When Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president his unfavorable rating among women was an already dismal 58%. In the intervening months as he campaigned it has gotten considerably worse, rising to an unprecedented 70% unfavorable. And through it all, Trump has demonstrated that he has absolutely no idea why he is hated so much by America’s women.
In another of his rambling, rancid stump speeches (which he promised would be more presidential), Trump attempted to address his female problems by attacking Hillary Clinton’s past tribulations with her husband Bill. Apparently Trump still thinks that the former President’s infidelities reflect badly on her. However, the public doesn’t blame Hillary for Bill’s bad behavior, and raising the issue is more likely to bring her sympathy from other women.
So Trump is diverting to a new path aimed at accusing Clinton of ruining the lives of Bill’s booty calls. Trump complained that “they’re going after ME with women?” Then he told his glassy-eyed disciples that…
“She’s been the total enabler. She would go after these women and destroy their lives. She was an unbelievably nasty, mean enabler and what she did to a lot of those women is disgraceful.”
First of all, anything Hillary said about the situation was said at a time when she believed the allegations against her husband were false. She was defending him from what appeared to be political hit jobs. But more to the point, she never said anything that could be remotely described as nasty or destructive. There’s a reason that Trump doesn’t provide any examples to support his attack – they don’t exist.
For Trump, on the other hand, the evidence of his misogyny is voluminous. His attacks on Megyn Kelly, Carly Fiorina, Elizabeth Warren, Rosie O’Donnell, Arianna Huffington, etc., are unarguably nasty and intended to cause harm. And unlike Clinton, Trump himself was the unfaithful person in his multiple marriages. He boasted in public of his infidelities.
But these personal incidents are not even what defines someone’s support for women in a political context. Trump’s new attack strategy is more proof that he continues to misunderstand what constitutes women’s issues. He is reducing it to the bad behavior of an individual. But when you take in the more expansive view of social equality, it has to be noted that it’s Hillary and Bill Clinton who support a woman’s right to choose, equal pay, prohibiting discrimination based on gender, support for victims of abuse, and family leave and child care. Those are actual women’s issues, not some guy being a horndog, and Donald Trump opposes them all – and is also a horndog.
For the record, when a poll was conducted earlier this year asking who is “more respectful of women” – Bill Clinton or Donald Trump – respondents overwhelming chose Bill Clinton (55% to 31%). And that was a Fox News poll.
In the battle for family values, Donald Trump cannot possibly prevail. He is a brutish hate monger who has repeatedly demonstrated a raging chauvinism that has been corroborated by his personal behavior. His defense often rests on the support he gets from his current wife and daughter, as if that validated anything. And don’t forget, we’re talking about the daughter that he wants to bang.
A couple of weeks ago Hillary Clinton correctly observed that Donald Trump has a “penchant for sexism.” He has demonstrated that repeatedly with his personal attacks on Megyn Kelly, Carly Fiorina, Rosie O’Donnell, and others. What’s more, he is a fierce opponent of a woman’s right to choose, and prohibiting pay and job discrimination based on gender. He is also on his third wife and wants to bang his daughter. In light of that record of misogyny, Clinton was actually pretty mild in her criticism.
What transpired next was a tirade of extraneous attacks from Trump directed at Bill Clinton’s decades-old infidelities that, while improper, do not in any way absolve Trump of his past and current repulsive behavior. It is merely an attempt by Trump to deflect attention from himself. And for that he has been getting plenty of help from Fox News. The network has endeavored to keep the focus narrowly on Clinton’s affairs with frequent stories dredging up the former president’s past, while ignoring Trump’s nauseating present.
Now a new poll conducted by Fox News shows that the result of this propaganda blitz may not be exactly what they intended. When women were asked who they thought was “more respectful of women” – Bill Clinton or Donald Trump – they responded overwhelming that it was Bill Clinton (55% to 31%).
Despite all the hard work by Fox and Trump, American women still prefer Clinton over Trump by a wide margin. So what is Fox to do now? Well, of course, they will assemble a panel of conservative women to refute their own poll.
