Buzzflash: Bushevik Mafia and the Cowering Media

Many liberals -- and certainly the Democratic Party (excluding Howard Dean) -- have repeatedly made the mistake of viewing the Busheviks and right wingers as a political party that plays by the process of a Constitutional democracy. It has been a lethal error.

As we have noted (and carried a book of the same title): "Take Them at Their Words." They believe that any tactic, even if illegal, is justified in wresting the control of government from the "evil" secularists. David Horowitz, the academic Himmler for the Bush Brown Shirts, wrote, " “[y]ou cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can only do it by following Lenin’s injunction: ‘In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent’s argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth.’” As noted in a recent article, the top right wing direct mail guru, Richard Viguerie told Bill Moyers, “I just wish he [Bush] could have done a little bit more [against Kerry]. I thought it was just great. And we’re not gonna play, Bill, by the liberal establishment’s rules. They say, ‘This is acceptable and this is not acceptable.’ Those days are gone and gone forever.”

During the impeachment effort against Bill Clinton, a Tom DeLay aide said (and we are paraphrasing here): "You don't just beat an opponent, you kick them until they are down, and then roll them up in a carpet and toss them over the cliff."

In regards to the recently revealed "Deep Throat," W. Mark Felt, Alexander Haig said to Nixon, who was suspicious that Felt might be "leaking" on him, "We've got to be careful as to when to cut his nuts off."

So as the GOP "enforcers" gouge out the eyes of the Dems and kick them in the groin, it does little good for Joe Biden to wave around a copy of Robert's Rules of Order.

If the Democrats are still playing by the rules of democracy, the Republicans long ago abandoned such quaint political give-and-take to play by the rules of Al Capone: fear, intimidation, dirty tricks and illegal activity.

It's simply a fantasy of pro-democracy advocates to believe that decency and patriotism will triumph over the demagogues and thugs of the Republican Party. The parties are playing by two different sets of rules, and the mob has won out over Constitutional process.

Which brings us to the issues of "Rathergate" and "Koran Flushgate." The "disputed" stories by both CBS and Newsweek were virtually entirely accurate in terms of substance. If we look at "Koran Flushgate," for example, this past weekend's revelations confirm that whether our soldiers urinated on a Koran or flushed it down the toilet is a distinction without a difference.

But Newsweek's fellow Mainstream Media jumped all over the story blaming, even as recently as a few days ago in the New York Times, Newsweek for causing the rioting by followers of Islam. Oh, the White House would have the media believe that torture at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and Afghanistan had nothing to do with the unrest, that the humiliation of Islamic men in violation of their beliefs had nothing to do with it, that the deaths of Islamic men under "harsh" interrogation had nothing to do with it -- and that the desecration of the Koran in a number of ways had nothing to do with it. To believe this, you would have to think that Islamic believers would say to themselves, "Oh, we can stop rioting now, because we know that the Koran was urinated on, kicked at and desecrated in other ways by American soldiers, but not flushed down the toilet. Newsweek should stop misleading us. We can go home now. Everything's A-Okay!"

Besides which, it is clear from the pattern of even Pentagon reports that have emerged that a key objective in interrogating Islamic believers was humiliating their religious beliefs, such as rubbing menstrual blood on the men. These things don't just happen in the military. They are part of a condoned pattern of humiliation that came from the top at the Pentagon: Donald Rumsfeld.

Furthermore, almost all progressive commentators qualified their criticisms of the Busheviks about "Koran Flushgate" by agreeing that Newsweek did not follow proper journalistic practice. Say what? They ran their item by two officials in the Pentagon who did not dispute that a Koran was flushed down a toilet. And the anonymous source was likely told to change his or her story or face a permanent roadblock in his or her military career.

Newsweek's alleged sin (and we take no pleasure in defending Michael Isikoff) was that it didn't have two "on record" sources to confirm the flushing of a Koran down the toilet. That is ludicrous on several fronts. First, the real issue here is the desecration of the Koran as part of a pattern of interrogation to humiliate the religious beliefs of Muslim detainees, just as the real issue of "Rathergate" was the substance of Bush's failure to fulfill his national guard duties, not who wrote the memo.

Secondly, most Mainstream Media today is built upon the Pentagon -- let's say, for example -- proclaiming a lie, and then a reporter for a television station gets the lie "confirmed" by someone else in the Pentagon and runs with a story that is nothing more than propaganda. But this is considered professional journalism because two sources have confirmed a story, even though it's a lie.

In the Newsweek case, they had the "Koran Flushgate" story confirmed by one source and approved by two other sources in the Pentagon, which makes three sources by our count, one more than most Mainstream Media reporters use to confirm lies instead of the truth. (Not to mention that the Administration daily uses anonymous sources to achieve its propaganda goals with the media, but they wouldn't be Busheviks if they weren't brazen hypocrites.) So either Newsweek did its journalistic due diligence or it was a Karl Rove set-up from the get go.

But, remember, the purpose of "Rathergate" and "Koran Flushgate" was to discombobulate and intimidate the media into not printing or televising anything overtly critical of the Bush regime. Rove cleverly knows how to use the media to cannibalize itself. All he has to do is toss them some red herring and they are off like jackals, devouring each other, while the crimes of the White House go unnoticed and unreported. Furthermore, reporters, editors and publishers become even MORE intimidated about printing or airing a story critical of the Bush Administration.

It is a technique worthy of the mob reigning supreme over the modern technological media, in combination with the fear that the media barons have of offending their corporate benefactors in the White House, Republican Congress and GOP judiciary.

The Mainstream Media seems to have abandoned all common sense.

Newsweek didn't cause any riots; the Christian Crusade against the "Infidel" led by Bush is what caused the riots. The record of humiliating, brutalizing, torturing and killing Muslims is as clear as the barbaric photos that came out of Abu Ghraib (and there are others, apparently even more malicious, that the Bush Administration won't release to the public).

The thugs in the White House know how to throw the press into a hysterical fit of irrelevance. But the truth is that Karl Rove could just gently blow and the White House Press Corpse, with the exception of Helen Thomas, would fall over.

The Busheviks don't need to beat up too heavily on the D.C. press. Most of them just want to transcribe the latest propaganda pronouncement and get to lunch.

The White House is saving the domestic mob enforcers for the rest of us.

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