CONFIDENTIAL
TO: Senate Republican Leadership
FROM: operating under the code name of Meteor Blades
DATE: April 21, 2006
RE: Bad Advice from Carl Bernstein in Vanity Fair
Since first infiltrating the infamous web log Daily Kos more than three years ago as penance for all the bad stuff I did in the 1960s, I and three other agents provocateurs, , and have been doing everything we can to stir up trouble there. Now you might think we haven't been very successful given that the site has gone from fifty comments a day to half a million. But the plan all along was not to destroy what was then a pitiful little wallow, rather to lure as many terror-symps and other unpatriotic Americans into a hub of informational exchange as we could so that we might serve the Party at a crucial moment. This, not Iraq, was the original "flypaper" plan.
Now that crucial moment has come.
I had thought that loyal Republicans never stray beyond the editorial pages of
The Wall Street Journal and
The Washington Post, and I was pretty sure that none watches the bombastic radical liberal Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. So it came as a surprise when I heard through the grapevine that some in the Party may have actually read Carl Bernstein or saw him interviewed and might seriously be pondering the possibility of holding Senate hearings like those he
wrote about a few days ago in
Vanity Fair:
But voting now to create a Senate investigation--chaired by a Republican--could work to the advantage both of the truth and of Republican candidates eager to put distance between themselves and the White House.
The calculations of politicians about their electoral futures should pale in comparison to the urgency of examining perhaps the most disastrous five years of decision-making of any modern American presidency.
I was surprised because I thought all of you knew that Bernstein is the bad twin, and Woodward is the good one ever since he realized what a terrible thing he did back in '72 and '73 and chose to spend the rest of his career making up for it in service to the Party. I should not be so critical. Easy, I suppose, to get the two confused, especially when the advice Bernstein is giving
sounds so plausible, so helpful, so loyal to the principles we Republicans make sure everyone knows how much we support each July 4.
Don't be hoodwinked. His hatred for our patriotic Party and the America it has revamped is just as much in evidence as it was nearly 30 years ago when he made our country vulnerable to terrorism by exposing in Rolling Stone that 400 journalists and media executives had secretly worked for the CIA. Vanity Fair. Rolling Stone. I hope you're seeing the pattern here.
I know you men at the head of the Party would never succumb to Bernstein's tricky use of expressions like "lying" "defend the requirements of the Constitution" and "obey the law." Better than anyone, you all understand every nuance and consequence of the 9/11 message: "with us or against us."
If your attraction to doing what is best for the country were my concern, I would scarcely be writing to you so urgently. I know you would never fall for that.
My worry arises in the form of your lower-ranking colleagues. I'm afraid that some of them, especially your colleagues in the House, may soon come around whining that their poll numbers don't look so hot, or that their Democratic challenger is raising a truck-load of money, something they never had to face before. And they will wheedle you, asking whether, maybe, just maybe, it might boost their standings with the voters come November if Republicans were to hold hearings about what our President knew and planned and did, and when did he know it and plan it and do it.
Beware. I know this approach almost sounds as if it's the kind of thing required by your oath of office. For crying out loud, don't start taking that seriously at this late date.
You've got to point out to the whiners that these are Bernstein's talking points. The not-to-be-trusted twin. It's a trap. Abandoning our twice-elected leader can simply not be tolerated.
No matter how much they resist, encourage them not only to hold the line against the liberal media's assault on our beloved President, but also to speak out every day as they campaign for reelection. Get as many of them as possible to sign him up for dual appearances in their district. Any time they have a chance, they should get the President to mention what a favorite of his they are. They should let everyone know how much help he has been in solving problems like Social Security, the tax code and the energy crisis. Remind them that campaign events with the President should include some Americans in uniform to show how much we Republicans support the troops. Please! No generals.
A few, I know, may not be persuaded. I'm sure you're as irked by this potentiality as I am. Not more than a few months ago, you didn't have to play all these unmanly, nice-nice games. You told them what to do and they all obeyed like good patriots. But some of them, having read the terrible apostasy of William F. Buckley, may be ready, like him, to leap off the reservation into the arms of the turncoats who would unjustly force our President and his Administration to tell the truth and come to account for his actions. What could be more obscene?
I really, truly hope that none you is tempted in this matter. I thought I had a fairly good understanding of your perspective on what is and isn't honorable. But, lately, what with the pace of defections by people I was previously rock-sure, dead-certain of, I've become leery.
So, please pardon me for any implication of disrespect, but if you are tempted, even slightly, to call or think about calling Senate hearings into our treasured President's decision-making over the past four years, keep in mind one more thing: people at Daily Kos like this idea, as you can see by clicking here and here.
Perhaps you're not acquainted with the site; perhaps you've never even heard of a web log, although our clever friend John Hinderaker runs one that is a model of loyalty and Party values.
What I can tell you after nearly four years in deep cover is that Kosobes are almost entirely against our President. Most of them are Democrats, and some of them are even worse. The language, well, it's so grotesquely foul, you'd think you were watching Deadwood (which, of course, I only did as part of my efforts to keep myself apprised of the enemy's execrable tactics in the culture wars).
Every day, day after day, month after month, year after year, it's just one blast after another. It doesn't matter what the President says. No matter how often he lets everyone know that he's doing the hard work of keeping us safe from our enemies, foreign and domestic, the Kosobes attack, attack, attack, often using information that ought to be a crime to possess or express. It's F* Bush this, and F* Bush that, and often, his loyal assistants - men and women you all know well - get the same vile treatment. And when trumped-up charges are brought against one of his most loyal, the Kosobes go berserk, and scream for yet more.
But, as you've seen, they praised Carl Bernstein. Which ought to tell you all you need to know.
Quite probably, he was distressed by this, thinking beforehand that maybe his article would make the rounds in Xerox and e-mail form, with nobody paying much attention to its original venue. Soon, I'll wager Bernstein calculated, a few Republicans distracted by the President's temporarily reduced ratings in the polls, wouldn't see through his trickery. And give in to his phony rescue proposal.
Remember what happened the first time Bernstein (and his repentant twin) took on a President? Spurred Senate hearings then, too, you know. Took him right down. Without disloyal Republicans, Richard Nixon wouldn't have fled in a helicopter like some tinhorn dictator. Without disloyal Republicans, the Democrats would never have rejuvenated their majority in '74, and Ronald Reagan would have been President four years earlier. You all know what that means. No Soviets in Afghanistan. No Gorbachev getting credit for anything. No overthrow of the beloved Shah. No chatter about human rights. We would be four years further down the Party road.
Some of you may be thinking: "We've had hearings before and we kept them under control, so what's the problem?" Do you really want to risk the President's reputation on that?
Don't make the mistake your predecessors did. Some of you may not think much of the President's coattails at the moment, but I'm certain Karl - the good Karl, not the bad Carl - has something already cooking that will make anybody sorry who doesn't hang tightly to our dear President. Senate hearings, indeed! You can believe that 33% approval stuff if you want to, you can even believe that Worst President Ever bunk from the historians. By election day, this nonsense will all be transformed as the voters are encouraged to remember that everything bad which has happened in the past five years is the fault of Bill Clinton. Don't forget, many people thought our fighting President was going down in 2004, too.
Hail to the Chief.