All four of the women called upon for this Fox Business Channel segment are hard-core wingnuts. They include a Tea Partier, a conservative columnist, a former Bush aide, and even Donald Trump’s national spokeswoman. With four opinions represented, Fox somehow could not manage to include a single Democrat or Clinton supporter who might actually have agreed with their poll. The “fair and balanced” network made sure that only one point of view was supplied. And the results would be comical if they weren’t so sad. Here are some of the highlights as these right-wing spinners attempt to roll back what America’s women actually think:
Katherine Timpf (National Review): It can’t just be about ‘Oh Bill Clinton’s a bad guy.’ It’s what does it have to do with Hillary? It has to do with, if you look back at the way that Hillary treated these women who were accusing her husband of sexual assault, so far beyond the opposite of this new liberal feminist idea of they have a right to be believed, rather she called them names that I could not say on TV without getting suspended. So we need to look at that, and do put the focus on Hillary, but how she’s related to what happened then because she played a direct active role there. It wasn’t just Bill. She did some things that make me sick. It all makes me sick.
That comes very close to infringing on Sarah Palin’s “Word Salad” copyright. Timpf has virtually implicated Hillary in her husband’s affairs. She also doesn’t bother to include a single bit of truthful commentary, particularly the assertion that Hillary used language that could not be used on TV. Although I will agree that Timpf does appear to be sick.
Katrina Pierson (Trump spokeswoman): You’ll recall that this didn’t come up until she called him a sexist. She was thumping that woman’s card very hard. […] When you’re looking at who is being respectful or disrespectful to women if you’re in the media today, then you’re probably not gonna think so much of Trump because people don’t really remember everything that happened with Bill Clinton. We’ve got an entire generation of people who are still trying to figure out what this discussion is.
If she thinks that people in the media today are not exceedingly well-versed about the controversies of the Clinton years, she’s acutely delusional. Obviously the women responding to the poll didn’t have any trouble figuring out what the discussion is, and they recognize a cad when they see one.
Gina Loudon (Tea Party): People have short memories, first of all, so there’s the psychological component of that. But also, like Katrina said, there are generations of people that don’t even know what happened, but if you ask them who’s more trustworthy, the numbers on Hillary not being trustworthy are terrifying. And this is the other thing – Donald Trump hasn’t even begun to campaign against Hillary Clinton. […] My guess, Charles, is that the minute he starts to unleash on Hillary, she won’t even know what hit her.
So Loudon’s position is that it’s the people who are too ignorant to realize how horrible Clinton is and how awesome Trump is. The young ones never learned and the old ones have forgotten. What a bunch of idiots these women voters are, according to Loudon. Furthermore, Trump has been campaigning against Clinton for months. He has called her the “worst Secretary of State in history” (although he used to think she was a “terrific woman” and said that “I really like her and her husband both a lot”).
Cathy Taylor (GOP strategist and former George W. Bush advisor): I think we’re gonna see the tide shift quite a bit as we see Donald Trump continues on his path and starts to campaign as more of a general presidential campaign versus a primary campaign. Let’s remember that he has not really focused on women yet. He’s been very good to women as a businessman. And when you look at policies and policy recommendations, because policies are going to be more favorable, as with any of the GOP candidates, than Hillary Clinton. And let’s remember, there’s good guys and there’s nice guys. Bill Clinton may be a nice guy, Donald Trump is much more of a good guy.
Ms Taylor may need to wipe a bit of the drool off her chin. Trump actually has focused a great deal on women in this campaign, and it’s all been derogatory. Especially his policies, which are pretty much the same as the rest of the GOP and firmly rejected by majorities of women. As for the distinction between a “nice guy” and a “good guy,” I can only respond – WTF? Is this a political campaign or high school?
The video of this discussion (below) opened with a clip of Republican pollster and self-proclaimed “Word Doctor,” Frank Luntz, saying that “Trying to tie Bill Clinton into Hillary doesn’t make sense,” and that “You cannot win this election without getting at least 45% of the female vote.” But Republican candidates are doing everything they can to alienate women (and Latinos and African-Americans). And Fox News is making a desperate effort to clean up after them. The problem is that their efforts are so ham-handed that no one is going to be convinced by the ultra-partisans who are clearly acting as Trump’s surrogates. What’s most revealing about this is that Fox will hold nothing back when their conservative principles are being challenged. The challenger must be destroyed, even if it’s themselves and their own poll.
For the past several weeks the media has been anticipating the entrance of Bill Clinton on the campaign trail for his wife Hillary. It has been a hotly debated subject, not just because he is a former president, but because he is regarded as a masterful communicator with the potential to shape the political landscape.
