The more things change, the more they stay the same.
And today was a good day...
Posted on 05/04/2003 11:10:44 AM PDT by MHGinTN
It was the week of May 2nd, 2003, and what was the ‘outrage of the week’? … Bill Bennett’s gambling habits. Why was that selected by the Democrat Party operatives in the presstitute corps? … Because it served an agenda and methodology of the Democrat Party. Well, you say, then what’s the big deal since it’s just politics as usual and the elections are fast approaching? … At this unique time in our nation’s history, the methodology in question is particularly dangerous.
First point, the Democrat methodology is divisive politics through media assisted ‘stories’ designed to pander to a particular constituency of the specious ‘big-tent’ Democrats. To accomplish this division among the people (or perhaps emphasize what is only a crack), the Democrats play at class warfare, class envy, mistrust, and outright hate on occasion. They’ve been doing it better than the Republicans for decades, but the technique rose to new heights with the Clinton years.
Second, an historically old tactic called ‘the politics of personal destruction’ surfaced during the Clinton years, with a vengeance. Character assassination focused on Clinton, his co-president, Hillary, minor players such as the White House Travel office personnel Hillary wanted replaced, two Speakers of the House, a powerful conservative Republican Committee Chairperson, and assorted other Republicans upon whom the Clinton White House could sic their stealthy friend and digger for sleaze, Larry Flynt. Sid Blumenthal, working out of an appointment office at the White House, even stooped so low as to go after Christopher Hitchens when he wouldn’t publish a lie the White House wanted to use for leverage against poor naïve Monica! That was then, the last of the last century, this is now, the first of the next century.
In successive weeks, the American public has been assaulted with such earthshaking non-outrages as the Republican Presidential candidate had a DUI decades ago and didn’t bother to air that outrage; Trent Lott’s misspeak at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party; healthy debate between the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense (the current President actually meets with his cabinet several times per week, unlike the previous White House occupant who met with his cabinet but few times per year). We were treated to Senator Rick Santorum’s comments regarding a Texas sodomy law working its way to the Supreme Court, for review. Buoyed onward and upward with the trickery employed by a close relative of Democrat hopeful, John Kerry’s top aid, the Santorum story appeared at first to have traction as the servile media tried to pump the non-story into a major outrage between conservative values (mostly held by the Republican Party, but also held by the religious moderates within the Democrat Party, and we’ll get to that very important point in a minute) and so called homosexual rights. But with the fabricated outrage regarding Bill Bennett’s gambling habits, we detect a new and very dangerous escalation to the class warfare Democrat methodology.
When the hit people serving the Democrat Party ‘walking points’ aimed their character assassination projectile at Bill Bennett¾also seeking collateral damage to Justices Scalia and Rhenquist by craftily inserting a reference to these conservatives gambling with Bennett in another gaming venue¾they were actually shooting at rank and file, mostly Democrat voters. What this new strategy amounts to is an escalation in class envy and distrust, and even blind partisanship that was slipping from Democrat’s reliability tables. By making a big deal out of the amount of money Bennett is purported to have lost, the Democrats hoped to focus middle and lower income wage earners on the ‘wasteful nature of Bennett’s addiction’, the implied disdain of Bennett toward the commoners … precisely at the time Republicans are also being characterized by the Democrats (with great media assistance and joyful pandering) as pushing ‘tax cuts for the wealthy that show disdain for the needs of the little guy’.
September 11th, 2001, everything changed in America. To be sure, the changes didn’t all surface immediately. But that horrific event heralded a paradigm shift in the American psyche, drawing people together in a way not seen since WW II … and a Republican administration stood to gain most by dealing with the new world in an adult fashion hallmarked by a no nonsense application of military might and international cooperation in tracking down terrorist, dealing forcefully with the states that sponsor and protect terrorists and their training and implementation bases.
For the 2002 Congressional election cycle, the Democrat Party tried to take the nation’s focus off of the war against an enemy determined to destroy our way of life and the lives of perhaps hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens. It didn’t work. The average, reliably Democrat voters, taken for granted for so long, didn’t take their attention off of the threats, and remained somewhat united with fellow average Republican Americans. The common bond of moderate conservatism held fellow Americans together in their resolve to fight the terrorists for our survival. Our unity transcended party politics, and the Democrats lost more of their power in an unprecedented mid-term election. But they have resorted to obstructionism, panicked that their liberalism might slip from power even in the courts. With the 2004 elections approaching, what were the Democrats to do? … They returned to their overused methodology of divide the people and sweep up the constituencies. Were it not for 9/11/2001, it would be politics as usual, obscene, but we could live with it for a season.
The war against terrorism is a unique problem in the history of America, not so much because of the lives lost, but because to continue waging the war on a global scale, the people must steel their resolve until the threat is no more. To steel their resolve they must remain, to the greatest extent possible, united! Democrat’s methodology is directed at accomplishing just the opposite. The manipulation to envy of the wealthy and distrust for conservatives, wealthy conservatives, wealthy conservative REPUBLICANS, is designed to divide the people along class lines, inviting blind opposition in the voting booth that will destroy the unity of the people and kill their resolve to stand shoulder to shoulder in the war against terrorists.
If the reader thinks this screed is absurd, look carefully at how prominent Democrats are changing their opposition to the war against Saddam’s regime, repositioning themselves in order to imply they would do just as this president has done, making America just as secure under their leadership … and it is an absolutely false characterization, as eight years of Clintonian appeasement to dictators and postponement of meaningful action have so adequately proven. If the Democrat operatives succeed with this campaign of character assassination and divisiveness, the ultimate victim will be the Republic, because a people divided cannot stand in opposition to evil, domestically or abroad.
