National Security Democrats: "terror, terror, terror, terror, terror"

[Q]

NATIONAL SECURITY DEMOCRATS



The Dems: Bums

By Matt Taibbi, New York Press
Posted on March 29, 2005, Printed on April 3, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/21608/

"Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. I would say to John, 'Let me put it to you this way. The Lord Almighty, or Allah, whoever, if he came to every kitchen table in America and said, "Look, I have a Faustian bargain for you, you choose. I will guarantee to you that I will end all terror threats against the United States within the year, but in return for that there will be no help for education, no help for Social Security, no help for health care." What do you do?' My answer is that seventy-five percent of the American people would buy that bargain."

– Joe Biden, in The New Yorker, on what he would say to John Kerry

"Look, the answer is, we have to do an unbranding. We have to brand more effectively. It's marketing."

– Kerry, in the same piece, on the Democrats' need to sell themselves as tough

"...In the midst of all of this, the Democratic Party is preparing its shiny new 2008 position on Iraq and terror. Described in Goldberg's New Yorker article, the political plan is centered around a new faction that calls itself the "National Security Democrats" (a term coined by that famous liberal, Richard Holbrooke) and is led by revolting hair-plug survivor Joe Biden. The position of the "National Security Democrats" is that the party should be "more open to the idea of military action, and even preemption" and that the Democrats should "try to distance themselves from the Party's Post-Vietnam ambivalence about the projection of American power." Additionally, the Democrats ought to reconsider their traditional stance as an opposition party and learn to embrace Republican heroes like Ronald Reagan.

"Everyone knew 'Reagan is dangerous,' remember?" Biden says. "He talked about freedom, and what do we do? We say it's bad speech, dangerous speech." Democrats, he says, "are making the same mistakes again."

It would be easy to dismiss the Biden revival as a cheap stunt by a discredited party hack with all the national appeal of the streptococcus virus, except for one thing. Biden's "national security" camp includes all four of the expected main contenders for the Democratic nomination – Biden himself, Hillary Clinton, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, and John Edwards. New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, another outside contender, is also a member of this camp. We are going to be hearing a lot about "National Security Democrats" in the next three years.

The Democratic party leadership's persistent and bizarre campaign of self-condemnation and Republican bootlicking is one of those things that, on its face, makes very little logical sense. It makes cultural sense; we have come to expect that the cultural figures we call the Democrats will respond to electoral failure first by sniveling and finger-pointing, and then by puffing up their chests and telling their dates they know how to handle themselves in a bar fight. From the Republicans we expect just the opposite; beaten at the polls, they immediately start cozying up to snake-handlers and gun freaks and denouncing school lunches as socialism. It is impossible to imagine a Newt Gingrich responding, say, to LBJ's Great Society by concocting its own expensive plan to feed the poor black man – but we fully expect that a Democrat who loses an election will suddenly start to reconsider his opposition to pre-emtpive invasion and Reaganomics..."


http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21608/

[hedda_foil]

1. God and Howard help us.

This insanity is what we're up against on our own side!

[brindis_desala]

2. Two stolen elections+ Feeble Democratic response=

Conspiracy against the people. Can anyone imagine the Republicans being conciliatory after winning the popular vote for president by 500,000 votes and a Democratic president is installed by the courts in a "one-time-only" ruling without legal basis or precedent?
Can anyone imagine an election being decided by unverifiable e-voting machines deemed patently insecure by 90% of computer experts and said machines being owned and maintained by avowedly partisan Democrats and the Republican candidate promptly bending his knees for the "good" of the country?
Can anyone imagine a Democratic president sitting in a classroom reading a children's story while the worst attack on American soil is ongoing and the Republican challenger never once making mention of it?
Can anyone imagine a Democratic president being the beneficiary of the grand largesse from the brother of the purported perpetrator of this very attack and subsequently authorizing said perpetrator's family to be whisked out of the country before they can be questioned and the Republicans barely mentioning it while said Democrat is roundly hailed for his resolve in "fighting terror"?
The answer should be clear to even the dimmest among us by now.

