Must-read nightmare fuel. Tim Dickinson has an article in the May 27 issue of Rolling Stone explaining how Karl Rove is taking the Republican Party “boutique”. (Warning: the header cartoon is NSFW or if you’ve eaten in the last several hours).
… Along with his protégé Ed Gillespie, who succeeded him as George W. Bush’s top political adviser, Rove had gathered together the heavyweights of the GOP’s fundraising network. In attendance were the political director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as the leaders of two new megadollar campaign groups loyal to Rove: American Crossroads and the American Action Network. Rove’s plan was straightforward: to seize control of the party from Michael Steele, whose leadership of the Republican National Committee was imploding in the wake of a fundraiser at a lesbian bondage club. By building a war chest of unregulated campaign cash – an unprecedented $135 million to be raised by these three groups alone – Rove would be able to wage the midterm elections on his own terms: electing candidates loyal to the GOP’s wealthiest donors and corporate patrons. With the media’s attention diverted by the noisy revolt being waged by the Tea Party, the man known as “Bush’s brain” was staging a stealthier but no less significant coup of the Republican Party.
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“What they’ve cooked up is brilliant,” says a prominent Democrat. “Evil, but brilliant.”
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… [T]aking control of the party, they knew, would require a new kind of political machine. The Supreme Court, in its recent decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, opened the floodgates for unlimited political spending by corporations and individuals. But the court left in place strict limits on contributions to party committees – and it preserved the legal firewall that bars campaigns from coordinating directly with the outside groups now empowered to spend millions on their behalf.
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That’s where Rove and Gillespie come in. As free-agent strategists, they are in a unique position to skirt such prohibitions and coordinate all parts of the GOP – both inside and outside the official party structure – because they’re not officially in charge of any of it. In the run-up to November, they will be the ones ensuring that the many tentacles of the court-sanctioned shadow party – from startups like American Crossroads to stalwarts like the National Rifle Association – operate in concert. “They will be making sure that everybody is expending themselves properly, as opposed to duplicating efforts or working at cross-purposes,” says Mary Matalin, who served with Rove in the Bush White House. “That’s something that the committees and the campaigns really don’t do – legally cannot do.”
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[…] The linchpin of Rove’s coup is American Crossroads – a shadow version of the RNC for the party’s richest donors. Organized under the same part of the tax code that gave us Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the fundraising group can collect unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations. Before the Citizens United decision rewrote the rules of campaign finance, these so-called “independent expenditures” could only be used to support issues, not candidates. But now groups like American Crossroads can use their funds to openly back GOP candidates – or quietly work to destroy Democratic opponents by investing in the dirty tricks of which Rove is a Jedi master.
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The group is intended, Gillespie tells Rolling Stone, to become a fixture in GOP politics for 2010 and beyond: “The idea is that there needs to be an institutional entity – a transparent, professionally run Republican operation – that will be there every cycle.” The strategic logic behind the group is simple: to narrow the fundraising deficit that has daunted the GOP since Democrats discovered how to raise megabucks online. “Obama had $1.1 billion in 2008,” says Gillespie, who chaired the RNC under Bush. “John McCain and his supporters spent $634 million. That’s a sizable gap.” American Crossroads, he boasts, will be the place where the real money goes to “play.”
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[…] As soon as Steele took control of the RNC, Rove and McConnell began scrambling to keep the party’s big money together – under their control, rather than Steele’s. The plot to form American Crossroads was hatched over breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel in early 2009 by their lieutenants, Gillespie and Steven Law, McConnell’s former chief of staff and a ruthless advocate for big business. As a top deputy to Bush labor secretary Elaine Chao – McConnell’s wife – Law had steered a “modernization” of the nation’s labor laws that stripped 6 million middle-class workers of the right to overtime pay. He then decamped for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he spearheaded a $20 million campaign to block a new law that would facilitate unionization. Today, Law serves as the CEO of American Crossroads, overseeing the group’s day-to-day operations, while the board of directors is run by Duncan and another Rove ally, former RNC communications director Jim Dyke.
