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You are here: Home / Democratic Dilemma

Democratic Dilemma

by John Cole|  August 23, 20048:44 pm| 19 Comments

This post is in: Democratic Stupidity

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Atrios and the folks at Crooked Timber have finally found a statement in which they can not detect any nuance. Of course, this binary construct is of their own making, and, also not surprising, is an attempt to launch another silly attack on Bush. The issue now, again of their own creation, is that Bush is against free speech.

Now, a fair-minded individual might take Bush’s blanket condemnation of the advertising by 527’s as what it is- an expression of a desire to remove the influence of anonymous and pseudo-anonymous attack ads. Of course, this is an election year,so fair-minded individuals are few and far between. What is in abundance, however, are hysterics and histrionics.

UggaBugga leads the charge, withthe folks at Crooked Timber following up with a variation of the most hackneyed phrase in political history (can we just charge them with a violation of Godwin’s Law and please move on):

‘First They Came For the Grocers’

Blech. Clearly Bush is not against free speech, and clearly an attempt to regulate soft money contributions by ‘shadowy groups’ is nowhere near the same as the Jewish internment, Kristallnacht, and the Holocaust. Such subtleties are missed however, but it is not surprising. This is, after all, the same sphere of the body politic that has been saying Bush is Hitler for the last four years. What did you expect?

Second, let’s all try not to break out into hysterics by the audacity of this position. In the past week, the Democrats have attempted to sue to halt free speech activities, have attempted to shut down the operation of the independent press, have written threatening letters to television networks, and have had their surrogates write threatening letters to stores selling speech products that they do not like. First they came for your sense of irony, and I am not even going to mention the Democrats caging their protesters at the DNC and doing everything they can to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot anywhere.

Similarly disingenuous are attempts to point out that Republicans have in the past been benefactors of 527’s. The entire point of the McCain-Feingold CFR was to stop the abuses and misuses on both sides of the political aisle. Am I the only one who remembers the plaintive wails of John McCain in front of any live microphone, bemoaning the fact that all this ‘unregulated money has corrupted us all.’

Furthermore, were Bush/Cheney supporters to single-handedly stop using 527’s, it would be tantamount to unilateral disarmament- which, ifyou think for a second, is precisely the rallying cry the Democrats use very time they are up to no good. ‘Why- we must do all these things we say we are against- we can’t unilaterally disarm and give up the fight.’ And so on ad nauseum.

Was I in favor of McCain-Feingold? No. Was I in favor of any attempts to regulate free speech? NO, and neither were the majority of my Republican brethren. In fact, you might do a quick google on Mitch McConnell and Campaign Finance Reform, and find out what Atrios and his compatriots on the left had to say about his ‘obstructionist’ attitude towards cleaning up the political climate in years past.

At any rate, it is amusing that while the left-wing bloggers are seizing upon the ‘Bush is against free speech meme,’ it is apparently lost on them that their leaders still believe Bush’s position is not hard-line enough:

The Kerry campaign said Bush did not go far enough. “The moment of truth came and went and the president still could not bring himself to do the right thing,” said Kerry’s vice presidential running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. “George Bush needs to take responsibility and demand that the ad come off the air.”

The Kerry/Edwards campaign then went forward with a commercial fradulently claiming the Swift Vets are a part of the Bush campaign. Apparently, Edwards wants Bush to condemn only those ads that don’t puppet the Kerry/Edwards line, leaving all other 527’s in place with their hundreds of millions of dollars to attack Bush/Cheney, or he wants Bush to condemn all ads and 527’s and doubly condemn those that are mean to Kerry/Edwards. You take your pick.

The former option dictates that you must recognize that the Democrats are hypocrites, the latter that they are just idiots. I would suggest they are a combination of both, and I expect we will have to wait 24 hours for another Kerry/Edwards poll to dictate the new talking points. At that time, we should expect the left-wing of the blogosphere and the Kerry/Edwards leadership to be back on the same sheet of music.

