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Hustling up Bush charges
New York Daily News ^ | 2/17/04 | Lloyd Grove

Posted on 02/17/2004 1:41:47 AM PST by kattracks

Activist rocker Moby raised Republican hackles last week when he advised President Bush's enemies to engage in political mischief.

Moby told my fellow gossips Rush & Molloy: "For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion."

Now the incorrigible Larry Flynt says he plans to market a Bush abortion story as genuine - in a book to be published this summer by Kensington Press.

"This story has got to come out," the wheelchair-bound Hustler magazine honcho told the Daily News' Corky Siemaszko. "There's a lot of hypocrisy in the White House about this whole abortion issue."

Flynt claimed that Bush arranged for the procedure in the early '70s.

"I've talked to the woman's friends," Flynt said. "I've tracked down the doctor who did the abortion, I tracked down the Bush people who arranged for the abortion," Flynt said. "I got the story nailed."

Flynt wouldn't disclose whether he plans to name the woman.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie - who in a speech last week accused "Kerry campaign supporters," not just Moby, of hatching the Internet chat room scheme - was unavailable for comment on Flynt's charges.

But RNC spokesman Yier Shi told me: "The Democrats will do anything in this election, judging by their campaign tactics, to smear without any evidence or background. This is just another one of those cases."

Writer can't put story to bed

Liberal pundit Joe Conason worked himself into quite a lather Friday over the rampant rumors concerning Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry.

"Is American politics suddenly returning to the bad old days, when Washington journalism became frenzied with sheet sniffing and keyhole peeping?" the Bill Clinton loyalist demanded indignantly on Salon.com.

Unfortunately for Conason, Internet commentator Mickey Kaus promptly discovered that, in 1992, Conason had engaged in just such "sheet sniffing and keyhole peeping" - a long, rumor-filled piece about Clinton's campaign opponent, the first President Bush, in Spy magazine.

"He Cheats on His Wife," blared the headline over the article, in which Conason enumerated various unsubstantiated personal scandals involving George H.W. Bush, including extramarital affairs and (as the Spy headline announced) "unpleasant details of Bush's all-around bachelor-party piggishness!"

But unlike cybergossip Matt Drudge - who, Conason charged in Salon, had "hyped to the maximum" the "vague and unsourced" Kerry rumors - Conason sometimes dropped the word "alleged" and published dirt as fact.

In a tone of supreme authority, he wrote about "Bush's adultery" and "the President's extramarital dalliances."

Yesterday, Conason explained: "That's the Spy style - it's a very assertive style. They just don't use a lot of 'alleged' ... But I stand by every word."

Conason also explained why, in his scorching of Drudge, he failed to mention his Spy piece: "I wasn't even thinking about it. It was 12 years ago."

In an E-mail, Conason argued that the subject of his Spy story was less Bush's supposed affairs than the media's reluctance to investigate them - in contrast to "nonstop press coverage of Clinton's alleged, rumored and gossiped infidelities ... Was the the President protected by a political double standard?"

Conason blamed Spy editors Kurt Andersen and Susan Morrison for the assertive headline.

"If you read the story, you'll see that the text isn't nearly as conclusive as

the cover line. I argued with Kurt and Susan that saying "He cheats on his wife' on the cover went too far, because I didn't agree that we had proved it. That decision was theirs."

Kaus retorted: "He blames his editors. But should he now be lecturing people on 'journalistic standards'? ... The lesson of 1992 wasn't that sex shouldn't be dredged up. It's that voters need to know everything. Democrats ignored Clinton's 'alleged, rumored and gossiped infidelities' and wound up electing a President who wasted most of his second term on a sex scandal."

[snip]

Originally published on February 17, 2004



TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2004; drudge; joeconason; kaus
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Flynt also claimed he had all of this information before the 2000 election and was going to use it then. He has never brought forward any of his so called witnesses.
1 posted on 02/17/2004 1:41:47 AM PST by kattracks
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To: kattracks
Flynt claimed that Bush arranged for the procedure in the early '70s. "I've talked to the woman's friends," Flynt said. "I've tracked down the doctor who did the abortion, I tracked down the Bush people who arranged for the abortion," Flynt said. "I got the story nailed."