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With these top aides in place, Rove and Gillespie blessed American Crossroads as the destination for the GOP’s big money. Since last year, they’ve helped the group raise millions from elite donors like Harold Simmons, the Dallas billionaire who pioneered the leveraged buyout. The move represents a dramatic transformation of the traditional approach to party fundraising. “This is the plutocratic wing of the GOP getting together and deciding that, in the era of unlimited corporate contributions, they don’t need a formal Republican Party anymore,” says a top Democrat. “It’s all about the accumulation of power. McConnell and Duncan are not movement conservatives. They are establishment guys – absolutely unapologetic for that. They’ve got all the money they need – and now they don’t have to put up with those pesky, true-believing activists.”
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[…] A third group integral to Rove’s plan – the American Action Network – is so closely integrated with American Crossroads that it has moved into neighboring offices two blocks from the White House. Co-founded by private-equity titan and longtime GOP operative Fred Malek, who once helped Richard Nixon target a “Jewish cabal” in the administration, AAN bills itself as an “action tank” – a think tank that will also inject money directly into federal races. It plans to raise $25 million for its campaign efforts this fall – expenditures that will be directed by a former chief of staff to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. “It’s the beginning of the future,” says Rollins. “Independent expenditures will play a very, very significant role. There are no rules anymore.”
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Even leading advocates of election reform concede that, given the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United, there is little to prevent Rove from running the whole show. Political parties are barred from coordinating specific ads with “independent” groups – but that leaves plenty of wiggle room for other forms of strategizing. And even if Rove and Co. were to cross the line, there would likely be no consequences: The Federal Election Commission, which has sole enforcement responsibility, is gridlocked by its three GOP-appointed commissioners, who consistently vote to stymie any oversight. “The existing FEC is not going to enforce the laws,” says Fred Wertheimer, the founder of Democracy 21, an advocate of campaign-finance reform.
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… “We’re on a parallel course here, with two very different concepts of how our democracy should function,” says Wertheimer. “One is based on involving massive numbers of small donors to be the primary funders of elections. The other is based on involving massive amounts of corporate wealth to literally overwhelm our elections and dominate Washington. You couldn’t have two more conflicting approaches to the way our democracy ought to function. This is going to be an enormous battle.”
Notice how the malignant shadow of the Nixon White House continues to poison American politics almost 40 years after we let Gerry Ford “put that dark chapter behind us”. Another argument, as if we needed it, to demonstrate why a full public examination of the crimes of the Cheney Regency less-than-transparent behavior of the George W. Bush administration is the only way to keep our political grandchildren from suffering the consequences of a Mary Cheney/Pierce Bush/Track Palin coup d’etat.
Read, as they say, the whole thing. President Obama may be less of a savior than even us more cynical progressives hoped, but we can’t afford to turn away from the political arena as long as people like Karl Rove walk among us.
Corner Stone
I just want to feel like a King.
Alex
Unbelievable.
And I’m sure every fuckstick libertarian is going to jizz themselves at this example of the free market in action, and scream bloody fucking murder when the Dems try even superficially to give workers a break.
Fuck Karl Rove. I hope he dies from the most painful heart attack in history.
Mike in NC
Everybody really needs to read “Nixonland”. Then go read it again, for Christ’s sake. Scum like Rove and Gillespie and Luntz will never go away.
pattonbt
And so it goes……
Brian J
I’d like to think the obvious response is to simply tie them to whatever special interests are funding them, but even if the knowledge is made clear to anyone who will be voting, I’m not sure it’d make a difference. After all, the sources of Bush’s support in 2004 weren’t exactly a state secret, yet it didn’t seem to make any difference in the minds of swing voters. Perhaps the only hope is that this motivates enough people on our side to contribute what we can.
sputnikgayle
And the Watergate mantra “follow the money” remains the constant refrain in this process.
Alex
@Brian J:
“After all, the sources of Bush’s support in 2004 weren’t exactly a state secret, yet it didn’t seem to make any difference in the minds of swing voters.”
I just can’t fathom what it would be like to have this mindset, where gay people getting married or internet porn or whatever all is judged to be a higher priority than what can only be described as Karl Rove and his friends attempting to take over the country.
