Some of the Wild, Desperate Themes 'n' Memes put forward by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity in their wild flailing at the Traitorgate story:

by Robert Dobbs

OpEdNews.Com 
First, Rush's Ramblings (September 30, 2003)

RL said Wilson's wife's identity was not really a secret.

RL said Wilson is "not pro-American policy".

RL says Wilson is a "Clinton administration figure", ignoring his service for Bush Daddy, and Reagan.

Says Wilson has an "Anti-American bias".

Around 10:50 am, rush makes this incredible statement:
"I think, compared to the Lewinsky affair, that there is a real sense of proportion missing." And by that, he was saying that this is a much less important matter than Lewinsky.

This is a non-story.

"This non-story, put forward by Bush-Haters..."

RL says people who are focusing on this story have "made the US a dangerous place for George W. Bush", implying that saying mean things about Junior puts his life in danger. However, RL did not say that revealing the names of covert CIA WMD specialists during a "time of war" is a problem.

Says he fears the "concentrated hatred" of Bush-haters.

Claims economic growth is "actually" 5%. Huh???? Doesn't discuss what unemployment "really" is, or what the poverty line "really" is.

Goes on a wierd tangent that Dems make points with accusations, because for Dems, "it's not the nature of the evidence, but the seriousness of the charge". Talks about GHW Bush getting on that SR-71 to Paris to set up the October Surprise. Does he really want to be bringing that one up right now?

Compares these terrible trials of GW somehow to the "terrible" things that happened to Clarence Thomas. (?!?)

RL blames CIA incoherence. Now blaming Wilson's wife for 9-11! She's a CIA weapons analyst, isn't she? Maybe she should have known about 9-11 ?!?!?

RL mentions that dreaded "leftist media" for their coverage of this non-story.

Then, there was a weird ad for the Tacoma SUV, something involving the new model coming with foreign language audio tapes to teach you the languages of the wild, weird places you'll go in your big, phallic Tacoma - like, Bora Bora or Patagonia, as if you'd take your SUV to those kinds of places. And the last line of the commercial was, read quick and low like a small-print disclaimer, "Tapes not available in French."

Ugh.

Back to RL:

Wait. RL is flipping out. No, he's really losing it. Says we need a "special prosecutor for Chappaquiddick."

Wow. Is that really the best he can do? There must really be something there.

A caller says this deed, the traitorous outing of intelligence agents as a political threat to whistleblowers, is dastardly. RL goes into an amazing, long riff, describing things he thinks are actually dastardly:

Blocking Estrada's nomination, thereby "shredding the Constitution", thwarting the majority who want him on the bench, that's dastardly.

Calling Junior a "miserable failure" in "the middle of a war" is dastardly. (and let us all, even Dean backers, thank Gephardt for what is his best contribution to the campaign season thus far, that phrase, "miserable failure")

RL says, get this, RL says that saying, "Don't question my patriotism!", as Howard Dean might, is dastardly. Huh?

Hillary holding the New York Post headline saying "BUSH KNEW" on the Senate floor was dastardly.

Democrats saying Bush "Let it happen on purpose" are dastardly. Now, how I wish some Democrats would say Bush LIHOP. But who has, besides Cynthia McKinney? It was nice to hear the LIHOP meme on RL, in any case.

Firing Billie Dale from the Travel Office is dastardly!

Can you believe it? Limbaugh is saying that a new chief executive, putting in his own employees in administration offices, is more "dastardly" than exposing an entire international covert/WMD network, for the purpose of intimidating other potential whistle-blowers.

Breathtaking.

And he spends a long time going into all the terrible details of the outrage of what happened to poor Billie dale.

Then RL repeats the FLAT LIE about the three times the Sudanese offered Clintont Osama bin Laden, and Clinton refused to take him. This is a central lie of the neocons, and it must be refuted every time it comes up. It justifies every mistake and conspiracy theory they put up since.

The story is a lie, the source a discredited former Sudanese intelligence op. But RL says refusing OBL is more dastardly than exposing the Wilson network.

RL says Toricelli and Leahy are more dastardly than the Traitor in the White House.

RL says, there's lots of Clintont holdovers in the government, especially that snake pit State Department, so the leaker was probably a...wait for it...Clinton holdover!

IT'S CLINTON'S FAULT!

RL refers to those critics of Clinton "who are still alive".

RL is reeeeeaching. He's getting very arcane. He says "Josh Stein lying to his diary" is more dastardly than exposing Mrs. Wilson's network. I study politics, and I barely know what the hell he's talking about there. Then he says Lantos' mean remark about Admiral Boorda's suicide - that he knew what to do - was more "dastardly' than exposing our covert counter-WMD network.

Strange. He's reading from some strange list of "bad things" from Clinton days.

Then he takes a caller, who's clearly reading from a long, printed memo of talking points about why this is no big story, who at one point can't turn the page (or can't find the "page down" button), and waits, grunts, and then says, Oh, wait, there it is, and then goes on with the sentence. Was this guy in Ed Gillespie's office, or what?