Notice he doesn't say anything about talking to the woman. And the article doesn't say when in the early 70s this was supposed to have happened. If it was before 1973, abortion was illegal then, of course, so there wouldn't be records proving this claim. There is no evidence for this smear, other than a pornographer's word.

2 posted on 02/17/2004 1:53:17 AM PST by NYCVirago
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To: kattracks
.....and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush ....

How many "outraged right-wing voters" have posted their complaints on Freerepublic of Bush regarding illegal alien policies and asked others to support them? Plenty!

3 posted on 02/17/2004 2:55:53 AM PST by mgist
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To: kattracks
"I've tracked down the doctor who did the abortion,

This is not reality.

The average abortionist does a lot of abortions and never talks to the patient. She gets "counselled" by a "voluteer" (a bitter feminist who usually has had an abortion, and needs to convince others it's ok to abort your kid). Then the nurse sticks them up in stirrups and the doctor comes in and aborts. The doctor might do three or four abortions an hour-- in a well organized clinic, more.

He then picks up his paycheck...

4 posted on 02/17/2004 4:16:44 AM PST by LadyDoc (liberals only love politically correct poor people)
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To: mgist
And every one gets all huffy if their patriotism is questioned, which is reminiscent of which party?

Seriously, does anyone have an idea of how to distinguish a seminar poster from a *true conservative* (tm)?
5 posted on 02/17/2004 4:18:58 AM PST by reformedliberal
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To: kattracks
The Left-wing Bush haters are starting to get as bad as the Right-wing Bush haters, but they have a ways to go.
6 posted on 02/17/2004 4:19:43 AM PST by Consort
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To: reformedliberal
I would say that if they declare they are "life-long conservatives" or even Republicans and end their rant with with ..."that's why I'd vote for Kerry," or some such thing - and I have seen these, I kid you not - you can tell they're Moby plants.

Nobody has to agree with Bush or anybody else 100% on anything. But it's one thing to discuss it and offer solutions, and another to tell people to go out and vote Dem just "to show the GOP it can't push you around." And I am sure, unfortunately, there are a lot of gullible folks, particularly libertarians, who are going to fall for that line. That's why Moby and the gang have been trying it, because they know it works.
7 posted on 02/17/2004 4:31:33 AM PST by livius
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To: NYCVirago
John Kerry's Senior Political Advisor, Michael Meehan, is on leave from NARAL...

NARAL Plans Extensive 2004 Election Effort

Washington, DC -- Seeking to increase its elections efforts in the 2004 election cycle and to stay a key player in the Democratic party's presidential nomination process, NARAL Pro-Choice America has hired veteran Democratic operative Michael Meehan to oversee its vastly expanded soft-money fundraising operation.

Meehan -- a top political adviser to pro-abortion Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) --will serve as vice president for politics, campaigns and strategy, essentially overseeing all of the organization's political operations. Both the field and political directors at NARAL Pro-Choice America will report directly to him.

In addition to his advisory duties for Daschle, Meehan is coming off a stint as the message and polling director at the Democratic National Committee during the 2002 cycle.


8 posted on 02/17/2004 4:38:56 AM PST by kcvl
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To: kattracks; All
The whole point of this article is to say that these scum bags are making this crap up and going to swear by it!!!!!!! They know that is will go out like truth...no...a hoax....who cares, people will belive it and probably quote it like the Gospels!

These are deadly lying sob's of the worst kind! Such are yellow bellied chickens! I pray that the laws that are supposed to protect us from those bearing false witness against us will PREVAIL and these sob's go straight to jail for 50 years! No Mercy! They show known!