WereBear
Seconded. It’s a stunning tour de force, and told me, a longtime political observer, a BUNCH of things I didn’t know.
And the scary thing was that Nixon was worse than I had thought. Didn’t think that was possible…
jamie
holy cats… you weren’t kidding about that cartoon.
<<>>
cleek
professional Republicans are professional.
if the Dems aren’t doing this, it’s no credit to them.
Toast
There’s nothing wrong with Karl Rove that a baseball bat to the face wouldn’t cure.
Brian J
Meanwhile, in a stunning development that is bound to make him exit a race that was a guaranteed win for Democrats, Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General for Connecticut, is caught lying about time he spent in Vietnam. It makes sense that this is an A1 story in The New York Times, because it’s just that shocking. Did he not think that someone would fail to look into it? I mean, what the fuck?
TTT
During the 2004 Dem. convention Karl Rove publicly leaked some of the findings of a joint undercover U.S. / British investigation of an Al-Qaeda cell in London–to have a compelling “War on Terra” blurb that would deflate any headlines John Kerry would otherwise have gotten.
Even though MI6 begged him not to.
The premature public notice of the investigation caused the terror cell to scatter, and British intel lost track of them.
And less than a year later they were able to successfully carry off the 7/7 transit bombings.
Coupled with the Plame outing, that’s twice that Rove committed high treason and gave aid and comfort to America’s enemies. Yet neither that nor anything else will end Rove’s career, until and unless he is caught having private sex with a consenting adult.
I’d say “America gets the government it deserves,” but we actually don’t deserve this any more than rape victims deserve it. Not that I would ever insult rapists by comparing them to Karl Rove.
Mark S.
I have no idea what is going on in that cartoon and I don’t want to know.
This is probably the end of the RNC. I wonder if Dems follow suit.
Brian J
@Alex:
In all honesty, I don’t think a lot of people truly grasp what’s at stake, because unlike the Republicans, the Democrats don’t always make it as personal as it should be.
I am pretty sure it was Bush’s first nominee for Surgeon General, among others, that professed to believing women could regulate their cycles through prayer. Now, unless I missed something big, that’s not been the case, to say the least. Did we hear much of anything about this mindset relates to health issues for women, like access to birth control? I can’t remember anything being said. Do you think a larger number of women might have been more likely to vote for John Kerry had this sort of nonsensical belief been broadcast? I certainly do.
Alex
that is bound to make him exit a race that was a guaranteed win for Democrats
So, you don’t think the other Democrats have a chance at winning? CT hasn’t elected a Republican senator since the 80’s, Lieberman nonwithstanding.
Brian J
@TTT:
Do you have a link for any of this? I need some ammo in case I see some conservative relatives in the near future.
Rosali
Rove is repulsive establishment GOP and is interested in promoting corporate interests. I believe that ultimately, old guard GOP will push out fringe tea partiers who deign to claim the mantle. GOP establishment will tolerate and use the teabaggers as long as the teabaggers help promote the GOP. If push comes to shove, and the teabaggers attempt to derail the corporatist GOP party agenda, Rove and Co. will do everything they can to crush the teabaggers.
Alex
@Brian J:
I am pretty sure it was Bush’s first nominee for Surgeon General, among others, that professed to believing women could regulate their cycles through prayer.
Boy oh boy. It’s stuff like this that makes firebagger bellyaching look completely insignificant. Hamsher and Greenwald and the rest were all adults back then: do they not remember how bad it was? How completely shut out liberals were from the corridors of power. And now they want to tear it all down, for what? So these assholes can jump into power again? I’m not saying they should blindly follow or keep quiet about their ideas, but goddamn, can we please have a little perspective?
Brian J
@Alex:
Ever since he announced, he was trouncing his Republican opponents. Seriously, the margins were similar to what we are seeing with Andrew Cuomo in New York. It went from a race where it looked like the Republicans might have a shot to one where they looked as if they were going to abandon the state, or so that’s the impression that I got. Yes, as Nate Silver has tweeted, the Democrats do have a deep bench in the state, but if all of this turns out to be true*, it’s a gigantic clusterfuck, because instead of bringing the fight to Arizona and spending more time trying to hold the seat in New Hampshire, they now must devote resources to holding the seat in Connecticut.