Among those eagerly engaging in the discussion is Fox News. They have broadcast numerous segments analyzing the former President’s ability to boost Hillary’s prospects, his continued popularity as a public figure, and the possible downside due to some old personal “indiscretions.” Fox has spent untold hours speculating about how Bill’s presence might affect the course of the campaign.
Well, today was the day that Bill made his debut appearance as a surrogate for his wife’s 2016 candidacy. He delivered a half hour speech to an appreciative audience in New Hampshire, the first primary state. The speech was carried live by both CNN and MSNBC. Fox News, however, showed just fifty-five seconds, then quickly cut away. That’s less than one minute of a half hour speech by a former president, and husband of a current presidential candidate, on his first campaign appearance, which was taking place in an important primary state. And for the record, there was no breaking news to justify snubbing this event.
Compare that the coverage that Fox News gives Donald Trump. They broadcast the entirety of his events live, despite the fact that they rarely contain anything more newsworthy than his standard stump speech that everyone has heard ad nauseum. Fox interrupts scheduled programming for these marathon speeches and repeats significant clips of them throughout the rest of the day. So far, Fox has not replayed anything from Clinton’s speech, although they have brought it up as an excuse to level attacks against the Clintons.
News Corpse has documented the wholly unprofessional and biased manner in which Fox News has virtually turned their network over to Donald Trump. No other candidate, even other Republicans, have received the sort of preferential treatment that Trump has enjoyed. And that’s even after he has repeatedly feuded with and insulted the network’s anchors, pundits, and owners. He even called for a boycott of Fox News after another delusional fit of whining about being treated unfairly.
So while Fox News kisses up to a crybaby who bullies them at every turn and has achieved nothing in the realm of public service, they completely ignore a former president who is widely admired with an unsurpassed record of achievement. And this is the network that wants people to believe they are “fair and balanced?” Some people may retort that this is Bill and not Hillary, so why should Fox broadcast it. Well, they have never aired a speech by Hillary live and in full either, so that argument doesn’t really fly.
Look for more of this bias as the campaign proceeds. Fox will continue to feature Trump and disregard Democrats as a whole, unless it is to disparage them. And they will especially avoid Bill Clinton because they know that he might be effective in making the case for Hillary. That’s something that Fox is simply too afraid to confront.
Earlier this year Fox News fortified their rabidly right-wing roster of Republican PR flacks by hiring Roger Stone, a veteran GOP dirty trickster and notorious Clinton hater. Stone cut his teeth in the nastiest campaigns of Richard Nixon and in 2008 he founded a group to oppose Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign that he called “Citizens United Not Timid,” or C.U.N.T. He said that the group’s mission was “to educate the American public about what Hillary Clinton really is.”
Well, Fox is getting their money’s worth as Stone makes appearances on the “news” network spewing outrageous allegations and vile insinuations that set the bar for decency at new lows. Last week Stone visited the Kurvy Kouch Potatoes at Fox & Friends to hurl his trademark insults and innuendo. He was asked by Elizabeth Hasselbeck for some “insight with Hillary Clinton’s relationship with Wall Street.” Stone’s answer began predictably by asserting that it “causes her real problems.” Of course, if she had no relationship with Wall Street that would also be a problem. Fox is hard-wired so that anything that happens, or doesn’t happen, is a problem for Democrats. But then he swerved to inject an unrelated criticism from far-right field.
“Frankly, the much greater issue is the new public Bill Cosby scandal, which is gonna cause a reexamination of the problems of Bill Clinton and what Hillary knew about those actions and what she did to suppress them. So I think the Bill Cosby issue, as it were, could be a real problem for Bill Clinton and, therefore, for Hillary Clinton.”
Yes. That’s “the much greater issue.” A twenty year old incident of marital infidelity that is in no way analogous to Bill Cosby. Clinton’s affairs were consensual and, by all accounts, they stopped twenty years ago. You can be sure that if he were fooling around now some tabloid would have uncovered it. The notion that the Cosby controversy would spark a reexamination of Bill Clinton exists only in Stone’s perverted mind. Nobody cares about any of that, as evidenced by Clinton’s high approval ratings. If anything, it would be a reminder that the Clintons worked through their difficulties and preserved their marriage, affirming their family values.
