I am pretty up to speed on the 90’s anti-Clinton talking points, so this came as a little shock:
DEAN BARNETT sends a link to what he says will be his last Foleygate post. In his email, he comments: “I can’t stand it any more. Remember when sex scandals actually involved sex? I miss Clinton!”
Enough to make Barnett miss Clinton? Ah, the pieces are all coming together now . . . .
Now granted, I am no longer in the ‘good’ republican club, but that hasn’t wiped my memory. If you will all think back to the Clinton glory days, the GOP talking point was that the scandal “isn’t about the sex, it is about the lying.”
With all the Republican lying and abuses of power, I guess I can understand why the GOP would want to pretend this was all about sex.
craigie
It’s not about the sex, or the lying – it’s about the losing of power.
And they are definitely against that.
Perry Como
Another anti-Democrat talking point: North Korea may have just detonated a nuclear weapon. It’s Clinton’s fault!
croatoan
A former House page says he had sex with Mark Foley “after receiving explicit e-mails in which the congressman described assessing the sexual orientation and physical attributes of underage pages but waiting until later to make direct advances.” (This page was 21 at the time, so he was a consenting adult.)
Pb
Yeah, that’s what they said… but it was totally about the sex. Sex sells. They weren’t talking about how Clinton lied about a cigar or a blue dress. If lying sold, Bush would have been impeached years ago, or he would have lost in 2004. But no, it’s all about sensationalism.
Sirkowski
They can’t even lie properly.
Proud Liberal
house of cards crumbling before our eyes. Their trying to blame the Dems, demanding that they swear under oath that they had nothing to do with these disclousures. Not washing. Even mild mannered Wolf of CNN got in one congressman’s face demanding to know if he had ANY evidence Dems were involved. Blame everyone but those responsible. There is NEVER any personal responsibility with Republicans, it is ALWAYS someone else’s fault. What absolute scum.
Zifnab
But that was the beauty of Clinton. He was a blameable as the sun, as guilty as the moon. Whether we was invading Kosovo (an illegal war with no exit strategy for an unjust cause!) or firing cruise missles as Bin Laden (wag the dog!) or stubbornly persisting in 3-party talks with Palestine and Isreal (he only thinks about his legacy!), Clinton’s actions always somehow ended up pissing off the entire Republican Party no matter what they were.
I say thank god Bush is in office. I just don’t think I could have stood another 8 years of Republicans failing to get behind the President.
p.lukasiak
Let not forget blame “the gays”
the Washington Post is now reporting that outed GOP retiring congresscritter Kolbe allowed pages and other people to use his townhouse when he was out of town — there is no mention of sexual impropriety, and no exploration of whether non-gay congresscritters do likewise. The article is simply about smearing gay people by implication.
Lots of gay GOP staff (both out, and closeted) were involved in covering up for Foley — but they weren’t doing it to protect Foley, they were doing it to protect the GOP leadership. Boehner is a perfect example…. he claims he told Hastert about Foley, and having “reported it to his superior” he’d done all that was necessary.
That, of course, is complete BS. First of all, Hastert is not Boehner’s superior — the Speakership is a Constitutional office, the Majority Leader position is purely political, and as the Majority Leader Boehner was not subordinate to Hastert. Secondly, its not really the job of the Speaker to deal with ethical issues arising from the behavior of Congresscritters — that’s the job of the Ethics Committee, and that is where Boehner should have taken his concerns. Boehner wanted this thing covered up, not dealt with — and he doubtless knew that the best way to achieve that was to go to Hastert who has a slew of closeted (like his Chief Counsel Van Der Meid) and “out” (like House Clerk Trandahl) subordinates.
(And lets not forget that Foley — as a Deputy Whip — was part of the GOP leadership in the House. If Boehner really wanted this dealt with, he would have taken it to Foley’s direct superior, Majority Whip Roy Blunt, and dumped it in his lap.)
The “Velvet Mafia” was used by the House Leadership to keep a lid on Foley’s indiscretions. That is the real story here — but lots of people want to “blame the gays” and pretend that they were protecting Foley on their own.
cd6
Time to attack Iran!
Bombadil
Nah, that would make at least a minimal amount of sense (they may have nukes, too). I bet we attack Mexico!
The Other Steve
Well, it appears the Bush policy of Cheap Rhetoric aimed at North Korea with the intention of ignoring the problem and letting China deal with it…
Has become yet another Miserable Failure(tm) of a foreign policy.
The Other Steve
Ah ha! I knew I could find the spin if I went and looked.
North Korea is Clinton’s fault!
Paul L.
OT
So much for the talking point that women agonize over the decision to have a abortion.
Feminist Blogger Calls Fetus ‘Parasite’; Publicly Announces Intent to Kill
Mac Buckets
This is why Democrats can’t take the high ground in a thread about lying. Well, this and the non-existent Max Cleland “morph-into-bin-Laden” ad.
rbl
Quick, I’m thinking of a logical fallacy, first one to name it gets a fabulous prize.
