Harass the Republicans? Yes (LIBERALS POSE as GOP Volunteers)

As Web master of Shadow Protest I am urging people to volunteer for the Republican National Convention, attend all the volunteer orientation sessions but not show up for their assigned volunteer shift. Dishonest? Absolutely. Please consider, however:

We are asked to believe that the war in Iraq was not preordained but was planned carefully by men and women whose true intent was the search for weapons of mass destruction. We are asked to believe the invasion was launched only after all other measures failed.

The Iraqi invasion has netted no such weapons, but it has resulted in an extraordinary loss of American lives.

We are asked to believe that Attorney General John Ashcroft will respect our constitutional rights while he uses his new powers to examine our E-mail messages, online E-mail address books and online purchase information without cause, without a judge's order and without our consent or knowledge.

If people believe these things, I would encourage them to volunteer for the Republican convention and show up.

With less than four months until it's held, organizers have fewer than half the 8,000 volunteers they need to make it a success.

I have been told that another form of protest would be more productive. I have been asked to shut down my Web site and take part in a more traditional public protest instead. But I note that a few days ago United for Peace and Justice was denied a demonstration permit for Central Park on the grounds that too many people might show up.

Am I nervous? Very. But I am more frightened of what will happen to this country if I do not do something to send a message to those in power and create a public display of dissatisfaction with their policies.

It is for this reason that I created the Shadow Protest. And as scary as my invitation may sound, I am asking people to join me and to stand up for what they believe.

Brings to mind the sicko four years ago who infiltrated the Bauer campaign:

Attack of the slobber slinger

© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

A cough is something that you yourself can't help, but everybody else does on purpose just to torment you.
--Ogden Nash

The great thing about politics today is that you don't need to address issues, propose policy, or refute charges from your opponents. All you need is drool.

In a move that gives all new meaning to "licking your enemy," Salon.com sex columnist Dan Savage -- posing as a volunteer for Republican presidential hopeless Gary Bauer -- actually plotted to give the undersized former Reagan domestic policy advisor the flu.

After hearing Bauer on MSNBC say, "Our society will be destroyed if we say it's OK for a man to marry a man or a woman to marry a woman," the openly homosexual Savage decided to live up to his name. Sick with the flu, Savage hatched a little "germination" political strategy: "Naked, feverish and higher than a kite on codeine aspirin, I called the Bauer campaign and volunteered. My plan? Get close enough to Bauer to give him the flu, which, if I am successful, will lay him flat just before the New Hampshire primary."

With a plot as tight as an Agatha Christie novel, Savage had the details worked to a Typhoid Mary "T."

"I would go to Bauer's campaign office and cough on everything -- phones and pens, staplers and staffers," he wrote in his Salon column. "I even hatched a plan to infect the candidate himself. I would keep the pen in my mouth until Bauer dropped by his offices to rally the troops, and when he did, I would approach him and ask for his autograph, handing him the pen from my flu-virus incubating mouth."

Somehow I don't recall germ juggling a tactic recommended in Saul D. Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," but, as Salon has said in the past, "ugly times call for ugly tactics."

Danny the Drooler certainly got ugly. With no one around to observe the proceedings and his sinuses "running like an open tap," sick-as-a-dog Savage went from doorknob to doorknob slobbering like a rabid St. Bernard, leaving a trail of saliva intended to "get as many of (Bauer's) people sick as I could, and hopefully one of them would infect the candidate."

What a sweetie.

"My plan was a little malicious," Savage admitted, "even a little mean-spirited -- but those same words describe the tactics used by Bauer and the rest of the religious right against gays and lesbians," which of course justifies the whole stunt, right? Man calls you a name, you give him your bug. Makes sense ... in a third-grader sort of way.

In the end, however, maybe Savage will graduate to the big time -- or at least serve some.

Wanting to participate in the caucus vote itself, Savage was handed a form to fill out: "You must be a citizen of the United States," it said.

"Check," he wrote.

"At least 17 and a half years old," it said.

"Check," he wrote.

"Never been convicted of a felony," it said.

"Be patient," I write.

According to a spokesman for Iowa's attorney general's office, Savage's saliva stunt leaves the germ warrior open to felony assault charges.

This might actually be the entire point. Not to itch my John Birchist-Illuminati-Trilateralist-NWO side but I think I might know the real reason behind the slobber strategy. According to Matt Drudge, "For the last three months, Salon.com' s operating expenses were $9,817,000 with revenue of only $3,016,000. The website spent $5,641,000 on promotion. ..." In other words, Salon's got a spending problem worse than the federal government.

Looking at the incident in this light, perhaps gay-guerilla tactics are just a clever ruse -- a lavender herring, so to speak. Maybe Salon was just looking to cut its promotion budget and thought all that free-trial publicity would be a way to do it. I bet O.J. got more TV coverage sitting beside Johnny Cochran not fitting into blood-stained gloves than when he was busy hustling the pigskin on the 100-yard green.

Meanwhile, after making a lame attempt to support the guy, Salon would be justified in firing the yutz -- another brilliant budgeting move. One more bum off the payroll, after all, is money in the bank.

Wanting to research more on this angle, I yanked my phone off the hook and started dialing like a 900-number junkie. Much to my dismay, however, out of the corner of my eye, I spied the Rod Dreher's New York Post column on the mouth job -- specifically the spot where he said that Savage couldn't be reached for comment.

"He's lost somewhere in the Midwest," according to his Seattle office -- which probably means back on the campaign trail, incognito, busily trying to infect Alan Keyes with tuberculosis. More power to him, I say. I only hope the next doorknobs he licks on the campaign trail are of the outside, frozen variety. Then everyone can laugh at the spittle soldier with his tongue stuck on the latch.

Joel Miller is senior editor of WND Books and author of the forthcoming book, "Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America." His own company, Oakdown, recently published "Drinking With Calvin and Luther! A History of Alcohol in the Church."

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