*I guess I should mention that after I made the first post mentioning this, someone else I follow on twitter said Blumenthal’s campaign manager called the piece inaccurate and a “hit job.” Maybe it is, but it seems like a pretty big jump for a respectable paper to make such clear accusations without having some sort of proof. In other words, it seems like either he lied so very badly, or he didn’t.
El Cid
McClatchy has noticed the horrifying right wing shit fit over the Arabic / Muslim winner of Miss USA — though it incorrectly labels it the ‘far reaches’ of the right blogosphere, when in fact they are its mainstream.
The last was noted here, I hadn’t (thankfully) heard the others.
russell
I don’t mean to stir the shit unnecessarily, but this actually is class warfare.
Not bombs and guns class warfare, but I-will-fuck-you-with-my-lovely-green-money-until-you-are-goddamned-dead class warfare.
The period of time between the end of WWII and, say, the 70’s, when there was a robust middle class, may have been kind of an anomaly, historically. It’s probably when many or most of the folks reading this grew up, so we think it’s normal, but I think it probably wasn’t. Historically speaking.
It’s going away, and will be gone if it’s not protected. And all kinds of good things are going to go with it when it goes.
Widespread access to home ownership, the ability to not have to work until you freaking die, access to college and professional training and careers, the ability to amass some modest amount of personal wealth, the ability to take a damned family vacation now and then.
A life that doesn’t consist of working every waking moment just to stay a half-step ahead of poverty.
Kiss it goodbye, because it stands between these fuckers and their next personal 100 million, and they won’t put up with that.
It really is us versus them. That’s where we are at now.
Brian J
@Alex:
What you said.
That’s pretty much why, despite however many times Obama disappoints me, I will gladly support his reelection. I might not be as enthusiastic, depending on what happens, but I will not try to make him a sacrificial lamb. I’ve seen what the other side has to offer, and Jesus Christ on a cross, it’s infinitely worse.
Emma
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I should have taken a leaf from Sadly No! and trusted the shorter. That cartoon has scoured my eyeballs, and my brain is bleeding…
Comrade Luke
There’s no reason other than abject incompetence that the Democrats couldn’t to the exact same thing.
Wait…
RareSanity
@Rosali:
I disagree.
This is were the lemming-like nature of teabaggers and rank-in-file “conservatives” pays off big time.
I mean…think about it, no matter what Rove does, no matter how much a candidate flunks the purity test, once Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity send out the orders. They will follow…
What are they going to do? Vote for the pinko-commie member of the Democrat Party?
El Cid
@Brian J: There’s just something wrong with certain people. Our gratitude every time it endangers this nation with descending into 12th century barbarism.
Brian J
@El Cid:
I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but I’ve read that second sentence a couple of times and can’t understand it.
Anyway, unlike politicians cheating or accepting bribes, it just doesn’t make any sense. What, exactly, does he think he would have gained if he did in fact lie?
kay
@Brian J:
It’s a little muddy, though, Brian. In a debate in 2009 he said he didn’t serve “in” Vietnam. He prefaced a response with that flat (true) assertion. That’s in the Times article. In a speech in 2008 he said he was “in” Vietnam, so that’s not true. Other times and other places he’s used “Vietnam era veteran” which (despite the deferments) is technically true. He was in fact a Marine reservist. The rest of the allegations have to do with pieces written about him by others, which he didn’t correct.
The two statements at veteran’s events appear to be deliberately deceptive, but he’s told the (specific) truth in other forums, including his last televised debate.
I’ll wait to read his defense. I think if he has lots and lots of public statements where he describes his service accurately, that matters, in terms of a long public record.
Citizen_X
@RareSanity: I don’t know. They take orders well, sure, but the teabaggers have shown that they demand the full, uncut red-meat crazy, even if they lose with it. I don’t think they take “crushing” very well, either. These are all characteristics that we can encourage, of course. “Operation Chaos” works both ways.
