Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

"Conservatives are cranky but not self-destructive," Matalin said.  "A thing we could do, have time to do and will do in the remaining time will be to hammer home what a Pelosi-Rangel-Conyers House would really mean.... That hasn't reached penetration levels yet."

There you have it in a nutshell.  In a showdown the Republicans know better than to run on the most appalling record in U.S. political history.  Instead Matalin and others in the Rove propaganda machine, notably Fox News, where Sean Hannity last week has been expressing nightmarish fears about Representative Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, they fall back on their favorite tactic of fear.  

It is notable that Matalin has singled out a House leader from San Francisco along with two African Americans.  Is this a coincidence?  Hardly.  San Francisco conjures up the worst nightmares for the far right, specifically due to tolerance toward gays.  

Matalin and other strategists realize, however, that this point of attack has been perhaps hopelessly extirpated by the burgeoning scandal surrounding Congressman Mark Foley as well as the long-time cover-up of his sexual activities regarding House pages.  All the same, when trying to rally the base, one tries the San Francisco attack and hopes it will stick with at least some hate-filled, knee jerk reactionaries.

As for Rangel and Conyers, would Rove and his minions actually use the race card?  While Rove, Matalin, and the others would immediately cry foul and deny that they meant any such thing, and were referring only to the records of the African American congressmen from Harlem and inner city Detroit respectively, even a cursory look at past performances tells the story.

The race card was certainly a viable and active option in winning George W. Bush his crucial Republican South Carolina Primary victory in 2000.  Racist Bob Jones University became a pivotal cornerstone of the Rove strategy, as did nostalgic comments about the confederate flag.  Then there were those references to the "black child" of Senator John McCain, referring to his adopted daughter from Bangladesh.  

How about good old boy Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina?  Major Republican operative Roger Stone went on Crossfire after an odious Helms racially tainted victory over Harvey Gantt, the first ever African American mayor of Charlotte, and extolled it as the leading triumph of the election season for what was once called the "Party of Lincoln."

Remember the cornerstone of that shameful campaign?  Trailing at the end, the Helms team trotted out a scare ad with the warning that their jobs could be lost to African Americans, then asking North Carolinian whites if they wanted that to happen.

The fear certainly does not end with a two-pronged strategy directed at scaring Republican base voters about the emergence of a San Franciscan and two African Americans in major House leadership positions in the new Congress that will convene in January 2007.  

There is more, as Jim Kuhnnhenn reveals in an October 20 Associated Press syndicated story.  The succinct first paragraph sets the tone of the article:  "The Republican Party will begin airing a hard-hitting ad this weekend that warns of more cataclysmic attacks against the U.S. homeland."

The ad features the Cheney-Bush radical right's favorite poster scare boy, Osama bin Laden, listing quotes threatening America, concluding with the fateful warning, "These are the stakes.  Vote November 7."

It is time for Americans to wake up and recognize that the real fear is that of continuing a policy that has taken the nation into the same nasty realm of dictatorship that Reagan and George W. Bush denounced respectively as Empire and Axis of Evil respectively.  

How about a U.S. axis of evil focused on trumping up phony evidence amid threats of an impending mushroom cloud and violating international law by invading a nation that posed no imminent threat of danger to the United States, as happened when we invaded Iraq?  

What about the loss of life to all concerned, with an estimate as high as 655,000 Iraqi deaths, along with deaths and injuries of American service personnel along with other nations serving in the conflict?  

This same regime, which resorted to insults rather than diplomacy toward North Korea, and that is currently demonizing Iran in such a way as to indicate impending conflict, wants us to be frightened of Democratic Party leadership.

How about the national debt that will soon reach $10 trillion?  The steadily amounting Iraq War debit stands currently at over $355 billion.  What are the Cheney-Bush disastrous economic policies doing to working families throughout America?  

No wonder they find themselves working longer hours and battling to catch up with their bills, on a permanent treadmill.  America's working class is under siege from its own government.

How about the scandalous cozying up to pharmaceutical companies, whose profits soar as the stock market rises?  Are these profits trickling down to most Americans?  How about the Americans deprived of health care, terrified anytime they cross a busy street that something awful might happen?  Did Pelosi, Rangel, and Conyers forge these policies?

What about hijacking the same U.S. Constitution whose Bill of Rights was put together by geniuses such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, only to be torn asunder by Cheney, Bush, Ashcroft, and Gonzales?  When you arrest and hold citizens without preferring charges, never allowing them to see a lawyer, this is the conduct of governments constituting an Empire or Axis of Evil, not a democratic nation.

How about the right to break into homes when residents are gone, sift through whatever is around, take whatever you wish, not be held accountable under the law, and be able to use what you locate as evidence without sharing it with the defendant's counsel?  All you need to do is call them "enemy combatants", the magic words popping from the Republican genie's magic cork!

Oh yes, if you wish you can go ahead and plant a listening device, then use anything obtained as evidence, never making it available before trial.  Again, the magic words to generate this "government right" are enemy combatant!

You can also torture with impunity, as per Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, all done in the name of the compassionate conservative, limited government party whose figurehead ruler announces that he gets his advice directly from God.  Is this claim supreme blasphemy, runaway paranoia, or a combination of the two?  

Remember that these far-reaching powers do not extend only to those you capture and place in detention camps.  When secrecy is required you go out and kidnap those you suspect as being enemy combatants.  You send them abroad to nations with a solid background of experience and achievement in the field of torture.

Think of it, Cheney-Bush outsourcing torture over captured suspects.  Then again, the Republican team is well versed on outsourcing, as evidenced by its shabby record as American jobs are outsourced to countries such as Mexico and India.  

The Cheney-Bush team makes it simple.  The government is accountable to no one and there are no restraints!  Edmund Burke was the father of conservatism.  Something tells me he would not approve of the tactics of Cheney and Bush.  If he were around today and protested the father of conservatism would run the risk of being labeled "an enemy of America who is giving aid and comfort to the enemy."    

This is the plain, unvarnished record of the Cheney-Bush Ruling Junta, which forged its way into office through one stolen election and, according to all reliable and measurable barometers, achieved a second term the same way four years later.  

Is it difficult to understand why these Republicans do not want to run on their own pathetic record?  Pushed into a corner by their long list of dubious achievements, they can do nothing but demonize and project fear.

It appears that Americans will turn out to register disapproval of Republicans on November 7.  The big question that remains, as patriots such as Bob Fitzrakis and Mark Crispin Miller warn, is whether they will seek to use machines operated by Republicans as well as other forms of political chicanery to once more overrule voters through outright theft.

Americans must remain vigilant and watch the Republicans carefully as the votes are being counted and afterwards.  For those who say, "It can't happen here", you need to do no more than look back to the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.