I may have done it big time with this post about Scott McClellans book about George W. Bush.
My initial reaction might best be summed up as-"Wow! He ought to know. Maybe a lot of the crap about Bush and Cheney is right after all. Why would McClellan lie about it?"
Well, come to find out, he might have done just that, in order to sell a book he found impossible to sell as originally proposed.
Mr. Beamish The Kakistocrat, who writes the blog The Crank Files sent me a number of links, the first of which I initially ignored. After all, this is a guy prone to making such statements as "The DemoKKKratic Party has been intent on destroying the US Constitution from the beginning. They hate Americans and want to fill mass graves with as many of them as they can."
So one might forgive my skepticism. However, he then sent me a link I could not ignore, and once I read this link detailing how McClellans book proposal changed and evolved when placed under the tutelage of a George Soros publisher, I went back and read the first link, which offers an additional bit of information on how the non-fiction book publishing world works.
The most important link, however, might be this one I found early in the comments section of the newsbusters link. It is a Rasmussin Reports article written by Bob Novak, who reminds us that the real leaker in the Valerie Plame affair was not Karl Rove, or Scooter Libby, or Dick Cheney, or any of the war hawks connected with the White House. It was, in fact, Richard Armitage, the Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell-a man who was in fact not in the inner circle of Iraq War supporters, and who was in fact an opponent of the war.
According to Novak, McClellan all but ignores Armitage's contribution to the case, such as it is, and concentrates on the now generally discredited charges against Rove, as though it were 2004 all over again and the truth never came out
This assertion by Novak was the eye-opener, because I have known for some time about Armitage's role as the primary leaker of Valerie Plame's name. For McClellan to ignore or vastly downplay this in the book tells you all you need to know.
In other words, this is not necessarily a book to read if you want to know the truth, it is a political hatchet job by an associate of left-wing George Soros, utilizing the credentials of a former Whtie House staffer to assume the mantle of legitimacy in attacking the White House, and by extension the Republican Party-or at least the national security wing of the party and their Iraq War and domestic security agenda.
Actually, just like laws against slander and libel should be rigidly enforced against private citizens, the same should apply to political libel and slander against politicians-including during the course of campaigns and in campaign ads. That would go a long way toward assuring people aren't deceived by this kind of thing.
Not should it be necessary for Rove to file charges, assuming he is truly inncoent of any wrongdoing. The press has a responsibility to tell the truth. Any outlet that engages in outright deception in order to further first one political agenda or another is doing a grave disservice to the American people, and they need to be deprived of their press credentials, at the very least.
19 comments:
There beating a dead horse. Neither Bush nor Cheney are running this year.
If Soros was financing this, he was throwing his money out the window.
If Democrats think they will defeat McCain by bashing Bush, they might be in for a rude awakening in November...
No, Sonia, I think what it amounts to is, assuming this is right, Soros and his gang are trying to influence not so much the coming election as they are trying to influence and change current policy, especially in regards to Iraq, but also in regards to the overall domestic security apparatus of the US.
By portraying the war as based totally on a lie, perpetrated by people so despicable they will even out a covert agent in order to do away with all opposition to it, they figure they can get the majority of people over to their side to force changes in policy, and possibly even at some point indict Bush and Cheney as "war criminals" and all that rot.
And, they also think it might have an effect on the election. After all, the Soros crowd and the Democrats are both portraying McCain's candidacy as an extension of the Bush presidency, and a good many if not most of what they consider his most heinous policies.
This is what they make libraries for- you can read this book without paying for it and then make up your mind about it. I've read tons of books that I suspected would be lousy though the library and turned out to be right at least 80% of the time. But then you know.
Rufus-
The little library where I live has to send off for books. I've been thinking of going to check out Freakonomics. I'm thinking that by now they might have finally got it, but I wouldn't bet on it.
PT,
Thanks for the nod, but I understand your skepticism.
The DemoKKKratic Party may not be totally opposed to the Constitution and actively seeking to wipe out ever human that claims to be an American.
It could well be just a coincidence that all of their policies seem to take us in that direction.
I agree that many of their policies-these days probably the majority of them, in fact-are counter productive and to a large extent even conflicts with the original intent of the constitution. It's really a stretch though to accuse them of purposely seeking the deaths of most Americans.