Alex
I mean…think about it, no matter what Rove does, no matter how much a candidate flunks the purity test, once Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity send out the orders. They will follow…
Hell yes they will. They’ve already decided that direct election of Senators is a threat to their freedoms. Best let the elites take care of it. But watch out for Socializm!
Idiots. The whole fucking pack of them. It gives me an ulcer to think how stupid these people must be.
Martin
@Mark S.: They tried. Obama killed the DLC. I don’t think the Dems will try again, Obama found a better way, if the Dems are smart enough to follow it.
Mary G
I have a little hope – here in California Meg Whitman has spent like $40 million of her own money and her R opponent Steve Poizener (sounds like “poisoner,” how appropriate) has thrown many of his millions into the primary.
Not a commercial break goes by without her talking about how he gave Al Gore $10,000 in 2000 and bought new cars for the CA Dept. of Insurance, and is a terrible liberal, or he has one about how she campaigned for and donated to Barbara Boxer in 1992 and hasn’t voted in 28 years. She didn’t even vote for Ronald Reagan! She believes in abortion!
Meanwhile Jerry Brown, the presumptive Democrat nominee, has raised something like $142,000.
Who’s ahead in the polls – good old governor Moonbeam. People are sick to death of the other two. Just because the Republicans raise a ton of money doesn’t mean they will know how to use it. They may not be able to keep the BS in.
Mnemosyne
@Brian J:
The New York Times was the paper that gave the world Whitewater.
‘Nuff said.
kay
@Brian J:
So there’s the deceptive statements at the two veterans events (2003 and 2008), but then there’s this:
It doesn’t get much plainer than “although I did not serve in Vietnam”.
You do wonder a little why the NYTimes had to contact an aide to find that statement, considering they looked at his statements since 2003, and found two misleading examples. Are there more like the 2009 (true) debate response? How many more?
RareSanity
@Citizen_X:
Your words to the FSM’s ears, I hope that’s the case…
I just hope that they have the numbers to make enough of a stink…
Wow, never thought I would hear myself say that I hoped the teabaggers had enough numbers to do anything.
Karl Rove the personification of sociopath.
El Cid
@Brian J: I was trying to be darkly sarcastic, badly so — in effect, ‘Thanks, pal, for fucking up so bad that you give more power to the most reactionary Republican anti-civilization movement ever.’
El Cid
On the fucking other god-damned hand, these are the same right wing fuckwads who acted like Bush’s TANG ‘service’ and absences was heroic, and John Kerry was some sort of pussy traitor for heading his small boat into fire to save his men. Fuck these fucking assholes.
RareSanity
@Alex:
You know, back when I was was libertarian-curious*, I read an article that had the most interesting perspective on how Congress should be populated.
The idea was that the Senate would go back to be appointed by state legislatures, therefore allowing people in state to hold the state legislatures accountable for Senate appointments.
Then, and here is the kicker, each district’s Representative would be drafted from the registered voters in the district, like jury duty. The terms would be increased to four years, staggered like the Senate is now, and occur every 2 years.
I thought it was brilliant. There would no longer be establishment party members, or even career politicians in Washington for that matter. Of course, like most other things libertarians support, great in theory, horrible in practice.
*(before I realized, “This shit can’t work in real life”)
Jeffro
It’s a shadow GOP now that the GOP has become too toxic to sell. The moneyed interests are trying to figure out which avenue – GOP or Tea Party – can best protect those interests.
And that’s the “shorter” version. Not much else to say.
Corner Stone
@Alex:
Straw man much mi amigo?
Jeffro
Also, h/t to Russell, who put it better than I did.
valdivia
@kay:
yep seems like a hit job.
Bernard
no, the masses will follow whatever the Leaders/Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, tell them. have no doubts about that. the Teabaggers will just fade away, like they are mostly gone now. when the time is right another group/Dick Armey or some such benefactor,lol/ will step up to “fight the socializts before they corrupt Merka.
the sheep love being fleeced, it really seems. and the Democrats have found out they can make more money being quiet soft spoken un-indicted co-conspirators, lol. remember where that comes from?
and you and i can watch it all on the Money driven Media that is so liberal we haven’t even got a clue( as to how liberal the media is.)
the war on the middle class is almost done.