[mattclearing]

9. That's why I say our people are naive or complicit.

I think Biden falls in the latter category.

[brindis_desala]

10. My impression, absolutely

[wyldwolf]

3. Taibbi is, to put it plainly, a nut and a hack

You can have Matt Taibbi. Not only was his recent piece THE 52 FUNNIEST THINGS ABOUT THE UPCOMING DEATH OF THE POPE highly insensitive and disgusting, his hit piece on Wes Clark during the primaries violated journalistic ethics to further his personal vendetta against Clark.

I'd rather have a National Security Democrat than a hack like Taibbi any day.

An e-mail from Matt Bennet to NY Times writer Howard Kurtz

From: Matt Bennett
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 2:13 PM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Your Piece on Matt Taibbi

Howard: As you may recall, I was Communications Director for the Clark Campaign.

Yesterday you ran an item noting that Matt Taibbi is now "covering" the campaign, in his way, for Rolling Stone. If you write about him again, I think it's worth noting that Taibbi wrote an excrecable story on Clark that appeared, much to the magazine's disgrace, in The Nation.

Taibbi is, to put it plainly, a nut and a hack. His hatchet-job on Clark stooped to the very lowest levels of journalism, violating a number of ethical standards along the way. Among other things, (as he freely admits in the piece) he posed as a volunteer on our campaign in New Hampshire and reported on what he saw and heard in confidence. He also misquoted and grossly distorted what other campaign volunteers said to him, using their names. These were not campaign spokespeople or officials -- they were sign-carrying, envelope-licking volunteers. To use them the way he did, without telling them he was a reporter and quoting them on the record, is shameful.

Moreover, this is the same "reporter" who, as editor of a loony ex-pat magazine in Russia called "the eXile", once hit NY Times correspondence Michael Wines in the face with a cream pie made of horse sperm.

Further perusal of the eXile makes clear why Taibbi had a vendetta against Wes Clark -- he was virulently opposed to the Kosovo War. For The Nation to hire him to write a cover on Clark with such well known predilections, and then to PRINT the story he wrote (with the aforementioned ethical issues), was inexcusable.

Matt Taibbi has no place in legitimate journalism. Rolling Stone should be ashamed of themselves for hiring or using him. Feel free to use any of this on the record if you write a follow-up.

Best,
Matt Bennett

http://www.wonkette.com/politics/campaigning/sperm-piethrowing-journo-terrorizes-kerry-press-corps-003547.php

[Q]

8. Whether Taibbi is a 'nut and a hack' has nothing to do with...

...the 'National Security Democrats' and their plan to use the same tactics as Bush to scare people into voting for them. Worse...their support of the 'Bush Doctrine' of aggressive war makes them just as nuts as Taibbi.

[wyldwolf]

12. yet, you use a source you admit is nuts to make your case

Further, he "builds his case" in true Republican style - setting up ad hominem attacks on Biden.

You've either fallen victim to the lie that Democrats are not a party of national defense or you wish them not to be.

Truth is, though, the Dems have a rich history of strong defense policies and yes, the enemy today is radical Islam.

I would expect you to cast your lot with Taibbi.

[LittleClarkie]

13. Reminds me of when a Kerry supporter used Counterpunch

to attack Dean.

I had to remind him that Counterpunch is no friend of John's either.

Is this fellow a nutty hack as in lefty freeper nutty hack?

[wyldwolf]

15. Yes, he's a "lefty freeper nutty hack"

And, after reading Q's cut-and-paste of quotes from Taibbi's article, I decided to check the original source that Taibbi quoted from.

