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The Quiet American
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_career_of_reinventing_tyrants.htmlMar-a-Lago, Donald Trumps palace, is impressive by the standards of Palm Beachless so when judged against the abodes of the worlds autocrats. It doesnt, for instance, quite compare with Mezhyhirya, the gilded estate of deposed Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych. Trump may have 33 bathrooms and three bomb shelters, but his mansion lacks a herd of ostrich, a galleon parked in a pond, and a set of golden golf clubs. Yet the two properties are linked, not just in ostentatious spirit, but by the presence of one man. Trump and Yanukovych have shared the same political brain, an operative named Paul Manafort.
Ukrainians use the term political technologist as a favored synonym for electoral consultant. Trump turned to Manafort for what seemed at first a technical task: Manafort knows how to bullwhip and wheedle delegates at a contested convention. Hes done it before, assisting Gerald Ford in stifling Ronald Reagans insurgency at the GOPs summer classic of 1976. In the conventions that followed, the Republican Party often handed Manafort control of the program and instructed him to stage-manage the show. He produced the morning-in-America convention of 1984 and the Bob Dole nostalgia-thon of 1996.
(snip)
The genesis of Donald Trumps relationship with Paul Manafort begins with Roy Cohn. That Roy Cohn: Joe McCarthys heavy-lidded henchman, lawyer to the Genovese family. During the 70s, Trump and his father hired Cohn as their lawyer to defend the family against a housing discrimination suit. (Cohn accused the Feds of using Gestapo-like tactics.) But Cohn and Trump became genuine pals, lunching at the Four Seasons and clubbing together at Studio 54. It was Roy Cohn who introduced Stone and Manafort to Trump.
(snip)
Manafort had a very different mentor. He studied under the future secretary of state, James A. Baker III, who wielded his knife with the discipline of a Marine and the polish of a Princetonian. It was a good fit for Manafort, who shared his mentors pragmatic conservatism and his thirst for politics. (His father spent six years as the mayor of New Britain, Connecticut, a Republican who flourished in Democratic terrain.) Baker, an avid collector of young talent, had managed Gerald Fords re-election campaign. Thats where he spotted Manafort and anointed him aide de camp. When Baker needed his own manager for his 1978 campaign to become attorney general of Texas, he tapped Manafort. The experience of whispering in Bakers ear left a lasting impression. Paul modeled himself after Baker, one of his friends told me.
(end snip)
A rat f*cker among rat f*ckers. A rat f*cker's rat f*cker.
Manafort oversaw Reagan's southern strategy.
Interesting story about McCain in here, too.
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The Quiet American (Original Post)
deminks
Aug 2016
OP
marble falls
(57,201 posts)1. This guy's life would make a movie.
deminks
(11,017 posts)2. For some reason, I have this earworm this morining