2+2=4
Buzzflash Editorial: Karl Rove knows that the American
media lives and dies by sensational headlines and
patriotic visual images, not details. But it is the
details that make up the foundation of democracy. Rove
knows that truth tellers such as Richard Clarke are a
danger because they shed light on the activities of
betrayal that occur in the dark spider hole from which
Dick Cheney rules -- sending instructions by courier
to our dauphin prince, George W. Bush. It is the midnight hour for America. The battle over Richard Clarke represents the battle for the future of majority rule in America, for the right of American citizens to receive the truth from their government, and for the right of Americans to have a government that defends them from external and internal threats.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/04/03/edi04023.html
March 26, 2004 SEND THIS PAGE TO A FRIEND
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It's Midnight in America
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
We have moved from Reagan's "Morning in America" to
Bush's "Midnight in America" in less than 20 years.
This is the darkest hour for our nation, when lies,
deception and political vengeance -- at the expense of
our national security -- are the primary skill set of
the executive branch and its subsidiaries: a
Republican controlled Congress and an increasingly
Republican controlled judiciary, with five Supreme
Court votes lined up to side with the GOP on important
partisan issues, like the theft of a presidency.
What happens during this midnight hour will determine
if democracy continues to exist in our country. It
will determine if we will survive as a nation of laws
-- based on our Constitution -- or become a nation
ruled by an extremist, elitist, dishonest one-party
system, whose brazen arrogance is the veil that is
used by them to conceal their chronic incompetence.
The brutal attacks on the character of Richard Clarke
represent the standard Bush defense against the truth:
assassinate and undermine the character of the truth
teller. In so doing, the Bush Cartel has generally
been successful in diverting the media from analyzing
the facts and details of the Bush Administration's
betrayal of America -- and of their incompetence -- by
questioning the motives of the truth tellers, as they
emerge one by one.
As a result, the mainstream media, generally echoing
the White House character assassination message
points, has betrayed America too. It has forgotten
that this was an administration that outed a CIA
operative who specialized in the tracking of illicit
WMDs, just to wreak vengeance on her husband,
Ambassador Joe Wilson, because he had the temerity to
tell the truth about a Bush lie. This is a mainstream
media that has, just within weeks, forgotten that the
recollections of the former Secretary of the Treasury,
Paul O'Neill, corroborate the gist of Clarke's
memories about the White House's obsession with Iraq
at the expense of preventing 9/11 and fighting
Al-Qaeda. This is a media that has forgotten John
DiIulio, who wrote a scathing letter detailing that
the Bush Administration was solely a cynical political
administration, run by "Mayberry Machiavellis," until
the White House junkyard dog squad slimed him into
submission. And others who have dared stand up for the
truth have shared similar fates. These are tactics
worthy of Stalin, not an American president.
Shortly before the Iraq War we wrote this about the
Bush Administration:
In the end the Bush Cartel is banking on making the
kind of impression on the world that a thug makes with
a baseball bat on a car.
It's all about image and firepower. It's how the
playground bully establishes himself. Pick the weakest
guy in the school -- the one nobody likes much anyway
-- and beat the living daylights out of him. Keep all
the kids nervous and on edge. Let them think that you
are a little bit mad and might just beat up on them
for the fun of it. Tell them that you will protect
them from the gang that lives in the next neighborhood
in return for their loyalty. Make an example of anyone
who challenges your leadership by denouncing them and
bloodying them up. Establish a system of stool
pigeons. Rummage through lockers, at your will, for
any signs of betrayal. Issue warnings from
time-to-time about how you have information that the
other gang has plans to rape your mothers and sisters,
and lay waste to your homes -- and that is why you
need to trust in the playground bully from your
school, because he will protect your mothers and
sisters from the gang that few have ever actually
encountered.
It's governance by brazen muscle power, by unfailing
commitment to picking a target to destroy as an
example of your ruthlessness, and your will to use any
means necessary to establish and preserve your
leadership. And if your attack is successful, you will
enjoy the spoils of war -- the second largest oil
reserves in the world. This is all the better, because
you double up your goal of displaying raw, harsh
military power, by combining it with additional
natural resources that reinforce your dominance. You
will be sitting on top of the world, masters of the
universe, controlling almost everything on the
Monopoly board.
And to accomplish this goal, you never blink, you
never apologize, you never let facts get in the way of
your mission. You remain steadfast and focused.
Getting distracted by truth and ethics is a sign of
weakness. And weakness is something you can smell and
feel in a man. [LINK]
The mainstream press is still playing the Clarke
story, for the most part, as if it is a game of whose
spin will prevail -- Clarke's or the White House's --
rather than exploring the validity of Clarke's charges
that the Bush White House failed to seriously try to
prevent 9/11 from occurring. The media covers the
issue as if it is some sort of sporting event.
But it is not. It is a battle for our nation's
security. It is a battle over whether we will be ruled
by a dishonest, deceiving anti-democracy executive
branch of thugs. It is a battle for the truth and for
the preservation of our Constitutional democracy.
At least this battle is out in the open now. The
Democratic nominee for President of the United States
is now challenging the mob-like tactics, credibility
and competence of the Bush Cartel. In what could have
been a BuzzFlash quotation, Kerry charged this
weekend: "It's interesting, every time somebody comes
up and says something that this White House doesn't
like, they don't answer the questions about it or show
the truth about it. They go into character
assassination mode," Kerry said. [The Buffalo News]
Kerry is bringing out in the open the Karl Rove/Lee
Atwater school of gangland political tactics. That,
for the Democrats, counts as a major breakthrough
during this hour of darkness for our Constitutional
democracy. In the same week, Tom Daschle, marking a
milestone, emerged from a record of timid political
leadership to call the Bush administration to account
for its tactics and record -- in three separate
speeches. And West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller
apologized for voting to allow Bush to go to war with
Iraq -- and revealed that Cheney had put pressure on
three senate committee chairmen not to investigate the
Bush administration.
Kerry, Daschle and Rockefeller follow belatedly in the
foot steps of Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Dick Durbin
and a handful of other Democratic Senators -- along
with the likes of people like Henry Waxman, John
Conyers and Jan Schakowsky (to name a few) in the
House of Representatives -- who have led a valiant,
lonely effort to hold the Bush Administration
accountable for its brutal anti-democracy actions and
for its core ineptitude in governing and in combating
terror.
But BuzzFlash holds no grudges. Kerry has broken
through the threshold that leaders of the Democratic
Party previously would not cross. He has publicly
reprimanded the Bush Administration for its gutter
political tactics. He has drawn attention to the gap
between Bush's supposed morality and the actual
immorality of an administration that builds its
governance on a pyramid of lies, deception and zealous
ideology.
Karl Rove knows that the American media lives and dies
by sensational headlines and patriotic visual images,
not details. But it is the details that make up the
foundation of democracy. Rove knows that truth tellers
such as Richard Clarke are a danger because they shed
light on the activities of betrayal that occur in the
dark spider hole from which Dick Cheney rules --
sending instructions by courier to our dauphin prince,
George W. Bush. It is the midnight hour for America.
The battle over Richard Clarke represents the battle
for the future of majority rule in America, for the
right of American citizens to receive the truth from
their government, and for the right of Americans to
have a government that defends them from external and
internal threats.
It is time for America to wake up to a future where
democracy, majority rule, honesty, integrity and
reverence for the Constitution are restored to the
White House.
God knows we deserve it, but it will only be achieved
by increasing the intensity of our efforts. The
backbone of the Bush Cartel's dishonest and cynical
rule must be broken.
The barbarians are no longer at the gates. They are in
the White House.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
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