Moreover, you fail to acknowledge that there have been some good Democratic presidents-not even one.
I am sure that if you were honestly objective, you could admit that there are at least a handful that were actually quite good, even judged by your own conservative criterion.
One example that comes to mind is Grover Cleveland. Another would be James K. Polk. If these two were Republicans, I am sure you would agree with me, but just because they are "DemoKKKrats", you will invent a reason to dislike them.
Which is why it's hard to take you seriously with a lot of this stuff.
That's the Grover Cleveland that dodged the draft in the Civil War and immediately after the Civil War was over entered politics and joined the DemoKKKratic Party, at that time a full-on supporter of KKK terrorism?
That's the James Polk known as "Young Hickory" because of his lockstep continuance of Jacksonian proto-fascism?
Look, let's be rational. I'd name a list of "good Democrats" if there were such a thing, just as I'm sure you could make a cookbook of "tasty turd recipes," if their were such a thing.
I'd rather write a book about this time machine the Ku Klux Klan invented that seems to have escaped the notice of history.
Maybe you've honestly forgotten, but it was Republican Rutherford Hayes who withdrew federal troops from the states of the former confederacy, fully eight years before Cleveland took office for the first time in 1885.
By that time, the original Ku Klux Klan as founded by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest-that is to say, what was left of them-were basically made up small enclaves of parochial, regional groups whom I would not even dignify with the appellation "organization".
The original Klan had very little relation to their later namesakes that became so predominant, and nationwide, in the late 1910's-more than twenty years after Cleveland's second term ended. It was in fact an entirely different organization that just happened to take the name and don the regalia.
By the time the 1920's came along, by the way, they were quite influential with a good many Republican office-holders as well as Democrats.
The Grand Dragon of the Klan in the 1920's, a man named John Stevenson, even claimed to have a direct line to Calvin Coolidge's WHite House. This was more than likely a lie, but it was a very believable one due to the Klan's overreaching influence at this time-an influence not even approached by the original Klan of Cleveland's time (even assuming there really was still a "Klan" to speak of by then.
Nevertheless, you did prove my point. If you can't think of a valid reason, you will invent one, as you just demonstrated.
As for dodging the draft, I have an idea what he actually did was hire a replacement, which was a common practice of the time, and has nothing to do with Cleveland's conduct as President. Like I said, if he were a Republican, you would say he was one of the good, if not great ones. Look at his presidency and you will see what I mean.
Polk might be a different story. You might make a case there for "proto-fascism" as you call it, but for you to disavow Cleveland, a man who in almost every way behaved as President in a manner I would think you would think a President should behave, speaks volumes.
PT,
In 1871, when Republicans were working to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (aka the Ku Klux Klan Act) the Democratic Party were proud sponsors of the KKK, and several Democrat Senators rose in the Senate to speak on their behalf (and defend the lynchings of blacks conducted by the KKK)
Ever seen the movie "Birth of A Nation?" The KKK still uses it as a recruitment video to this day.
That was the movie Democrat President Woodrow Wilson provided commentaty for and praised and promoted with a full government run propaganda campaign. In 1915.
You're telling me that somewhere between 1871 when the Democrats were proudly KKK, and 1915, when the Democrat President was proud of the KKK, the Democrats stopped backing the KKK?
Puh-lease.
Do you want to talk about the Democrats and the KKK in the 1930s?
How about the 1950s?
The 1960s?
If if were credible to believe the party that will kick out a Jewish Senator that votes mostly left-liberal because of his support of a war in Iraq and back a challenging candidate in the primaries against him, yet still can't find a reason to back a challenger for KKK Grand Kleagle Robert Byrd's Senate seat is not fundamentally an organization proud of its racist, terrorist heritage, that would be one thing.
But the skeletons in that party's closet make the Catacombs of Paris look like an anatomy lab.
You're basically criticizing me for not entertaining the idea that an organization forged and dedicated to pure evil might have some people who deserve merit badges.
Beamish-
"You're telling me that somewhere between 1871 when the Democrats were proudly KKK, and 1915, when the Democrat President was proud of the KKK, the Democrats stopped backing the KKK?"
No, what I am telling you is that the KKK of 1871, and the KKK of 1915, were two completely different organizations, neither of which existed to any kind of appreciable extent-if at all-between those two basic periods of time.