Martin
@Mary G: Brown had raised $14M as of a month ago, and only spent about $150K. He’s probably around $17M-$20M now. He has no realistic competitors for the primary, so unlike Whitman/Poizner he doesn’t need to spend any money there. Further, the CA Democratic party have been running anti-Whitman ads to try and swing the primary toward Poizner who will have less money for the general and will be easier to beat (the douchenozzles down here in OC love to vote for CEOs.)
Don’t worry, the money will show up for Brown.
Bernard
Russell
i wish you were wrong, but i think you hit the nail on the head about America. boy how true. and sad.
what really amazes me is how brain dead or propagandized these followers are. to think i know some of them personally, these rightwingers, and they honestly down to their soul, believe the whole shtick. St. Ronnie is and forever will be their hero. which reminds me of Obama/ a lighter, easier to swallow version.
the part about the treatment of Carter, i had forgotten, another good point.
kay
@valdivia:
Isn’t it weird they didn’t find the debate statement? They went looking for statements, and found one from 2003, but didn’t find the debate statement, which exonerates him? Plus, you have to get through like 7 paragraphs before they get to the fact that he was actually in the reserves.
Look, it’s concerning. Color me “concerned”, and I have no idea how it plays politically, but the piece is a little hysterical and over-wrought.
And, WTF with the swim team? He didn’t even say that, a reporter did. Are they establishing a “pattern” here?
valdivia
@kay:
yeah I really *really* don’t get what this is about and in the Liberal NYT to boot. wtf?
TTT
@BrianJ, re: links discussing how Rove/Bush compromised the MI6 investigation and enabled 7/7 terror attack:
http://www.juancole.com/2004/08/outing-of-muhammad-naeem-noor-khan.html
http://www.juancole.com/2004/08/bush-administration-outing-of-khan.html
http://www.thedubyareport.com/london-bombings1.html
The Other Andrew
So, what happens when the corporate wing wants some sort of immigration-friendly policies set up, and the talk-radio wing isn’t down with that? Or when religious fundamentalism gets in the way of profit? Ultimately, the corporate wing will dictate policy, as they have the money…but the talk-radio crowd and so-cons provide the actual voting numbers. The former can spin to the latter, and try to make things appealing, but there are limits.
Michael
@kay:
I’m now firmly in the category of not giving a shit about anything to do with Vietnam or veterans or hippies anymore. For me, it is ancient history and best forgotten, given the fact that Vietnam is a stable country with a benign government that appears to work toward a higher standard of living within a mixed economy.
Yes, some served and some didn’t. Some slaughtered villagers indiscriminantly based on misguided orders handed out by dimwit superiors, while others were so stoned that they couldn’t find their zippers to pee, much less their local induction center.
VIETNAM DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER ANYMORE. I’m sick of that old scab.
El Cid
@Michael: I think it would be great if “Vietnam mattered” in the sense that we didn’t give into a lot of warhawk bullshit about how Gulf War 1 proved we “kicked the Vietnam syndrome” and how we’ve now figured out all these awesome new COIN strategies that we didn’t know then, etc. etc., and also that it’s really wrong to go over to some other set of nations and blow the shit out of millions of people due to fraudulent warhawk bullshit. That would be the way that “Vietnam” should matter.
Brian J
@kay:
I guess that’s true.
Michael
@El Cid:
Thing is, most voters don’t have a reference point even for what you say, particularly since they weren’t even born until after the withdrawal. Hell, there’s not even a cultural attachment to the pro-Reagan movie schlock of the early to mid-80s – they were too young, and missed the awesome level of suck associated with those.
Let it go. It may have defined the boomers, but it sure meant nothing to the rest of us.
Shalimar
@The Other Andrew: We already found out what happens when the corporatists push immigration reform to increase profits: Bush and McCain tried it 4 years ago and it went nowhere.
I think they have learned their lesson. The Republican voting base is kept in line by their hatred of all people who aren’t like them. That is the one issue they won’t budge on because they need someone other than the corporatists to blame for their misery.
Garrigus Carraig
@russell: This.
Brian J
@El Cid:
Oh, okay.
