coded language frequently
- facts are pliable
- bait and switch when things get dicey
- use a chorus of voices when attacking and
- adapt any earlier position to the contemporary setting
these are neither novel nor news to anyone i know. but what is emerging for me in all of this is what i believe is the take-home point regarding the president, his tactics, his agenda for the second term and what to expect. as we must all be acutely aware of by now, the bush agenda is neither compassionate nor intended to bring this country together. the list is somewhat endless: 527s, campaign reform, the 9/11 commission, the department of homeland security, leave no child behind, same sex marriages and the constitutional amendment, overturning roe v. wade etc. etc.
but our marveling at how bush gets away with being so duplicitous should be less about how he manages to evade being criticized and more about how he is allowed to be as inconsistent and intentionally so in so many different arenas.
karl rove's comments this morning about the possible new supreme court appointment not being evaluated using roe v. wade as a 'litmus test' stand in stark contrast to bush's coded but clear communication with the anti-choice base when he used the phrase dred scott in debate 2 (see this great kossack diary. and both of these stand in stark contrast to those views being espoused by the religious right now that bush has won re-election. complicating this? bush's own beliefs on abortion which contradict themselves, as noted by mCcain during the raucous debate in south carolina in february 2000:
McCain caught Bush in a contradiction on abortion. He noted the Texas governor supports the Republican platform language on abortion from 1996, a plank that envisions no exceptions for a ban on abortions. Yet Bush has also said he favors exceptions for cases of rape, incest and the life of a mother.
.
whether machiavelli or malcolm x, it is obvious that bush believes that whatever it takes, by whatever means necessary, can be employed, should be employed and will be employed in the course of both winning and maintaining power. this is not unique. it is not rocket science.
but coupled with the bush/rove strategy to "hide in plain sight" it becomes a formidable opponent per se.
there is no incentive for and no historical justification for bush to either disavow forces/activities if in fact they are working towards realizing bush's goal.
equally, allowing bush room to be both overly broad in his "platform/goals/views" and unusually thin on details provides him ample cover when challenged for his misstatements, apparent contradictions or even reversals. he does cast a broad net, but only when dealing with his goals. by being so non-specific he walks way from blame and can easily revise, adapt or even eject in part or whole those things, people and ideas which would bring his plan down and/or hurt him.
this monster is a monster we allowed to become what it is now. through public complacency (luckily being fought successfully by places like dailyKos) and through an inept media, bush has been given reinforcement for this behavior every time he plays his game of "3 card monty" as we saw him do with the august 2004 SBV challenge.
what we need to do is create the will to break the culture of tolerance for this behavior. true, it has started here, but it has to expand. and it has to become an organizing principle for the democratic agenda for both the upcoming two year as well as in our efforts for 2006.
equivocations and rationalizations, like exaggerations and outright lies, must be seen as the same thing and rejected. in the absence of the truth, we live in the world created by lies.
the same president who claimed support for civil unions for same sex couples is also the president who endorsed a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriages and is the same man who we learn today will again pursue such a remedy. when you incorporate the views of the vice president the whole picture is either way too contradictory or is exactly muddy enough for bush to succeed no matter how close to his goal he comes.
the epistle concludes
in his concurrence with the supreme court's 1927 decision in the case of whitney v. california (here), justice brandeis wrote:
[the framers of the constitution]...knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones."
tolerating a lie is complicity. our job, or at least my perspective as to my job now, is to neither tacitly nor overtly be complicit. but not necessarily among the converted or passionate -- such as here -- but outside, in real time, in real places. and, to do so with a clear understanding of the consequences i face when doing so (like alienating or pissing off people) as well as when choosing not do do so, namely this tolerance of the culture of george w. bush et al.
becoming a "fitting remedy" as brandeis puts it, requires evil to be confronted by truth, in a civil and appropriate, although likely uncomfortable, manner.
Don't use IMG, use img src (4.00 / 2)
That's it, use the img src
tag and copy and paste the link to the image, without the >IMG thing, I don't know why they put that. Originally it says
[IMG]http://img87.exs.cx/img87/9525/turkey.gif[/IMG]
cut the [IMG] and [/IMG) parts and leave the url,
then put it in the tag
(img src="http://img87.exs.cx/img87/9525/turkey.gif)
and you're ready, just remember to replace () with <>