The fact that Fox News employs a despicable character like Stone is proof that they have no interest in ethical journalism. But he is only the tip of the viceberg. Fox’s cast of characterless mudslingers include Karl Rove, who said that Clinton is too “old and stale” for America; Dinesh D’Souza, who said that the young Clinton looks like a hippy (and young Obama looks like a thug); Edward Klein who thinks that Chelsea Clinton was the spawn of Bill after raping his lesbian wife, Hillary. If there is anyone who still thinks that Fox News is either fair or balanced they had better seek professional help and massive quantities of medication as quickly as possible.
If it seems to you that that President Obama has been under an investigative microscope since the moment he took office, it’s only because that’s pretty much true. Republicans were determined to foil anything positive that this president placed on his agenda, and their primary method of achieving that end has been perpetual investigations of trumped up scandals.
But even with their single-minded devotion to destroying this presidency, the House GOP has not produce any evidence of wrongdoing that implicated the White House. Of course, if their purpose was merely to keep the nation from enjoying the benefits of a productive government, Republicans can claim some success. They have certainly obstructed the creation of millions of jobs; progress on environmental protection; reforms of health care and immigration and tax policies; and numerous other initiatives that might have advanced the country’s well being. But any actual manifestations of scandal have been nonexistent.
To illustrate the level of incompetence attributable to these Tea Party hacks, it is useful to put their job performance into historical perspective. One way to do this is to compare their progress with that of prior congressional sessions working on similarly lofty projects. And since there has been so much talk of impeachment of late, it seemed like that would make a good model for comparison.
So get this: From the date that the U.S. Senate voted to establish a select committee to investigate Watergate, until the resignation of President Nixon, it took about 15 months. To reiterate, that’s from the date that the committee was approved, through the maze of contested hearings, the presentation of evidence, the White House defense, and all the way through the conclusion with a disgraced (and obviously guilty) president stepping down, only a little more than a year transpired.
Compare that to the current House Committee on Oversight’s investigation of whether the IRS discriminated against conservative organizations. Those hearings began 16 months ago. So they have already exceeded the time allotted to impeaching Nixon. However, there has not been a single shred of incriminating evidence uncovered. Plus, if you count from the time the Ways and Means Committee began their inquiries, it has been over 38 months. And these hearings are still continuing.
Let’s also compare the House hearings on Fast and Furious, the botched gun trafficking sting that actually began in the Bush Administration. But limiting this to just the Obama era, Congress has been investigating this since June 2011 – 38 months and counting. And nothing of substance has come from it.
The granddaddy of the Obama era pseudo-scandals has to be Benghazi. Over at Fox News they are suffering from a rare form of Benghazi Tourettes, spitting out the word every few seconds for no apparent reason other than to stir up their dimwitted viewers. So far, the congressional investigations into this have been ongoing for 23 months, with nothing to show for it. And on this issue they have been the most insistent that there is a correlation to Watergate. In fact, the Watergate angle has been an obsession that they tie to their wet dreams of impeachment.
Even the impeach-happy congress of the Clinton era took far less time to conduct hearings and actually try the President for high crimes and misdemeanors, than it has taken for any of the current Congress to even find a crumb of presidential misbehavior. From the inception of the House proceedings to impeach Clinton, until his acquittal in the Senate, it took all of four and a half months. If you count from the date that the Drudge Report posted its tabloid article identifying the Monica Lewinsky affair, it was still only 13 months.
To sum up, every one of the current phony scandals, that are wastefully consuming time and taxpayer dollars, are exceeding that spent on the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. And none of these scandals have produced any hint of wrongdoing. That’s fairly conclusive proof that the Republicans serving in Congress now are profoundly incompetent. There are really only three possible explanations for this. Either 1) There is no evidence and they are wasting everyone’s time, or 2) There is evidence, but these blockheads are too stupid to stumble over it, or 3) They don’t give a damn about evidence, they are only trying to smear the President.
Either way, they need to be relieved of their duties at the earliest opportunity, which would be this November. That makes it the responsibility of American voters to step up and do their duty. All you have to do is vote. And rest assured, if you do not, this GOP idiocy will continue for the next two years and will likely be escalated into a full-blown impeachment of Obama. For God’s sake, don’t let that happen.
