August 14, 2004
Grading The Truth Squad
I remember seeing the website URL on the backdrop behind RNC’s Ed Gillespie, as I was watching him on CNN. I don’t think it was until the third night of the Democratic Convention then, when I realized the web address was home to the Republican’s so-called ‘Truth Squad’. I also remember finally seeing a segment on and footage of the actual ‘war room’, with images of bustling white males in shirts and ties; reminiscent of a similar looking mob of angry, white Republican males, bum-rushing a ‘dangling chad party’, during the Florida recount.
Their mission in Boston was to dispel, refute, rebut, prove false, challenge, counter, argue against, expose, confront, disprove and contest, an expected equal amount of deceptive and dastardly lies, that these hateful Liberals can manage over four days. Well, it appears party chair Gillespie may have been the sole conduit of such information, as it was clear Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan, and Bill Kristol were woefully out of the ‘talking points’ loop.
As much as it irks me that most Conservative debaters I’ve come across will dismiss source material from MediaMatters.org out of hand for example, I felt obliged to assess what the Republicans managed to concoct from their visit, curious as to how they match up with our ‘truth squad’.
Please grant this writer a very big favor, and go visit - www.demsextrememakeover.com! There is no better example of why John Kerry will be our next President.
And, if you would indulge me a moment, please go next to johnkerry.com/issues. Now, in comparing the two web pages, take a visceral evaluation of the weighted content on both sites. Feel the difference?
One would think the Republicans would have enough material to work with from the four days of Convention rhetoric. So, what is Michael Moore’s mug and a good deal of skewed debunking about him, doing on this web page? If you check closely, one traitorous quote attributed to the filmmaker is source linked to a NYTimes column by David Brooks, where it appears as hearsay. The Republicans offer up a list of the ‘Ten Things You Won’t Hear at the Cosmetic Convention’ that will fill up the column inches that should’ve read, ‘Ten Things The GOP Could Not Refute at the Democratic Convention’.
Neither Ron Reagan Jr. or President Clinton’s speech are quoted directly, let alone challenged in any way. Instead, you read three paragraphs that give the impression Bush actually supports Stem Cell Research, while they needed to break out the Mack daddy sized fonts to fill the page on Clinton’s speech.
I don’t remember if this group was ever referred to as a ‘rapid response team’. ‘Fumblers for filler fraternity’, would have been more appropriate.
You’re right Bert, it seems pretty tame compared to the ‘Bush is Hitler’ stuff we’re getting used to.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at August 14, 2004 10:11 PMYou know Eric, there’s something wrong with statistics for a presidential candidate previously elected in the 2000 race, when they go back to the rates recorded at the beginning of the second Clinton term, instead of the beginning of Bush’s own.
The sense I get from your people, is that your party is making excuses for your president.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 14, 2004 11:52 PMEveryone knows that this recession began before Bush even took office.
All democrats have done is say that we should go back to the Clinton tax increases so we can get back to the roaring 90’s.
To tell you the truth, Bert is right, that website is atrocious, more for it’s lackluster design than anything else. I really didn’t read much from the site. Maybe you could clue me in on what detail you’re excerpting your comment from.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at August 15, 2004 04:25 AMEric, from what I’ve observed and learned since, Liberal policies had little to do with our current economic state of affairs.
The first thing that happened was a correction as the tech stock bubble burst. The tech sector heavy Nasdaq was cut in half, the Dow dropped precipitously. The people who dropped the ball there were the investment bankers, and often because they sold the same stock they were supporting with loans. It’s a conflict of interest that the Glass Steagall act, repealed by a Republican majority in the Senate and House, would have prevented. The other part of why they dropped the ball is more forgiveable- the irrational exuberance of people to invest and fund the IPOs of company simply because they were tech-sector related. That, no law could prevent. The stock market is not safe and never will be, and one has to look at the stock one buys with more than just speculative lust.
The second thing that happened, though, was what the failure of the tech stock bubble put stress on certain questionable business arrangements, on companies whose organizational principles were not sound, and who were dependent on tricky accounting and support by investment banks with a conflict of interest concerning their clients.
I know your view of regulations is dim, but maybe your common sense is better. Before we let devices like computers, televisions and cars out into the market, we make sure certains things are true about them, and their manufacturers. The style of regulation I favor for corporations is just that kind of regulation-regulations to ensure that financing of corporated debt is not done by those who sell its equity at the same time, and that the numbers they present to stockholders are more than just a convenient fiction. There are risks consumers and investors should have to take, and and risk there is no moral or practical reason to hand them.
Unfortunately, the legislation of your party has time and again let them hand those kinds of risks to people, and folks being halfway intelligent, are seeking other ways to invest, or altogether avoiding the market itself.
In short, your party has caused this economic downturn to be as extended as it is, because they forgot that corporations are not the only entities that measure cost and benefit. Until they re-regulate to reduce unnecessary risks for consumers and investors, we will have the deadweight of that cost aversion in our economy.
Bert, that’s a great example of the desperation to which the Republicans have to resort because they can’t compete on issues.
Unfortunately, the media is determined to market the presidential election as entertainment, rather than live up to their responsibility to actually inform people about the candidate’s policies.
I think Bush would be happy to talk about issues. As long as we talk about how they really are not how they FEEL. By the numbers, the enocomy isn’t doing bad, just take a look at this model of the election from economic data.
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/000547.html
And on terrorism, most Americans like Bush’s plan more than Kerry’s. More American’s like Bush’s plans than Kerry’s, they just don’t like how the left and Europe has made them FEEL about Bush.
-D
Delzario, we’re still in the job hole Bush dug for us, income for what few new jobs there are is down, and my 401k plan still isn’t worth what it was four years ago. That’s not FEEL. That’s a sad fact.
Both sides can spin numbers all they want (Kerry’s misery index and Bush’s CES Net Birth/Death Model for estimating new jobs come to mind), but you can’t argue that we’re better off today than we were four years ago.
As for Bush’s “plan” for fighting terrorism, maybe you could tell America what it is. I’ve never heard Bush talk about a plan. Here’s Kerry’s.
