What do you make of this?

[ProSense]

Not posting more text for obvious reasons. Edited to add this from the article:

As a result, the media can get pulled into covering stories of questionable worth, like the claims by the Swift Boat Veterans group that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry wasn't really a war hero. "We got shafted," said Wolfson, who predicted Democrats would employ similar tactics in future presidential contests.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060426/NEWS02/604260307/1007/NEWS02&theme=

[TayTay]

1. I think that the Dems will be much, much tougher

And that this will be both bad and good. The environment in politics is what it is. You can't change it unless you power. You can't take power unless you get elected. You can't get elected unless you play by the current rules.

The Kerry people know this now. I think the *real* Kerry people knew it then.

I still remember this that came about after the '04 election and it gave me a big happy.

TURNPIKE AUTHORITY DROPS PUBLICIST FIRM HAD WORKED FOR ANTI-KERRY GROUP
Boston Globe, THIRD, Sec. Metro/Region, p B1 12-11-2004
By Globe Staff Frank Phillips

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, facing the wrath of state Democratic leaders, yesterday canceled the contract of a Washington, D.C., public relations firm that during the presidential campaign worked for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that attacked John F. Kerry's Vietnam war record.

A spokesman for the authority last night said the agency had decided that it no longer needed the services of Creative Response Concepts and its senior vice president Mike Russell, after just three weeks on the job. Russell handled the firm's work for the swift boat veterans, whose multimillion-dollar ad blitz in battleground states was a key element in undercutting Kerry's candidacy.

In a statement that reflects the deep bitterness about the swift boat group's tactics, a Kerry spokesman blasted the decision to hire Russell and his firm, calling it "just the latest breathtakingly stupid decision by the Republicans in charge of the Big Dig."

"Do they have so little respect for Massachusetts taxpayers that they believe the answer to years of waste, fraud, and abuse is to lavish more taxpayer money on a discredited partisan hack to spin the Big Dig?" said David Wade, Kerry's press aide, after the news circulated that the firm had lost the contract. "Will the taxpayers get a refund? Add this to the list of serious questions Matt Amorello must answer before the only reasonable verdict is that, like Mike Russell, he doesn't have a shred of credibility left."

This gave me a big happy because it reflects what James Boyce was talking about the other day in his Huffington Post column:

4. The Republican Medusa Will Do Anything To Win.

Destroy your service record? Check. Jam the phones? Bingo. Fight a recount? No question about it. You'd think that everyone who considers running as a Democrat would understand that the Republicans play to f'ing win, and that's all there is to it.

But Democrats who haven't faced the evil, don't. I had the chance to spend a few private moments with one of our top 2006 Senate candidates, someone who is going to get hammered post Labor Day, he was, and remains oblivious to the venom he is about to face. When asked how he was doing, he replied with a laundry list of consultants and strategists and pollsters.

I sat down with one of the other top candidates for 2008 at a private dinner recently. He's a good man, and intelligent. He doesn't know what he is getting into - he can't. He will not be able to win the war ahead because he doesn't understand the terms of engagement.

One of his advisors told me about sitting next to and chatting with one of the strategists who organized the Swift Boat campaign, I was shocked. You don't sit next to these people and break bread. You castrate them and force feed them their privates and don't think twice about it.

Al Gore and John Kerry have seen the worst of what the Republicans will do. Would you prefer a candidate who knows that? Or one who has to learn for him or herself - at our expense?

I loved reading that more than anything else in the last year.

[ginnyinWI]

2. The difference between Dems and Repubs, though

is that all the Dems have to do is tell the truth--they don't need to make anything up about their opposition! Who was that--Truman? Who said "I just tell the truth, and they think it's hell?"

[TayTay]

4. Truth and Rethugs are incompatible entitites

They do not care about truth, or any of the other social niceties. They care about getting and retaining power. That is all. If they have to smear, cheat, lie or bribe people to retain power, then that is what they do.

The Dems have to do a lot more than tell the truth. They have to take the truth and cram it down the Rethug's lying throats and make them choke on it.

Bush's imcompetence and indifference cost lives in Iraq. It cost lives in New Orleans and the Gulf Port area during Katrina. People died because he didn't care enough to appoint good leaders. Bush and the Rethug Congress don't give a damn about human suffering, unless it's happening to them.

