KARL ROVE, HERR GOEBBELS WOULD BE PROUD OF YOU

The media has breathlessly informed America that the Clinton administration’s parting act was to vandalize the White House. Brandishing the story as their metaphor for what they see as eight years of smarmy, lowlife executive branch activity, they have triumphantly produced their coup de gras: The president who they view as having figuratively trashed the White House leaves by literally treating it like a backwoods Ozark outhouse. In case the point has been drawn too subtly, the conclusion that we as reasonable observers are expected to reach is, “Thank God those inbred hillbilly lowlifes are finally gone and that true royalty is resuming it’s rightful place on the throne.”

Somewhere, doubtlessly somewhere balmy, Joseph Goebbels is smiling.

Karl Rove was born five years after Herr Goebbels’ suicide, but he has carried on the tradition of acquiring and maintaining power through deceit and intimidation like a son devotedly maintaining the family tradition. Most people recoil when public figures are compared to Nazis, believing that such parallels are invariably exaggerated and slanderous. But this phony Clinton vandalism story is just the latest perversion of the truth that Herr Rove has engineered.

Let’s begin by presenting Rove’s point of view. He was given the responsibility of somehow dragging into the presidency a man who is such an inarticulate, clueless mediocrity that the man’s own nephew recently said it had never occurred to anyone in the family that he might become president. Stop and consider the magnitude of this statement; George W. Bush is the son of the former President of the United States, and no one in his own family ever considered the possibility that he might become president. W’s former neighbor in Midland said that he was the last one on the block whom she thought might wind up staying in the White House. And he had stayed in the White House! Beginning to get the picture? So Rove was assigned the task of selling to America a product that tastes bad, but isn’t good for you.

The first step was to defeat the truth at every turn. In the primaries, Bush was running against a war hero who was qualified to be president. Rove crafted what was ultimately the winning strategy – LIE. They lied about McCain’s record. They lied about his wife being a junkie. In New York, they falsely accused him of being in favor of breast cancer. In South Carolina, they falsely accused him of hating white Southerners. In Wisconsin, they falsely accused him of hating Jesus Christ. They were so shameless in their deceit that they even falsely accused John McCain, who was a longtime guest at the Hanoi Hilton, of being pro-Viet Cong. They had the full faith and credit of Corporate America backing them, and they used those unlimited funds to defecate on McCain’s reputation from sea to shining sea. You might have noticed that Senator McCain has emerged as Bush’s biggest headache in Congress. He has good reason.

Next, it was on to Al Gore. Rove knew what the mainstream media didn’t know – that, despite what the polls were showing at the time, in a honorable contest on the issues, his candidate would wind up playing John Wayne Bobbitt to Gore’s Lorena. So Rove devised a plan to turn Al Gore into Pinocchio. The approach was simple – falsely accuse Gore of having a long history of lying (inventing the internet), falsely accuse Gore of lying anytime he made a misstatement (accompanying FEMA to view Texas fires), falsely accuse Gore of lying if he made a joke or facetious comment (his mother’s singing of union lullabies), make up false statements and attribute them to Gore (confiscating all handguns), and have the entire right wing chorus of Republican elected officials, publications, and pundits play Johnny-One-Note on this theme ad nauseum. Now, for those of you who believe that the comparison to Goebbels is harsh, who is credited with inventing the Big Lie Technique?

When the election entered the Florida contest phase, Rove continued the homage to Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda by escalating the intensity of the lying. And, not wanting to play Third Reich favorites and thereby slight Heinrich Himmler, Rove added the brownshirt-style riot that closed down the Miami-Dade recount. This effectively took the election out of the hands of the American people and placed it into the loving arms of the loyal Party members of the High Court, who then redefined democracy by ruling that American voters are not legally entitled to have their ballots counted. By this time, Rove had used surrogates to inform the country that the Vice President of the United States was not only a liar, but also a thief and a felon who hated the military.

That last one illustrates the beauty of Rove’s brazen approach. Lie and then call your opponent a liar. Demand hand recounts where they favor you and then call your opponent a criminal for demanding hand recounts where they favor him. Go AWOL and then accuse your opponent of hating the military.

And if the past truly is prologue, vandalize and then scream that you have been vandalized. After all, it’s straight from the same playbook that they’ve been using all along. In 1933, Hitler covertly set fire to the Reichstag and then, lacking any incriminating evidence, blamed his opponents and used the situation to gain political advantage. In 2001, the White House is “vandalized”. There has been no incriminating evidence produced. Clinton has been blamed. And Rove has Bush trying to use the situation to gain legitimacy with the American people. W has made a big show of instructing his henchmen not to prosecute this crime-sans-evidence, thereby delivering on his pledge to give independent voters what they most crave: the end of the politics of personal destruction.

A promise made is a promise kept – even if it must be kept by refusing to use nonexistent evidence and declining to prosecute nonexistent crimes.

By Contributing Writer David Podvin

Also by David Podvin

On Thursday’s edition of NBC Nightly News, reporter Andrea Mitchell presented a hard- hitting expose on the “alleged” scandalous behavior of Clinton administration staffers. She revealed that these scofflaws “vandalized the White House” by removing the “W” keys from office keyboards, taping derogatory messages to copying machines, and jimmying doors so that Bush staffers who closed them would then be locked inside their offices. Of course, there is no proof of this, no photographs, no third party corroboration. The report included an outraged Robert Reich, who publicly deplores all political pranks that do not involve stealing elections from Democrats. It ended with Bush advisor C. Boyden Gray ominously intoning that the “vandalism” could require a criminal investigation.