Taibbi begins his piece with:

"Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. I would say to John, 'Let me put it to you this way. The Lord Almighty, or Allah, whoever, if he came to every kitchen table in America and said, "Look, I have a Faustian bargain for you, you choose. I will guarantee to you that I will end all terror threats against the United States within the year, but in return for that there will be no help for education, no help for Social Security, no help for health care." What do you do?' My answer is that seventy-five percent of the American people would buy that bargain."

However, the original article from the The New Yorker has it a bit different...

Kerry, Biden said, would tell voters that he would "fight terror as hard as Bush," but then he would add, "and I'll help you economically." "What is Bush saying?" Biden said. "Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. I would say to John, 'Let me put it to you this way. The Lord Almighty, or Allah, whoever, if he came to every kitchen table in America and said, "Look, I have a Faustian bargain for you, you choose. I will guarantee to you that I will end all terror threats against the United States within the year, but in return for that there will be no help for education, no help for Social Security, no help for health care." What do you do?'

"My answer," Biden said, "is that seventy-five per cent of the American people would buy that bargain."

Out of context - freeper style.

Clearly Biden is giving his impression that Kerry is saying that he'll be strong on defense and domestic issues while Bush is just yelling "terror terror terror."

Next, Biden correctly states that, given the fear of terrorism post 9/11, many people would sacrifice education, health care, and social security - emphasizing the importance of being strong on defense.

Biden never says he or Kerry would sacrifice such programs.

But Taibbi sure wants us to think that.

[Q]

23. Of course you're right about the hack writing...

...but the fact remains that the 'national security democrats' don't differ much with Bush on the issues of aggressive war and using terror for political gain.

[Clark2008]

22. I take nearly everything from Counterpunch with a grain of salt

I'm all for a liberal answer to right-wing rhetoric, but the fact remains that online publications like Counterpunch distort their facts to fit their agenda just like the righties do.
The only difference, of course, is that the righties are in mainstream publications.
Hell, I just wish we could go back to the days when reporting was about covering all sides and not about nailing the other one.

[dogman]

25. MT is the reason I wouldn't even take a free subscription to The Nation.

Right, we should run from National Security and become totally irrelevant to the American people.

[FrenchieCat]

26. Taibi is an extremist Pro-Serb Anti Government nutcase

with a computer. He hates everybody but the dictators of 3rd world countries. period.

[PeaceProgProsp]

4. Moving to the right on this issue is a big mistake

Biden's strategy -- accepting that America must chose security over health, wealth, happiness and protecting the working class -- is dumb, dumb,dumb.

It will set back progressives fifty to a hundred years.

Does Biden think that we should undo the New Deal completely and then rebuild it in five years when we've won the war on terror? The War on Terror will never completely end -- and will only be reduced when there is less inequity in the world, and dismantling the New Deal is only going to increase inequity in America, and will probably have a domino effect on the rest of the world.

And does Biden think that in five years there's going to a mandate to bring back everything we've given up? There will be such a polarization of political and cultural power after dismantling the New Deal that it will be impossible to bring it back.

What the Democrats need to do is the opposite of what Biden wants. Democrats need to embrace the New Deal as the antidote to terrorism. A fair, Democratic American society which does not polarize wealth and power is the best way to build up a wealthy, secure America which can defend itself, and it's the best way to create the global conditions which mitigate the inequities that encourage terrorism.

[LittleClarkie]

14. Biden can kiss my shiny metal butt

I'd take Jomentum over Biden. I may see Lieberman as wrong-headed but at least I think he's sincere. But Biden makes my teeth itch with his disingenuousness. That boy just ain't right.

[Boo Boo]

5. This is one of the big reasons I supported

Wes Clark in the last cycle: He was somebody that didn't have to "brand" himself on the security issue. He can go on CNN and say, "We must not throw away the very things this country stands for." Everybody already believes he can handle the war part, which frees him up to talk about core American values, which he does very effectively.

You can't question his patriotism. You can't call him weak on defense. All the 'Pukes could do is try to smear him as crazy, or something like that---personal character attacks.