If there is one man in America who’s reputation is irretrievably stained with bias and deceit it is Edward Klein, the author of the new book “Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas.” Klein’s history of unfounded allegations and obviously invented accounts of life in the Clinton sphere has been denounced by scores of critics from across the political spectrum. But that won’t stop Fox News from hailing Klein and providing a platform for his transparent lies.
Klein’s new book is filled with ludicrous “quotes” that invariably cast Hillary Clinton, and other Democrats, in a negative light. While they are ridiculous on their face, and Klein fails to validate their authenticity, they are precisely the sort of raw meat tabloidisms that appeal to Fox’s executive propagandists (i.e. Roger Ailes) and woefully gullible viewers. Among the published nonsense are these morsels of mendacity:
Bill Clinton advised Hillary to “put on widow’s weeds, dress in black” if he died because “it would be worth a couple of million votes.”
Hillary “managed to keep her medical history secret out of fear that, should it become public, it would disqualify her from becoming president.”
Oprah Winfrey claims to have “a much warmer relationship with Hillary than I do with either Michelle or Barack,” and that the Obamas “make me jumpy.”
Bill Clinton said “I hate that man Obama more than any man I’ve ever met, more than any man who ever lived.”
Hillary Clinton considered resigning over Benghazi because Obama allegedly forced her “to say that the attack had been a spontaneous demonstration triggered by an obscure video on the Internet.”
Some of these assertions were presented as private conversations between two individuals. For instance, the last item was said to be from a phone conversation between Bill and Hillary. Which begs the question, how could Klein quote them verbatim when no one else was even listening? His source would have to have been Bill or Hillary. Sure, that could happen.
Klein’s past books have included some of the most repulsive fabrications ever levied against the Clintons. He alleged that Chelsea was conceived after a domestic assault wherein Klein said that Bill raped Hillary. Again, how on earth could Klein have known that? Were there witnesses who have spoken only to him? Klein is also a confirmed Birther who believes that Obama may have been created to be a Manchurian candidate from Kenya.
This is the sort of person that Fox News is now promoting on air and online. The lie-riddled Fox Nation website has already posted three articles promoting the delusional revelations in Klein’s new book. Media observers have become accustomed to the reality bending and partisan slanting of virtually everything that Fox broadcasts, but they have sunk to new lows by endorsing the maniacal ravings of Edward Klein, a conspiracy kook who comes close to making Glenn Beck look sane.
I sat down this morning intending to write an article about the absurd new crush that Mitt Romney and the GOP have on Bill Clinton. It’s a flagrant rewriting of history concerning the man that Republicans tried to impeach, but seek to cuddle up with now that he’s one of the most popular former presidents. But as I was doing research for the article I discovered that Michael Tomasky had already written it for the Daily Beast. So here are a few brazenly appropriated paragraphs:
It’s hardly a secret what Mitt Romney is up to in trying to invoke Bill Clinton’s name in ads and speeches. Clinton was the good Democrat. The sensible centrist. And—let’s lower our voices here—the white one. It’s been transparent since it started in May, made all the more so this week by using Clinton to slam Obama on welfare.
I hope he uses the occasion of his convention speech, and for that matter the whole fall campaign, to destroy Romney, saying to every swing voter: “If you voted for me, you’d be nuts to vote for this guy. He’s making up a version of me to serve his own purposes, and he’s against almost everything I stood for and stand for.”
It’s obvious that using Clinton to try to appeal to the Clinton swing voter is pretty central to the Romney plan. As soon as Romney polished off Rick Santorum back in May, he started singing Clinton’s praises. It was his way to appeal to the center. He doesn’t have the courage to do that by taking any actual centrist positions, of course. The positions remain hard right. So he chose to do it instead by using Clinton as the vehicle through which to make ominous insinuations about Obama, implying to audiences that Clinton was the sober pragmatist whose legacy the ultra-liberal Obama had defenestrated.
Clinton can do more than validate Obama. He has the authority to shred Romney. Some conservatives appear to have this fantasy, expressed by Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post yesterday, that Clinton has more in common with Romney. That’s too ridiculous even to bother rebutting, except to note that it can provide fodder for some great laugh lines built around the idea that yes, back when he was president, Clinton did agree with Romney on several things, like abortion rights and the assault weapons ban. Then Romney changed all his positions. And, of course, there is the one issue that looms above all others, which Clinton could frame as a simple and devastating question: “Governor, if you think I’m so great, if you agree with me so much, why don’t you support my tax rate for the top 1 percent?”
