New `Sexed-up' D.N.C. ad: Will it work?
by JohnHuang2
Democrats are set to launch a major TV ad blitz accusing U.S. Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush of peddling "misleading" information on the nuclear threat posed by now deposed Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, according to published reports.
The Democrat National Committee, seizing the initiative as recent polls show support for Bush collapsing -- his job-approval plummeting in one month from 61 percent to 59 percent in the latest CNN/USA Today Gallup -- "has been raising money through an e-mail campaign that began July 10 to help finance the ad, which sharply questions Bush's veracity on Iraq's weapons," the AP reports.
The ad, to run on local TV stations in Madison, Wis., a hotbed of Saddam loyalists, does not sharply question Saddam's veracity on Iraq's weapons. In a newly released tape of Saddam's voice, aired on Arab Television, Saddam's voice sharply questions Bush's veracity on Iraq's weapons, joining a growing chorus of leading Democrats who say Bush, not Saddam's voice, suffers a growing "credibility gap." Senior Democrats, top al-Qaeda leaders and Saddam's voice accuse Bush of having built a case against Saddam on flimsy evidence and forgeries, a charge echoed increasingly on the campaign trail by alleged '04 contenders. On veracity, given a choice between the oil guy from Texas versus the oil guy from Baghdad, there's just no contest with this crowd: Oil guy Saddam wins hands-down.
(The tape of Saddam's voice, the third since the fall of Baghdad, is evidence Saddam's voice survived the war, the C.I.A. says. No `sightings' of Saddam's voice have been reported. Teams of U.S.-led search crews have scoured the country for weeks but have failed to find Saddam's voice, leading skeptics to charge Saddam's voice probably never existed).
The charge that Saddam sought uranium from Africa is utterly preposterous, say Democrats, since Saddam would never do such a thing. Nor would the ex-Iraqi leader associate with the likes of Osama bin Laden, say Democrats and other leading Saddam supporters. The President, in his State of the Uranium address in January (a 50-plus minute speech in which the President underscored uranium's affect on the U.S. economy, uranium's affect on the U.S. budget, uranium's affect on U.S. healthcare, uranium's affect on U.S. education, uranium's affect on U.S. crime rates and Martha Stewart's cooking) said British intelligence had "learned" Saddam had sought uranium from Africa. Bush's use of the word "learned," to wit, "the British government has learned," rather than opting for "believes," as in, "the British government believes," was obviously part of a cleverly crafted deception or ploy, say pundits. So misleading and deceptive was Bush's uranium address in January that it forced Congress in October, 3 full months earlier, to vote to approve military action against uranium stockpiles in Africa and Iraq.
The ad says the slanderous uranium claim, the sole basis for removing Saddam, "was proven false. The CIA knew it. The State Department knew it. The White House knew it."
Besides, no president, in any event, should even countenance relying on something as unreliable as British intelligence. For pre-war information on Iraqi weapons development, far more trusty and credible alternatives were readily available: World-renown WMD/uranium experts Sean Penn, Barbra Streisand and the Baghdad Boys, just to name a few. Penn, after a 3-day fact-finding mission late last year, declared Iraq completely free of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Africa completely free of uranium.
But what if the DNC uranium ad doesn't work? What if it can't knock Bush's numbers down a notch or two in key battleground Madison, Wis.?
Ha! Then Democrats unleash their ultimate weapon: A 30-second cartoon ad depicting a cruel and mean-spirited Bush laughing while viciously shoving a wheel-chair-bound Saddam off the deck of the carrier U.S.S. Lincoln, evoking Bush's Top-Gun landing back in May. The landing sparked an outcry from Democrats, who complained that Bush should have used a helicopter not a jet because TV images made him look too good. Visibly shaken, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Uranus), accused Bush of "flamboyant showmanship." House Democrat Henry Waxman (D-Tikrit), ranking member of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, is still deeply probing the landing, including "Flamboyant Showmanship" and whether Bush, in wearing a military flight jacket on a military plane engaged in a military landing, signaled intent to impose a military dictatorship on America.
Colleagues say Sen. Byrd still shows signs of severe A.F.S.S.O.T.S.F., Acute Flamboyant Showmanship Syndrome On The Senate Floor, while other Democrats like John F. Kerry manifest growing signs of severe, uranium-speech-induced `I-Can't-Remember-Voting-For-War-Against-Saddam, But-If-I-Did, I-Didn't-Really-Mean-It!' memory loss (I.C.R.V.F.W.A.S.B.I.I.D.I.D.R.M.I.) on the campaign trail.
