NYT: "Rove's medal can, if necessary, be delivered to his prison cell"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/opinion/15krugman.html

Op-Ed Columnist
Karl Rove's America
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: July 15, 2005

John Gibson of Fox News says that Karl Rove should be given a medal. I agree: Mr. Rove should receive a medal from the American Political Science Association for his pioneering discoveries about modern American politics. The medal can, if necessary, be delivered to his prison cell.

What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern.

I first realized that we were living in Karl Rove's America during the 2000 presidential campaign, when George W. Bush began saying things about Social Security privatization and tax cuts that were simply false. At first, I thought the Bush campaign was making a big mistake - that these blatant falsehoods would be condemned by prominent Republican politicians and Republican economists, especially those who had spent years building reputations as advocates of fiscal responsibility. In fact, with hardly any exceptions they lined up to praise Mr. Bush's proposals.

But the real demonstration that Mr. Rove understands American politics better than any pundit came after 9/11. Every time I read a lament for the post-9/11 era of national unity, I wonder what people are talking about. On the issues I was watching, the Republicans' exploitation of the atrocity began while ground zero was still smoldering.

[wallwriter]

1. in suppository form...

[flpoljunkie]

2. A must read from Mr. Krugman today. Particularly the last four paragraphs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/opinion/15krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

And now we know just how far he was willing to go with these smear tactics: as part of the effort to discredit Joseph Wilson IV, Mr. Rove leaked the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the C.I.A. I don't know whether Mr. Rove can be convicted of a crime, but there's no question that he damaged national security for partisan advantage. If a Democrat had done that, Republicans would call it treason.

But what we're getting, instead, is yet another impressive demonstration that these days, truth is political. One after another, prominent Republicans and conservative pundits have declared their allegiance to the party line. They haven't just gone along with the diversionary tactics, like the irrelevant questions about whether Mr. Rove used Valerie Wilson's name in identifying her (Robert Novak later identified her by her maiden name, Valerie Plame), or the false, easily refuted claim that Mr. Wilson lied about who sent him to Niger. They're now a chorus, praising Mr. Rove as a patriotic whistle-blower.

Ultimately, this isn't just about Mr. Rove. It's also about Mr. Bush, who has always known that his trusted political adviser - a disciple of the late Lee Atwater, whose smear tactics helped President Bush's father win the 1988 election - is a thug, and obviously made no attempt to find out if he was the leaker.

Most of all, it's about what has happened to America. How did our political system get to this point?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/opinion/15krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

[Flying Dream Blues]

3. Nominated...must read.

[Zen Democrat]

4. Seconded for the Greatest Page. God, I love Krugman.

Krug is an interesting man. He appears rather timid and harmless when I see him in TV interviews. But give this guy a pen or a keyboard and WOW, just WOW.

[kick-ass-bob]

5. I was just waiting for Krugman to talk about this.

And I was not disappointed.

:thumbsup:

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. If a Democrat had done that...

And now we know just how far he was willing to go with these smear tactics: as part of the effort to discredit Joseph Wilson IV, Mr. Rove leaked the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the C.I.A. I don't know whether Mr. Rove can be convicted of a crime, but there's no question that he damaged national security for partisan advantage. If a Democrat had done that, Republicans would call it treason.

The truest statement I've seen all week.

[electropop]

7. If a Dem had done it...

He'd be dead by now.

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. I would dearly love to know the answer to his concluding question.

[Peace Patriot]

9. "How did our political system get to this point?"

It's staring us in the face.

The answer to the stink in Washington DC is restoring our right to vote, by throwing Bushite electronic voting machine companies--Diebold, ES&S and brethren--out of the election business NOW--or, at the least, achieving some measure of election transparency with paper ballot backups, no secret programming code and strict auditing. The only place where we can get that done is in state/local jurisdictions, where the authority over election systems still resides, and where ordinary people still have some say. See the DU Forum "2004 Election Results and Discussion" for information and action ideas:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203

It was mind-boggling to me to discover that our election system is now a PRIVATE enterprise, and that the MAJOR BUSH DONORS AND SUPPORTERS (one of them a Bush campaign chair!) who own these companies are permitted to count our votes with SECRET, PROPRIETARY PROGRAMMING CODE. And the OTHER mind-boggling thing is how the Democratic Party leadership could have allowed this to happen without screaming bloody murder.

Well, now I know why (or part of why). Take a gander at this hogfest at the Beverly Hilton this August--a week of wining, dining, fun and sun for our election officials from around the country (many of them Democrats), sponsored by...guess who? ...Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, the three biggest providers of election theft machinery. See Amaryllis' post on electronic voting company lobbying at the Beverly Hilton--it will burn your eyeballs!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

I wondered why Paul Krugman disappeared just after the election--went on vacation-- during the biggest political crisis in our history, an event that amounted to a fascist coup (the Nov. 2, 2004 election). I LOVE Paul Krugman, don't get me wrong. He is one of the best political writers in the country. But his absence from the election fraud fight puzzled me greatly. If ever a serious truthteller with a national platform was needed by this Republic, it was then. But, suddenly, in that situation, DEMOCRATS began sounding just like Bush's "pod people" in Congress: mindless repetition of the dictated "talking point." Over and over, without any investigation, they said, "we are not challenging the result." Over and over and over and over.

And I think this got to Krugman, as to so many others. The party line is "no fraud." Move along, nothing to see here.

Too bad. He could have made a big difference. Now we are stuck with an illegitimate president, an obvious front man and puppet of the Bush Cartel, which has gained control of our country's election machinery.

As I said, the answer is STATE/LOCAL action on election reform NOW. That is our only hope of not having ANOTHER puppet in 2008 (and a whole new layer of "pod people" in Congress in 2006.)

[Vincardog]

10. You are so right

The answer is STATE/LOCAL action on election reform NOW. That is our only hope of not having ANOTHER puppet in 2008 (and a whole new layer of "pod people" in Congress in 2006.)


We have to act NOW to stop the FASCIST agenda. Fight them until HELL FREEZES OVER The FIGHT THEM ON THE ICE