Is Bush Exploiting Haditha as Smokescreen for RFKs Election 2004 Article?

[McCamy Taylor]

The Bush Family and Karl Rove have one strategy for dealing with damaging news. They light a big fire somewhere else with a flashier, more media grabbing story that is less damaging to the administration and let the press and public get distracted.

Haditha happened last year. Time Magazine broke the story this March. Why did the story peak this week? Why are the military and the administration now talking about it, confirming it, acting upon it, as if this is the ONLY story in town? Why didn't they come clean two weeks ago? One month ago? Next month?

I suggest that Bush and Rove knew that a Kennedy had a major piece coming out in Rolling Stone in which Selection 2004, Ohio would be documented, and they hope to minimize the damage by decreasing the media attention giving to the piece. If journalists are all busy talking about the morally more important story of mass murder and a bad war, then the public will get the impression that there is "nothing to see here, move along" re: the RFK Jr piece. For instance, Keith Olberman is focusing so exclusively on Haditha, I m not sure he would take a break to cover a Rove indictment (well, yes, he probably would take time out for that) much less a story about the 2004 election, no matter how well it is written or how important the author.

Haditha will end up hurting the marines much more than W. If the truth about Ohio, 2004 is ever known, Karl Rove and a lot of people would go to jail and W.'s presidency would be recognized for what it is---a great big fake.

The world has come to a sorry state when our president uses the victims of a massacre for political gain, but that is what happens when the democratic process is supplanted and a man who is unelectable is selected to be president. He has to keep using lies and criminal acts to keep the conspiracy from unraveling. The invasion of Iraq was timed to make the country forget that Enron price gouged California---with the assistance of Bush, Cheney, Rove, the FERC. Nothing was done to prevent the "routine hijacking" that turned into 911, because the administration needed something to distract from its failing domestic policies. I have no doubt that if an influenza pandemic or a bird flu epidemic could be created here and would serve to raise W.'s poll numbers by 5% or makes Donald Rumsfeld another $10million in profit, we would see one by years end.

These guys checked their consciences in at the door when they took their jobs in Washington, and they have not bothered to retrieve them. Instead of morals, they operate on vanity which tells them that whatever they do must be for the best, because they occupy positions of power. The catch is that they must keep their power, BY ANY MEANS AVAILABLE. So, we end up with a perverted protestant ethic that only the extreme religious right and the ultra-rich can tolerate---and a president with a 30% approval rating who thinks he is a demi-god.

I am glad the victims of Haditha are getting their moment. I am disgusted with the Bush administration at what it took for them to acknowledge Haditha, but then, disgust and the Bush administration sort of go hand and hand.

[The Magistrate]

1. The Technical Term For This, Ma'am, Is "Over-Engineering"

"In war, only what is simple can succeed."

[McCamy Taylor]

2. I've Been Watching the Rove Smokescreen Suceed for 18 years now.

I first noticed it in the George HW Bush's administration. It has been used often and to good effect in Jr.'s administration as well. It is a tricky one, because the smoke often comes from a fire that is in itself damaging or negative, just never anywhere near as bad as the story that is being supressed.

Very often the story will involve the press or journalists, because the press can not resist taking the bait if the story is about themselves (journalists being a narcissistic bunch).

I would not ordinarily suspect that a story about a massacre was being used as a smokescreen if I did not know Karl Rove's modus operandus and the fact that he is a bit of a one trick pony.

Here is a little graphic essay I did on the topic a while back: "Smoke Got in Their Eyes" http://www.grandtheftelectionohio.com/060127.htm

Armstrong Williams was fed to the wolves back in winter 2004-5 in order to buy the administration some breathing room during the crisis following Selection 2004. No one ever explained who outed Williams. I have often wondered if Rove did it. Williams hurt W's poll numbers almost zilch, but at the time he got people like Olberman to stop talking about long lines on Ohio and to start talking about bad journalists. Then the Tsunami happened and the WH was able to relax for a good long stretch.

[Guaranteed]

3. I highly doubt it.

I'm not even sure how you think that they did it.

[McCamy Taylor]

4. All they would have to do is suddenly stop denying it and admit it.

They were going to have to do that eventually anyway. Rummie knew this. He had probably told Cheney. It was on the list of nasty things that were going to have to be done that Rove would know about as policy advisor. So, this would be a good time to do it--if you were Rove.

According to the May Time story in the 3rd week of May, Congress was briefed about Haditha. That was the point at which the military--and therefore Rummie and Cheney--knew that the story would go public.

Never underestimate Rove's ability to toss morality and moderation to the wind when he wants to protect his beloved W. Just look at what he did to set up Hatfield, author of "Fortunate Son." Rove is seriously twisted and sick. And Dick Cheney is just as bad. They both think that Dick Nixon is some kind of god with all his dirty tricks and that his only mistake was resigning.

[Patchuli]

5. Perhaps if we all start screaming the truth

the smokescreens won't work anymore...?