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19Comments

  1. 1.

    Ted Barlow

    August 23, 2004 at 10:44 pm

    Excuse me for the immoderate tone to come, but you’re really pissing me off.

    “First they came for the grocers” is a joke. Put back your fucking monocle. When did you become such a humorless bluenose? Do you seriously think that I think that I believe that Bush is going to shut down the fucking grocers? Jesus. If you think that I’m that fucking stupid, I’ve got to ask you to never read me again.

    You pay very close attention to politics, John. You know goddamn well that Kerry has never asked Bush to speak out against any other independent ad. Never once. So huffing and puffing about how Kerry “apparently” wants Bush to shut down every ad “that doesn’t parrot the Kerry/ Edwards line” is just juvenile bullshit. I know you don’t believe it, and I know you know better.

    They want Bush to condemn one ad. The Swift Boat vets came out with another ad this week, about Kerry’s testimony before Congress. Kerry hasn’t asked Bush to condemn it. It’s a hard-hitting ad- it may be one of the toughest ads this season- but it isn’t a cesspool of unverifiable libel. (Unlike their first ad.)

    I don’t think Bush is against free speech. In fact, I don’t think that he believes what he’s saying. It’s sure inconsistent with what he’s been saying so far. I think that he’s gotten himself a talking point, and he hasn’t thought through what it implies.

  2. 2.

    Grant R.

    August 23, 2004 at 10:54 pm

    The Kerry campaign has also tried to stop an add from the Club for Growth.

    http://www.clubforgrowth.org/blog/archives/013644.php

  3. 3.

    rick

    August 23, 2004 at 10:59 pm

    “Unverifiable libel.” Good one! Can’t prove it, but call it libel all the same.

    John, don’t be too hard on Atrios, after all. Clamping down on 527s would hit him in the wallet.

    Cordially…

  4. 4.

    John Cunningham

    August 23, 2004 at 11:05 pm

    Hey Barlow, you lefty asshat, you are that stupid. After $60 million of lies about Bush by moveon.org, actup.org, and the other lefty 527s, you liberal pussies throw a fit when a little hard-nosed truth comes back against Lurch. How about you ESADMF?

  5. 5.

    John Cole

    August 23, 2004 at 11:06 pm

    Excuse me for missing the ‘joke.’ I guess after hearing Bush called Hitler for the last three years it is hard to tell jokes from real sentiment. At the very least, the joke is in poor taste, for precisely the reasons I have stated.

    You pay very close attention to politics, John. You know goddamn well that Kerry has never asked Bush to speak out against any other independent ad. Never once.

    – Despite all the protestations to the contrary, Bush and co. did not create the 527.

    – They did not write the book.

    – They did not create the commercial.

    In short, they are not responsible for the ad. IN the mean time, I can point you to dozens of ads, thousandsa of flyers, hudnreds of columns which have said much worse about Bush.

    In April, Kerry all but called Bush a draft dodger himself, and despite his recently ‘calling’ for the removal of a Move-On.Org ad, as Jeff Goldstein noted, they have reversed their position on that.

    Dean, now a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, has peddled rumors as ‘interesting’ that state that Bush might have known about 9/11.

    In short, there is one ad by an independent group that Kerry has cherry-picked as over the line, and he wants Bush to condemn it. Bush goes one further, and attemptes to reach a middle ground- all of this unregulated money is bad, and all these attack ads are no good.

    But that simply isn’t good enough, because that would require Kerry to put some pressure on the 527’s that really are wings ofthe DNC.

    I am sorry you are mad, but I do follow politics closely- so quit pissing down my back and telling me it is raining. And while we are at it, it is not still too late for Gore to come out against the Byrd dragging commercial.

    And if you don’t think Bush is against free speech, then what is the point of your post? He is a politician?

  6. 6.

