POT! KETTLE! POT! KETTLE!

What a bunch of assholes. Both parties. Complete and total retrograde Darwinism. This is the kind of thing which encourages me to hold all elected officials in total and utter contempt even when I know intellectually that they can't all be such useless, hypocritical pricks.

And this incident further illustrates to me why there is no difference between one political party and another, or one elected parasite and another. They are all interchangeable. This entire incident is based on deception from the get go, and yet each side is claiming -- in some kind of schizophrenic, double-think apopleptic fit -- that they have not done and are not doing anything that is not legal and ethical.

No wonder Ambrose Bierce disappeared himself. I wonder if he has room for me.

On 22 Jul, the First Amendment Center had an article about an attack ad that slams King George the Pathetic for misleading Americans about Iraq weapons programs. The ad began airing in Wisconsin just before 2400 hours on 21 Jul. It was paid for by the Democratic National Committee. The Republican National Committee attempted to censor the ads, snivelling to the local television stations that the ad is "deliberately false and misleading." They probably have a point given that the ads don't use all of the now infamous sixteen words. It only uses ten of them: "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The six words that were specifically dropped are, "The British government has learned that". This, of course has the effect of creating a false context. As far as I'm concerned, King George himself had to have known that the Niger documentary evidence was a forgery. From all accounts, that determination had been made a full year before he used it to justify a war of agression against Iraq. And the State of the Union address was apparently the second time he had cited the claim about Hussein seeking fissionables. The first time was supposedly in October 2002. And he used the claim in such a fashion as to deliberately create an atmosphere of panic in congress and the almighty Beknighted States of Amerika. I had no doubt from the start that he was lieing about Nuclear/Biological/Chemical Warfare weapons in Iraq[01] and about the Al-Qaida/Hussein connection.

Despite what could only have been deliberate, fearmongering propaganda, the Republican party, as of July 2003, had taken the position that the statement was technically correct. And the Republican party is screaming about the Democratic party being deceptive? What a bunch of political sluts.

Unfortunately, this gohd-offal mess doesn't begin with the sixteen words, or even with 11 Sep 2001. Way back when King George was still just a prince in waiting, the U.S. Supreme Court had to rule on the election process. This generated some rather acerbic comments about his being the President-Select. A term I've used myself. In reality, Bush does seem to have carried Florida on votes. Yet, he is still the President-Select. The thing is: he wasn't selected by the Supreme Court; he was selected by the corporate press. And it is such a vile story of such a reprehensible election process that one is tempted to expand the old axiom to read: one should never watch either sausages, laws, or presidents being made.

In their book about the role the press played in the 2000 presidential campaign, Jamieson and Waldman catalogue the nauseous details of how American public sentiment was manipulated by the media[02]. During the campaign, Dole and Bush were dubbed Pinnochio and Dumbo. Dole was slammed for being a two-faced, deceptive weasel. Almost everything he said or did was singled out for criticism as self-aggrandizing. Bush was portrayed as being really short in the brains department, but when he engaged in the same kind of self-aggrandizing Dole did, he got away with it.

And after the World Trade Center tragedy, the corporate press continued the charade. The reporting about Bush was blatantly partisan and uncritical. Indeed, the same corporate press that is so quick to scream about free press violations was quick to scream "unAmerican!" and to censor those who demanded rationality and a critical review of the evidence.

Now, I don't think the U.S. corporate press did what they did to deliberately influence the outcome of the election, I think they were just acting in blatant ignorance of the Physics principle of Observer Bias[03]. That does not obviate or excuse the part they played in the campaign, however, that only explains it. The Republican party on the other hand did deliberately act with a level of mendacity and deception at least equal to that of the Democratic campaign, and by some accounts a great deal more[04]. Bush, for instance, specifically lied about his service with the National Guard. He said that he flew for several years instead of months, and never mentioned that he had legally deserted by simply not showing up for duty when he was transferred to a new unit.

And now the Democratic party is getting as down and dirty as the Republican National Guard (sic), and the Republicans are whining that it isn't fair or right for the Democrats to do that; because they are employing the same tactics the Republican party does. Off the top of my head, I would say that this is a clear and present case of freedom for me but not for thee, and I would wax rude and ineloquent about the improbable ancestries and eccentric mental faculties of the slobbering idiots. As it is, I am so thoroughly disgusted with the whole kit and kaboodle of the self-righteous, hypocritical, dung-minded, auto-fellating, coprophagic, slack-jawed yokels I can't hardly think straight.

