Smear
From Bwtm
Alas, this is the classic course a smear campaign takes. A group throws up accusations that, when subjected to scrutiny, prove to be full of holes. Supporters of the attack campaign say that, well, those charges may not pan out, but there must be something here. Let's just keep attacking.
smear campaign. Explain to me my transgressions that I can improve. Interact with me so that I can understand your attacks on me. How does isolating me make the company stronger? What are you gaining by your behavior?
scorched earth policy.
Who are you fighting? What will you have when the war is over?
Is it any wonder that Mr. X is ‘fighting’ for his company? The mentality of dishonesty, secrecy, back stabbing, smut and ignorance is typical of the neo-con fascist dysfunctional existence. Why are you fighting? What are you fighting? What ever happened to cooperation, team work, working together?
Hillary Bashing (and Bill)
Falwell Says Faithful Fear Clinton More Than Devil
The evangelical leader tells a conference that the New York senator will mobilize his base like no one else if she runs for president.
September 24, 2006 WASHINGTON — Nothing will motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election more than a Democratic nominee named Hillary Rodham Clinton — not even a run by the devil himself.
That was the sentiment expressed by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the longtime evangelical icon and founder of the once-powerful Moral Majority, during private remarks Friday to church pastors and activists as part of the Values Voter Summit hosted this weekend by the country's leading Christian conservatives.
A recording of Falwell's comments was obtained by The Times, and his remarks were confirmed by eyewitnesses.
"I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate," Falwell said, according to the recording. "She has $300 million so far. But I hope she's the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton."
Cheers and laughter filled the room as Falwell continued: "If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't."
At that moment in the recording, Falwell's voice is drowned out by hoots of approval. But two in attendance, including a Falwell staff member, confirmed that Falwell said that even Lucifer, the fallen angel synonymous with Satan in Christian theology, would not mobilize his followers as much as the New York senator and former first lady would.
One critic who has been observing the conference said Saturday that Falwell's words offered a rare glimpse into how religious conservative leaders were planning to inflame opposition to the Democrats with below-the-radar messages that are often more scorching than the ones showing up in public.
"He was calling Hillary Clinton a demonic figure and openly arguing that God is a Republican," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "It's hard to know whether people thought he was joking or serious, but once you start using religious imagery and invoking a politician in this way, it's not funny. A lot of people who listen to him do think that she's a dark force of evil in America."
Such controversy is nothing new for Falwell, who once described Islam's prophet Muhammad as a terrorist and said that abortion providers, feminists, gays and lesbians were to blame for the 9/11 attacks.
An aide to Falwell said Saturday that the Lucifer reference was an "off the cuff" comment and that Falwell "had no intentions of demonizing her."
Smears of liberals
Concert rocks the Bush vote
04 August, 2006 CHULA VISTA – The Sean Hannity Freedom Concert filled Coors Amphitheatre on Wednesday night with country music, patriotic appeals and political commentary that covered the entire spectrum.
Everything from the right to the far right.
“The liberals don't hold rallies like this, do they?” one of the featured guests, radio talk show host Mark Levin, asked the audience of 13,000. “We raise the flag. They burn the flag.”
Welcome to the conservative Woodstock. Since 2003, Hannity, a Fox News Channel and radio commentator, has hosted an annual “Freedom Concert” in New Jersey. The format is a tried-and-true blend of country performers (Hank Williams Jr., Lee Greenwood) and red-state celebrities (Oliver North, Ann Coulter, Tom DeLay).
NANCEE E. LEWIS / Union-Tribune
Mt. Soledad Cross Case
Judge in cross case praised by colleagues, Liberal and activist labels called unfair
In a May 10 letter to President Bush asking for help to preserve the cross, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, took a broad swipe at “liberal judges” who have ruled on the case over the years.
Without naming names, Hunter lamented that “liberal judges have continued to rely on their interpretation of the California State Constitution to justify the removal of this historic memorial.”
Thompson has also become a target of the invective that litters blogs and Web sites discussing the case.
“A liberal activist judge has ordered the city of San Diego to remove a cross from Mt. Soledad or be fined $5,000 a day,” blared a May 5 posting from the conservative American Family Association.
Thompson is many things, but those who know him – former law clerks, lawyers who have been in his courtroom, former colleagues – say there are two things he most certainly is not: liberal or activist.
Instead they describe the judge – now 76 and on senior status with the court – as a rock-ribbed, serious-minded jurist with a reputation for handing down tough sentences in criminal cases.
Thompson was nominated to the bench in June 1970 by President Nixon, hardly a noted liberal.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060703/news_1n3thompson.html
It's a memorial for those who can pay
We need to put our efforts and money into improving the memorial. The private association receives no government funding, depending instead on membership donations and the purchase of plaques. Corporations will not donate if they think their money will go to legal costs so construction budgets have been tight for years.
The park needs more hand railings, parklike landscaping and flood lighting for night-time hours "so the veterans will be in perpetual light, shining on their service to their country" a docent told me. It also needs an on-site weatherproof, vandal-proof system for locating a veteran's plaque.