    John Cole

    August 23, 2004 at 11:28 pm

    And another thing, Ted- the reason Kerry is still making an issue of an ad that to my knowledge isn’t even airing anymore is because he can’t refute the second commercial. Thus, he has to keep the focus on this ‘awful’ first commercial.

  7. 7.

    capt joe

    August 23, 2004 at 11:36 pm

    John, Ted’s point is that you are not allowed to critize him if he make “Bush is a nazi” jokes. After all, we should be used to that, shouldn’t we?

    When you point out your unhappiness with it what does he call you? The sort of people who used to wear moncoles before some of them went to South America.

    Imagine, invoking Godwin’s law in the first sentence of his post. He could have waited till the last line at least. ;)

    See, simple.

  8. 8.

    Window to the Soul

    August 24, 2004 at 1:13 am

    Ted Barlow, alias “silly liberal”

    You just don’t get it do you? I mean, you don’t even get that the second swift ad is a bigger lie than the first. We keep throwing them at you and you weaken. Didn’t you notice how the whole 2nd ad is based on deceiving people by saying it was Kerry who made those charges about atrocities? Heh, we know he was just a spokesperson for those who said they saw and did those things. We know that he was just a speaking for those who thought another 15,000 senseless deaths in Vietnam should be stopped.

    You see, that doesn’t matter. We have our followers so brain pumped they will do and believe anything we tell them. Hells bells, we still have over 50% of the country who believe that Saddam fed Muhammad Atta breakfast on 911. Do you understand that with a pool of uninformed that size we can do anything we want?

    Hey, we had a coal company chop off the top of mountain and throw all the run off from the operation into the river. When the tree huggers squawked that the company had no license,(as required so they would have say what they were putting in the water)…well hell, W just changed the rule with a stroke of the pen.

    You have to admit that is really cool. http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/040812.asp

    You can’t win. Kerry has two crews of men who stand by him. One, a man who served three tours in Nam said about Kerry, “That man never made a bad command decision.” There’s another guy saying he has seen Kerry bleeding. He has a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three purple hearts, he volunteered for dangerous duty and hehe…other than his dentist, W can’t find a soul who said he showed in Alabama and we have half the country thinking Kerry fought with Ho Chi Min.

    Do you understand? We can make half the country think anything we want them to, doesn’t matter. A couple a faxes and it becomes part of their belief system. There is no other way. You don’t think we want the people to talk about issues, do you? That’s a good one. W set it motion a way for millions to lose their overtime pay. You think we want to talk issues. HAH. It won’t happen, or damn well better not.

    As a liberal though, you have to admit that it will fun being able to say “I told you so” to people like the guy who runs this blog.

    Look at this one, he’s just a paddling for us. Do you think he really believes this?

    “The Kerry/Edwards campaign then went forward with a commercial fraudulently claiming the Swift Vets are a part of the Bush campaign.”

    Of course he doesn’t. He could see through any lie Clinton said (and then some). But you have to admit, he is one fine soldier. I mean there are a lot of these followers who think the religious extremists and corporations who run the Republican Party are going to level out at some point. They think that some sense will come to the extremists and they won’t bankrupt the country and, in general, take the world to hell…I mean, come on, as a liberal you must think that is funny.

    You don’t have a chance. You can beat Bush and we won’t stop. Personally, I think we are making a huge mistake, but I can go with it. Don’t you think so? If we all vote for Kerry, then we can sit around and snipe, point fingers at him as he drowns trying to recover from the devastation of W’s policies. I’d rather point fingers; blame Kerry for EVERYTHING.

    Speaking of blaming, what did you think about that Thurlow? Wasn’t that a thing a beauty? They ask him why his Bronze Star citation says there was gunfire and what did he do? He blamed Kerry!! Now, if that doesn’t tell you that you are fighting a losing battle, I don’t know what would. The discredited Thurlow hasn’t any real evidence for that accusation but it flies with the hopelessly confused, the backbone of our party. Our followers have a very low threshold for the truth when it comes to liberals. They know what they are suppose to do and they do it. We can make them think anything we want and you can’t stop us.

