When America's numerous right-wing scalawags, who missname themselves "conservatives," can't hide from their failures during their recent hold on power which failures have been an absolute disaster for America, their only remaining course of action, in order to win 'by hook or by crook' is to tear down their Democratic opponents by recycling and re-tooling their well-worn Republican , slander-machine and set it in motion to attack the personal character and/or patriotism of those Democrats they wish to target. The right wing did this before: most notably in 2000 with Al Gore, successfully attacking as it turns out Al Gore's character and poisoning the public perception of the Democrats' candidate. And then, again, in 2004, when John Kerry, the new Democratic presidential nominee. was torpedoed by critics of Kerry's Vietnam War record launching a shadowy organization called "The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", and these folks did this rather successfuly, in spite of Kerry being a decorated war hero, who earned genuine, multiple military honors he won during his war service, and he was even lauded by his superiors. As a consequence of the coordinated whisper and slander campaign, there came to be inserted into the national vocabulary, from then on, the term "swiftboating" to be used as a synonym for character assassination and slander. The Republican-neo-conservative "Swiftboat" machine was encouraged and covertly aided with the tacit approval of the then George W. Bush campaign for re-election, and this scurrilous attacking of Democrats that worked so well in the past is now being continued, with new variations being the braindump of the usual assortment of party hacks and propagandists, who, to this day, daily dream up and throw out onto the mass media airwaves some new, diversionary canards, because they have no other way to re-sell their obviously failed agenda to a public that after 7 and a half years of the Bush White House, feels beaten down and betrayed by disastrous conservative policies. The McCain partisans, as well as the talk show, red-meat-reactionaries, know that the public wants something different. So, the quick way to derail this popular discontent is, again, to launch into the tried and tested, all out truth-twisting, jingoistic, character-impugning-mode, and, following the techniques of crooked used car dealers, they re- try old, well-worn gimmicks to see if they can close another crooked sale. This time, the mudslingers wrap themselves in the phony flag of tin-plated patriotism, and they set about to swindle the American voters into forgetting the dire and urgent need for a giant change of policy and a new party in power. They try to keep the old-guard, status-quo failure afloat by constantly throwing up counterfeit and banally trivial manufactured-for-the-occasion-controversies. They, perhaps correctly, think that the American public is stupid enough to once again let them play the 'patriotism' card, and this, they think will move the public to elect another Republican candidate that will continue with more failure, more dead-horse, worn-out supply-side and national-security-fear-mongering mantras of a corrupt, out-of-ideas-elite that is mired in the past. Let's hope the Republican Party (a party which should really be renamed "the party of Boss Tweed") ...let's hope the Republican Party tactics backfire and Americans this time around become too smart to buy into their evil schemes--however, I have an uneasy feeling that. failing to close the deal, the Republicans might again resort to vote fraud to tailor the electoral outcome more to their liking.. These same conservatives will do their best to win by sheer effrontery, and use the technique that says "tell a lie often enough and people will believe it". If that doesn't work, though, then expect some attempt at vote rigging, as was done successfully in Florida during the 2000 election, and, in my opinion, ly again in the 2004 vote in Ohio. I am not alone in believing that these ward heelers are not above stooping to anything in order to subvert the American public's choice of presidential candidate.
It is devoutly to be hoped that this time around, the Democrats won't repeat the mistakes of Al Gore and John Kerry in being passive in the face of an emboldened base of reactionary character assassins that aggressively trot out their dirty repertoire of low-down tricks learned over long Republican experience, from Richard Nixon, Ollie North, Tom Delay, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, to Karl Rove and others. If the Democrats don't vigorously, instantly answer and resist these
demagogues of the corrupt and hypocritical Republican right, they (the Democrats) just may lose another election to the Party that specializes in blocking needed national reforms by use of smoke and mirrors, most frequently derailing those issues with a successful slogan campaign. with decoy issues, with red herrings, with brazen patriot-baiting, and with "liberal-bashing,", red-meat-character assassination as their strategy to shoot down changes that desperately need to take place in our country. . We have reached a critical juncture in our national history, as we try to decide who is best suited to lead our country over the next four years.
Why must we always have to fight off a howling pack of right wingers who try to reframe our national dialog and focus instead the public's attention (with the help of the right-wing corporate-owned news media) on such trivial things as flag pins and where you place your hand during the pledge of allegiance. Give me a break! Are these important issues? If we keep on letting the status quo get away with this, we are going to continue to see the same type of mistakes made that are torpedoing our national prosperity and future. What is it with the right-wing, neo-con Republicans? Do they still think that the war on Iraq was a great idea? Do they think that the economy has been well managed by GWB? Do they think that there is no such thing as climate change? Do they think that the run up of our national debt has improved the value of the US dollar? Do they think a hundred years in Iraq is in the best interest of the USA? THESE ARE THE REAL ISSUES OF THIS ELECTION! Not flagpins, not a remark made by Barak Obama's wife in the excitement of the moment, and certainly not whether a candidate holds his hand over his heart when reciting the pledge of allegiance. I wonder. Wouldn't it be nice to see what might happen after the nightmare of the George W. Bush presidency if we had someone outside the status quo running the show? Why are Obama and progressives and progressive principles such a threat to these spoiled-brat-dirt-mongers? After all,it isn't like we haven't had other outsiders who have taken over the presidency: from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton. So why can't these folks give Barak Obama a shot at being a good president if he is nominated and then elected? One thing for sure: we know that John McCain represents a continuation of George W. Bush in just about every way. He has a long history as a phony 'maverick'; and, in fact, his dealings off and on have been fraught with questionable behavior, from his betrayal of friendships and party to his shady dealings with lobbyists while attempting to paint himself as a corruption-fighter; and there was his involvement in the Keating 5 influence peddling scandal. Now McCain wants to continue the failures of the George W. Bush administration and advocates more of the same bankrupting, of America, and more open-ended, bankrupting, destructive occupation of Iraq. We know that John McCain will be a literal mirror image of the corruption of George W. Bush and he would most likely finish our country's slide into bankruptcy and recession and third world economic status. Yet the shameless conservative base of the Republican party, which ought to hang its collective head in shame at the damage done by its adherents to our country, instead that dishonest, authoritarian base launches into a new round of slander, question-begging and blame shifting, to prevent national solutions to problems from happening: solutions that corporate-elite business interests don't like. This deliberate deceit and obfuscation by the neo-cons about Barak Obama's patriotism is another sleight of hand that is contributing to the outright destruction of our nation. Enough already with the fear mongering and scurrilous questioning of others' motives by a dishonest, win-at-any-cost, un-American party machine that will brook no disagreement with their endlessly repeated, regressive, pseudo-conservative nostrums...We are all past sick of these people stooping to any level of treachery in order to win an election. I'm sure even of those reading this there will be those who don't wear the flag pin or put their hand over their heart for the anthem. Most people nationwide, some 70 percent by most recent polls, are fed up with the religious and secular, hard-right-wing that constantly impugns the honor of those who don't agree with Karl Rove. . . Answer me this, all ye cons: Do you really miss Karl Rove that much? I guess you do! Well, I'm sure he is helping direct this latest skullduggery and he and his buddies will be operating in overdrive for the benefit of John McCain, if not the benefit of America . I can smell the creeping septic effluent that has begun to waft across the land in advance of the upcoming presidential campaign season. The Democrats haven't even got a candidate chosen yet, and the slime begins to seep out from the other side of the aisle. I do believe that the coming swiftboating of Barak Obama will very soon stink to high heaven and way before the election finally takes place. You can count on it.