Brian J
@kay:
Well, it definitely looks like I jumped the gun.
Brian J
@TTT:
Thanks.
Michael
PS – For any “my opposition to/service in the Vietnam War folks defines me” folks out here, I’ll offer my middle aged musings for free:
1. The pro-war people are ridiculous. If you fought, you didn’t do shit to preserve “Our Precious Freedom”. Uncle Ho wasn’t an existential threat, and you knew it at the time. Plus, after 40 years, quit fucking whining about your PTSD and inadequate veterans benefits and get over yourselves – besides, if every Vietnam-era vet served “in the shit” as seems to be claimed, at least 46,000,000 rotated through in heavy firefights uphill, both ways, in thick jungle.
2. The antiwar demonstrators let themselves get coopted by ridiculous people in outlandish dress, speaking outlandishly and became too identified with the drug culture. No wonder nobody took you seriously. I sure in shit wouldn’t have taken you seriously, and I’m prone to accept arguments against the mindless and indiscriminate use of reckless force.
Silver Owl
those ugly greedy, power hungry dictatorial miserable, asshole old white men are festering boils on the ass of the United States.
El Cid
@Michael: This isn’t about ‘boomers’, which I’m certainly not. I’m one of those weirdo freakish alien beings who apparently feels a responsibility to know about things which happened before I was born. Silly, I know.
If somebody thinks “Vietnam” is about boomers, or ’80s movies, well, then, fuck the 3 million people our country slaughtered in 3 nations just a few decades ago ’cause some people got tired of hearing about “Rambo” or “Platoon”.
It isn’t about movies.
Vietnam was a historical event. I don’t care if people don’t know about the end of colonialism in Africa, ’cause they don’t think it’s relevant to their lives, or what the U.S. did in Central America or Southern Africa. These things are real, they mattered, and they have lessons to offer the non-navel-gazers.
The point of knowing about important historical events isn’t that your generation or cohort thinks it’s hip, but rather that people might not want to be uninformed ignoramuses unable to know what important things have happened in the world, and what they can learn from it.
That includes when current military leaders and warhawk politicians pull more bullshit out of their ass about how this new war in some 3rd world chaos hellwar is really gonna shape up now because we got this awesome shiny new “COIN” strategy, one which lasts just long enough to accomplish a brief propaganda goal.
SURGE!
Of course, the SURGE happened a long, long time ago, way in the past, so, I should probably tell people to get over it and move on.
handy
@El Cid:
And Shock’n’awe might as well be something out of Tacitus or Sun Tzu–ancient history.
Indeed, get over it. Serious people are in charge now.
patrick II
@El Cid: I have to agree with El Cid on this one Michael. As a Vietnam era vet (sorry) I think the thing that drives us nuts is that we are still fighting the same war really — and not the one in Vietnam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan. It is the war we have internally between the Military/Industrial complex (or whatever more modern, precise term you care to use) who use force (which actually means death and distruction) as a first option, and those of us who think that kindness (rather than fear) might be the option that is safer and more ethical for us all to practice for our own good as well as those whose countries we devastate.
Vietnam is the metaphor we understand and use. Give peace a chance is what we mean.
Bernard
serious people are in charge now? lol. when did that happen? i missed it, didn’t I? lol
now that is rich in irony.
as long as white men start wars for oil, gold, land, whatever. white men suck. lol, even non white men suck under those conditions. lol.
by the way, i am a white man. lol
TenguPhule
For once, commence some CIA style assassinations on Rove and co.
patrick II
No, it isn’t. It was inevitable once Citizens United was decided. It is not something new, but the type of lawless money politics that dominated the country until the great depression, and sadly is once again.
TenguPhule
Corrected, it’s the only way to be sure.
matoko_chan
well…we shouldn’t let our guard down….but they already lost.
the day Obama became the US president Rove and his scam team lost. in 2000 Rove managed to scrape out a 5 ec vote victory, and in 2004 a 35 ec vote victory…..unimaginable in a wartime incumbent.
slowly, inexorably, cultural and demographic evolution are remaking the electoral landscape.
but no one has enough bucks to buy off evolution.
its all over but the squalling.
the GOP will have to shed its fringe and reform, like the tories, in order to ever have power again.
and that is a good thing.
