By Beauty Damned

Casualty Vampires

An excerpt from a great post over at Cul's:

Greenfield disagrees. "McCarthy won for about two years, and then the tide turned," he says. Nowadays, it would happen even faster, what with blogs and all. "When somebody starts really playing with the facts, there are so many people on every side of the issue ready to jump on you," he says. "Call me an optimist."

I call him an idiot. This is a country where 42 percent of Americans believe Saddam Hussein was behind the 9-11 attacks, where telling lies before the truth has time to put on its shoes—lies that won't have time to get exposed before the votes, whether the electorate's or the Supreme Court's, get counted—has been Karl Rove's modus operandi since he stole the election for chairman of the College Republicans National Federation in 1973. Punks like Greenfield are Rove's best friend: He's already decided in advance that both sides are equally bad.

Both sides are not equally bad, and any reporters who don't recognize that conservatism's very core has become shot through with a culture of mendacity should turn in their press badge. For example: The former head of the Arizona Republican Party and Christian Coalition, Nathan Sproul, in an operation paid for by the Republican National Committee, has set up "voter outreach" efforts that register Democrats, then allegedly shred their registration forms.

It used to be that we could count on the conscience of conservatives to protect our democratic institutions. The modern conservative movement was founded by idealists, who defined themselves in opposition to the one man most indelibly associated with the anything-to-win, image-is-everything excesses of the Republican Party's moderate wing, Richard Nixon.

I think it's amazing that I've heard even democrats speak almost wistfully of republican president Reagan and even George H.W. Bush! I really think that says something about how scary the Bush administration is. About how badly these people are sabotaging the founding principles of this country and all that is sacred in democracy. And they do it for the love of greed and power. Is it a conspiracy theory? No. It's not. It's a real problem. One that is as crucial that we recognize and deal with as everything from terrorism to health care. Maybe it's a little too abstract for some, or too scary; the idea that our government, and primarily, our highest leaders could be as nefarious and deceitful and self serving as I and so many others say they are.

But this guy says it best.

Posted by Maria at October 20, 2004 08:23 PM