Kerry, who said Monday his ketchup "`boiled over' when he read reports over the weekend that administration officials suggested they would be `humiliated' to return to the United Nations for help in post-war Iraq" CNN, All Politics report, O7/21/03), accused Bush, who is forming an international coalition to rebuild Iraq, of not forming an international coalition to rebuild Iraq. The latest hostile fire from Kerry brings to 1,000,000,000,000,000,698 the number attacks on the U.S. war effort by Democrats, using increasing guerrilla tactics in small, `squad-level' groups, since the start of the war back in March.
Some note that, with Saddam's fate unknown, the Democrat attacks will likely continue. The possibility of Saddam's return to power in Baghdad gives succor to Democrat supporters, who are rallying behind former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, the most vociferous critic of Saddam's removal from power. Growing unrest and turmoil among core voters -- furious that `Quagmire' in Iraq, while nightly reported in `sexed-up' CBS "Evening News" with Dan Rather, has failed to materialize -- worries party elders, who are scrambling to bring stability in the party. Democrat party militants grumble that `resistance' against U.S. forces has been too weak and sporadic to be effectual. The party's growing divisions on Iraq threatens a repeat of '72, when a brilliant Senator George McGovern propelled Nixon to re-election landslide.
Kerry, whom critics charge with inserting hubris in this process, accused Bush of "inserting hubris in this process" during a conference call with reporters. Kerry blamed the `hubris' and `failure' to put an international peace-keeping coalition on the ground, under the brilliant command of U.N. military strategist Kofi Annan, for the deadly attacks on U.S. forces from Iraqi death-squads and Saddam holdouts.
Kerry does has a valid point. Iraqi death-squads and Saddam holdouts have been clamoring for weeks, `Bush, end the hubris, listen to John F. Kerry, stop your `Go-It-Alone' approach!! Put an international peace-keeping coalition on the ground under the brilliant command of U.N. military strategist Kofi Annan and we'll quit being Iraqi death-squads and Saddam holdouts, and go back to being good people again -- promise!!! And make sure you get a U.N. resolution authorizing it -- no more unilateralism!!'
Meanwhile, "Black families' gains in income and education are being undermined -- at least to some degree -- by rising incarceration rates and a persistent unemployment gap compared with whites, the Urban League says in its latest report on the state of black America," the Associated Press reports.
Despite progress, "a higher proportion of black men are in jail and the black unemployment rate, after declining significantly, is back up," said Urban League President Marc Morial.
Proportionally, why are more blacks in jail than whites? White Racism, says Robert Hill, "senior researcher" of White Racism at Rockville, Md. He writes that "the maintenance of racial inequality through covert processes of structure and institutions" is the reason for higher black incarceration rates. Not open White Racism, but covert White Racism. Here's how it works: On a typical night, this `Racial inequality through covert processes of structure and institutions' thingy goes out and robs the local 7-Eleven at gun point, then breaks into some black guy's home `Under-cover-of-darkness-in-the-night,' and, after planting incriminating evidence linked to the convenient store caper -- evidence for crimes `Racial inequality through covert processes and institutions' thingy committed! -- snatches perfectly innocent, law-abiding black men and throws them into jail for no reason. That kind of White Racism. Weird, eh? `Racial inequality through covert processes and institutions,' the insidious perpetrator behind these mid-night body-snatches of perfectly innocent, law-abiding black men, still has not been apprehended, and leads or clues to the culprit's whereabouts have grown cold.
Bush -- forget Osama! Forget Saddam! Capture and arrest this `Racial inequality through covert processes and institution' thingy and end the body-snatches!
Kidding aside, this Urban League "study" is a joke -- it's an insult to black Americans everywhere, the overwhelming majority of whom are, indeed, law-abiding, honest, hard-working and play by the rules. But, to borrow an old refrain, denial is more than just a river in Egypt.
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Wow! What a day!
Phony intelligence. Cooked intelligence. Faked intelligence. Sham intelligence. Hyped intelligence. Sexed intelligence. Phrases that have blanketed news coverage for weeks and weeks. Finally, finally -- at long last -- those Mullah-hating, Saddam-bashing White House neo-conners recklessly ruining the lives of innocent dictators for sport, cabaling for evil Halliburton and U.S. Big Oil, were getting their just desserts!