Mitt Romney and his Republican Disinformation Society want Americans to forget that they were not merely opposed to Clinton’s agenda, they were veritably obsessed with demolishing him personally and politically. In addition to the impeachment over private personal matters, Republicans launched fruitless investigations into Arkansas land deals; they alleged that he ran drugs from state airstrips; they accused Hillary of murdering Vince Foster. The budget bill that led to years of prosperity did not receive a single Republican vote in congress. What it did receive was assertions of socialism and predictions of the end of America. Sound familiar?
Voters need to remember this when they hear Romney et al praise Clinton. They need to remember that their own agenda is diametrically opposed to the Clinton Doctrine. Republicans have a desperate need to latch onto Clinton because their own past presidents were such horrific failures. Clinton will be making the official nominating speech for Obama at the Democratic convention. George Bush won’t even be attending the Republican convention.
We can expect Bill Clinton’s name to be heard often in this election season. And it will be mentioned by both sides because they know that the American people respect him and his achievements. But every time Mitt Romney and the GOP mention Clinton’s name should be a reminder to vote for Obama, just as Clinton is going to do.
Dick Morris has done it again. I wouldn’t cover this ignorant gasbag if it wasn’t so much damn fun. He has absolutely nothing of substance to say and what he does say is certifiably bonkers.
Last night on the Sean Hannity program on Fox News (not exactly a Mensa gathering either), Hannity introduced his theory that Bill Clinton would be a drag on President Obama’s reelection campaign:
Hannity: You know Bill Clinton better than anybody else. Now here is a guy that I suspect, before all is said and done, is gonna, in his own way, undermine Barack Obama’s reelection chances.
First of all, Morris has not had any relationship with Clinton for sixteen years, since he was fired when it was revealed that he had allowed a toe-sucking prostitute to listen in on conversations with the President. That’s the sort of character that compelled Fox News to hire Morris. In response to Hannity, Morris said this:
Morris: I guarantee you, Sean, based on what I have heard from third parties or I have spoken to that William Jefferson Clinton is going to cast his ballot for Mitt Romney. However, he’s going to open his mouth for Barack Obama because his wife is hostage. They have her under lock and key as secretary of state, and he is scared that Obama will lose and blame him if he undermines Obama. So he will do everything he asks him to do and then he will jab him whenever he can.
Of course. It’s so obvious. Right after Clinton officially nominates Obama at the Democratic convention he’s going to rush off and vote against him. As if denying Obama that one vote will counter all the positive PR his convention speech will produce. Morris thinks that a life-long Democrat is prepared to vote against a Democratic incumbent for president based on what he’s heard from third parties.
The business about Hillary, however, is the truly idiotic part of this. Morris seems to think that making a woman the most powerful diplomat in the world is equivalent to tying her up in the back room of a flop house. And if Clinton is so worried about being blamed for an Obama loss why would tell anyone that he that he is voting for Romney? Particularly anyone who would actually speak to Dick Morris.
The manure spread by Morris is high grade bullshit. And it’s something he does frequently. Take for example his 2008 book “Condi vs. Hillary,” which contained his astute prediction for the 2008 race in the title. That didn’t exactly pan out for him, did it? From the introduction to the book:
{T]here is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is on a virtually uncontested trajectory to win the Democratic nomination and, very likely, the 2008 presidential election. She has no serious opposition in her party […]
The stakes are high. In 2008, no ordinary white male Republican candidate will do. Forget Bill Frist, George Allen, and George Pataki. Hillary would easily beat any of them. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain? Either of them could probably win, but neither will ever be nominated by the Republican Party.
So Morris got the Democratic nominee wrong, despite his conviction that there was “no doubt.” He also got the Republican nominee wrong. And the Republican who Morris said could not be nominated, but would win if he were, was nominated but actually lost. Is there any way he could have been more wrong?
And now Morris delivers that sort of analysis on Fox News. It is perfectly aligned with the low bar for intelligence and reason that Fox sets for their pundits and anchors. And anyone who watches and believes this tripe deserves the howls of ridicule they will receive when they are inevitably proven to be as stupid as Morris et al.
