(Author's note: I am Tommy Christopher, excerpting my own work. My contract prevents me from reprinting thearticle in full. After the jump, some additional commentary)
I started out covering PUMA out of a fascination with the apparent cognitive dissonance required to go from rabid Hillary Clinton supporter to John McCain voter.
What I found was a hydra-headed "movement" comprised of a group of justly frustrated voters, fed up with a sexist culture and a confusing nominating process, being led by a disparate array of people with other agendas.
Trying to untangle the mess is an exercise in futility that I will leave to crusading pre-school teacher Christina Cedeno. For me, it is enough to strip away the disingenuous mission statements, hidden agendas, and PR posturing, and focus on what they do, their raisons d'etre: to smear Barack Obama. Here's the scary part.
Darragh Murphy's PUMAPAC is the political wing of the Pumas, and a great example of the deception, delusion, and defamation at work in the PUMA/JSND movement.
Here's the scary part. PUMAPAC is shooting a "documentary" called ""The Audacity of Democracy," and they've released a ten minute trailer. I was chilled by the first minute.
Click Here to read the rest.
Whether you were an Obama or a Clinton supporter, the actions of the political wing of PUMA have increasingly laid bare the fallacy that they have anything to do with Hillary Clinton, or the Democrats, or anything beyond inciting hatred for Barack Obama and ginning up votes for John McCain. This piece is a closing argument, of sorts, on a series of blog posts and original reporting on PUMA and PUMAPAC. I would like to invite Daily Kos readers to lend their voices to this conversation. I hope to see you there.