DeLay: GOP Sticking by Their Man

One has to give it to Republicans, they sure do stick by their man — even when everyone else around’em knows that he’s a no good two timing looser. The Hill reports:

Reps. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), Dave Weldon (R-Fla.) and Bob Ney (R-Ohio) spoke in support of DeLay at yesterday’s morning conference meeting and called on their colleagues to back him.

At a press briefing after the conference meeting, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) dismissed suggestions that leadership or the conference had lost confidence in DeLay.

“I don’t see any wavering of support for the leader,” Blunt said. Speaking at a briefing to tout the Republicans’ legislative victories in the 109th Congress, Blunt said, “The support for the leader is strong.” [Article - April 7, 2005]

In the second to last paragraph of the article The Hill gives an extremely brief summery of DeLay’s alleged corruption:

[T]wo stories are the most recent in a long string of negative reports about the majority leader, many of which link him indirectly to former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under investigation by the Justice Department and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs for his lobbying activities on behalf of two Indian tribes.

Jerome Armstrong of MyDD has more to say on DeLay, and how Bush’s White House may have turned on DeLay, given how the congressman has become a liability.

Hans Blix: Iraq Invasion Over Oil

Here’s something that’ll probably not get much play on our mainstream media:

STOCKHOLM: Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has said he now believed the US-led invasion of Iraq was motivated by oil.

“I did not think so at first. But the US is incredibly dependent on oil,” Swedish news agency TT quoted Mr Blix as saying at a security seminar in Stockholm.

“They wanted to secure oil in case competition on the world market becomes too hard.” [article: AP- April 08, 2005]

Since leaving his post as the UN weapon’s inspector at the time of Bush’s Iraq invasion, Hans Blix has spoken out about how the Bush administration bullied the UN and then proceeded to invaded — even though many in the international community were urging Bush & Co. to let the inspections continue, specially given that there were serious doubts about the continued existence of the WMD which Bush cited as reason for invading Iraq. Of course, recent history has proven Hans Blix to be correct: there were no WMD, Bush & Co. ignored the warnings and proceeded with their war of choice.

Timeline of a Smear

Nothing like seeing the Republican Noise Machine (RNM) at work. Of course, we’ve seen the RNM do its thing before (think of the Swift Boat ads and of all the so-called scandals that we’ve seen in recent years), and we’ve also seen how the mainstream media predictably becomes a lap dog at the hands of the RNM, which is exactly what occurred in the early phase of the Schiavo “GOP Talking Points Memo” fiasco. But, even if one is familiar with the tactics of the RNM, there’s nothing like having a case study to look at; and now, thanks to Media Matters, we have a rundown of the RNM at work, see TIMELINE OF A SMEAR.

On Hyenas and the “GOP Talking Points Memo”

The great Billmon takes Republican shills to the shed over their continued denial of the Schiavo “GOP Talking Points Memo”:

[T]he conservative response has either been to change the subject (always a smart move when you’re dead fucking wrong) or to continue nitpicking the details — i.e. the memo was written by a “low-level” staffer, Martinez is just a freshman dork Senator, not a member of the “leadership,” and (my favorite) even if the memo is real, the MSM couldn’t have been sure it was real when they reported it, so they’re still a bunch of lying liberal SOBs.)

Let’s dispose of these fallacies quickly:

• A Senator’s legal counsel is not a low-level staffer. He or she is usually the senior legislative aide in the office, and, if the Senator is the chairman of a committee or subcommitee, has a great deal of influence there as well.
• Yes, Martinez is a freshman dork Senator, but he’s not just any freshman dork Senator, he’s a former cabinet secretary with very close ties to the Bush family who was specifically recruited to run for Senate by the president’s brain. He was also the chief sponsor of the Schiavo special legislation and the leadership’s designated point man in the Schiavo debate.
• The original stories — both in the Post and on ABC News — simply reported that the talking points where being circulated among Senate Republicans, which, as we later found out, was confirmed by GOP sources. The stories made no specific claims about the origins of the memo. Now that we know exactly where it came from, the original reporting seems to have been confirmed in all particulars. It’s true that Mike Allen later wrote a story claiming the memo had been distributed by Senate GOP “leadership,” which gets us back to debating who is or is not in the leadership. To which, my considered and thoughtful response to the right is: “Boo fucking hoo. You lost. Now get over it.”

Billmon’s entire post is worth reading, as he unmasks these Republican shills with great style and gusto.

“GOP Talking Points Memo” on Mrs. Schiavo’s Tragedy

The night that elected Republicans decided to intervene in the PRIVATE/PERSONAL matter of Mrs. Schiavo’s end-of-life decision, Republicans distributed a talking points memo citing the political advantages that Mrs. Schiavo’s tragedy presented for the Republican party’s efforts to mobilize their fundamentalists base:

Of course, considering the tragic magnitude of the situation and the equally momentous miscalculation by Congressional Republicans, including President Bush, in choosing to intervene in the private family matter, their blatant political pandering backfired. Accordingly, Republican supporters immediately moved to question the authenticity of the “GOP talking points memo” on the Schiavo tragedy. As always, Republicans were successful in getting some mainstream media shills to go along with the Republican assertion that the memo was a fake. Now, however, the author of the memo has stepped forward and, surprise, surprise: the memo was written by a Republican lawyer working out of Senator Mel Martinez’s (Republican – Fla.) office.

The Washington Post has the story:

The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.

Brian Darling, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said. [Article - Thursday, April 7, 2005]

For more on the “GOP talking points memo,” which Republican’s circulated hoping exploit the Schiavo tragedy, see Jerome Armstrong’s post on MyDD.