Here's a clue for the Demogogic Party. If what you published about Bush had been about a private citizen instead, you would have committed a slander and left yourself open to a libel suit in that deliberately misrepresenting information necessarily stems from a reckless disregard for the truth. That means that what you did was unethical, at least. Although I am equally certain that Bush and his lackey's don't have a court case because he is an elected officious (sic), and trash like you lot enjoy the least amount of protection from free speech restrictions because you are public officious (sic). Secondly, you cannot be of higher moral fiber than your opponents/enemies/detractors/whatever when you engage in the same kind of mudslinging in which they engage. You are of exactly the same moral fiber. In this case: not much of a fiber at all.

Here's a clue for the Republican National Guard of Amerika. Keep your goddamned, grubby paws off of my mind you stinking apes. Your knee-jerk reactionary attempt to censor is pretty much what I expect from you cretins, and it's not because you are political conservatives so much but because you are bootlicking lackeys and sycophants to a raving ideologue.

The only person who is right in this affair is Tom Bier, station manager of CBS affiliate WISC, which aired the ad. He is reported to have said that the station decided the spot was no worse than any other political ad, and is quoted as saying, "We just see it's part of a good, robust First Amendment issue that, frankly, the public is very aware of".

As for you, gentle reader: always, always, always! -- keep in mind the words of I.F. Stone: The first rule of journalism is that governments lie. All governments lie.

That means both sides of the house/senate/parties/in power or out/whatever.

As for me, I shall continue to hold my very favourite prejudice near and dear to me to warm the cockles of my heart: They're all liein', cheatin', thievin' scum.

FOOTNOTES:

[01] Strictly speaking, Weapons of Mass Destruction as used in the cultural context of the Bush administration, is a misnomer, and I have no doubt the term was deliberately selected by some spin doctor in an effort to increase the atmosphere of tension and fear in Amerika. The purpose of NBC warfare is not necessarily to destroy; sometimes the purpose is to incapacitate the enemy, to deny terrain to the enemy, or to require the enemy to devote resources to someplace besides the war zone. If an area is rendered sufficiently hazardous that the enemy has to wear NBCW suits, the effectiveness of the troops securing the area can be sharply reduced. Consider for instance that American troops in the Iraq desert could spend no more than four hours at a time suited up. That would put a severe crimp on operations in a contaminated area. Aside from this, biological and chemical weapons simply cannot be used to destroy materiel, although lethal agents can be used to kill a large number of personnel. The hardware (trucks, tanks, battleships) could still be recovered and decontaminated, however, or military targets such as oil refineries can then be captured intact.
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[02] The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories That Shape the Political World
Kathleen Hall Jamieson & Paul Waldman -2003
ISBN 0-19-515277-8
Dewey # 071.3 J323P
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[03] Observer bias has nothing to do with the personal prejudices of the person watching an event. It simply means that the presence of an observer changes the event. Given a tree that falls in the middle of the forest and no one is there to here it, and the same tree in an alternate universe with a single person there to observe the event, one who is completely deaf, the two events are not equal. Even if the observer is as completely passive as it is possible to be, his presence means that the event is different from the unobserved event. In the case of journalism, reporters are too often active participants, although I will grant that their participation is mostly unwitting.

(Except in the case of pundits, whose participation is largely witless.)
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[04] Consider this extract from The Press Effect, page 120:

Across the five weeks of Sunday shows, the programs implied that Bush might be "stealing" the election three times while making that assumption about Gore on twelve occasions. Some form of the word "steal" was used to refer to Gore's efforts six times and Bush's twice. The extent to which the Republican rhetoric of theft had put that charge into play was evident when Sam Donaldson noted on November 26, "People are saying this election's being stolen by the Democrats--isn't that inflamed rhetoric? Does that help the process?"

In our post-election survey, we asked Americans whether they thought each candidate was trying to steal the election. The results show how people embrace the positions of the partisans with whom they agree. Consistent with the Bush take, 75% of those who had voted for the Texas governor agreed that Gore was trying to steal the election. Only 9% of Democrats concurred. On the other hand, with Gore representatives not making a similar charge against Bush, only 43% of those who voted for Gore responded that Bush was trying to steal the election.

Here too, the Sunday shows tipped toward the Bush spin with the hypotheticals to the Gore campaign, phrased as "If Bush is successful, will you concede?" By contrast, the Bush stand-ins were asked in effect, "If Gore is succesful, would it be a crime?" So, for example, on Meet the Press on November 12, Tim Russert asked Bush spokesperson Jim Baker, "If, in fact, Florida is eventually awarded to Vice President Gore, will there be a sense in the Bush campaign and thoughtout the country the election as stolen?" On December 3, he asked Cheney, "Do you think Al Gore's a sore loser?" That same week Donaldson on ABC closed an interview with Lieberman by saying, "Excuse me, we've got to go and yet you've made it clear that you're not prepared to say that you'll accept the result." A Bush victory was assumed to be legitimate, while a Gore victory was assumed to be questionable.