Having a four star general that stands up and argues for progressive taxation, increased spending for schools, science, energy efficiency... Much better, I think, than having to suffer the babbling "branding" nonsense in this article.

Give The People(tm) the choice between a leader, or a "brand," and they'll choose the leader. That's why the 'Pukes harp so hard on the flip-flop thing all the time; it's a leadership attack. Bush never admits he's wrong because he thinks that's something leaders don't do. It's that simple: doggedly refuse to change your mind, and characterize your opponent as vacillating. That's how Bush casts himself as a strong leader. It's a two part strategy.

I think these so-called National Security Democrats are missing something important: they seem to think that this is primarily a policy thing. You have to adopt to some degree Bush policies in order to get these voters. I don't think that's really the case. I think lots (most?) of the people are making a gut-level decision about leadership within the given historical context (War on Terror). That is, they ask themselves, do I think this guy can protect us. Do I think he's tough enough, strong enough, etc. You don't have to support the Neocon agenda to be solid in this regard.

Bush managed to tarnish Kerry's leadership credentials just enough so that, in concert with the wacko Christian fundie vote, he kept close enough to steal another one. Big deal. That's not gonna get me to change my stance on Iraq, or abortion, or whatever.

Regarding Biden's opening paragraph: I don't buy that bullshit for a minute. Why would you offer people that kind of a false choice? What are you, some kind of frigging Bush Republican? You sure do sound like one.

[Totally Committed]

6. Taibbi and his ilk...

have a death wish for this Party.

I have said it before and I'll say it again: To govern, we must first WIN. Only someone Red America feels has their security and safety at heart will lure them away from the Regressive Republicans.

He needs to get real.

TC

[Q]

7. The Bushie Republicans 'won' and they're governing...

...but look at the result of a party where everyone marches in lockstep and is too afraid to speak out against their own.

And what the hell makes you think that the only way to 'win' is to mimic the Bushie Republicans and their use of TERROR to frighten people into voting for them?

Do we have to adopt a national security agenda similar to that of the fascists in control of this country in order to compete? Should Democrats have to support illegal wars and war criminals in order to 'look tough'?

The problem is that the Democratic party is LOSING elections and voters because of this strategy.

[mattclearing]

11. No. We should start calling attention to Republican lies.

If our senators screamed PNAC at the top of their lungs every day for a week they could shut down this country.

The fact that they haven't done so yet leaves three possibilities: naivité, timidity or complicity.

[Al-CIAda]

16. Gold star for this man. -n/t

[TheWatcher]

24. You also might want to throw Electroninc Voting into that mix Q

Four Private Corporations controling the Electronic Voting infrastructure.

All four with heavy financial ties to the GOP. Not to mention that glorious beacon of Democracy The Christain Reconstructionist Movement.

It's like having your own rigged Roulette Table.

But then again, many think we are supposed to ignore THAT too.

Can't have ourselves looking like loony conspiracy theorists in front of the Republicans.

The Democratic Party will NEVER win another election as long as the current Electronic Voting infrastructure exists.

As for your Posts Q, please keep them coming. Not everybody wants to remain asleep.

[Al-CIAda]

18. THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES

THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES
BBC, 2004
In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares. The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams were not true, neither are these nightmares.

Download
http://mysite.verizon.net/res7dhyg/documentaries_2.html


=======


Examines how a radical fringe of the Republican Party used the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks to advance a pre-existing agenda to radically transform American foreign policy while rolling back civil liberties and social programs at home.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Watch/download here
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1/hijacking_catastrophe.rm


Other films of interest available for viewing-
http://mysite.verizon.net/res7dhyg/id3.html

=====

A funny thing happened on the way to 'The Truth'

By Karl W. B. Schwarz
Online Journal Guest Writer

September 24, 2004—I am a conservative Republican who has come to the conclusion over the past 12 months that I would not vote for Bush Cheney 2004 under bribe, duress or at gunpoint. I have come to that conclusion for many reasons that are well documented and in some instances is information that is known only to myself and several executives that I work with.