In an exercise of Olympian hypocrisy, Rush Limbaugh, the de facto chairman of the Republican Party, spent much of his radio program today lambasting Democrats who he alleges have gotten off message or, even worse, “endorsed” Mitt Romney. Chairman Rush’s unique and dishonest means of expressing this observation is to say that the offending Democrat was “taken to the woodshed.”
“So it looks like Bill Clinton, ladies and gentlemen, was taken to the woodshed. Bill Clinton was taken to the Cory Booker Memorial Woodshed for endorsing Romney last week. You’ve got to wonder, what is in this woodshed to get so many people to change their tunes so quickly? It’s gotta be a pretty big woodshed. All these Democrats have been taken to the woodshed. In Clinton’s case, it could almost be anything in that woodshed: pictures, stained dresses. The mind boggles.”
Oh boy, is that Rush fella a barrel of laughs, or what? Although, I haven’t figured out exactly what he’s talking about when he says “All these Democrats…” The only ones that Chairman Rush identifies are Clinton and Booker, and neither of them were taken to a woodshed, or anywhere else. They have always been, and continue to be strong supporters of President Obama. Clinton even said that if Romney were elected it would be “a calamity for the country and the world.” I suppose that’s what Chairman Rush considers an endorsement because, on the GOP side, so many of Romney’s supporters have been achingly public about how much they hate him. It was Newt Gingrich who called Romney a “Massachusetts Moderate.” And Rick Perry called him a “Vulture Capitalist.”
But the really striking departure from reality for Chairman Rush is that no one exemplifies the persona of a strongman dictator better than Rush himself. Last year there were several high-ranking GOP leaders who were called to come before their master and grovel for forgiveness. They included Michael Steele, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Darrel Issa, Mark Sanford, Phil Gingrey, and even Sarah Palin, who excused Rush’s use of the word “retard,” so long as it was used against liberals.
Even if what Limbaugh is saying were true, it would not be particularly surprising for the President to express his desire that his surrogates be aligned with his agenda. He is the candidate and the leader of the party. However, it is appallingly inappropriate for a radio loudmouth to make actual politicians cower before him and seek his blessing. Limbaugh may think he’s cute with his “Cory Booker Memorial Woodshed” business, but it’s Limbaugh who invented the concept and still demands that Republicans subject themselves to his dominance or face the “Rush Limbaugh Memorial Waterboard Shed.” And the sad part is that the Republicans so willingly acquiesce to Limbaugh’s authority.
The most frightening thing to a Fox Nationalist must be the countenance of a Clinton. They are still trembling at the very thought of the Big Dog. That’s why they were spooked by rumors that Clinton was plotting some dastardly assault on their beloved Tea Partiers. They featured a headline story lamenting their perilous fate.
That’s right. Bill Clinton is plotting a Tea Party attack. The headline linked to a story on Andrew Breitbart’s hilarious parody of a news web site, BigGovernment.com. But they are deadly serious when they accuse the former president of concocting fiendish schemes aimed at the teatotaling Crusaders:
“Big Government has learned that Clintonistas are plotting a ‘push/pull’ strategy. They plan to identify 7-8 national figures active in the tea party movement and engage in deep opposition research on them. If possible, they will identify one or two they can perhaps ‘turn’, either with money or threats, to create a mole in the movement. The others will be subjected to a full-on smear campaign.”
Imagine that. The Tea Crusaders may be subject to a ghastly attempt to oppose their racist, corporate-funded, circus masquerading as a grassroots movement. The Fox Nationalists and BigGovernees must have gotten the impression somewhere that political activities were never supposed to be criticized or countered.
Even more appalling, Breitbart’s deep opposition research has turned up evidence that Clintonistas might engage in deep opposition research. How dare they? Never mind that Breitbart doesn’t bother to disclose the source of his “evidence.” He doesn’t even cite the ubiquitous “anonymous” source who seems to see everything in Washington. He merely says that he’s “learned” of these aborning plots. And to make matters worse, he’s “learned” that Clinton ally James Carville will be heading up the mission.
Breitbart’s pseudonymous stooge further exclaims his surprise that Clinton would go to bat for Obama. He implies that the President’s animosity toward the Clinton clan ought to have prevented that. Much in the way that it prevented Obama from naming Hillary Clinton his Secretary of State.
Oops…Scratch that. In fact, scratch the whole thing. The fact that Fox Nation is getting its scoops from Breitbart should have been the signal to stop paying attention.
