Ted has invited me to join the fun, and baby, will he be sorry!
So, anyhoo, here I am writing my very first post of what I hope to be quite a few.
Let me say, from my position atop the loftiest of the Spires between Rivendell and Gondor, that things seem pretty outrageous to me. Thousands of Orcs busily shredding Democratric Party voter registrations, and no one in the SCLM or SCUM (So-Called Liberal Media or So-Called Unbiased Media) can bother to lift a finger to cover this story seriously? USA Today's coverage is a perfect example of this he-said/he-said nonsense.
And it's just way, way past time to really start turning over the rocks on people like Nathan Sproul, Ralph Reed, and John O'Neil. Almost all these people that the GOP is using in its 2004 smear campaigns are connected. They have ties via the Nixon administration, the Christian Coalition days of the 1980s, Falwell's Moral Majority, and on into Texas politics in the 1990s, thus finally putting them at Karl Rove's disposal.
The defection of Robert George from movement conservative circles (see The New Republic) hardly fills me with Schadenfreude, as I think George is a fairly tedious small-government conservative. Nonetheless, his defection points up the fact that the more sensible members of the Right are beginning to perceive the problem in being part of the Party of Amway. Eventually, pyramid schemes collapse, and the movement conservative GOP is beginning to look a bit unstable on its foundations. Rove may be a genius of a kind, but he is not an architect.
In fact, he is a gravedigger. In his career, Rove has specialized in both unearthing the buried bodies of his enemies' secrets, and in interring their political careers. Like that fellow who ran the fraudulent crematory in Georgia, however, the stench of Rove's work is starting to nauseate many of his erstwhile allies.
We have not reached the point, however, at which our 'on the one-hand, on-the-other' blow-dried and Botoxed media can bear to pull back the shroud on Rove's Burke and Hare operations. Karl wields a great deal influence, as he has simply no limits, and the media knows this. Is there a solution?
Well, the Sinclair boycott presents a new model. If it succeeds in making a real impact, especially if it results in Sinclair being forced to adhere to equal time issues, then I think that we need to up the ante. 'Working the refs,' in Eric Alterman's lingo, is gaining traction on the Left side of the media aisle. It seems to have yanked GOP pollster Luntz from MSNBC.
The ballot-ripping scandal, however, has yet to become center stage. The SCUM must realize that they will pay a price when they let direct-mail fraudsters and lying Nixonian dirty tricksters commit election fraud in full view. We have to continue at every opportunity to make them all accountable. If we can out Rove's grave digging, the pyramid above it may totter and crumble into ruin.