Then, the next ABC news account, around 11:00 am PST, follows the story with two items minimizing the importance of the story, one legal commentator saying it's not really illegal, then a political commentator saying it'll never touch Bushie himself. Nauseating. Fair and Balanced (tee em).

RL starts pushing the "Wilson is insane" meme, to wit, his "elevator doesn't go all the way up to the top floor" and "he's a cup and saucer short of a tea set".

Says W. tried to change the tone, by having Ted Kennedy to the white House to see a movie, and named a building for his brother.

Says again, "There's literally no story here."

RL says "It's soooo premature to compare this to Watergate."

But then, RL also said on Tuesday: "We don't know how it's going to fall out."


Before we get to Hannity's first hour, let me mention a few other things:

What happened to all those folks who, back during the days when presidents were impeached for their intimate activities, "IT'S ABOUT THE LAW. THE LAW IS THE LAW. THE LAW IS THE LAW IS THE LAW. IT'S THE LAW." Oh, I see. They were simply hypocrites. Or more precisely, they only care about sex, and they only care about the law as it can be stretched to apply to Democrats.


Sean digs in with a long, obviously-written-by-someone-else screed attacking Wilson:

Wilson's a political hack.

We're talking here about "some obscure law". (WOW! That's a doozie!)

Wilson's a "Clinton-Worshipper".

This is a Non-Story.

These Dems remind me of criminals in how they're reacting to this.

This whole issue is a non-issue, and has "no business being discussed".

It's all a product of the institutional media bias.

"Mrs. wilson was not undercover."

Wilson used her name in his autobiography! Ack!

Novak has said (and he screamed this over and over, and at callers) "NO ONE AT THE WHITE HOUSE CALLED ME TO LEAK THIS!" (ignoring that Novak is parsing like mad here - he was talking to the White House officials already when they brought it up. But, um, they didn't call him? Hmm, okay. That let's you off the hook then, huh, Bob?

Sean says this is all happening because of the huge power of the "Democratic regime in Washington DC." What the? I mean, in their fantasies, they can claim there's a liberal media, but they do control the House, the Senate, The White House, the Supreme Court, and all of talk radio. But the notion of a "Democratic regime" in Washington is a paranoid denial of reality.

Then Sean goes into a bizarre litany of people whose privacy was invaded by Dems. This is bizarre for two reasons - one, he's trying to change this story into a privacy complaint, instead of what it really is - a national security scandal, intelligence about WMDs being endangered for the sake of a cheap political threat from the most powerful man in the White House.

Sean says, Paula Jones tax returns were exposed! Her privacy ruined! Um, yeah, Sean, Paula Jones had no privacy to protect, thanks to your friends. Linda Tripp's pentagon employment file was publicized! Um, yeah, Linda Tripp was a real private citizen, too. Kathleeen Willey's letters were released! Filegate! Filegate! Filegate!

Are you getting the subtext here? It's not even very deep. Here it is: Joe Wilson's wife being outed, as a threat to others who might be considering exposing the lies of the George W. Bush, and our national security being threatened thereby, is not as important as the fact that CLINTON HAD SEX! CLINTON HAD SEX! CLINTON HAD SEX!

Sean thereafter just seemed to be reading White House talking points. Parsing, misdirecting. Says, "It was Boxer or Pelosi, one of those girls from California..."

On the news break, Bush sticks very closely to the phrase "leaked classified information". This must be their defense. It wasn't classified, everybody knew about Mrs. Wilson. No secret, no crime.

Then Sean segues into his real talking point from the White House, starting to talk about how "we're probably going to have to go into Iran next, and we have to start getting ready for that...we're at war with Islamic extremism...the Iranian threat".

Hannity's bizarre buddy, discredited writer Mark Levin, said the leak "probably came from the CIA", and is a "phony issue" anyway. Levin is one of the people who send IMs to Hannity when he has a liberal on the air, feeding him arguments against the callers.

Hannity refers to those who see fault with revealing the names of CIA WMD specialists as "the black helicopter crowd", which is interesting, since the black helicopter meme came from right-wingers afriad of Janet Reno and the UN.


Sean is flipping. I only heard his first hour.



Other things we should all be looking into more closely:

Hill & Knowlton, the PR firm that created this war

Whenever some Pro-War Idiot talks about Saddam gassing his own people, we have to say, "Oh, at Halabja? In 1988? Yes, he did that with WMDs that we had supplied him with. And the US was completely complicit in that gassing, we wanted Saddam to balance out Iran. We chose to let those countries kill each others' citizens by the thousands rather than try to establish peace between the countries."

Also, there is plenty of evidence that it wasn't the Iraqi gas that killed those Kurds, it was the gas the Iranians were using back at the Iraqis that killed them! What a trifecta, Iranians vs. Iraqis, killing the ethnic sub-group that challenges both of their positions of power. It's like the Big Dog used to say, "Let's you and him fight."

