This ought to move me up on the Google Hit Parade.
Just got my first link from the right side of the virtual aisle. Fellow calling himself ConfederateYankee, which I first took as a play on Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee and therefore kind of liked. But thinking it over, I'm wondering if it isn't just a statement of his geographic history, his way of saying he's a Southerner transplated to the North. I hope that's all it is. I'd hate to think it represents his personal feeling that slavery and Secession were good ideas.
However you come by your nom de blog, CY, (Do you mind if I call you Cy as in Young?) thanks for the link, and thanks also for the gentlemanly laconic way you did it. Welcome to Lance Mannion Import Exports Inc. and hello and howdy to anyone crossing the virtual Mason-Dixon line over from his site. I'm glad you're here, because maybe you can answer a question that's been bugging me since yesterday.
CY and a lot of his homeboys are fightin' mad at CY's and my congressman Maurice Hinchey because Hinchey said he thinks Karl Rove might have had something to do with the Rathergate memos.
Now let me ask you. Why does this have you all so riled up? Do you really think this is a scurrilous affront to Karl Rove's integrity and reputation? What is it you think he's paid to do? The man apprenticed with Lee Atwater, after all, and Atwater made no bones about what he was up to. If Rove wasn't behind this one, and I don't think he was, he's been behind plenty of similar tricks.
(By the way, CY, what Hinchey said is not the least bit slanderous, because you can't slander a public figure by stating an honest opinion. Nor can you libel them, which is lucky for all you guys. This how you can get away with stating your honest opinion that Hinchey is crazy without having to worry that his lawyers will come knocking on your doors. At worst what Hinchey said was an insult, and I'm pretty sure Rove's had meaner things said about him and his feelings weren't too hurt by this one.)
I'd also be interested to know why you think Hinchey's opinion that Rove might have done something that would have made his mentor proud is such a weird, bizarre, from-way-out-in-outer space conspiracy theory that Hinchey should be wearing a tin foil hat. I mean, isn't your side's take on the memos that they were forged by people in the Kerry campaign? That's a conspiracy theory if ever I heard one. You don't have any proof of that and not only that you can't identify anybody in Kerry's campaign with the same history of dirty tricks and general ratfucking as Rove has. Rove is the guy who once bugged his own office so he could blame it on his candidate's opponent. So why is your conspiracy theory less crazy than Hinchey's?
I'm just asking.
Anyway, it's good to have y'all here. Feel free to poke around. You'll probably be disappointed to discover this isn't really a political blog and there isn't something in every post to make your blood boil. But keep plugging. You'll find something that'll drive you berserk.
By the way, regular readers, CY's got a pretty thorough list of links to media coverage of this story. Worth checking out.
(Thursday morning update: Looks as though I got linked to by the one wingnut blogger who doesn't have an army of trolls to command forth. Hardly any traffic coming over from CY's place. It's like being threatened by Sauruman after the fall of Isengard and discovering he can't even get Grima Wormtongue interested in the fight.
But!
I've been linked to by the Daou Report. Much, much, much better. And by my local newspaper, The Times Herald-Record. Welcome to all of you coming over from both places. First thing you might want to know is that this post is a follow up to this one and then this one. Second thing is that this is not primarily a political blog. I post on a variety of topics and I hope you'll stick around and do some exploring. Best place to start is with the posts listed over to your right under Re-runs. Also browsing through any of the categories will give you a good idea of what's going on here.
Thanks to you all for stopping by. Come back anytime. Light's always on. Clerk's always on duty. Night owls and tour buses welcome.)
Dear Lance:
Way to support your Congressman (and his staff, a nice touch) and please continue upsetting the right-wing nuts with your laconic reasonableness. Makes them crazy.
I read a transcript of Judy Woodruff and her creepy, leading questions on CNN and was quite proud of your Congressman in the way he turned the tables, asking "why ISN'T there an investigation by the media into all of this?" I also checked out Connecticut Yankee's blog and it was pretty stomach-churning. How do people get that way?
Posted by: sfmike | Wednesday, February 23, 2005 at 03:58 PM
In a similar tit-for-tat IOKIYAR vein, what I want to know is why it's cool for Ann Coulter to say she hopes American forces are targeting foreign journalists and uncool for Eason Jordan to state the evidence suggests they are. No one's yet been able to explain it to me in such a way that wouldn't have Coulter hooted out of the public discourse in any sane republic.
(I realize I've just answered my own dilemma. I just don't like that answer. So I'll go back and run the numbers again.)
Posted by: Kip Manley | Wednesday, February 23, 2005 at 06:54 PM
Hmm...I want to know why you DON'T think Rove did up the documents? As you said, it certainly is within his M.O...time and again the Rove way (which has sadly become the Republican way) is to attack the person and ignore the facts. Here we are attacking the authenticity of the memo and ignoring the facts. (When you think about it, it's all become about shooting the messenger...)
Posted by: j. bryant | Wednesday, February 23, 2005 at 11:01 PM
Some people would say that the President likes to catch those scrotum slapping softballs.
Some people would say that.
Posted by: grannyinsanity | Wednesday, February 23, 2005 at 11:55 PM
Man, a whole weeks worth of posts on Hinchley, and all those links to other right wing blogs covering the story. One might get the impression that they're trying to create a scandal out of this for some reason. Could they, perchance, be trying to divert attention from that other juicy scandal involving the media and (possibly) Karl Rove? Hmmm...
Posted by: LondonLee | Thursday, February 24, 2005 at 10:40 AM
Jill,
Short answer for now: I'm still not convinced those documents are fake.
Lee,
You think?
SF Mike,
Have you seen what they're saying about her over at Digby's and TBogg's?
Posted by: Lance | Thursday, February 24, 2005 at 01:45 PM
It's pretty simple, really. 1) Here are fake documents detailing enough of Bush's string-pulling and service evasion to be plausible - not revealing anything people haven't heard before, but apparently confirming what had been strenuously denied long ago. 2) It's possible to demonstrate, if you look carefully enough, that they're fakes. And, lo and behold, immediately after CBS runs with the story, a coterie of rightwingnuts start exposing it. 3) Result: obvious. Not only are the documents themselves discredited but inevitably the whole business of Bush's national service gets wiped off the table just when - given the damage the lies of the get-Kerry vets are doing to the challenger - it's likely to become a more significant issue than it's ever been before. OK, step back a moment. Remember back at school, maybe in history class, if you were awake ... Cui bono? Who benefits? Not the Democrats, that's for sure. Only the Republicans. So there's nothing implausible about Congressman Hinchey's suspicions. There are are only two possible kinds of source for the document: either someone wanting to have some fun or someone wanting to protect Bush's record from scrutiny. The last people with a plausible motive are those who want it exposed. There's just one hitch: could you really expect any news organization worth its salt to run with the fake documents without thoroughly checking them? Well, sure, there's a good chance no one of any significance will bite. But this is feeding-frenzy time for political reporters ... and we know the rest of the story.
Posted by: Jack Ellis | Thursday, February 24, 2005 at 02:48 PM