There are also plans to install additional walls to honor even more veterans, but that's impossible to do if the cross' future is in legal limbo.
And let's pass the hat for another commemorative statue that represents all our veterans' service to our country.
The plaques will last 300 years. Litigation shouldn't.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/07/03/opinion/chatfield/21_41_287_2_06.txt
Pelosi’ll gitcha if you don’t watch out!
September 20, 2006 TERRE HAUTE — Despite what I understand about the sausage-making nature of politics (you don’t want to watch what goes on in the process), it is weird to see a woman I actually know portrayed as the antichrist and a city in which I lived for three decades as the gateway to hell.
But those nightmare visions are the theme of a Republican ad campaign that takes aim at U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her city.
“San Francisco values don’t belong in Indiana,” says an anti-Brad Ellsworth mailer with the Golden Gate Bridge in the middle of a Hoosier farm. “…a vote for the Democrats is a vote to give San Francisco more power,” says the Indiana Republican Party chair.
The last time I talked to Pelosi was this past spring in the basement of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in San Francisco. The House minority leader and her husband were among several hundred people who’d gathered for a fund-raising dinner for a homeless charity organization that was founded a few years ago by film director Francis Ford Coppola.
Paul Pelosi was eyeing a candy-apple red Vespa that would be auctioned off for the charity. Nancy, dressed like all the guests in casual clothes, kiddingly reminded him he already has one of the classic Italian scooters.
She had given up trying to finish her pasta dinner as a steady parade of visitors — most of them friends — plunked down next to her to talk about San Francisco, Washington, their families, the homeless, the economy, Iraq and politics. As in my short catch-up with her, she asked more questions about each visitor’s welfare than she offered about her own work and worries.
Spending just a little “real time” with her reminded me what a remarkable human being Pelosi is. Born into a political family in Baltimore, she nevertheless served as a stay-at-home mother until her five children were old enough to allow Mom to pursue outside interests. Late start notwithstanding, she made her way from mere campaign worker to the first female member of Congress to be selected as her party’s house leader.
She and Paul have been married for 43 years and have grandchildren, yet there is a definite electricity between them that conveys “still best friends and lovers — after all these years.”
The encounter also reconnected me to a reality with which most of us lose touch, whatever our party affiliation: Our political leaders are people, not laminated cardboard cut-outs nor incarnations of Satan or Jesus.
http://www.tribstar.com/news/local_story_262225139.html?keyword=secondarystory
McCain Primary Election
Swiftboat Veterans Against Truth
Murtha Smear Campain
Why Do Republicans Hate America's Veterans?
Martha Alito fled weeping: Senate's Democrats smeared
Steve Schmidt displayed his uncanny political talent -- the ability to launch "rapid response" -- when Martha Alito fled weeping after senators cast her husband, Judge Samuel Alito, as a closet racist during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Working the phones, the lawmakers and the media, Schmidt, the administration's point man on Alito's confirmation, lamented that she had been pushed to the limit by the Senate's Democrats.
"The American people who saw this hearing today are going to be troubled by some of the tactics of the Democrats, who I think didn't focus on law, didn't want to have an uplifting debate -- but made a decision to try to attack Judge Alito and tear him down in the most unfair way, Schmidt, 35, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in one live interview.
Republicans -- even some frustrated Democratic opponents -- shook their heads in admiration. Thanks to Schmidt's smear, the incident ballooned into front page headlines and photos sympathetic to the judge.
Governor's team adds former Rove protege, Political 'artillery shell' Steve Schmidt joins re-election effort
"I love California, Schmidt said. "It's a great privilege to be able to come back and work for a visionary governor who has restored both opportunity and a sense of direction to the state.
Abramoff-Reid
AP continued to mislead on purported Abramoff-Reid link Summary: Two days after an Associated Press report ignored crucial details that undermine a link between Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a follow-up AP article misrepresented new evidence, which the AP suggested provides further confirmation of such a link but, in fact, casts additional doubt on whether such a link exists.
Bush bashing by teacher spurs threats
Bennish said he invites opposing views, as long as students can back up their arguments.
He said no parents -- including the family of the student who recorded the lecture -- have complained to him, and all the students' parents had seen his syllabus and that school officials had approved it.
"I think what I've learned is the level of polarization that America is facing right now," he said. "There seems to be a growing intolerance for anybody that would dare to articulate (contrary) ideas to what is ... mainstream. It's very discouraging and as a society and as a country, we need to grapple with these issues.
"I certainly think this is a very scary precedent and this is something that could inhibit teachers from actively discussing these types of issues for fear they will be the next person to be broadcast" in the media.
Bennish has weathered the criticism well for a teacher in the profession for just six years, said his mother, Jan, who teaches at Harlan Elementary.
"I'm absolutely amazed at how well he's able to handle this," she said. "I think Jay's always been very mature."
Jay Bennish's lawyer, David Lane, said he expects the school district to make a decision on his client's future on Thursday.
"Aside from right-wing talk radio, he's got a lot of support," Lane said. "He's got some of the highest student evaluations of any teacher."
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/SCHOOLS/603080395