I have only one last pair of notions. What the Democrat media servants are ignoring, regarding conservative Mister Bennett, is: his spending of his own earned money, in union shop casinos, is helping to support jobs for the very middle and lower income people the goons of character assassination are trying to manipulate into distrusting, envying, and hating the Bill Bennett’s of America! I would bet some of my money that if asked, these employees appreciate Mister Bennett’s chosen spending habits, and wouldn’t advise him to buy an extra house along the Atlantic Coast (many Democrat presidential hopefuls have them), or a bigger yacht (several extremely rich Democrat politicians own them), or … well, you get the gist. And finally, what Bill Bennett does with his earned money does impact his future credibility as an advisor regarding virtue, but his failing (and let’s be honest, it is a failing) is only important to politics if the Democrats can manipulate the people into envy, distrust, and pulling the D lever because of divisive partisanship.
Is this season of character assassinations really politics as usual, given the paradigm shift in America’s war against a deadly enemy that isn’t going away and must be killed and incarcerated under the steady resolve of a united people? Hold on to your seats, folks, because the Democrat operatives are already triangulating their assassination attempts … Juan Williams, speaking on Fox News Sunday, asserted that Bennett’s gambling was a non-issue. Of course, the same triangulation tactic was used while the Clinton White House sicced Flynt on prominent Republicans, seeking any dirt that could be splayed before the public, to assassinate Clinton’s detractors and accusers, and by implication render his degeneracy ‘unimportant because everybody does it’. The cited episodes are but the beginning of a divisive, manipulative, and very dangerous campaign to gain back power over this nation. It will get a whole lot nastier before election day, and Democrat success will make this nation more vulnerable, exponentially.
Oh, there is no doubt about it. That's what Democrats do, and as long as people keep falling for their tricks, we will continue to pay for their inefficient and wasteful government programs instead of taking control of our own lives.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
And today was a good day...
For the 2002 Congressional election cycle, the Democrat Party tried to take the nation’s focus off of the war against an enemy determined to destroy our way of life and the lives of perhaps hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens. It didn’t work. The average, reliably Democrat voters, taken for granted for so long, didn’t take their attention off of the threats, and remained somewhat united with fellow average Republican Americans.
The 'RATS/Donkeys really know how to party, don't they? Remember this from just before the election? . . .
Contol of the multi trillion dollar pot of $$$ sitting in D.C. makes politics an extremely high stakes game and each party is going to pull out all the stops to maintain as much control as possible over doling out the kitty to their constituencies.
But although I agree with your assertion that the "outrage" against Bennett's gambling has been manufactured, the facts of his gambling escapades have not. This is a quote from one of the left-wing articles about the gambling and it is a result of investigative reporting. Even if you throw out the anecdotal comments by casino employees, there is still a paper trail. To his credit, Bennett has apologized for his gambling and says he will not do it again. He did not, however, deny the facts of the reports.
Bennett has been a high-roller since at least the early 1990s. A review of one 18-month stretch of gambling showed him visiting casinos, often for two or three days at a time (and enjoying a line of credit of at least $200,000 at several of them). Bennett likes to be discreet. "He'll usually call a host and let us know when he's coming," says one source. "We can limo him in. He prefers the high-limit room, where he's less likely to be seen and where he can play the $500-a-pull slots. He usually plays very late at night or early in the morning--usually between midnight and 6 a.m." The documents show that in one two-month period, Bennett wired more than $1.4 million to cover losses. His desire for privacy is evident in his customer profile at one casino, which lists as his residence the address for Empower.org (the Web site of Empower America, the non-profit group Bennett co-chairs). Typed across the form are the words: "NO CONTACT AT RES OR BIZ!!!"
I stand by my condemnation of Bennett's gambling excesses. He has been in politics a long time and knows that you dare not give your opponents ammo to use against you. Bennett gave them an arsenal. As a result, he has damaged his credibility as a moralist, at least for the near future.
I was one of the very few in this forum who staunchly defended Trent Lott (though not a great fan of his) against the manufactured outrage. I defended Lott because I truly believed his comments were not racist, but were just an awkward attempt to praise an old man at his retirement. Others said Lott was a seasoned politician, he shouldn't have given his opponents the ammo. I disagreed strongly and said the GOP should stand by him or they would invite more of this manufactured outrage in the future.
But I think the Bennett incident is different. Bennett, who has made his career and fortune on a moralist platform, intended to gamble, gambled to the extreme and tried to hide it. It's a pattern of behavior that's documented. Lott's was a mere slip of the tongue, I believe.
I stand by my initial assertion, that what is usually merely dirty politics, at this juncture in America's war for survival rises to the level of dangerous divisive manipulation quite capable of destroying our resolve as a unified people at war.
To believe the DNC isn't aware of the divisive potentials and seeks to exploit those potentials is naive at best. The clearly evidenced bitterness of Democrat Party leadership driving their obstructionism speaks volumes regarding the DNC desperation and willingness to in fact embrace the schism approach to 2004 ... divide and conquer may have two enemies planning to exploit the methodology, the dividers (Democrats willing to have this nation absorb any hits, economic or to citizens) and the enemies of America seeking any weakness to exploit for death and mayhem.
So far, the political pundits have chosen to not address this reality. I don't believe I'm so undiscerning as to be imagining the DNC command or desire for this division among the people; too many examples have already been exploited through the complicit media, too many radically partisan pseudo-journalists have outed their clear aim to aid in dividie and conquer. Ignoring an angry king-cobra in your living room can get you killed. The venom of democrat bitterness is dripping from too many gaping maws for this old boy to ignore it, the pile of bones collecting beside the DNC hit people is growing too large to step around it. This is the season for the Carvile snake(s). Watch for them, coming to a TV screen on an alphabet network near you.
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