  9. 9.

    John Cole

    August 24, 2004 at 1:22 am

    Window-

    You would save a lot of typing if you would just use the word ‘sheeple’ so we can know to ignore you.

    So glad that ‘you’ are able of seeing the truth.

  10. 10.

    capt joe

    August 24, 2004 at 1:42 am

    a few hits will do it every time

  11. 11.

    Russkie

    August 24, 2004 at 4:04 am

    Ted wrote:

    Excuse me for the immoderate tone to come, but you’re really pissing me off

    Sounds like a very typical CT response to having their assumptions challenged.

    John Cole’s remark about “not getting the joke” about Nazi allusions is right on. The commentors at CT don’t seem to get the joke either.

  12. 12.

    SDN

    August 24, 2004 at 6:58 am

    Ok, Window, you want to claim that your sides opposition to the war prevented another “15,000 useless deaths.” The point’s debateable, but you can have it.

    Now, are you going to be equally proud of the 2 MILLION Cambodians and another MILLION Vietnamese that your side condemned to death under brutal Communist dictators? That’s Holocaust level killin’ there, aren’t you proud? As long as you want credit for “ending the unjust war”, make sure you take ALL of the consequences of your actions.

  13. 13.

    Slartibartfast

    August 24, 2004 at 8:39 am

    Oh, I think all of us bear some guilt for that, SDN. Propaganda’s only effective if it’s allowed to stand.

  14. 14.

    geeno

    August 24, 2004 at 12:39 pm

    Kerry, is calling on Bush to condemn ONE ad that crosses the line. It contains nothing but unsupported smears. Taking words and twisting them is fine – the second swiftie ad isn’t really an issue in that sense, but outright lying needs to be condemned. If there is no price tag on lying then everyone will just lie whenever it suits them, and political discourse in this country will be a lost cause.
    Incidentally, 527s aren’t “shadowy” they’re the most transparent of soft-money organizations. Everything’s documented. That way you at least know who is really behind the speach.

  15. 15.

    SDN

    August 24, 2004 at 7:21 pm

    Slart:

    You’re right, but I’m also not claiming it as a positive good that we abandoned whole peoples to die. I’m not claiming it as the reason why I’m a more moral person than someone else. I feel ashamed that we as a country didn’t prevent it when we could have.

    And I’ll be damned if I’ll let the other side of the ledger go unnoticed any more. Just like that fool who asked for a million Mogadishus. Does he realize what that means? Keep the relative proportions of casualties and he’d be calling for 400 MILLION deaths and a BILLION injuries. And he feels that’s worth it just so more Americans will die? Fuck him.

  16. 16.

    Slartibartfast

    August 24, 2004 at 8:52 pm

    Sure, pointing out the propagandists for what they are is useful. There are consequences for con men, even if you’re responsible for being conned.

    Speaking of which, it’s pretty interesting to browse through the FBI investigations of Winter Soldier Investigation, which began as a result of an article about them in The Worker. The Worker was used as a vehicle for VVAW to put the word out on protest schedules.

    Strange bedfellows. Dunno what it means, but odd choice of friends.

  17. 17.

    keebler2012

    August 25, 2004 at 8:39 am

    The Real Genius of the SwiftBoat Ad

    With help from mainstream Media

  18. 18.

    Chris Arndt

    August 26, 2004 at 10:32 am

    Keebler, your comment here is one of the dark examples of political theory. Like a lot of books I was asked to read by my professors, this theory has very little practical basis in life.

Comments are closed.

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  1. Mr. Blonde's Garage says:
    August 23, 2004 at 10:45 pm

    Transparency

    So the left along with John Kerry have been in a tizzy, calling upon George Bush to deounce the Swift Boat Veteran ads.

    Bush responds by saying that all 527’s group ads should stop.

    They respond by questioning why certain 527’s should not be a…

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