Splitting Image
Rove is worth keeping an eye on, but I’m not convinced he’ll get his way this time.
In a way, he’s just Newt Gingrich with a more recent list of credits on his resume. He is unscrupulous and undoubtedly dangerous if he has a lot of money to spend, but there is nothing new or novel about his methods. An idea man he isn’t.
A lot of that money mentioned in that article will find its way into Rove’s pockets, but I’m not convinced that many candidates “loyal to the GOP’s wealthiest donors and corporate patrons” will find their way into public office. For one thing, Rove himself isn’t loyal to the GOP’s wealthiest donors and corporate patrons. He’s only loyal to Karl Rove.
Anne Laurie
@Splitting Image:
Newt Gingrich is a huckster, a carny barker who had to play his own geek. Rove is much more dangerous, because he’s smart enough to stand just outside the spotlight while manipulating his puppets. “Even the liberal” Media Village eventually started making fun of Gingrich’s swollen ego, but Rove is still taken seriously as a once & future political kingmaker… a real-life Grima Wormtongue.
But I could not agree more with your conclusion…“He’s only loyal to Karl Rove.”
maus
@El Cid:
ah, but you see we’re failing now because we don’t have enough SURGE. if only we had some surge, we could win this for good!
Yutsano
Incidentally I had found this article (I can’t remember where) and your assessment of the picture being NSFW is spot on. I was just glad it was only on the first page. Oh and I opened it at work, so I skipped by it as quickly as possible. I don’t think I missed much in the opening paragraphs.
And anyone who knows anything about Karl Rove should not even pretend to be anything near remotely surprised at this.
Ecks
@maus: I like your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Please find enclosed my three ez payments of 39.99, and send me more information on how I can have more SURGE in my personal life.
Shalimar
@matoko_chan: In a sane country, what you say should be true. The Republican party should be completely discredited by the Bush years and by the antics of their far-right supporters. In the country we actually have, the GOP is going to regain the White House in 2012 or 2016.
Joey Maloney
@Alex: Fuck Karl Rove. I hope he dies from the most painful heart attack in history.
“Right through the heart, in both cases.“
matoko_chan
@Shalimar: nah, don’t sweat it.
the midterms are Custers Last Stand for them….and that is why they are blowing their whole load now.
Rove can’t buy off demographic or cultural evolution, no matter how much oooga bucks he spends.
The right is more and more culturally and geologically and demographically isolated.
The demographics they need to court ….minorities, youth, urban dwellers, the college-eduated under 40….are increasingly inaccessible to them politically, culturally, and physically.
Rove squeaked by with 5 ec votes in 2000…and 35 in 2004 wartime.
Meanwhile the non-hispanic cauc percent of the electorate has dropped from 78% to 72%.
2010 midterms are their last gasp.
if they want to come back they will have to follow the Cameron/Tory model, and gank the rightwing extremist fringe.
im relly looking forward to that.
:)
Bullsmith
Thank God we have the Supreme Court to protect the country from unrestrained democracy. One person with one voice and one vote is completely unfair to those who can afford more.
Seriously though, when the Supreme Court’s been openly bought, as it has, the country’s pretty much finished as a functioning republic.
patrick II
the last part of this thread seems to have statements between those who believe in demographics and those who believe money will trump. I am wishing rove et al will be rendered losers by demographic, but if I had much money, my bet would be on money.
Shalimar
My bet would be on demographics long-term. I agree that the current direction of the Republican party is a death spiral if it isn’t corrected. But they are the only alternative in this country and Democrats will become increasingly unpopular if the economy and especially unemployment levels don’t improve dramatically in the next few years. This is why I think Republicans will get one last chance to take the country down with them before they implode for good. I think this is almost inevitable, and all I can do is hope the next time won’t be as disastrous as their last time.
matoko_chan
@patrick II: not mine.
Money can’t buy them love.
Do the math. :)
33 or more percent of non-hispanic caucs vote liberal, Carter to Obama.
we are just race traitors i guess.
;)