Rethuglicans use religion the same way they use anything else they think will help them get or keep power, as a weapon to destroy people with. They have no real respect for religion, they merely wish to use it as a means to spread hatred and bigotry.

And on and on. The only way to fight these bastards is to face them down strongly and call them on their bullshit. It's what works with bullies.

[ProSense]

5. There is a thread about

Goss and the hooker scandal, but he was always a GOP whore.

Goss on McCarthy:

As CIA chief Porter Goss said in February: "The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20060424/bs_ibd_ibd/2006424issues01

Goss on Plame:

Goss dismissed the entire scandal as "wild and unsubstantiated allegations." He tastefully told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in October 2003, "Somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an investigation."

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/11/16/cia/index.html

[wisteria]

3. Interesting stuff, I agree we did get shafted. At least some people

on the inside Dem track recognize this.I had to laugh at the comments copied below, both parties went over the top in the last campaign? I don't think so, I bet he would be hard pressed to come up with one over the top thing done by the Dem's. I can't think of any.


Ron Kaufman, a longtime GOP consultant and adviser to President George H.W. Bush, acknowledged "the genie is out of the bottle" when it comes to personal attacks on public figures -- for both major political parties. "Both sides went over the top in the last campaign," Kaufman said.

Sure Ron, sure, defend those lousy repub "basturds".

[TayTay]

6. Ron Kaufman, another failed Mass Rethug.

And Bush family toadey. Sigh! I really, really, really hate Mass Rethugs. Such a small species but so utterly devoid of soul, conscience or ethics.

Of course Kaufman lied, he's a Mass Rethug. A lot of this game was invented here. Honest-to-gawd. It goes way back. It's why I want these people to lose the Governorship so much this fall in Mass. That might helpt to stop incubating all these bad apples. (Mass political talent goes both ways, alas.)

[rox63]

10. Yes, our rethugs are truly vile

Weren't both Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist spawned in MA?

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[karynnj]

11. Is that to assure some kind of goodness balance

The small number of Republicans need a huge amount of badness to balance out the large number of very very good Democrats.

[TayTay]

12. You are so nice

There actually is a real reason: money & colleges. The Repubs and affliated think tanks and organizations have money to burn and they put a great deal of it into Young Republicans back in the early '80's. That's where Abramoff came from and Norquiest as well.

Also, the Bushes were New Englanders, as everyone knows. They had that old-line Yankee Repub support, even though they are not currently in sync with old line Repub thinking.

Anyway, money and sheer numbers make for a volatile mix. And, sigh, they had the will and the inherent talent. That's why I dislike them so much. They make a lot of mischief for such a small group and they get exported all over the country. Sigh!

[ProSense]

8. Why do they always resort to the

"Dems did it too" argument (when it's not true) to justify wrong doing? Bastards!

[ray of light]

9. it's so blatently false! And the Republicans got of scott free

because we had REAL stuff that the media didn't even talk about. There were 'alleged' reports of Bush raping someone. Did Dems use that? Did Dems actually come out with Bush's cocaine and his service record before or after the swifties?

I think we need to really push back hard. I was one who wanted a 'nice' campaign in 04, but I also recognised that most people claim they want niceness but they respond to at their throats attacks.

[karynnj]

7. Interesting article

Wolfson, who has worked for Hillary and Schumer, says in PUBLIC (it's not ok in private either) that we will use swiftboating. That is immoral and gives up the high ground. Kerry's friends anti-swiftboating committee is a much better approach. Also Kaufman's comment that both sides went over the top stinks.

In a way, this shows (on our side any way, but Republicans will argue thiers too) that McCain/Feingold made things worse. It didn't decrease the impact of money. By allowing 527s, it gave candidates the ability to dissassociate themselves from the negative ads. It also benefits the incumbent as they can't be used to defend the candidate - which the lesser known one needs more.

They also make way to much of the scream. Dean had a surprisingly bad showing in Iowa and Kerry a surprisingly good one. Going into NH, the results added confidence in Kerry and reduced it for Dean. Not to mention the Iowa win likely energized a lot of MA people to cross the border for Kerry.

Editted to remove error