Time Article on Bush Administration punishing Kerry supporters

pazarus

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Sun Apr-24-05 12:25 PM
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Time Article on Bush Administration punishing Kerry supporters

This is just a short article about a recent case of Bush's team surrounding himself with his own elk and squelching dissent. This, like so many other times, steps over the line. I hope we don't get numb to this. I think I can put the whole article here without breaking any DU rules...

The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations. But for this week's meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the agenda. At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

The State Department has traditionally put together a list of industry representatives for these meetings, and anyone in the U.S. telecom industry who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally given a slot, say past participants. Only after the start of Bush's second term did a political litmus test emerge, industry sources say.

The White House admits as much: "We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy. Those barred from the trip include employees of Qualcomm and Nokia, two of the largest telecom firms operating in the U.S., as well as Ibiquity, a digital-radio-technology company in Columbia, Md. One nixed participant, who has been to many of these telecom meetings and who wants to remain anonymous, gave just $250 to the Democratic Party. Says Nokia vice president Bill Plummer: "We do not view sending experts to international meetings on telecom issues to be a partisan matter. We would welcome clarification from the White House."

The thing about this is just the escalation in the degree to which they will stifle opposition. What does the Telecom conference have to do with being a Republican? Why does it matter who the people in the conference voted for in the Fall?

But more importantly, where will it end? We already know they screen for Bush events, and they weed out or force opposing voices to resign in their lower ranks. They are rushing to fill the courts with conservatives, purge the CIA of opposition, put conservatives into every powerful position in the government and the world; the World Bank, the UN Ambassador, the Secretary of State. Moderate voices who step out of line are viciously atacked.

So is this new development going to be an official policy? Will Democrats not be allowed to any government conferences? Will Democrats or non-Republicans be kept out of every government position and even out of physical presence of the government? Do Americans care about this?

Time Article