July-August, 2006 -- For what seems like an eternity (and is in political terms), Howard Dean, Chuck Schumer and the New York Times, to name three sources of noise, have hammered away at the administration on the Valerie Plame point.  Last month, we explained in a cover essay just why these attacks are based on false premises, which by definition make them nothing more than political attacks by people whose agenda is the regaining of lost power -- not the protection of the security interests of the United States.

The Valerie Plame point has to do with attempts to attach the "outing" of a CIA employee to those associated with the Bush Administration.  (The release of information which is supposed to remain secret.)

The time has come to ask why Howard Dean, Chuck Schumer and the New York Times, our sample three sources of noise, do not have similar feelings concerning their own side's release of information which exposes various types of intelligence gathering connected to the government's battle against terrorism, since such exposure can aid only the terrorists.

We have learned of a number of information gathering methods from the New York Times, including the "outing" of Able Danger's monitoring of telephone conversations between parties in this country and people living abroad.  Most recently, we were told of the activities having to do with the transfer of funds which finance terrorist activities. 

This "outing," unlike the Valerie Plame incident, actually is an "outing." 

All this is instructive as part of a growing public understanding of the nature of the liberalism which has clamped its jaws down on the Democrat Party.  The operative term is hypocrisy.  Since some of these programs were developed and put into use by the Clinton Administration (Able Danger's telephone monitoring, for example), and since at least some of our examples, Howard Dean, perhaps and certainly Charles Schumer, knew about, and said nothing about, them at the time, it is clear that Mr. Dean and Mr. Schumer -- Democrat VIPs whose opinions are regularly sought by the big media outlets -- have no principles.

The rules of the game

That is, to them, it is not only whose ox is being gored, but also who is doing the goring.  If a liberal is doing the goring, no comment is necessary.  If a conservative is doing the same thing, it is a crime against humanity. This is known as hypocrisy, and has become so obvious of late that it is altering public political perceptions.  It is changing the mental picture people have long held concerning political philosophies. 

It all began when Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry and the rest of the leaders of  the modern Democrats said that Saddam Hussein represented a terrorism threat because of his growing arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.  That, of course, was true.  Iraq even used them -- in this instance, airbone release of poisonous gas -- on her own citizens, the Kurds.  But, then Bush II took the White House and the Republicans retook the Senate.  When they said Hussein represented a threat for the exact same reason, the charge was suddenly a baseless lie, invented by Bush and the Republicans as an excuse to use American military resources to pursue their corporate oil interest agenda.

To repeat for emphasis, here, when G.W. Bush said the same thing the Demo leaders had said, the thing was no longer true.  You must understand that the actual evidence of thousands of Kurds gassed from the air by the Iraqi military means nothing to these liberals. 

In a nutshell, this bizarre form of Democrat speech is causing a fundamental shift in political loyalties in America.  I have no poll to prove that.  It is a personal observation rooted in one basic assumption -- that every major media poll for the last decade which  has predicted wins for Democrats was wrong. 

It has been thirty years since a Democrat received a majority vote in a national election, and, as we see it, all the noise about the retaking of Congress is whistling in the wind.  Wishful thinking.  The many recent state initiatives against homosexual marriage (including the one here in Oregon) put the lie to major media portrayals of the mood of the nation as reflected in the liberal actions of so many legislators in so many legislatures.  The machine which has dominated for so many years is a paper dragon, these days.  It is like the ICBM's featured in the Mayday parades during the last throes of the old Soviet Union.  They were hollow cardboard fakes, in case you hadn't heard about it.

The American people constantly prove their basic instincts via sports -- that is, competition within a framework of rules which are blind to all but one bias.  The bias of victory minus regulatory prejudice.  Folks in this country have a fundamental bias about bias.  Fair play is their thing.

Fair play requires consistent application of the rules of the game.  Democrats have forgotten how to do that.  The national public school system has failed to turn the people into blank-brained idiots. 

Somehow, some way, Americans still recognize hypocrisy. 

(LL)

© 2006 Oregon Magazine