9 posted on 02/17/2004 4:52:01 AM PST by countrydummy (http://chat.agitator.dynip.com)
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To: LadyDoc
Yes this is so true. That is one of the reasons I quit nursing. I have been an RN most of all my life, since the age of 20. I was forced to assist and be the circulating RN in the OR....I could not continue do this!!!!!! Job or not job, I could not go on.
10 posted on 02/17/2004 4:59:14 AM PST by countrydummy (http://chat.agitator.dynip.com)
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To: kattracks
Wow!! The article is a virtual Who's-Who of credibility-challenged sources.

Yeah, I'm ready to buy into this one.
11 posted on 02/17/2004 5:04:12 AM PST by DustyMoment (Repeal CFR NOW!!)
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To: mgist
"How many "outraged right-wing voters" have posted their complaints on Freerepublic of Bush regarding illegal alien policies and ask others to support them? Plenty"

Don't paint those comments with too broad a brush. Check sign up dates.

12 posted on 02/17/2004 5:09:45 AM PST by Truth29
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To: kattracks
So what.
13 posted on 02/17/2004 5:12:17 AM PST by rintense
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To: Truth29
Don't paint those comments with too broad a brush. Check sign up dates.

Nice reply and I agree. I am not happy about this immigration policy not one dang bit. It almost sent me over the edge. Well, maybe it did, but I climbed back up! lol

President Bush is my President, and I am dang proud of him. I do not always understand some of the things he does, but I know Someone Else I can say the same thing about! lol

14 posted on 02/17/2004 5:18:27 AM PST by countrydummy (http://chat.agitator.dynip.com)
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To: LadyDoc
Good for you for standing up to your values.
15 posted on 02/17/2004 5:23:48 AM PST by garylmoore (It is as it was)
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To: Consort
The Left-wing Bush haters are starting to get as bad as the Right-wing Bush haters, but they have a ways to go.

Yes and it terrifies me that supposedly sane and rational people would rather trash Bush than ensure the security of the country.

16 posted on 02/17/2004 5:27:04 AM PST by trebb (Ain't God good . . .)
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To: NYCVirago
I seem to recall Flynt saying EXACTLY the same thing in 2000. Complete with talking to "friends" and so on.

BTW, Gillespie warned about more than Moby, he said that the dems planned to unleash the abortion lie in October. Looks like Gillespie has hopefully cut them off at the pass, though memories can fade between now and October and I wouldn't be surprised to see it be raised AGAIN.

And I'm sure Kerry approves of this tactic, too. There is nothing too low for Monsieur Ketchup.
17 posted on 02/17/2004 5:35:31 AM PST by cyncooper
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To: kcvl; kattracks
Meehan appeared on Fox & Friends this morning.

He is the smooth and smiley face that will speak for Kerry after the nomination is sewn up.

I am compiling a list of the hot button words the dims use - "Halliburton" seems to have taken over for "Enron"

"Karl Rove" has replaced "Richard Mellon Scaife."

We conservatives, have not been used to arguing on the level of scary names, but I submit we need to 'train' our rhetoric to introduce the power groups of the dims into our arguments.

Pro-Abortion/NARAL would be at the top of my list -

As in "No democrat can vote on any issue if Pro-Abortion/NARAL disapproves'

Other names I have added are

Billionaire George Soros - must use all three words
Leftist Moveon.org
Liberal trial lawyers
Left-wing Carnegie Institute
Secular People for the American Way.
and more

The dominant media are not used to hearing their affiliates spoken of with descriptive adjectives. It is up to us to make this reality.
18 posted on 02/17/2004 5:38:27 AM PST by maica (World Peace starts with W)
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To: livius
It's as though these people do not have an orginial thought in their heads.what ever the leader says well that must be it then. herd mentality is what i call this wierd mindset that these people are suffering under. what happened to thinking?
19 posted on 02/17/2004 6:02:45 AM PST by suzyq5558 (The demodemons are ANGRY at the administration? so pray tell what is new?)
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To: mgist
Tin-foil hat time.
20 posted on 02/17/2004 7:12:59 AM PST by sauropod (I'm Happy, You're Happy, We're ALL Happy! I'm happier than a pig in excrement. Can't you just tell?)
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