Proud Liberal
oh …. bucket boy emerges from under his ideological rock. Been pretty quiet of late there bucketboy…. must be rough on you with Woodward’s book, with Sen. Waner’s statements, with the NIE report, with the deteriation in Iraq, with Afghanistan on the brink of being lost, with the coverup of a Republican sex predator ring… but nice to see you still have your penchant for making a complete fool of yourself. So, let me get this right, Max Cleland wasn’t portrayed as being soft on terrorism and a tv commerical did not have Osama bin Laden photo right after Cleland’s ? (or is the word “morph” what you are hanging your chickenhawk helmet on?)
chopper
oh yeah, i forgot. mac doesn’t believe in history. all that ‘wag the dog’ stuff never happened.
Bombadil
Now, now, chopper and Proud Liberal, be nice. I’m sure Mac Buckets is arguing in good faith.
Paul L.
Logical fallacy
I am guessing you are thinking of Hasty generalization.
But you may be thinking of these.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Straw man
Bombadil
Or you may be thinking of these:
Braccae tuae aperiuntur.
Canis menus id comedit.
Furnulum pani nolo.
Gramen artificiosum odi.
and of course,
Illiud Latinae dici non potest.
Latin is your friend.
Bruce Moomaw
Notice the real kicker in Reynolds’ entry — his statement that the Foley scandal is MUCH less disturbing than Bill Clinton’s? If this nitwit did not exist, Kos would have to invent him.
Steve
What a pathetic fucking asshole you are.
RSA
Video a jackalope?
demimondian
Hey, Paul! Found those fake bodies in Qana yet?
(No, by the way, *this* isn’t a logical fallacy. It’s an example of _appeal to authority_, in reverse. How it applies to you, I leave to the intelligent readers to figure out.)
demimondian
I love it — we’re already seeing the attempt to change the subject to North Korea.
Why? Well, because our fearless leader has a plan for North Korea. Stay the course, boys and ghouls! We’ll keep telling lies and deflecting blame, and we will hold onto power!
You’re doing a heckuva job, Georgie.
Paul L.
Care to address my point.
Of course in your opinion, there was no staging of events.
The Red Cross Ambulance Incident
Directed By Green Helmet Guy
yet another jeff
Anyone got a link to the vid of the anti-Cleland ad? I just want to see if the quibbling is over whether it was a fade or an actual morph.
The Other Steve
Because Democrats didn’t attack Clinton for wagging the dog when he tried to get Bin Laden?
This makes you sound credible?
How exactly?
The Other Steve
Hey, Melodrama… while you’re hear. Any opinions on the Hastert/Reynolds/Foley scandal?
What about that Nuke in North Korea?
Proud Liberal
here is the tv ad attacking Cleland
Pb
Regarding the ad:
Steve
Cmon, we’ve seen Darrell argue for days that there was nothing racist about the Willie Horton ad.
You expect Mac to admit there was something slimy about the Cleland ad? Two peas in a pod.
Proud Liberal
clowns like MacBuckets and Darrell are, if nothing else, entertaining. I almost look forward to see how they will spin a factual event that occurred in the reality based world into another bizzaro world attack on Clinton or Nacny Pelosi. Like the child with his hand stuck in the cookie jar denying the obvious, I view their verbal gymnastics with a bemused smile to my face.
Lets go bucketboy…. come on… tell us about that poll again and how our policy in Iraq is such a success.. that is one of my all time favorites…
Darrell…do your boyscout thing again, that was fun.
Hold on, let me get my popcorn first.
demimondian
Um, no, Paul, I don’t. There was no staing of events at Qana, and there’s no validity to your “argument”, either.
I don’t waste time responding to the “arguments” of circle jerkers like you — you aren’t worth it.
Tsulagi
Do guys like Dean Barnett at least have the sense to giggle when they write their bullshit for the parrot troops, or is that asking too much?
So after a week of Foley/Predatorgate, he’s more than had his fill. Stick fingers in ears. Lalalalala… He exhorts his fellow parrots to do the same and “the time to get back on message has come.”
Yeah, this from the guys who still haven’t had their fill of Monica’s blue dress. The ones who morphed the role of an independent prosecutor for how many years to perform as a Republican Party hatchet? Where when Starr once wanted to quit after a few years with nothing to show for it and they told him wrong answer.
So Barnett sums up that calls to hold those responsible for covering for Foley demonstrates that it has never been so obvious “the need for Republican victory in November.” Gotta give them this, these guys in the short pants are funny. Maybe after November they can take their skits to SNL.
jg
They will pretend its about anything the right wants it to be about.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Speaking as a colleague, though, that wasn’t Mac’s best work. He’s put out much better stuff before. I hope he hasn’t lost his edge. Once you get rusty at spoofing, you can never go back. Shit, look at me, for example.