October Surprises and the Sheeple - Some Thoughts

[indyjones1938]

If the Kerry campaign's "October Surprise," as some here claim, involves the oil-for-food program/Halliburton/Texas oilmen/Allawi/Chalabi/Cheney...well, it ain't gonna cut it.

Such a story is far, far too complicated for the sheeple to understand and process. Anything that cannot fit into a 5-second soundbyte is too confusing for their painfully short attention spans. The sheeple also need some sort of visual or auditory stimulus to aid in their understanding of the story at hand -- a photo, for instance, or an incriminating video or audiotape.

Futhermore, similar scandals regarding Bush and Cheney have leaked out countless times in the past. Halliburton and Iran. Cocaine usage. Valerie Plame. Israeli spy. Forged Niger documents. Bush-Carlyle-Saudi connections. TxANG memos. You name it, it's out there. But none of them stick. Absolutely none. Bush is the Teflon president.

As we saw during the TxANG memo controversy, Karl Rove is the master at defusing a scandal and changing the topic. He scored a double-whammy during memogate. Not only did he innoculate Bush against any futher attacks on his TxANG service, but he prevented CBS from airing the 60 Minutes episode about the Niger forged documents scandal. Does anyone else see the irony in this, looking back in hindsight? When CBS was about to air a story about forged documents, he slipped them some forged documents on another topic, they ran with it, and they were effectively discredited for the rest of the campaign season.

So the only hope of the Kerry campaign landing an "October Surprise" is through character assassination. Something so explosive, so undeniable, so unexpected, from a source that is 100% unimpeachable, that it forces a humiliated Bush to go on the air and apologize, recant or hopelessly try to explain himself.

The key word in there is something unexpected. It has to be something that Karl Rove never saw coming. The Bob Stevens photos won't do it. Nor will photos of Bush smoking cocaine or letters detailing the backroom abortion. Why? Because Rove is aware of all these potential scandals and will innoculate Bush against them just like he did with the TxANG memos.

When I say Rove will "innoculate" him, I mean he will leak forged photos or forged documents seemingly proving the alleged actions and then let the media reveal them as forgeries. Bush is then "innoculated" against any further attacks.

Rove probably already has photoshopped pictures of Bush having sex with a young Victor Ashe; probably already has forged letters from Bush's girlfriend talking about the abortion; probably has fake pictures of young Bush doing coke. Do you people understand what I am saying? He'll do the same thing that he did in memogate.

So, the October Surprise must be something so unexpected, out of the blue and unimpeachable that (a) the sheeple can understand it and (b) Bush can't deny it and (c) Rove can't innoculate against it.

[Rowdyboy]

1. It would be nice if we quit using the term "sheeple" for awhile

its insulting to undecided voters who might come here for information and it can be used to portray DU as being elitist and arrogant.

Sorry, thats just my opinion. Its a poor choice of words.

[indyjones1938]

3. It would be nice if the sheeple got out of their bubbles

and realized what is happening in this country.

Sorry, I don't see how anyone could be either undecided or a Bush supporter at this point. One-half of this country has been brainwashed. They lack critical thinking skills, common sense and even the modicum of intelligence necessary to cut through the spin.

I don't care if it's elitist or arrogant to call the sheeple what they are. It's just the truth.

[dave502d]

2. October Surprises

Will be Bill Clinton and that it.

[BR_Parkway]

4. What happened to Larry Flynt and the abortion story?

Isn't that due out about now?

[RafterMan]

5. What happened with Larry Flynt and anything?

We have Larry Flynt on our side and we're *still* getting out-slimed.

How sad is that?

[highplainsdem]

9. Kitty Kelley had a few paragraphs about it in her book.

Quoting from the book, where Kelley explains first that Flynt had been outraged by the scorched-earth tactics Bush had used against McCain in South Carolina, and by the sheer hypocrisy of Bush's pledge to put federal funds into sexual abstinence programs:

Pronouncing Bush a menace to society, the pornographer hired two investigative reporters to explore every aspect of the governor's sexual past. In October 2000, he claimed to have hit pay dirt.

Appearing on CNN's Crossfire , Flynt alleged that George W. Bush had impregnated a woman in the 1970s, when he was living at the Chateau Dijon in Houston. According to Flynt, George arranged an abortion through a physician, who purportedly performed the procedure at Houston's Twelve Oaks Medical Center.

