As we’ve noted, Republican Party has had a good measure of success in getting cut and paste GOP hack phrases planted in newspapers countrywide in the guise of letters to the editor fraudulently signed by Republican Party members as their own. Possibly reacting to this tactic, I see that the Democratic Party quietly started offering its own canned text to be sent to newspaper editors. The DNC offers up such sparkling gems as these:
The Democratic Party will end the Republican culture of corruption and restore a government as good as the people it serves.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and VP Cheney’s Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter†Libby have acknowledged outing Plame to members of the media in an effort to intimidate her husband and silence his criticism of the White House’s handling of the sensitive intelligence data in the run-up to the war in Iraq. This is a classic smear tactic of the Bush White House.
Will the president keep his word, or is this just more hollow rhetoric from a President who is more interested in protecting his political operatives than his CIA operatives.
Now it’s time for the President to step up and put the needs of the American people ahead of profits for his pals in big oil.
The Republican Congress, in a political stunt designed to cater to the far right wing base of their party, authorized a border fence 700 miles long along a border that spans more than 2,000 miles, and even then appropriated only a small portion of the billions needed to build that fence.
Then there’s this piece of press release fodder:
President Bush has utterly failed in his responsibility as Commander-in-Chief. He sent our troops to war without the proper equipment, based on flawed, inaccurate intelligence and no plan for success. Too many lives are being lost and too little progress is being made because of this President’s failures as costs continue to escalate and Iraq becomes the international training ground of choice for terrorists. Our troops, our allies and the American people deserve better.
The President can’t make up for the mistakes that led us to war in Iraq. But he can stop ignoring the facts, ignoring the experts and ignoring the legitimate concerns of the American people.
He needs to answer the question that every American is struggling to answer: What is our plan to succeed in Iraq and at what point can our troops begin to return home? And he needs to do that sooner rather than later, because our troops aren’t getting what they deserve from this Administration.
Well, golly gee whizzikers, but look what showed up as a letter to the editor of The Monitor of McAllen, Texas on the 22nd of last month?
To the editor:
President Bush has utterly failed in his responsibility as commander in chief. He sent our troops to war without the proper equipment, based on flawed, inaccurate intelligence and no plan for success. Too many lives are being lost and too little progress is being made because of this president’s failures as costs continue to escalate and Iraq becomes the international training ground of choice for terrorists. Our troops, our allies and the American people deserve better.
The president can’t make up for the mistakes that led us to war in Iraq. But he can stop ignoring the facts, ignoring the experts and ignoring the legitimate concerns of the American people.
He needs to answer the question that every American is struggling to answer: What is our plan to succeed in Iraq and at what point can our troops begin to return home? And he needs to do that sooner rather than later, because our troops aren’t getting what they deserve from this administration.
Alan Fiszman,
McAllen
Then there’s Paul Roden, an organizer with Democracy For America, who got “his” letter to the editor published in the Trenton Times on April 9, 2006:
The president cannot make up for the mistakes that led us to war in Iraq. But he can stop ignoring the facts, ignoring the experts and ignoring the legitimate concerns of Americans. President Bush has utterly failed in his responsibility as commander in chief. He sent our troops without proper equipment into a war that was based on flawed, inaccurate intelligence and for which he had no plan for success. Too many lives are being lost and too little progress is being made because of this president’s failures, while costs continue to escalate and Iraq becomes the international training ground of choice for terrorists. Our troops, our allies and the American people deserve better.
PAUL RODEN
And this letter appeared in The Joliet Herald News on March 26, 2006:
President Bush has utterly failed in his responsibility as commander in chief. He sent our troops to war without the proper equipment, based on flawed, inaccurate intelligence and with no plan for success. Too many lives are being lost and too little progress is being made because of this president’s failures as costs continue to escalate and Iraq becomes the international training ground of choice for terrorists. Our troops, our allies and the American people deserve better.
Steve Tisza
New Lenox
What’s wrong, Mr. Fiszman, Mr. Roden and Mr. Tisza? Can’t you think for yourself? If you really have such strongly principled opposition to the war in Iraq, can’t you come up with your own words to describe them?
And to the Democratic Party: what a disappointment. You tell your members that you stand for something better than the Republicans. But this is the same old processed, copied, fraudulent crap; it’s just promoting the other team. If you want Americans to buy your new idealistic-sounding line of speech, you’ll have to follow through and remove the plagiarism machine from your political factory.
Well, the shine’s coming off the brass right quick, eh? Still chuckin’ eggs at a third party? This is what we’re stuck with. Why can’t we imagine our way out of this? Is it because we’re entirely too independent now? We can’t agree on much of anything and will put up with just about anything (just look at our present dictatorship and the huge non-response of Amerikkka). I heard a great old song this morning on public radio Talk Talk by the group with the same name. Are we too lazy, too distracted? What has happened to us as a country? Talk about going off the tracks, the whole planet’s on a collision course for catastrophe and we’re worried about bullshit like our immigration policy, whistling in the dark that civilization will keep it together long enough for ME (each individual) to escape or make it. The whole illusion is false. We’ve become toxic to the planet, and we’re all “how long you think we got til the shit hits the fan”, like outta some ol’ gangster flick. What a joke life has become, and we’re the butt of the joke!
shameful behavior, Dems. Shameful.
Handing rank and file party members canned talking points is one more way the major parties have of saying: We don’t care what you have to say, we just want your name.
And shame on the press, too.
Outing this stuff is one way the press can prove they’re not lapdogs to vested interests.
Then again, not BEING lapdogs for vested interests might help prove they’re not lapdogs for vested interests.
Duh! I’m a editur at a noosepapur. But, duh! I’m to stoopid to use a search engine to check for plajurism! Er!
Thanks for having the integrity to expose this.
Well, if I had started reading your stuff earlier, I probably wouldn’t have argued as much about the copy and paste letters Unity08 was trying. I only say “as much” because there were about 3 posts about the Unity08 “copy-and-paste letters”…but yeah…
Nice post.