[McCamy Taylor]

6. That is what I believe too. The MSM has this crazy notion that the

American public can only handle a certain number of stories at any one moment. Someone at Salon tried to claim that if you talk about too many bad Bush stories at once, the American people get "scandal fatigue." Having lived through Watergate and Dick Nixon, I can tell you that when the public hears too many bad stories about a president, they do not want the bad stories to go away, thet want the president to go away. The human brain has an almost infinite capacity to absorb information, and new information which confirms what previous information has told us (in this case, W. is a lying war criminal resident in chief) is more likely to be accepted and believed than it is to be ignored or dismissed.

[Douglas Carpenter]

7. sorry, but I find this just a bit of a stretch

The Haditha story is hardly good news for the Bush Administration. A Rolling Stone article by Bobby Jr. would have only so much traction under any circumstances.

[TheVirginian]

8. Rolling Stone political articles are ranked only slightly above...

the National Enquirer in Washington. I doubt the Bush Administration knew ahead of time, or cared, that RFK Jr. was writing a piece for Rolling Stone, and I still doubt they care.

[HipLibMom]

9. It's an interesting theory...

and I wouldn't put anything past Rove and company.

[haab]

10. They are driving it, not exploiting it.

Such damaging news must be driven to avoid greater damage to the Administration.

Murder by US marines is a lot widespread than Haditha and the Bush Admin are aware of this, hence their current focus.

Haditha is more likely to bring down the Admin than the RFKs Election 2004 Article.

[haab]

11. They are driving it, not exploiting it.

Such damaging news must be driven to avoid greater damage to the Administration.

Murder by US marines is a lot widespread than Haditha and the Bush Admin are aware of this, hence their current focus.

Haditha is more likely to bring down the Admin than the RFKs Election 2004 Article.

[peacetheonlyway]

12. agreed with the above post

while I WISH WISH WISH Americans connected the importance of honest elections as being 10X more important than a war gone awry, inasmuch as all future Iraq policies will hopefully come from HONEST elected officials realizing it's time to pull out out troops, the fact of the matter rests that Haditha is DAMAGING AS HELL
to this administration.

I am sorry Haditha overshadows RFK, but trust me, the people that matter have a copy and are reading the RFK article.. mostly the folks in the DEM party are saying 'has my silence on election fraud really gone this long?' and we will see much more support for election investigations going forward... (my hope anyway).

[Oak2004]

13. Relax -- it's drip drip drip

People don't form political opinions and become motivated by solitary instances of anything. Even the Richard Nixon impeachment articles were a litany of offenses. Every offense of the Busheviki has a negative impact. If war crimes occur while is arrogantly proclaiming himself the Commander in Chief, don't think the public isn't deducing that And while they may think they can cover things up by offering up some less incriminating offense for public viewing, they can't.

A very large percentage of the public (according to a poll) know the 2004 elections were fraudulent. Why? Because even without the media providing real news, news reaches the public slowly via word of mouth -- but it does reach them, eventually, even in totalitarian states. The German public did have a very good idea the camps existed, because they saw the Jews disappear and they heard rumors about where a cousin of a friend was serving or what the friend working for the railroad in scheduling knew or what was happening near a relative's summer cottage, or etc. And while I think we're not a working democracy at the moment, we're certainly not a totalitarian state. Proof of how much Americans know and continue to learn is that 2/3rd of America hates the Busheviki despite the nonstop cheering section that is the corporate media.

The RFKjr article will have a very large impact upon the public, even if no one covers it. Word will spread that there is solid evidence behind what people already have suspected, solidifying the opinions of the uncertain and winning over doubters. It will percolate through the public, just as every other bit of Busheviki bullsh*ticheski is percolating.

Believe me there is no shortage of understanding about what we've got infesting Washington, and how bad things are. What we've got, instead , is the problem that people don't know what to do about it. And that is where the work needs to be done now -- giving people some way to do something about it.

As to much of the Democratic Party leadership, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to get their acts together. I don't think they don't know -- I think they don't want to know. The reason why is simple and understandable: if the political leadership in America were to look at what is happening, there would be no way they could avoid the conclusion that we're in the midst of a constitutional crisis, with no clear way out unless the Republicans themselves show some flexibilty or disinegrate from within, and that the crisis may well need to be resolved via revolution.

This is not as difficult an insight for us to handle who are not prominently placed within one of America's major political parties, as it is for those who are. Those who are have a responsibility not to act recklessly, and as leaders, for them speech is action. No one wants to set in motion a civil war (not even the most radical of us here, if they would think for a moment about what such a thing would mean). No one wants to go out on some limb and find that they have precipitated the forced dissolution of the Democratic Party and the arrest of its members as treasonous. Nobody even wants to force the issue enough to find out whether there is no resolution possible short of revolution because then they will have to confront the hardest questions of their lives. And many of them would, given a choice between revolution and authoritarianism, fear revolution (for good reasons -- think about what civil war has done recently to Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and now Iraq) so much that they would prefer to accede to authoritarianism.

That's why, whether we like it or not, it's us who have the responsibility to force the resolution of this crisis, through local activism (with regard to elections), by continuing to pressure our elected officials so that they take a stand, and by good ol' mass organizing with intent to insure that any revolution, if necessary, is a velvet revolution.