January 8, 2004

sometimes i drive out to topanga park my car in the sand

Manufactured Outrage: The Whining Never Ends:

excerpts:

"Key in the Republicans' tactic was the technique of 'manufactured outrage.' Remember the righteous anger of Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston and Newt Gingrich during the failed impeachment? Well, you can't possibly describe it as anything other than manufactured outrage - because while they were railing about how Clinton's conduct was rending the very fabric of our society and threatening the existence of our nation, every one of them was practicing the exact same conduct. Newtie was, to put it coarsely, bending his secretary over the desk. Hyde had wrecked his share of marriages by that time (of course it was, in his description, a 'youthful indiscretion' - if you can count age 40 as anything vaguely resembling 'youth'). And Livingston was engaging in conduct so potentially embarrassing and so deviate, that he resigned as Speaker of the House rather than have his personal sexual proclivities revealed.

"But that's all in the past. There's a whole new - and even more bogus - form of manufactured outrage being practiced by today's Republicans, and it's proof that they are beyond shame and more than willing to do anything to win. Case in point - MoveOn's 'Bush In 30 Seconds' ad competition, the Bush family's connection to and financial support of Nazi Germany, and Ed Gillespie's efforts to conflate the two.

"Prescott Bush's connection to the Hitler's Germany is a matter of public record. Last year, Miami reporter John Buchanan went to the National Archives in Washington and walked out with literally hundreds of documents linking Prescott Bush to financial dealings with the Nazis, both before and during World War II. This is fact. The National Archives do not make stuff up. The archivist who supplied Buchanan with the Bush-Nazi documents said he would stake his career on the veracity of the documents, and while Republicans whined like babies over Buchanan's three-part series in the New Hampshire Gazette, not a one of them disputed any of the charges raised in the series. "
...

"MoveOn has nothing to do with the 'Bush Is Not A Nazi.' It is not a finalist in the competition. It was never even entered in the contest. But of course, that doesn't stop crybabies like York and Drudge, who wake up every morning yearning for something to be shocked and appalled and outraged about. And if they can smear TBTM and MoveOn at the same time, so much the better. But their outrage, and the outrage of that big whining baby Ed Gillespie, tells me something.

"They are all afraid of liberals who stand up to them. Each and every one of them are scared to death of people like us.

"Gillespie has become accustomed to dealing with Beltway Democrats, who roll over and pee on themselves on his command to show how 'bi-partisan' they are. Gillespie is used to Democrats who go along to get along.

"And he, and Drudge and York and all the slime in the swamp of right-Wing Hate Radio are all coming to the same realization - that people like us, and web sites like TBTM and MoveOn, are anything but pee-on-yourself Democrats. and it scares them like they've never been scared in their lives.

"I'm sure that Ed and Byron and Drudge, were they to read this, would cluck their tongues and shake their heads and make some remark about how uncivil and impolite and downright rude we are, and right on cue, they'd all be outraged and appalled and shocked. Like I said at the top of this article, they can dish it out, but they cannot take it. And where they have come to expect Democrats in the past to be remorseful and regretful and apologetic, Symbolman and I - and thousands of other like-minded sites and blogs - have a slightly different message instead.

"We're fighting back this year. You won't go unchallenged any longer. We don't care how outraged or shocked or appalled you are, not any more.

"To put it in terms you're more familiar with - get over it."

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