The second Klan supported by Wilson (as well as a good many others, Republican as well as Democrat)was an entirely different group that was merely inspired by the first, original Klan.
Whatever Klan existed between the two periods were small, parochial groups with no unity, and no appreciable amount of political support, and not much of any other kind outside of very limited areas-again, if that.
The other thing I am telling you is that the Klan, to what extent such a thing existed during the two separate presidential terms of Grover Cleveland, was so inconsequential as to not be an issue. Therefore, it has no bearing on his presidency, so you should judge him on other criterion. The Klan in his case is irrelevant.
So, come on and admit it, Beamish. There is one Democratic president-Cleveland-whom you have to admit was a good president. Go ahead, it will make you feel good.
Then you can go about the business of slamming all the other "DemoKKKrats" to your hearts content and I will leave you alone about it. You can just say that Cleveland was some kind of anomaly, the kind of thing that pops up in nature from time to time that is atypical from the norm.
You know, sort of like John McCain as a Republican. Now, you know deep down that McCain is a shitty fucking Republican, and you know there have been other shitty Republicans. So, if that anomaly can exist in nature, then a good Democrat is certainly possible, if even much more rare.
But, if you're going to insist on putting him down, at least find something that is pertinent to him and his career and presidency. Say he was unfair to Geronimo or something. Either version of the Klan is irrelevant to Cleveland and his presidency.
PT,
Anomaly?
That's fine. Cleveland may not have been as adept at advancing the Democratic Party agenda to destroy the United States and kill massive numbers of Americans citizens as many of his peers in the Democratic Party.
Cleveland sure as hell didn't discourage his peers in the Democratic Party from backing the KKK. In fact, you might even call him the preface to Democrat-backed Klan ascendency under Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Look at Cleveland's campaign for the Presidency in 1892. Centerpiece to his campaign rhetoric then was fear-mongering about "black domination" if Republican ideas about enforcing civil rights guarantees came to power... instead of him.
Fuck Grover Cleveland.
What? You mean Grover Cleveland tried to win an election by playing off of people's fears and prejudices. Why, shame on him, why-that sounds like something a POLITICIAN would do.
Sorry, Beamish, not impressed. Like I've told you before, if I had my way all political parties would be disbanded and outlawed. They are all criminal conspiracies as far as I'm concerned. My main point in engaging in this exercise with you is not so much a defense of Democrats as it is the assertion that, at heart, they are all cut from the same fucking cloth.
You've just got a blind spot when it comes to Republicans. I see all of them all too fucking clearly.
PT,
What? You mean Grover Cleveland tried to win an election by playing off of people's fears and prejudices. Why, shame on him, why-that sounds like something a POLITICIAN would do.
Sorry, no dice. Grover Cleveland was a race-baiting social agitator totally opposed to upholding the Constitutional rights of American citizens of a certain skin color. This in and of itself wouldn't be that bad of a mark had there not been a party opposed to his that was ALL ABOUT CIVIL RIGHTS FOR BLACKS.
There are two types of Democrats:
1. Those that want to destroy America and
2. Those that vote for them.
Pagan,
perpetrated by people so despicable they will even out a covert agent in order to do away with all opposition to it
Richard Armitage, who outed Valerie Plame, was an opponent of the war.
But who cares about the facts, right ?
Beamish,
Ever seen the movie "Birth of A Nation?"
I actually saw it. And the film is actually far more respectful of blacks than countless other Hollywood films full of Stepin Fetchits serving their white masters and being happy about it. In "The Birth of a Nation", blacks are a group of well motivated, properly organized and dangerous villains - people to be reckoned with. If "Birth of a Nation" is racist, then "The Godfather" is anti-Italian....
Read this.
Sonia-I knew about Armitage being the primary leaker long before this book was ever written. I mentioned that in this post.
However, the fact that Armitage was the main culprit does not necessarily absolve Karl Rove, Libby, Cheney, etc., of all guilt.
On the other hand, the presence and influence of an associate of George Soros in the writing of the book is certainly suspicious.
On Birth Of A nation, you have a strange criterion for judging prejudice. If the movie was portraying blacks in general as being villainous, that sounds pretty inflammatory to me, unless there was valid reasons to judge them as such-which I doubt.
