Wednesday, January 26, 2005

The House of Cards that Rove Built

...is starting to slowly fall under it's own weight. Too bad it started a few months to late:
  • The president's approval rating continues to plummet
  • The war effort in Iraq is becoming increasingly unpopular
  • The upcoming Iraqi election has little hope of producing a positive result
  • They are attempting to install a new attorney general who puts the American troops at risk by legally arguing for the use of torture, and risks being disbarred for lying to the senate to cover for George W. Bush. Every day that passes, the effort to stop the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales gains momentum
  • The neoconservative plan for privatizing social security is rapidly losing momentum, and appears to be headed for a nose dive
  • The Democratic party, generally known for wishing to avoid direct confrontation, has developed a backbone, led by the brazen resolve of Senator Barbara Boxer.
and now this -->

In an email update received from David Brock at mediamatters.org earlier today:

I am writing to bring to your attention a report in the January 26 edition of The Washington Post that conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher was paid $21,500 by the U.S. government to promote a Bush administration proposal intended to promote marriage.

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Remember the turmoil over RatherGate? The guy makes one mistake, and we're still hearing about it on the front page of news FOUR MONTHS LATER.

Compare this to the Armstrong Williams story. The Bush Administration is caught red-handed using taxpayer money to support official government-sponsored, taxpayer-funded, state propaganda. Where is the outrage?

You know that this is the fourth time that this administration has been caught paying partisan hacks posing as journalists to pass off the Bush political doctrine as independent news.

It started with Karen Ryan - , with Video News Releases passed off as legitimate news broadcasts, promoting the Bush Medicare Bill, The No Child Left Behind Act, and Drug Control Policy.

Next up was the Armstrong Williams fiasco. This man was paid $240,000 of taxpayer money to publicly support to No Child Left Behind Act. After getting caught, Armstrong Williams stated on record that his case was only the tip of the iceberg.

In another email update from mediamatters.org: Weekly Standard editor William Kristol lauded President George W. Bush's inauguration speech as "powerful," "impressive," and "historic," both in an article for the January 31 print edition of The Weekly Standard and as a FOX News political contributor during FOX's live coverage of Inauguration Day. Washington Post columnist and FOX News contributor Charles Krauthammer, also during FOX News' live Inauguration Day coverage, called Bush's speech "revolutionary" and compared it to former President John F. Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address. But Kristol and Krauthammer were consultants for Bush's speech -- a fact that neither disclosed.

And now, we find out that Maggie Gallagher is being paid by the Bush Administration to promote the Bush Agenda. This is a quote taken from Gallagher's website, maggieGallagher.com:

"Polygamy is not worse than gay marriage, it is better," she wrote. "At least polygamy, for all its ugly defects, is an attempt to secure stable mother-father families for children."

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Remember, as Armstrong Williams stated, "This is only the tip of the iceberg". If that is true, this could be the beginning of the end for the Bush administration. The neocons are already on the ropes. If not for lying for the motivations to go to war; if not for ignoring Geneva conventions and condoning torture; if not for disenfranchising black voters in the national election; if not for all the other cheating and lying wrought on the American public for political gain -- the Bush Administration must be held accountable for this.

If this is only the tip of the iceberg -- the truth will come out. It may take a while, but there are people working on this. Leading the effort on this cause in the blogosphere is the No Pundit Left Behind Project, started by a few members of the website, Daily Kos. This is a group of volunteers doing their part to attempt to restore integrity and respect, if that is possible, to the mainstream media of America. For your part, there are a few things you can do. Contact your local representative - send off an email - let them know that you are upset about this issue - that you will not stand idle and allow the neoconservatives to control the airwaves and political discourse of this country through unethical means. This is an overt effort to produce state propaganda, and is one step removed from a true Orwellian society.

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