I frequently watch NBC Nightly News, for the obvious reason - I believe that it is the responsibility of every citizen in a faux democracy to keep themselves constantly misinformed. So I was delighted that on the very day that her husband, Alan Greenspan, was doing the bidding of the Bush administration on Capitol Hill by wisely pushing tax cuts for the rich in lieu of irresponsible economic justice for working people, Ms. Mitchell was finally fashioning some crackerjack investigative political journalism. Others might have been misguided by frivolously obsessing about racist vote fraud in Florida or the gang rape of participatory democracy by the Supreme Court, but Ms. Mitchell’s keen instincts lead her right to the missing “W’s”.

EARTH TO ANDREA! Here’s a real scandal for you to cover. This is one that involves the current president, his powerful corporate masters (I think we just lost her), and the theft of so much money that it has lead to elderly people having to walk around in the dark because they can’t afford to turn on the lights. Some of these elderly folks even served in the MILITARY, so the defense contractor that owns NBC might not want you to ignore them as though they were just ordinary, worthless old people.

Enron Corporation of Houston, TEXAS, has given over $700,000 to George W. Bush during the last year. Enron is the primary external wholesale supplier of energy to the state of California. Enron is also the primary beneficiary of Bush’s refusal to cap the artificial explosion of energy costs in California. As a result, Enron is making a windfall profit from the widening spread between the cost of obtaining energy and the price for which it is resold. Those who have learned economics by methods other than reading the Wall Street Journal refer to this practice as “gouging the public”. Laudably, the man whom Bush entrusted to review whether Enron is ruthlessly screwing consumers happens to be an expert who is definitely well informed on this matter. Less laudably, that man is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of…well, you know.

Here’s something that they obviously failed to teach Andrea in journalism school:
An alleged scandal in which office supplies are damaged is slightly less important than a scandal in which millions of innocent people are deliberately cheated by a corrupt politician on behalf of his wealthy campaign contributors. But how could the media define a scandal as a situation in which the privileged few benefit at the expense of the average citizen without having to conclude that the raison d’etre of the Republican Party is inherently scandalous? And how could a news organization that is owned by General Electric be expected to hire reporters who are even capable of recognizing corporate corruption when they see it?

In a sane world, the Congress would now be preparing for the impeachment, trial, conviction, and removal from office of President George W. Bush for blatantly prostituting the Oval Office in a way that has tangibly damaged more Americans in one week than were hurt by all of President Clinton’s fiendish diabolical deeds in eight years.

Of course, in a sane world, Americans would get their news from reporters who could distinguish between trivia and concocted scandals, in which case there never would have been a President George W. Bush.

And More from David Podvin on the White House Smear and run "trashing" story
 

Mr. Brokaw,

During Thursday's NBC Nightly News, Andrea Mitchell reported Bush administration charges that Clinton staffers had "vandalized" the White House. She included interviews with Robert Reich and C. Boyden Gray in which they expressed disgust at this latest manifestation of Clinton misbehavior.

Now that these allegations are being "dramatically scaled back" http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53681-2001Jan26.html
there are some troubling questions that you should be honest enough to confront:

Why is your "journalist" mindlessly parroting statements by those on whom she is ostensibly reporting?

Why is the atmosphere in your newsroom so unprofessional that this "report" was allowed to air without any verification?

The Bush team is so lacking in facts to support their claims that, when they are confronted by former Clinton staffers to produce evidence, their response is to "scale back their charges" {ENGLISH TRANSLATION - BACK DOWN WHEN CAUGHT IN A LIE} . Where is the follow-up story by your "newsroom" containing regret at having slandered the Clinton staffers, remorse at your own lack of competence, and an indignant resolve not to again allow the Bush administration to deceitfully manipulate you in order to deliberately mislead the public?

As with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's recent dissent, this opinion is signed without employing the word "respectfully".

David Podvin

An additional thought on the contrived, phony "vandalism" story by BuzzFlash reader Bill C. Davis

The “story” about the “trashing” of the White House is clear retribution for what is perceived as left wing attacks on John Ashcroft. Does anyone need to be convinced at how rabid and fierce the Republican propaganda machine is? Who are they going to go after other than Jesse Jackson and the Clintons? Daschle? Ted Kennedy? Pat Leahy?

No - they must underscore how corrupt the parting administration was and how lucky we'll all be to have a scrupulous president and attorney general. It is so transparent and it feeds the need to keep the spotlight off the fact that this has been the first week of an illegitimate presidency. The corruption of the election is the major story in this country - not a "w" on a keyboard or china from an airplane or a questionable pardon. If the pardon is questionable ask the questions and get some answers. These news items are clearly in the service of an agenda.

The agenda is to legitimize the illegitimate administration by delegitimizing the administration that it is unfairly replacing. It is the only way for them - it is aggressive, trivial, meretricious and typical.

The press, which we don't have in a meaningful way anymore in this country, is a willing receptacle or participant in this ruse to keep the public lost in a fog of disinformation and diversion. Bush should not be in office. That's the news. The first days of the occupation. That's the news. Everything else is diversion - like the military absentee ballots - like the chads - like everything James Baker said in Florida - divert - divert and conquer.

At this point they must feel they can do anything they want. Who is going to stand up to them and call their tactics what they are? The television stations are owned by the same people who now own the White House. What agenda will we be following? Whose in charge of it? And where will it take us? I just saw The Panama Deception again. It tells us in chilling terms where this agenda can and most probably will take us.
 

Another BuzzFlash reader adds this comment on Karl Rove.

This comparison is apt. In fact, there are some even more astounding examples of Rove's pattern. In a TX Gubernatorial campaign in the 80's, Rove had his own office bugged and claimed the Democrats had done it. He has described himself as a "born again Nixonite". And, of course, the famous videotape of Bush preparing for the 2000 debates which was mailed to the Gore camp was widely thought to have been a typical Rove-reverse-smear campaign.

RS Wayment
San Antonio, TX