Beamish-
Democrats were the social and economic conservatives of the day in the last half of the 1800's, while still representing the interests of the common working man and lower-class families. It doesn't surprise me in the least to hear they engaged in race-baiting and demagoguery. Working people feared losing their jobs to migrant blacks who would work harder at longer hours for less money than whites on average. The same with immigrants. Big whoop.
Republicans were the social liberals of their day, and to a point were the economic liberals of their day. They were actually proto-socialists at this time.
Well, after all, they did engage in property theft, victimizing southern landowners for the benefit of black former slaves. Where do you think that "forty acres and a mule" came from-Connecticut or Missouri?
Don't you think they bear some share of the responsibility for inflaming passions? If you don't, then, well damn, boy-I think you'd make a good modern Democrat.
All the Democrats did was seize on popular passions of the day, the same passions inflamed by those same radical Republicans Lincoln and A. Johnson had so many problems contending with.
Things eventually turned around to the point that a segregationist governor would feel compelled to leave the Democratic Party and find a home where he was most comfortable-with the Republican Party.
So, how's that "southern strategy" working out for y'all these days?
So, how's that "southern strategy" working out for y'all these days?
what southern strategy? (Education here)
The "racist south" just overwhelmingly appointed Barack Obama the Democratic nominee.
Well, thaaaank ya for the edumacation, but all it did was verify exactly what I was saying-
"Now to be sure, the GOP had a Southern strategy. Willing to work with, rather than against, the grain of Southern opinion, local Republicans ran some segregationist candidates in the 1960s. And from the 1950s on, virtually all national and local GOP candidates tried to craft policies and messages that could compete for the votes of some pretty unsavory characters. This record is incontestable. It is also not much of a story—that a party acted expediently in an often nasty political context."
While pretty much trying to deny that it still goes on, or that racism is a factor behind a lot of their macaca-er, I mean, their rhetoric.
Actually, I think the racism factor is overblown, but it does-and will-account for at least about a quarter of the vote casts by whites in the coming election, especially in the south and midwest-just like Obama's race accounted to at least some extent for the majority of votes cast by blacks in the south for him in the primaries and caucuses.
Do note that I think that most people that vote Republican in the south these days tend to do so not on racial grounds but on ideological ones. They tend to vote conservative, and so they tend to stay away from Democratic candidates, especially in national elections. When Democrats win, they tend to themselves be conservative candidates.
For the most part, a southern white voter would easily and gladly vote for a conservative black, like the guy from Oklahoma (can't think of his name right now, sorry) and in some cases Alan Keyes-though some might consider him way too right wing, to say nothing of just a tad bit on the nutty side. Some might even vote for a left-of-center, moderate black such as Harold Ford Jr.-who was actually who I was hoping would be the first major black American presidential candidate.
That being said, there are a fairly significant amount-again, I would guestimate about 25 percent-that do vote for racial reasons, and, sorry Beamish, but they do tend to vote Republican these days, at least in national elections.
That just be the name of that thar tune.
I'd vote for Alan Keyes for President in a heartbeat, and wrote him in during the Missouri primaries because they left his name off the ballot.
You need to re-read the article again, especially the part about how the "southern strategy to appeal to racism" argument falls apart when you look at election returns. Republicans didn't really start breaking into the south's voting bloc until the Democrats finally responded less resistantly to the Republican Party's then 93 year old efforts to ensure equal rights for blacks.
And even then, racist "ex"-Democrat George Wallace's third party candidacy spoiled the Democrat vote which threw a majority to the civil rights champions in the Republican party. If anything, the race voters went to Wallace's purer form of Democratic Party racism when the Democratic Party began diluting its ideas of destroying America with state socialism.
And Wallace's returns show just how small and insignificant racism's role was in elections when Republicans captured the Southern vote.
Even in the past primary season, from Bill Clinton's white power rally in South Carolina to Hillary's "concession" speech, the appeal to WHITE VOTERS was everywhere. In the final days, Hillary was even touting her "WHITE working people" street cred.
And what happened to Hillary in the south? Yes sir, she got her ass handed to her by Obama. Sure, much of that was black voters coming out to support Obama (for purely non-racist reasons, I'm sure) but also a large segment of white voters as well.
White southerners are not as racist or as Republican as the absurd "southern strategy" myth depends on them to be.
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