"When I said that we had the proof, I am referring to knowing who the girl was, knowing who the doctor was that performed the abortion, evidence from girlfriends of hers at the time, who knew about the romance and the subsequent abortion. The young lady does not want to go public, and without her willingness, we don't feel that we're on solid enough ground to go with the story... One of the things that interested us was that this abortion took place before Roe v. Wade...which made it a crime at the time."

Without confirmation from the woman, who Flynt said had married an FBI agent, the mainstream press would not touch the story. "Walter Isaacson (former editor of Time) would not go with it because Larry Flynt was involved," said Brian Doyle, an assistant Time editor. "Even though he had four affidavits from the woman's friends." Michael Isikoff of Newsweek said,"Certainly, there was a great deal of circumstantial evidence to support it, but without the woman herself coming forward to admit that Bush arranged her abortion, we could not do anything with it." Richard Gooding of The National Enquirer said that when he interviewed the woman, she denied having had an abortion. "She admitted they dated exclusively for six months, but said they never had the kind of sex that would get her pregnant."

The story was pursued because of Bush's stand against abortion and his threat to support a "human life amendment" to the Constitution, which would overturn Roe v. Wade. As governor, he signed eighteen anti-abortion laws, and as a presidential candidate he promised to appoint only pro-life judges.


I vaguely recall a recent news story in which Kelley said that she'd told some TV show's producer that the four women who'd signed those affidavits were willing to appear with her to talk about this, but the producer refused to consider it.

By the way, I was watching Crossfire the evening that Flynt first mentioned this. CNN edited the transcript later to remove all mention of it.

Flynt said that Bush Sr.'s campaign manager had been involved in arranging the abortion, too.

Just Googled this and found this page, with more info including the section edited out of that CNN transcript:

http://www.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=159

[donco6]

6. True - accounting messes are too complicated

for most folks to understand. And how many more do we have to break before someone finally figures out that something is wrong? We already had Enron.

[pretzel4gore]

7. you misread it indy....

it's the mass media, the corporate liars. They simply let slide anything that hurts geeb (dumber brother of flo guv geb), and hurriedly fill airtime with something else (iraq, nkorea, lori peterson, anthrax, 911 etc..) The bush crims need media to entertain the fat people, and keep 'em entertained (like nero needed bread and circuses) the 'sheeple' are no different today: only the utter contempt our rulers have for us can now plainly be seen in the selection of goofballs like ronald reagan or geebush jr as the most powerful elected official on earth! (hahaha)
neither reagan or bush could last 5 minutes against a true political gangster like saddam hussein, much less a putin or 99 percent of the guys who clawed their way to power in less fortunate ( the non democratic) world...
try picture either reagan or jr in same room with a teddy roosevelt, a harry truman, a lyndon johnson, or an abe lincoln (LOL!!) much less a hitler, stalin or mao....
sheese

[OnionPatch]

8. Don't know if I agree it's too complicated

Most of the Bush voters I know use this Food For Oil issue as the ONLY weapon they have. Every single one I talk to points out how "terrible" and "corrupt" the Europeans have been regarding this issue. I think this story will make a difference.

[PerfectSage]

10. October Surprise Ideas

Did Rove inoculate Bush against this? LOL
http://www.bushisantichrist.com/

Putting on my Machiavelli thinking cap. Did Rove inoculate himself against an October surprise scandal? An indirect attack on Bush through Rove would be great. Kill Bush's brain and watch the chimp fold.

Why bother to worry & react to Rove? Why doesn't DU pull an October Surprise? From Zogby's Oct 7 press release:

"I have stated all year that Bush needs to win among self-identified investor class members by double- digits and he is ahead in this group 51%-42%.

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=877

We could flood the Yahoo, Stockhouse, Raging Bull and Investors Hub bullboards with anti Bush/pro Kerry posts. I think humorous articles and images mocking Bush would be great. That video on DU of Bush 10 years ago vs now, showing his cognitive impairment over the years was a real eye opener for me. Maybe people will see it and realize Bush is not the strong leader they perceive him to be.

The goal is to reduce Bush's investor class vote percentage. Denying him some of his crucial investor class votes. Using the scan engine from my Stockcharts.com account I see about 1,400 companies that have an average daily volume > 500k/day that could be used as a target list and could email to someone from DU??? Gee, I could give you the entire ticker symbol catalog if you wanted it.

An other idea would be to really focus DU's efforts on the big three swing states: Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. If DU can help nudge 2 outta 3 Kerry's way...