And now THIS? Do they really expect us to take this `Oday/Qusay-Killer-Rabbits-out-of-the-hat-trick-just-in-the-nick-of-time' seriously? Ha! I mean, how dumb do these White House guys think we are? Well, I'll say this: It ain't working: Bags of uranium "found" in Oday's and Qusay's pockets were, say experts at Reuters, likely planted by Paul Wolfowitz during his super-secret visit there. Dishes of yellow cake "found" in the dining-room, served on plates with `Made in Niger' labels, were probably planted too. C'mon, this stuff is too obvious. What was Karl Rove thinking? Yeah, we nailed Uday and Qusay, but where's the uranium from Niger?
Kidding aside, for Democrats, the news from Mosul -- that Kiowa rockets and bullets from the 101st Airborne Division had given Saddam's darling sons Uday and Qusay the full sexed-up treatment Tuesday morning -- wasn't exactly welcome news. Indeed, for Democrat strategists, the news couldn't possibly be worse. Or come at a worse time. Democrats were sure -- absolutely positive! -- they had Bush on the ropes, finally. "Growing questions" about White House ``misuse" of pre-war intelligence had Washington presstitutes in feeding-frenzy mode. On cable gab shows, talking-heads filled the airwaves nightly with `Bush-Is-Doomed! No uranium in Niger! Only catching the Husseins makes this scandal go away! And the Husseins will never be caught! Yippee! Yeah, baby!' predictions. The White House was put on a death watch. It was all over for Bush. The long knives were out, obituaries were being written, `blood' was in the water, sharks were circling. Bush's credibility was dying the death of a thousand cuts, said those doing the thousand cuts. Attacks on Bush had escalated to full-scale guerrilla war. The raking fire was relentless. CBS "Evening News" hammered and hammered away nightly, labeling Bush a liar who conned a nation into war. War for uranium in Niger.
Calls from Democrats for Bush's impeachment were growing louder by the hour. A panel on Hardball Monday night urged Bush to `come clean,' confess to things he didn't do and the story will go away. In other words, `please, Mr. President, tell America you deliberately lied in your State of the Union address about uranium in Africa, that you and Cheney sexed the whole case against Saddam up, and we in the press will forgive and forget! Promise!'
You just can't make this stuff up, folks.
Not that it really mattered. Polls showed scant or zero impact on Bush's standing politically.
Yet, it may sound cliche, but what a difference a day makes. To the party of Carl Levin, John Kerry and the Dixie Chicks, news that Saddam's two little helpers had a bad hair day came as a mortal body-blow, a demoralizing psychological death-blow. Its reverberations transform the post-war Iraq debate landscape instantly here at home. And they know it. For leading Quagmirists -- grief-stricken, shell-shocked Tuesday morning -- the deaths are a humiliating setback. Call it the `Tipping Point,' just as the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in the early days of the war marked a major `Tipping Point.' At the time, news media coverage was plain horrific, the press wallowed gleefully in quagmire as images of captured U.S. POWs were daily shown on Arab TV. All of that changed on April 1, with news that teams led by U.S. Special Forces had rescued Lynch from the jaws of the enemy.
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Who ever said a ship can't turn on a dime? A whole country was turned on a dime one beautiful Spring morning. Lynch's rescue was a powerful lift for morale, home and on the battlefield. Nine short days later, Saddam's statue fell.
And `Quagmire' suffered another horrible setback today. And uranium-"gate?" Call it the Incredible Shrinking "Scandal" that never was. Like Uday and Qusay -- dead and deader -- uranium-"gate" is deader than dead. Democrats can keep beating this dead horse, but beating this dead horse won't bring it back to life. With uranium-"gate" now a footnote, what will the Democrat '04 campaign theme be? That "mistreating" Saddam's sons don't make us safer?
Think of the symbolism and message: The death of Uday and Qusay and the return home to a hero's welcome of a very special hero, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, occurring the same day! Message? The Uday/Qusay deaths, besides ruling them out as possible candidates for the Democrat presidential nomination, ;-) tells Iraqis that Saddam ain't coming back; the home-coming of one very brave West Virginia soldier tells Americans that America IS BACK. And, to borrow a phrase, you ain't seen nothing yet. Bottom line: America's winning and terrorists are getting their just desserts, just as Bush said they would.
God bless our President, God bless our Troops and God bless the United States of America!
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
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