I have written a book about my experiences with the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Bush Cheney, and bring forth facts that I found stunning and disgusting to the point that I am convinced that both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and RNC, and our political system, are in need a serious house cleaning.....

...eight of the 10 9-11 Commission members (that I know of) are directly benefiting from 9-11 or companies they represent or sit on the board of directors of that pipeline, that big Caspian Oil deal being "open for business" soon, thanks to the US controlled pipeline, so I think we can all rest assured that The Truth Commission on 9-11 has yet to convene. The ones with serious conflicts are Kean, Fielding, Lehman, Thompson, Hamilton, Gorelick, Ben Veniste, and Roemer and just for kicks, a former Lee Hamilton staffer, Christopher Kojm, was in the back office with Zelikow....

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/092404Schwarz/092404schwarz.html

Recent Audio Interview-(Realplayer)

http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Stadt/0410/20041012_Tue_Stadtmiller.ram

----------

9/11 Commission: The official coverup guide

The Kean Commission came to New York the second week of May for a two-day set of hearings at The New School University. As hundreds of Sept. 11th family members, reporters and curious New Yorkers lined up for airport-style security checks, they received copies of a new 24-page booklet published by NY 9/11 Truth, with help from 911Truth.org.
"Scamming America: The Official 9/11 Cover-up" is named after a quote by former Sen. Max Cleland, who resigned from the commission last November with the words, "Bush is scamming America."
Cleland attacked his own commission after the other members cut a deal to accept highly limited access to CIA reports to the White House that may indicate advance knowledge of the attacks on the part of the Bush administration. "This is a scam," Cleland said. "It's disgusting. America is being cheated."
"As each day goes by," Cleland said, "we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before September 11 than it has ever admitted.... Let's chase this rabbit into the ground. They had a plan to go to war and when 9/11 happened that's what they did; they went to war."
The new booklet features articles about the Kean Commission's breathtaking conflicts of interest and complete failure to ask any of the questions about September 11 that really matter.

Download a PDF of the booklet
http://www.911truth.org/media/9-11_coverup_booklet.pdf


http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20040525104145424

========

In 1997 a Washington DC “think tank” whose goal is to promote American global leadership was born. A non-profit organization devised to discuss and strategize both domestic and foreign policy. The members were mostly men from past American Presidential cabinets, US Military and Media.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statemen...fprinciples.htm
In 1998 this organization sent a letter to President Bill Clinton asking for the US to begin a pre-emptive war with Iraq. They requested an increase in defense spending and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests. Bill Clinton refused them.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclin...intonletter.htm

In Sept. 2000 this group published a document called Rebuilding America’s Defenses. An 89-page document that reads like a blueprint for pre-emptive war on many nations. The first of the wars to be with Iraq followed by Iran, Syria and many other Middle Eastern states to in their own words “control their resources” for America. Additionally the document outlines plans for China’s “looming threat”. It reads in some respects remarkably like "Mein Kampf." The document makes such sweeping statements as:
· The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
· Iran is perhaps a far greater threat to U.S. oil hegemony
· Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars to establish American dominance for all to see
· The United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia
· Demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations
· Advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool
· The need to provoke terrorists to attack in American cities
· Use of fear to rally the American people
· And finally, "The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."
On September 11th, 2001 the PNAC saw their “New Pearl Harbor”, a door of opportunity that opened and they stormed right through it.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/Rebuildi...casDefenses.pdf

On September 20th 2001, NINEdays after 911 the National Security Strategy of the
United States of America also known as the Bush Doctrine.was released by President George W. Bush. It is an ideological match to the PNAC's Rebuilding America's Defenses report issued a year earlier. In many places, it uses exactly the same language to describe America's new place in the world.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf

When Bush assumed the Presidency, the men who created and nurtured the imperial dreams of PNAC became the men who run the Pentagon, the Defense Department and the White House. PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report is the institutionalization of plans and ideologies that have been formulated for decades by the men currently running American government. The PNAC Statement of Principles is signed by: Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, I. Libby, as well as by Eliot Abrams, Jeb Bush, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and many others. William Kristol, famed conservative writer for the Weekly Standard, is also a co-founder of the group. The Weekly Standard is owned by Ruppert Murdoch, who also owns international media giant Fox News.

