Home » Archives » July 2005 » From the "Why this Fading Republic will Perish--sooner than you think" Department:
[« Inspiring a sad musing....] [autoegocrat and The River City Mud Company are back.... »]
07/31/2005: From the "Why this Fading Republic will Perish--sooner than you think" Department:
Josh Marshall passes on some news about the Ohio 2nd Congressional District special election:
I haven't written on this. But there's a congressional candidate named Paul Hackett, a Marine corps vet of this Iraq war, who's is in a harsh, down and dirty race in Ohio's 2nd District and in the midst of getting the worst slime treatment you can imagine from the Republican machine.That's why we call them Rethugnicans.
By the end of it, his volunteering to serve in the war zone will probably be cast as a sign of some deep character flaw or softness on terrorism. [emphasis supplied --LRC]
But you may remember that there are other sins that Hackett has committed that have aroused the ire of the Rethugs. First, This Humble Blog recently picked up on a gem of his that I'm going to reprint here, Just Because I Can:
The only way I know how to support the troops is by going over there. All the chicken hawks back here who said, "Oh, Iraq is talking bad about us. They're going to threaten us" - look, if you really believe that, you leave your wife and three kids and go sign up for the Army or Marines and go over there and fight. Otherwise, shut your mouth.And over at Whiskey Bar, Billmon identifies a couple other reasons why the Rethugnicans are interested in defeating Major Hackett, and none of them redound to the credit of the Party of Lincoln (not to mention that they are just further data points in favor of the view that The Imminent Death of the American Republic can be expected Real Soon Now):
--Paul Hackett, Democratic candidate for Congress from Ohio's 2nd Congressional District, Major, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, and Iraq War veteran (quoted in Salon)
Under the circumstances, the GOP's decision to throw $500,000 in slime ads at Hackett in the closing days of the race could be seen as the equivalent of the Mafia's old practice of shooting suspected snitches in the face with a soft nosed bullet -- as a way of making a point. That's how the reptiles are trying to spin it, anyway:Speaking of whom, I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that, were one to visit Abraham Lincoln's tomb today, that one would not hear a whirring noise coming from it....What prompted the committee's entry into the Schmidt-Hackett race was a comment made by Hackett in a USA Today article published Thursday. Hackett, talking about his service as a marine in Iraq, is quoted as saying, "I've said I don't like the son-of-a-b--- that lives in the White House. But I'd put my life on the line for him."Imagine what they would have done to him if he'd said something naughty about Cheney!
Because Hackett said that, Forti said, "we decided to bury him."
Actually, I think the "revenge" angle is pure propaganda, a clever way to gull the media into believing this is not a crash effort to keep Hackett from getting close enough for him and the Dems to claim a moral victory. But the fact that the GOP can afford to dump $500k into a race just to keep the opposition from scoring a few bragging points (or to punish the crime of lese majesty -- take your pick) is a sign of just how much of a financial supercharge 10 years of DeLayism have given the machine.
Spin away, Abe. Spin away....
Len on 07.31.05 @ 12:36 PM CST