George Herbert Walker Bush showered Hussein with foreign aid. In his interaction with Saddam's crimes, there was US complicity, collusion, and coverup. No wonder Junior needs to kill Saddam - Saddam's got all the goods on Poppy.

The Kurds were in fact collateral damage. And Rumsfeld led the way in normalizing relations with the Iraqis after the gassing.

The babies in the incubators that the Iraqis were supposed to be killing? That whole story was a fabrication, from our old friends Hill & Knowlton.

Bush opens every fund-raising speech he gives - and he's given 22 in Pennsylvania this year, a state he must win in 2004 - saying, "There will be time for the political season later." Uh-huh.


Finally, today, I also caught some of Molly Ivins on "Working Assets Radio" with Laura Flanders. Someone asked, out of that desperation we've grown to know so well, "What is the most effective thing I can do to stop Bush?" Her reply was, "Go out and register a new voter every month from now to the election - discuss politics with people - Americans feel they have no control. Let them know they do have an effect, and get them to vote."

And final-finally, I have to note, on the first ABC news flash at 9 am October 1st, the ABC news noted that negative reaction is building to the Big Fat Idiot's latest appearence on ESPN. Let me take this opportunity to say to ESPN: That racist called me Un-American many, many times earlier this year as I engaged in Constitutionally-protected, civically involved activities. He questioned my loyalties. He said I was in favor of Terrorism. If you continue to employ him, I will assume you also accuse me of such things, and therefore:

YOU ARE MY ENEMY.
RUSH LIMBAUGH IS NOT THE VOICE OF THIS FAN.
RUSH LIMBAUGH IS THE VOICE OF RACIST FASCISM.

But maybe that's the voice you wanted.



Other things I figured out during all this:

People who are obsessed with getting their taxes cut hate pleasure. They can't enjoy the riches they have. Poor and struggling people don't complain about their taxes. Or, they may complain, but they don't pour all their political energy into doing anything or backing anyone that will cut them. That's a rich man's hobby.


TODAY:

Rl says, You know, this is serious, There could be a traitor in the midst.

RL quoting Novak quoting May saying her ID was common knowledge.

RL mentions "bogus liberal story about White House involvement"

Thanks for reading this far. I listen to these guys so you won't have to.

CALIFORNIA GROPING UPDATE!

GET THIS - on the ABC news break in between the first and second hour of Limbaugh's program this morning, they had a story on the California Recall. Arnold is pushing ahead, but then, the LA Times runs a story about a half dozen women who have come forward to say Arnold groped them. The reporter says, "But this hasn't dampened the enthusiasm of Arnold's supporters!" He then runs a clip from an interview with a Schwarzenegger supporter, who says:

"It has no effect on how he'd govern. We don't care about what happened years and years ago. Let's just move on."

Wow! I'm sure all those Arnold voters said the same thing five years ago, during impeachment, what do you bet?

Um, not.

But what's amazing to me is how this person (a middle-aged woman, from the sound of her voice) has even adopted the catch phrase of the longest-lasting lefty organization formed out of disgust with the Republican jihad on Clinton, the great and serious

http://www.MoveOn.org

Amazing. Let's all pay close attention to what the Republican Right says about these accusations on Arnold. In fact, I'd like to propose some counter-memes to spread today, to wit:

KATHLEEN WILLEY SAYS ARNOLD GROPED HER

PAULA JONES SAYS ARNOLD SHOWED HER HIS GENITALS

JUANITA BRODERRICK SAYS ARNOLD RAPED HER

I know Sean Hannity will want to comment a lot on that last one, slowly repeating over and over Arnold's famous exit line:

("Yoo't beddah put zum ice on dat...")



RACIST JUNKIE UPDATE:

Tom Sullivan is sitting in for Rush Limbaugh today. He keeps saying, about every five minutes, "Rush is at a LONG-SCHEDULED broadcaster's meeting, giving a keynote address. This appearence has been scheduled for MONTHS, maybe a YEAR."

Thanks, Tom. Um, why exactly is it so important that we know that Rush's absence from the show today was LONG-SCHEDULED?

Is that so we won't think that it's because he couldn't get his daily dose of 75 hits of "Hippie Heroin"?

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/122839p-110349c.html


excerpt:

Scoring in parking lot

Cline told the Enquirer she went to prosecutors with information about Limbaugh and others after four years of drug deals that included clandestine handoffs in a Denny's parking lot.

She said she wore a wire during her last two deliveries to the conservative commentator and gave the tapes to authorities.

She also gave the Enquirer a ledger documenting how many pills she claimed to have bought for him - 4,350 in one 47-day period - and E-mails she claimed Limbaugh sent her.

In one missive, Limbaugh pushed Cline to get more "little blues" - code for OxyContin, the powerful narcotic nicknamed hillbilly heroin, she said.

(end of excerpt)


Like President Bartlet's secretary once said, "No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up."


Robert Dobbs
Screaming Points, the Blog: http://xanga.com/Dobbs
Tiny Polemics: http://www.TinyPolemics.com
RobertDobbs@hotmail.com