Tim,
W/R/T the flap over Senator Murray's statements, I'm recalling that this is covered in Rules #9, #10 and #11 in the arsenal of Republican Lies:
Message 18426569
To wit:
9) Find the weak spot: Republicans are constantly perusing all public comments by democrats to find just one sentence that they can pull out of context and quote to make the democrat sound duplicitous.
10) Make him explain it: The American media crowd being what they are, they can be manipulated. With one well-placed sentence, a politician can cause his opponent to be hounded many times over by reporters asking him to explain it. Or worse, the opponent will feel it necessary to explain it over and over. It's not so much about "make him deny it", Richard Nixon’s favorite trick, but simply making the opponent spend all of his time explaining why the lies are not true instead of explaining his positions. The lies do double duty – first, they make the Democrats look bad, and second they make the Democrats waste all their time explaining how the Republican claims are false.
11) Make him deny it: Like a good game of chess, the aim of political debate is to quickly put the opponent on the defensive, and keep him there so that all of his energy is spent defending himself and refuting your statements, instead of making his points. When Republicans clearly state their policies, people vote for the Democrats instead. The Democrats must show the Republicans for what they are. A good example is "compassionate Conservatism" – an oxymoron. Republicans, when faced with a damning accusation or a withering piece of logic, will not debate it. Instead, they'll sling mud. Their goal, in any forum of debate, is not to let the listeners know the truth, but to destroy the opposition by any means possible. The truth takes a backseat to that because once the opposition is destroyed there's no need to explain the facts.
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Basically, the Republicans are scumbags, but they get away with it because of a cowardly and craven media, a dimmed down public and a Democratic Party that isn't willing to bite the head off the pustules who pose as pontificators for the Prince of Death, George Bush.
What Murray said is fact. What the Republicans made of it is a disgusting reflection on the utter lack of moral standards held by these sleazebags, showing us how despicable they truly are.
-Ray |