[Nikki Stone 1]

17. "Pre-emption lite" is a bad way to go

What we need to be doing is what the radical right has been doing since the 1970's--growing our own. In a marketing matchup on "national security", the Dems will lose, out of brand loyalty alone. People stay with the brand they perceive that works: Dems have a long history of NOT being perceived the "war party", real life and history notwithstanding.

[Nikki Stone 1]

19. Bill Bradley on growing our own (instead of being "neocon lite")

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/033105J.shtml

I am sure this was posted here earlier in the week, but it's worth a second look.


snip

"Before deciding what Democrats should do now, it's important to see what Republicans have done right over many years. When the Goldwater Republicans lost in 1964, they didn't try to become Democrats. They tried to figure out how to make their own ideas more appealing to the voters. As part of this effort, they turned to Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and soon to become a member of the United States Supreme Court. In 1971 he wrote a landmark memo for the United States Chamber of Commerce in which he advocated a sweeping, coordinated and long-term effort to spread conservative ideas on college campuses, in academic journals and in the news media.

To further the party's ideological and political goals, Republicans in the 1970's and 1980's built a comprehensive structure based on Powell's blueprint. Visualize that structure as a pyramid.

You've probably heard some of this before, but let me run through it again. Big individual donors and large foundations - the Scaife family and Olin foundations, for instance - form the base of the pyramid. They finance conservative research centers like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, entities that make up the second level of the pyramid.

The ideas these organizations develop are then pushed up to the third level of the pyramid - the political level. There, strategists like Karl Rove or Ralph Reed or Ken Mehlman take these new ideas and, through polling, focus groups and careful attention to Democratic attacks, convert them into language that will appeal to the broadest electorate. That language is sometimes in the form of an assault on Democrats and at other times in the form of advocacy for a new policy position. The development process can take years. And then there's the fourth level of the pyramid: the partisan news media. Conservative commentators and networks spread these finely honed ideas.

At the very top of the pyramid you'll find the president. Because the pyramid is stable, all you have to do is put a different top on it and it works fine...."

snip


"To understand how the Democratic Party works, invert the pyramid. Imagine a pyramid balancing precariously on its point, which is the presidential candidate.

Democrats who run for president have to build their own pyramids all by themselves. There is no coherent, larger structure that they can rely on. Unlike Republicans, they don't simply have to assemble a campaign apparatus - they have to formulate ideas and a vision, too. Many Democratic fundraisers join a campaign only after assessing how well it has done in assembling its pyramid of political, media and idea people..."

"... If Democrats are serious about preparing for the next election or the next election after that, some influential Democrats will have to resist entrusting their dreams to individual candidates and instead make a commitment to build a stable pyramid from the base up. It will take at least a decade's commitment, and it won't come cheap. But there really is no other choice."

[Q]

20. This pretty much sums it up:

"When the Goldwater Republicans lost in 1964, they didn't try to become Democrats. They tried to figure out how to make their own ideas more appealing to the voters."

We've allowed the other side to define us and frame the debate. They call us weak on national security...so instead of making a concerted effort to set the record straight...we adopt THEIR strategies in the hope of looking 'tough' enough to be taken seriously.

[Dark]

21. We are not going to ever have another chance to win an election

As long as the primary political party for progressives continues to receive the spankings at the polls with a fraternity pledge's fervor.

:spank:

"Thank you sir! May I have another!"